Why do some industrial business streets not have sidewalks?

[megadude]

For instance, I sometimes drop my car off on Corporate Dr. in Burlington and then walk to the bus on Appleby.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.39011...7i13312!8i6656

It's actually my favourite industrial park because there's lots of grass, trees and a creek passing through. And it has relatively little traffic going through it for a city like that. And it's just around the corner from shopping and housing. I used to live around nearby and would take those roads to get somewhere because you can just breeze through there.

But why no sidewalks? It's not new but it's not that old either like some industrial streets you would find in Scarboro, Etobicoke or North York.

It's a huge pain in the a$$ to walk there in the winter. Imagine you took the bus to work there. Imagine there are snow banks and it's a slushy kind of day. Good luck when cars and trucks are passing you as you walk from the bus stop on Appleby.

How did this ever happen? I'm guessing at the time they built it, Burlington was much smaller and maybe did't have a transit system? And so there were no bylaws requiring developers to build sidewalks? And even if they did have sidewalks, the city didn't want to pay to maintain and plow at that time?

Is this more common than I realize? I know there are mature residential streets without sidewalks. At least people know you should be driving slow there. And there isn't the same volume of traffic. And no trucks.

[vid]

They didn't think anyone would walk in those areas, ever, because *everyone* has cars, right?

Consider yourself lucky, in my city, the industrial areas don't even have storm sewers. All of the roads are lined with ditches and the only way to access a business is through the driveway. Sometimes they throw a pallet over the ditch for you to walk across like a bridge. One of our industrial parks, located in the centre of the city, doesn't even have sewage or water service. They have wells and septic tanks!

[megadude]

Ya exactly.

Whenever this place was developed, they must have known that a city in the GTA between Toronto and Hamilton would surely grow rapidly and eventually have transit. So it would have been nice if they required sidewalks back then.

[Architype]

These businesses do not rely on pedestrian traffic. The cost of putting in sidewalks may have been left up to the property owners. Most inner city urban industrial/commercial areas in Vancouver do have sidewalks. However, here is one that has only partial sidewalks or no sidewalks.

https://goo.gl/maps/pUTQrSBs2SU2
https://goo.gl/maps/nHMx8M8V1RC2

[megadude]

Originally Posted by Architype

These businesses do not rely on pedestrian traffic. The cost of putting in sidewalks may have been left up to the property owners. Most inner city urban industrial/commercial areas in Vancouver do have sidewalks. However, here is one that has only partial sidewalks or no sidewalks.

https://goo.gl/maps/pUTQrSBs2SU2
https://goo.gl/maps/nHMx8M8V1RC2

At least there ain't regular snow to deal with!

[Doady]

Industry requires the cheapest land possible. More money spent on pedestrian and transit infrastructure might make the land more valuable for commercial and residential use, but that makes it more difficult to maintain industrial use. They would pay more for services that they don't need or benefit from, and eventually they might move away because everyone else willing to pay more for that land. That's what happened to many of the factories in and around downtown Toronto.

Industrial road in Toronto with drainage ditches instead of sidewalks, near the Kipling subway station:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.62727...7i13312!8i6656

[megadude]

Originally Posted by Doady

Industry requires the cheapest land possible. More money spent on pedestrian and transit infrastructure might make the land more valuable for commercial and residential use, but that makes it more difficult to maintain industrial use. They would pay more for services that they don't need or benefit from, and eventually they might move away because everyone else willing to pay more for that land. That's what happened to many of the factories in and around downtown Toronto.

Industrial road in Toronto with drainage ditches instead of sidewalks, near the Kipling subway station:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.62727...7i13312!8i6656

Good point.

I wonder if today any city would ever allow any kind of business park to be built without sidewalks. Probably not. But that's the way things were back then.

Most would probably say it was a blessing industry moved outside of downtown. But I see your logic from the perspective of industrial owners.

I can't recall seeing any other areas like this one you pointed out that doesn't have sidewalks. At my work we have a mortgage on a couple buildings just off Kipling on the other side of the Gardiner. Similar looking place but has sidewalks.

North Service Rd in Oakville doesn't have sidewalks but has like half width gravel shoulders. Could be useless in the winter though if the plow doesn't push the snow all the way past. And that road has bus stops on it.

[Doady]

The sidewalks on the other streets were probably built many years after those streets was originally built.

Transit was truly an afterthought in these places but somehow it took a life of its own. You can see also the Dixie corridor in Mississauga and the Steeles East corridor in Brampton which now have very high transit ridership even though they are mostly industrial and there are few sidewalks on the side streets.

[megadude]

I only lived in Burlington for 1.5 years so I didn't do much driving around the industrial areas. But out of curiosity I just looked at google maps. Many, many of those streets don't have sidewalks.

And Oakville has quite a few without but they all have a narrow "shoulder", which is not ideal, but is better than nothing at all.

I guess back in the day it truly was an afterthought. Markham and Vaughan industrial areas look newer and it's hard to imagine they have streets without sidewalks.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by megadude

North Service Rd in Oakville doesn't have sidewalks but has like half width gravel shoulders. Could be useless in the winter though if the plow doesn't push the snow all the way past. And that road has bus stops on it.

I actually worked for Halton Region in a satellite office on North Service Rd for a (horrible) year. I was definitely the only person in the office who took transit, which is kind of funny since most of the Region's planning staff were located there.

This was not a fun bus stop to wait at, especially in winter: https://goo.gl/maps/F52aZfW4uXk

Newer GTA Employment Areas usually have a sidewalk on one side, at least: https://goo.gl/maps/RUQGRSc4nRE2

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Architype

These businesses do not rely on pedestrian traffic. The cost of putting in sidewalks may have been left up to the property owners. Most inner city urban industrial/commercial areas in Vancouver do have sidewalks. However, here is one that has only partial sidewalks or no sidewalks.

https://goo.gl/maps/pUTQrSBs2SU2
https://goo.gl/maps/nHMx8M8V1RC2

Here's one spot in Burnaby I'm familiar with:

https://goo.gl/maps/Yz51Lgy7KsM2

The space for pedestrians at the RR crossing is very narrow, particularly where you have to squeeze between the signal pole and the live lane of traffic. It's not a pleasant place to walk when there's trucks driving on it. And this is right by a SkyTrain station too.

I found that pedestrians are really an afterthought in Burnaby. There were several spots I saw close to Brentwood Town Centre where sidewalks were closed entirely due to construction on adjacent properties. You'd never see that situation in Toronto; the city always finds a way to keep a ROW open for pedestrians around construction sites, even if it means narrowing the road temporarily (e.g. https://goo.gl/maps/aERCRihMVUk)

[Franco401]

Are we doing pedestrian-hostile bus stops? I definitely have contenders:

380m from the front door of the Hugh John Fleming Centre: link

Nearby: what? link

Directly onto the gravel shoulder, almost 400m from the Grant-Harvey Centre:
link

Just down the road, even worse: link

There are 17 stops on the 1.7km Canterbury drive. At that density, they could at least drop the ones on the wrong side of street, on people's lawns. link

Both sides of the road here: link

Ooh, a shelter! This one's 320m up a steep hill to the Potato Research Centre, te only thing you could possibly walk to. link

Why even bother? link

Office of Social Development. A place that poor people often have to visit. link

[whatnext]

What about residential areas that don't have sidewalks?! The City of Vancouver has some post-war neighbourhoods minutes from downtown that have no sidewalks, unbelievable.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by whatnext

What about residential areas that don't have sidewalks?! The City of Vancouver has some post-war neighbourhoods minutes from downtown that have no sidewalks, unbelievable.

Where does this exist in Vancouver? Usually there us a good balance of green space with trees and sidewalks within the public right of way. The example below is typical, with the streets being narrow, about 50% of the right of way, and an extra ten feet or so on either side devoted to public green space, trees and sidewalks.

https://goo.gl/maps/9eb1riDu5o72

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Architype

Where does this exist in Vancouver? Usually there us a good balance of green space with trees and sidewalks within the public right of way. The example below is typical, with the streets being narrow, about 50% of the right of way, and an extra ten feet or so on either side devoted to public green space, trees and sidewalks.

https://goo.gl/maps/9eb1riDu5o72

South of Oakridge and parts of South Vancouver.

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by whatnext

South of Oakridge and parts of South Vancouver.

A lot of Vancouver reminds me of middle class Etobicoke. The main streets also have similar crappy midrises! Etobicoke has dozens of streets with no sidewalks on either side. They tend to be wealthier pockets and mostly concentrated in the central part of the city north of Dundas.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.66349...2!8i6656?hl=en

But theres also a few streets south of Bloor near Royal York with no sidewalks!

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by whatnext

What about residential areas that don't have sidewalks?! The City of Vancouver has some post-war neighbourhoods minutes from downtown that have no sidewalks, unbelievable.

London is terrible for that. And residents don't take kindly to proposals to add sidewalks.

There's one major road near where I grew up that my whole life only had a sidewalk on one side of the road, and it was not the side the buses run along. Sidewalks are finally being added right now on the other side. Wonder how much of a fight that was.

[megadude]

Finally!

Just noticed South Service Rd in Burlington added a sidewalk. Street view timeline shows what it looked like before.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.36976...7i16384!8i8192


Though I see on North Service they did not. But they did pave a section of one of the shoulders so it's no longer gravel.

[SHOFEAR]

since this old thread was revived...

Its not just the added servicing costs by the developer which gets passed onto people purchasing lots, it also creates a maintenance liabilities for the municipality.

Its a win-win for the developer and for the municipality to have servicing standards in industrial areas that reflect the nature of the developments. Servicing costs and maintenance costs can be reduce by allowing rural standards with ditches and no sidewalks.


It crazy to suggest that developers pay additional $500/m for sidewalks, and potentially thousands per meter in storm pipes and that the municipalities have to deal with annual snow clearing, repairs, and eventually full sidewalk rebuilds decades down the road for the handful of people a day taking a bus.

When your dealing with large industrial developments, with lots that are a hundred or so meters wide, your talking about being able to sell lots 100,000 cheaper. Not to mention, when you have ditches rather than storm systems, you make on site servicing a shit ton easier as well as now you have surface drainage, not an expensive system of catch basins and storm infrastructure on site adding additional 6 figure dollar values to on site development.

[esquire]

^ Ditches in urban industrial parks are a bit much IMO. You want rural servicing standards, go to the country.

An absence of sidewalks I can understand, particularly on streets within industrial parks that don't have bus routes. But even then you're talking about something that won't have to be replaced within our lifetimes.