Tag Archives: Alexandria

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Day 81-Postwar Walkability in Action

Two unusual buildings in the commercial area near Village and Versailles
Two unusual buildings in the commercial area near Village and Versailles

Today’s walk was in the Holiday Hills area, north of Versailles Road and Alexandria.  This area has a mix of retail space along Alexandria and Village near Versailles, apartments, duplexes and single family homes.  It appears to generally have been built out in the 1960s.

Supermarket on Alexandria
Supermarket on Alexandria

I was really impressed by how well this area seems to work.  I passed retail, multi- and single-family housing, a park, bus stops, and even a library.  All of these were being used. The sidewalks were not lacking for people  I think about and talk about walkable access to things like parks, transit, and libraries, but sometimes imaging what it might feel like in practice in an average neighborhood is difficult; defining what how it should word, elusive.  To see it at work in an established neighborhood was thrilling.

A few thoughts on what worked especially well and why:  First, the retail was very focused on the needs of a Latino and Spanish-speaking customer base.  Where most establishments of niche markets have to serve a geographically diverse customer base, these stores seem to have a pretty concentrated customer base.  Second, the retail is ringed by high-density housing, with lower density housing beyond that.  Plentiful nearby high-density housing seems to provide a critical mass of people who are willing to walk to nearby stores, parks, and transit, and this “activates” the sidewalk.  Drivers are cognizant of pedestrians–they expect people to be crossing streets on foot.   So, enough people are walking that walking is actually safer.  Walking seems so natural here. I caught someone leaving there house to walk to some destination as casually as I might walk to another room.  Infrastructure, attitudes, customer base and destinations reinforce each other to make the whole thing work efficiently.

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Day 70-Gestalt

day 70Today, I visited the Garden Springs neighborhood, along Alexandria near Harrodsburg Road, a 1960’s neighborhood with simple ranch styles.

In the first few weeks I spent walking, it was easy to make imperfect comparisons between the unfamiliar neighborhoods I was walking through and neighborhoods I am more familiar with, generally in other cities.  Over time, I’ve became less compelled to do this.  This stretch of Alexandria, though, reminded me so much of the street we lived on before we moved to Lexington that it’s impossible to not make comparisons.  Both streets are wide, 40 feet give or take a foot or so.  Both are fast for residential streets (Alexandria’s 35 mile per hour speed limit, like most of Lexington’s speed limits, is probably about 5 mph faster than a comparable street in the Denver area), and both probably carry similar traffic loads.  The sidewalks on Alexandria are far nicer; the inclusion of a planting strip makes it much nicer to walk down.

Alexandria near Garden Springs.
Alexandria near Garden Springs.

But Alexandria feels wider despite the fact it is almost exactly the same width.  The perception that this street is wider makes it more of a barrier. (I felt comfortable strolling across the street to talk to a neighbor, which seems less likely here.)  I don’t know what exactly makes my old street feel less like a barrier than Alexandria; a recently added bike lane may have helped.  It may be that the height of houses relative to their distance from each other across the street contributes as well, as houses in my old neighborhood are slightly taller, and somewhat closer, 100-110 feet apart across the street versus 130 feet here.

Sidewalks cross at intersections, providing separate crossings for each travel direction.
Sidewalks cross at intersections, providing separate crossings for each travel direction.

And of course, the sidewalks on opposite sides are further apart because of the planting strip. These seem like small differences, but the perceptual difference is very clear.