Gee "Blog" Raphy

I trekked across Spain a few years ago with a few other American Pilgrims on El Camino de Santiago. I've always considered myself the adventurous type, having traveled the US performing disaster recovery work the year prior, but the Camino taught me something simple but important. I can walk anywhere.

When I came home, I found myself doing just that - walking anywhere and everywhere. As most North Americans understand - it's not that fun to walk everywhere on our continent - especially if you live in a rural place like I do and you don't exactly have access to sidewalks. Walking next to a vehicle that could literally kill you, and at the very least just kind of annoys and scares you as it approaches makes traversing on foot more of a chore than an everyday activity.

Walking is healthy, it's fun, it's cheap. and it's the classic way to get from place to place. People should be encouraged to walk whenever and wherever they want, but we're instead encouraged to sit in a car, spend money, pose a threat to everyone around us, and spend more time getting somewhere than being somewhere.

On my morning walk in Gettysburg this morning it dawned on me how car-centric even our smallest towns have become.

Gettysburg is one of America's most popular small towns and receives an influx in the 100's of thousands each year in tourist traffic to visit the battlefield, our history museums and plenty of other local attractions.

Yet, it hasn't quite gotten pedestrian traffic down to a science yet. After a long, summer-day in the heat, cooling off in the streets at night with a local brew from ABC or an ice cream cone from Mr. G's is idyllic but one step off the patio of either could mean sudden doom. Even in the smallest of towns, main roads and car traffic are favored over pedestrian priority.

There are a number of places where it is obvious that pedestrians rule (or should rule). Steinwehr and Baltimore streets have received pedestrian-centric implants in the form of flashing walk-signs, narrowed streets, and flush-brick crosswalks. The square has obvious pedestrian yields, and especially during peak touristing hours, traffic stalls to a halt and pedestrians are king. The blocks between these destinations still lack infrastructure to take this town to the next level.

I found myself waiting for a policeman taking a left-turn I had the crossing light and the pedestrian right-of-way. It's baffling that even a right-of-way is not enough for drivers to understand that pedestrians have a right to the streets too.

City planners - please prioritize pedestrians in your plans for the future. We buy things, we improve public health, an we have places to be too. We'd just like to do these things safely.

This is my very first blog post. I'm not sure I love the format, but I already had a website. I'm not sure I even know how to blog. I don't even read any other blogs (though I do subscribe to quite a few). I just know that I want to share ideas with other people, and I want to teach people about the things I am passionate about. Namely, in this case, I want to share my love of geography and maps with the rest of the world.

Earlier tonight I posted about my favorite website of the week what3words, and I really hope the rest of the world finds the website as useful as I do, but I suppose we will see. For those who don't already know, what 3 words is a navigation tool that allows users to navigate to locations and arrive within three meters of their destination. The tool, as the name implies, uses a three word identifier in order to help users navigate to their destination of choice.

Check out the tool, figure out your three words and share them with your friends!