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I don't understand why they make office parks so overtly pedestrian unfriendly -- I worked in an office park for a while, there were sidewalks along the front o

I don't understand why they make office parks so overtly pedestrian unfriendly -- I worked in an office park for a while, there were sidewalks along the front of our building, which ended abruptly just after the driveways. The building next door had the same thing - sidewalks to nowhere that never connected to anything. There was a pretty decent deli in the building behind ours, but rather than having a convenient walkway, there was a fence between the two properties, so reaching it meant taking the long way around 2 parking lots. The building across the street had a downstairs area that used to be another deli/coffee shop, but at one point but when rents went up, the owner couldn't afford rent and closed, but it had been sitting vacant for around 3+ years by the time I worked there. The roads in the office park had relatively narrow lanes with wide 20 foot green medians - I suppose the green grass in the medians looked nice, but the narrow lanes meant that bike riding was pretty dicey, there was not really enough room for cars to pass cyclists, and the 40mph speed limit meant that cars traveled at 45 - 50mph, making biking much more dangerous than it needed to be. They had a shuttle to the nearest train station, but it ran on a fixed schedule that didn't even try to sync up with the train schedule, which led to 20 - 40 minute delays while waiting for the shuttle on the way to work or waiting for the train home. I suspect that the management was either required to run the shuttle or got a grant for it, and only ran it because they had to, not to provide a service to workers. My company moved out of the office park as soon as they had enough money to rent space downtown. It wouldn't take too many changes to make office parks more "livable" - add sidewalks, bike lanes, encourage retail/restaurants with lower rents.

jonknee 11y ago
> I worked in an office park for a while, there were sidewalks along the front of our building, which ended abruptly just after the driveways. The building next door had the same thing - sidewalks to nowhere that never connected to anything. That was almost certainly the legal minimum. I have seen (and walked!) similar sidewalks and it is infuriating. Code says they need a sidewalk, but doesn't say it needs to connect to anything.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  Loudoun County, VA is full of areas like this. County code mandates sidewalks in new developments, but the developers end them at the edge of their land, leaving gaps. It's ridiculous - it shouldn't be that hard (or expensive, over time) to link communities in a sane manner. Heck, Reston, VA managed to stay reasonably walkable/cycle-able and most of it was planned in the 70s.
  - loudmax 11y ago
    I used to bike from Herndon to my former office in Loudoun, VA. The W&OD bike trail is fantastic. It was a beautiful ride, up until the last few miles getting from the trail to the office park at Loudoun Station. The most direct route is to ride on the shoulders of Loudoun County Parkway in front of the Verizon building. There are no sidewalks, the shoulders are littered with gravel and cars drive around 50 MPH. Just, no. I had worked out a path that added about a mile but kept me either on sidewalks or side roads. I understand the argument that sidewalks are for pedestrians, not cyclists, but there are very very few pedestrians on those sidewalks. Loudoun really should put a path from the Station to the W&OD trail before the Silver Line metro comes in.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    To be fair, it doesn't seem like the developers could/should be installing sidewalks on land that isn't theirs without coordination with the landowner (so they have to end the sidewalk at the edge of their land).
    - Johnny555 11y ago
      Well no, the city should be requiring that developers build sidewalks on the public right-of-ways next to the roads.
      - sokoloff 11y ago
        That makes sense and is how it's typically done up here. I read the GGP's post as a complaint against the developers not against the city/country/AHJ, who is the only one in a position to make the change (granting public right of way, or taking property via eminent domain as needed).
bbarn 11y ago
You've just nearly described my exact working environment. Only, on one side I have a highway. I have a friend who works across the road from me. If we met up for lunch on foot one of us is taking a 30 minute walk because it's impassible on foot. I'm stuck driving for the bulk of the winter because it's just unsafe (after biking to work year round in Chicago for the last ten years, this commute broke me). Fortunately (for them and me) the company is moving downtown this spring, or I wouldn't have taken an otherwise great job.
- DrJokepu 11y ago
  Every time I visit America I'm surprised by how unwalkable most of metropolitan America is. I always wondered if roads are unwalkable because most Americans wouldn't walk anyway or if Americans don't walk, because roads are unwalkable. Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; even if the roads were walkable with proper sidewalks and pedestrian crossings installed, it would take half an hour just to walk to the nearest corner store.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    > Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; oh ya think? I think you should just continue to assume it's just because Americans are too lazy to walk.
    - DrJokepu 11y ago
      Why are you so hostile? I did not imply in any way that "Americans are too lazy to walk".
      - Johnny555 11y ago
        Indeed, it's not so much that americans are too lazy to walk, but they've been conditioned to not walk. When I was a child, I road a big yellow school bus to my elementary school, at the time it seemed very far away, when my parents had to go to the school for any reason, they drove their car. But now, looking at a map, I see that it was literally only a half mile from my house, but I never walked because it meant walking along some streets with heavy car traffic and no sidewalks, just an ungraded shoulder with no curb or other separation from the roadway. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco that I realized that walking (or biking) is a far nicer way to get around.
rayiner 11y ago
> I don't understand why they make office parks so overtly pedestrian unfriendly Because the people who design modern suburbs are bad people. I used to work in an office park in the Atlanta suburbs. Looked at what it would take to get there on public transit from the city. Even if I did the two mile walk from the nearest bus stop, there was no sidewalk in-between. But good thing we live in a society where a fresh college grad with zero credit can still get a car loan!
- addicted 11y ago
  I've been ticketed in Atlanta for walking on a patch of grass by a road because that section of the road did not have a sidewalk. (The grass was well away from the road so there was no danger of distracting cars or anything and this was public property). The only bus that actually crossed that section of the road to get to my internship location stopped running at 8am, so the days I had classes in the morning and was working in the afternoon I had to travel 1 1/2 hrs by public transport and then walk 35 mins to reach work, as opposed to a 1 HR 15 min public transport ride (also a 20 min drive by car).
  - blahedo 11y ago
    > I've been ticketed in Atlanta for walking on a patch of grass by a road because that section of the road did not have a sidewalk. What were you even supposed to do in that case?
    - jschwartzi 11y ago
      Detour to the nearest car lot and buy a car.
  - SilasX 11y ago
    Not quite the same, but I used to live in an apartment catty-corner from my university's property. It was short enough of a distance to walk home, and yet there were stretches of it without sidewalks, and people would assume you're lost if you walked along it and offer you a ride out of sympathy.
sqldba 11y ago
> The building across the street had a downstairs area that used to be another deli/coffee shop, but at one point but when rents went up, the owner couldn't afford rent and closed, but it had been sitting vacant for around 3+ years by the time I worked there. I've seen that happen too many times, and have to wonder what the hell the owners were thinking. It feels like sweet justice though.
liveoneggs 11y ago
one of my favorite situations was seeing an office worker in a wheelchair hit the end of those sidewalks and just sit there looking sad while his office-mates tried to figure out how to navigate the rest of the way to Moe's.
mikeash 11y ago
The cynic in me (OK, let's be honest, that's all of me) says this is intentional because The Man wants you to come to work, put in your 8^H10 hours, and go home. They want you to eat a sack lunch at your desk, not go wandering off to be unproductive at some local eatery.

jonknee 11y ago

> I worked in an office park for a while, there were sidewalks along the front of our building, which ended abruptly just after the driveways. The building next door had the same thing - sidewalks to nowhere that never connected to anything. That was almost certainly the legal minimum. I have seen (and walked!) similar sidewalks and it is infuriating. Code says they need a sidewalk, but doesn't say it needs to connect to anything.

alistairSH 11y ago
Loudoun County, VA is full of areas like this. County code mandates sidewalks in new developments, but the developers end them at the edge of their land, leaving gaps. It's ridiculous - it shouldn't be that hard (or expensive, over time) to link communities in a sane manner. Heck, Reston, VA managed to stay reasonably walkable/cycle-able and most of it was planned in the 70s.
- loudmax 11y ago
  I used to bike from Herndon to my former office in Loudoun, VA. The W&OD bike trail is fantastic. It was a beautiful ride, up until the last few miles getting from the trail to the office park at Loudoun Station. The most direct route is to ride on the shoulders of Loudoun County Parkway in front of the Verizon building. There are no sidewalks, the shoulders are littered with gravel and cars drive around 50 MPH. Just, no. I had worked out a path that added about a mile but kept me either on sidewalks or side roads. I understand the argument that sidewalks are for pedestrians, not cyclists, but there are very very few pedestrians on those sidewalks. Loudoun really should put a path from the Station to the W&OD trail before the Silver Line metro comes in.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  To be fair, it doesn't seem like the developers could/should be installing sidewalks on land that isn't theirs without coordination with the landowner (so they have to end the sidewalk at the edge of their land).
  - Johnny555 11y ago
    Well no, the city should be requiring that developers build sidewalks on the public right-of-ways next to the roads.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      That makes sense and is how it's typically done up here. I read the GGP's post as a complaint against the developers not against the city/country/AHJ, who is the only one in a position to make the change (granting public right of way, or taking property via eminent domain as needed).

bbarn 11y ago

You've just nearly described my exact working environment. Only, on one side I have a highway. I have a friend who works across the road from me. If we met up for lunch on foot one of us is taking a 30 minute walk because it's impassible on foot. I'm stuck driving for the bulk of the winter because it's just unsafe (after biking to work year round in Chicago for the last ten years, this commute broke me). Fortunately (for them and me) the company is moving downtown this spring, or I wouldn't have taken an otherwise great job.

DrJokepu 11y ago
Every time I visit America I'm surprised by how unwalkable most of metropolitan America is. I always wondered if roads are unwalkable because most Americans wouldn't walk anyway or if Americans don't walk, because roads are unwalkable. Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; even if the roads were walkable with proper sidewalks and pedestrian crossings installed, it would take half an hour just to walk to the nearest corner store.
- serge2k 11y ago
  > Probably it has something to do with the long walking distances; oh ya think? I think you should just continue to assume it's just because Americans are too lazy to walk.
  - DrJokepu 11y ago
    Why are you so hostile? I did not imply in any way that "Americans are too lazy to walk".
    - Johnny555 11y ago
      Indeed, it's not so much that americans are too lazy to walk, but they've been conditioned to not walk. When I was a child, I road a big yellow school bus to my elementary school, at the time it seemed very far away, when my parents had to go to the school for any reason, they drove their car. But now, looking at a map, I see that it was literally only a half mile from my house, but I never walked because it meant walking along some streets with heavy car traffic and no sidewalks, just an ungraded shoulder with no curb or other separation from the roadway. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco that I realized that walking (or biking) is a far nicer way to get around.

rayiner 11y ago

> I don't understand why they make office parks so overtly pedestrian unfriendly Because the people who design modern suburbs are bad people. I used to work in an office park in the Atlanta suburbs. Looked at what it would take to get there on public transit from the city. Even if I did the two mile walk from the nearest bus stop, there was no sidewalk in-between. But good thing we live in a society where a fresh college grad with zero credit can still get a car loan!

addicted 11y ago
I've been ticketed in Atlanta for walking on a patch of grass by a road because that section of the road did not have a sidewalk. (The grass was well away from the road so there was no danger of distracting cars or anything and this was public property). The only bus that actually crossed that section of the road to get to my internship location stopped running at 8am, so the days I had classes in the morning and was working in the afternoon I had to travel 1 1/2 hrs by public transport and then walk 35 mins to reach work, as opposed to a 1 HR 15 min public transport ride (also a 20 min drive by car).
- blahedo 11y ago
  > I've been ticketed in Atlanta for walking on a patch of grass by a road because that section of the road did not have a sidewalk. What were you even supposed to do in that case?
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    Detour to the nearest car lot and buy a car.
- SilasX 11y ago
  Not quite the same, but I used to live in an apartment catty-corner from my university's property. It was short enough of a distance to walk home, and yet there were stretches of it without sidewalks, and people would assume you're lost if you walked along it and offer you a ride out of sympathy.

sqldba 11y ago

> The building across the street had a downstairs area that used to be another deli/coffee shop, but at one point but when rents went up, the owner couldn't afford rent and closed, but it had been sitting vacant for around 3+ years by the time I worked there. I've seen that happen too many times, and have to wonder what the hell the owners were thinking. It feels like sweet justice though.

liveoneggs 11y ago

one of my favorite situations was seeing an office worker in a wheelchair hit the end of those sidewalks and just sit there looking sad while his office-mates tried to figure out how to navigate the rest of the way to Moe's.

mikeash 11y ago

The cynic in me (OK, let's be honest, that's all of me) says this is intentional because The Man wants you to come to work, put in your 8^H10 hours, and go home. They want you to eat a sack lunch at your desk, not go wandering off to be unproductive at some local eatery.