Walking in Waterloo Region

[Pheidippides]

For someone on a fixed income $60 can be a lot.

Plus, much like the studded tires over in the cycling thread, those types of ice gripping attachments only work well on ice; really well in fact. We use to do running workouts on the canal in Ottawa during the winter sometimes with them when the trails were snow packed, but they actually have the opposite effect on clear concrete - you skate and slide over the place. Having those on your feet and a patchwork of cleared and uncleared sidewalks would mean taking them on and off as you travel - imagine switching tire types as you drove; hardly an equitable situation.

I think the analogy here would be be snow tires. Even if they are a bit expensive, and not everyone can afford them, even now that there is a financial incentive in the form of insurance discount to have them, but they aren't required to get around because in most cases all season tires work BECAUSE the cities made an effort to keep the roads clear. The key is that an effort was made.

With sidewalks the cities aren't even pretending to make an honest effort, so it seems weird to require some special equipment to go down their street.