Today, 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.

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.

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.