My wife has recently been trying to be fitter by meeting her activity goals, so she has been taking a lot of daily walks. And since her work regularly takes her to Cebu and Iloilo, she’s been telling me about the world of difference in her walks in those cities compared to the walk when she’s back home.
To be fair, Silay City is a fry cry from metropolitan areas like Cebu or Iloilo, but while there are the nice to haves, there are also the bare minimums that many towns and cities can’t even seem to meet when it comes to sidewalks, bike lanes, and running/walking paths.
Among the places she has walked, which is usually early morning or at night, the most impressive for her has been Iloilo City’s Esplanade, which is an easy call because it is probably among the best green public spaces in the country. Even if you don’t have activity or fitness goals, you will still enjoy taking a walk or just hanging out there. It ticks all the boxes for public spaces: safe, well lit, green, and pretty.
Her walks in Cebu, where she spends a few nights almost every week, are not bad, but it’s definitely better than Silay. Maybe because her hotel is in the commercial district, where sidewalks are actually usable by people, most streets are well lit, and it feels relatively safe.
Back home, where she spends more of her time, is where the walking experience isn’t as pleasant. We don’t have proper sidewalks, lighting is sporadic at best, and obstacles galore often force recreational walkers/runners to invite danger by doing their thing on the road instead of the sidewalk or dedicated path.
I used to tell her about that issue when I was the one doing the jogging a few years back, but she didn’t really pay attention to me because it wasn’t her problem, but she told me now that she understands why I’m so salty over the state of our sidewalks that are simply not walkable, and close to impossible to navigate for persons with disabilities.
The reason why our sidewalks suck, not just for walkers, joggers, and runners, but also for anyone who needs to use it in their daily lives, is that our public officials probably don’t use it so they don’t care. As long as there is a sidewalk, they consider their job done. What many towns and cities conveniently ignore is the actual usability of their sidewalks.
The problem with our sidewalks that could and should double as walking/running paths is that they are almost never continuously usable without stumbling over something. If it is not an obstacle like a utility pole, sidewalk vendor, or illegally parked vehicle, there are either potholes or breaks made by residences or commercial establishments that transform the sidewalk into driveways, parking areas, or storefronts, all without any rhyme or reason, because there is no building code that protects its integrity and even if there were rules, no public official enforces it anyway.
Walking on a typical Philippine sidewalk requires 100 percent concentration if you don’t intend to trip, fall, or impale yourself upon a rusty obstruction. Doing it on a wheelchair, or with a baby stroller, is outright impossible.
Do we have terrible sidewalks because we don’t use them or do we not use sidewalks because they are terrible to begin with? That chicken and egg problem shouldn’t be a problem if our city officials will only do their jobs seriously when it comes to sidewalks, bike lanes, and walking/running paths.
The first step is to clear the sidewalks and remove anything that obstructs pedestrian flow. This means vendors, random utility poles, parked vehicles, driveways that are not up to code, storefronts, potholes and large cracks.
Next is lighting, so it is usable at night, and then shading, preferably via greenery, so daytime and rainy day use is encouraged. Police visibility is last, because even if there is a SWAT team on every sidewalk, nobody will feel safe enough to use it if it sucks to begin with. If the view is pretty, that’s also a plus, but since parks essentially don’t exist here, then it is just a bonus.
Whatever their reasons, it feels like more people are walking than before. Some do it for fitness; others to save money, or the planet; or some of us think it is better to walk than continuously search for another parking spot, or hail a tricycle or trisikad just to take us a just couple of hundred meters away. It is nice to see our sidewalks finally starting to get attention, and that is hopefully enough reason for them to catch up and become more relevant than they were for the previous generation.*
