Walking Is Transportation

The Walker, Out of Hibernation At Last

WHEN IT'S MORE LIKE FLYING

That's the critical difference warm(er) weather makes. The distance you bridge on foot, the time you take to get there, the destination itself--all are secondary to the delight you feel as you take to the streets and peel them back, one by one, until you achieve a pace and a rhythm that seem like preparations for lift-off. In the end, you're almost disappointed to get where, after all, you were going.

That's what happened last night. I was off to a dance class, fully prepared to steel myself against the wind and the cold, et voila!: no wind, no cold. Instead, warmer temperatures and a soft breeze whose effects I didn't have to hunker down to ward off. I passed through the same dark and utterly deserted streets as I do every Monday night, but last night the streets weren't bleak and depressing, somehow. In any case, they didn't matter; I was flying.

Today, in intermittent rain, I walked about six miles, some of it fairly hilly, and the experience was the same. Joyous. On this gray, damp day, my walk felt at one point like dance and at another, like flight.

S.I. Greenbelt plan to banish invasive plants may benefit walkers, too

Section of cobblestone street-tree base, Richmond Terrace, St. George, Staten Island

NOT, I ADMIT, WHAT I WAS EXPECTING

First, Staten Island Greenbelt Administrator Adena Long spoke about the park's need to accommodate alternative forms of transportation. She actually used those words. Then Long described plans to provide a path for walkers and cyclists.

Long addressed the November 1 semiannual meeting of Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, Staten Island's largest environmental organization. I was there not only as a Protectors member, but to make my case for safe access to the Greenbelt for walkers and cyclists, which I assumed meant installing sidewalks. I had expected opposition to this idea. Maybe even confrontation. And then, before I could open my mouth, Adena Long made it clear the pedestrian and bicycle path I planned to fight for was already in the works. Not a discouraging word was heard from the audience, many of whom had fought long and hard to create the Greenbelt decades ago and are determined not only to protect it, but expand it.

Long said the path will be created as part of a plan to defend the Greenbelt at its perimeter, which is the usual point of entry for invasive weeds and vines that can destroy very quickly the diversity and balance of plant life within the park. This perimeter 'strip' won't be just a poured concrete walk along the edge of a roadway. It will be designed, landscaped and maintained--with the bicycle and walking path included as part of the design.

This project will take years to complete, of course. What matters more, I think, is that it's being done at all. And that it just may represent a change in consciousness at the city's largest park. A change that begins to acknowledge pedestrians and bicyclists as co-equal users--with motorized vehicles--of public streets and roads.

More on pedestrian access to Staten Island's Greenbelt

Sculpture: Victoria Bellinger, Silver Lake, S.I. ( victoriabellinger.com/index/html )

Unfit for pedestrians

Last August, I walked from home to the perimeter of Staten Island's Greenbelt, whereupon all pedestrian amenities vanished and I was forced to continue my walk in a gully at the side of the road, along with the beer cans, bottles and other assorted trash thrown there. Drivers whizzed by, leaving only a very few feet between me and them. It was scary and I was mad.

Here's some of what I wrote about that incident in a post dated August 27:

"Walkers have right of safe access to the Greenbelt, just as those who arrive in cars do. We represent a fraction of the footprint of a car, in terms of the space we occupy and the impact we have on the environment. Yet cars, often with only one occupant, are provided roads that are built and maintained by the tax dollars of walkers as well as drivers. For our tax dollars, we get a narrow, dangerous strip of deteriorated macadam.

"Sidewalks should be installed bordering every main road, street or avenue in the Greenbelt. I understand the legitimate concern of those who see only another encroachment on the Greenbelt's 'Forever Wild' mandate. But providing a means of access for those who walk rather than ride is a matter of fairness and equity--a pretty fundamental ideal."

A meeting with the Greenbelt's administrator

I learned later from fellow blogger Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL.com that there is a national organization called Complete the Street which is promoting precisely this idea--but a better one than mine because it provides for cyclists as well as pedestrians.

I intend to state the No Safe Access for Pedestrians problem and suggest the Complete the Street solution at a meeting tomorrow evening of Staten Island's premier environmental organization, Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, of which I'm a member. The Greenbelt's administrator is scheduled as guest speaker, so I'll be directing my questions and comments to her.

I'll report on the meeting in a day or two.

Walking the St. George waterfront

Referring to the right-hand portion of a photo in my last post ("Sidewalks are for parking"), commenter Ace asks, "Isn't that the pretty walkway one encounters upon turning right when leaving the Staten Island ferry terminal in St. George?"

Here's the photo that prompted Ace's question:

Ace got it right. That pretty walkway, as he called it (Thanks, Ace), is the North Shore Esplanade, the original one, which appears to have been completed some time after World War II.

But for something less than a decade now, there's been another esplanade. This one, at the water's edge, is the Ballpark Esplanade, which was completed as part of the development of a new waterfront ballpark. The esplanade was designed by the same firm responsible for the redesign of Madison Square Park.

THE NORTH SHORE ESPLANADE

To get to the North Shore Esplanade, use the pedestrian exit and ramp to Richmond Terrace, where, as Ace wrote, you turn right. Here, the walkway is narrow--a narrow sidewalk, essentially.

But it widens considerably a few blocks ahead.

The esplanade sits atop a high retaining wall and looks down at the waterfront and out at the harbor. The views of the bay and Manhattan in the distance are panoramic, not intimate. In places, the sky seems very large. Except for the occasional walker, jogger or cyclist, you are almost certain to be the only person there.

THE BALLPARK ESPLANADE

To get to the Ballpark Esplanade, turn right inside the terminal concourse and walk to the Ballpark exit, which lets you out onto an observation deck with seating.

Down the ramp or the stairs is the beginning of the Ballpark Esplanade, which stretches from, roughly, Wall Street to Jersey Street, where it rejoins Richmond Terrace--a distance of 0.771 miles, according to gmap-pedometer.com.

The stretch nearest the ferry terminal and parking lot consists of a slowly rounding boardwalk . . .

. . . which ends as the Staten Island 9/11 memorial.

The esplanade continues from that memorial, but more informally, with macadam paths . . .

. . . and niches with low platforms for sitting, sunbathing or just staring at Manhattan, five miles across the water.

Further ahead, the shoreline narrows and the esplanade does, too, and in small clearings at the water's edge are clusters of fishermen, old, young or both, and entire families fishing and picnicking.

To the solitary walker especially but not exclusively, this island is a gift.

It was supposed to be only an errand

I had my new digital camera in tow. The plan was to use visuals as well as text to profile a routine walk––an 'errand' walk, let's call it, rather than a walk for its own sake. Starting from my house in St. George

and on the way, passing through New Brighton (Unitarian Church book sale, Barnett Shepard's house, and the entrance to Snug Harbor Cultural Center) and West Brighton (Clove Lakes Park).




I had told myself I'd get some representative shots and then, and soon as I finished my errand, I'd head straight back home to St. George. But of course I didn't stick to the script. As soon as I exited the variety store that had been my destination, I turned right instead of left and just kept going till I hit Clove Lakes Park.

There I retraced a north-south route I'd discovered earlier this past summer, the sort of place that can mystify and intrigue you only once, after which it becomes beautiful but never again quite so magical.

Along this route on that earlier summer walk, I had discovered two stretches of fairly deep woods, often quite hilly, the southern stetch larger and wilder. Each was near at least one of the park's three lakes, Brooks, Clove, and Martling; each plateaued in a several-acre expanse of lawn. The first time I experienced it, this swift and sudden change––from being under a tree canopy, then emerging into a clearing and a ceiling of open sky––it was startling, even shocking.

This more recent Sunday afternoon was sunny and a bit cool. Clove Lakes Park seemed almost empty, as it often seems (and often is) during the week. Except for small assemblies at sports facilities, there was only the occasional dog walker or jogger in view. During my tramp through the woods, I encountered only one other solitary walker.

Soon after, my camera battery died. By then I was already well into my return trek, which took me, via a different route, through the smaller, more formal and more manicured Silver Lake Park, also remarkably empty on such a beautiful day.

Distance of this ostensible 'errand' walk: 7 miles, roundrip.

Walking as a disaster preparedness strategy

Perhaps a year ago, perhaps more, blue and white street signs began cropping up on Staten Island (and, I assume, in the other boroughs) directing drivers, in case of an emergency, to the nearest disaster shelter.

Are the disaster planners (an unfortunate term, but you know what I mean) seriously relying on private cars to shepherd New Yorkers to safety? In the aftermath of a disaster, designating private cars as a principal means of mobility is folly. Especially in parts of Staten Island and the other outer boroughs, where local roads are often three-lane former cowpaths or the equivalent. It's a prescription for Road Rage on Steroids.

When disaster struck downtown on 9/11, people didn't wait in vain for a cab or waste time looking for their car keys, assuming they had any; no, those who could, walked or ran from disaster as fast as their feet could carry them. Uptown, downtown, across bridges and onto ferries with 6,000-passenger capacities. Any way they could get away.

GIVE WALKERS MORE LEG-ROOM

The lesson here is that walking should be a central element of the city's disaster preparedness strategy. Which means that we should be doing much, much more to promote walking--not only as a good health strategy, but as a transportation option just like a bike, a bus, or the train.

But there's got to be more to the effort than feel-goody public service announcements. And what's needed is not only more space, but more access:

•In too many outer-borough neighborhoods, the roadway is for cars and the space on either side of the road is somebody's lawn you're not supposed to walk on. Install sidewalks on streets that have none, and maintain them for active use

•Every East River bridge has a pedestrian walkway, all in active daily use by walkers and bicyclists. It's long past time to retrofit all major regional bridges with pedestrian walkways to maximize access and egress for those who don't drive or own automobiles. I'm a Staten Islander, so the Verrazano, the Goethals and the Outerbridge Crossing are the three that come immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are many others.

Because they enhance citizens' ability to cope in an emergency situation, these projects should be paid for, in my opinion, by Homeland Security and/or other appropriate funding sources (FEMA?).

Your thoughts?

Me? On a 32-mile walk?

I'm pleased to report I've been invited to go on a group trek 'round the perimeter of Manhattan, which, the inviter reports, is a distance of 32 miles. It's set for Saturday, October 6.

Am I ready? I really don't know. My current walking speed is about 3.5 miles/hour. My average walk is about 5 or 6 miles long. The longest walk I've taken––that is, since I started keeping track––was 14 miles, which took me 3 1/2 hours.

These are not leisurely strolls. Today's trip to the shoe repair guy and back was six miles long, with lunch waiting at the end. All very commendable, but not good enough. I've got to get my speed up to speed. And there's not much time.

I had heard that shorter steps boost your speed, and so I made my steps shorter. That worked. But what else? Any thoughts?