It has been a while since I gave an update on how we're doing with our challenge to walk all the streets of New Rochelle. Despite my lack of reporting the walks have been continuing! Some of our more recent walks took us into neighborhoods between Beechmont Lake and the city border with Larchmont. Larchmont Woods is one of these and is notable for its big trees and lack of sidewalks. As an avid pedestrian my usual knee jerk response is to shriek about the absence of separated pedestrian space but after spending time ambulating through the streets of this neighborhood I find myself thinking that sidewalks would detract from the charm of some of the streets. The charm comes from the style of properties, the trees, and the older homes. In fact there appears to be a correlation between the age of the homes and whether there are sidewalks. This is an as yet untested hypothesis on my part but I plan to find out if there were common periods of city development when sidewalks were or were not included. Our observations were that neighborhoods that appear to be close to one hundred years old have no sidewalks, the 1930s to 1950s developments have sidewalks and then 1960s to 1980s don't. If anyone reading this has more information about whether this is a general pattern I'd love to hear about it. Meantime I'm off to talk to the City Historian, Barbara Davis at the New Rochelle public library to learn more and will report back.
So, in the meantime, back on the topic of the lack of sidewalks in some charming neighborhoods. My desire to not disturb the current layout does not mean that I condone the current situation. The first sign we found as we crossed the Larchmont border into New Rochelle on Barnard Road was......
So, in the meantime, back on the topic of the lack of sidewalks in some charming neighborhoods. My desire to not disturb the current layout does not mean that I condone the current situation. The first sign we found as we crossed the Larchmont border into New Rochelle on Barnard Road was......
And yes, for those of you outside the United States, that sign is 30 miles an hour not 30 kilometers. NOT a pedestrian friendly speed. Especially on relatively narrow roads with no sidewalks.
There are some clues that speed is of concern. Signs alerting drivers to watch for pedestrians.....
And a sudden brief appearance of sidewalks outside the school. Some of this looks recent and I expect it has limited functionality as the sidewalk ends less than a block from the school in either direction.
Walking east from the school
And heading west from the school
So, what to do? There are various forms of engineered traffic calming such as speed bumps and chicanes that focus on forcing traffic to slow down through constructed barriers. These can be impediments for emergency vehicles and would detract as much or more from the charm of the area than sidewalks. Instead of relying on engineering solutions I'd like to see the neighborhood declared a pedestrian priority zone. Different countries use different names: Home zones in the UK, Complete Streets in the US, Woonerven (plural of woonerf) in Holland. Regardless of name, these areas give right of way to pedestrians and cyclists and restrict the speeds of drivers of motorized transport. Under Article 44 of the Dutch traffic code for example, motorized traffic in a woonerf is restricted to walking pace. This may be more of a restriction than many US drivers would tolerate but a major slowdown would encourage more residents to do more of what we already saw in this area - people walking, cycling, skateboarding and standing on the street socializing with neighbors. There is no reason that I can see for setting traffic speeds in a quiet residential neighborhood at 30 miles an hour. Perhaps implementing complete streets here would encourage the owner of this skateboard to come back and give it another try....
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