…The following is part of a series of posts about modes of transportation 100 years ago in Northeast Los Angeles. For the full list of Centennial themed posts, see the above “Centennial” tab. ( Actually, since it’s now a year past the Centennial, maybe we’ll have to rename everything “Centennial +1″….)

These folks not only walked a lot, but looked good doing it… The Sprague sisters walking in Eagle Rock ca. 1910. Photo courtesy Doris Thielen and the Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society

Originally from Iowa, Mrs. Beth Ellenwood Newhan settled in Eagle Rock in 1902. The Ellenwoods’ home was situated on the corner of Hill and Ellenwood, and their property encompassed 32.5 acres around. After marriage, she moved a short distance to Central (Eagle Rock Boulevard) north of Colorado.

In Beth Ellenwood Newhan’s memoir at the Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society, it is recorded:

At one time the family attended the services of the Methodist Church in Glendale at Brand and Wilson… In those days walking was the accepted mode of transportation in Eagle Rock. As an example the Ellenwoods walked to and from church. Glendale no less, and they would often bring friends home with them, hike to the Eagle Rock and back, and afterwards walk back to Glendale with their friends.

In the days when the expanse north of Colorado was punctuated with streams and spring brought wildflowers to be picked by the bouquet; walking to Glendale, then to the Eagle Rock and back to Glendale before returning home might not be an unpleasant way to spend a quiet Sunday, especially if the end result was to spend time with family and friends by connecting the dots to a favorite picnic location such as the Eagle Rock Park.

By the end of each Sunday, according to Google Maps, the Ellenwoods would have walked more than thirteen miles.

Personally, I really enjoy many things the past 100 years have brought: libraries, schools, the internet, yummy fruit available year-round in stores, enough people to create an unpredictable mix of conversation, and even a tiny little bit of cultural diversity. But when reading Mrs. Beth Ellenwood Newhan’s interview, I do feel a bit of envy. I’m not going to give up my phone or my computer. But having lived in Los Angeles for way more than a decade, I really do miss the slower sense of time of a carless day; that sense of leisure one feels when the events of the day grow out of an organic flow, some parts predictable, other parts unpredictable.

This is in contrast to the organization of time which my family’s weekday commuter lifestyle entails, where destinations are connected by the brutally quick and straight line that driving from one place to another entails. Where hardly any surprises sidetrack us, because we’ve determined the schedule, and the routes in advance.

Driving from location to location accentuates that sense of impatience and disconnection that my kids and I tend to develop when we spend too much time watching tv, or at the computer.

But in my experience, days of walking entail discovery. Walking is inherently unpredictable. Walking is how my tiny son and I discovered one winter that almost a dozen birds had built nests in the crape myrtle trees on the Townsend hill–  dense spherical bundles of twigs standing out from the sky as soon as trees dropped their leaves for the winter. Walking is how I learned that same hill which appears devoid of any natural vegetation due to yearly clearing by  city workers, is actually populated by native white sage, elderberry, marah, and one of my favorite native annuals, Gnaphalium. Walking is how I briefly spotted a great horned owl at dusk, its huge wings a dark silent shadow against the sky. Last week at night, my friend E. and I passed under a camphor tree on which every branch seemed to hold a silent raccoon watching us from above.

Walking is how I’ve explored cities like New York, Paris, Taipei, Hong Kong, Minneapolis, Fort-de-France and now Los Angeles.

My city boys are driven around during the week, and not used to this level of physical activity. During last week’s walk to the library, my son suggested frequent rest stops. In this city outfitted for cars, rather than people, resting took a little creativity.  On the steep part of Townsend, the best we managed was to sit on the sidewalk in the shade of a tiny oak tree. Along Colorado, the only bench we encountered was meant for bus riders. My son feared sitting on the bench lest a bus come to pick us up. Thankfully, a brick planter the right height was nearby. Half a mile further we are always grateful for the handful of tables and benches outside of the Rock cafe. Besides at the playground of Yosemite Park,  these may very well be the only benches within a mile around where anyone can sit without being pressured to buy an expensive caffeinated beverage, and without unwittingly causing a bus to pull over.

Though we live in the middle of what some call the art and culture capital of the world, it was amazing to think that in the two miles we walked on a balmy Sunday afternoon, over the course of an hour and a half we probably saw hundreds of cars speeding by, but less than ten people on the sidewalk.

When my next door neighbor C., pulled to the side of the road and offered us a ride home in a PT Cruiser, we gladly accepted. But I was glad that I’d had a couple hours of walking and bonding with my boy, and had made a couple discoveries along the way.

A trip through Eagle Rock as recounted by Mrs. May M. Blumer…

The women of the valley were having a social and educational club meeting at her mother’s home and Mabel was going out to help serve luncheon and enticed me to go along and help.

There were no street cars here then, but she had a bicycle parked back of a drug store on Pasadena Avenue now Figueroa, so we took the street car from my aunt’s place in Los Angeles to that point. Then in our full and long skirted white dresses with many lace petticoats and high white shoes, white lisle stockings and good sized leghorn hats, we set out– I on the handle bars.

All went well for the civilized part of the ride along Pasadena [Figueroa] Avenue, but when we cut down on the dirt road there were many rocks and rills and the hillside seemed very steep as we went over the handlebars many times with bike and all rolling into ditches on the way. But it was dry dirt, and we carefully brushed ourselves off and went on arriving not too late…

(Source: Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society)

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard 1813-1855, from Jan Gehl’s “Cities for People”

Don’t think I know anything about this Danish philosopher, except an off color anecdote about him that may be little more than urban myth. Despite my ignorance about this topic it is nice to know that in my love of walking and exploring, I have something in common with a great philosopher.

• Having several free hours in front of me, the air is cool, the sky full of colors, and I can take a walk knowing I can go anywhere I choose to go, stopping any time I feel like it

• Surveying my neighbors’ yards which are like folk art. People who don’t think of themselves as ‘artists’ express more than they know about themselves through how they arrange their front yards

• This month, every other day or so, a single bloom each morning, gifted by my ruellia cutting. This tiny bit of color from this humble plant always feels unexpected. I started this cutting about six months ago. Already, it feels like a good friend.

One solution is to provide the community with separated bike lanes, also known more formally as cycle tracks. They look something like this

(from left to right) sidewalk, cycle track, barrier, moving cars

Barriers between the cycle track and moving cars vary in size and the barrier itself is not always the same (sometimes a row of parking will serve as barrier, sometimes greenery will be the separation, or sometimes it is plain barrier as pictured above).

Cycle tracks provide several advantages to people on bicycles over standard bike lanes we see in Los Angeles, many of which extend to pedestrians, transit users, and motorists. Benefits of cycle tracks are well documented and I would like to share some excerpts from articles I have read recently that present these benefits:

“The findings of this study show a cycle track roadway design may be more protective for cyclists than a traditional bicycle lane in terms of lowering exposure concentrations of ultrafine particles… ” – http://bikeportland.org/2010/10/28/study-cycle-tracks-mean-better-air-quality-for-bikers-walkers-41754

While bicycling is dominated by males in many U.S. cities, more women feel sufficiently safe to cycle when bicyclists are separated from motorized traffic. Cycle tracks attract more than just testosterone filled males –http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/07/13/to-close-the-gender-gap-separate-cyclists-from-cars/

“Her study compares crash rates at six cycle tracks in Montreal to nearby streets that had no bicycle facilities, and bolsters the argument that cycle tracks are safer. Lusk found that relative risk of injury was 28 percent lower on cycle tracks compared to the on-street [non separated] routes….In addition, she found that about 2.5 times as many cyclists used the cycle tracks than the on-street routes. ” – http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/04/27/research-bolsters-case-for-cycle-tracks-while-aashto-updates-guide/

“The opening of the cycle track generated significant media coverage in Washington D.C. and has been successful in boosting bicycle ridership and reducing vehicle speeds along the corridor.” – http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/library/details.cfm?id=4663

“Of the twenty five intersections the LACBC counted, the top seven intersections [in popularity among bicyclists] all had either bike lanes or connected to a bike path.  In other words, the numbers tell the story, if you want people to take to the road on their bikes, the best way to make them feel safe is to provide either the protection of a bike path or the paint of a bike lane. ” – http://la.streetsblog.org/2010/03/16/lacbc-bike-counts-strong-relationship-between-infrastructure-and-riders-on-the-road/

“According to the city, the protected lane has already proven popular with bicyclists as recent counts of bicycle traffic during the morning rush hour at the corner of Kinzie and Clinton have already seen a 60 percent increase over last year’s numbers. By last week, bicycles accounted for just less than half the morning rush hour traffic on southbound Milwaukee Avenue at Kinzie.” – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/25/chicago-completes-install_n_909119.html

Cycle tracks make bicycling more attractive than standard bike lanes in LA and understandably so– why wouldn’t you want to be physically separated from cars that are traveling at 35mph when you are on a bicycle?

The various studies need hardly to convince me, recently I have experienced my own share of drawbacks of standard, non-separated bike lanes

Trash truck blocking bike lane

Nothing prevents several ton vehicles from swerving into the path of a bicyclist

A perhaps overlooked benefit of providing cycle tracks in Eagle Rock is reduced noise pollution. Today Eagle Rock and Colorado Boulevard are plagued by the loud noise given off by cars. This results in outdoor dining being less attractive, especially when such seating is placed along the sidewalk, one can hardly hold a conversation with a friend – and while there may be nice weather outdoor – the noise of the cars makes the experience a lot less pleasant.

In making the case for a calmer, more bike friendly Eagle Rock sometimes those who oppose the idea contend car traffic will slow down too much. However, as local resident Jack Burnett-Stuart points out:

“ It is 1.6 miles from the post office to Swork. If the average speed was reduced through a variety of traffic slowing measures (including changing the speed limit, but does anyone pay any attention to that?) from say 40 mph to 20mph, that would add 2 minutes 24 seconds to the time the trip takes”

The time difference is negligible and would become a more inviting street for all people!

And who knows, maybe slower speeds will actually make traffic move faster, as Tom Vanderbilt discusses in his book Traffic.

I feel Eagle Rock could greatly benefit from accommodating cyclists, we could see safer, calmer streets that provide a safe, viable mobility option with the potential to run more efficiently than our main boulevards currently do. We can see increased vibrant street life and beautify our boulevards with increased greenery. Providing bicycle facilities that are proven to increase ridership benefits  motorists by reducing unnecessary congestion and fewer people will compete for limited car parking at Eagle Rock destinations. Eagle Rock and Colorado Boulevard aren’t ideal streets in their current configurations, with so little to lose lets install cycle tracks!

A couple years ago, however, a colleague who felt threatened invoked the word “designer” in a way that curdled my blood. The word, which I’d always associated with pleasurable things– like that comfortable realm where nothing matters but clever permutations of color and form– was used like a weapon. The question in her angry eyes boiled down to, who is the designer? Is it you or me….?

I propose to reclaim this word from the short-sighted tongues of people who conflate “design” with “control”. I want to reclaim it from its use to market expensive consumer products. I will not renounce my enjoyment of such clever products, but want to empower the word “design” to include problem-solving on the most sophisticated life-cycle level….

I’m especially interested in the body of work from the social sciences that confirms that design can have an impact that is far beyond making things look “pretty.” Design doesn’t mean the designer should not listen to anyone else.  A good designer looks beyond what the client asks for and addresses the larger picture. This means a designer needs to be a good listener and observer. Their work needs to synthesize everything happening on  site: physical, cultural, economic, experiential, environmental….

Great design can still have that level of visual pyrotechnics involving color, proportion, and form. But if it is going to be successful for longer than opening day, it needs to account for things most users may not consciously be aware of, but that have a profound physiological and social impact.

Design can make spaces work better. Spaces that work better are good for our wellbeing, and good for the planet.

These words from the website of Charles Montgomery, the author of Happy City, embody the impact of design in the realm of the built environment:

Many North American cities are perfectly designed to make citizens miserable. We have fewer friends, less spare time, grumpier kids and more heart attacks. We feel more stress and more social isolation than ever before. The shapes of buildings, neighbourhoods and even transportation systems are partly to blame.

This excerpt might be funny, sad, and a little too true. On his website are a slew of uplifting articles, and I’m very much looking forward to the book.

… residents of one neighborhood were fed up with cars racing along their streets, endangering children, pets, and peace of mind. One evening they decided to do something about it by dragging old couches and other furniture out into the roadway. They positioned these objects in such a way that cars could pass, but only if they slowed down. The police soon arrived on the scene and had to admit that this project, although clearly illegal, was a good idea. Soon the city itself was implementing similar plans of its own, called woonerfs (Dutch for “living yards”), on streets plagued by unruly motorists.

One can only imagine the response of politicians and engineers if these neighbors had meekly come to city hall to ask permission to partially block the streets. They would have been hooted right out of the building. By taking direct action, however, they saved their neighborhood and brought comfort and civility to cities around the world.

–Eric Strauss, from his talk at the Southern California Academy of Sciences today, “The Frontier of Urban Ecology: The Challenge of Rejuvenating America’s Cities”

I suspect that our class of future Landscape Architects may have been the only non-scientists in the room. So I just loved that the example Eric gave of “loving where you live” was the one of local people working together to plant trees.

Towhees, shopping carts, wild cucumber, bedstraw vines, native scrub oaks, poison oak, and a 5-petaled purple wildflower I was unfamiliar with– I passed many things on my way to visit Boy Scout Troop 199 in Eagle Rock— but this rattlesnake skin was right in the middle of an asphalt road.