Turns out not every motorist is enthralled by the idea of putting our city streets on a diet. I wrote about such proposals, including the notion of moveable parklets, in Pasadena’s Playhouse District, last week. Reader Eleanor Valentine, who has lived in Pasadena since 1930, drops a note:
“Please drive on Washington Blvd. between Allen Ave. and Hill Ave. right here in Pasadena. That area has the cute little bulb-outs, with the concrete posts standing around the edge like little soldiers (or worse) so drivers can see the bulb-outs. They still get hit and need frequent replacing. The purpose of these B-O’s is said to be so pedestrians don’t have so far to walk when crossing the street. WHY? The major flaw with the B-O’s is that they take away the right-hand turn lane, so turns must be made from the No. 2 traffic lane. This also makes the busses stop in the No. 2 traffic lane to pick up and discharge riders, while traffic waits behind them.”
Hadn’t been over to East Washington in a while, so Tuesday morning I drove straight through, from Altadena Drive all the way west to the Arroyo Seco. First thing I noticed was how nicely done the city blocks east of Lake are looking — the unincorporated area toward Eaton Canyon is in relative disrepair. It’s not the most pedestrian-heavy street, but I for one like the job planners have done with the crosswalks. Problem seems to me that drivers just aren’t seeing the new corner “bulbs,” and are hitting them, and sometimes the quite obvious “little soldiers.” Motorists should open their eyes. There are black tire marks on every bulb.
Eleanor eloquently disagrees: “Our planners are getting sillier and sillier. All the wonderful CALMING effects only produce irritated drivers.”
At random this Wednesday: Talking of drivers, I’d been hearing that Pasadena would be joining the bigger cities experimenting with Zipcars, the $10-an-hour rental company that lets you worry about a car only when you need one. Caltech has already partnered with the company for faculty and students. But Playhouse District Executive Director Erlinda Romo reports, after talking to the city’s Mike Bagheri, that within four to six months there will be a pilot program in Pasadena’s downtown, with eight Zipcar pickup locations …
The former marine biology teacher Stephen Hillenburg, who created “SpongeBob SquarePants,” the most-watched cartoon on TV for a dozen years, lives in San Marino. When asked by The New York Times, for some reason, what he likes to eat, he gave a great shout-out to — along with the dandelion salad at Canele in Atwater Village — a charming Star-News favorite, across the street and just down Colorado from the office. “And fish tacos at Norma’s Tacos in Pasadena,” Hillenburg said. “They make their own tortillas, but the tacos are small. I would recommend you get three if you stop there.” Yep — I always get three …
I knew that the City Ventures-owned townhouses were going up on the Ambassador West development at Orange Grove and Green, but hadn’t known the former college’s gleaming white hexaganol buildings from 1966-67, the Fine Arts and Science halls, both designed by Peter J. Holdstock, had met the wrecking ball. They were eerily beautiful as the campus where the Colin Firth character taught in “A Single Man,” if some derided them as “Mid-Century Mundane.”
Twitter: @PublicEditor. larry.wilson@sgvn.com.
