Pedestrians in Baxter Village

[fromCT]

Originally Posted by Pigtails1969

My family and I have walked, biked and have driven our golf cart across Hwy. 160 to Harris Teeter and Lowes hundreds of times. There are crosswalks and crosslights, and I have never feared for my safety. The roads in and around Baxter are no more busy or congested as any slightly dense area of Charlotte, Fort Mill, Tega Cay etc. (including the area behind Wal-mart). The benefits of Baxter with its miles of trails and sidewalks, parks, library, schools, restaurants, shops, urgent care, salons, dentists, doctors, dry cleaners, and most every daily convenience far outweights a weekly trip to the grocery store - 2 minutes outside of the neighborhood. I can't think of anywhere in the Charlotte Metro area where you don't have to cross a major road or a huge sea of parking lots to get to at least something that is found in Baxter Town Center. I encourage you to come spend an hour in the neigborhood - park your car, walk around, do lunch and talk to any of the hundreds of residents milling around any given weekend. I think you'll get a much more positive reaction from the people that actually chose to live here. Good luck with your move. The Carolina's are a great place to live - especially Fort Mill with our lower taxes and excellent schools!!

Thanks, Pigtails. That's a little encouraging. We'll have to just check it out ourselves when we come down, and walk around a bit, as you suggest.

[bibit612]

Well now that I looked at your original post, you may want to consider looking at the homes in Waterstone in Fort Mill. There is an ALDI's grocery store you can walk to, the post office is in the corner of 160 and Gold Hill. There are also some smaller restaurants (Village Pizza, an Asian Restaurant, Food Lion grocery store, El Maguey Mexican restaurant, a car wash, Bojangles chicken, McDonalds, Dunkin Doughnuts, among a few) in catty corners of 160/Gold Hill. I don't know how far of a walk you can take but very near you is Stonecrest Shopping Center with salons, restaurants, GameStop, Benjamin Moore, Taco Bell, and a Super Walmart). There are also medical offices within walking distance from this location. The library however is inside Baxter and that is quite some distance to walk. Getting to the corner of 160/Gold Hill, you have sidewalks but I suggest crossing only at crosswalks since there is that suicide lane in the middle where traffic can become unpredictable.

Hope this helps. You can send me a PM also if you want specific things that are more like home to you.

[fromCT]

Thanks, Bibbit! We'll definitely check that out.

[TeacherAmy]

Originally Posted by Pigtails1969

My family and I have walked, biked and have driven our golf cart across Hwy. 160 to Harris Teeter and Lowes hundreds of times. There are crosswalks and crosslights, and I have never feared for my safety. The roads in and around Baxter are no more busy or congested as any slightly dense area of Charlotte, Fort Mill, Tega Cay etc. (including the area behind Wal-mart). The benefits of Baxter with its miles of trails and sidewalks, parks, library, schools, restaurants, shops, urgent care, salons, dentists, doctors, dry cleaners, and most every daily convenience far outweights a weekly trip to the grocery store - 2 minutes outside of the neighborhood. I can't think of anywhere in the Charlotte Metro area where you don't have to cross a major road or a huge sea of parking lots to get to at least something that is found in Baxter Town Center. I encourage you to come spend an hour in the neigborhood - park your car, walk around, do lunch and talk to any of the hundreds of residents milling around any given weekend. I think you'll get a much more positive reaction from the people that actually chose to live here. Good luck with your move. The Carolina's are a great place to live - especially Fort Mill with our lower taxes and excellent schools!!

Well, that's pretty much verbatim what I would have written! LOL The part I bolded was a good point. One option to consider would be for your son to hire a young teenager to drive him over to the Harris Teeter once a week or so; for an hour's worth of time, I imagine a young person with a new driver's license would be happy to do that for very little. On the overall, Baxter would be a fantastic place, particularly on the side with the Town Center. I second the suggestion to come down and spend an afternoon--it's what sold us. We saw dozens upon dozens of people in the shops and eateries on a workday afternoon, and everyone was as pleasant as could be... and on foot.

Good luck--it really is a great area to live and retire!!

[fromCT]

[quote One option to consider would be for your son to hire a young teenager to drive him over to the Harris Teeter once a week or so; for an hour's worth of time, I imagine a young person with a new driver's license would be happy to do that for very little. [/quote]

Thanks for the suggestion, TeacherAmy. That is definitely a possibility. My wife has often said, even where we are living now, that maybe we might be able to find a retired person who wanted to make a few bucks.

Can anyone tell me what sort of medical offices exist within the village? Is it just GPs? Any specialists? Any facility for someone who needs periodic lab work: blood tests, etc? In general, for those who are not limited to walking to a doctor's office, where do you go? I don't mean specifically, just to what town or neighborhood. In our neck of the woods there tend to be congregations of medical offices and labs, X-ray, etc. in proximity to the hospitals, but also sometimes, for whatever reason, on streets not near a hospital that are just "Doctors Row"s.

Looking forward to our visit next month.

[TeacherAmy]

I know there are a bunch of specialists within the Town Center area--dermatologists, etc.--numerous dental and orthodontic offices, and there's a well-liked primary care facility across the street on the Harris Teeter side. I've been pleased with my GP facilities here, as all of them run whatever labs need to be run.

And the idea of a retiree is excellent. There are tons of friendly retirees around here, a number of which do small side jobs like babysitting, landscaping, etc., and I imagine you would have some success looking for someone to fill that position for you.

[DressageGirl]

There are several specialists within Baxter although I don't know what they are off the top of my head. There are even more right across Baxter behind the Burger King.

I didn't mean to sound discouraging about the walkability. I LOVE Baxter, have been here 7 years, and can't imagine living anywhere else. It is certainly designed to be that way as are other areas in Charlotte but my concern is that because there isn't a high number of pedestrians in general in the South, drivers are not on the lookout at all. Yes there are crosswalks and crosslights at all the intersections but people aren't looking for the pedestirans when they are turning right on red, people actually stop their cars on the actual crosswalk, etc. That being said, I can't think of any other area in Charlotte that would be any safer. There are still busy roads to cross in a town filled with drivers just simply not used to pedestrians. Park Road, Cotswold wouldn't be any better I don't think.

Like I said before, because I am aware of this I would cross 160 in a second and not feel unsafe. But I'm not sure if a teenager or child would be as aware and my concern was that you had stated your son was visually impaired, so perhaps it depends on how impaired.

[jhs6672]

Pretty sure FM does not have a community that caters to the city-life type lifestyle, but I guess Baxter is the closest thing. Only problem with Baxter is that I don't think they have room to expand the concept. Sure, they have a ton of nice houses, but not sure where they could add stores, specifically grocery stores to the development. The other side of the street on 160 is a completely different story. Plenty of room there.