I usually take this sidewalk along 146th between Allisonville and Hazel Dell because it’s pretty smooth pavement, and it’s a pretty steady grade making it rough to keep the kind of pace I usually like to keep in traffic. However, as you can see, the entrance to a new subdivision has taken precedence, and fifty foot of the sidewalk has simply disappeared. There’s a median making it difficult to get to the other side of the road here, so I got to portage the distance.

Rest assured, they’ll put it back. Local building codes require them to. But, you can bet that there will end up being a steep, three foot elevation difference between the sidewalk and the entrance, that the signage and landscaping around the entrance will make it difficult to see traffic coming out, and that the pavement they put in won’t be as nice as what was there. Heck, they may even add some nice hilly, curving landscaping to the sidewalk itself just to make it more interesting.

Keeping a steady pace is the ideal in cycling. While the mixed-use sidewalks are nice, the constant elevation changes at every subdivision and strip mall entrance, the frequent gaps between subdivisions, the accumulated debris, and the presence of pedestrians, make keeping the steady pace nearly impossible.