Turnersville-Hicktown Road, Gloucester Township, New Jersey

This the only undeveloped corner of this T intersection. I guess they're hoping for the best.

Notice how the curb cut is right at the traffic signal in the bottom photo.

Near Camden County College, Blackwood, NJ

There's a public park nearby, with lots of walking trails, but nowhere to walk at this intersection.

Way down, past that gray car, looks to be some sidewalk.

It's 2009; do you know where your ratables are?

Here are some photos of the previously mentioned nearly empty shopping center in Berlin, New Jersey.

Just in case you might think this is some unusual time ... these were taken about 1 p.m. on a Friday.

Superfund site: GEMS Landfill, Gloucester Township, Camden County, NJ

I'm sure that it won't be long till pedestrians and others stroll by one of the worst toxic sites in America.

I didn't bother with a photo of the landfill itself; actually it just looks like a large grass hill (small mountain). And I think it has the distinction of being one of the highest points in South Jersey.

Cross Keys Road, where Berlin, NJ, meets Pine Hill

You can escape from nowhere about a quarter-mile ahead, where there is some housing. I've never been in there; I think they're townhouses.

Why make an issue of curb cuts to nowhere?

I live in two worlds.
One is literally where my partner and I live; we are surrounded by woods and wild animals, with neighbors not too close. Officially, we're residents of one of the largest nature preserves in the eastern United States, the New Jersey Pine Barrens. We don't live in the heart of the Pinelands, the dark-green parts on the maps, where the land and wildlife are truly protected. We live on the fringe - on maps, it's the lighter-green or yellow areas; in reality, it's the part of the area where development is allowed.
In this world where I live, there are no curb cuts to nowhere, because there are no curbs, only an unsidewalked road and places where we've made our driveways. We slow down for the guineafowl that roam the area - left behind by a family forced to foreclose on their home next to the railroad tracks - and the deer that cross at night without looking both ways (looking both ways? that's on us). In this world, we have a modest vegetable garden, flowers and shrubs all around, lots of birds, and frogs that came from nowhere to live in our pond. I promised my new friend from China a visit to the Pinelands before she leaves for home at the end of the year; I wouldn't be lying to her if she made it no farther than here.
The other world I live in is filled with traffic, houses, stores (both open for business and, increasingly, shuttered) and people. Indeed, by some measures, my state has more of these per square mile than anywhere else in the country. Research shows that New Jersey will, at its current pace, will be the first state in the nation to reach build-out stage - the point at which we will have no more room to build anything. (Don't quote me on this, but I think it's not long after America runs out of money for Social Security.)
It's not pretty.
It's not pretty, also, to imagine a state even more congested than it is. And what we're living with now is not pretty. As mentioned on a previous post, a once-vibrant shopping center in town is now reduced to a Kmart, dollar store, Chinese restaurant and dry cleaner. The rest is an empty hulk; if James Howard Kunstler went in a different direction, his "Eyesore of the Month" could easily include this gray, barren mass. I thought of including a photo here, but you all have them in or near your towns, so, what's the point.
For most of my life, I didn't pay much attention to this second world, even though I'm in it every day, driving to the grocery, or to work, or to school. But school is where I regained an awareness of this world. When I was a senior at Glassboro State College, early in the Carter administration, I needed one class to give me 12 credits for my final semester. Urban geography fit my schedule and seemed like a good idea, because I was going to be a journalist and expected to cover my fair share of zoning and planning meetings. It turned out to be one of my best classes ever; in four years at college, I went nowhere in my journalism classes, and in one semester of urban geography, we went to New York, and the planned communities of Columbia, Md., and Reston, Va. Had I taken the class as an undergrad, I'd have given serious consideration to changing my major. As it turns out, the class was life-changing, though 30-plus years later. Now, that professor is my adviser, as I study Geographic Information Science at Rowan University and work toward certification in GIS to diversify my portfolio of skills - and perhaps change careers.
And now, I've gained a new understanding of how we got this way - how New Jersey, the most densely populated state in America, has taken the early lead in the Build-Out Stakes.
Why make an issue of curb cuts to nowhere? Because they are one ubiquitous example of how good intentions in planning have gone bad. Yes, curb cuts are a good idea; they became a good idea when they linked driveways to the street - even in the "loop-and-lollipop" suburban neighborhoods where there weren't even any sidewalks. On sidewalks and at intersections, they help people in wheelchairs get around town.
But look around: Every time they widen an intersection, even where the only people around are in big metal machines who would never be caught dead walking in this neighborhood, they throw in curb cuts - anticipating the ultimate arrival of walking people. They must do it because it's cheaper to do it now than redo it when the walking people arrive. They also do it because it's the law. Because the law makes it easier to chew up virgin land and put in new development - and curb cuts to nowhere - than rethink the way we build places and redevelop shuttered businesses and homes.
There are plenty of places for you to go to read the history of zoning and planning; I don't need to get into any long tales here. The short lesson I've learned since I've been back in school is that zoning came first, and since then, the planners have tried in vain to catch up. It's hard to plan for anything when the law already tells you how the plan will go.
The law paid no mind to the fact that building things farther and farther from one another meant that cars would be the only viable means of transportation in the suburbs - and that streets and intersections would have to be widened, curb cuts included. And the law didn't account for the economic crisis, or peak oil, or any of the other woes that have some people predicting that the suburbs will become the next slums, as more people move back to urban centers and smart planners finally figure out how to fix up our cities and the decaying older, inner-ring suburbs, where curb cuts actually are needed.
No, the law allowed (cliche alert) the cart to be put before the horse, and, now, that horse is out of the barn. And the law allowed the proliferation of curb cuts to nowhere. And since the suburbs are going nowhere fast, perhaps the only ones using those curb cuts someday will be deer roamly freely through the landscape, knowing that they can cross at the intersection safely without having to look both ways.

West Berlin (Berlin Township), Camden County, NJ

I took this standing at the edge of a shopping center with a Home Depot, Shop-Rite, Staples, Rite Aid, Radio Shack and assorted other strip-mall merchants. Unlike another local shopping center, this one is actually full. But there's every indication that this curb cut is going nowhere fast. (Yes; technically speaking, it's not officially a curb cut, since there's no actual curb, but the pedestrian crosswalk indicates they'd like to put one in.) A little to the left of where this was taken is a man-made pond, created when they did this roadwork and also eliminated the Berlin Circle.

Thanks to Val Dodge, and Dodgeville (Canada)

I think this guy's from Toronto, and he's got the right spirit, pointing out some curb cuts to nowhere (CCTN) in his neck of the woods.

Here's one of his pictures:

Washington Township, Gloucester County, NJ

Here's our first entry ... As a friend noted, it's a pedestrian refuge on the hike to the water tower in the distance.

And, suffice it to say, there's a matching cutout on the other side.