Today’s walk was dominated by the strip malls along Richmond Road at Man O’ War. Most of the time I find that walking slowly past a place allows a lot more detail to sink in than driving past quickly, but that was less true here. My biggest surprise was that the first of many painted horse statues that I will walk by during this project turned up in front of a Texas Roadhouse.

But today’s stroll did give me the opportunity to walk down nearby Rio Dosa and Locust Hill, past a retirement living complex and a pretty standard apartment complex.

I’ll probably say this about every single strip mall I walk past, but this again feels like an opportunity.  Some of the people who work in the strip mall live in the nearby apartments.  So do many of the people who shop at the grocery store.  Yet this area is treacherous to travel by foot.  Two things really stand out as contributors to this.  One is the traffic flow.  The service road concept works fine in small highway towns, but in areas with heavier traffic, drivers are forced to focus on too many things.  A certain volume of traffic making left turns onto streets like Locust Hill is unavoidable, but there are design features that can make this a little less dangerous for pedestrians as well.

Second is the lack of pedestrian features in general.  In this case (as in Hamburg) pedestrians are driven to walk through parking lots or narrow streets with landscaping.  The message is that, if you don’t drive, we don’t want you.  Sometimes this is not an obvious problem because of the type of businesses; indeed, this stretch has many car-oriented businesses.  But this is short-sighted, as better pedestrian features might encourage someone to seek out a coffee shop while they wait for their car repairs.

What works: mix of apartments, including retirement complex, close to shopping

What doesn’t: true pedestrian connectivity could use some work