Week without driving Day 2: Where the sidewalk ends

Our friend Abby continues her “Week Without a Car” adventure. You can read their preview here or follow their e-trike journey here.

A week after I bought my house in Santa Rosa, I read in the local newspaper that the city was planning to install a flashing crosswalk on Montgomery Drive, a block from my house.

The crosswalk was completed a few months ago and I used it on the second day of my no-driving week as I walked to Montgomery Village, a large one-story 1950s-style shopping center that takes up three blocks in my suburban neighborhood. There is everything you need: a wonderful post office, an independent bookshop, lots of restaurants and bars, an independent cafe, lots of gift shops and clothing stores, two nail salons, a branch of every bank imaginable and a Penzeys Spices.

I met for coffee with the community organizer from Generation Housing, our local housing advocacy group. Montgomery Village is less than a mile from my home, but to get there you have to cross busy Montgomery Drive.

Hence the new zebra crossing.

The beg button worked, and cars and trucks actually slowed down for me at the flashing intersection. Hurray!

It was a pleasant walk. The seasonal decorating boom is beginning in our neighborhood and I had the opportunity to see the first wild displays at a leisurely pace. My next door neighbors have 13 skeletons disguised around a man-made swimming pool in their front yard. Other neighbors are opting for the fall harvest look. A large truck was parked on the curb, not as a decoration but perhaps out of drunkenness.

The sidewalk ended abruptly at the mall! Pedestrians walking to the post office or other business on the southeast side of Montgomery Village must walk on the street or through a parking lot. There are many targeted barriers for pedestrians, including signs and bollards.

I walked across a planted strip and then across a parking lot to get to the cafe and noticed that there were no bike racks in this crowded place. I will bring this to the attention of the mall management.

After coffee, I took a pleasant walk home before the temperature rose to 101 degrees. It was such an easy walk that I'll probably change my habits, which is one of the goals of a week without driving. Tomorrow I'm taking the SMART train to San Francisco!