Why not here?

Street artist scrubs images into the urban landscape

Twenty Seven Thoughts from the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professional Professional Development Seminar

1. We try to make sure every project is a Complete Streets project. 
2. “Great” results from incrementally getting better.
3. We love the Charlotte Department of Transportation.
4. Whenever I run on concrete paths I think the orthopedic surgeons must have an interest in it.
5. Communities decide the uses of a street. 
6. Commerce happens at three miles an hour, not thirty miles an hour.
7. There is flexibility in transportation standards if you ask the right questions.
8. Right-size the streets.
9. This is about creating better communities. 
10. Design the whole street for all users.
11. We should liberate ourselves from conventional road classifications.
12. Communities decide the uses of a street. (See #5)
13. Speed becomes greed when it takes away a child’s ability to choose to walk.
14. Twenty is Plenty for US(A).
15. Lessening the barriers to active living increases individual motivation. 
16. “It’s my street. It’s my park.”
17. We love the 6-Step Process for Creating Successful Complete Streets Projects. (See #3)
18. First step from policy to practice: change procedures.
19. Getting ALL the stakeholders involved in street planning throughout the process  makes good streets.
20. I’m going to invite the right people to the next webinar I participate in.
21. We should ask, “How can we help solve the problem?”
22. Break down the silos.
23. Engage and educate the public, don’t design and defend.
24. Why pilot something that you know works elsewhere?
25. Change the functional classification to lower design speed.
26. The right combination of street classification and design speed makes great streets.
27. Why not here?

Thoughts on September 12, 2011

Ten years ago I started teaching at a new school, one I wasn’t very comfortable in. It was my first public school job, my first in a large school, with a large faculty. On September 11, 2001, I was teaching first period American Lit when we were told to stay put in our classrooms. Someone came in and told us to turn on the tv, which revealed the horror of the day.

One of the World Trade Center towers was on fire, having been hit by a plane about 15 minutes earlier. As I recall, we were all watching when the second plane hit, and the thought that this was an attack became more clear. Classes changed just as news of the Pentagon, some twenty minutes away, came on. I cried as I watched the first tower crumble, with no one around but two other teachers I had essentially just met.

I remember so many details of the day—

I remember crying about the deaths of people I’d never met, thinking that that is the connection others call God.

I remember crossing paths with one of my new students in an empty hallway, and stopping to hug him for a second.

I remember thinking that class should just go on, and that that would be a victory.

I remember asking my students to write about whatever they wanted on a day that writing about whatever we wanted took on new meaning and importance.

 I remember wanting to hold my children more than anything.

I remember learning about the heroism on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and, remarking that those guys were me, wondering if I would have had that courage.

I remember helping a woman the next day who had driven her car over the parking stop log, and saying, “They can bomb us, but they can’t keep us from being nice to each other.”

I remember one of the hardest running workouts I’ve ever done, on a beautiful sunny September 12.

I remember feeling more unified as a nation than I had ever felt in my lifetime.

I remember putting a flag on my car, and waving to others who did the same.

It’s that feeling of unity that I want to carry with me. We were all in those towers, in those planes, on those streets, in that Oval Office. A flag that had been the sign of provincial and ugly jingoistic nationalism for me became a symbol of a people, and a way to express our common humanity.

Having been born in the early 60s, my life has taken me through civil rights battles, Viet Nam War protests, Watergate, Reagan’s nuclear madness, a Gulf War, and more tangible divisive political, cultural and economic arguments. This day, though, and for some time afterward, we were focused on one common enemy.

Since that time, though, we’ve seen the eroding of any unified feeling. It happened slowly at first, when W decided to invade Iraq, for example. But it has now degraded to childish obstinacy and intolerance. We can’t see anyone else’s point of view; we can’t compromise for fear of seeming, well, like we’re working together for a cause. We refuse to see that despite our differences in “how,” the “why” of making our country better should bring us together.

So today, what I want to remember is feeling like a part of a nation for the first and only time in my life. I’ll remember that it’s possible, and hope that it doesn’t take another attack to make it happen.

Eleven Thoughts While Riding to Work

1.       Wore a vest this morning on my ride.

2.       There’s always one. Today there were two.

3.       I still haven’t stopped to pick the prickly pears.

4.       I saw three people riding for transportation today, besides me. All of us were men.

5.       How do we let others know we are there?

6.       Would you rather run a hundred yards in high heels, or ten miles in the woods?

7.       When there’s an app for that, what do folks who still use dumb phones do?

8.       My desire to have fenders is in direct inverse proportion to my love for my hot ride.

9.       I’ve ridden almost 2150 miles since February 2010, (almost) all of it for transportation.

10.   I’ve about worn out my handlebar grips.

11.   It’s just more fun to ride my bike.

This Week's Best Reads, 8-26-11

The helmet vs. no-helmet controversy and the effects on bike sharing programs:

 http://www.grist.org/biking/2011-08-22-helmet-laws-get-in-way-of-bike-sharing-programs

Retrofitting the suburbs:  http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-08-22-levitt-to-beaver-suburbia-gets-a-mixed-use-makeover

Michelle Bachmann’s “logic” about $2/per gallon gas http://www.grist.org/list  

Pop-up urbanism: neon bikes in Toronto  http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/neon-bicycles-pop-up-toronto.php

Photo: Good

“Depaving,” complete streets and other ideas for cutting infrastructure expenditures from Neal Peirce: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/08/22/from-minneapolis-ten-street-design-solutions-to-transform-your-city/ 

The website for “River Time,” a film about my friend John Lane’s paddle to the sea from his backyard in Upstate SC:  http://rivertimefilm.com/   

Fifteen Thoughts While Riding to Work

1.       Why do people complain about traffic safety and drive dangerously at the same time?

2.       If you wave to other active commuters a couple of times, they become your friends.

3.       An 86 year old woman killed in a crosswalk? Really?

4.       Sometimes I wonder why I read these things before I get on my bike.

5.       I’ll say it again (and probably again): Roads are only safe when the users make them that way.

6.       The prickly pears on the beaver tail cacti I pass on the way to work are ripening.

7.       Urban orchards are a cool idea.

8.       Daily watering leads to shallow roots leads to weak grass.

9.       Even without bike lanes and traffic, I bet I win on short trips.

10.   There seems to be more chatter about helmets or no helmets lately.

11.   I wear a helmet for the same reason I wear a seatbelt.

12.   Arguing about helmets seems to avoid the greater issue of safe biking facilities.

13.   I wonder what it would be like to go for a run with Robert Frost.

14.   What kind of running shoes would Wallace Stevens wear? Firecats, of course.

15.   I run far. Other people run farther. This will not change.

Thirteen Thoughts While Riding to Work

1.       Drivers expect us to act like cars, and then get mad at us when we do.

2.       The center line of the traffic light trigger loop is the most sensitive.

3.       What if I left hooked you like you right hooked me?

4.       Riding on the left side of a one-way street is a little disconcerting.

5.       It’s nice to feel a little chilly today.

6.       If you’re late for work, do you have to take it out on me?

7.       Thanks for waving.

8.       Thanks for waiting.

9.       Thanks for not running me over.

10.   I go over the speed limit downtown.

11.   Should sheriff’s deputies model good driving behavior, or turn right on red despite the signs while talking on a cell phone?

12.   I still don’t understand why people insist upon watering their lawns with our drinking water.

13.   What’s your rush when I get to the traffic light when you do?