I’m convinced that the sidewalks in my neighborhood are broken in some subtle way that is invisible to me. They look perfectly fine to me, but maybe the concrete is inferior in some way, making it unable to support more than a flea or two. Perhaps the problem has been explained in church, where I would never hear about it. Maybe I should attend this weekend and ask them to organize the missionaries for some repair work.

Nobody in the neighborhood uses the sidewalks. They walk in the street. Keep in mind that this is a typical neighborhood street. Brigham Young would not be happy with it, because it is definitely not wide enough to turn around an oxcart. It really should be that wide – it’s the main artery for this side of the neighborhood.

This might be OK if people walked at the edge of the road, but they don’t. The distance from the curb normally ranges between 6 feet and the middle of the road. Large groups are common, walking side-by-side instead of taking a lesson from the sand people. A few times I’ve seen as many as a dozen people together, taking up most of the road.

This pedestrian problem perplexes many a motorist, but it gets worse. Those driveways that aren’t overflowing with cars must also be broken, because there are always a great many cars on parked on the side of the road. It’s quite common to have a car parked on both sides of the street in the same spot, which reduces the available roadway to just a little bit bigger than a standard freeway lane. I’ve been in situations where I had to wait for a large group of pedestrians and a car coming the other direction.