The lyrics of Frank Zappa's 1974 song "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" describing "trudging across the tundra, mile after mile" might sound prophetic for Muncie residents who lack cars as the harsh, snowy Midwestern winter approaches.
Too many of Muncie's thoroughfares lack sidewalks - particularly Tillotson, McGalliard, Wheeling and West Bethel avenues - and the city should consider building them. They receive pedestrian traffic, but the general lack of walkways creates major safety hazards, particularly in the winter, when people traveling on foot must choose between kicking through several inches of dirty snow and walking on the open road.
The dangers don't stop there. A common sight on West Bethel Avenue during games at Scheumann Stadium is wheelchair-bound spectators riding on the street to the stadium as cars rush by only feet away.
Muncie Central High School junior Audrey Schmaltz, who walks to her job at Coffee Junkiez, is all too familiar with the problem on Tillotson Avenue.
"It's a really busy road, and accidents happen all the time," she said from behind the counter. "It would be a lot better if there were any sidewalks."
Schmaltz said that when she walks to nearby stores, she takes back streets to avoid Tillotson.
"You can't really walk on Tillotson," she said. "It's too busy."
In its fiscal year 2006 budget, Muncie devoted $638,687 to roads and streets, a $3,688 increase from 2005. The budget did not specify how much went to sidewalks, but considering present conditions, it's safe to say it wasn't much.
Ball State University urban planning professor Bruce Frankel placed much of the blame on the Indiana Department of Transportation for the roads' inhospitality to pedestrians.
"They're for cars, not people," he said.
The lack of sidewalks also threatens community. Sitting in a 400-horsepower cocoon with Top 40 songs blaring out of the speakers means not having face-to-face interaction with human beings or tangibly experiencing the outside world.
Tillotson and McGalliard avenues have a cold, soulless and depressing look, like candy-colored ghost towns. Chain stores, fast food outlets and strip malls dominate a dystopian landscape in which people are most visible when they emerge from and enter their cars in the massive parking lots.
Maybe one day we'll see advertisements that read, "Main Street: now available at Wal-Mart for $3.99 while supplies last."
Compare Muncie's situation to Michigan City. There, with exception to the southern half of Franklin Street, virtually all the town is walkable. Despite its problems, Michigan City still looks as Muncie should: like a real community, rather than a hodgepodge of cars and buildings.
Walkable Communities Inc., a Florida-based organization founded by urban planner Dan Burden, maintains a list on its Web site of cities Burden has noted for their accessibility to pedestrians. The list contains no cities in Indiana.
Although the list only reflects Burden's personal experience, Indiana's absence is not surprising when one takes obesity statistics into account. New Yorkers are known to walk a lot, which might explain why obesity rates in Manhattan are about 10 percent, according to the New York Department of Health. By contrast, a 2005 survey by the Marion County Health Department indicated that a quarter of residents of a county hardly more pedestrian-friendly than Muncie were obese.
Hope remains, however.
Muncie has the popular Cardinal Greenway, which provides wonderful opportunities for walking, jogging and bicycling. The city recently renovated part of South Madison Street, adding a sidewalk with a guard rail along the White River. While much of Muncie's commercial activity occurs on car-dominated thoroughfares, that hasn't sucked the life out of Muncie's downtown, which has a thriving bar and arts scene.
That doesn't leave much for the thoroughfares, which still need sidewalks.
"You certainly have some cogent reasons for them," Frankel said. "You could have a business improvement district that provides money for the reconfiguration of those right-of-ways."
Meanwhile, Schmaltz doesn't seem to look forward to trudging across Muncie's tundra.
"If I had to go somewhere, and I was walking in snow, I wouldn't be very happy," she said.
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu
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