jimmygo.com

I started taking classes this summer in potential pursuit of a career change.  Luck of all lucks - the school I signed up for is less than a tenth of a mile from where I work!  If not for a building in the line of sight I could easily look from my desk to the school.  How convenient! I can just leave my car in one spot and walk to and from school!

Oh - but wouldn’t you know it?  I live in a state (and a nation) that has a 25% obesity rate.  You can’t just walk the shortest distance to the place you want to go.  Check out this (Google) map:

I have to go from point A to point B, but there is a fence in the way!  The red line here depicts the fence. This fence doesn’t even enclose anything! If someone wants to get from one side to the other they simply have to walk around it.  What is the point of a barrier that someone can simply walk around? I imagine the fence is there so that people don’t use the residential parking lot as a through way… maybe without a fence a random passerby could get hurt and start a lawsuit?  Maybe a potential criminal sees the fence and realizes that the getaway route is forced onto a main road? These are the only reasons I can fathom and both are quite lame. The fence is sure to hurt everyday pedestrians - the sort of thing that makes Americans want to drive their cars a very short distance to the detriment of our health, environment, and economy.

I still walk it - the long way around is only 1.5 miles round trip. But a relatively pleasant very short walk has been replaced  by a longer one with increased traffic that skirts a bottling factory.