Today was the ground-breaking for a new community garden in my E. Dallas neighborhood. It is located at 7446 E. Grand Ave. It’s called the Promise of Peace Community Garden.

I biked over to take some pictures of the good folks volunteering their time, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to tie it in with a Santa Fe Trail update. The photo below gives you an idea of this ambitious adventure to turn a run-down urban lot between some apartments and liquor stores into a community garden. The intent of the people that are behind this project is to bring together families from both the affluent neighborhoods nearby (Lakewood, Forest Hills) and also some of the lower income, predominately latino neighborhoods in the area. I think that it’s a wonderful idea. I’m a gardener myself, and anything that brings us back to our relationship with the land, and the food that it produces for us, is a good thing, in my opinion.

The photo below shows the view from the community garden center down E. Grand Ave. to the spot where the Santa Fe Trail bicyce path will soon cross Garland Rd. (the intersection in the foreground is where Gaston Ave. intersects E. Grand Ave. and the street becomes Garland Rd.)

Note well the large wooden structure in the median, as well as the construction crane. The wooden structure is the pier that will support the new bicycle bridge, and the crane is being used to pour the concrete. Here is a view from the other direction:

I love the synchronicity of these two seemingly disparate projects coming together in the same place, and at the same time. To me, they symbolize the growing movement in this country, and in the world, of a step back from mass-produced food and cars-only transportation. Both bike trails and community gardens offer us all some hope in this busy world.

Hope for renewal. Hope for less pollution. Hope for healthier food. And hope for a community of people coming together in a rather rundown part of E. Dallas that will soon be filled with gardens, flowers, bicyclists and families.

-Hubbard

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