Sidewalk rage is all too real.
And like road rage, there’s often nothing you can do about it.
In the English city of Liverpool, however, one store has taken it upon itself to introduce a new frontier in urban planning as a measure to combat disruptors of optimal pedestrian flow: fast-walking sidewalk lanes.
Retailer Argos has installed the segregated paths in the city’s central shopping district, inspired by a recent survey that suggests Britons consider slow walking the most annoying aspect of high-street shopping.
So far, 69% of 16 to 24-year-olds and just 37% of over-55s support the lanes.
Unwisely, they were designed in a way that anyone group-chatting or staring at their phone on the sidewalk probably wouldn’t even notice them. More precisely, they’re a collection of lines that look like the leftovers of a terrible guerrilla marketing campaign, completely void of authority and ripe for ignoring.
Great idea, though. And one we’d love to see in our own country’s major urban centres.
It’s like the escalator; it’s great that you’re just here to enjoy the ride but some of us actually have somewhere we need to get to – fast.
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