banal, humdrum, mediocre, mundane, plodding, prosaic, blah

synonyms of pedestrian

The Statewide Pedestrian System Plan

“a detailed path for the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to maximize its role in making walking safe, convenient, and desirable for all.”

A history of the word

"travel on foot," c. 1200, a merger of two verbs, 1. Old English wealcan "to toss, roll, move round" (past tense weolc, past participle wealcen), and 2. wealcian "to roll up, curl," from Proto-Germanic *welk- (source also of Old Norse valka "to drag about," Danish valke "to full" (cloth), Middle Dutch walken "to knead, press, full" (cloth), Old High German walchan "to knead," German walken "to full"), perhaps ultimately from PIE root *wel- (3) "to turn, revolve."

The shift in sense is perhaps from a colloquial use of the Old English word or via the sense of "to full cloth" (by treading on it), though this sense does not appear until after the change in meaning. In 13c. it is used of snakes and the passage of time, and in 15c. of wheeled carts. "Rarely is there so specific a word as NE walk, clearly distinguished from both go and run" [Buck]. Meaning "to go away" is recorded from mid-15c. Transitive meaning "to exercise a dog (or horse)" is from late 15c.; meaning "to escort (someone) in a walk" is from 1620s. Meaning "move (a heavy object) by turning and shoving it in a manner suggesting walking" is by 1890. To walk it off, of an injury, etc., is from 1741.

the first photograph in the plan

Five Goals for a Pedestrian System Plan

From Chat GPT

  1. Enhance safety for pedestrians.

  2. Improve pedestrian accessibility and connectivity throughout the community.

  3. Strive to be inclusive and accommodating to people of all ages, abilities, and mobility levels.

  4. Encourage walking as a means of transportation and recreation.

  5. Promote environmental sustainability.

From MNDOT’s Pedestrian System Plan

  1. Promote walking as a universal need

  2. Create healthy and equitable communities

  3. Create safer places to walk

  4. Create enjoyable places to walk

  5. Build internal capacity to advance walking

In Minnesota in 2023

there are 135,000 miles of streets and highways

1 mile of 1 lane of the state highway system costs $1 million to replace(a city street is more than $3 million)

there is 1 passenger rail line

there are 2 US Bikeways

less than 1% of federal and state dollars is spent on pedestrian infrastructure

Minnesota Go: one of the most impressive websites from the state of Minnesota

its giving ‘corporate’