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| Students exit the city bus, catty-corner from Washington High School |
A walking audit is a good way to assess walkability in a specific area. Walking enables anyone to see how easy or difficult it is to walk there, not only for yourself, but also for others who may not be as experienced or able-bodied. Daniel Herriges of Strong Towns argues: You see how your neighbors go about their needs, how they interact with each other, and where they face difficulties in negotiating the environment. And you can take it all in and reflect on it in a way that you can't possibly do from behind a windshield (Herriges 2019).
Edward Erfurt's recent Strong Towns article examines a recent project in his hometown of Charles Town, West Virginia (not to be confused with Charleston, West Virginia, which is not quite 300 miles away). Two new blocks of sidewalk connect downtown Charles Town with civic buildings like the police station. However, [a] the street was also widened, which encourages drivers to go faster; and [b] a key intersection is missing crosswalks. As a result the objective of safe walking remains elusive. Erfurt's piece concludes with some appropriate policy remedies.
Choosing places to do a walking audit can bias the results. It's easy to choose places where walking is nearly impossible (any of our town's stroads, streets near schools that have no sidewalks), or rather pleasant (between downtown buildings). And the biggest obstacle to walking in my town--perhaps yours, too--is the lack of destinations within a popularly accepted walking distance. However, you don't need an analytical microscope to see what's clearly unacceptable or successful infrastructure.
So let's try three walks that aren't quite as obvious:
(1) Geonetric Building to Lion Bridge Brewing Co. (0.5 mi). Geonetric is a health care marketing firm that relocated to New Bohemia in 2014, a key moment in that neighborhood's post-flood reconstruction. Its building also houses several other companies, the nonprofit NewBoCo, and the Vault Coworking space where I have written many of these posts. Lion Bridge started that same year, locating just across the Cedar River in Czech Village.
Lion Bridge is on 16th Avenue, which runs behind Geonetric's parking lot. It's not a particularly busy street, but it's a sort of bypass around New Bohemia's commercial district, and cars can move pretty quickly. It's best to get across as surreptitiously as you can.
Once across 16th, it's duck soup getting to Lion Bridge. You do have to walk past Tornado's, which people close to me rate as the best burger in town.
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| Tornado's Grub & Pub, 1600 3rd St SE |
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| The Bridge of Lions over the Cedar River |
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| Riv vu |
Cross the bridge, and now we're on the southwest side. A pillar marks the entrance to historic and charming Czech Village.
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| Entering Czech Village |
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| Lion Bridge Brewing, 59 16th Avenue SW |
An uncomplicated walk, as long as there's not too much competition for space on the bridge. Today--another cold one--there was none.
(2) My house to Washington High School (1.1 mi). Our six years as Washington parents ended in 2015, but we and it remain in the same places. There are sidewalks the whole way, mostly new or recently-repaired.
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| Some ice issues where the sidewalks cross alleys |
To get to the high school, you have to cross Forest Drive sooner or later, and it's best to do it sooner, because the sidewalk on the west side of the street ends before Linden Drive. Moreover, the intersection of Linden and Forest can get interesting, because eastbound and southbound traffic can't see each other. (One collision was narrowly averted this morning, in fact.) So it's best to be safely on the east side before you get to Linden.
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| Intersection of Forest and Linden is complicated for walkers (Google Earth screenshot) |
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| Cars on Forest backed up at Cottage Grove |
Could a roundabout ease this brief daily traffic jam? It's come up a couple of times, getting beaten back by vigorous neighborhood opposition. And how would a roundabout affect pedestrians' ability to cross one or both streets at school time?
Interestingly, I saw no one walking to school this morning... no one walking at all, in fact, except for one fellow and his dog. It was chilly, but...
(3) Somebody's house on 8th Street NW to Cultivate Hope Corner Store (0.6 mi). The Cultivate Hope Corner Store is a neighborhood grocery started by the Matthew 25 organization in 2022. The building housed a small grocery store a long time ago, and according to the 1953 Polk's City Directory was at that time the home of Shaheen Sundries; Cultivate Hope Corner Store is the third business in the building since the flood.
Most of the Near Northwest area west of Ellis Boulevard has been restored or rebuilt since the 2008 flood. I'm listening to Donald Shoup describe the wrecked state of Los Angeles sidewalks to John Simmerman, but here there are smooth new sidewalks all the way to the store...
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| Quiet street: 1300 block of 8th Street NW |
...including the latest crosswalk treatments...
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| Ellis Road NW intersection |
...unless someone does this. Why?
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| snow obstruction on 8th Street NW |
It was easy for me to step over this, but it would trouble anyone in a wheelchair or with a stroller. And if someone trips over it, who do they sue?
Properties east of Ellis was predominantly bought up and demolished after the flood; only now that flood walls are funded has redevelopment begun, including these row houses.
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| row houses near Neighborhood Corner Store on 8th St NW |
The intersections on Ellis at F and E Avenues have new roundabouts.
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| Ellis Road approaching roundabout at F Avenue NW |
This could be a challenge for pedestrians if traffic is heavy, or there's a lot of in-and-out at the Casey's, but on my mid-afternoon walk they were easy to navigate.
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| Former site of Shaheen Sundries: Neighborhood Corner Store, 604 Ellis Road NW |
Made it! Again, no one else was out walking that I could observe.
I tried during these audits to put myself in the (literal) shoes of pedestrians with characteristics other than mine. It would have been easier to do that had there been actual pedestrians to observe, but perhaps it was too cold. Really, though, chilly weather is no obstacle in a truly walkable city. The infrastructure is there, for the most part; now all we need are the walkable destinations.
NO MORE ROUNDABOUTS!!!!!
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