Ivy Farguheson has an article in the Muncie Star Press that isn’t probably too important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m flagging it because it’s something I’ve experienced directly lately. Apparently running in the street because of the snow is not an isolated phenomenon. It’s what I have been doing and what folks in Muncie have been doing. In particular, it appears that the Indy Mini-Marathon is such a massive event that it influences behavior all over the state and months in advance.
The problem is that to get ready for the run, you have to start training well in advance. With the snow, the sidewalks are pretty treacherous. So, you have to run in the streets which are, by and large, clear. Fortunately, around here anyway, it’s not too tough to find streets that have low traffic.
I’ve not run across people running in the streets in Muncie, but I’ve seen quite a few people walking on the major streets because there are either no sidewalks (such as on Tillotson) or because property owners don’t clear the sidewalks where they do exist. I understand that in some locales property owners can be fined for not clearing sidewalks of obstructions. It’s a shame that that particular rule does not appear to be universal or, if it is, that there aren’t enough funds to enforce it. I imagine that getting fined $100 bucks per incident would entice people to shovel their sidewalks in short order.
West Lafayette has a vigorous enforcement operation in term of getting people to shovel their walks. Personally, I never thought of it in terms of enforcement. If it snows, you shovel. Just goes with owning property. I’m not perfect about it, but probably 80 – 90%.
I just figured walking and running in the street to be an Indiana thing. I first noticed that most everyone walked in the street when we moved to Indy (E58th St, off Keystone) despite the presense of sidewalks. This was August of 2002, so we can’t blame the snow.
Here in my Fishers neighborhood, there is a large park that was a paved, asphalt trail ringing it (0.80 mile loop) and the sidewalk on the other side of the Ellipse Parkway road (0.95 mile loop), and despite these, there are endlessly people in the damned street.
Ok, I can see not wanting to use sidewalks that aren’t shovelled in winter, or avoiding them for uneven segments due to tree roots and not wanting to trip. Fine. But to not use the paved trail? I don’t get it. This is regardless of season. Fishers plows the trail, even!
I moved to Muncie, Indiana 3 years ago. I grew up in Michigan. I have noted to friends, more than once, that sidewalks seem of less importance here than in other cities/states. I live in Muncie and there are several places I have to walk to (I have no car) where there is no sidewalk. Additionally, in areas I have lived in the past, there have been policies like mentioned above about shoveling the sidewalks in a reasonable amount of time. Not here. I think it’s a safety issue as well as a quality of life issue and there should be more sidewalks and there needs to be some reasonable policy to make sure property owners clear their sidewalks.
We have few sidewalks in my part of Indy, so running and walking in the street is pretty common. The condition of the sidewalks where they do exist is so awful that unless the street in question is super busy most will opt for the street. I’m not running this year due to a herniated disk, but I always found January and February to be tough for mini training due to road/sidewalk conditions. I never minded the cold and I absolutely hate treadmills, but I had to resort to them when it was too icy. Good news is that the Monon Trail clears pretty quickly when there is snow, so I’d drive over there to run when things were really bad. I really miss running!
Chad, I agree with your sentiment, but too many places there are perfectly good sidewalks and trails not used. The safety issue is, in those areas, self-generated by the runner or walker. In my neighborhood, the sidewalks and trails are in excellent condition, so it’s some kind of dumbass/tough guy/girl choice, apparently.
I know this is anachronistic, but where I grew up, a suburb of Milwaukee, back when there was much more snow there than there has been the past few years, we had great well-kept sidewalks and if the snow fall was more than, say, 4 inches, the municipal jeep-like vehicle with sidewalk-width snowplow cleared off the sidewalks. It could zip along pretty fast. Of course, that was when everyone walked to school, church, bus stop or wherever. Everyone had to shovel their own walkways, driveways, and access to both, and clear off ice on the sidewalks, but the walking public was less impeded and in less danger of falling and breaking something. Oh, yeah, taxes were a little bit more up there. But we thought it was quite civilized.
People run on the street because it is relatively more forgiving than concrete. Of course, that doesn’t explain why they choose not to run on the pathways you wrote about. Maybe it has just become a habit? Runners are crazy people anyway. Why people choose to take years of viability away from perfectly good hips and knees is quite beyond me.
Re: knees & hips, Chris McDougall, among others, says it doesn’t have to be that way. The theory is that shoes really change the way we run, and it’s that change that causes a lot of the biomechanical problems. If we run barefoot, or like we would barefooted, a lot of running injuries could be avoided. I’m not barefoot yet, but I’m making an effort to run more like I would without shoes. (Shorter strides, striking not on the heel but further up on the foot.) We’ll see how that goes.
Mike Kole – I agree that there are those who choose to run/walk in the streets and they are creating their own safety hazard if they do so. I, however, do not choose to walk in the street when I have clean sidewalks to walk on. I either have to trudge through a foot of snow for blocks on end or take my chances in the street. Neither is ideal.
There is supposedly a shovel-your-walk ordinance here, but I’ve not heard of it being enforced. There was so much snow this month that it was hard for people to keep up. Factor in all the elderly and disabled who still live in their own homes and have to rely upon others to clear their walks and driveways and the many, many businesses that either don’t clear their walks or do a lousy job, and there are few clear sidewalks in Richmond. The recent melt off has helped, but I still see lots of people walking (not running :)) in the street.