How are they for a grandparents pushing a stroller?
Would you say they encourage a vibrant street culture of cafes and shops?
The ones I've seen, especially in Berlin and İzmir, are loud and a hassle to cross. That's because walkways and bikeways over multi-lane roads are car infrastructure. They are there to prioritize high-speed automobile traffic with few interruptions. I'm happy for the one going up at my gym, but I know it's there to ensure bike/ped political forces can't endanger the trunk road underneath. True pedestrian infrastructure there would involve a major speed and size downgrade to the road, which is unacceptable, thus the political defensive move to pay out the nose for something car advocates would never normally fund.
Elevated/buried pedestrian walkways make walking harder for a lot of people. A wheelchair-accessible ramp that goes up 12 feet is going to add at least 100 feet more distance up and down - and still be painful for a lot of people with otherwise manageable foot/joint issues.
Pushing a stroller for the last few years, plus spraining my ankle a few weeks ago has given me a little taste of what trying to use sidewalks is like for people with even tighter mobility constraints, and this in an area that is relatively accessible without a car.
By walking back down the ramp from it to the regular sidewalk. I just meant I want to add elevated walkways to cross streets with, not for them to replace sidewalks entirely.
I assume you mean for crossing busy roads and highways, not city streets? Certainly there are places for that, like Chicago's Lake Shore Drive. They're expensive and take a lot of space themselves, though, especially to meet accessibility requirements, and they can add considerable distance to the pedestrian's route.
