One of the failures of Columbia and most American towns and cities is that they are auto-dependent. In Columbia you can walk from your house to your local school or village center but outside of your village, you better have wheels.
Of course Columbia has a system of public transportation, but its not always a safe bet to ride it. I myself have been threatened with theft and a beating from a drunken black man who rides the brown route. This man has also been known to pick fights with men and harass women but as long as he's not threatening the driver there's not much to be done.
I'm not saying that all of the bus routes are bad but I did happen to meet a crazy gray haired ex marine who would pick a fight with a parrot if it spoke to him. Sadly, I carry pepper spray with me when I travel across Columbia. I've never had to use it . . . yet. So how do you get from East Columbia to West Columbia?
The pedestrian bridge is the only way for me to efficiently get from Owen Brown to Town Center. By the way, the path that leads to this bridge weaves through what I would consider a bad part of Oakland Mills. On many occasions I have seen the path guarded by would be gangsters with knives and blunts who like to stand shoulder to shoulder and block passers by.
The only alternative to this is to walk the grass covered median on Broken Land parkway. The median is wide enough for a sidewalk, yet none exists because the powers that be think it's more sensible for everyone to own a car. On Friday afternoons if you look for them, you can see orthodox Jews walk up and down this strip on their way to temple. The Columbia bike guy rides along the edge of the parkway even in places where no shoulder exists.
Something needs to be done to make Columbia more accessible. Is the expense of the taxpayer greater than the safety of residents?
1 comment:
Hear, hear! Though I must say, Columbia could be worse. We lived more than five years on the border of Harpers Choice and Wilde Lake, and the biggest thing I miss is the network of walking paths. I could walk all the way to the lake itself and almost completely around it without crossing a street. The sidewalk down Little Patuxent Pkwy. was probably more direct, but I enjoyed the hike through Wilde Lake and under Governor Warfield on the way over to Central Library. On one occasion, I went for a really long walk over the pedestrian bridge (I have some friends who live in that bad part of Oakland Mills), but most of what I considered reasonable walking distance wasn't too hard to get to.
Maybe it helps that where we live now in Elkridge puts things into perspective. We can dash across Montgomery Rd. to pick up some groceries or pizza, or across Rt. 1 for a dozen donuts or breakfast at McDonald's. But there aren't many crosswalks to go around, let alone sidewalks or decent shoulders. Instead of walking five minutes through the woods to catch the 929, I now chug 20 min. up and down hills along Rt. 1 on a beat-up old 10-speed that hopefully won't attract enough attention to get stolen from the MARC station.
The Orthodox Jews can also be seen Saturday mornings walking along Rt. 29, which I assume is illegal; but I can't blame them for choosing God's law over man's. My hat's off to them for trying to make it work--Columbia isn't designed well for keeping the Sabbath or any other lifestyle that isn't car-dependent. In this respect, it always struck me as something of a fantasy world. You can go for a nice stroll to a park on the weekend or down to the village center on a summer evening for ice cream, but for real life like jobs and buying the necessities, only the hardiest souls can get by without a car.
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