sidewalks



Sidewalks, we take them or granted as people use them everyday to get to places. First off I wanted to base my research on office spaces in downtown Toronto, but as I was walking the downtown I was being pushed, bumped into and also blocked by various things. This sprung a new research idea to my mind, hence the Sidewalk.

Sidewalks main purpose is to allow pedestrians to walk from one destination to another. However, there are many "obstacles" that get in the way such as, people drawing on the pavement floor, hot dog stands at the intersections, people talking on the cell phone while walking slowly, animals on the sidewalks, and the list goes on. Here is a picture I took of a women using her cell phone while walking down the sidewalk, unfortunately she stopped and the two couple behind her rammed right into her from behind.



If I were the two people behind her I would have found this to be quite annoying and bothersome. After spending half the day downtown taking pictures I was finally able to sit down at home and refine my concept and idea.

**Research Concept**
From all the walking I did downtown I was able to come up with a view on how sidewalks should be used and why it should be used for that purpose. No matter where I went to take pictures I was using the sidewalks as a guide to where I went but obstacles where always somehow getting in my way. Street vendors, sidewalk cafes taking up half the sidewalk, all these things were a obstacle blocking the flow of pedestrian traffic which in caused a lot of unnecessary incidents such as people bumping into each other and spilling coffee on their shoes/clothing.

My Critical Stance
Downtown Toronto has always been a busy and highly populated pedestrian area. The sidewalks were designed to relieve give direction and relieve the flow of pedestrian traffic in the city but however as time went on "obstacles" began to show up on the sidewalks such as vending stands and people just simply standing in the way traffic. Toronto is a place thats needs to have proper pedestrian flow otherwise accidents can happen such as people tripping over chairs from sidewalk cafes and people being pushed on to the road of incoming traffic which can cause a fatal injury or death. Side walks in the end should only be used what they were mainly designed for to keep pedestrians safe and also to keep the flow of traffic flowing.

The Research Statement
//Sidewalks in Downtown Toronto should only be used by pedestrians that are getting from one destination to another and not for anything else due to it being a highly dense and populated area.//

For my research it will contain pictures that studies obstacles on the sidewalks in the core of Downtown Toronto thats affects the flow of pedestrian traffic and why we should use sidewalks only for what they are designed for.

Sidetrack
While I was downtown I also noticed that the flow of pedestrian traffic inside th Eaton Center was completely different from outside the streets of Toronto. I might want to have a detail study of this later on in the future and compared it to my Sidewalk findings in the streets of Toronto for it can be very interesting to find out what and why is it so different.

Sideshow
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Visual Essay
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