I Miss Sidewalks (And I Don't Want to Die Walking to School)
Ok, I'm going to try to make this the last time I gripe about this, but: I miss sidewalks. Some of my Lawrence friends have already heard me opine on this topic, but I'm going to put it on the record: Center City Philadelphia was a wonderful place to be a pedestrian — so wonderful, in fact, that we sold our car soon after moving there, realizing it was a bigger pain in the butt to keep a car there (especially price-wise) than it was to have easy access to wheels. Groceries, libraries, parks, schools, and much more were all within an easy 15-minute walk, and every block was bounded on all four sides by sidewalks. In Lawrence: There is no sidewalk in front of our house. Scratch that: There is a sidewalk — but we have to cross the street to get to it. Not a big deal, right? Except for this: School starts on Wednesday. For us, there are two ways to get T's new school — Ninth Street and Yale Road. Ninth Street has a sidewalk the whole way, though it's also got