Walking in St. Albert was treacherous this week, not on public sidewalks, which given the freezing rain were relatively well sanded, but on the goat trails which pedestrians are forced to use if they want to shop in local malls.
Local shopping centres cater to customers who arrive in private vehicles. These businesses provide an inordinate number of parking spaces for cars but storeowners must not care if people actually walk into their places of business because there are few if any sidewalks.
Try putting one foot in front of the other to get into Gateway Village from the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hebert Road and unless you want to trudge through icy snow, you’ll have no choice but to enter via the two-lane roadway. All the while, left-turning drivers will glare at you, as if you are trespassing by daring to walk on their space.
There used to be a narrow footpath beside the Gateway Village roadway entrance, but some shrubberies were planted to make that passageway more difficult for hikers. For a while the walkers persisted and forced a path through the bushes. But last month a mountain of snow was scraped off the parking lot and dumped in the corner beside the path. So you have to walk around a mountain to go shopping.
One of the least navigable shopping centres for walkers is Tudor Glen Market. A slight embankment guards the small shops against pedestrian traffic, but the hardy hiker is welcome to slip-slide up one side of the hill and down the other to get to the parking lot. Whatever the season this is the only way to get into this centre unless you walk half a block to the roadway. Now the snowy path is covered with a dangerous layer of ice.
Walkers are truly risking life and limb if they wish to cross Bellerose Drive to go from St. Albert Centre to Inglewood. Drivers must be careful too because there is a steep incline where they stop and wait for the lights. If they’ve managed to get up that same little hill, those on foot must stand immediately beside the cars on the road or in the snow bank. Otherwise they’ll fall back downhill.
Why don’t shopping centre businesses check the paths and trails leading to their malls to see where people are walking? Could it be the storeowners only want car-bearing customers because those folks are likely to spend more cash?
