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San Pablo stroad
A few days ago I discovered that 99 Ranch, a big Chinese supermarket, had dim sum in its hot food section, so I tried going today to get some. It's a 38 minute walk, so I wanted to take the bus. The bus passed me, because it was a Rapid bus and I was at the wrong stop. The next buses were delayed, and I ended up reaching the store right as the next bus got there too. Yay. So anyway, that meant walking up San Pablo quite a ways, and paying attention. And yep, it's a stroad, or feels that way:
4 lanes of traffic (2 each way, plus turn lanes), which are fast and busy, so the noise and smells of cars constantly passing. (And presumably pollution too, though my N95 would at least take care of particulates.) Lots of driveways, I had 3 or 4 interactions with emerging cars on my walk. (And the San Pablo section is only 20 minutes, not the full 38.) No shade. Lots of car-related businesses lining the road.
OTOH to be fair it is a relatively mild stroad. Only 4 lanes of traffic, not 6 or 11. A wide sidewalk, and curb parking, so you don't feel like death is zipping inches past you. Buildings mostly hug the sidewalk, so you get a sense of enclosure, rather than walking between traffic and parking lots. The lack of shade is partly seasonal, there were various leafless trees (which would also interfere with a curb-jumping car.) So yeah, could be much worse. OTOH, I get to regularly experience actual streets, so... Also, if you're not hoping to catch a bus, there's a bike/foot path along BART with far less exposure to cars; I ended up taking that back.
As for the market dim sum, it was cheap and diverse but not very good. 3 PM was not the best time for getting some, but I'm not sure it's really worth a repeat.
I did note that CO2 levels in the mall that store is in were very low. My Vitalight might have been saying 400, or 450? It's running low at the moment, but even adding 50 PPM, that's 500... it was tempting to actually eat my haul inside the mall, trusting to the apparent high ventilation, though I ended up eating outside anyway along a little creek.
Trader Joe's, OTOH, was reading 950, which means 1000. Not so good.
4 lanes of traffic (2 each way, plus turn lanes), which are fast and busy, so the noise and smells of cars constantly passing. (And presumably pollution too, though my N95 would at least take care of particulates.) Lots of driveways, I had 3 or 4 interactions with emerging cars on my walk. (And the San Pablo section is only 20 minutes, not the full 38.) No shade. Lots of car-related businesses lining the road.
OTOH to be fair it is a relatively mild stroad. Only 4 lanes of traffic, not 6 or 11. A wide sidewalk, and curb parking, so you don't feel like death is zipping inches past you. Buildings mostly hug the sidewalk, so you get a sense of enclosure, rather than walking between traffic and parking lots. The lack of shade is partly seasonal, there were various leafless trees (which would also interfere with a curb-jumping car.) So yeah, could be much worse. OTOH, I get to regularly experience actual streets, so... Also, if you're not hoping to catch a bus, there's a bike/foot path along BART with far less exposure to cars; I ended up taking that back.
As for the market dim sum, it was cheap and diverse but not very good. 3 PM was not the best time for getting some, but I'm not sure it's really worth a repeat.
I did note that CO2 levels in the mall that store is in were very low. My Vitalight might have been saying 400, or 450? It's running low at the moment, but even adding 50 PPM, that's 500... it was tempting to actually eat my haul inside the mall, trusting to the apparent high ventilation, though I ended up eating outside anyway along a little creek.
Trader Joe's, OTOH, was reading 950, which means 1000. Not so good.