Chunks of asphalt on the street pile up like dirty clothes on a laundry-room floor. The to-and-fro motion of the wind complement my mid-morning saunter down Main Street. Rain and dust clump to the sidewalk's cracks and crevices, leaving my shoes with a new, tawny hue.
My thoughts drift back to the ancient Romans, who created a 15,000-mile network of highways paved with stone. Because the streets were congested with wagons and animals, sidewalks were added to urban areas to improve conditions for walking. Wider sidewalks were built to accommodate heavy pedestrian use.
By the 1800s, sidewalks were used for many activities. Children played, while men and women worked as street vendors. Sidewalks were called the main public place of a city and regarded as its most vital organ.
Twenty-first century sidewalks allow citizens to promenade without fear. Scheduled for completion in late November, the Texas Safe Routes to School infrastructure project will repair and replace old sidewalks leading to Roscoe Wilson Elementary, located in Tech Terrace.
Cities without sidewalks lack the vital element of structure required for the creation of a community. Children riding bicycles alongside cars and garbage trucks scare any parent.
Walking is our most basic form of transportation. We begin and end the process as a pedestrian, with the sidewalk as our safety corridor. Sidewalks seem mundane. They come in asphalt, concrete or brick - kind of like paper or plastic. Newly christened McDougalville - aka the Overton Area - boasts Champs-Elysees-size boardwalks.
I love the subtleties and nuances that make up the Hub City: playa lakes and feed pasture smells. We arrest morally malevolent Chippendales dancers, and the Lubbock Westerners, our own Little League team, plays the national pastime in an uncomplicated style. Lubbock straddles the cusp of burgeoning suburbia, only to be yanked down by its Sisyphus stone, East Lubbock.
The neglect of the town's blind spot gets passed on from city council to city council. Infrastructure is haphazardly there, construction nonexistent.
Why is it that many think Lubbock only exists west of I-27? I am sure the city's suits and skirts would say, "Progress is being made, business are lined up out the door ... development is here and now." If I asked for particulars, they would point to Mackenzie Park, then stammer and dismiss my question. East Lubbock is what it is - a blighted chunk of land that's not on McDougal's or the council's radar.
Revitalization along University Avenue with Bar PM, Starbucks, Chili's and Freebird's is a chest sticking out, point of pride for the city - and rightly so. The Marsha Sharp Freeway - when completed - appreciably will alter our morning drives and afternoon exits. Think of the traffic muddle between Covenant Health System's buildings and Quaker Avenue being gone. You sigh and lean back, yearning for that convenience. That's the summation of Lubbock: expediency over necessity.
Large sections of the city appear dilapidated in comparison to the cool, cookie-cutter condos and apartments continually shooting up. McDougalville is a status symbol limiting the sense of community. The few houses remaining on Main Street are leftovers waiting to be squashed, evicted by eminent domain and Kelo v. New London, so Daddy Warbucks can give his child an appropriate living arrangement.
Walk the streets of East Lubbock and the disparity becomes clear as day: unpaved streets, faulty traffic signals - a plebian existence. There's no Starbucks on every corner; rather, there are potholes on every street and sidewalk.
Let's make this a start of a new beginning. I am fed up with the lies coming from the Patricians. We gotta speak out: No longer can we keep our hands in our pockets. Societies are judged by how they treat their poor and downtrodden. As of now, Lubbock's running dead last. Demand change in your city.
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