After a lovely weekend spent in the only place that I actually like, I was somewhat taken aback to see an article in that city's paper, today. According to the Times-Dispatch, "our downtown is notoriously pedestrian-unfriendly."
This is news to me, because as long as I've been alive, I've enjoyed walking around downtown Richmond. As a matter of fact, I spent most of the weekend's daytime hours by myself, just walking around the city. Generally, when I think of places that are "pedestrian-unfriendly" I think of those endless suburbs that now surround every city, where there are no sidewalks. Why would anyone WALK anywhere? OMG, you could like serial get blisters, and it's like HOT!!! This is emphatically not true in downtown Richmond where, while I *did* get blisters from walking in new shoes and it *does* get hot, there are sidewalks and a friendly, non-threatening street grid pattern. There are also pretty buildings to see.
Admittedly, there aren't as many interesting little shops downtown as there were years ago, and the two great department stores are closed. One--my former employer--has been torn down. (I needed about six gin and tonics to recover from that unpleasant sight.) Yet, I don't understand the idea that downtown is unfriendly to pedestrians. If anything, it's unfriendly to drivers; the network of one-way streets tends to confuse people, and finding a parking place isn't always easy.
Having just made that statement, I intend to refute it: A)finding a parking place is really easy now that the big stores are gone. There's nobody down there anymore, so parking is plentiful, and even when they WERE there, we have plenty of parking decks--notably, a really cool '30s parking deck with bas-reliefs of wheels and wing-ed car radiators. Richmond loves bas-relief. B)One-way streets are idiotically simple. When you have a basic grid pattern of streets, as Richmond does, the one-ways alternate. It's not rocket science, folks: If you want to go THAT way but the street goes THIS way, simply go around the block, PARK, and walk to the store. Sheesh.
It does break my heart to see downtown so deserted, but then I took great delight when a couple of years ago one of my Baltimore friends visited Richmond. He'd never seen the Queen of the James. After I'd spent a couple of hours pointing out the highlights of our faded downtown, I took him to see Cary street. Even the ungodly Washington paper has called it the "mile of style." My friend took one look at the fashionable shops and restaurants all clustered at the feet of the Byrd Theatre and said "Downtown Richmond isn't dead. It just moved two miles west."
This is news to me, because as long as I've been alive, I've enjoyed walking around downtown Richmond. As a matter of fact, I spent most of the weekend's daytime hours by myself, just walking around the city. Generally, when I think of places that are "pedestrian-unfriendly" I think of those endless suburbs that now surround every city, where there are no sidewalks. Why would anyone WALK anywhere? OMG, you could like serial get blisters, and it's like HOT!!! This is emphatically not true in downtown Richmond where, while I *did* get blisters from walking in new shoes and it *does* get hot, there are sidewalks and a friendly, non-threatening street grid pattern. There are also pretty buildings to see.
Admittedly, there aren't as many interesting little shops downtown as there were years ago, and the two great department stores are closed. One--my former employer--has been torn down. (I needed about six gin and tonics to recover from that unpleasant sight.) Yet, I don't understand the idea that downtown is unfriendly to pedestrians. If anything, it's unfriendly to drivers; the network of one-way streets tends to confuse people, and finding a parking place isn't always easy.
Having just made that statement, I intend to refute it: A)finding a parking place is really easy now that the big stores are gone. There's nobody down there anymore, so parking is plentiful, and even when they WERE there, we have plenty of parking decks--notably, a really cool '30s parking deck with bas-reliefs of wheels and wing-ed car radiators. Richmond loves bas-relief. B)One-way streets are idiotically simple. When you have a basic grid pattern of streets, as Richmond does, the one-ways alternate. It's not rocket science, folks: If you want to go THAT way but the street goes THIS way, simply go around the block, PARK, and walk to the store. Sheesh.
It does break my heart to see downtown so deserted, but then I took great delight when a couple of years ago one of my Baltimore friends visited Richmond. He'd never seen the Queen of the James. After I'd spent a couple of hours pointing out the highlights of our faded downtown, I took him to see Cary street. Even the ungodly Washington paper has called it the "mile of style." My friend took one look at the fashionable shops and restaurants all clustered at the feet of the Byrd Theatre and said "Downtown Richmond isn't dead. It just moved two miles west."
posted by Daniel | 12:28 AM
2 Comments:
Yeah, I don't get how a grid confuses people, but the way [biggish suburban road] Parham runs east-west for a while, then north-south for another while is not a problem.
I went to one of our new lib.s the other day, and managed to take the correct exit off the highway, bringing me to, like, 3 times out of 6 on that skill. How can I tell if I want "north" or "south" when the River is so far away? When none of the roads out there run straight?
Really now. Nice people do not NEED to know which way Parham Road runs, because nice people have nothing to do with it. As long as you know that Cary Street Road follows the River and Monument Avenue doesn't, you're in good shape.
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