LivableStreets Street Party! This Thursday

This is going to be a super fun party:

LivableStreets Street Party!
Celebrate our 5th anniversary!

Thursday, July 22, 5-8 pm (rain date 29th)Enter at 100 Sidney Street, Cambridge (map), and play on car-free Tudor St open to all
Admission:
includes food, drinks, and raffle ticket
Members: $15 to $150+
Non-members: $50 to $150+.
[$50 = annual membership = $4, or 2 T Rides, or 1 beer per month!]
Volunteer your way to free admission. Sign up in advance at volunteer@livablestreets.info.

Advocacy Awards:
In celebration of their efforts to create safe, convenient and affordable transportation for all people in the Metro Boston area we are presenting awards to: Boston Transportation Commissioner Thomas J. Tinlin for his advocacy on the Massachusetts Avenue bicycle lanes & State Representative Marty Walz for her advocacy on the Longfellow Bridge for more walking and bicycling space.

Chance to Win: New Bicycle
Weekend stay in Maine
Free stay at Hotel Veritas
Free movie tickets
Gift certificates to local bookstores
Urban AdvenTours bike jersey/tune up
Gift cards to local restaurants
and much more!

Food / Drinks:

Mangia Pizza 

Craigie on Main 

Asgard 

Au Bon Pain 

Mariposa 

Taza Chocolate 

BoLoco 

Harpoon 

Middle East 

Toscanini's

Games / Activities:All on car-free Tudor Street!Hopscotch 

FourSquare 

Hula-hoops 

Jump Rope

Relay Races 

Park(ing) Day 

Photo booths 

Biking testing

Sidewalk chalk art 

Bicycle powered smoothies 

Bicycle powered music and more!!

Somerville Community Path Sign ribbon cutting!

Livable Streets Alliance: What we can learn from Spain

LivableStreets Alliance StreetTalk

What we can learn from Spain: urban mobility planning in Barcelona

by Marius Navazo, Urban Planner, Barcelona, Spain

Thursday, June 25, 7:00 - 9:00 pm

@ LivableStreets office space, 100 Sidney Street, Cambridge (directions: www.livablestreets.info/node/530)

This event is free and open to the public, donations suggested, beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery and delivered thanks to Metro Pedal Power!

What are the results of implementing better transit networks, traffic calming zones, and a bike sharing program? Are these measures always environmentally-friendly? Are they enough to create better places to live and enjoy? Learn about the development of urban mobility plans in Greater Barcelona and Catalonia, Spain. See what the Catalan Government is encouraging municipalities to do.

Marius Navazo is a geographer who has been working for the last 10 years in town and regional planning, focused on transportation and its impacts to improve cities from a social and environmental perspective. He has been working at the Catalan Government for the last 4 years, and now he is a freelancer working for different municipalities in the Barcelona area.

(Photograph: a typical day on Les Rambles, Barcelona)

For more information, go to www.livablestreets.info/node/2154

Guess who's coming to WalkBoston?

Here at the WalkBoston offices, we're busy with a flurry of preparation for our annual celebration, coming up on Thursday, March 19. One of the most exciting things about it this year is that Governor Deval Patrick will be joining us for the pre-celebration walk and making remarks at the celebration itself. Would you like to join us? Please do!

Urban Happiness with Enrique Peñalosa!

[Note: This is an event not to be missed!]

Urban Happiness with Enrique Peñalosa! Hosted by LivableStreets Alliance
What happens when you give street space back to people?
Thursday, February 5, 6:30 pm
@ Boston Public Library, Copley Square, Rabb Lecture Hall

This event is free and open to the public. Enrique Peñalosa is a special guest speaker in the StreetTalk lecture series hosted by LivableStreets Alliance.

An accomplished public official, economist and administrator, Enrique Peñalosa completed his three-year term as Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia on December 31, 2000. While mayor, Peñalosa was responsible for numerous radical improvements to the city and its citizens. He promoted a city model giving priority to children and public spaces and restricting private car use, building hundreds of kilometers of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, and parks. He received the Stockholm Challenge Award for organizing a Car-Free Day in 2000 and a referendum vote then endorsed it annually. As part of the pico y plata license plate restriction program, he removed 40% of cars during peak hours. Peñalosa also led efforts to improve Bogotá's marginal neighborhoods through citizen involvement; planted more than 100,000 trees; created a new, highly successful bus-based transit system; and turned a deteriorated downtown avenue into a dynamic pedestrian public space. He helped transform the city's attitude from one of negative hopelessness to one of pride and hope, developing a model for urban improvement based on the equal rights of all people to transportation, education, and public spaces.

This event is part of a 4-day series of events hosted by LivableStreets Alliance and sponsored by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, in collaboration with WalkBoston, Institute for Human Centered Design, Bikes Not Bombs, Charles River Conservancy, and MassBike.

For more information, check out www.livablestreets.info or contact Jackie Douglas at (617) 621-1746, jackie@livablestreets.info.


For a flyer about the event, check out http://www.livablestreets.info/files/Penalosa_5feb09_BPL.pdf

Boston Bikes Update Report

For those of you who use or have interest in using bikes to get around, check out this event, hosted by the LivableStreets Alliance:

First Annual "Boston Bikes Update Report"

LivableStreets Alliance will host the 1st annual "Boston Bikes Report" by the city's Director of Bicycle Programs, Nicole Freedman.

When: Thursday, January 29, 7 pm
Where: Boston Public Library, main branch at Copley, Rabb Lecture Hall.

*This event is free and open to the public* The focus of the meeting will be on future steps needed to create the "world class bicycling city" that Mayor Menino has promised. There will be additional discussion about what could be done to significantly expand the cycling population -- and its political influence -- by attracting "traffic intolerant" bicyclists, read more.

Marathon Sports event!

Tomorrow evening, at 7:15, join the RunBoston marathon team for a special event at Marathon Sports in Copley Square. This is your opportunity to meet our marathon team and also to hear Marathon Sports shoe specialists explain the factors that go into their unique shoe-fitting process. All attendees will receive a coupon for 20% off a future purchase.

Before this, join me and other walkers as we walk the last mile of the marathon route, ending up at Marathon Sports in time for this event. Meet in front of the BU bookstore at 6:30!

Contested Streets

Do you ever wonder what our cities will look like 10, 50 or 100 years in the future? I was recently watching the trailer for "Contested Streets: Breaking New York City Gridlock", which included some film clips from the early part of the 20th century, showing how city streets were shared by pedestrians and cars then, and, of course, now. I would dearly love to get a glimpse into the future to see what we're doing in 2088, but for now, I'll have to settle for looking back and thinking about planning well for a good future for our city streets.

If you're interested in seeing Contested Streets, but you don't want to buy the DVD, and you're in the Boston area, check out these screenings:

· Thursday, November 20, 2008, 4-5pm at the Harvard School of Public Health, Kresge G3 (Boston, MA)

· Thursday, December 4, 2008, 6-7pm at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium (Cambridge, MA)

This movie is being offered as an extension of the "Bicycle Environments in the U.S. and the Netherlands/Denmark" class (Harvard School of Public Health). The showing of the movie is sponsored by the following groups in alphabetical order:

Harvard Urban Planning Organization at the Graduate School of Design (HUPO)
Harvard School of Public Health Post Doc Association (HSPH PDA)
Interdisciplinary Consortium on Urban Planning and Public Health (ICUPPH)
Livable Streets Alliance

International Walk to School Day! Wednesday, October 8

Hey, parents!

Did you know that tomorrow is International Walk to School Day?

How are you going to celebrate it?

Greenway Inauguration!

This weekend, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the park portion of the infamous Big Dig highway construction project, celebrates its official inauguration with a number of events and activities on and near the Greenway itself. I'll be representing WalkBoston there at a table in Dewey Square, and there's a whole slew of fun and interesting stuff happening, including lots of activities for kids. Check it out!