I recently visited a friend on Fairbanks Street, in an area I haven’t regarded too highly in the past. I discovered some of its hidden virtues that make it one of Fairbanks’s pockets of pedestrian-friendliness.
This is something I think about often: What will we do when gasoline becomes so horrendously expensive that it’s no longer practical to own a car? (In truth, I think our society has long passed that point, but we have so much psychologically invested in personal mobility that we’re accustomed not to demanding the lost personal time or community life.)
It causes me to think often, when I’m in different places, about what it would be like to live there without a car. Yes, the houses are lovely, but do the neighbors ever talk? Where can your kids go to play independently or to mingle in adult life? If you have guests coming in fifteen minutes and you’ve just discovered you’re clean out of toilet paper, what can you do?
The neighborhood around Fairbanks Street — that is, the area just across Geist from West Valley and Hutch — is not bad as far as getting by without a car. Not ideal, but it really has some virtues. It is especially good for those who work at UAF, since, from Geist, campus is a bit uphill but essentially just across the street. Whether you consider being car-free a goal or an unfortunate circumstance, living near work eliminates half the struggle already.
It is also has an identifiable neighborhood center, with places that the locals can visit and run into each other: namely, the stretch of businesses along Geist that includes places to meet up like Alaska Coffee Roasting Company, a national pizza chain, and a national hamburger chain. A number of them serve a borough-wide customer base and not the neighborhood especially — but I see no reason why a local-serving grocery store couldn’t be there, too, and perhaps a more out-of-the-way coffee shop for the neighbors.
The southern end of the neighborhood would be right across the street from a Fred Meyer, if only it weren’t stopped short by the Chena River. (This highlights the difference between proximity and access — with the addition of a few pedestrian bridges over Deadman Slough and the Chena, that store could effectively become much nearer to those who live there.) That said, if you walk to Loftus, which leads to a pedestrian/bike path where the Mitchell crosses the Chena, you can quickly enough reach Airport Way near Fred Meyer. I’m told by a friend near the south end of Fairbanks that it’s about a half-hour’s walk one way; I think this means under 10 minutes on bicycle. This is a lot closer than most Fairbanksans live from their grocery stores. And I think the alternative is longer: take Geist to University, and University to Airport. (Though you can cut through some to get to University.)
Also, it’s got the pedestrian’s lifeline to the city: two bus lines that go along Geist, with several stops between Loftus and University. The Blue and Red lines run a circular path in opposite directions and can take people to the university, the fairgrounds, Creamer’s Field, the Steese/Johansen box-store retail monstrosity, both Fairbanks Fred Meyer and Safeway stores, Alaskaland, our local 16-screen überplex, Denny’s, a host of medical offices, and, of course, downtown. Those who care to walk south and cross the Mitchell bridge toward Airport can catch the Yellow line to take them to the Airport or downtown by way of Alaskaland.
For my taste, this neighborhood is missing a lot. There are so many dead ends that getting from one spot to another would frustrate me. Moreover, dead ends just channel traffic into a series of ever-busier collector streets (rather than distribute it equally), which makes those collectors unsafe and unwelcoming places for pedestrians. It would benefit from more local-serving retail — perhaps a bit out of the way and closer to the center of the neighborhood.
Where are the other “pedestrian pockets” in Fairbanks? Have you got one near you? Maybe better to start by asking: What should our criteria be? What makes a neighborhood a good place for walkers to live?
good discussion here about driving vs commuting by bike, the economics of oil and changing peoples’ opinions about driving. the commenter ‘chiggins’ was particularly astute:
“I just replied to a commenter on another blog who, in that same vein, said, ‘there’s no way we could live around here without a car’.
“I read an article the other day that stated, without noting the logical contradiction, that 1.) we can’t do anything about increasing production, and 2.) that worldwide consumption (not demand, mind you, consumption) was going to increase 35% by 2050. And I thought while reading this, ‘Now how’s that gonna work.’
“So I replied to said commenter that if it’s true that there’s no living where he does without a car, then he’d better either work out ways to change that with the other members of his community, or get the hell out of there, because pretty soon it’s not going to be his choice.
“That’s what drives me nuts about the ‘it could never work for me’ objections. Do these folks really think they’re going to have any say in it when we go from the inconvenience of high prices to the stark reality of shortages?”
^well said.
I live in this neighborhood and chose it for many of the reasons you list here. A very good coffee shop, 2 of my banks, the post office and a bar are all within easy walking distance. With the exception of the bar, I regularly walk to each. I never take my car to these places. If I really needed milk and didn’t want to go to Fred Meyer, I suppose I could go to the gas station on the corner across from the post office. The university frequently has worthwhile cultural events and is only 1 mile away because people not in cars get a bonus shortcut through what used to be the Fairbanks St. bridge. Work is about 4 miles away down the Johansen but it is the best car-less commute you can have while not living in the city. Did I mention that this neighborhood isn’t in the city? I don’t have to get the goverment’s stinking permission to add an outlet to my house: Bonus!
The dead ends you mention are kind of frustrating, but to the neighborhood’s credit, most of them are caused by a natural landscape feature: The slough. Those who have poked around the neighborhood enough know where the footpath-shortcuts are.
My analysis of the bus indicates the thing is nearly useless, however. I can ride my bike to downtown or that awful boxstore land and back faster on average than if I waited for the bus both ways. Yes, even in the winter.
Dan Burden, the founder of Walkable Communities Inc., will be the guest speaker at the Sitka Health Summit on May 14-16 (the community dinner on Wednesday and the community planning session on Thursday are the two biggest public events). For more information about the Sitka Health Summit, go to http://www.sitkahealthsummit.org. To learn more about keynote speaker Dan Burden and Walkable Communities Inc., go to http://www.walkable.org. Dan also was a founder of Bikecentennial Inc., which now is known as Adventure Cycling Association (the country’s largest touring bicycle organization), http://www.adventurecycling.org.
Also, another good resource for learning how to make a community more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, go to the National Center for Bicycling and Walking, http://www.bikewalk.org. The NCBW has a sister organization called Active Living Resources, http://www.activelivingresources.org, which has a lot of good information for city planners.
I live across University from Old U-Park school, and work in the Wells Fargo building at Geist & University. I walk to and from work daily year-round, and from home, it’s a short and easy jaunt to Collegetown (University & College), where I have access to a convenience store, bookstore, coffee shop, nail & hair salons, several restaurants, and Beaver Sports. While there aren’t any particularly pedestrian-friendly features (aside from the new crosswalk controls at Geist & University – thanks, State of AK!), there are few enough cross-streets that I feel safe walking there any time, and I love all the things I can do in my neighborhood without ever getting into a motorized vehicle. I wish there were more areas in Fairbanks that were this easy to live in car-free!
The part around College and University is an old neighborhood, actually a town itself and not part of Fairbanks– College, AK (see the state community database)
The College Woman’s Club (now the Greater Fairbanks Woman’s Club) set up one of the first playgrounds in Fbx and one of the first libraries.
You might check with Mardee Roth or Susie Swaim for more info.
One other advantage of that location (College) is that one can walk to ADEC or the university during ice fogs (and on good days) so much safer than driving.
I don’t know if you’re still keeping up with this blog, and my response is about two (almost three) years too late, but since I just found this post I’ll still respond….
I live in the neighborhood you highlighted, and I’ve found it to be very walk/bike-able, even in winter. Since I also work at the University, I walk every day even in winter. I’ve found a number of service places I use which are within walking/biking distance: restaurants, coffee shops, salon, post office, dentist, bookstore, etc. In the summer (and warmer winter days without other pressing tasks) I will even walk to the grocery store along the Geist/University route. My husband and I have talked about moving back to a cabin to save money, but we realized that with the cost of gas (and our current low rent for the area) we’d waste as much or more money in gas by having to drive more often.
In the summer, we almost exclusively ditch the car in favor of bikes. Many of our friends live within walking/biking distance, so it’s easy. All in all, in my opinion it’s the most walking and biking friendly (not to mention mass-transit friendly) area I’ve yet found in Fairbanks.