Go west, young town

Is Shepherdstown young? You might be proud to feel otherwise, but I am betting on a long road ahead — so I’m going with young.

Subject of an recent exhibit at the Finnish Embassy in Washington, Eero Saarinen holds a place in my design philosophy as purporting to always design to the next biggest thing. That the source is correct or not is immaterial at this stage in my life, but this nugget remains a core principle in my method of work.

In writing about Princess Street, my thoughts wander farther afield, regarding, in particular, the Shepherdstown grid and its relationship to its surroundings. Seeing beyond the grid defines its identity and the character of its parts: e.g.: that Princess Street leads to the historic crossing point of the Potomac River. This crossing remained in use during the period of growth which created the identity of Shepherdstown we know today.

Looking west

The town sees some potential for growth to the west. I’d like to assume this will be “smart growth” and we can look at the town from above to see what this might mean. As it happens, it is to the west that we have already seen the most recent growth — a new shopping center, a new firehall, new bank locations, a new bypass, &c. The geography of Shepherdstown means this is an obvious direction to grow, the river and terrain creating barriers otherwise, with the south side being part of growth in the past.

The new library location will also be to the west and, until my conversation with town zoning officer Harvey Heyser, it had not dawned on me how important this location might be. I’ll let the viewer fill in the extra streets or paths (and make a correction to the blue line at the west, or left, of this image from Google Maps). I am guessing as to the exact location of the library site. I pulled this from a printed map made available at a seminar about the new library and brown fields. A big concern for me and many others, including the library staff, is that the new location be “walkable”, presumably from the center of town.

Walkability, as an idea, must hold true to distances travelled and also provide paths of travel of a certain character. That one property owner is aware of this does little good — the town and county must back the idea.

One challenge alone will be the required traffic calming on route 480 (German Street has built in traffic calming*). This might be as simple as additional four-way stops at W. Washington Street and Fairmont where these are extended to the west side of route 480. Perhaps all that is needed is a well marked cross walk, with zebra stripes and a lighted center island, in the manner of many crossings in London.

Walking to Lowe Drive is not an ideal option. It might meet the distance requirements but simply providing a sidewalk along route 480 does not a walkable environment make.

*Traffic calming, in the case of German Street, is achieved by the presence of parallel parking on each side, a vibrant pedestrian scene, a well known and well marked cross walk and, notably, the bookend of four-way stops. Denmark has one interesting take on traffic calming which one might see in towns the scale of Shepherdstown: a small tree planted in the middle — yes, right on the dividing line — of the street. No bollards or curbs are present to protect the tree. The tree commands all the respect required.