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Revisiting Cherry Hill
Nov. 21st, 2018 06:12 pmChuckro did a more extensive coverage of PhilCon in his own post. Overall, lovely little con. Got to hang out with some people I like. Met a new potential writing group member who seems cool. Also, stopped by Springdale Farms for cider donuts.
What I want to talk about, though, is the TRAVESTY of a strip mall thing that has replaced the old racetrack. Imagine, if you will, about ten city blocks worth of space that is full of strips of stores and restaurants, with parking lots honeycombed in between. (Note: all the stores involved are perfectly nice.) There are maybe 3 or 4 ways in and out of this complex. So, three blocks worth of stuff along a highway, with only one entrance on that side. (And this highway makes it almost impossible to change directions legally without going half a mile out of your way.) So you manage to get into this thing somehow. But the store you're going to is four islands' worth of strips away. You're going to effectively drive four blocks to get there. But there aren't any actually roads through this thing. It's just parking lot. So there aren't any lights. There are very few crosswalks and almost no stop signs, and the stop signs have no right of way built in. They're just thrown up haphazardly. So you're going to try to navigate for four blocks, with four blocks' worth of intersections, but with absolutely no way to establish who's got right of way. And pedestrians can step out at you at any point. And cars can pull out of spaces at any point. And half of the things aren't at exact right angles. It was a NIGHTMARE. I almost got T-boned twice and almost hit someone else in a five minute span. Because people just start and stop and accelerate at random. Because this is what happens when you just skip urban planning or infrastructure and just let commercial development happen willy-nilly. It was a giant illustration of the flaws of late-stage capitalism. I cannot tell you how happy I was to get back into the city, where there are grids and yield signs and crosswalks.
What I want to talk about, though, is the TRAVESTY of a strip mall thing that has replaced the old racetrack. Imagine, if you will, about ten city blocks worth of space that is full of strips of stores and restaurants, with parking lots honeycombed in between. (Note: all the stores involved are perfectly nice.) There are maybe 3 or 4 ways in and out of this complex. So, three blocks worth of stuff along a highway, with only one entrance on that side. (And this highway makes it almost impossible to change directions legally without going half a mile out of your way.) So you manage to get into this thing somehow. But the store you're going to is four islands' worth of strips away. You're going to effectively drive four blocks to get there. But there aren't any actually roads through this thing. It's just parking lot. So there aren't any lights. There are very few crosswalks and almost no stop signs, and the stop signs have no right of way built in. They're just thrown up haphazardly. So you're going to try to navigate for four blocks, with four blocks' worth of intersections, but with absolutely no way to establish who's got right of way. And pedestrians can step out at you at any point. And cars can pull out of spaces at any point. And half of the things aren't at exact right angles. It was a NIGHTMARE. I almost got T-boned twice and almost hit someone else in a five minute span. Because people just start and stop and accelerate at random. Because this is what happens when you just skip urban planning or infrastructure and just let commercial development happen willy-nilly. It was a giant illustration of the flaws of late-stage capitalism. I cannot tell you how happy I was to get back into the city, where there are grids and yield signs and crosswalks.
