My Journey Continued
Travelers
Todays post is sort of a follow-up to yesterday’s, but actually a little more about the arithmetic of mileage (which puts me at risk of mansplaining…my apology in advance). When inquiring about the Georgia Department of Transportation’s (GDOT) total mileage of record for the city of Hahira, I was told there were only 26 miles of street within the city limits. I replied I would’ve of thought it a tad higher since I’d actually walked 71 miles when covering that town (nearly triple the official aggregate, or 2.7x more). The exercise provided a loosely reliable multiplier for estimating the aggregate mileage of Valdosta and the likely time required to walk all of it. Just how is walking more miles than there are actual roads possible? It’s because in order to walk “every foot, of every street” it requires a whole lotta backtracking. When encountering connecting streets, cul-de-sacs, dead ends, etc. there’s no way (try as I may) to avoiding re-walking what I just walked moments earlier. Additionally, if a subdivision overlaps the city limits or lies entirely just outside, I tend to label it as “close enuff” and go get it. Then, at the end of the walk, I’ve got to get back to the car and the only way there is for Jerome & Eddie (my left foot and my right) to carry me there. GDOT indicates there are about 290 miles of road in Valdosta. I say “about” because some of the roads depicted on the Regional Commission’s Valor GIS maps either no longer exist or are actually private driveways. Also, there are new subdivisions that have not been uploaded into the system yet. So, to describe GDOT’s published road mileage of record I’ll borrow a phrase from Captain Jack Sparrow’s nemesis, pirate Hector Barbosa, in Pirates of the Caribbean…”They’re more like loose guidelines”. Using that highly sophisticated mathematical formula, I’d calculate Valdosta to present about a 783 mile trek. And now, “Let us go and see for ourselves” Jacques Cousteau.
Lets go for a walk.