9 places to factor into your post-blizzard walking route

Tweet

I have a new request for Google— map a walk for me that optimizes the availability of shoveled sidewalks. With the number of people in the path of winter storms this year, I think there may be many of us who would use this feature.  

Good news, I have conducted a very unscientific survey (while walking, of course) and can provide the inputs for an algorithm to identify the best-shoveled sidewalk route.  

For starters there are sidewalks that should definitely be avoided as they are the least likely to be cleared after a storm.  For instance:

1. Cross-walk access.  Yes, definitely the most unlikely of snow-blocked routes, yet time after time while the sidewalk was clear and the street was clear, crossing the street would lead the walker straight into a significant snow-encounter. 

2. Post-offices— clearly the postal service has enough to do to reduce costs without focusing on clearly sidewalks.

3. Gas stations— pretty obvious one here as their only goal is to get cars in and out so the easiest place to pile up the snow is one the sidewalk.  Honestly, why would anyone want to walk by a gas station?

4. Strip malls— serious uncleared sidewalk
   
   offenders with an economic incentive. All of the strip malls I passed had well cleared passage into  their mall. Draw the walkers in and maybe they’ll stay to shop.  

Seriously, in the photo at left, the sidewalk goes to the right of the shrubbery along the street. The cleared walkway in the left part of the photo goes along the strip mall and soon turns left, away from the sidewalk.

While those are spots to definitely be avoided, I need Google to find sidewalks that run in front of the following establishments:

5. Places of worship— possibly due to their charitable nature or possibly to help new followers find the path to follow, literally, their sidewalks are among the first cleared post-storm.

6. Train platforms— actually train tracks were far and away the most tempting route for my walk other than the high likelihood of meeting a train traveling at far greater speeds and with far greater mass than I, but that’s a physics problem for XKCD. So, Google, no need to include any well-cleared railroad tracks for my route.  However, the platforms along train tracks are definitely fair game— well-cleared and wide enough for walking side-by-side with a friend.

7. Libraries offer another wide-path alternative— wide enough for a double stroller to easily make it past. Perhaps there’s a high correlation between book borrowers and winter stroller walkers.

8. Pizza parlors were a surprising find in the clear-sidewalk category.  The sidewalks around the local pizza house were not only well cleared to the door, they were down to pavement all the way around. Shoveling might be a good way to cool off after standing in front of a hot pizza oven.

9. Finally, considerate home owners.  Identifying who might actually take the time to shovel using only the data available from a Google map is a little tricky.  

At first I thought I saw a correlation between homes with porches and shoveled walks, but alas that quickly faded farther from the town center.  Perhaps home-owners with driveways would be more likely to shovel their walk as they were already out clearing a driveway. That too proved a dead-end, perhaps they were too tired from shoveling the driveway.  

Then I saw it— homes with a front door painted in a contrasting color to the rest of the house are far more likely to have a clear sidewalk out front than other houses.  I didn’t come up with a reasonably hypothesis on why this would be, but with Google street view, front door paint color can often be discerned.  If the color contrasts with the siding, trim and shutters then voilà!  Add that house to my walking route.

So Google, just maximize walking past homes with contrasting front doors, pizza parlors, libraries, train platforms and houses of worship, while minimizing strip malls, gas stations, post offices and major intersections that need to be crossed.  How hard could that be?

Racing a Hail Storm

Tweet

Afternoon thunderstorms, the forecaster had been clear on that point. It was 8 a.m. —definitely not afternoon— why was I hearing the sound of a giant closet door being slid across the sky? And why when I turned the corner was the entire western sky darkening?

Here I was thinking how convenient that I could drop off my car and walk the 2 miles home, getting my exercise in early. Maybe I could out walk the storm; I quickened my pace.

Half way home and subtle, infrequent flecks of rain tapped against my bare arms. Another 100 yards and the taps were not so subtle—more like pellets as they cascaded off the brim of my cap. I started counting the time between lightening and thunder; 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand, 4 one – crackle, boom, BOOM! Okay that was getting close. I quickened my pace again; didn’t think that was possible, but clearly the motive was increasing.

Three quarters of the way home and it was ominously dark, yet cars hadn’t turned on their headlights. Option A, stay in the street and take a chance on not being seen by a driver; Option B, step into the poison ivy with my bare legs and endure 2 weeks of a horrendously itchy rash. In essence a life or limb choice. Then I remembered, I was still wearing sunglasses. It wasn’t as dark as I feared. I opted for the pavement.

The rain was coming down in a torrent by this point. On the plus side, I hadn’t worn a thin T and my baseball cap was decent at keeping the rain off my glasses so my vision, other than the darkness, was not obscured by rain drops.

“Ow!” The drops started stinging, and raising a racket. “Who is throwing stones?” I looked around—pea size hail with a few nickel size pieces thrown in for good measure. I thought of my open windows I had left at home and kept hustling.

Finally, I ran into the house, quickly shed my shoes, ran for the nearest open window, slid across the floor in my sodden socks, fell down hard, jumped up and slammed the window shut. I continued racing through the house, closing windows until finally I closed the last one and everything was quiet.

“Amazing how sound proof those windows seem,” I thought. Then I looked out. The rain and hail had completely subsided, the cloud had moved on and the sky brightened. Hope the mechanic could achieve better timing with my car.