Abandoned Shopping Carts

They dot the sides of roads most often near the main shopping centers such as Union Landing, the International Four Corners, or Decoto. On a few occasions, people push them filled with groceries towards their enclosed neighborhoods only to take their bags out and walk the rest of the way to their home. The wire frame is left, just a small reminder of how poorly the city has taken into account those who don’t always have access to a car. Abandoned shopping carts liter the asphalt landscape, not just in Union City but many other Bay area suburbs. They’ve become ubiquitous. They are a symptom of something very much wrong with how we’ve designed our suburbs.

Trucks drive around picking them up but not often. Other “solutions” are locks on the bottom wheels that activate when the user passes a certain line in the parking lot. Yet we’d be doing a huge injustice if we just supported that option without even acknowledging why this has become a problem in the first place.

We could point the finger at the homeless population but I’m less inclined to believe that they are solely responsible for all the scattered and abandoned shopping carts. The alternative theory is simple: we have a large population that does not have access to cars. They can be unable to afford the investment that goes into an automobile or they can be elderly. Regardless of the demographic, we’ve designed a city with a lack of options and have therefore indirectly encouraged the abandonment of shopping carts. As our city gets older and as cars still remain huge investments after the house, it only becomes more likely that this will continue.

Union City is designed with a number of these long asphalt corridors and walls that enclose its neighborhoods. The sidewalks are not an inviting place for pedestrians, no matter how many trees are planted.

We can already acknowledge how many people are dependent on cars for their employment. It’s not a stretch to say that we are dependent on cars for groceries, school, church, recreation, and even meeting up with friends to get lunch/coffee. We need cars to connect with other people and my belief is that contact with others, family or our community is what makes us human in the first place. We shouldn’t have to rely on cars to be the social animals we’ve evolved to be.

So what? I sound like an anti-car hippie right? As much as I love sitting in a sea of traffic just to pick up groceries after work, I’ve come to the conclusion that none of this is convenient. That often times, I can’t enjoy driving because I only drive while sitting in the congested mess that is 880. That I don’t enjoy waiting at a stop light every few blocks just because I want to get to the other side of town. That sitting behind drivers who drive below the speed limit only makes me feel like an impatient asshole. That cars, especially with congestion, only make other cars (and the people inside them) obstacles. I’d rather be a pedestrian any day and the cities that I like to walk around don’t even have to be large cities, they just have to do a better job of embracing the most simple method of travel, walking.

Union City, like many suburbs is extremely auto dependent. I believe each household owns at least 3 or 4 cars, and until recently, my house had a total of 6 cars in front. There are few workable solutions to this problem. More and more households are reliant on both parents working, perhaps even grandparents and their children are working. Those that are still attending college still have to commute to their campus. Cars will not just vanish.

My proposition is that Union City needs to focus on infill development and more importantly, on rejuvenating Old Alvarado, Union landing, the Four Corners, the Station District, and where Decoto and Alvarado Boulevard intersect. According to walkscore.com these are the only areas that are slightly pedestrian friendly. We need to build and improve on infrastructure to encourage pedestrian use rather than catering to cars. There are difficulties to this, whether political or economical, but it is a goal that many cities are embracing, Union City should be no different.