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Are We There Yet?

I hated walking. From a young age, walking had always been associated with family

vacations, achy feet, and tired legs. I loved the aspect of traveling that included exploring new

places and trying new food, but walking was always the worst. Time on New York City’s

subway, or London’s tube was a safe haven from walking. Transportation by train or driving had

always been more comfortable; and in a car, nap time was readily available. It never made sense

why people would choose to walk over driving when a vehicle was so much more convenient.

It wasn’t until a few years ago during Covid that I found myself walking around the

neighborhood just to get out of the house. It was the only thing that was safe to do outside, and I

was tired of staring at the same four walls everyday. From walking to hiking, it became one of

my favorite pastimes. I could go for walks with my grandma, or spend time in nature whenever I

wanted. Throughout those months, walking transformed from purely a method of transportation,

to an enjoyable activity.

That being said, I also love driving. After getting my license a year ago, it has been an

amazing experience being able to explore areas further than a 3 mile radius from home. Driving

provides a feeling of freedom and convenience that walking can’t. It has enabled me to get a job

and drive myself to school and other activities.

There has always been a pretty clear line that defines what is worth walking or driving

for. I have always been curious as to why this is. It is not always dictated by proximity or even

the weather, but my mind has always had its own algorithm to decide whether or not I would be

walking. I have found that it subconsciously takes into account different factors, but it has never

been fully distinguishable. Some of these factors are things that I don’t notice, but

subconsciously address anyway - one being city planning. Why is it that cities are shaped the

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way they are? From large to small, urban to suburban - they have all had their own quirks. I

decided to dive deeper into this factor by asking the question: How does city planning influence

transportation preferences?

The first topic to address would be city planning. It’s pretty clear from its name that city

planning dictates the shape and system of a city, but how do those who form our city make their

decisions? Briana Byrne, an Associate Traffic Engineer for the city of Walnut Creek began to

answer this question. As the interview proceeded, it became clear that a lot of the choices they

make come down to logistics. Not only are they ensuring that traffic flows smoothly and safely,

they are also overseeing any new infrastructure to make sure that it is safe and doesn’t impede on

the city's streets. They are given some of the responsibility to decide what the city’s needs are,

and how they are going to accommodate future needs as well. City planning is not only about the

new additions, but also maintenance. Maintenance is often expensive and it varies depending on

the environment: “The MUDs are essentially urban settings and you have a lot of congestion and

urban traffic and deterioration of the roads as opposed to what can happen in a rural area”

(Rivera). City planners have to find a balance between maintaining, and creating. While both

growing a city and repairing it have their own place in terms of importance, there are limitations

on how much can be accomplished in a specific amount of time. All changes require physical

time, labor, and a budget; and oftentimes these requirements are not met, leading to the need to

prioritize specific projects.

Discerning what is necessary to add to a city can be difficult; afterall, it is not like one

can see into the future. What works for one city might not work for another, and that is due to

each city’s needs. The second interviewee was Kevin Wilk, former member of the transportation

commission, Walnut Creek’s former mayor (2021), and a current member of the Walnut Creek

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City Council. Wilk addressed the lack of buses in the Walnut Creek area as he began to compare

Walnut Creek with its surrounding cities. “There’s not a great bus route. Yes a bus comes

downtown, but a lot of people don't take it just to go downtown even to go to bart to be honest -

so we need to understand that more” (Wilk). Despite the heavy traffic around Northgate, or really

any other schools for that matter, buses never made a comeback; and many people have never

ridden a bus to school. While it sounds rational for there to be school buses - as students drive an

average of three miles to get to school, leave it in the parking lot for six hours, and then drive

home - they can be expensive and impractical if not adopted well. However this has not been the

case for every city. Rachel Bels, a Northgate student originally from Charlottesville, Virginia

explained to me that she would take the school bus to school every morning. She lived in a

circular neighborhood, and a bus would stop at a corner a few hundred feet from her house each

morning to pick her up. She talked about how she learned the bus routes and got to know the

people she commuted with. “I miss being able to talk to people about topics unrelated to school.

It was a place where I got to see the same people each day and ride the same route with them, so

in a way, we were all friends” (Bels). Her comment made a good point. It is natural to think

about the tangible impacts public transportation has on people and efficiency, but the

concomitant effects are often overlooked. While it makes sense to think logically when making

traffic decisions, it is possible that they hinder the spread of community.

During 2020, when restaurants started reopening for business, there was a surge in

extended patios. Streets such as Bonanza Street, Lincoln Avenue, and Broadway Plaza were shut

off to drivers to make way for pedestrians. It was originally a way to get people outside, and also

protect local businesses from the economic strife they were experiencing. But for something that

was born out of the pandemic, it seems to have been thriving. Personally, Byrne is “all for

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rededicating what was previously for autos, into alternative modes like dining.” She continued

with her professional opinion: “For cities like ours, it's one of those things where we’re trying to

shift from what is a temporary implementation to something that’s permanent.” As someone who

was more involved in the legislation, rather than the hands-on planning, Wilk provided a unique

point of view on the same topic: “it really helped those businesses stay in business. But, what we

saw as well was that it was so popular, that it was almost like a party going on just when walking

downtown. So I really think that it wasn’t just to help the businesses, and something that people

could feel comfortable eating at, but it was something that people could really enjoy doing”

(Wilk). Not only have these changes made Downtown Walnut Creek more exciting to visit, they

have also aided in the continued success of local businesses. He continued with an update that

the city had decided to make this a permanent addition to the city, and continuously search for

ways to support this new change.

Wilk, having experience in traffic logistics on the transportation commission, admitted

that “if someone said that they were going to eliminate 125 parking spots, and instead have

places to eat outdoors, nobody would have passed that.” He explained that it would not appeal to

the traditional way of thinking, because the increase in dining area did not compensate for the

loss of parking spots. What changed the city’s point of view was the pandemic. “People started to

think a bit differently. People weren’t going downtown and working anyway, and there was

plenty of parking everywhere, yeah there were 125 less parking spots, but no one was

complaining about it because of all of the new dining areas” (Wilk). This was an eye opener. As

a driver, it is easy to become irritated by the narrowed streets and increase in pedestrians; but it is

also important to take into account the benefits of these changes. They have increased the seating

area for small restaurants making it possible to host more customers, and also offered a safer

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alternative to dining out. These interviews have demonstrated that it is not possible to look at city

planning from one point of view such as purely safety, or purely efficiency. To plan effectively,

city planners are given the difficult task of balancing the many factors. It is a multilevel thing

that sometimes requires the sacrifice of some practicality to make a city livable.

After talking to people heavily involved in the community, it was only natural to begin to

wonder how it is like in other cities. Walnut Creek had great success with extended patios, but

every city is different. How have cities become so unique? One must look to the origins of cities

to find the answer. Examining the nation’s capital designed by french architect Pierre L'Enfant in

1791, reveals that the shapes of some cities have rich histories and required years of thought and

creativity. Although the shape of a city may seem insignificant to the everyday person, they can

be very unique. Washington DC was drawn using geometry with circles, grids, cascading stars,

and even the golden ratio of 1 to 1.618. L’Enfant originally designed the Capital with the

Supreme Court “halfway between the executive and legislative branches, so as to keep an eye

equally on both” (Selman). The original design is much more different from the city seen today.

The streets are designed in “wheels” with a center, and streets branching out like the spokes of a

wheel. This was intended to create convenience and efficiency for the city and led to the city's

distinctive design. What seems insignificant to the everyday eye, has actually shaped some of the

world’s most important cities.

Each city has individual needs, which is why you might see the stark difference between

urban cities such as Los Angeles and New York City. Not only is New York City filled to the

brim with skyscrapers, their transportation system looks different: “Because we build up rather

than out, most people have the option of walking through the central business district. Unlike

Los Angeles, we do not have sprawl that has stretched public transportation beyond its limits”

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(Gregrson). Los Angeles, a city overrun with Ubers and Teslas, has a very different approach to

transportation. This is due to the design of the sprawling city, making it inconvenient to walk;

and without a train system like New York’s Subway, the results are six-lane highways (Gardetta).

This has been seen locally, for those who commute to San Francisco daily; but the Bay Area is

lucky - not every city is equipped with a train system like BART. However, highways have made

room for urban growth. Those who used to have to scrimp and save to live in the city they

worked in, could now live in the surrounding neighborhoods and commute in: “The spread of

people outside of the city created what is known as urban sprawl, in which the city extends

farther and farther from its center” (Cohen). Cities have become more interlocked due to these

changes in transportation, rather than each town staying in its own bubble. This has allowed the

expansion of people and growth of non-central cities. The dispersion has also led to the

spreading of communities and cultures, as people often take their roots with them.

Since cities are so connected nowadays, there is more freedom to choose where to settle

down. Other than location and schools, one of the few things that set towns apart from each other

is transportation. How does one choose their method of transportation? To decide, one might

look at affordability, safety, or practicality. With gas prices skyrocketing, it has become

increasingly more justifiable to use public transit systems for commuting. And they are

becoming more efficient as well - “By late 2011, Philadelphia subway trains will store and reuse

50% of the kinetic energy generated by braking” ("Beneath the streets: underground mass-transit

lines are expensive to build, but they are the most efficient form of transportation in major cities.

Today about 145 cities in more than 50 countries have a subway system.”). The improvements in

technology have produced more appeal in public transportation. While privacy is still highly

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valued by drivers, it is beginning to become reasonable to ditch pricey commuting by car for

cheaper and increasingly more comfortable trains or buses.

But this isn’t new. Gas prices, and car maintenance costs have always been high: “The

study, by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, claimed that Tampa Bay residents spent

nearly a quarter of their household incomes on automobile transportation in 2001--the highest

percentage among 27 metropolitan areas in the U.S” (Brill). As these prices continue to increase,

presumably the number of people traveling by public transit would also increase. But that has not

been the case during the past few years. Due to Covid-19, public transit numbers have

experienced a dramatic decrease: “This time last year, when coronavirus case numbers were in

single digits, public transport use was about 45 percent of pre-pandemic figures… Compared to

the fall in public transport use, road traffic has remained high. On Monday traffic was 81 percent

of pre-pandemic baseline levels, with 8.1 million trips, according to state government data”

(Fowler). This is due to safety concerns, and increase in working virtually, and the overall

comfort of driving rather than riding a dirty train. While public transit often seems like the way

to go from a detached point of view, the reality is that the pandemic has led to changes, and it has

become more difficult to predict one’s traffic patterns. Affordability, once being one of the

deciding factors in choosing transportation methods, is now facing the emerging competitors.

Walking and biking are not merely forms of exercise, but transportation as well -

although not as popular. One of the major turn offs tends to be the issue of safety; “ Most city

streets were designed with only cars in mind. Biking along them can be very dangerous. Safe

places to park bikes may also be scarce” (Winner). From drivers, to people on the street, you

never know when there might be an accident. There was a car accident in 2015 where two

women were hit by a car while crossing Oak Grove Road. Accidents are not always preventable,

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but nevertheless the risks can be unappealing: "In the morning time, a lot of kids go to Northgate

High School and a lot of people are driving pretty fast on that stretch right there. It's kind of a

blind spot when you're crossing the creek bed over there and a lot of times people don't stop and

yield for people” (Hollyfield). In order to make it more appealing to be a pedestrian, safety needs

to be addressed, not only in terms of traffic, but in street maintenance. Cracks in the sidewalks,

or corners without slopes often lead to incidents for the elderly. Without the reflexes a younger,

and more agile person might possess, it is quite common for someone to be unable to catch

themself if they trip on uneven concrete. It is understandable as to why driving is so popular in

Walnut Creek. After all, it is often the safest.

There are so many factors that go into not only planning a city, but inversely as well

where people have to decide how to live life influenced by their environment. It is impossible to

pinpoint one deciding factor, because just as for many personal preferences, people have

different opinions. Ultimately, it is about designing a city that fits its society’s needs as a whole,

while also including enough appeals to the individual. Researching this topic brought me to the

conclusion that there is not a clear answer, and the reason why is because of the special needs of

each city. If there was one solution, the diversely designed cities of the world would not exist.

While there are aspects of a city that are not always the most practical, efficient or safe, they all

have their own place and often exist for a reason. This topic is so important because a city is

often a home for people. People are meant to be able to engage with their surroundings and the

people in it; and without a city that they can grow in, it is impossible to do that. It is almost like a

“chicken-and-the-egg” situation - trying to figure out if one needs to find their city to find their

people or the other way around - but there is room for experimentation due to differences in city

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planning. Not everyone can be an urban liver, and not everyone is meant for the suburbs, but

these options and unique environments exist so people can find what works for them.

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Works Cited

Bels, Rachel. Northgate Student. Personal Interview. 15 February 2022.

"Beneath the streets: underground mass-transit lines are expensive to build, but they are the most

efficient form of transportation in major cities. Today about 145 cities in more than 50

countries have a subway system." Science Illustrated, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2011, pp.

74+. Gale In Context: High School,

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28dfda. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.

Brill, Amy Welch. "Same study, two views: is Tampa Bay a more expensive place to drive than

other major cities?" Florida Trend, vol. 46, no. 6, Oct. 2003, p. 36. Gale In Context: High

School,

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07bc52. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.

Byrne, Briana. Associate Traffic Engineer. Personal Interview. 14 March 2022.

Cohen, M. L. "Freeway." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda

Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. Gale In Context: High School,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/CV2644030939/SUIC?u=wal55317&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=

d15a3d43. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.

Fowler, Michael. "Cars in as public transport shunned." Age [Melbourne, Australia], 22 Jan.

2022, p. 14. Gale In Context: High School,

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d524a4. Accessed 22 Mar. 2022.

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Gardetta, Dave. "HARD DRIVE." Los Angeles Magazine, vol. 46, no. 4, Apr. 2001, p. 66. Gale

In Context: High School,

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ca27. Accessed 21 Mar. 2022.

Gregrson, John. "The democratization of design; city planners and community groups are

wielding more clout on urban planning issues." Building Design & Construction, vol. 31,

no. 4, Apr. 1990, pp. 62+. Gale In Context: High School,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A8934985/SUIC?u=wal55317&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=93a9

1f7b. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.

Hollyfield, Amy. “Police investigate after 2 women struck by car in Walnut Creek.” ABC7 San

Francisco, 20 November 2015,

https://abc7news.com/walnut-creek-pedestrians-hit-accident-at-oak-grove-road/1093197/.

Accessed 21 March 2022.

Rivera, Dylan. "Bill would let MUDs maintain their streets // Bill would let MUDs repair their

streets // Supporters say - proposal would expedite maintenance." Austin

American-Statesman [TX], 22 May 1997, p. B1. Gale In Context: High School,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A67253752/SUIC?u=wal55317&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=d59

c1917. Accessed 4 Mar. 2022.

Selman, Will. “L'Enfant's sacred design for Washington DC.” Congress for the New Urbanism,

21 February 2018,

https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/02/21/l%E2%80%99enfant%E2%80%99s-sacred

-design-washington-dc. Accessed 21 March 2022.

Wilk, Kevin. Walnut Creek City Council Member. Personal Interview. 17 March 2022.

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Winner, Cherie. "Bike it instead." Current Health 2, a Weekly Reader publication, vol. 22, no. 2,

Oct. 1995, pp. 20+. Gale In Context: High School,

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1faee. Accessed 7 Feb. 2022.

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