Sheryl Nadler: Share the sidewalk and the trail, people! We’re all in this together, remember?
Last week I was walking on a path through a parkette near my home, dragging my 13-year-old dog in tow. It was hot. It was muggy. She's not the best walker at the best of times but walking eases her stiff joints, keeps her mobile.
At 80 pounds and as stubborn now as she is slow, that's no small task. So, we amble along routes that are close to home, away from vehicles and bikes, are as shade-covered as possible. The dog who once upon a time could nose dive into a bush and devour a rancid chicken bone before I'd even had the chance to say, huh? now could not move out of harm's way even if a tank were barrelling down on us.
As we toddled through this parkette, I looked up suddenly to see a guy on his mountain bike take a sharp turn from the sidewalk right into our path. I yanked my giant doorstop of a dog out of harm's way and instinctively yelled, NO! as the guy, an adult, had no apparent intention of slowing down. I then re-established my status as that" person by yelling that he could have gone around us. But my words merely hung in the air as he, his eyeroll and attitude disappeared out of the parkette.
A few weeks ago, my colleague Jeff Mahoney wrote a piece about how during COVID-19, pedestrians have been involved in a giant game of sidewalk chicken. As a person whose only real activity these past few months has been walking, I tend to walk a whole lot, with and without the giant doorstop of a dog. And while Jeff noted a new courteousness among his fellow pedestrians who give each other wide berths, I, on the other hand, have experienced the sidewalks of Hamilton differently.
Now, Jeff is a courteous and considerate guy who I have no doubt would step off the sidewalk for anyone coming his way. But when it comes to his male counterparts, Jeff is in the minority.
Why? Because my experience has been that most men will not move from their position on the sidewalk when faced with a game of sidewalk chicken. Taking up physical space on the sidewalk has become the Covid version of sitting with legs spread open on public transportation to let their man parts breathe. I have tracked this interesting phenomenon, noting that if a man is walking toward me on the sidewalk and I am with my 80-pound doorstop of a dog, nine times out of 10 I am the one who has to drag her into a ditch, onto the road, into a bush if I want to avoid getting too close to them. They then smile expectantly as they pass me trying to balance precariously on an incline or against a fence.
It's not like women don't do this, too. In fact, just this morning, a woman did move to the side, albeit not enough, and my smart doorstop of a dog who almost never reacts to passers-by unless they're eyeing me suspiciously and she senses a threat, jumped toward her, startling her further away. There's a lot of that, too - people who will move because they feel obligated to, but not really enough and are resentful of people who still believe Covid is a threat. That being said, my experience is that this happens less frequently with women than men.
On the trails in the Dundas Valley Conservation Area, the game changes. The rules of Covid still apply there, of course, but those expending more energy claim top spot on a narrow path. So, runners will not move for pedestrians, cyclists think nothing of barrelling over runners and walkers. And no, yelling ahead that you're going to run us over isn't as courteous as you think it is.
We're all in this together, right? We'll get through this? Or is every man/woman for himself" really more apt? Let's all just get out of each other's way.