• Today (Wednesday, Oct. 6) is International Walk (or Bike) to School Day

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember walking or biking to school every day. As recently as 1969, more than half of all U.S. students walked or biked to get to school each morning. Now that percentage is less than 15 percent, and in some areas of the country it is against local laws or school district policies (students have to take the bus or be driven to school by their parents).

That’s why today, Wednesday, Oct. 6, is so important. Today is International Walk (or Bike) to School Day, and schools all over Alaska, the United States and in the rest of the world are promoting students walking or biking to school.

Local schools will hold a variety of promotions, including walking school buses (where students walk to school together with parents as a group), bike trains and the like. In addition to presentations on biking and walking safety, schools will distribute reflectives and other safety equipment. They also might offer door prizes to students who walk or bike to school, or there might be a special breakfast or lunch. Parents can get involved by participating in walkability studies around their local schools to see what barriers and safety issues need to be addressed to get more students walking or biking.

Why is it so important to get kids walking and biking to school again? For one, there has been a sharp rise in childhood obesity and that has resulted in more cases of Type 2 diabetes (formerly called adult-onset diabetes) appearing in teenagers and even young children. Besides helping improve our children’s health, getting them walking and biking helps them reconnect to our communities and the land. There also is improved air quality, since fewer students rely on the bus or cars to get to school, and routes to school tend to be safer when more students walk or bike to school. One of the biggest issues is changing the culture to promote walking and biking to school, and according to this article in Grist, that starts with the parents.

The International Walk (or Bike) To School Day site for the U.S. lists schools in Anchorage, Wasilla, Cordova, Seward and Tok as places in Alaska with events scheduled today, and there are many more events that aren’t posted on the site. Some events are tied in with education projects, such as one as Anchorage’s Kasuun Elementary School called “Exercise your right to read,” where students are trying to walk/bike 26 miles over a period of time and read 26 minutes a day. There also is a statewide School Health and Wellness Institute meeting in Anchorage today, and many of the state’s injury prevention and health promotion workers at the event will go to Scenic Park Elementary School to assist with its program today.

Since today is International Walk (or Bike) to School Day, people may wonder if it’s too late to stage an event. In many communities, they are making this a year-long event and not linking it to just one day. The CDC’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Program has the Kids Walk To School campaign, which includes many of the concepts of International Walk (or Bike) to School Day.

The Safe Routes To School program, which has statewide and national initiatives, promotes International Walk (or Bike) to School Day in Alaska, and it also promotes community design to make walking and biking a year-long event. The program offers tools for parents who want to make their children’s routes to school safer, and it also offers grants to help them promote safe walking and biking to school.

Another good resource is the Safe Kids USA program’s “Safe Kids Walk This Way” initiative, which focuses on injury prevention. The WalkScore.com site is a good resource for checking out the walkability of your neighborhood.

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• Walk Friendly Communities program prepares to make national launch in November

Since 2003, cities and towns across the United States have been able to apply for Bicycle Friendly Community awards offered through the League of American Bicyclists.

Starting in November, American cities and towns will be able to apply for Walk Friendly Community awards through a new program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. The new program will be maintained by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, with the support of 17 national partner organizations.

According to the Walk Friendly Communities website:

Walk Friendly Communities is a national recognition program developed to encourage towns and cities across the U.S. to establish or recommit to a high priority for supporting safer walking environments. The WFC program will recognize communities that are working to improve a wide range of conditions related to walking, including safety, mobility, access, and comfort.

The new program currently is in its second round of pilot testing with five unnamed communities selected in July. The first round of testing featured three communities of varying demographics — a small town (Cedarburg, Wis.), a small town with a college and commuter population (Davidson, N.C.), and a large city (Orlando, Fla.).

The Walk Friendly Community program will borrow heavily from the Bicycle

Roof supports and a narrow sidewalk make for tight passage by Brenner's Store in downtown Sitka, especially on cruise days during the summer.

Friendly Community award program, which already has been adapted to create a Bicycle Friendly Business, Bicycle Friendly State and, announced just this week, a new Bicycle Friendly University award program (by the way, 18 new and eight renewing Bicycle Friendly Community awards were announced on Wednesday).

The Walk Friendly Community program will use the same 5 E’s model used by the Bicycle Friendly Community program (Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement and Evaluation), in addition to other elements that affect a community’s walkability such as city planning and Complete Streets designs. Each of the 5 E’s heads a section where communities answer a series of questions about that topic within the application. By answering the questions using the 5 E’s model, communities are able to discover any barriers to walking that exist in their town and what they also learn what they do well when it comes to making it easier for residents to walk around town.

The 59-page Walk Friendly Communities Assessment Tool (see attached PDF file below) was released on Sept. 1 and will serve as the rough draft for the new program’s application, which will be filled out and turned in online. Even though the new program hasn’t been launched yet, there already are a multitude of excellent resources posted on the program’s website to help communities evaluate their community walkability rating.

Several communities won’t earn the Walk Friendly Community award on their first application, but the application is designed to help communities develop and document their pedestrian safety and encouragement plans. Only about a third of the more than 400 communities that have applied for Bicycle Friendly Community status earned awards at one of the five levels of that program. But completing the application served as a community learning process and that helped even non-winning communities improve their support and infrastructure for biking and walking.

Sitka and Anchorage already have earned Bicycle Friendly Community bronze awards, so they may be ahead of the game among Alaska communities when the Walk Friendly Community applications finally are released. But Alaska communities have some of the highest rates of walking in the country when it comes to walking to work and school, despite our snowy and icy winters, so this new program may be a perfect fit for many Alaska towns.

• Walk Friendly Communities Assessment Tool (released Sept. 1, 2010)

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• Two new resources will help people work on Complete Streets in their communities

Local bicycle and pedestrian advocates have two new resources that will help them get Complete Streets for their communities.

The Alliance for Biking & Walking this week released a new edition of its Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns, a 117-page book that updates the 2006 edition with Complete Streets policy examples and other tools for local advocates. To learn more about the book, click here.

The book was made possible with support from Planet Bike and assistance from the National Complete Streets Coalition. Since 2006, more than 100 state and local jurisdictions have adopted new Complete Streets policies that require transportation projects include safe accommodations for all users, including bicyclists and pedestrians.

According to a press release from the Alliance for Biking & Walking, Alliance President/CEO Jeff Miller says this new manual could be a catalyst for groups to kick-start or super-charge a successful campaign in their area.

“This updated guide is a key resource for grassroots advocates pursuing Complete Streets policies for their states and cities,” Miller says. “This compilation shares the step-by-step actions and lessons learned from peers across the country, making it the most up-to-date and on-the-ground advice for winning Complete Streets.”

The press release also includes the following book description:

Book Description: Our nation’s transportation system poses significant challenges for the third of our citizens who do not drive. A full 13 percent of traffic deaths are bicyclists and pedestrians, yet most roadways are still being built with only motor vehicles in mind. Complete Streets policies require that future transportation projects ensure safe accommodation of all users. Bicyclists, motorists, transit vehicles and users, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities safely and enjoyably travel along and across complete streets. The Alliance for Biking & Walking’s Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns compiles a blueprint for winning a complete streets policy in your city, region, state, or province. Filled with models from past and current campaigns and tips from advocacy leaders in the field, this guide is an indispensable resource for the new or seasoned advocate working towards complete streets.

The Alliance for Biking & Walking’s Guide to Complete Streets Campaigns is part of a series of Alliance guides, which aim to build the capacity of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations. To purchase the guide online visit http://www.PeoplePoweredMovement.org/publications.

Also released this month is a new book from the National Complete Streets Coalition and the American Planning Association, Complete Streets: Best Policy and Implementation Practices. The book was partially funded by the Federal Highway Administration’s STEP program.

Barbara McCann, one of the book’s writers, wrote this description of the project on the National Complete Streets Coalition’s website. “The report is based on thirty case studies of states, cities, counties, and MPOs that have adopted and are implementing Complete Streets policies. Suzanne Rynne, Stefanie Seskin, David Morley, myself, and a number of other APA and Coalition staffers talked to dozens of planners, engineers, and other insiders about what it took to adopt a policy in their state or community and the techniques they are using to fully integrate multi-modal planning into every transportation project.”

The case studies showed the researchers what strategies were working and also added new information about how communities go about getting Complete Streets policies implemented. They also learned how advocating for Complete Streets policies helps communities communicate their transportation priorities to local and state governments.

McCann adds:

A few of the case studies really stand out; their thoughtful and thorough implementation practices can almost be a guide unto themselves. Charlotte, North Carolina (already the basis for our Complete Streets Workshop system) is one of these, as is Seattle, Washington. In fact, Seattle has come up with an elegant answer to the frequent question of what to do when a project budget simply won’t allow full realization of a Complete Streets design. In Seattle, they make sure that this need is added to a future projects list, and they look for ways to fulfill it.

Perhaps the most inspiring theme in the publication is the way that Complete Streets policies have empowered planners and engineers to tackle a new challenge with creativity and innovation. In almost every case study, planners and engineers have invented new ways to consult with partners, deal with limited right-of-way, and save on costs.

You can get an idea of the breadth of the report from the table of contents; the first two chapters focus on policy adoption, and the next two on the steps to integrating Complete Streets into transportation planning processes. Chapters Six and Seven expand on the issue of paying for Complete Streets, and the many different ways communities have tackled design considerations. The final chapter summarizes twelve lessons learned; readers will undoubtedly draw many more. You can get a sneak peak by reading Chapter Five: Making the Transition, which we have posted to our website (as a PDF file). The full report is available for purchase from the American Planning Association, and please let us know what you think of it.

At this point, no Alaska communities nor the State of Alaska have adopted Complete Streets policies, but several Alaska groups are encouraging their implementation. The Alaska Public Health Association passed a resolution advocating for Complete Streets at the Alaska Health Summit in December. The Anchorage Bicycle Plan unanimously passed by the Anchorage Assembly in March includes several proposals based on the Complete Streets model, but doesn’t fully implement Complete Streets. The Alaska Transportation Priorities Project also promoted Complete Streets principles when it released its Alaska Campaign for Active Transportation: Anchorage, Palmer and Wasilla in 2008.

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• Clearing the sidewalks and bike lanes helps make community bicycle and pedestrian friendly

A winter bicyclist rides down 10th Avenue in Anchorage near the Delaney Park Strip during November 2009

One of the choice phrases used to describe the level of bicycle and pedestrian friendliness a community has is “built environment.” In other words having a good built environment means there are nice sidewalks for pedestrians, safe bike lanes for cyclists, and good, interesting places within walking and biking distance for most people. Some communities have an excellent built environment for walking and biking, until winter comes and the snow falls. Then all that bicycle and pedestrian friendliness goes away for 6-8 months until the snow melts.

To be a true bicycle and pedestrian friendly community, your community plan must include adequate snow clearance, which was a topic of a conference on winter walking and biking this past December in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.

A snow berm piled high on the sidewalk at the corner of Minnesota Boulevard and 26th (across from Anchorage's Romig Middle School) on Feb. 12, 2010 (Photo courtesy of Jim Vorderstrasse)

While it’s sometimes not economically feasible to plow every walkway in a community, the main downtown core, areas near schools, shopping centers, hospitals and other key buildings need to be cleared as a minimum. Some communities say one reason they don’t plow the sidewalks in winter is because people don’t walk, but it’s usually the opposite — people don’t walk because the sidewalks haven’t been cleared. Not clearing at least a bare minimum of key sidewalks is hard on our elders who want to exercise for fitness, it makes things difficult on our children who want to walk to school, and having sidewalks full of snow makes it more dangerous to travel in the winter because sometimes you have to step into the roadways to keep from post-holing through knee- and thigh-deep snow.

Sometimes the sidewalk or bike lane becomes a convenient dumping spot for the snowplows, like what happened with the four-foot-high berm of snow in the photo next to the upper part of this paragraph. Also, these high berms make it more difficult for motorists to see pedestrians during a time when visibility already is low. When the plows dumped all the snow into the sidewalks and roads after a big Thanksgiving snowstorm in Anchorage this winter, Raena Schaerer wrote this opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News.

In many communities, coming to grips with how much snow clearance is necessary has been a hot topic of debate. The Winter Cities Institute, an international organization of northern communities, has published a paper, linked below as a PDF file, about how some communities deal with winter snow issues. An October 2007 article in Alaska Business Monthly detailed a plan in Anchorage to add heated sidewalks on heavily traveled downtown streets. You can see more details of where heated sidewalks will be placed on Page 104 of the Anchorage Downtown Comprehensive Plan posted below.

In Anchorage, the far sidewalk in a downtown intersection off Ninth Avenue is cleared while the other side still has snow and ice on it

Heated sidewalks are an innovative choice for some communities, even though there is some initial cash outlay for them. But sometimes they can pay for themselves because less snow clearing is needed, there are fewer injuries that might result in lawsuits, and heating the sidewalks can be energy efficient if a community routes pipes underneath the sidewalk and the heat from the water in the pipes also is used to heat the sidewalk. But many communities haven’t even considered heated sidewalks.

When it comes to clearing snow in most communities, the method is to rely on the local residents and merchants to clear the snow. Snowy sidewalks could cost homeowners a fine in Anchorage, the Sitka General Code includes a section requiring snow and ice removal by merchants in downtown Sitka. Unfortunately, the code in Sitka is rarely enforced and in recent years there have been more businesses that close for the winter so their sidewalks don’t get cleared. This winter, the City and Borough of Sitka did put a sidewalk snow-clearing contract out for bid, but there was so little snow in Sitka this winter the results weren’t obvious.

The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) uses a Kubota tractor, about the size of an ATV, with a blade in the front and a sand-spreader in the back to clear the sidewalks on its Sitka campus that covers about a square mile. A downtown merchant association can use a similar set-up to easily clear downtown sidewalks for shoppers, without the gaps caused by an absentee landlord or a vacant lot.

The Rebuilding Place in Urban Space blog from Washington, D.C., made some interesting observations about snowy sidewalks during this winter’s heavy snows in the D.C. area. The Iowa Law Blog ran an article in December 2008 about its law for clearing sidewalks of snow so it’s easier for walkers to get around.

In extremely harsh climates, the Winter Cities Institute says some communities even link their buildings with skywalks, tunnels and other connections so pedestrians don’t have to stray outside when they shop or take care of other errands. In other communities, such as Anchorage, they build an elaborate system of multi-use trails so people can walk, run, ski or bike where they need to go. Just because it’s winter it doesn’t mean a community has to lose its bicycle and pedestrian friendliness.

Pedestrian Mobility in Winter paper by Patrick Campbell of the Winter Cities Institute

Chapter 6 of the Anchorage Comprehensive Downtown Plan (Page 104 has information on heated sidewalks)

Winter runners and a cyclist cross L Street in Anchorage in November 2009

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• Alaska Public Health Association passes resolution promoting transportation planning that includes pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure

The Alaska Public Health Association passed a series of resolutions at the Alaska Health Summit on Dec. 7-9 in Anchorage. One of the resolutions is about “improving health through transportation and land use policies” (link opens PDF file of resolution).

According to the resolution:

Transportation and land use policies are significant factors in the built environment and impact rates of injury and death due to traffic crashes, ease and safety of physical activity, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and access to key community resources such as health care and healthy food. Transportation and land development patterns have historically favored automobile travel, spawned sprawling development, and have taken an unnecessary toll on human life.1

This resolution considers four major health impacts of transportation and land use policies that take the largest tolls on health, social equity, and the economy: (1) traffic injuries and fatalities, (2) physical activity and non-motorized transportation, (3) air and water quality, and (4) the disparate impact on vulnerable populations.

The five-page resolution (two pages are study citations) recommends more transportation funding for bicycle and pedestrian facilities, the use of the Complete Streets model when designing new streets, removing barriers for biking and walking while keeping bikers and walkers safe from motorized traffic, etc. The resolution also recommends involving community members more when planning improvements to a community, and it also recommends using Health Impact Assessments when planning to make sure a community’s health is part of the planning. To read the full resolution, click the link below to download a PDF file.

ALPHA Resolution 2009-02 Improving Health through Transportation and Land Use Policies

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