The urban realm for children

I tend to be quite wary of the refrain "But what about the children?" As a rule, I hear this trotted out in alarmist tones calling for conservatism and decisions based on fear. Especially in my work on Safe Routes to Schools, I hear from parents who are given messages of fear day in and day out about the dangers their children face if they're allowed to walk or bike to school: stranger danger, traffic danger, personal safety danger. I hear many of them reminisce wistfully about their own childhoods, when it was much more common and widely accepted that young children could travel about their neighborhoods unattended.

Nevertheless, the fear for children's safety, whether the perceived threats are real or imagined, plays a huge role in the decisions parents make for their children, and how other parents respond to those choices.

So, I'm fascinated by the concept of designing cities for children. We're not talking, here, about cities full of ball-pits and bouncy-castles (though who wouldn't love THAT?) but rather, cities whose physical infrastructure is safe and inviting for kids to navigate on their own, to get from home to playground to school:

As its main objectives, the project seeks autonomy, participation, safety and mobility for children in the city, to make it possible for them to leave their home without being accompanied by an adult so that they can meet friends and play in public spaces of the city: from courtyards to sidewalks, from public squares to parks.

This has me thinking about how utterly people friendly a kid-friendly city would be. If a child can safely navigate a city's streets, then the vast majority of adult users will be able to do the same. If a city's streets are vibrant and inviting to curious young people, they will probably be welcoming and intriguing to adults of all ages.

What do you think a kid-friendly city would look like?

Mobile outdoor treadmills: a new trend?

Long time readers of this blog will remember this post about the Treadmobil, a ungainly device for people who want to use a treadmill outside. Who could imagine there would be call for such a thing? Who could imagine there would be a call for two versions of it?

And, yet, here's a second outdoor mobile treadmill device. This one, at least, looks a heck of a lot more maneuverable than the previous one.

The pain of commuting

There are a lot of reasons we at WalkBoston love walking. We love the opportunity to interact with our neighbors when we're on foot. We love the human pace of it. We love the vibrancy of a neighborhood with a lot of pedestrians. We love that walking is environmentally friendly and good for everyone's health. Ultimately, we think -- and, increasingly, research supports us in thinking so -- that walking makes people happier than almost every other form of transportation, and it does so in a myriad of ways.

I'm fascinated with all of the happiness research that's happening these days, and it's always nice when I learn something that can help me inform current and future choices. Here's one of those: The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.

No kidding. As any of you who have had a painful commute know, this is pretty soul-sucking. Oddly, if it weren't for the occasional day when it goes smoothly, it wouldn't be quite as painful, points out Jonah Lehrer. But, if you think about it, an hour commute each day works out to more than a full day of work of time each week when you don't get to choose what you're doing. And I certainly know that nothing drives me to frustration and depression the way stop-and-go traffic can.

My commute, these days, is about 15 minutes of walking and 15-20 minutes on the subway, and I really like it. I like getting to a different part of the city every day, and I like the balance between walking time and relaxing on the train time.

How long is your commute? Do you feel it impacting your day-to-day happiness? What's the longest commute you've had? The shortest?

WalkBoston pleased with USDOT's stance on walking and biking

Today, we're sending this letter to Ray LaHood, US Secretary of Transportation:

Dear Secretary LaHood,

WalkBoston is delighted with your new Federal Department of Transportation policy statement in support of bicycle and pedestrian facilities. We hope you will follow up in encouraging – even pressuring – state and local agencies to take action with the federal funding to recognize biking and walking as equal with other modes, rather than as afterthoughts to roads projects.

For millions of Americans, walking is not purely recreational and this number is rising. Many people walk to work and school, to trains, to transit, and for social purposes, though the data is poorly collected. The collection and use of more inclusive and comprehensive data would further support this excellent policy.

WalkBoston is the nation’s first pedestrian advocacy organization, advocating for Massachusetts pedestrians for more than 20 years. We see your statement as a huge step toward making US transportation policies meet the needs of the future. Walkable communities are welcoming to a broad range of people, resilient in the face of economic and environmental adversity, good for health and fitness, and for our children.

We are writing to thank you. We intend to encourage our U.S. Representatives and Senators to support your policy It has been a long time coming and we are grateful for this and your numerous other sensible strong positions.

Thank you,

Rosa Carson
WalkBoston

Life takes place on foot

Wow, our annual meeting happened and I forgot to blog for a month. Oops!

Yesterday, one of our interns was raving to me about a book he recently discovered about the design of public spaces: Jan Gehl's Life Between Buildings. I didn't previously know about this book, but it's immediately clear that it was visionary and continues to influence people-friendly designs and thinking about the public realm. Since we're WalkBoston, Phil highlighted this excerpt for me (emphasis added):

It is important that all meaningful social activities, intense experiences, conversations, and caresses take place when people are standing, sitting, lying down, or walking. One can catch a brief glimpse of others from a car or a train window, but life takes place on foot. Only "on foot" does a situation function as a meaningful opportunity for contact and information in which the individual is at ease and able to take time to experience, pause, or become involved.

I love this so much, both because it's something I believe and because it's something I experience. My whole life is changed by the neighborhood I live in, and my relationship to my neighborhood relies on my moving around it on foot on a regular basis. I know more neighbors than I would if I only traveled by car. I have casual, incidental contact with people I know at varying levels of intimacy, and each one improves my day, even on the grouchy ones!

I recently used the T stop exit farther from my house so I could finish a conversation with my friend before we went to our homes (in opposite directions from the square). As I crossed the plaza that sits above the T station, I ran into a group of friends who were hanging out. I have since resolved that when the weather is nice, I should always take the long way out of the T station on the off chance that I'll run into folks in the plaza by doing so.

I figure that when I'm 70, I'm more likely to remember and value that happy moment of unexpected socializing than getting home a couple of minutes earlier.