Motorchair riders have to take their lumps on local sidewalks.
The motorized wheelchairs so many people now use are considered a pedestrian tool. Like any walker, they can go on the main roadway or on the sidewalk.
But many who contacted The Citizen on this issue prefer to take their chances with speeding cars.
"Riding on the sidewalk makes my head hurt," said Thomas "Bert" Baker. "Jolt, jolt, jolt, every line you hit. They have a lot of cracks and bumps in them, some of them. In some spots the cracks are that wide [indicating four to six inches]."
His double hip replacement and chronic arthritis make each paving stone line and sidewalk pothole a misery.
Ruth Blank also gets around almost exclusively on a motorchair. She gave Prince George sidewalks the same diagnosis: pain.
"I have had back surgery and to ride on the sidewalk, hitting those cracks and frost lines, just kills me. It feels like someone pounding nails into my back every time you hit a line," she said.
Baker had no trouble recalling the good spots and the bad.
He cringes at the thought of bumping along Queensway between Patricia Boulevard and Fifth Avenue, and Massey Boulevard between the Family Y and Princess Auto.
On the other hand, he enjoys rolling along Westwood Drive alongside the golf course, between Pine Centre Mall and Ferry Avenue. The path is packed gravel and grass, but there is another hazard. Utility poles block the way so completely that he has to sometimes get off his chair and lug the motorchair off the curb, into traffic, and back up onto the curb again before he can continue.
He challenged police and municipal officials to come take his chair for a spin and see how they make out getting around the city - and his machine has bigger, more maneuverable wheels than a lot of similar machines.
CITY ROLLED OVER ON SIDEWALKS THIS YEAR
Municipal workers typically spend $200,000 to $250,000 a year, in recent years, to fix sidewalk problems. This year there is none.
"There was no sidewalk budget approved for this current year. That is not normal," said Mick Jones, supervisor of Technical Services for the City of Prince George.
He did not know why the item was frozen in this year's budget process.
The city has a pedestrian network document that guides their repair and installation work, he said, as well as the online suggestion forms people can fill out when a trouble spot is found.
"If we get the money, great, we have lots of sidewalks in the queue," he said. "We want to get as many curb drops installed as we can, so the motor scooters can go where it is most appropriate."
Any new sidewalks, either built by the city or private developers, must include the motorchair ramps (also a help for those who use walkers, canes, or pushing baby strollers) at intersections.
Old sidewalks often have no such slope, so those are gradually being installed.
Also, new sidewalks must be 1.8 metres wide but many older sidewalks are narrower than that and often cannot be widened, said Jones.
"A lot of the roads were not constructed with those considerations in mind," he said. That is why cyclists are not allowed to go on Fifth Avenue from Central Street to downtown because it was built to narrowly for that use. We have a lot more of those motor scooter wheelchairs now, and we have a lot more bicycles now, so that is something we have to consider now more than ever."
