Caution - Wet Cement

Hillsborough claims to be encouraging pedestrian friendly planning, but you can’t prove it by me. I am fed up with Hillsborough's pedestrian un-friendly sidewalks.

How do you make a sidewalk pedestrian unfriendly? You irrigate it. Yes, one of the most amazing aspects of Hillsborough’s pedestrian friendly walkways is the irrigated sidewalk.

And exactly how does one design an irrigated sidewalk?

A homeowner decides to have a lawn irrigation system installed. When the system is finished it has sprinkler heads not only in the main lawn, but also between the sidewalk and the curb spraying across the public sidewalk.

No, I don’t know why the irrigation installers do that, I don’t know why the homeowners agree to it, and I really don’t understand why Hillsborough allows it.

First, it’s a waste of water to irrigate cement. Second, you have got to somehow be undermining the walkways by running the piping under the cement slabs. Third, what if repairs are needed in a part of the irrigation system under the sidewalk? Fourth, you are installing the piping and the spray heads in the public easement, which is going to be a pain in the neck when the time comes that the township or a public utility has to do any work along the roadway or the sidewalk. And the homeowners who have installed these marvels of irrigation will complain like crazy when they discover the township does have the right to rip up the system if any work is needed in the easement.

Now, moving beyond the stupidity of the entire design, what about the pedestrians who are attempting to use the irrigated public sidewalk. If the system is already on, the hapless pedestrian – possibly accompanied by a pram or a dog - can choose to walk through the shower or walk out into the street.

Unless it happens to turn on just as the pedestrian is in range and just gets unexpectedly soaked. Maybe they are designed that way, with some kind of built-in motion detector for the amusement of the homeowner and the installers.

It seems as though plain old common sense would suggest that you do not install lawn irrigation systems that spray across public sidewalks.

I knew here was a catch. It involves common sense.

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I can see a statute coming about not putting irrigation heads in the easements or aimed to spray across public walkways. I predict that the homeowners who are intent on irrigating their sidewalks will blame the radical pedestrian-loving politicians. They may even accuse them of being (horrors) tree-huggers or green-friendly.

When you walk out onto the street to avoid the spray, you often discover these same homeowners have their cars parked on the road thus forcing you to walk in the lane of travel. [I can only guess they don’t want their cars to get wet.]

Sometime we will discuss homeowners who park their cars in their driveways but across (blocking) the sidewalks. We will save this discussion for another time. I have to go get a towel. The dog is still wet.