The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars
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The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars

Byrichard

I love to walk and cycle every day. I love to walk from home and not touch the car. This morning I refuelled the car and it cost 90 CHF for 44 litres or so. Every single time I refuel the car I get a shock. Petrol is expensive, and yet people drive every day.

Usually I go for five days per week without touching the car. I walk from home and back. This saves on driving time, parking and petrol. I come up against a clear frustration.

The Need for Foot Paths and Cycling Lanes

When I drive by some communes and villages, for example between Gingins and Cheserex, or between Reverolle and Hautemorges I see a wide pedestrian band where people can walk, far from cars. Imagine the luxury of walking two or three meters away from a road, rather than in the wet, muddy grass.

Consistently Endangered

Yesterday on a stretch of road that is no more than 700 meters long I had three, not one, not two, but three cars that drove too fast, and too close. They did this without needing to. If a car is coming towards them, and they can’t avoid me, then I will walk into the grass, because there is no choice in the matter.

Veiled Threats

Yesterday, a nun, I believe, a white van driver, and a third person drove too fast, too close, without driving to the other side of the road as they passed me. European law says that people must give one and a half meters between cars and cyclists, but also, by empathy, with pedestrians. These people don’t. They just drive on top of you. They want to scare you off the road, and it worked. I did step into the mud when one homicidal person endangered my life.

Give Space and Slow Down

When I drive I always treat pedestrians and cyclists as I would like to be treated. I give them one and a half meters, as required by law, but I also slow down to a humane speed, as I pass them. I don’t want to intimidate people. I want to show empathy. The more people walk, the fewer cars are around, and with fewer cars, so traffic decreases.

Overtraining

I have been frustrated with how cars behave around pedestrians and cyclists for years, so it can’t just be fatigue and overtraining. I still think that fatigue and over-training play a role. If I was less fatigued, if I was going for shorter walks, then the selfish behaviour by car drivers wouldn’t be so toxic. Of course it’s not just physical fatigue.

Exposure Toxicity

Often when I hear a car I go half a meter to a meter into the grass, or even muddy fields, to give space for cars to pass. They thank me but I very often want to flip them the bird. I’m not giving them space, out of empathy. I’m giving them space because I am tired of having cars driving too fast too close, on agricultural roads. It’s not that these people are fast on main roads. They’re fast on agricultural roads, where cars should not be. There is nowhere you can walk, in Switzerland without escaping from cars.

A Desire For More Paths Away From Roads

There are two awful roads, for pedestrians. On one road there is plenty of space to walk, but rather than place a walking path they put bushes, to stop people from walking. This forces people to walk on a busy road where people are driving above the speed limit. If you walk on the foot path you have your back to the homicidal drivers.

On the other road there is plenty of space where a foot path could be added, for pedestrians to walk comfortable between two villages, without being exposed to homicidal car drivers. Yesterday on one bit of road three cars in a row drove too fast, and too close. If I slipped and fell, or fainted, they would run me over.

I saw a woman walking down that road with a pram yesterday. There should be safe options for people walking between villages.

Invest in Walking and Cycling

With a small investment farmers could make walking between villages more pleasant. We could walk away from busy roads and farmers could benefit financially from turning a metre wide band of land into a walking path for pedestrians and cyclists. The space is there, if only someone had the vision.

And Finally

The walks around where I live are nice, but there are two roads that feel really dangerous, especially when the grass is long, and after a few hours of heavy rain. It’s unpleasant to walk half a meter from where people are driving at 80 kilometres an hour. It might not be intimidating for the cars, but it is for pedestrians. I want car drivers to be aware that they can drive more empathetically.

Flawed Thinking and Cleaning
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Flawed Thinking and Cleaning

Byrichard

The Unilateral Solution


I stopped making a mess because I came up with unillateral solutions, until I found the ideal one. I experimented with skewers to remove the mud from shoes, I experimented with rubber boots that I could rinse under a tap. I tried with spare shoes in the letter box. 


A Simple Doormat


In the end my favourite solution was the doormat by the car in the garage. This is my favourite solution because it takes seconds to brush the mud off my shoes before going upstairs, and best of all, I walk with muddy shoes, into the garage where no one will complain. No more mud in the building. 


The Absurd


As mentioned above I already have a solution to the issue, so this is purely an excuse to write a blog post, without spending hours trying to find inspiration.


The solution to dirty hallways, according to one apartment care company is “If you make a mess clean it up”. If you live on the ground floor, right by the door this makes sense, because there’s no skin in the game. Thirty Seconds of sweeping and you’re done. If you live on the top floor the solution requires several minutes. 


It’s a shame they didn’t ask 


“What is the actual problem?” 


“Mud”, 


“Okay, so get a proper door mat for the front door.”


Unfair Solution and Curiousity


What I want to discuss is the analytical mind. There are two type of people in the world. Those that hear “The hallways are messy, so clean them up when you make a mess” and those that would ask “What is the mess?”. If the mess is from leaking bin bags, then carry bin bags in a waterproof container, if the problem is wet shoes then dry the shoes. If the problem is mud, and your solution is to tidy up the mess then you’re both lazy, and short sighted. 


Demudifiers


If mud is the problem then cleaning up the mud, after you deposit it in the hallways and on the staircases is not a solution, because it will happen again and again. It will occur at the end of walks, and at the start of walks. If your shoes are muddy they drop it as you enter a building, but also as you exit. 


The solution to mud in a building has been known for generations. My school had the solution. Private homes have the solution. The solution to muddy hallways is not to clean up after you’ve made a mess. The solution is to get a doormat. The solution is to get a shoe scraper at the front of the building, before you enter. 


The Habit of Asking Questions Before Coming Up With Solutions


The notion that professionals, in building care and maintenance would not ask this question saddens me. It’s such a simple and rational question. It’s also an issue that every building in a rural area has. 


What frustrates me is that when I was making a mess almost every day no one complained. it’s when I stopped making a mess that people complained. It’s when I forgot to clean my shoes, after two months of being tidy that people went mad.


Passing the Buck / Shirking Responsability


I’m frustrated that the building’s solution to messy hallways is to tell us to clean it. I find this to be a shameful response, since the issue is muddy shoes, and everyone, especially parents, will have to deal with that problem. The doormat I have to clean my shoes is 30 CHF. The one for the front door costs from 100-200 CHF in Europe. That mat would ensure that no one has to clean the hallways themselves, not even the cleaner. 


The Childhood Problem


In the grand scheme of things I am still the same person I have been, since childhood. I still get muddy shoes and trousers, and it still doesn’t bother me in the least. Mud is organic dirt. It’s not harmful, and once it has dried it is very easy to clean up. 


I never plan to stop getting muddy. I’d rather have my very own proper doormat, in the garage, that I can use at the end of a walk where I got my shoes dirty. I find the idea of cleaning the hallway used by everyone else absurd, especially since there is a simple and elegant solution, the doormat. 


Remember, schools implement another solution, shoe cubbies at the entrance to the building. You put your shoes in the cubby and you wear “pantoufles” in class. I would quite like that solution in my building. 


And Finally


We live right next to the fields. There are five roads in and out of this village, but there are no clean paths for pedestrians to walk along. If we want to go for a local walk without using the car we have to walk along muddy paths, unfortunately. The result is that shoes get muddy. If the commune, and Switzerland at large, didn’t just speak about mobilité douce, but actually built infrastructure to make it possible, then I wouldn’t have muddy shoes. If car drivers didn’t try to terrify us, out of walking along roads, then we’d walk on the clean tarmac rather than the mud at the side of the road. 


We need more cycle and walker friendly routes between villages and towns in Switzerland. It’s free to encourage people to walk and bike, rather than use cars, but too little is done to ensure we feel safe. If clean walking solutions existed then my shoes would remain clean. 

Dry Weather, Clean Shoes

Dry Weather, Clean Shoes

Byrichard

We’re having dry weather which means that I have clean shoes, once again. They cut the grass recently but rather than see greenery we see yellow. We’re in March and it already looks as if we’re un June/July, with how dry the landscape is. The sides of the road, where it was once muddy, is now dry and hard. We are in summer dry weather despite being the first of march.


It’s windy and cold at the moment. You want to wear a good hat, good gloves, and to have layers that stop the wind from blowing through to chill us.


It was cold enough to kill the airpods after an hour of exposure to the weather today. On a warm day the airpods last for two or three hours. On a cold day they last for half an hour to an hour. With walks that last from one hour to one and a half hours I usually never run out of batteries. It’s a sign of cold weather that the batteries last less time than the walk.


In other news twitter failed again today for at least an hour or two. With mobile devices I tried to refresh the feed but saw nothing. I could still post and see replies, but I couldn’t read new tweets. Now that we expect Twitter to fail on a regular basis we don’t feel the same angst as before. It is unimportant.


And Finally – Mud season


At least one Londoner loves the mud because it absorbs his steps and lowers the pain he felt when walking on tarmac and other hard surfaces. I am puzzled by one recommendation. “Have a towel ready”. I know that football players have a brush and running water to clean their shoes. The idea of using a towel is new to me. I can think about it, next time it rains, in a few months from now.

Mud and Walking

Mud and Walking

Byrichard

I go for walks, runs or bike rides every single day, whether it’s rainy, windy, snowy or a heatwave. As a result of this I often walk along routes where mud forms. Sometimes I come home from walks and my shoes are spotless, thanks either to a drought, or paradoxically due to the rain.


Recently we had snow and it was cold so my shoes were relatively clean. I could come home, stomp a few times and my shoes would be clean. Other times, like the last two days I have found that the mud is sticky and hard to remove. It’s dry enough to behave like clay, rather than mud. It gets stuck between the studs that stop you from slipping. I tried skewers, running water, snow banks and most recently a brush that I keep in the post box, in the locked section. I don’t want to come home and find that the brush has been stolen.


I could simply get some slippers, and keep those in the post box, for when I go for walks, and for when I come back, but the problem of muddy shoes persists. If I don’t remove the mud then I need to change shoes twice when I head out for a walk, and twice when I get home. Four shoe changes per walk.


I am annoyed. We are in a pandemic and I feel uncomfortable for walking indoors with muddy shoes because, as an adult, if someone comments on mud, I have to avoid making a mess, from that moment forward. Not to care would make me a sociopath.


I’d like to add some contemporary context. We are in a pandemic. Millions of people are living with long COVID. One of the simplest ways to avoid catching COVID is to wear masks indoors. Everyone in the building looks at me strangely for wearing a mask, and yet they see me run up and down the stairs. That’s right, I don’t walk, I don’t struggle. I run. I use the lift twice a week, because of shopping. The rest of the time I run up and down the stairs. Everyone else takes the lift, whether for a single floor or not. I wear the mask as I run. It doesn’t bother me in the least.


My muddy shoes bothered at least two people. Mud is an ordinary part of rural life, and if it bothers people then a proper grate, and shoe cleaning setup is required.


No one has muddy shoes, but me, because everyone else uses their car to do things, whereas I do most of my activities by walking from home. This means that the car journey will not see mud fall from my shoes into the space beneath the pedals, or in the boot. I go straight from walking in mud to the building.


My old school had shoe scraping pieces of metal. In a previous age having muddy shoes was normal so society had solutions. Today driving is normal, so muddy shoes are an aberration.


There is a cruel irony in all of this. Cleaning mud off of shoes takes much longer than cleaning a stairwell. I know because I have to hoover my apartment almost every day when it’s muddy, and hoovering muddy floors takes seconds, whereas cleaning shoes takes minutes.


I wish that we lived in a society where people wore masks indoors during an airborne pandemic, rather than caring about a little mud. I’m especially frustrated because no one but me runs up and down the stairs, so no one but the cleaner sees the mud. It’s a problem because a cleaner complained once, in five years.


I miss the freedom of living in a house, where I didn’t have to worry about muddy shoes in a hallway. I miss pre-pandemic life, where I would take the car to do things with people, rather than alone. I miss pre-pandemic times, when there were advantages to living in society, rather than just disadvantages. I miss group activities, and the friendships that formed from life pre-pandemic, pre-fatalism.


And Finally


My walks are about exploration and getting away from cars. Cars never slow down when you’re walking by the side of the road, so walking on the muddy side is safer. I also walk where it is muddy because I’m lonely, due to the pandemic, and my struggle to find work, and the effect it has had on my confidence. I walk where I walk because it keeps me from feeling depressed.


If I crossed single people, or if I crossed people that walked single file, during the pandemic, then I wouldn’t have developed this habit of avoiding people. Living in solitude is easy, until you think about what life could be like, out of solitude.


I like my walks and my activities. I like exploring and taking photos. I like seeing the changes from day to day, week to week and season to season. I like looking at what new books are available.


If social media was about social networks, rather than stigmatised as addiction, then I would be making new friends via Twitter, Mastodon, FaceBook and other networks, during this pandemic. As they are not I have learned to be in solitude.


It’s the lack of reward, from using social media, that has led me to blog again. When we blog we invest our time. We invest in learning to write, to think, to focus and more. We could even go so far as to say that writing is time spent being mindful. I enjoy blogging. There is a chance that no one will read what I write, but as I have said, it’s an opportunity to have a conversation with myself, through the written word.

When Rain Doesn’t Show Up
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When Rain Doesn’t Show Up

Byrichard

They forecast rain and I looked forward to going for a walk and having clean shoes as shoes are washed by the rain keeping shows slick. The rain didn’t come so my shoes got muddy and I stood by the tap trying to get the mud to drain away from between the tread, without much luck. Tomorrow if I run down the stairs as I always do I will leave thick clumps of mud from my apartment down to the garage


Apparently the cleaner doesn’t like seeing clumps of mud that has fallen off shoes. If I was a cleaner I’d be happy. I’d ask if they want to increase the frequency of my visits, or alternatively I would ask for a shoe brush to be placed at the front door, so that people may clean their shoes before coming in.


Of course, in the 21st century shoes never get muddy because they are worn from the car park, for the walk and back. People never go for muddy walks without the car so they never have muddy shoes by the time they get home. By that time their shoes, and the mud has dried, and fallen off inside the car.


It is absurd that someone would go for a walk straight from home. Who in their right mind would do something so quaint and old fashioned. I write this as a joke, but also with seriousness. If people did go for walks from home, rather than taking their cars, walking paths would be more prominent, and easier to find.


It’s only during the pandemic that paths were worn out from villages and back in. During the pandemic people went for local walks, especially during lockdown. Now that people have their freedoms to burn petrol to go for a 40 minute walk, away from home, they do. People haven’t learned not to use their cars for everything.


I don’t make stairwells and halls muddy on purpose. I make them muddy because it’s hard to walk locally, without using a car, without walking where it’s muddy. If everyone was like me then you would need those taps and grates, like you see at football stadiums, where shoes can be brushed clean before going indoors. That will be my next purchase. I really need such a brush.


Puddles and rain would do the same, but for some reason, despite the ground being wet and muddy it never rains at a time, to prevent me from going for a walk.


The Season of Muddy Shoes

Byrichard

We are in a pandemic and I like to walk away from people. To do so I need to walk along muddy paths by the sides of roads, motorways and fields. In the process my shoes get covered in mud and I need to find ways of removing that mud.


The challenge isn’t with dry mud, because that’s easy. Run down some stairs and the mud that was on your shoes will be on the stairs, and the shoes will be clean. The drawback is that neighbours and cleaners hate this, apparently. Enough to complain about it but not enough to put something to clean shoes by the entrance to the building. We’re not in 1901, we’re in 2022. Who still walks in muddy fields today?


So far I have tried walking with a flathead screwdriver to remove the mud, short sticks to pick at the mud at the end of the walk, a running tap and even puddles. All of these work to some degree but they’re annoying.


This year I am trying a new strategy. Crocs. Crocs are mediocre light shoes that are light to carry, but that you can also leave in the garage, or even carry with you, without too much inconvenience. Walk down to the front door, change to the good shoes, and hide the crocs in the post box, your bag, or with the bikes. When you finish the walk change into the crocs, attempt to rinse the shoes under a tap and head up.


If there was a good doormat on the floor I could remove the mud in seconds, rather than spend time thinking of innovative solutions. I wish everyone walked in mud. I wouldn’t stand out then.

Walking With Worn Shoes

Byrichard

At the moment I am walking with worn shoes, not because I do not have shoes that are not worn, but because I do not want to walk with shoes that have good tread at this time of year, due to the mud that gets stuck in them. When I walk with shoes with treads I collect mud during my walk, and I bring it up the stairs when I walk up, and I drop it off when I run back down. This leaves a mess, which, if I was a child, would be forgivable to some degree, but as an adult may be seen as immaturity.


The alternative is to take the lift, but to take the lift is to show a degree of laziness that I am not ready to show. Lifts are slow. I prefer staying healthy by running up and down stairs. The issue is that people in this building do not walk in mud so they leave non behind, but also that they take lifts, rather than stairs. This means that if I leave a trail of mud right to my door people know that it is me. There is a chance that the only people who know this, are the cleaner and me. I don’t know whether other people walk up stairs. I do not often cross people walking up or down the stairs.


Worn shoes do not collect mud, and if they do collect mud then an ordinary doormat can wipe them clean. With deep treads you need a screwdriver or some other tool to coax the mud out. I don’t want to do this too often because I feel that it damages the shoes and wears them out faster than if I just left the mud, to be knocked free as it dries.


We have a few more months of mud, so for a few more months I will have to be more cautious with the evidence, that I leave, after going for a walk.

Walking Through Mud
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Walking Through Mud

Byrichard

In normal times we can walk along clean paths, without walking through the mud because we can walk within a meter or two of people. During a pandemic though, the recommendation is to be at least two meters from people. Many agricultural paths are not that wide, especially when people walk two or more abreast.


This means that if we’re walking alone either we have to give in to not respecting the two meter rule or we walk in the mud, fields, or other. It also means that rather than take the usual walking paths that we have taken for years beforehand we are now migrating to the edges of roads.


We are exposed to the cars driving too fast and too close. We are exposed to grass that has grown tall, and thorns, and the noise of car tires on tarmac. Before the pandemic I would not have noticed that noise, but now I can’t stand it. The sound of tearing, ripping or similar sound. The sight of people staring at their phones whilst driving too close to us, in their cars.


Over the last eleven months I have found a route that I like to walk, where I don’t need to avoid people, avoid the noise of cars, avoid having to overcome my fear of dogs, and in most cases, avoid having to backtrack to avoid walking within two meters of people.


Of course I am eccentric. We’re in the eleventh month of a pandemic. I have spent this time in pandemic solitude and it has had an impact. I question whether the passion and pleasure I take in walking along quiet routes is a coping method, a way of dealing with the solitude, of being solitary rather than lonely.


Recently I learned that a cleaner complained about the mud I brought back into the building but this year has been quite wet. I also found that the quietest, safest walking routes, are also the muddiest.


The school where I went as a child was built between 1901 and 1902. As a result of this it had metal projections near the entrance so that you could scrape your shoes before you went into the building. Those are not present on modern buildings.


Modern buildings, and modern carpets are designed for car driver dirty feet rather than rural dirty feet. They are decoration rather than of any use. We live in an age where despite being parents, with young children, many people have grown out of the habit of dealing with mud. We live in the tyranny of the car driver. An entire building’s footprint is devoted to cars, but nothing is kept to clear muddy shoes of mud.


One of the issues with modern expectations is that people get into their car, drive to do their walk, and then drive home. If you leave your home without taking the car, then the absurd reality of getting muddy shoes, and for the shoes not to dry and flake before you get home is alien.


In a normal situation either mud would flake from my hiking shoes into the boot, or they would flake as I drive the car home, on the driver side floor. Cultural norms have forgotten that there was a time when getting home with muddy shoes was ordinary.


I took a picture of a building where people would come home with muddy shoes. Society says that it wants us to reduce our carbon footprint but muddy shoes are a distant memory. Society has forgotten about the habit of walking locally. Society has forgotten about the need for proper shoe cleaning options by the door.


I did try four solutions. The first is to find a puddle, and try to evacuate the mud from my shoes that way. It does work to some degree, but then you leave a mess of wet, rather than dry mud. The second option is to walk during a rainy day. The advantage of rainy days is that your shoes are cleaned by the rain constantly, so you often get home nice and clean. The third option is to walk on a snowy day, as the snow will wear away the dirt and mud from your shoes. The fourth option is to scrape your shoes with a pointy thing. I tried with a screwdriver and with a bike tool for removing tyres.


Although it may sound counterintuitive I found that the best way not to be have muddy shoes is to walk on a rainy day because the rain will drain away the mud and dirt. It may seem counterintuitive but rain really is the best. The second


Spending time outdoors and coming back muddy is nothing new. It has been part of my character for less time than I can remember. I see no problem in a little bit of mud because mud is very easy to clean. It’s especially easy to clean when it’s dry, rather than wet. When I started to make a conscious effort not to bring mud back into the building one day I noticed that instead of nice, healthy organic mud, one day we had the dirty traces of petroleum based wet dirt on the floor. We had pollution from too many people using cars.


As messy as mud may make hallways look I think the black traces of carbon rain is worse. The door mat is good at pretending that the problem doesn’t exist, but when you see the traces after a day of rain, you think “If only it was mud. If only I picked up a shoe and noticed a spider scurry away.”


As unsightly as mud is, things can live in it. Nothing lives in the polluted water, from a car based way of life.


I’d like to conclude with “I did think of taking my shoes off as I came into the building, to avoid muddying the floors, but then I thought of everyone else not doing that. I also thought that it’s a shame that other people do not get muddier shoes, because then I would regain my freedom. Walking in the mud is a freedom that we have lost over the centuries.


It is not unusual for me to take my trousers off when I get home, and to rinse them in the shower, like I used to do after going scuba diving.


If I was a cleaner I would have said “Since the floor gets messy so quickly it may be worth me coming two to three times a week to clean up.”