There's a crosswalk at the corner of Saginaw and 5th that I walk past regularly. Standard painted lines, pedestrian signal, the whole system telling you: cross here, this is the safe path.
The problem is what's on the other side. You step off the crosswalk onto a curb that meets about eight feet of sidewalk, which then ends abruptly at a chain link fence in front of an empty lot. No path forward. No path to the left or right. The crosswalk deposits you at a dead end.
How this happens
It's not malice. It's sequence. The crosswalk was painted when the sidewalk connected to something. The building that used to be there was demolished. The sidewalk was partially removed. But nobody went back to unpaint the crosswalk or remove the pedestrian signal. The infrastructure now makes a promise the built environment can't keep.
I see this pattern everywhere. Remnant infrastructure from a previous version of the city that nobody has updated. Bus stops in front of boarded buildings. Parking meters on blocks with no businesses. Fire hydrants surrounded by lots that have been empty for a decade.
What it communicates
Every piece of remnant infrastructure tells a story about priorities. Painting a crosswalk is a one-time cost. Maintaining the coherence of a pedestrian network is an ongoing commitment. When the one-time investments stay but the ongoing commitment lapses, the result is a city that feels like it's lying to you. The signals say "we planned for you" but the reality says "we stopped planning a long time ago."