report from linkfest

yesterday, i and the family went to linkfest, and i investigated my charges of poor pedestrian and bike-friendliness of the shrewsbury station (see immediately previous post).

thankfully, it turns out that there is a way to cross the busy street to get to the station safely. however, here is what you have to do if you are approaching from the most populated area:

1. walk past the station in its entirety.

2. cross traffic once.

3. cross traffic a second time.

4. walk up the *only* sidewalk from the side of the road available for the entire stop. that's right: there are 3 lanes total for cars going in and three lanes total for cars going out, and 1 sidewalk.

5. cross traffic again.

so, it is certainly possible to cross safely, but it is not convenient or sensibly planned.

similarly, the forest park stop has a crosswalk for people who want to walk to the parking lot, but no crosswalk for people who want to walk to. . . forest park, which is perhaps .25 miles away.

i am a big fan of public transportation, and i want everyone to use the metro system. but i also want the metro system to remember that it is supposed to be serving *people*. at the moment, a martian would be forgiven for believing it serves *cars*.