My kid's attending a nature camp next week, and I have to sign a form for permission for her to ride in a van to go to a field site one mile away.
1 mile.
There is a nice, accessible public trail that to leads directly from the camp to the field site. But they are piling 24 kids into 3 vans, driving them 2 minutes, then unpiling, and then doing it all over again in reverse.
I know it's a small thing but if a nature camp can't see what's wrong here, I fear we really are doomed.
sigh.
The kid is already unimpressed with this camp. I hope she'll bring up her disappointment at van-boarding time.
Secretly, I actually hope she darts off down the trail at van-boarding time and beats everyone to the field site and they call me to chastise me for having a kid who refuses to succumb to car brain. That would be a fun phone call.
OK so I've since realized the field site is a little beyond the end of the trail & there's no sidewalk on the stretch of road that connects the trail to the field site.
Which just begs another, bigger question: why do we allow roads without sidewalks? I don't just mean city streets, but all roads? Why are we ok with using public funds to build infrastructure that requires an entry ticket that costs tens of thousands of dollars and comes with the very real risk of accidentally killing people?
If a public agency has identified a need for people to get from point A to point B, then it follows that they have identified a need for a sidewalk.
To then not build said sidewalk is negligence.
@DrTCombs You might think the people who run "nature camps" would be better at setting up routines that didn't require so much driving, but nope...
@DrTCombs "But there is no one walking there. So there is no demand."