Traffic situation

[Melalvai]

Now that we live so close to the grocery store, we walk with our little collapsible shopping cart. No sidewalks, of course. At the entrance/ exit of the store parking lot, exiting traffic has a right turn lane and a straight through/ left turn lane, and then there's the entrance (opposite direction traffic) lane. The opposite direction lane is closest to the store, so we used to walk wrong way up it. But after so many cars turning into the parking lot, and no where to walk but in their lane, we've found it is actually easier to walk in the middle (straight through/ left turn) lane, where we are walking in the direction of traffic. Even crossing over to the far lane (right turn) isn't ideal because then we have all this right-turning traffic conflicting with our line of travel.

It's kind of weird to take the lane as a pedestrian.

[lph]

It's kind of weird to take the lane as a pedestrian.

Heh. Which brings me to my personal pet peeve, stores designed around access from cars. We have two grocery stores 4-500 yds away, which should be great for shopping on foot. One of them is easily accessible on foot as it's right outside the subway, but the other one can be quite dangerous to walk to, especially in the dark of winter. That really annoys me! To get there, from our mostly car-free neighbourhood, I have to cross the road on a ped crossing, dodge the cars zipping up from the highway that haven't slowed down yet, and then weave my way carefully across a large car park to get to the front door. Not a pedestrian marking in sight, and of course, no bike parking. I don't know how they get away with it. Surely a minimum of safety for real live people is more important than being able to drive to within 10 feet of the door.

Sorry for the hijack...

[Melalvai]

The entire city of Kirksville is designed around cars. Not having a sidewalk to the grocery store is not worth getting upset about because it's the same everywhere in town. Now that I'm here, Kirksville is changing. (Or maybe we're part of a national trend that is happening in other cities without me!)