But for many among us, having a sidewalk makes a huge difference. The difference between your dress shoes being muddy or clean as you walk from the bus stop to your job. The difference between being able to walk safely to a grocery store on your lunch break or having to skirt roaring traffic on the side of the road. Maybe even the difference between riding your bike on a stretch of good cement or riding around potholes while you dodge cars (sure, it’s illegal, but Shreveport doesn’t have bike lanes, and it’s your life after all).
These reasons and many more make the inclusion of a sidewalk with new building plans noteworthy; what may seem common in other cities is often an afterthought here, and that’s why we here at Heliopolis applaud the developers and the City of Shreveport for including new sidewalks in the plans around the new Whole Foods shopping center. Yes, it allows you to walk from the tiny neighborhoods around Thrill Hill to purchase your ethically-sourced meat, but it also means a housekeeper that shares a car can walk safely to her bus stop, and maybe even walk up to Kroger to do some shopping on the way home. You can also check my review here. And perhaps her fellow bus rider can stop off to catch the game and enjoy a calzone at Rotolo’s before heading home. Of course, that would require crosswalks, and that’s an article for another time… for now, let’s hope Shreveport catches up to the fact that some people walk and ride bikes rather than drive cars – sometimes even by choice.