Tomorrow is Tomato Fest at De Soto Farmers' Market!

Photo Credit: bartb_pt from flickr.com

The De Soto Farmers' Market season is in full swing and tomorrow is Tomato Fest! There will be a tomato contest, water fun provided by the De Soto Fire Department, origami demonstrations, live music and much more. Come and enjoy the fresh produce and great atmosphere at the De Soto Farmers' Market!

Find out about each week's vendors and other updates on the De Soto Farmers' Market blog. 

Buy Fresh. Buy Local.

Announcing the TOOLKIT!!!

Caption: The cover of Trailnet's Toolkit

Two years in the making, we are excited to announce the official release of Trailnet’s Healthy, Active, & Vibrant Community Toolkit.

This comprehensive and visually compelling document presents an exciting vision for the future of our communities—a future built around quality of life, health, vibrant local economies, and the environment.

The Toolkit is packed with case studies, mini-articles, and policy recommendations arranged in eight sections for:
-Schools
-Community Residents
-Design Practitioners
-Faith-Based Orgs
-Healthcare Providers and Institutions
-Local Governments and Community Orgs
-State and Federal Governments
-Workplaces

Download the Toolkit for FREE.

Margaret Donnelly, Director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, praised the Toolkit for its emphasis on healthy living. Donnelly noted that physical activity not only reduces obesity, but also helps reduce chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure.

"Three of the most important things you can do for your health are move more, eat smart, and be tobacco free," Donnelly said. "These choices are keys to a long and productive life. The Trailnet Toolkit has practical ideas for helping communities of any size achieve those goals. In the process, communities can become healthier, more connected and more enjoyable places to live."

At its core, the Toolkit is focused on creating long-term solutions to address the obesity epidemic. However, we built on this core focus to provide you with a series of recommendations that go well beyond combating obesity and focus on creating communities that foster the highest quality of life and independence for residents young, old, and in between. We believe that the recommendations in the Toolkit, if implemented in a way that is sensitive to the social and physical character and context of your community, will strengthen social bonds, increase sense of safety, help define your community’s identity, attract new local businesses, and of course, lead to healthier individuals.

Caption: The Toolkit includes practical and actionable recommendations

Trailnet convened a multi-disciplinary team to develop the Healthy, Active & Vibrant Community Toolkit which consisted of healthcare providers, urban planners, architects, green building professionals, public health researchers, dietitians, educators, community organizers, and bicycle and pedestrian advocates. The recommendations are intended to lead to long-term, institutionalized change by focusing on solutions that address policies, environments, and social networks.

We hope you find this resource useful. We also hope you will share this resource with colleagues, neighbors, and pertinent decision-makers. The Toolkit can be downloaded for free online at: www.trailnet.org/HAVC_Toolkit.php

If you would like more information, please call or email Phil Valko: 314-436-1324 x119 or phil@trailnet.org

Sincerely,
-The Trailnet Team

A New Vision for Livability?

Caption: President Obama takes a break to go for a bike ride with his daughter Sasha

"For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development."

-President Obama, July 14, 2009 @ The White House Urban Affairs Summit

President Obama recently painted a new vision for urban policy -- a vision that is built around the Livable Community Partnership, which is bringing together DOT (transportation), HUD (housing), and EPA (environment).

With leadership from the Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, the US Department of Transportation recently outlined six "livability principles" that will shape the future of communities across America. As LaHood sees it: “We have a window of opportunity to think differently about transportation and propose bold, new approaches to improve the livability of our nation’s communities.”

We agree. In addition to the three agencies that are currently at the table--transportation, housing, and environment--we strongly believe that the department of health needs to be at the table to ensure that the vision for livable cities helps once again connect urban planning and public health.

Below are the six principles outlined by LaHood.

1. Providing more transportation choices;

2. Expanding access to affordable housing, particularly housing located close to transit;

3. Enhancing economic competitiveness-–giving people access to jobs, education and services as well as giving businesses access to markets;

4. Targeting federal funds toward existing communities to spur revitalization and protect rural landscapes;

5. Increasing collaboration among federal, state, and local governments to better target investments and improve accountability;

6. Valuing the unique qualities of all communities--whether urban, suburban, or rural.

For more, Click HERE.

The Worst Bike Lanes EVER!

Caption: Worst Bike Lane EVER! (Photo by Ian Bromsgrove)

Let me first start by saying I love the internets. It is a perfectly designed interface for the functional Attention Deficit Disordered, like me. I started out searching for yard signs, somehow found a miracle drug that will help halt my natural aging process, and finally settled on a website that chronicles the worst bicycle lanes/paths in Britain. It was an electronic game of "telephone" that spun me around like a top and left me dizzy with joy and just a hint of nausea.

No matter the starting point or the path I took to get there, my final destination needs to be shared with you and yours: The Warrington Cycle Campaign has been posting a picture per month, since 2001, of some of the greatest non-sense in traffic engineering Britain has to offer. The pictures serve as a testament to the contention that there is a big difference between GOOD bike/pedestrian planning and BAD bike/pedestrian planning. And the captions...as dry and sharp as week-old British bread.

The pictures and captions are good for a thousand laughs. They also serve as a sobering reminder that the safety of cyclists and pedestrians is at stake when facilities are poorly designed or built.

Check it out. Pass it to a friend. Laugh. Learn. And get yourself lost in the wonder that is the internets.

http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.uk/facility-of-the-month

-Phil

Caption: Designated bike lane...just kidding. (Photo by Gareth Simpson)

THE NEW CROP: 40 Farmers Under 40

Caption: Ferguson, MO resident and community leader Molly Rockamann

The Mother Nature Network, which was founded by the keyboard player for the Rolling Stones, has just published its list of 40 Farmers Under 40. This group of entrepreneurial growers are plowing the fields for a new American agriculture system -- a system that (re)focuses on environmental sustainability, local economies, and healthy foods.

Check out the article:
http://www.mnn.com/food/farms-gardens/stories/40-farmers-under-40

We are thrilled to see that one of the 40 Farmers Under 40 is a collaborator and friend, Molly Rockamann. If you visit the article, Molly is #11 on the list. Molly is a Ferguson, MO resident who has been a leader on the Live Well Ferguson! Taskforce, an effort that Trailnet has led in partnership with the City of Ferguson. Molly founded EarthDance, an organization with the goals of training a new generation of farmers and preserving Missouri's oldest organic farm, the Mueller Farm, located in Ferguson.

EarthDance's annual party, Pesto Festo is coming up again this fall. It's a great place to meet other local farmers and food enthusiasts, eat some great local food, and support a great cause. Check their website for details.

Congrats to Molly and EarthDance!!!

Healthier Food to Become the Rule in San Francisco

Photo Caption: Mayor Newsom's directive includes looking at medians as locations for growing healthy food.  These planters that calm traffic in North St. Louis are also being used to grow vegetables.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is hard at work.  On June 23, 2009 he signed a mandatory recycling and composting bill into law. Less than one month later, he has issued an executive directive that will bring the importance of eating healthy food front and center.  The directive requires government purchase of healthy foods and the use of government lands for community gardens and farms.

This is a controversial issue for some, but what is certain is that Mayor Newsom's administration realizes the importance of healthy food access and the benefits it has for personal health, our health care system, and local economies. Taking steps to make sure the government leads by example to encourage healthier lifestyles seems to be a good move.

Read more about the directive here.

Treatment Tuesday: Road Diets

Photo Credit: Michael Ronkin

Photo Caption: The photos above depict a typical road diet. In the top photo you see a four lane road with two lanes in each direction. In the second photo one lane is removed, another is converted to a turn lane, and the remaining space is converted to bike lanes in each direction. In the third photo, important finishing touches are added to enhance safety: a high visibility crosswalk, a median island, a stop bar for cars approaching the crosswalk, and signage.


If a good friend asked you for advice on losing weight, you probably wouldn't tell them to buy a larger belt. A larger belt wouldn't address the root of the problem. Instead, you may tell your friend to take a closer look at his or her diet and make some changes.

More and more transportation planners and traffic engineers are beginning to apply this "diet" concept to how we manage car congestion on our roads. Because latent demand for road space eats away at the benefits of added roadway, they know we cannot build our way out of congestion. Instead of building more roadway they are implementing road diets that balance out the transportation options available and the efficiency of travel flow. A road diet often consists of adding a center turn lane and bicycle and pedestrian facilities as shown in the above picture.

There are streets in St. Louis that look like the street above--four lanes or more with little traffic. Streets with less than 20,000 auto trips per day are often great candidate streets for road diets. Streets downtown appear to have tons of possibility--streets like Delmar, Olive, and Market. Check out St. Louis Urban Workshop's St. Louis Streets are Morbidly Obese blog post for another perspective.

Road diets could be a great tool for St. Louis as we try to encourage active lifestyles. Because they can create more space for pedestrians and cyclists and slow car traffic, they create safe and pleasant environments for walking and biking. Additionally, because road diets maximize road efficiency, using them more often can lead to road construction savings and air quality benefits.

Read Road Diets: Fixing the Big Roads to learn more. (Click on Road Diets on this page.)