Feet First’s look at pedestrian news for the week of June 24, 2011.
Weekly Walk Around the News
Posted by Derrick Van Kirk June 24, 2011
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership has released a new publication entitled Safe Routes to School Local Policy Guide. The Local Policy Guide is aimed at helping local communities and schools create, enact and implement policies which will support active and healthy community environments that encourage safe walking and bicycling and physical activity through a Health in All Policies approach the idea that every policy and political decision should take into consideration its impact on health.
The Project for Public Spaces recently released a list of 9 great streets around the world. Streets that made the list are successful for a number of reasons including automobile, pedestrian and bike accessibility; a variety of activities and land uses; comfortable places to sit and gather; and a creation of a positive and unique image for the city or neighborhood. This sounds a lot like a Complete Street.
Check out this story about Dan Burden, the Johnny Appleseed of walkable communities, who spent this spring conducting walking audits all over car-dependant Southern California. From Port Townsend, WA, Burden founded Walkable Communities Inc, a nonprofit organization helping North America develop walkable communities.
The Street gives its list of the 10 most convenient cities in America. The list is based on the idea that a convenient city is both walkable and accessible by public transportation with jobs, schools, hospitals, groceries, entertainment all within striking distance. According to this article Seattle, with its robust ferry system carrying 4.5 million passengers per year, is 8th on the list.
The new web-app from Walkonomics.com has been developed to rate the walkability of streets using the following categories: Road Safety, Easy to Cross, Pavement/Sidewalk quality, Hilliness, Navigation, Fear of Crime, Smart and Beautiful, and Fun and Relaxing.
If you come across any interesting pedestrian news or stories, please send a link to derrick@feetfirst.org.
Photo of shoes courtesy of Flickr user blond avenger under the Creative Commons license.