Urban Design and Subtle Effects of Location

It feels like we are a lot more mobile during this visit to Lima than last time, and I think this is rooted in subtle differences in how the location of our current apartment allows us to interact with elements of urban design. We are just a few blocks from where we lived on our last trip. But, somehow, it feels much easier to get around. The Little Lady is two years older, but I don't think that explains it. There have also been some general infrastructure improvements that I'll mention. But I think the most important explanation is connected to the details of our location and how location affects our interactions with the built environment.

I'll reference this map during the post, which you should be able to interact with as you read:



Start with the two "house" symbols. One is green, the other is blue. You'll see that the green and blue symbols are about two blocks from each other. But I cannot emphasize enough how much difference that two blocks makes. The difference is in the intersections.

This is not something I thought much about growing up in small-town Illinois, but living car-less in a massive city magnifies the importance of intersections tremendously. If an intersection makes a pedestrian crossing difficult, that dramatically decreases the odds that I'm going to go through that intersection. And, if I do, the stress of doing it is increased substantially. I'm confident that the fact we have a four-year-old along who is sometimes riding in a strolling makes this consideration even more important than it would otherwise be. The bottom line, though, is that street crossings have huge effects on the routes I'm willing to take from point A to point B.

Now let me draw your attention to the red lines. These lines represent sections of street that are particularly difficult to cross. This means that there are multiple lanes of traffic. The traffic often moves pretty quickly. The traffic signals are not effectively designed (and/or obeyed) in a way that makes pedestrian-crossings easy. The traffic-light timing, to the extent that the signals are obeyed, is such that it takes a long time to get across safely. I would be the first to admit that traffic engineers face a serious challenge in Lima because drivers routinely ignore traffic signals. Of course, that makes these busy intersections all the more intimidating. It's not that these roads are impossible to cross. But, upon reflection, I need to be pretty motivated before I'll cross more than one such intersection on a single trip. And if there is another way to go that avoids such an intersection, I'll go that way unless it is substantially farther.

When living in Lima, the quality of the walk matters a lot more than the distance of the walk when we choose our route. That's where the green lines come in. These are "optimal" routes in a variety of general directions that we routinely travel, one essentially in each major direction. Notice the green line that generally goes northeast toward Parque Reducto. There are two challenging crossings on that route from our current apartment, less so on the weekend, which is when we usually make that trip. There are two repeated destinations there: the bioferia (organic farmer's market on Saturdays) and a playground which is the most appropriate one in the area for the Little Lady. From our previous apartment, we had to make only one challenging crossing, but we had to exit the building onto a very noisy and chaotic intersection even though we did not have to cross that intersection. So that route was slightly easier from our apartment last time, but only slightly. Basically, our normal "range" in that direction is the same from the current apartment as last time. We'll go as far as the street named Republica de Panama where there is a Wong Supermarket. That's the same this time as last.

In every other direction, the current apartment is much easier. Just look at the location of the old apartment (the blue house). Immediately after coming out of the apartment, to go almost anywhere we had to cross an insanely busy intersection. The route to the Little Lady's preschool is a great example (labeled on Av. Reducto in blue). From the old apartment, we walked by our current apartment, but had to cross that crazy intersection every time. From the current apartment, there is not a single challenging intersection. It is so much more calm and relaxing to get to school.

It's a similar story in nearly every other direction. We are much more willing to go north and west from our current apartment due in large part to skipping that initial challenging intersection. It takes a lot longer to get to a second challenging intersection when the first one is not outside the front door. It's easier to go up to Parque Kennedy. It was rare for us to cross Benavides last time. It's easier to get over to the hipster-gourmet section of Miraflores to the west. It's good to have a long walk to and from that location given the number of calories that are all too easy to consume.

Paths to the south are probably the starkest contrast. That green line to the south is a walking route to Barranco, the next neighborhood over from Miraflores. It's a great art/design/food neighborhood. We basically never walked there last time. We took the bus if we needed to go there. Nothing wrong with that, but it can be stressful with a stroller on a bus that could easily come off a cannery line labeled "live humans packed in polluted air." This time, we walk. It's not a short walk, but there is a pleasant route. So we use it. Already we've walked there at least four times, enjoying the art galleries and great food.

There are also some additional improvements that have happened in the last couple years. First, the infrastructure as improved markedly. There are dedicated bike lanes on many of the roads. The sidewalks are in much better repair and there are many more handicapped-accessible cutouts. There are more traffic calming efforts like speed bumps. All of these things matter and make it easier for us to have a longer range on foot in Miraflores. But the location is the key thing. We're so thankful that we were able to find a place where we knew the details of the neighborhood and that this location has been working out so well.

Check out some of the other landmarks on the map. You'll see some notes about restaurants and other places we frequent.