Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.

MILES AND MILES
I don’t wear one of those watch/bracelet things that tracks your steps, but my phone automatically records them. This means I get information about where I walk if I carry my phone. This is not tracking all the times I walk downstairs, forget what I came down for, go back upstairs, then downstairs again. Nor am I carrying my phone all the times I stand up, walk to my stereo to flip the record over, and walk back. I don’t know if that adds anything significant, and I only mention it because on a few very cold days when I stayed in, it looks like I did not leave my bed.  Regardless, I get information about most trips I take when I leave my house.

I’ll look at these stats out of curiosity, but not because I deeply care how many steps I take in a day, nor do I buy that there is a magic number a person needs to hit. 

So, because some rando on the Internet dared to say that people in New England wouldn’t be walking (or biking) around in the winter, I am posting this info for January. The vast majority, like 90% or more, of the steps recorded were taken outdoors.

So, how far did I walk in January 2022?
222,853 steps, which I’m told equals 74.16 miles.

A tiny fraction of that is not walking but roller skating in my kitchen.

[Side note: I would never wear something that buzzed at me to tell me to go move my body. I prefer using the record player as a device to defeat sedentary behavior.]

THE FREE BUS
There are two passengers dick nosing their masks on the bus, but the driver let everyone on for free, so I hope this balances out somehow.

IMPROPER USE OF ROADWAY
Whenever I’m on the Wethersfield Avenue bus I see people walking on or next to the median of the Silas Deane Highway. Why? Because there are no sidewalks. And when someone gets hit, they will be noted as making improper use of the roadway, even though it’s the Town of Wethersfield who should take full responsibility because they have provided no safe place for people to walk. 

Every time a person in Connecticut dies after someone drives a car into them, I take a look at Google Maps. It’s updated often enough to be reliable. In January, there were at least eight pedestrians killed on Connecticut roads. Two of those collisions occurred in places where there was either no sidewalk at all, or sidewalk missing from parts of the street.

Here’s the thing: it’s not like Wethersfield can’t make this happen. See pic above. In Old Wethersfield there are sidewalks, marked crosswalks, and other features that make it somewhat safer for people walking around.

SIGN DOWN
Another sign down.
What is up with this though?!
I don’t remember before this last year or so seeing so many signs, especially new ones, coming down at this rate. Are they not installing them correctly? This one does not look like a victim of a vehicle strike, so are they being knocked over by anyone who smacks it with their hand? The wind?
In this case, I don’t know how much the sign makes a difference since one of the residents is fond of parking in the crosswalk. 

SAFE ROUTES
On Twitter, 311 responds that they would be sure to take care of these City of Hartford sidewalks near the Burns School in future.

I should have bet money on how that would play out.

I took the picture above 24 hours after snow finished falling. It does not look like much, but this is glare ice. There was no attempt to salt or sand this, and as you can see, the elementary school is right there. The kids are meeting face-to-face.

So, I posted on Twitter, because I guess public embarrassment works better than the 311 app these days. It was then dealt with, and a whole lot of salt added to the area, close to what was dumped in Bushnell Park previously.

Guys. It’s possible that someday I’ll get bored and adopt a kid, and SBJ, then I will be on the actual telephone if the school and park sidewalks are left in disarray. I will be painting billboards. I will remove salt from the roadways and move it to the sidewalks. I’m not proud or tired, and I can be so, so much more annoying than I am already. That is a promise.

For real though, we could have nicer things. We have to budget for that. The budget shows our values. Do we want Hartford to be a walkable and accessible community for all? Then we need to fund the departments that make this happen.

“DIFFERENT, NOT DIMINISHED”
Things show up when most needed, it seems.

This morning I took the bus to run an errand (the specifics are not important) and while at the site was talking with a few acquaintances who, upon learning I arrived by bus, asked questions about this. I don’t like how once the questions begin, I brace myself because too often (though not this time) the people asking intone pity or disgust. This time, I got off easy. Questions about bus schedule and location of stops.

Yes, there is a schedule and if the bus ran this route more frequently, I would not have missed the Vision Zero meeting, but aside from that, it is not a big deal. The weather was okay enough and I was indoors mostly, talking to people I had primarily been video chatting with previously. Is keeping to a bus schedule any worse than having a parent, spouse, child who when they decide it is time to go, it’s time to go?

Later, when I returned home, I resumed my remote work and put on an episode of a podcast, The War On Cars, that I had not gotten to yet: “Lab Meat and Electric Cars with Alicia Kennedy.” I was curious about what connections would be made there, and you should give it a listen. One of the takeaways though was how using a non-standard mode of transportation does not mean that one’s quality of life is diminished. It’s just different. 

If I were the kind of person who could memorize elevator speeches and all that jazz, I would find a concise way to say this every time my transportation comes up. 

WHAT NEXT?
For inspiration of what could be, follow Mayor John J. Bauters and Mayor Michelle Wu on Twitter and see what changes are possible when leadership bikes and uses public transit (and not merely for the photo ops).