Save our sidwalks

Has anyone else noticed the safety orange paint marks on the sidewalks, roads, and trails of Oakville? These are not marks placed to identify gas lines or other significant underground hazards. These arrows (and sometimes instructions!) have been sprayed by an unidentified group or groups to mark training routes for their runners and walkers.

For at least a year now I've been grumbling to fellow walkers about this defacement of our walking landscape. Today I make my grumbling official.

I do not know what group or groups is doing this spray painting, but I wonder at the astonishing sense of entitlement that would allow anyone to feel they have the right to leave these marks in public space.

The marks appear to be made with landscape paint which should, theoretically, wash away. Late last summer several bright orange arrows appeared on some corners near my home. They were finally scraped away after a winter of heavy snowfall and snowplough action. A few weeks ago bright new arrows appeared and at least a dozen heavy thundershowers have not washed them away. Last Sunday I walked over these graffiti marks (see pics) on the sidewalk on Lakeshore Road near Appleby College.

Every one of us, who like to get outside for our exercise, should be offended. We have a responsibility to our environment and to our neighbours to leave our community attractive and pleasant for anyone who cares to enjoy it. If every walking and running group took the liberty of drawing their routes on our roads, trails, and sidewalks, the place would be a mess.

What about posting a map on a website before a walk? What about installing and removing, within the few hours of a training run, small landscape flags that can be removed by a designated person?

Leave nothing but footprints, I say.