I never wanted to become a militant pedestrian.

I work in a medium-sized business park at Shawan Road and York Road, just across the street from the Wal Mart in Hunt Valley Towne Center. Every week or so I try to get out of my office on my lunch hour and do some business. Since both my banks, a supermarket, a Subway shop, the mall and a ton of other businesses are within less than half a mile, I can't justify wearing out my car for anything less than thunderstorm or blizzard conditions.

This was fine when everything I needed to reach was on the east side of York Road, but a month ago I started banking with Wachovia, and the innocent little ten minute walk changed drastically.

It's a bit difficult to describe in words, but let me tell you a little about my stretch of York Road that extends along York Road from it's intersection with McCormick Road south to the intersection with Ashland Road. The road goes from four lanes to five and has no crosswalks along the entire stretch I am about to describe. In short, it is a pedestrian death trap.

Walking South from McCormick Road, there are no sidewalks on either side of the road until the York Road entrance to the mall, where one magically appears and then randomly ends at the crest of the hill along side the mall just short of the intersection with Shawan Road. It appears right after a four lane intersection with the mall property, with a curved entrance and exit ramp that are particularly hazardous to pedestrians. It then begins again on the property of the BP station at the intersection.

The sidewalk on the East side extends from the intersection York Road and Shawan Road to the end of the North Park business complex property and then descends in a gulley before stopping abruptly. In fact just now I watched a power-walker get to the end of this sidewalk and have to do a 180 degree turn to continue her workout because the sides are too steep to reasonably climb.

Shawan Road and York Road was designed with only vehicles in mind. The turn signal in every direction has a right turn arrow, and there are no pedestrian signs, buttons or crosswalks. On the West side of York Road, going from Shawan Road Eastbound to York Road Southbound is a right turn yield ramp with low visibility looking back on Shawan Road that most motorists take at full speed. About 40 feet from this point there is a sidewalk with handicapped accessible dips that extends along the West side of York Road from there to the fire station.

How anyone needing a dipped sidewalk would have managed to get there in the first place is beyond me, but I digress.

The sidewalk does not continue on the East side of the York Road and even the grass median between the shopping center and York Road begins to disappear until a walker is forced to hop the metal barrier after a divided two lane entrance to the shopping center to walk safely. The sidewalk only resumes at the Exxon station across from Schilling Road.

I should remind everyone that at this point the road is two lanes of fast-moving Northbound traffic, two lanes of Southbound traffic, and one lane that is affectionately referred to by drivers at the "suicide lane."

Now imagine that is is January 7, 2004 and I have traversed this path in the safest way possible, which is to walk along York Road until the shopping center, then walk through their parking lot until I get to the hill behind the Bank of America, climb the embankment and walk along the wood chips on the other side of the metal guard rail until I reach the parking lot of the Exxon.

At this point I am staring across these lanes of traffic at Wachovia bank, with which I have business to transact. I could have crossed at Shawan Road, but I would have had to navigate random right turn arrows and the ramp, or gone another city block down to Ashland Road, which has no crosswalks either. So here I am at the longest straightaway on York Road with visibility to both lights. The two Northbound lanes are clear, so I head onto York Road.

A car comes out of Schilling Road and seeing a break in Southbound traffic, makes a quick right turn so that I'm unable to get through the next two lanes safely. I'm standing in the suicide lane as the light both intersections have just changed and cars are heading towards me non-stop. About more than a minute of standing in the middle of York Road with traffic whizzing on all sides of me, there's a break in traffic and I make it to the sidewalk on the other side.

The teller naturally mentions that she gets in her car just to cross the street and get something from the convenience store, and would never consider crossing there. Inspiring words.

Now it's time to try to get back to my office. Having had such a bad experience, I imagine that crossing at the mall entrance across from North Park Drive will be a better idea. So I walk along the sidewalk from Schilling Road to just before Shawan where it turns into a dirt track on someone's property right before the right turn entrance ramp from Shawan Road. I almost set foot into the lane-width crossing when a car full of young girls comes whizzing out of nowhere and I jump back up onto the curb.

I get to the other side and I am about to cross when I realize that the Northbound York Road traffic to Westbound Shawan Road has a right turn arrow. The arrow blinks off and I watch for right turn traffic from Southbound York Road as I cross quickly. I walk past the Exxon station until the sidewalk disappears and continue up the hill of York Road in the gravel on the left side, walking about one or two feet from the line of cars that is stacked all the way back to the mall entrance.

I am across from the first North Park Drive entrance, when I notice that there is not a lot of northbound traffic and someone has left me an opening in the lane next to me. I step into it just to see a woman coming from the other side of the divided entrance come swinging around in a left turn to occupy the spot I'm in. She slams on the brakes and honks her horn, to which I turn, shrug, and give her a dirty look and continue across York Road behind the police car right in front of me.

Long story short, something needs to be done about this stretch, and I'm going to document here when I figure out how to get it done, even if I have to be out there with a safety vest and a bucket of paint.

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