BAKERSFIELD AND SIDEWALKS

If Bakersfield City Councilors and officials examined the utility of transportation corridors with some reality, we as Bakerfolks should see some changes taking place. As fast as possible!

We all know that future commute congestion will be taking us a longer time getting from place to place. This means there will be more cars on the road and more lanes being used more extensively.

In comparison have you all noticed anyone using the new beautifully landscaped suburban sidewalks? The occasional dog walker, jogger, skateboarder or person tending a broken down vehicle, is a rare sight indeed.

So here we have our engineering prescriptions for excessive street widths on either side of landscaped medians between 8’. 0” high block walls dressed up with landscaping. Mind you these miles and miles of landscaping do provide more shade than the recent unwilling rise to 30% shade cover for our commercial parking lots!

But lets ask why so few suburbanites are using these pedestrian amenities? Well it’s about time the City Engineer and the Councilman of the area to take a walk down Brimhall. It is along these long stretches of concrete that they will find the harsh reality of a hard uninteresting walk. Surely they will notice that there is nothing worth observing along the way.

What they as pedestrians will experience are but a few things. If they have any hearing they will acknowledge the rising and falling sound of motor vehicles approaching and passing. They will appreciate passing under trees and thank the Lord for a bit of shade from the shimmering heat rising on a hot summers day. They should notice the lack of cyclists traversing inside the white painted lines marked for bike lanes. They should appreciate the cities fine landscape maintenance and wonder about the costs arising from the spots of water spilling over the sidewalks with the aroma of tended plants well pruned bushes and cut grass on the medians.

Compare this above stark experience by walking your dog down say 20th street from the canal eastwards toward downtown in Westchester. Why there are scattered sidewalks of concrete. There are grand trees giving adequate shade, there are fine houses on either side, which are most interesting to view in passing. The gardens are wonderful in their variety and aroma. Why every now and again one can greet a fellow human being with a hello. One even becomes aware of being watched sometimes from behind a curtained window. There are the infrequent yet startling scuffles of a dog, which causes a rise in ones heartbeat at the start of it’s warning bark!

The old urban experience versus the new suburban experience gives cause for concern. The old still attaches the pleasantries of human contact. The new is devoid of human or animal contact.

It seems that our local transportation engineers are bound to covet only the passage of the single occupancy vehicle (SOV) operator. These engineers wish only to give these SOV drivers a fleeting chance of viewing their daily routes by excessively beautifying our major roadways. Should not the residential roadways be rather landscaped this way? Like 20th Street should not the provision of trees be provided alongside the internal roads? Should not the sidewalks rather provide residents access paths to a “Village Commercial Center?“ Should not these paths also allow for safe bikeway access to school parks and community centers?

The cost of doing this would change the land planning design of subdivisions somewhat. The cost for internal improvements compared to the almost mediaeval concrete block boundary walls and false “gated entries” to a “secure and private housing only subdivision” should be almost equivalent in cost. The quality of human contact and “living patterns” within these subdivisions should be improved by great margins. Why even interesting walks could be achieved for both young and old! A visit by misbelievers should be made to the City of Valencia that even provided footbridges across major roads to interconnect subdivisions. This was done in the early 1975!

What happens to the edges then of these major roads? The engineers should not think of downscaled freeway sound walls or landscaped medians. They should rather line the road edges with the precast concrete crash walls found in freeway medians. Maybe these could be covered with ivy to make them green! At least fleeting glances of housing behind these might provide a little more joy than bland concrete block walls.

BY Graham Kaye-Eddie – Master Urban Designer.

Makabusi Inc. – Bakersfield – California

Email – makabusi@pacbell.net

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