Public Spaces

The war on pedestrians continues

by David Alpert   •   May 29, 2008 2:35 pm

The latest casualty in Frank Winstead's war against pedestrians is Politics and Prose, which had to remove its outdoor bench. One step closer to making Chevy Chase a people-free zone.

No pedestrians and that's how Winstead
likes it. Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.

Roger Lewis discusses the value of sidewalk tables, benches, chess games, and ping pong in his latest appearance on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show. There's a particularly good discussion starting at 19:09 12:27 about the value of sidewalks in older suburbs and misguided opposition to sidewalks in newer ones.

If you listen to the whole thing, start at 6:40 to skip past the hot air coming from the Virginia Republican Senate candidate who believes that we can fix transportation without paying for it by simply gathering together some scientists and engineers to come up with solutions. News flash: transportation costs money, and I didn't hear him talking about cutting road funding. Update: They've corrected the audio stream to begin at the start of the Lewis interview instead of six minutes before.

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.