At first, working on this column, I kept striking out. I drove around Syracuse on Friday and Saturday, looking for travelers on foot willing to speak on-the-record about being forced by unplowed city sidewalks to take long, risky and nerve-racking walks in the traffic lanes of busy streets and avenues.
I found plenty of people willing to talk, but only if I agreed not to use their names. One guy was pushed into walking in the street at a frightening spot where the sidewalks ought to be plowed right away after every storm: The South Geddes Street railroad viaduct, sidewalks as of Friday blocked with snow on both sides of the street.
The viaduct is a vital funnel for many pedestrians, since the tracks cut off other nearby routes for going north and south. It is used by parents taking little kids to school, or people on foot going to work, or countless others without cars who have no option — when the sidewalks are unplowed — except for walking in a high-stress corridor packed with three lanes of heavy traffic, with absolutely no safe buffer for those walking in the street…