Pedestrian Power

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Our decision to drive, made over and over again, has eliminated the option to walk in more than a few places. Many kids, old people, poor people, and disabled people are living under a form of house arrest, unable to go anywhere without finding someone to chauffeur them. Sidewalks are seen as an unnecessary luxury in most suburbs, and 60 years of traffic "improvements" on America's streets have rendered many communities unfit for pedestrians. We now depend on cars to accomplish the simplest human acts -- going to school, visiting friends, getting groceries. People drive today even to take a walk because the streets around their homes feel inhospitable.

Yet one thing has changed for the better since I was a kid in the days of cheap gas, open roads, and plentiful parking. Increasing numbers of Americans -- seeing a future of traffic jams, soulless sprawl, and never-ending wars for oil -- are looking for ways to get out of the driver's seat, at least some of the time. Even as politicians in Washington allocate billions for another round of megahighway construction and pop culture celebrates the sexy supremacy of Hummer drivers, there is an emerging movement to reclaim our right to walk.

All across the land, people are speaking up, organizing meetings, fighting city hall, and, in some cases, working with city hall to make streets safer and more pleasant for pedestrians. They've gotten crosswalks painted in some places, streets narrowed in others, stop signs and speed bumps installed, zoning ordinances changed to promote pedestrian-friendly businesses, and new programs created to help kids walk or bike to school.

These are issues that reach deep into the heart of our lives. Two neighbors bump into one another on the sidewalk and start talking about planting more flowers along the street, turning an empty storefront into a coffee shop, or lobbying the city council to add bike lanes to a busy road. In small but important ways, these people are changing the face of America, block by block.

This is a classic grassroots movement, with no clearly identifiable leaders. But a number of the people most active in the cause have been inspired by a former seminary student, magazine editor, and window washer from Brisbane, Australia, named David Engwicht. Marked-up copies of Engwicht's books, Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns and Street Reclaiming (both New Society Publishers; www.newsociety.com), are passed from hand to hand at community meetings and potlucks across North America.

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