One thing I have been pushing for, in my advocacy for better sidewalks, is for our local officials, their wives, children, grandchildren and even grandparents to go on 1 kilometer walk along our sidewalks at least once during their terms of office, so they can see for themselves just how messed up and virtually unusable it has become. The adults can walk normally, preferably without bodyguards or yayas holding umbrellas over them or pre-clearing the way of dog shit, the toddlers and infants could be in a stroller, and their elderly loved ones tag along in wheelchairs or walkers.
It would be interesting to see how long before they are forced off the sidewalks and into the road by the numerous obstructions, DIY driveways that are not PWD-friendly, or illegal parking lots that have become part of the sidewalks of our towns and cities, mainly because nobody in the position to do anything about this scourge has done anything about it.
The lack of attention towards sidewalks is probably the primary reason why our cities are not walkable. The way such basic infrastructure consistently sucks makes it virtually impossible for anybody without super powers to walk the city’s streets without having to worry about the dangers or obstacles that lurks ahead of what should be a safe pathway, which is an obligation of any city to its people.
If you come to think of it, the walkability of a city is one of the most critical components of any decent public transport system, so the state of any sidewalk should give idea why despite having a “modern” jeepney that now has A/C and a supposedly more fuel efficient engine, the quality of our public transportation still hasn’t really improved at all.
I was reminded of the state of our sidewalks once more, when we were recently in Japan (as you’ve probably heard a million times already), walking towards our kid’s university, and we happened to be behind a high school girl who had one leg in a cast and was walking on crutches.
The walk from our bus station to the university is around 300 meters, so I’m assuming she had been walking the same distance, even if she was ahead of us most of the time. Note that even after we reached our destination, she was still ‘walking’. She was on crutches, going at a pace that matched ours, not needing to use a triskad or a taxi, because the sidewalk we were on allowed her to do so, and the locals also know that walking is the way to get to where they need to go.
If there was anything that convinced me that their city is indeed walkable, it was the sight of that high school girl in crutches, because such a feat would be near impossible along any of our streets.
What made it even more impressive was that we were on a side street, and the sidewalk was just a painted line on the side of the road. There was no gutter, curb, or raised sidewalk. But because everyone respected the line and used it properly, their designated sidewalk functioned better than our dystopian sidewalks that probably cost more to build but are mostly essentially useless because both the city government and its people don’t know how to use it properly, safely, and efficiently.
When a high school girl in crutches can ‘walk’ 300+ meters to wherever she needs to go, that says a lot about their sidewalks and their walking culture. Here in the Philippines, a person on crutches wouldn’t survive 10 meters from their gate without needing to hail a trisikad or tricycle, simply because our sidewalks are not usable and we also the crutch of those ubiquitous “services” that allow most of us to forego walking on our dangerous and useless sidewalks.
The crutch of the trisikad/tricycle, which most lazy Filipinos turn to whenever they need to go more than 20 steps away, is the reason why our society remains crippled and we never really learned to walk on our own. After all, why do we have to walk on the sidewalk when we can just lift an arm and one of those things will stop for you and bring you to wherever you want to go? Because we are too lazy to walk, our sidewalks have turned into parking lots, driveways, vending spaces, and are littered with all sorts of fugly utility posts.
At the end of the day, whether we like it or not, a walkable city is a prerequisite for any proper public transportation system to flourish. As long as there is no push from our officials to make our cities actually walkable, starting with the proper management of the sidewalks and the establishment of a culture of walking, any attempt to put up a modern public transportation system will never get off the ground.
As the saying goes, we have to learn to walk before we can run (or fly). In our case, if we can ever learn to walk as a society, it should open so many doors and opportunities. However, for that to happen, we have to lose the crutches that we have been leaning on, causing our walking muscles to atrophy, and start working among our community members and with our elected officials to change our culture of laziness so we can build better cities for the next generation who are hopefully more willing to walk so they can go further than we ever have.*
