THE day after it stopped snowing in New York City last weekend, I took my daughter sledding in Prospect Park. Despite the near record blizzard, things were, remarkably, back to normal in my part of Brooklyn — thanks to stalwart efforts by city employees. The streets were plowed and salted to glistening blackness. The subway arrived seconds after we did. On Prospect Park’s circular drive, cyclists serenely spun past.

There was only one flaw in this picture-postcard image of spirited urban resilience: the sidewalks. The walk to the subway was the most difficult part of our journey. There were the stretches that had not been shoveled (in front of houses under renovation, the perimeter of my neighborhood park) or barely shoveled, forcing walkers into an elaborately pantomimed dance of turn-taking on narrow passageways.

Where things got really bad, however, were intersections. Crossing the street meant plunging into slippery, thigh-deep masses of snow piled up by passing plows. Where a few hardy souls had first traversed, there were now single-file crevasses, filled with a melting, exhaust-tinged mire. As my 6-year-old struggled to navigate this urban Tough Mudder course, other pedestrians stacked up behind us, anxiously trying to get out of the street before the light changed and traffic began to rush through again.



Crossing the street — even with the walk signal — is one of the most statistically hazardous things a New Yorker can do. Asking people to run an icy gantlet compounds this. I can only imagine how much more taxing this is for parents pushing strollers, people in wheelchairs or using walkers, or older pedestrians already struggling with making the light. A curb cut is of little use when covered by a barricade of snow.