Sudbrook Park, an Olmsted neighborhood, Baltimore County

Sudbrook Park, an Olmsted neighborhood, Baltimore County
Originally uploaded by rllayman

This neighborhood, designed by the Olmsted firm, has many sections without sidewalks. If you look closely, the tree line is situated in the place where typically a sidewalk would be installed.

This puts the local government at odds with the community in terms of sidewalks vs. trees. If you decide instead to create a more curvilinear sidewalk, this can create ADA issues.

But I think that this problem is one of the reasons that people in the suburbs seemingly oppose the installation of sidewalks. I think often we aren't listening closely enough--although sure they don't want to have to pay for installation and maintenance and they've gotten used to not having to undertake responsibility for shoveling sidewalks in front of their manses--that the issue often is more about how we intend to install sidewalks, rather than sidewalks per se.

Curvilinear sidewalk on Halpine Road in the Twinbrook area of Rockville, Montgomery County.