Tiptoe in on 18 wheels
The City has put up signage but it is of the advisory type. Doesn’t speak to the wallet. Steve contradicts the GPS, free
pedestrian advice to errant drivers.
This truck was starting to turn turtle. Its drive wheels were no longer in contact with the pavement. Teetering between
two historic properties, the Pireus store (ca 1847) and the Woolen Mills Chapel (ca 1886).
In the future possibly the City will consider one of these signs, here protecting the John Warner Parkway.
Discipline vehicles. Context sensitive. Note to City regarding context: the Woolen Mills is a city treasure,
not a high speed industrial corridor. People old and young, walking, biking and driving.
Those with the most power, in the neighborhood context, should yield to those with the least.
Category: traffic
Main Street Indeed
Monday January 13 UVA School of Architecture students and faculty walk where angels fear to tread,
a five mile trek north from the Ivy Road “Seminole Trail” intersection to the Rivanna River.
The pedestrian infrastructure along Route 29 is 99.9% installed.
Where then are the pedestrians?
During the two hour walk the folk from UVA encountered a handful of indigenous bipeds.
The majority were runners wrapped in spandex, plugged into hydration equipment.
Several were seated at CAT bus-stops, visual and aural hooked to cell phones and iPods.
The event was covered by the Daily Progress and Channel 29, from automobiles.
The throng makes its way north at 2.5 mph. While US 29 might appear visually interesting at 45 mph, at walking speed its lack of amenities is notable, there is nothing to see or do other than preserve one’s physical safety.
The strip is a visual wasteland.
One constant along the way were the looks of disbelief that the group of pedestrians received from the rubber tire populace.
Even the newest development along “Main Street” offers slight comfort to bipeds.
This store featured an inviting, human scale facade.
Sunday, January 19, students will present their proposals at the Carver Rec Center, 605 E. Main St., Charlottesville, VA 22902.
Charlottesville Tomorrow covers the winners
Color photos of the Route 29 trek by Sanjay Suchak
Charlottesville Tomorrow coverage
turn turtle
400 block of Meade Avenue. Single vehicle accident. Speed and alcohol did not seem to be at play. Minor injuries. See this condition more often in sailboats.
quiet enjoyment
People have been living in this neighborhood, this place, for thousands of years.
We live in the bend of a state scenic River, on rich, fertile ground, Davidson Loam. Seated here we are eight tenths of a mile from the front porch of Monticello, a mile and 2/10ths from the downtown mall. Seated here we are home, in the center of our universe.
But often we feel, as a neighborhood, that we are in the center of the crosshairs.
Over the years our discussions with the Council have focused on a handful of issues. We’ve asked for reductions in traffic speed and volume, we’ve asked for a reduction of the sewage smell. We’ve asked for pedestrian safety improvements and we have asked that planning and zoning be used to conserve our cultural and natural resources as well as our quality of life.
We have partnered with government entities in the creation of a national historic district, in the design of a sewage pumping station and in the care of our City park. We plant streetscape trees. We pick up trash, we attend City meetings. We have accomplished much but still, we feel threatened.
We are reassured by statements from Mayor Huja and Vice Mayor Szakos in opposition to a bridge through the Woolen Mills. We thank Dave Norris for his enduring stand against the County using City neighborhoods as an interchange.
Diversity is a strength to our way of thinking. We are all kinds of people in this neighborhood. But our mixed status, our socio-economic profile, seems to attract locally unwanted landuses.
Please work with us in our effort to secure the quiet enjoyment of our own homes and the health, safety and welfare of our neighborhood. Together we can make it so.
Reading Comprehension
Why would you place your company name on a truck that is Jake braking through a residential neighborhood at 0730 hrs.
Why would the driver not heed signs addressing tractor trailers?
Neff Crane 540-937-6066
At risk
June 22, 2010 the Charlottesville Planning Commission added Franklin Street to the City’s sidewalk priority list. Franklin is one of twelve North South pedestrian paths across the railroad. These railroad crossings are of particular interest because they focus vehicle and pedestrian activity in a confined area.
Since June 2010 the bike/ped facilities at Meade Avenue/Carlton Road, at 1st Street SE, at Shamrock Road and at JPA have been upgraded.
Pedestrians on Franklin Street are left to their own devices.
Even though there are straightforward fixes available.
compliance
Franklin and Broadway. The sign is advisory in nature, not a sign that the police enforce.
And so…. Franklin and Market. The tractor trailer driver mashes Betty Lou’s front lawn, knocks on doors. Residents on Market Street move their autos so the rig can make the turn he has been advised not to make.
the interchange piece
This from the summer of 2008
More recently, work has begun on the interchange part of the road through the park.
Clearing proceeds on the piece of land between Hillcrest and McIntire Road
Rock Hill gardens are on the left.
IC= impervious cover
cut through
City neighborhood streets are used as an interchange by regional motorists. Getting from point A to point B in the County? Drive local streets through the neighborhoods (in this case Woolen Mills and Belmont), avoid collector streets and traffic signals.
Transposition, asphalt commons
1 mile section of Jefferson Park Avenue temporarily returned to the commons for use by people not in automotive exoskeletons. Yoga in the street.
there are 847 acres of road surface in CHO, a sizable canvas
The Nigerian dwarf goat Biscuit
Eric Geilker and Biscuit
4 y.o. Titan Green drinks.
Meanwhile on the Downtown pedestrian mall, people share space with equipment responding to a kitchen fire.
