Food & Crossing in Los Berkeley
Feb. 10th, 2003 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aFood
Well, it appears that fast food is on its way out in Berkeley, or at least franchised fast food. The town's Burger King went out of business in October or November, less than a month after it went under new management. Walking by the KFC today, I saw that they'd packed up shop as well.
I've long heard rumors that the Berkeley City Councils discriminates against fast food franchises, at least in south Berkeley, by setting limits on how many total restaurants can be in the area, always keeping the number of restaurants above that, and thus requiring each new restaurant to have individual approval ... which they don't give to corporate chains. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but it's interesting to see the exodus of corporate fast food franchises in the last couple of months.
A curry fast food restaurant has replaced the Burger King--one of at least 4 Indian restaurants within a couple of blocks. There are actually two on the same street, each less than a block away.
Very Berkeley.
Crossing
Recently I've also noticed a second ridiculous pedestrian crossing area in Berkeley, this one at the town's main intersection, Shattuck & University.
Let me rewind to explain ...
A couple of years ago a pedestrian was struck by a car and killed at the corner of Shattuck & Hearst, just a few blocks away. The intersection was apparently one of the top ten most dangerous in Berkeley, but that's not necessarily saying a lot. Berkeley has, per capita, more people walking to work than anywhere else in California and, per capita, a very low rating of pedestrians being hurt and killed by automobiles.
In any case, after the death someone in the city council came up with the brilliant idea of sticking buckets of colorful flags at all of the corners of the intersection, so that pedestrians can pick them up at one corner, violently wave them as they cross the street so that cars won't hit them, and them place them in the bucket at their destination corner.
I'm very, very serious here.
The original flags were orange on plastic dowels, and have now been placed with what appear to be move expensive flags, made out of very sturdy yellow cloth, tied around wooden dowels.
And as I said, the plague has now spread, so that there's a second corner, University & Shattuck, with this ridiculousness. (And, granted, University & Shattuck is one of the most dangerous intersections in the city, because they've built traffic flow so that everyone has to make a left, then a right, to keep going straight on Shattuck, from the south.)
But, I mean, c'mon. If pedestrians really have to desperately wave flags in order not to get hit, there's a big problem. And, if they don't, this is just ridiculous and, let's face it, tacky.
Me, I keep thinking I should study flag code to learn the letters C, F, K, O, U, and Y, so that I can send messages to passing cars as I walk.
In any case, very Berkeley.
Well, it appears that fast food is on its way out in Berkeley, or at least franchised fast food. The town's Burger King went out of business in October or November, less than a month after it went under new management. Walking by the KFC today, I saw that they'd packed up shop as well.
I've long heard rumors that the Berkeley City Councils discriminates against fast food franchises, at least in south Berkeley, by setting limits on how many total restaurants can be in the area, always keeping the number of restaurants above that, and thus requiring each new restaurant to have individual approval ... which they don't give to corporate chains. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but it's interesting to see the exodus of corporate fast food franchises in the last couple of months.
A curry fast food restaurant has replaced the Burger King--one of at least 4 Indian restaurants within a couple of blocks. There are actually two on the same street, each less than a block away.
Very Berkeley.
Crossing
Recently I've also noticed a second ridiculous pedestrian crossing area in Berkeley, this one at the town's main intersection, Shattuck & University.
Let me rewind to explain ...
A couple of years ago a pedestrian was struck by a car and killed at the corner of Shattuck & Hearst, just a few blocks away. The intersection was apparently one of the top ten most dangerous in Berkeley, but that's not necessarily saying a lot. Berkeley has, per capita, more people walking to work than anywhere else in California and, per capita, a very low rating of pedestrians being hurt and killed by automobiles.
In any case, after the death someone in the city council came up with the brilliant idea of sticking buckets of colorful flags at all of the corners of the intersection, so that pedestrians can pick them up at one corner, violently wave them as they cross the street so that cars won't hit them, and them place them in the bucket at their destination corner.
I'm very, very serious here.
The original flags were orange on plastic dowels, and have now been placed with what appear to be move expensive flags, made out of very sturdy yellow cloth, tied around wooden dowels.
And as I said, the plague has now spread, so that there's a second corner, University & Shattuck, with this ridiculousness. (And, granted, University & Shattuck is one of the most dangerous intersections in the city, because they've built traffic flow so that everyone has to make a left, then a right, to keep going straight on Shattuck, from the south.)
But, I mean, c'mon. If pedestrians really have to desperately wave flags in order not to get hit, there's a big problem. And, if they don't, this is just ridiculous and, let's face it, tacky.
Me, I keep thinking I should study flag code to learn the letters C, F, K, O, U, and Y, so that I can send messages to passing cars as I walk.
In any case, very Berkeley.
