Then I noticed a wonderful detail. A second smaller sidewalk was placed on the outboard side of the tree lawn, right next to the on-street parking spaces. (5th Avenue South, the main street being served by the parallel parking, can be seen in the background of the photo):
This second sidewalk, or "curbside parking footway", makes it possible to get out of the passenger side of a parallel-parked car without stepping right into the damp grass of the tree lawn. The curbside parking footway also makes it easy to stand while setting up a stroller, or loading parcels into the car. These functions are very useful if the on-street parking on the side street in question is serving the adjacent main street and is therefore likely to see a high rate of turnover and foot traffic. (A curbside parking footway is not usually neccesary on typical quiet neighborhood streets further away from the main street.)
The dimensions of the curbside parking footway are important. It should be wide enough to fulfill its function, while not so wide that it appears to be the primary sidewalk. This curbside parking footway example in Naples is three feet wide. The tree lawn is twelve feet wide and the main sidewalk is five and a half feet wide:
Naples also employs curbside parking footways in places along the 5th Avenue South main street itself. These are located where substantial planting occurs. The curbside parking footway along the main street is cross-connected to the street's wide primary sidewalk quite frequently:
