Faces of Slow Lake Street: SCOTT PADDEN

“I used to be one of the maniacs that used to drive from 30th to Park Presidio. I worked up in Marin. Seeing this street in a whole different light, it’s like, oh, it’s amazing that more people didn’t get hurt on this street trying to go to Park Presidio.

I’ve learned to run again on this street. I got my legs back in shape after many months and years of not running and it’s a pleasant thing every evening, seeing all these people out. It’s nice to have a park in your backyard, basically. For people who own their houses, I’m sure your property values are going to go up with a park in your front yard. How can you argue with that? You can’t.

I want it to remain forever. It’s not a big inconvenience to like go a block the other way. We have Geary. We’ve got California. I haven’t seen one person who is walking in this street having a bad time.

We have cars driving by. It’s easy enough to coexist. People keep their head on a swivel. I’ve seen one or two folks, like, tangled up a little bit, but for the most part, everyone seems to be coexisting well. We have a little bike highway to get downtown, too.

It’s all good. All good stuff. I can think of zero bad things minus the one minute of extra time it takes me to do a little bit of wiggling. Or wait at one traffic light at Park Presidio. That’s like my long-winded way of saying, keep it like this forever.”

SCOTT PADDEN (running and walking)