mindstalk | Entries tagged with albany

This post comes with a photo album.

No turkey at home today, just fried chicken, sausages, falafel, ham, and salmon. I don't miss turkey, the main reason it's popular is that a whole turkey is the cheapest way to feed meat to a larger family.

But I went for a walk and, after hardly seeing them for many months, almost immediately ran into the Albany turkey flock. I counted 22 of them. Watched them strut around, pecking at food in people's front yards. Mostly bugs I guess, though one turkey was attacking an apple.

I wasn't the only one hanging around to watch the birds; a couple of Asian women were as well, squatting on their heels in a way I still can't do comfortably.

Moving on, my "pay visual attention to the world" project had me noticed the bike infrastructure on Marin. While still far short of a protected bike path, they have tried to go beyond the most minimal painted bike lane. There are stripes on the inside edge of the lane, presumably meant to keep cars from parking sloppily and also to keep bikes from riding to close to door-zone cars. A car lane ends, and plastic bollards keep merging cars, or cars coming out of curbside parking, from being too sloppy. Further on, more plastic bollards keep cars from hugging the corner of an intersection.

I also have a couple photos of interesting house architecture.

Not shown are features of Solano Ave, the local "ye olde main street". Most of the intersections have bulb-outs, so a pedestrian only has to cross the width two traffic lanes -- no parking or turn lanes in the way. Most of the parking is diagonal, which I realized narrows the street compared to parallel parking, and probably also makes drivers nervous about cars suddenly backing up out of parking, thus slowing traffic down two different way.

And finally, at dusk, I discovered that wild turkeys are roosting birds. I ran across the flock again (well, a flock, but I bet it's the same), on the Ohlone path. I'd known before that they actually can fly, I've seen one on on a roof, and even seen them fly into trees in this exact spot. But back then, it was just a couple of birds.

This time, bird after bird seemed to work up the energy or courage to take off, some of them flying over the elevated BART line, and into the trees, until we had gone from most turkeys on the ground to most turkeys on the trees. I tried taking a few photos, first backlit by the sunset and then from the side, but none are great. Still, you can make them out. Presumably they mean to perch there overnight, which for the size and ungainliness of these birds, is impressive. Presumably they are good at not falling out in their sleep.

I realized that they might choose this spot because it lets them cheat by working up some height, too. On the footpath, facing north, trees are to your left, and to your right is a little rise of dirt, and beyond (and above) it someone's fence. The first birds I saw fly tonight had hopped up onto the fence first. Many of the rest took off from the rise, or ran down it with their wings open before taking off.

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.

Despite my neighborhood being safe and quiet, I've felt reluctant to walk much at night. I had a vague idea this was related to a paucity of streetlights. On paying attention tonight, I think it's more: there is a paucity of streetlights, _and_ an abundance of house lights: spillover from living rooms, porch lights (so many, it's like people all have them on as a public service), even leftover Christmas lights.

The net result is enough light to ruin my night vision, but not distributed evenly enough to reliably illuminate the sidewalk. My eyes get blasted by light from the side but my feet have to go through pools of shadow. And between tree roots and topography, the surface is hardly level.

There's one block segment that has an abundance of streetlights, and while it's rather garish, I was able to stride along it with confidence.

I suspect that if a block had scarce streetlights and _only_ that, then my eyes could adapt enough to navigate confidently through that. But I'll probably never get to find out.

Two unrelated items.

1) I've never been one to spend a ton on food, at least by my standards. I've upgraded over the years to orange juice not from concentrated, then eating actual oranges; I eat a lot of nuts and salmon, I'll buy the good consumer steaks from time to time. But I get antsy at spending more than US$20 on a meal, and I don't get super-expensive ingredients. I think even when I've dabbled, it didn't seem worth the price.

But today, I was at the local Japanese market, and got a bit of sashimi. $5 for some salmon, $13 for sliced toro. I thought I knew what to expect, raw toro, and didn't think it was regularly worth it, but it's been a while.

I was wrong! The toro was seared and seasoned and soooooooo good. Amazing.

It's also a unit price of $55/pound, eeep. So I don't intend to make a habit out of it. But I might do it again.

2) A few days ago, I was walking home, and heard turkey gobbles. As my loyal readers know, there are a lot of wild turkeys around here. But looking around, I didn't see any.

Then I looked up, and there, standing on the ridge of a two-story high roof, was a turkey, gobbling out to the world to announce it existence.

Photos! https://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/albums/72177720304356457

In this post: stroad analysis; a disappointing burger; flocks of turkeys.

Having earlier today said of San Pablo that it wanted to be a stroad when it grew up, I decided to pay more attention to it, rather than going on my impression of "wide and fast", which you may recall did not capture everything about Marin Avenue. I also decided to splurge (more in bad food than in money) on a fast burger from a place on San Pablo, so that was convenient.

Coming off Dartmouth (Google Street View link), it looked fairly decent. Parking, two lanes of traffic, but then a wide traffic island; two more lanes, then a protected bike path. Not bad! Almost certainly there had been parking but it got converted. There's a beg button, which works, and which prioritizes pedestrians.

Looking to the north, this state of affairs continues for a while. To the south though... the bike path quickly dumps back out into the street, with an insulting sharrow, and west-side parking resumes, though interspersed with bulb-outs. On the plus side, a wide planted median is common, so you can jaywalk in some safety -- possibly more safety than the yield-sign intersection crosswalks. At one point, even the turn lane has a narrow planted median alongside it.

Is it a stroad? Certainly more of one than Solano. Wide, fast, bunch of driveways -- more on the west side than east, at least around here. But it could be worse. There are sidewalks; the sidewalks are somewhat shielded from traffic by parking, trees, or at least a bit of concrete; you can cross easily in many places; there aren't that many driveways; there's at least progress toward bike safety, though woefully incomplete. Vs. the prototypical stroad of 3 lanes in each direction, no parking, sidewalk (if any) right by the traffic, crosswalks half a mile or more apart, lots of commercial driveways...

That said, it really depends where you look. Using Street View to go south, the wide planted median continues for several blocks. Using View north... the bike path quickly disappears again, and so do the medians. Google even caught someone standing in a turn lane, hoping to cross. At that point the main difference from a stroad are the parking and trees, and the relative paucity of driveways.

As for the burger, meh. When you call your star product a 'Charburger', I expect some charring. Or searing. Or some evidence of having been cooked by a means other than steaming. I did not get this. As for the crispy chicken pieces... they were definitely chunks of chicken that had been deep-fried to crispiness. Honestly, a school cafeteria chicken nugget or McNugget has more zest to it.

I think I've mentioned wild turkeys around here. But the numbers I encounter keep increasing. 1. 2. 4 or 5, crossing the street. And today... I dunno, 16? Upward of a dozen. Strung out along Dartmouth, but all moving in the same direction. It was impressive.

Musing while in bed, I took the known size of the house I'm in, guessed at the lot size, and then -- taking it as average -- at Albany's population density. I was around 4000-ish people/km2, and Wikipedia says 4300. Not a bad guess!

Some years ago, I made a couple of posts about 3000 people/km2 perhaps being the minimum needed for walkability, based on having enough people in walking distance to support a supermarket. So 4300 should be better, yes? And it probably is, though of course going from a town-wide average to my local area is risky. (Then again, the town only has 20,000 people, it doesn't have that much room for variation.) While I still compare it unfavorably to Mexico City, the walkability is at least a cut above 'minimal'. Some of that is businesses 'subsidized' by driving customers -- San Pablo wants to be a stroad when it grows up -- but Solano is fairly "Main Street", with shops on the sidewalk and little parking. (These are the main commercial streets near me.)

I realized that by some fluke, there are actually seven grocery stores within a 15 minute walk, which is rather absurd even by my standards. Safeway and Andronico's (private store but pretty big) on Solano; Whole Foods, Tokyo Fish Market, and Sprouts (WF-like for people who don't want to shop at WF?) on or just off of San Pablo; then a natural food store and an Asian produce-heavy market in two different micro-clusters (10 shops or fewer in a residential area.) 3 of those are technically in Berkeley, but the urban fabric is pretty similar. Some of those have specializations but they all sell a variety of fresh produce and raw meat (probably mostly frozen for the natural food store).

Went for a walk, aiming for the Albany library eventually. On Solano, the small town "Main Street", I found a "Church On the Corner" with a nook with benches and a fountain. It was nice to hang out in for a while, though a woman standing nearby and coughing drove me on. I thought the church might be fairly liberal, with a public space like that... technically, I still don't know what they are politically, but their website is eager to tell you that all sorts of Old Testament prophecies came true in Jesus, and that astronomy proves a Creator, so I wouldn't bet on it. Covid-wise, they say they have some built-in distancing, and MERV 13 filters, though claiming that MERV 13 removes 99% of particles is I think somewhere between vague and inaccurate.

Further west, on the south side, some woman was selling home-cooked bagels on the sidewalk. I got an everything one for $3. Just a still-warm bagel, if you want toppings you're on your own. It was good as it was, though after a few bites I remembered that bagels are refined cereals, which I'm trying to minimize. Then I realized pizza dough is too, and became even sadder. I did finish the bagel.

Actually, before I bought it, I'd kept going, up to a crepe shop (maybe not refined! buckwheat!) which was open (of interest, since it was around 10 AM and few things were). I nearly got something to eat in the outdoor seating, but another customer was playing something loud and annoying on their phone. Since I wanted relaxation as much as food, I passed.

I finally found the library, on Marin. Masks required! I think that's an Alameda County public buildings thing. (Tangentially, the two bus drivers I've looked at were both masked.) Compliance good apart from one kid. I even hung out to read a kid's book on South American myths and legends, though I also lost confidence in my KF94 nose seal and didn't stick around after that. The library is 9 minutes away, vs. 16 for the Berkeley one; I wonder if I can use my Berkeley card. The grounds aren't as nice as the North Berkeley library -- not *bad*, but not nearly as green.

There's a thing I've read about. You take a 4-lane street -- 2 travel lanes in each direction -- and cut it down. 1 travel lane in each direction, plus an alternating central turn lane. Supposedly it's safer, and has about the same throughput -- driver's side turns mean that the inner travel lane tends to get blocked by waiting cars anyway. And of course the conversion gives you space to play with.

I'm pretty sure this has happened to Marin Avenue, north of me, at some point. I had noticed that crossing it was unpleasant even at corners, let alone jaywalking -- it's wide and busy. But when I paid attention, I discovered it only has 1 travel lane each way! But it _is_ wide: each side has parking, a bike lane, and the travel lane, and then there's a rather wide turn lane. So, curb to curb, it's like a 6 lane street.

I'm glad they were able to carve some bike lanes out of the old street, but I wish they had found room for pedestrian bulbs or a median-refuge as well. Or both: bulbs at the corners, say, and a refuge island in the middle of blocks.