Virginia Beach: Where the Sidewalk Ends

I arrived in Virginia Beach one week ago, and since then I have spent every day in a state of appalled apprehension. Throughout my time studying urban planning, I heard tales of mythical lands where everyone drives, and movement without a 3,000 pound metal cage is near impossible. I have even driven through them on occasion. But never in my life have I experienced living in one of these impractical and foreboding places. 

You might be wondering, "why have you decided to move to such a place Abby?" No, it is not so I can learn from the epitope of car-centered design, although I am already doing so. I came here for a job as a transportation analyst, and I am not ashamed to admit that I was indeed ignorant of the full scale of the situation here when I agreed to take the position. 

Intersection on my regular bike commute

The past few years I have been happily living my car-free life, using my bike and public transit for basic transportation needs. I find that it makes me happier than driving in a car, plus it is a great way to see the city, make friends, and exercise. I knew coming in that Virginia Beach is not anything like Portland, much less the Netherlands, when it comes to biking, but I didn't know that it would be hell on Earth (to put it mildly). 

I do not exaggerate when I say that any road that is not a wiggly, inefficient suburban neighborhood street, is at least (at least!) six high-speed lanes wide. These roads are highways poorly disguised as local main streets and utilize a deadly combination of high speed with lots of destinations. If you are familiar with the term, they are stroads (transportation slang for street/road). These stroads are suicidal to bike on, and many of them either don't have sidewalks at all, or the sidewalk just ends unexpectedly (Shel Silverstein must have spent some time here). 

"Downtown"

Everything here is designed solely for cars. When I say everything, I do not mean just the streets, I mean all aspects of life. My parents came with me to help me move in, and we walked around the town center a bit. On the surface it has all the elements of a nice downtown area. It is one of the only places in the "city" that has a grid street layout, it has lots of retail, cafes, and restaurants in addition to offices, but it doesn't feel comfortable to walk around in. My dad pointed this out, he said "I don't know why, but this doesn't feel quite right". It takes a second to realize why, but it is because, even though we are in what should be a bustling commerce center, everything is still designed at the car scale. This means that roads are wide-- allowing cars to speed-- shop windows are huge so that they can be seen from a moving car-- making awnings over them 20 feet in the air. These elements lead to a feeling of discomfort for a person on foot. You end up feeling like an ant, out of place, and easily squashed. 

My bus stop on the side of a 6 laner

This feeling is ubiquitous around Virginia Beach. If you are not in a car, you don't belong. I've been walking to the bus stop every morning to get to work, and people genuinely stare at me as I walk in the road (no sidewalks), and it is not just because I am so good-looking. I biked for the first time today, and I had to cross a cute little eight-lane road. There was no cross signal immediately where I wanted to cross, so I had to whittle my way down to where there was one. Once the walk light turned green, I had to wait for all the turning cars to go because they would have just hit me had I attempted to cross when the light turned for me. There is simply no space or thought for anyone not in their cars. 

I make an active choice to not purchase and drive a car. I just don't like them. But there are plenty of people out there who do not have the option to decide one way or the other about a car. For these folks, living in a place like Virginia Beach grossly limits their access to opportunity, not to mention puts them in harms way every single day. By planning a world only for cars, so many people are left with restricted movement, leading to a plethora of adverse effects. 

If you have come to this blog in search of good news in a dark time, I am afraid you should keep looking. For the duration of my time in Virginia Beach I will be discussing my observations of the impacts of extreme car-oriented design, and I'm afraid it isn't going to be pretty. However, I would love for you to join me on this unpleasant ride, and maybe we can all learn a little something together.