Disaster is only one step away!

Sunday afternoon I went out our front door to take two containers of compost to the bins at the corner restaurant.  One moment I was vertical on our front walk, the next I was flat on my back.  There seemed to be no transition, no feeling of falling.  I felt my head bang against the concrete.  I hollered my wife's name.

The next thing I remember is being inside asking my wife to get the container of sidewalk salt.

Then I remember my wife telling me to sit in a chair and relax.  After a bit I felt fine and got up to put salt on the sidewalk.  When I got outside I saw little holes in the ice.  Somebody had already salted.  As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember being out the first time.  I did remember later, but was that just a reconstruction?

My wife's reconstruction is that our grandson, looking out the front door, said, "Grandpa!" and then she heard me holler.  She went outside and found me in a fetal position and helped me get up and inside.  She said a neighbor across the street watched her, wondering if he needed to help.  She said I wanted to take the compost then and there, but she made me sit down.

Now let's look at the what ifs.

What if instead of my head hitting the sidewalk it had hit the bottom step?  Would I have a broken neck?

What if I had not been wearing a hat?  My winter hat is not very thick, but it seemed to be thick enough to absorb some of the force.  Later I did see the imprint of the hat in the snow.

What if I had been home alone?  Would anybody have seen me in a timely fashion?  Chuck Frederick, Editorial Editor of the Duluth News Tribune, wrote "Duluth didn't watch out for student frozen on porch" 2013-12-12.  My situation could have been similar.  The neighbors on one side are gone for college break.  The neighbors on the other side rarely go out the front door.  Even if they did, the snow banks might have hidden me.  Drivers going by aren't checking every notch in the snow banks for pedestrians lying on the sidewalk.  Pedestrians going by are checking where they walk and will rarely turn their heads to look up a house walk.  Whatever, I doubt if all of Duluth should be held accountable if I were not found in a reasonable time.

Why did I slip?  I had cleared the sidewalk the previous day, there shouldn't be a problem, right?  Not quite, the temperature was around freezing on Saturday.  Some of the snow had melted and flowed in a thin layer across the sidewalk.  Carrying two containers did not give me a free hand to hold on to the railing.  I probably went "charging" down the steps like it was a spring day.  Skid, flop, plop!

Well, all's well that ends well.  I did have a headache later, but that was a sinus headache around my eyes, not on the back of my head.

Pedestrians seem left out of Bluestone plan (Duluth MN)

When I grew up in Cleveland and East Cleveland, Ohio, my primary transportation was walking, biking, a streetcar or the bus. Most of the commercial districts abutted sidewalks and any parking was on the street or behind buildings. In other words, pedestrians were encouraged and drivers were an afterthought.

You can still see this urban design in most downtowns and in many neighborhoods. In Duluth examples include Central Avenue and some parts of Grand Avenue in the west and Superior Street in Lakeside.

Suburban design is creeping in, however. Mt. Royal Center is not pedestrian-friendly. More often than not pedestrians have to walk across parking lots or in the roadways. This is really ironic because there is so much senior housing abutting Mt. Royal. Every Walgreens being built is separated from the sidewalk by a medium-sized parking lot. Many other commercial buildings are far from the sidewalk.

Bluestone Commons is an ambitious project proposed for the Woodland School site. Its vision, as posted at the city of Duluth website, is to “create a mixed-use development comprising new retail, restaurants, student and professional housing components; reuse of the existing school building for possible postsecondary education; housing; (and) medical and office uses.” The vision purports a “Dinkytown-like environment.”

That does sound very interesting and exciting. The report includes many nice pictures of shops on streets and people on sidewalks or at sidewalk cafes. It also includes some pictures of typical, suburban, car-centered structures. I thought all of the pictures might be artists’ renditions, but then I realized I had seen some of the places before. Sure enough, the Excelsior and Grand photo was from St. Louis Park, Minn. I didn’t recognize any of the pictures as being from Dinkytown.

But I nearly went into shock when I saw a map of the proposed development. It was cross-hatched with parking spaces. Only three of seven buildings would have direct pedestrian access to Woodland. I hope the developer will maintain better-painted crosswalks than Mt. Royal Center does; too many drivers drive 20 mph or faster through parking areas.

This is not a “Dinkytown-like environment.” Almost all the shops in Minneapolis’ Dinkytown abut sidewalks, and all the area’s intersections are controlled by traffic lights.

For a better example in Duluth of urban-commercial development, see Carla Blumberg’s proposal  for a new building on the northwest corner of Eighth Street and 19th Avenue East. It is planned to abut the sidewalk on East Eighth Street with parking in the rear and a community garden on the east. It is to have offices or apartments on the upper two floors. You can see the plans on the bulletin board of the vestibule of Chester Creek Cafe or here.

If Bluestone Commons is supposed to be student-accessible, I wonder if the Duluth Public Works Department has plans and resources to provide painted crosswalks across Woodland Avenue at all the intersections between St. Marie Street and Kent Road. Only the Clover Street intersection has a painted crosswalk, but there are four other legal crosswalks. Very few drivers stop for pedestrians at these legal crosswalks. Drivers stop for pedestrians in Dinkytown.

Melvyn D. Magree of Duluth is a writer and former computer programmer. Read more of his musings here.

As published in the Duluth News Tribune, April 08, 2012 at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/227968.  I've added two links.

2014-03-26 Update:  The City of Duluth or somebody put a traffic signal at the main entrance to Bluestone Commons for both cars and pedestrians.  The shops that have pedestrian access from Woodland are occupied or soon to be occupied.  Bluestone Commons also keeps its sidewalk frontage clear to the same high standard as UMD does