Category: Walking

Washington, D.C.

March 16, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Washington, D.C., is where laws and funding decisions are made that affect our daily lives. We would be smart to pay attention to news that comes from here.

Photo by Jonathan Maus of BikePortland.org. “Gary Fisher telling US DOT Sec. Ray LaHood (and I paraphrase), ‘Look at this turnout… look at all these people here supporting bikes!’ “

Yesterday, Ray LaHood (Secretary of the Department of Transportation), fresh from his “tabletop speech” at the National Bike Summit, announced a big change in federal transportation funding and project selection policy.

The United States DOT says in “Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation Regulations and Recommendations” that the recommended actions were created based on already existing law and regulations.

I hope this policy change has the authority of your mom telling you not to eat cookies because she made them for a neighbor – and if you do get a couple, you’ll see the consequences in the form of a wooden spoon.

Why should we be “Collecting data on walking and biking trips”? Well, we might get the wooden spoon if we don’t, but “Communities that routinely collect walking and bicycling data are able to track trends and prioritize investments to ensure the success of new facilities.”

The document does remind readers that the Secretary (or more likely, his designee, a project reviewer) “has the authority to withhold approval for projects that would negatively impact pedestrians and bicyclists under certain circumstances.”

Found via Active Transportation Alliance. More photos.

Paths of least resistance, part two

December 5, 2009 / / 0 Comments

On the same day I wrote about “paths of least resistance” in a “Tuesday Roundup,” linking to a post on Discovering Urbanism, Boing Boing posted about “pathways of desire,” referencing this article on Sweet Juniper about the walking paths found after the snow is gone in Detroit.

From Sweet Juniper: “Gaston Bachelard called these les chemins du désir: pathways of desire. Paths that weren’t designed but eroded casually away by individuals finding the shortest distance between where they are coming from and where they intend to go.”

Photo: In 2006 I went on a tour of Chicago via a chartered Chicago Transit Authority train. Part of the tour traveled along the Green Line. From above, you can see many of the trails people paved. Using Google Maps’ satellite imagery, I took a screen capture of 50th Street and King Drive and marked all of the unofficial walking paths I could see.

And, “it is an urban legend on many college campuses that many sidewalks and pathways were not planned at all, but paved by the university after students created their own paths from building to building, straying from those originally prescribed.”

Photo: From the top of University Hall, you can see all of the constructed diagonal paths surrounding the quad on the University of Illinois at Chicago’s East Campus. You can see at least four cemented “pathways of desire” in the photo.

You may also know these footpaths as “intention lines.”

Photo: A worn path or intention line through the snow in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Photo by Richard Akerman.

We’re all pedestrians

December 4, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Martha Gonzalez was killed by a hit-and-run driver five minutes before I arrived at the scene. I’m not a firefighter, police officer, or EMT; I commute by bike on the same road Martha walks on. Sometimes I also walk on Halsted.

We’re all pedestrians.

Flyer in neighborhood with photo of Martha offering $5,000 reward to information that leads to conviction of driver. The driver has not been found and video footage, if available, has not been released (a traffic camera was in view of the collision location).

What has happened to “pedestrianism” in the past four months? A lot. While some of the news items below may not describe situations in which a walking person was directly affected, they describe issues that affect vulnerable street users.

And finally, between October 13 and November 1, six Chicagoans died while doing what we all do: being pedestrians.

The automobile assault on pedestrians occurs daily

December 3, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Transportation for America reports 400 pedestrians killed each month. Thankfully, no pedestrians were hurt in the collision you see here.

More of you need to carry cameras around to document this travesty. You’ve seen my photos. Where’re yours?

Watch for my article on pedestrian safety coming on Friday (I wrote it a month ago, but the information and message isn’t late).

Midtown Greenway at Chicago Avenue in MPLS

September 10, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Open space advocates and planners should investigate the development, design, and construction of the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Greenway opened up acres of green space to residents, and created new spaces, like this ramp to the multi-use trail between Chicago and 11th Avenues.

Sorry, I won’t do the research for you, because the bicycling facilities component of the multi-use trail and corridor interest me more. Start here: http://www.midtowngreenway.org/

I will continue sharing photos of my trip to “trail city.”