Not for walking

It seems like most of Waterbury is designed for cars, not pedestrians. Or, perhaps more accurately, the people in charge of the design and layout of city streets and sidewalks travel by car only. Every so often, I get it into my head that I want to ride my bicycle in town. I know I'm supposed to ride in the street in the same direction as traffic, but I don't trust drivers, especially since most of them tend to go 40+ in 25 mph zones. At one point I thought it would be safest to ride on the sidewalk, but that proved impossible. In the downtown area, the sidewalks are spacious and well-maintained, but everywhere else they're a nightmare. The potholes in the sidewalks are worse than the ones in the streets; weeds, trees and shrubs are overgrown and blocking maybe 10% of all the sidewalks; and then there are the telephone poles planted smack in the middle of the sidewalk. This is why you sometimes see people in wheelchairs and motorized chairs riding down the street--the sidewalks are unusable.

If you do find a street where there's a well-maintained, usable sidewalk, you still have the problem of walking alongside a road where traffic is racing by at top speeds. And there's no shade. For some reason, our city planners seem to hate shade trees. On the rare occasions when they do plant trees (like the ones on West Main Street near the 7-11, or the new ones on Grand Street), they're tiny little things that never grow taller than seven feet and have leaves that are so small it seems like they don't cast any shadow at all. If I could choose one thing to change about Waterbury, I would probably have shade trees lining every street. It would make the city so much more pleasant and would change its image in a positive way.

Here are some excerpts about old-time Waterbury from the National Magazine published in 1857:
"...its beautiful Centre square and its quiet shaded streets lined with handsome residences, presents an appearance quite unique for a manufacturing town."

"Do not look at the sidewalks; they will not bear inspection."

Even 150 years ago, the sidewalks in Waterbury weren't any good. I think there was a time period, between then and now, when they were well-maintained and designed for pedestrians, but now that "everyone" drives to wherever they're going, they've been neglected. Those of us who either want to or have to walk are out of luck. Bicycling works so long as you don't mind getting yelled at by passing drivers who think you shouldn't be in the road, and so long as you don't mind that there's no where to lock your bike if you go into a store.