By Dalia Diaz
In the January 8th edition (How Local Politicians Discriminate Against Minorities in Lawrence) and on December 1st (Traffic Woes in Lawrence), I wrote about transportation issues in the City of Lawrence. In keeping with the same aspect, this week I bring you other issues affecting pedestrians.
Pedestrians should have easy ways to move through plazas, parks, restricted-access delivery streets, and other places cars can’t go. Clear signage explaining how to navigate around a complex is important, especially for tourist-heavy areas. A need to provide clear, continuous pedestrian access is necessary. However, more necessary and it is a fact that Lawrence is not a pedestrian- or bike-friendly city. In the last few years (20 or so) we have stripped our streets of every function except the movement of vehicles, and as previously reported that remains a disaster.
The City of Lawrence was designed for walking, walking to schools, walking to the mills to work and walking to the neighborhood stores. When this city was founded it had a downtown (Essex St.) that was designed for walking from store to store. Due to the fact that foreigners came to work in the mills and did not have transportation they would use the sidewalk and alley ways to cut short their walk to work.
The City of Lawrence needs a walkability project. The city needs a bike path project as well. We need an overhaul of everything from friendly walkable and bike-able streets and sidewalks to an overhaul of streets signage, traffic lights, pedestrian’s ramps, and walk signals throughout the entire city. In many occasions I have waited so long for a “walk” signal that I jaywalked! In several occasions, I have seen traffic signal take so long that I have seen car operators precede through the red stop light.
I have researched many resources of many cities trying to make their city pedestrian friendly for its residents, but Lawrence is not one of those cities. Look, I understand that there are legal hurdles to good street designs (both pedestrians and vehicles). But we have to have a much better vision than the complacent “this is Lawrence” attitude. I want to go through a street I want to go versus a street I need to go through. Here are some examples and some reasons I believe some of these ideas should be implemented.
How to use the access to public transit. In any city of the nation, there is a simple bus stop with overhead cover and seating for riders to wait for scheduled bus(es) to arrive. Not Lawrence. If you want to get on a bus, you must either go the Buckley Bus Station or hail the bus as you would a taxi cab. Designing access for bus stops throughout the city would be beneficial to a pedestrian friendly program, but also have economic impact for those locations. We could envision that the increases in pedestrian traffic flow have a better possibility of creating or opening new businesses along these routes.
In this city a family of four would has four cars yet most Lawrence dwelling have two parking spaces. This abundance of vehicles have made a simple errand go from what it took us fifteen minutes now it takes one hour. Having a well-designed public transit system will alleviate these all day any hour traffic jams.
Better maintained sidewalks. Have you noticed the amount of sidewalks that protrude excessively upwards because of disrepairs or excessive tree stumps? Well, let me enlighten you on why we have all these roots coming out of the sidewalks. When those trees were planted they had to be watered and trimmed constantly so the roots were going down deep into the soil. They had to be trimmed for the first few years. DPW did not do this and that’s why now those trees have ruined the sidewalks. It is imperative to have better maintenance, of both trees and sidewalks, to create a friendly walkable city.
Students. We say so many positive things about protecting our children, advocating for our students, bending over backwards to say things just for the noise pollutions, but we never walk the walk and instead just talk about how important this and that is for Lawrence school students. The fact of the matter is that this city is dangerous for any child or student, of any age, to be walking on any city sidewalk and street. Think about this; in the past month the city has had two significant snow falls and even though we (including me) state how great the job has been of the DPW to clear streets, we never speak or discuss of the awful job that DPW, residents and home owners of clearing the sidewalks of the snow.
The lack and failure of clearing the sidewalks leave our students and children in dangerous predicament while walking to and from their schools and their homes. This city needs a “keep your sidewalk clean” education campaign. I can’t begin to tell you the sidewalks I see un-cleared this week. So many sidewalks that one has to walk on the gutter of streets just to avoid a dangerous slippage or making a difficult task of walking even more difficult. I know that the city has ordinances in place to deal with the sidewalk clearance of snow, but I have yet to know of any inspector of the inspectional services department give a fine to a homeowner for its violation. And homeowners should be ashamed to only clear enough snow from their front door to the edge of the street just for their convenience. These selfish homeowners should think about any person, but especially children, who have to trek through the frontage.
Crime. Yes crime significantly affects the walkability of our streets. There needs to be in place a better strategy for dealing with crime in areas that are more walkable for our residents and students than currently exist. However, crime is a story for another edition of Rumbo, but it’s a huge part of this strategy.
Bicycle Lanes. Non-existent in Lawrence. Many times bicyclist must compete with pedestrians for the sidewalk because of the inability to ride on the streets. If you don’t understand why, just read the previous two editions of Rumbo on traffic issues. In a future article I am going to research how many bicycle-car-people we have had in Lawrence. It would be interesting to know, of course I am assuming that we are keeping those statistics.
Illegal Parking. I wrote about the traffic issues in previous editions of Rumbo, so we won’t get too much into it in this edition except to say that the vehicle that park all the way up to the corner of an intersection is actually a liability to all. This law is considered or called the “corner clearance” and is intended to provide safety to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists with a clear field of vision when using intersections. However, in Lawrence that ordinance is not enforced. You’d think the city would enforce it with the amount of traffic officers the city has in place, but not!
Shrubbery. Just as “corner clearance” is an issue, so is the shrubbery in and around locations throughout Lawrence that impede the view of the pedestrian and vehicles. When was the last time that DPW trimmed those trees and shrubbery? I don’t recall seeing anybody from the city doing such important task not only for safety but also to beautify this city.
Lighting. There are some places that are made to walk in the City of Lawrence. But many of these places are not well lit. Actually, some of these places have available funds and are not even a blimp on the radar of the department or division (hint DPW and Water & Sewer). These parks, public gathering areas and places that are designed for walking and running need to be updated and maintained.
In closing, let me say that the City Council has given priority to the needs of motor vehicles. This has resulted in street environments that are unattractive for people on foot, whether travelling along the street, or using the street as a destination for economic or social activities. Additionally, the Office of Planning & Development, along with current and future mayors must address pedestrian access on all ongoing or future projects. The Mayor’s Health Task Force should be interested to know that walking is healthy!
We, the residents and students of the City of Lawrence, are demanding (as Urban Planner Jeff Speck www.jeffspeck.com would say) a safer, useful, comfortable, and interesting walk. Let’s make it so, because after all the Neighborhood Planner is useless and the Planning Director is busy running four different departments to do a strategic plan, monitor and implement.
