No place for walking

Hawthorne Boulevard. It’s bad everywhere, but particularly bad here between Pacific Coast Highway and Artesia Boulevard. This might be the least pedestrian friendly stretch of road in the South Bay.

Why do they even bother providing sidewalks here? Clearly, they don’t intend for anyone to walk here, and the few that do seem isolated, miserable, lost. In most places, vast stretches of parking lot separate the sidewalks from anything anyone might want to see or do. To one’s left, the unceasing vehicular traffic, the drone, the smoke, the tense proximity. In every direction, that empty flat pavement.

No, this street and everything on it was made for the cars. Building placement is for cars. Front doors are for cars. Even the trees are for cars, these sad sprouts stuck in the middle of vast plains of asphalt or lined along the side of the road. They aren’t to be touched, sat under or walked below. No, they’re meant to be looked at by people in cars.

Shade – that would help. But there is precious little here. On a sunny day – and really, this is pretty much always – this is a hot and miserable walk. The Sahara would be easier. The sun beats down. No shade offers protection. The concrete grows hot, but not as hot as the charcoal asphalt in every direction. The air is dirty and stifling.

For those poor souls left with no choice but to walk here, these oppressive moments are mere reminders that this road was not made for you.

– Garrison Frost

(May 11, 2007)

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