Until then, let me leave you with two more discoveries. The first is probably the only vanishing sidewalk that makes a whole lot of sense. It's located on Park Road, right before the on-ramp for 84:
At least here I can see the reasoning behind the decision to end the path where they did.
"What're you doing over there? You're gonna make people walk straight onto the highway!"
"Dang, you're right. What should I do?"
"Just stop your work where you are. They'll know not to go any further."
"Should I pull up what I started? I think -"
"I ain't paying you to think!"
Anyway . . .
The second location just may be the motherload of vanishing sidewalks: Fairfield Road. The good folks over at Connecticut Museum Quest pointed me in the right direction here. Wow, there are a lot of vanishing sidewalks in this area!
Here's the corner of Fairfield with Plainfield Road (what boring names for streets. "Hey, what're you going to name your road? Mine's Fairfield." "Oh, I don't know . . . Plain . . . field?" "Man, you're a genius."):
(I should note that all of the images in this post are from Google Street View. It's too rainy here in West Hartford today to go out with the camera.)
A little further up Fairfield, at the intersection with Longlane Road (another brilliantly named stretch of pavement), you get a vanishing sidewalk on three corners. Here's just one:
When Fairfield ends at Lostbrook Road (finally, a cool road name), there's another vanishing sidewalk:
That's a lot of vanishing sidewalks for one road.
Posts
2 comments:
Is it possible that these sidewalks go underground? That could be why we can't see them.
I'm so honored you graced my neighborhood (via Google Maps). It's truly a goldmine of vanishing sidewalks. There are several more, believe it or not. Hell, we even have a "Rye Ridge Parkway" that is maybe 200 yards long and doesn't so much dead-end as it does vanish. A PARKWAY no less!
[Aside to Judo For Make Love - interestingly, Lostbrook Road is named thusly because there IS a "lost brook" buried beneath it. This is true.]
Anyway, as one with a 3 year old who loves taking walks and who lives with vanishing sidewalks... it sucks.
How do you explain to a 3 year old, "Yes, we were having a pleasant walk on a perfectly fine sidewalk but it ended for no reason so we must turn around."
Thank you, Ben, for drawing much needed attention to this confounding issue facing our town. Maybe I'll write a letter to our beloved West Hartford News.
-Steve_CTMQ
Post a Comment