High Street: A pedestrian street?

What you see before you is the major hub spot in the center of San Fernando, where consumers feel comfortable enough to spend a well earned dollar. This is what High Street looks like at 5:30 p.m. in the afternoon. High Street, San Fernando is the home of the common pedestrian. It's a place of high commercialism: where the fast rate at which things are sold is the same rate at which they are bought. It is very common at any day of the week to see High Street in its busiest state, not only in terms of business activity but in terms of seeing pedestrians walk the street......Welcome again, to the city of San Fernando where the most traditional means of transport takes place. Yes, let me remind you what its like to appreciate travelling by foot.

Many may wonder what sparks all the movement along High Street and the answer is quite simple. Along High Street lies evidence of a wide range of commercial activity with businesses ranging from economic to cuisine, clothing to household appliance and education to transport. Historically, most of the plains of San Fernando land was utilized for the growth of sugarcane. It was Jean Baptiste Jaillet who established the first sugar cane estate in San Fernando. After sometime, however, he sold out land divided into plots (which stretched from High Street to St. James Street.) even land that was reserved. Eventually, the growth of the sugar cane industry led to the development of San Fernando as an acquired borough and now the second largest city in the country.

Due to High Street's growth in commercialism and development, the location has been able to provide the best deals and best prices to customers within and out of the city of San Fernando. Looking on at its progression and transition from the 1890s to now, High Street has become more diverse and cultural. It has managed and continued to facilitate an environment for the constant movement of people and has created spatial entities that holistically describe the so called pedestrian street. On this busy street, persons move from store to store, maxi taxi stand to another, workplace to home and from school into the city.

                  According to the "North Carolina Department of Transportation", Walking is the oldest form of transportation although, since the industrial era, there has been a trend of walking less and driving more. Recent history indicates a resurgence in walking- more people recognize it as a good way to improve their health, make short trips and get  more in touch with their environment/ surroundings. Even when using other forms of transportation to get where you need to go, every trip begins and ends as a pedestrian. Walking can be a fun and healthy mode of transportation that puts us in touch with our surroundings whether we are travelling to our destinations or connect to other transportation modes. With regards to High Street and the number of activities that occur there, most pedestrians and customers travel by foot from place to place reasons being to reduce traffic congestion, to experience consumer to consumer relations, enter shops and make hands on purchases, cost effectiveness and improve the overall proportion of space per traveler.

Is High Street a pedestrian street?

                 Dennis Soderholm did his master's thesis on the commercial structure of pedestrian streets and shopping districts in Finland. He believed that pedestrian streets have been an important part of revitalizing inner city areas since the 1960s and that pedestrian streets were becoming more common as late as the 1980s and 1990s. Soderholm stated that many see pedestrian streets as primarily visual improvements of the inner city, a street with higher standard regarding street paving and funiture than a normal street, apart from the fact that there are no cars on it. However, the commercial nature of pedestrian streets is the driving force behind pedestrianizing streets.

                On High Street however, this description is applicable to a extent. Yes, it is a place of commercial activity, yes, it is also busy with pedestrians commuting from place to place, yes, it revitalizes inner city areas but High Street is far from representing visual improvements of the inner city. Ideally, the opposite applies. Pedestrian streets are aesthetically designed unlike High Street which is often times unclean and filled with traffic.

                Consumers who travel by foot from one store front to another do not have the best sidewalks to walk on and there is constant battle for space as vehicles are also allowed access into this zone. One of the major reasons for this is, there are various taxi stand locations. Moreover, there are street dwellers and pollution. Obviously, High Street does possess some of the characteristics of a pedestrian street. It is also very important to note that Finland is a more developed setting compared to Trinidad and Tobago making it okay to accept the disparities in the structure of such streets.

                Expanding further on Dennis' research, car usage was increasing more and more with time. In response to this car free streets were constructed because consumers liked the luxury of having streets to themselves where they were able to work to walk  and be free. Thus in the Netherlands and Germany pedestrian streets were purposely constructed an an escape for consumers  High Street, in contrast, evolved due to expansion and transition away from the sugar cane industry.

Newspaper article about the history of High Street:-

The Bustling Heart of San Fernando

http://guardian.co.tt/columnist/2013-02-17/bustling-heart-san-fernando

Other websites of interest

https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/29008/thecomme.pdf?sequence=1

http://www.ncdot.gov/bikeped/travelingfoot/

http://www.triniview.com/san_fernando/040507.html

In closing,

"A pedestrian street is a linear space between buildings where only pedestrian traffic is allowed for various activities"-Dennis Soderholm

Until next week,

Shaniece