Walking without crossing a road

[kake]

How far can you walk from Trafalgar Square without crossing a road?

A couple of years ago, as a test of the walkability of London, I set out from Trafalgar Square — the official centre of the town — one Sunday morning to see how far I could get without crossing a road or going over the same place twice. It was almost 17 miles before I ended up going round in a circle.

The author also says: I know of no other capital city where it is possible to do this. That sounds like a challenge to me! flaneurs, do you think this would work in your city?

Comments

[spiralsheep]

The only local city centre I currently know well enough to guess is Worcester and I suspect I might end up in a spirograph pattern of loops, P-shapes and b-shapes. Probably more fun than a grid-built city though.

My personal December challenge was night-walking cos I only had time at night and the mild winter temperatures were the same at midnight as they were at midday (possibly still true but 5-10degrees colder, heh). I should post a night walk report but I'm too lazy to upload the accompanying photos.

[spiralsheep]

Although, having tardily read the linked article, I could cheat and trace a route back to somewhere in the city centre from the river Severn which has riverbank walks all the way out of the city.

[kake]

That would be one way to do it!

I have pondered at some point doing a holiday where I follow the Thames. I think I even have a guidebook somewhere that gives hints on doing so.

Worcester (from the TI walking map)

[spiralsheep]

General info for anyone who wanted to attempt this in Worcester (because I enjoyed the map-reading exercise).

Starting in the pedestrianised part of the city centre appears to be a quick bust. Beginning at the historic/symbolic "centre" of the Glover's Needle (@ geograph), the ex-spire of the demolished St Andrew's Church*, allows one to walk out of Worcester along the River Severn. One could also walk a loop using footpaths on each side of the Severn in turn (clockwise or anti-clockwise) and crossing at the Diglis footbridge; or a hypothetical larger loop along the main A-roads (A44, A449, A4440, A38) with minor diversions west from the A38 through housing, a loop through ex-industrial canalside Diglis, and lastly a small loop in the vicinity of King's School and the Cathedral, although I'm not sure the A-roads have pavement/footpath all the way and I don't fancy walking them anyway.

Attempts to divert along the Worcester and Birmingham Canal would, iirc be turned around near the city centre at either Tallow Hill (I know the towpath crosses the canal here but I can't remember how it crosses the road) or at Lowesmoor where iirc the separate towpath disappears (@ geograph) (current end of towpath at Lowesmoor @ geograph) and shares a route with a very minor road that has no pavement for a short distance. It might be possible to break the Lowesmoor loop but I don't remember and the map isn't detailed enough to help without actually walking it.

* One could follow much the same route from the Cathedral but afaik most locals don't think of it as central (either materially or spiritually, heh). Of course, this is the same population who still occasionally refer to St John's as "the Welsh side" so....

Re: Worcester (from the TI walking map)

[spiralsheep]

It appears my memory was correct and there's no pavement/towpath at Lowesmoor but LO_OK at the SPANDREL on that VIADUCT... PHWOAR!!1!! (@ geograph) ;-)

[kabal42]

I doubt one could get as far in Copenhagen. But a good while, if you started at the right place and went for the right routes. There's a 'green path' diagonally through the city. It does cross roads at a few places, but if you got on and off at the right spots, that would help. And there's a lot of stretch by the canals and harbour that's all walking area, so there's that… hm…

[kake]

I love the sound of the green path! It's surprisingly hard to search for (people seem to love using "green path" as a metaphor). I also tried to find it on Google Maps but wasn't sure what I was looking for. Have you got a handy link?

[kabal42]

The routes are envisioned as part of the bicycling strategy, so they might be listed as bike paths. Sadly I couldn't find anything in English, but here's a link in Danish you can feed into google translate or something - and there's a tiny bit on wikipedia.

[shuripentu]

If making use of the PATH network was allowed, then Toronto could probably do reasonably well (given its small size), but it's not quite a capital city.

[kake]

Heh, PATH sounds terrifying to me. I get lost in the Whitgift Centre!

[vampwillow]

I don't understand how "without crossing a road" works in that case, Do you mean tunnels and bridges are ok, even though they cross the road in the literal sense?

[kake]

Yes, underpasses and bridges are fine.

[tree]

in sydney you definitely wouldn't get very far, even if you did use the underground tunnels to the train stations. you'd have better luck if you started from, say, the opera house, because you could walk along the quay and through the rocks.