Kitatama Elementary School

Kitatama ES
Neighborhood school across the street and up the hill. Looks like a school, not a factory. Gardens on the school grounds, different than the US model (big parking lot and few windows)
brooms
Notable degree of cleanliness prevails. Possibly that training starts early? A commonly held societal value?
residential streets
The hillside neighborhood is an oasis of quiet. The neighborhood streets are typically 12-14′ wide. “Fire codes” wouldn’t allow this street typology in the US.
Walking to school starts early.
The practice of walking to school is nearly universal and starts early.
Car use around the school is restrict. The community assures that children walk, and that while walking they are safe.
Car use around the school is restricted. The community assures that children walk, and that while walking they are safe.

East River

Robert Kennedy Bridge
Road to hell. I made room for this Canadian. Then waited 20 minutes to cross the East River. Transportation workers appeared, disappeared, reappeared. Waited. Inquired when it was finally my turn at the window, “Whats up with that?” Response, Canadians… They never bring their money.

Moses, Goldschmid and Brown

interstate 405 and 5
I had heard a shortened story of Portland’s 1970’s freeway kill-off. The beginning of Portland exceptionalism. Saying No to the FHWA.
And so rarely leaving the Chesapeake Bay watershed I imagined a city comprised of narrow tree-lined streets, generous bike and pedestrian provisions, 264 foot city blocks lining the Williamette River.
Yes, well not exactly.
So they did say no, and they did leverage a bunch of public transit money and it is amazing. But it is not the idyll of my imagination.

Interstates
In 1974 Portland killed the Mount Hood Freeway, in 1979 the I-505 connector was taken off the table. But, in contrast to my imagined Portland, interstates were built.

Slow way home

schoolchildren in Okinawa
saw a movie yesterday written by UVA professor Leonard Shoppa,

poster
  In Japan, 98 percent of children walk to school every day, unaccompanied by a parent.  In the United States, just 13 percent of children walk or bike to school, and most are driven to school by a parent.

smart cae
The Slow Way Home explores this divergence, examining how American families have largely given up on keeping our streets and public spaces safe enough for children, while Japanese communities have mobilized to keep their streets safe and walkable, not only for children but for everyone in society.