Sidewalks and Bike Trails

As a general rule, Speedway is pretty good about having sidewalks and such throughout. I live in the Meadowood Park area, and there are sidewalks throughout the neighborhood . . . one of the features that attracted me to the neighborhood in the first place.

Looking at Meadowood Park from the east

Along the west side of Meadowood park

Similarly, I have noticed that the neighborhood just to the west of IMS has sidewalks more or less throughout. The same is true for the neighborhood from Main to Lynhurst.

Intersection of 22nd & Winton. Notice the sidewalks on both sides of the street.

I can't stress enough how nice it is to be able to ride a bike from my neighborhood to Main St. when it is nice out. I can put the kids in a Burley and ride down to Main for some Yogulatte or ride up to the bakery on H.S. Rd. near 30th.

One thing that I do rue, however is the portion of Moeller Rd. that has no sidewalk, roughly from Hollister south to 26th Street.

Looking south on Moeller from Hollister.

Granted, in the entire universe of problems, this is a fairly small one. However, for anyone who wishes to walk to the high school, or anywhere south of that, from the Meadowwood neighborhood east of the park (I can't speak to those to the north and west of the park), it requires either a fairly significant detour to avoid this 1000-foot sidewalk-free stretch.

Another view south on Moeller, this time from approximately Beauport

Looking north on Moeller from where the sidewalk starts up again.

I wonder what the holdup is to completing the sidewalk. Is it the handful of property owners along Moeller Rd. that refuse to allow a sidewalk? Did the Town just run out of money 95% of the way through building sidewalks in the area?

As to whether the sidewalk is worth building, I would assert that it absolutely is. See below a rough outline of the number of houses that are precluded from walking or riding bicycles to the school by this missing sidewalk link.

Aerial view of the eastern end of Meadowood Park area.

Note that all houses located within the orange square must detour to Meadowood Dr. in order to remain on sidewalks to get to the high school. Should they attempt to walk or ride along Moeller Road where the yellow line is, they are at the mercy of hurried drivers in large metal machines.

In the universe of good uses for tax money, I believe that sidewalks have a privileged spot. As I stated at the outset, Speedway is generally pretty good about walkability and sidewalks. I don't think that this is just hippy dippy stuff, either. Sidewalks are a selling point for homes and help support high home values, not to mention community connectivity and, to a limited degree, better health.

Personally, I would rather see our town float a bond to complete sidewalks prior to floating a bond to build a parking garage. My thoughts on that are well known, however.