This walk in the Easthills neighborhood featured a tremendous amount of tension. There was quiet drama. I don’t know if it was impending storm clouds, the grass brown and dormant already in mid-June, the number of people out despite the heat. But it was unique, memorable, enjoyable even. There was just so much atmosphere… It was dogs barking, planes flying overhead, a truck with a loud exhaust pipe. It was the smell of juniper and spruce trees. These things are everywhere, but there was something about how they came together here that was special.
Another visit to one of the areas along Kenesaw Road, featuring large houses, limited setbacks, tall trees and a nearby park. All of these things contribute to a rich feel. This neighborhood uses decorative lampposts as a distinguishing element but they are overwhelmed by the design of the streets themselves.
Today, I revisited the Cove Lake neighborhood near Man O’ War and Richmond. I previously visited this area on Day 42 and Day 72, but this portion was a little more homogenous than the portions I passed through on those days, with mid-1970s single family housing throughout. The key feature of this area is the hilly terrain. There are views of the St. Joseph East Campus on the other side of Richmond from the tops of the hills. Retaining walls of various sizes are in many yards.
All in all, this was a chilly day and a quiet neighborhood and there isn’t too much to add. I do like to comment on features that I like, and one house had a nice hedge around it’s yard, a nice break from the open yards that dominate. Hedges and fences seem like they would tend to isolate houses, but when they are low enough to see over they almost feel like they have the opposite affect by connecting the entrance of a home to the sidewalk. A neighborhood with picket fences or hedges, when well implemented, feels social and welcoming rather than isolated and suspicious.
Today, I returned to the Century Hills neighborhood, which I’ve already seen a couple of times, on Days 6 and 58. (Such is my luck with random path selection). This section did offer a couple of things I hadn’t seen before.
There is a different and more limited selection of house models, most of which have side gables and side entrances. There aren’t a lot of garages, so houses have driveways that lead up to the front windows. The lack of front doors coupled with long blank roofs facing the street is unique experience visually.
I also had passed the neighborhood shopping center which was bustling. There is a recently constructed outbuilding in the shopping center. Though it’s vacant, when I passed there were people in the building. Perhaps it won’t be vacant long. This portion of Buckhorn feels like a hub, with lots of activity including several people on foot despite temperatures in the mid 20s. Buckhorn is also served by a bus line and the Squires Road Trail. It passes by Berry Hill Park; though I didn’t walk past the park today, I could see construction just underway for a new skate park there.
The combination of public space (specifically the park) and retail seems to work together to generate investment and pedestrian trips that one imagines should strengthen the neighborhood. But while it’s evident here, it’s impact seems to be fairly limited–in fact, I’ve already noted how the sidewalks seem to be taken for granted in one of the nearby portions of the neighborhood. In light of my recent readings on the impacts of street grids, I’m inclined to think street layout has something to do with this.
Today’s walk was through the Squires Acres and Squires Woods neighborhoods behind Richmond Road near Eagle Creek. The Richmond Road stretch of this circuit is commercial, consisting of strip malls with huge setbacks and a car dealership. The residential area behind Richmond is mostly multi-family; apartments on the north end, attached homes and townhomes near Squires on the south end of the area I walked through.
There were two things I liked today. I liked the narrow setbacks of the older attached houses (dating from the mid-1980’s) just north of Squires on Cove Lake. These made for a very comfortable pedestrian scale for that section of road. I also like the townhomes of Squires Woods, which, in contrast to Hamburg Farms, present sufficient space for self expression even while providing what appears to be a similar amount of parking. The planner Oscar Newman thinks that this semi-private space is a crucial aspect of defining boundaries and establishing a sense of ownership of the place, and though it doesn’t compare to Hamburg Farms in newness, this complex does feel a little more comfortable. And pity any stranger walking through here–the neighborhood watch grilled me pretty thoroughly and I’m not sure I ever convinced them I was on the level.
Sidewalk crossing Squires behind the stop line
The stretch of Richmond road that I traversed reinforces a common issue I encounter. Streets within neighborhoods are well connected, but from a pedestrian standpoint, the arterial roads are unbelievably bad. In this location, the car-oriented design is especially shameful because the homes here could have excellent access to the retail along Richmond Road up to Man O’ War and beyond, as well as Jacobson Park to the south. Instead, Richmond is a mess, with cars traveling faster than they need to, no sidewalk, and not even a curb to offer some sense of protection. At the intersection of Richmond and Squires, the sidewalk crosses a full ten feet behind the painted stop line, so someone walking here could encounter a situation where the path across the street is blocked by traffic. And, since this is a turn lane, the pedestrian may not be able to predict when the first car will turn and the line will move up. Walking along this stretch required extra attention, as there were plenty of opportunities to intersect the paths of cars whose drivers may or may not have anticipated someone walking.
I don’t really intend to use this as a soapbox, but it should be evident that I’m passionate about walking. Walking is something that most of us can do, and we have design elements available to make sidewalks accessible to people with disabilities. Driving to the store or the park may not be a big deal to most of us. But to fail to provide a basic level of on-foot accessibility is to discriminate against the old, the young, and people with disabilities. There are plenty of similar stretches of road; perhaps someday most or all of the arterials in Lexington will be multimodal. But in terms of bang for the buck, in the sense that residential density and destinations exist to support it, this stretch of Richmond seems like an excellent candidate to improve sooner rather than later.
