Morning Metro: Walking, The Optimist, and Children Walking
Decatur Metro | October 5, 2012
- “Walk there!” Decatur signs are up [Patti Garrett]
- The Optimist named “Restaurant of the Year” by Esquire [AJC]
- New MARTA chief highly regarded at job he’s leaving [Saporta Report]
- Let’s Go Braves!! [AJC]
- Replica of Disney’s Haunted Mansion for sale in Duluth [ABC]
- King of Pops offers reward for stolen safes [Facebook]
- Do you know where your children are? Is that a good thing? [NPR]
Map courtesy of NPR’s Krulwich Wonders blog
I guess the owner/builder of the Haunted Mansion house was from California? Clicking through the pictures didn’t give me the thrills that seeing a replica of the Haunted Mansion from Disney WORLD would have… Now where’s the local replica of (the late, lamented) Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride?
Love Haunted Mansion (DL & MK), sadly miss MTWR, …but give me the Enchanted Tiki Room
I like the Walk There signs but I suggest that the next order add the mileage as well as the walking time to the sign. Some of us are more used to thinking in terms of mileage. Plus walking speeds vary widely. If I’m late for a MARTA train to work, I can cover a mile a lot quicker than if I’m pulling along a balky two-year old.
I’m willing to bet the omission of distance was a conscious choice, to avoid discouraging people who don’t walk much and may feel comfortable about walking 20 minutes but feel daunted by the idea of walking a mile.
It could work both ways. I can just hear a kid saying “20 minutes? I’m not walking for 20 minutes!” Whereas 1 mile sounds short! Especially if you ride your bike, dude!
On the other hand, those scan thingamajig symbols are probably cool enough to induce kids to walk/bike just so they have an excuse to use one of their infernal devices.
I almost LMAO until I re-read and saw that you said “infernal” devices and not “internal”.
Our intention was to help folks to realize that some of the places they might be tempted to drive to are just a short walk away. If you use the scan code, it will show you distance. The times were based on an average walker, knowing that many will cover the distance in a shorter period and the strolling folks will take a little longer.
So glad that people are seeing them, using them, and getting in a bit more walking. Decatur is so awesome!!
My family would definitely “walk there” more often if the city could please make the S. Candler/Trinity/College and S. Columbia/College intersections safer for pedestrians.
The City can’t do much about those intersections, since they’re on a state designated road (GA 155) and GDOT controls things.
Didn’t we have a bond referendum that included improving those intersections? I voted for it because those intersections were going to be addressed.
Yes, the transportation of the bond is meant to address city-wide issues and those are on the list. All projects have not yet been done.
I find the newly configured College Ave. crosswalk at the front entrance to Agnes Scott a good alternative to the mess at Candler/Trinity/College. In my experience, drivers are very courteous to pedestrians there.
I agree. I just can’t navigate the tunnel steps with a stroller. I find there’s really no safe place to cross College Ave with a stroller.
Agreed, that crosswalk reconfiguration has made a WORLD of difference. Wish they’d do the same at the Candler & College and Candler & S Candler Parking intersections.
I would be interested to see if population size plays any part in the trend to keep kids closer to home. I got to think in smaller towns kids have a larger range due to the feeling that everyone knows each other and there are less “strangers” lurking about. We have moved to the cities over the last few generations, so it would make sense for the great-grandfather in the story above to be in a more rural setting where six miles wasn’t a big deal because it was mainly fields and woods. In 1920, in the US the urban/rural ratio was 50/50, in 1990 it was 75/25. Here in Decatur six miles would be like letting your 8 yr old walk to downtown.
Agreed, measuring it by land distance misses the point. The problem is that there is increasingly less and less within range of a typical child, because the built environment of most suburbs limits them to residential areas only. Contrast this with the older built environment of towns, which allow kids to access residential as well as commercial/retail areas. This especially benefits teens, who can get to shops and “third places” before they have a driver’s license.
That’s the way it was for millennia, until we started building car-centric communities. Now teens are utterly dependent on adults to get pretty much anywhere. This is a radical departure from an age-old physical and social environment.
I grew up in Sandy Springs, and this was my personal experience. That’s why we moved to Decatur 10 years ago when we were ready to buy a house and start a family. Loving the walking friendly environment, and looking forward to giving our little ones the freedom to walk into town… once they are a bit older.
On another note… the graph from this article was referencing Sheffield, England. While the lesson is consistent with the US rural areas, the contrast of walking environments between Urban and Rural in the UK can be even more stark. Southern England is interlaced with hedgerows (impassable walls of vegetation) and stone walls that border narrow country lanes without shoulders or sidewalks. Very pretty… but terrifying if you are trying to walk those country lanes with blind corners and no place to hide!
Those hedgerows are even more terrifying when there’s a bustle in them! Where’s Lyrics Only Guy when we need him?
Silly J_T – Don’t be alarmed… That’s just a spring clean for the may queen!
It’s the lorry between your hedgerows that you need to watch out for!
Speaking of letting kids move about unsupervised in days gone by and now, this woman was arrested for her 6 and 9 year old playing in a cul de sac while she watched from her porch: http://www.blogher.com/frame.php?url=http://www.click2houston.com/news/Mom-sues-police-over-arrest/-/1735978/16528610/-/b7nf6o/-/index.html
Wow. I really hope that there is another side of that story, because that’s a little over the top.
It truly does “take a village.”
You need a mom to give birth, care for the kids, and buy them scooters.
You need a neighbor to call the cops because the kids are riding those scooter in a cul-de-sac (the horror!).
You need the cops to investigate, haul the mom away, then jail her for 18 hours.
You need a prosecutor who, according to the police spokesperson, signed off on all this.
You need someone to come to his/her senses and throw the charges out.
Last but not least, you need a police spokesperson to claim that “procedures were followed” and there’s nothing to worry about.