A Visit to Your Local Library

Street Highlights: Cole Dr, Capital Heights Ave, Sevenaaks Ave, Winthrop Ave, Donmoor Ave, Esplanade Dr

Way back in August when the summertime heat beat down the population of Baton Rouge, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I had finished my summer vacation odyssey and school hadn't started yet. With a whole day on my hands and the wife at work I made a solo journey to my local library. While this journey sound innocuous and quite common place, nothing is ever that easy on two wheels in the capital city.



I have been a Baton Rouge resident since 2002, although I don't consider campus life as living in Baton Rouge. Excluding those years I've been a resident proper since 2006, but had never taken advantage of my civic right to free information for the price of one Library Card. I had no photo ID to verify my identity and place of residence. When I did renew my ID I never bothered. Now I had the time and the tools. I set out through the Mid-City area crossing Government St at the light at Hearthstone Dr. While I had to travel the wrong way down a one-way it the the best way to get across Government and leads to Cole Dr.





I've mentioned before the convenience of Cole Dr. It's well paved, seldom traveled and leads to a crossing of another troublesome street, Acadian Thwy. A quick stint down Acadian leads to a now defunct turning lane onto the one-laned bike friendly, Capital Heights Ave.


Capital Heights is like bike mecca and its sad there are not more well-paved neighborhood streets friendly and accessible to bikers. Take for instance Claycut Rd, just south of Capital Heights. I had the misfortune of having to use Claycut to get around a stupid fucking Golf Course. Claycut is a neighborhood road that doesn't have a sidewalk! It has lovely houses and nice people, but they are slaves to the constant traffic that passes through. So any resident who wishes to go for a stroll, take the dog for a walk or what have you, has to leave their neighborhood and head for the safety of Capital Heights. Not just Claycut, but all neighboring streets without a sidewalk flee to Capital Heights. This creates a lot of pedestrian traffic. Pedestrians clog the bike lanes making them almost pointless. I am all for sharing the road, but completed sidewalks could alleviate much of the problems across neighborhood lines.


Strides are being made to encourage neighborhood walkability. Capital Heights does end all too soon, but as I described from a recent trip making groceries, another neighborhood road fills in the gaps.




A quick loop around the Goodwood Playground takes us to my new favorite road Sevenoaks Ave. As recently as last spring a sidewalk plan has started in this neighborhood. They are finishing up now and a comprehensive sidewalk stretches from one end of Sevenoaks to the other. I stay on the road. Sidewalks are for walking. Any number of wheels belong on the road.The convenience of this road is that it connects one neighborhood to another and runs parallel to Jefferson Highway, LA 73. However, Jefferson Highway has nothing to do with this trip. My voyage takes me further down Sevenoaks to another imposing street Lobdell Ave.





Lobdell is an up-and-coming cross section. It connect roads that would otherwise have nothing to do with each other. It stems off of Jefferson Highway and passes through Goodwood Ave, Government St, up to Florida Blvd and even runs parallel to Highway 61, Airline Hwy, before terminating at Greenwell Springs Road in the northern parts of the city. It is wide and well paved. I had the misfortune of using Lobdell's very nice sidewalk to travel from Govenment St to Florida on some Errant Errand, and I believe they are building a water park somewhere on this stretch.




Be that as it may Lobdell is a dangerous street and taking a left onto it is not easy. There is a sort-of bike lane. A small red shoulder is on either side of the road so I take that, but as I near the library on Goodwood Blvd the shoulder disappears into a turning lane. I must admit that rather than trying to merge into traffic at a stop light, all of whom are gunning to take a right, I get onto the sidewalk and take a right myself onto Goodwood Blvd.







Goodwood is a long stretch of road. It is the designated biking street through that part of town, but being single-laned most of the way makes it quite treacherous. I opt for my Guerrilla paths. Sevenoaks is so nice and quite and it runs parallel to Goodwood so why wouldn't I take it.

What is baffling to me is that Goodwood abuts on of the nicest parks in the city, Independence Park. It is filled with soccer fields, baseball fields, a community Theatre, and even a botanical garden. For all its niceties its one flaw is that it is totally inaccessible. I've already mentioned the troubles traversing Goodwood on the south side, but to the north is Government St. Not only is Government impassable, but where Government meets Lobdell is one of the strangest most complicated intersections in all of Baton Rouge. Government changes its name to Independence Blvd and the roads swerve in some complicated hyperbolic pattern making it nigh impossible to cross. In addition to a lack of safe passage the entire park is surrounded by fencing. I could be at the Library checking out a book, but if I wanted to read it in the park I'd need to get back in my car and drive until I found a break in the fencing, even though the library is attached to the park! It's unnerving.

Here's where my travels get a little personal and a little embarrassing. It's no wonder people don't ride bikes here in the summer time because by the time I arrived at the Library I was pouring from all pores. My shirt had the classic pool of sweat around the clavicle area with the signature river down my breastbone. My first order of business was to obtain a Library card - remember this is my first time here. As I was filling out the paper work my sweat glands were still pumping. The Librarian's desk had pools of moisture on it and my application was soaked. I ran into my friends Mark and Cameron as well as their roommate John and Mark's first words to me were, "You rode your bike here didn't you?" Guilty. The evidence was overwhelming.

I turned in my soggy paperwork and apologized many times. The Librarian was understanding and made me feel at ease. In trips since this one I headed with traffic down Goodwood staying in the left lane and merging into the left turning lane at the light on Lobdell, much to most people's ire. I follow the same path back, but this time I had one more thing to do. Being the conscientious musician I am I needed to change the strings on my guitar, plus my friend Marty broke one. So once again I have to make my way to Florida Blvd this time to Zeagler Music.





The path I took this time I thought was inspired so I approached it more as an experiment. Zeagler is on the corner of Florida and a street called Donmoor Ave, which is a one-way heading north. If I could somehow get north of Government street and into the neighborhood I could cross Florida at the light on Donmoor into Zeagler's shopping center. The problem of course was connectivity.

Lobdell would take care of my first task, getting north of Government St. I had to navigate through that M. C. Esher inspire intersection of Lobdell and Government by using crosswalks and traveling through a firehouse parking lot on the corner, but the second task, getting into the neighborhood, seemed tricky. It seemed I'd need to head all the way up to Florida or else make a left turn onto Government, but one street did seem like a ray of hope. There is a strange little circle called Linda Ave that stems off of Lobdell then circles back around to it not connecting the neighborhood. However, thanks to Google maps, I notice part of the circle was called Wintrop Ave and it stopped at Linda, then picked back up on the other side, in the neighborhood I was after. A street shot verified what I had hoped. This road was disconnected, but not developed. The only thing separating the street was a vacant lot and poor planning I suppose.

Why? Why the deliberate separation of a road? Why the planned disconnection of a neighborhood from its intended thoroughfares? I can only imagine it was inspired by fear. Fear of crazy cars. Fear of people abusing neighborhood roads to navigate through traffic. There must be better ways. Much like fencing in Independence Park we are not liberating ourselves from fear, but caging ourselves from it breeding still yet more fear, fear of the outside.

Emboldened by one of my crazy path's success I take my rented books and off road it for a bit. This takes me through the neighborhood to Donmoor. I don't want to alarm anyone in this neighborhood, but despite your best efforts otherwise, drivers are already using your neighborhood. From Government to Florida there are not many connecting roads, but Donmoor is one of them and it has a light. I wasn't the only commuter with the idea of crossing Florida at a light, but I was the only one on two wheels. Anyway I make it to Zeagler in one piece and pick up my strings to head home. I had been gone for quite some time now and my wife was already home no doubt worried. I cross back over at Donmoor and since it is one way I duck over to the next street, Kenwood Ave.

Though Kenwood doesn't have a light I cross Government easily enough at Audubon and head down another familiar neighborhood road, Esplanade Ave. This takes me back to Goodwood Park and onto Capital Heights, which I now travel headed with traffic on my way back home. In the past few months I have seen some good things occurring in Baton Rouge. The progress is slow but is growing exponentially. We seem to have some support on our side, but when it comes to city planning it's all or nothing. Baton Rouge must branch out now and correct old problems before starting new ones.




I have been living here in the capital city for eight years now. I moved from Lafayette, LA for schooling at Louisiana State University, and shortly after graduating got a good job. I am somewhat of an anomaly here in Baton Rouge. I am a young professional homeowner who does not like football. I do not stay for school loyalty but because I see the potential of this city. I hope that with future planning it blossoms into a city we can all enjoy every part of it.





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