Enemy on the Road

If you have every walked along a busy suburban road that has no sidewalk, you'll identify with this post.
I was dropped off by a public bus in the suburban area north of Princeton at a shelter. When I tried to come back the other way, there were no signs for a stop, much less a structure.
Trying to keep yourself as close to the curb as possible, you are acutely aware of the fact that traffic weighing many tons going 50 mph is passing with no obstacle between it and your puny body. Only a white stripe is there, painted as a breakdown lane, which is about eight feet across and can be violated as easily as when a driver swerves trying to change radio stations.

The American suburbs are not only indifferent to pedestrians, they are actively hostile towards them. Many areas have seen immigrants killed while walking along these high-speed routes, as they are guilty of being un-American by being poor and not driving while servicing areas where people are and do neither.

The strange thing is the role-reversal you go through when on the other side of the windshield. Pedestrians do look strange and cast-out in the highway environment. Bicyclists speak of people yelling at them to get off the road.

Put two tons of aluminum and steel around you or get out of the way! A pedestrian, meaning simply a human being, is demonized because it is foreign to the whole landscape. It is too real, too small and too soft in a fake plastic and metal environment. How dare it get in the way of what you have become, which is a heavy and fast machine.
The convenience of cars is unbeatable, but put in sidewalks and bus stops that are not miles between.