Trailnet's Healthy & Active Communities Initiative

New ORGANIC Trailnet T-Shirts!

2008-07-18T14:23:00.008-06:00

Trailnet has paired up with Sportsprint and graphic designer Jake Houvenagle to create a cool new organic cotton t-shirt.

The t-shirt design includes a hip front graphic with part of a bicycle, a gear, a runner/walker, and a set of wings surrounding a "E". The back of the shirt reads, in large font: "I AM ALTERNATIVE ENERGY" with a small Trailnet logo stamp just below the neck line.

The T-Shirt comes in 3 styles:
short-sleeved, slim-cut wasabi green ($25)
short-sleeved, standard-cut charcoal gray ($25)
long-sleeved, standard-cut black ($30)

All profits from T-shirt sales go to Trailnet.

If you would like to order a shirt, send an email to info@trailnet.org with your name, address, phone number, and the style and size you would like. See below for actual photos of the T's.

Recipe for Disaster

2008-07-16T21:48:00.003-06:00

xCaption: Apparently this is a band's album cover. Too perfect. "99% Fat"

What do you get when you combine lots of obese Americans with skyrocketing health care costs? The perfect storm.

More and more obese Americans = more and more Type II Diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease, osteoarthritis, depression...

At the same time, 59 million Americans, or one out of five people, skipped a trip to the doctor or went without health care in 2007 due to the cost. Read more here:
http://tinyurl.com/americansskippinghealthcare

Why America is Obese

2008-07-08T17:54:00.009-06:00

The Choices We Make are Driven by the Choices We Have.

If you are surrounded by cheap unhealthy food options and few or no healthy options, you are likely to eat junk foods. If you have few sidewalks, unsafe streets, or nowhere to walk to, you are likely going to walk less. In order to effectively address the American obesity epidemic, we need to address the root causes by ensuring Americans have greater access to healthy foods and opportunities to live active lifestyles. We need to ensure Americans have more healthy choices than unhealthy choices, and we need to ensure that the healthy choices are accessible, affordable, and appealing.

It's no big surprise to anyone that there are a lot of overweight and obese Americans. The media seems to be constantly discussing America's battle with the bulge in newspapers, magazines, TV news, the radio, and the internet. In the newspaper industry, there is the old saying: "If it bleeds, it leads." Today, obesity is as hot of a story as it gets and has been more successful at keeping the public's interest than even Britney Spears' tragic life.

Despite all the talk about obesity, there is little press that confronts the real complexity of the issue.
With over 66% of American adults and children either overweight or obese, the problem has reached epidemic proportions and cannot be simply explained by saying individuals are making bad decisions. On one hand, the media talks about how obesity has become a national epidemic (a population-wide issue), yet on the other hand, the media tends to focus on individual-level interventions such as weight loss competitions like the Biggest Loser. The media almost completely ignores the need for broader community-wide interventions, for example increasing access to healthy foods or promoting active lifestyles by designing walkable/bikeable cities.

In the majority of states, schools are not even required to provide a baseline of Physical Education for children. Here in Missouri, elementary school kids are only required to get 50 minutes of PE per week, which averages out to 10 minutes/day. And if you take a tour through the school cafeteria, you'll be hard pressed to find anything that you recognize as food, let alone healthy food. Talking about root causes, how can we ever expect children to grow into healthy adults if we are teaching them such poor dietary and physical activity habits when they are so young?

Recent research is showing that the most successful interventions to combat the obesity epidemic are multi-faceted, community-wide interventions.
The issue is much more complicated than individuals making bad choices, and therefore, the interventions need to address the true complexity of the issue.

Trailnet is currently working with the communities of Ferguson, De Soto, Old North St. Louis, and the West End to create model healthy and active communities. With a phenomenal group of community partners that include elected officials, city planners, parks and rec staff, school officials and more, we are focused on getting to the root causes of the obesity epidemic. Our work focuses on creating long-term change through the physical environment, supportive social networks, and policies (for example, increasing Physical Education time in the schools). At the core of our approach, we are interested in ensuring individuals have healthy choices.

Below are two links related to the need for this sort of broad, community-wide intervention.

A Reuters article about the American Heart Association:
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSARM14811020080701

A list of interventions that have proven to be successful for increasing physical activity:
http://www.thecommunityguide.org/pa/default.htm

Eat More, Move Less.

2008-07-06T13:54:00.005-06:00

x
"It's hot steamy food in your face right now."
Yes, ladies and gentleman, America is now an even faster food nation, thanks to the new wearable feedbags.

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less

Livable Melbourne

2008-06-28T12:11:00.008-06:00

"We've doubled the number of pedestrians in the street simply by widening the [sidewalk] and planting a few trees. Any city can do this." -Robert Adams, Director, Melbourne Design and Urban Environment

"If you are willing to give people the space they need, to give bicycles the space they need, then you can have a complete change of behavior." Jan Gehl, founding partner, Gehl Architects

Melbourne has done a phenomenal job creating a healthy, livable city. In a remarkably short period of time (10-15 years), city leaders transformed Melbourne into a vibrant city bustling with walkers, bikers, and public transit. The city is full of cozy, human-scaled nooks that have been created by using trees and other landscaping to define spaces and by converting old alleyways into charming corridors. To improve safety, they have focused on non-traditional law enforcement, including promotion of sidewalk businesses, as well as slightly elevated sidewalk seating areas to increase the number of eyes on the street.

Additional background information here:
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/melbourne/

A GREAT blog about Urbanism in St. Louis

2008-06-26T14:53:00.006-06:00

Steve Patterson is a tireless ally of true urbanism. For years, he has been maintaining the blog Urban Review STL where he examines everything from large-scale urban design plans to the minute, yet critical, details of creating livable places for people. Steve recently suffered a stroke that has forced him to trade in his trusty scooter for a trusty wheelchair. Now, probably more than ever, Steve is in tune with the critical role infrastructure (sidewalks, crosswalks, curbcuts, etc) plays in either facilitating or hindering safe travel for all. Steve's stroke hasn't slowed him down one bit, and his analysis is as sharp as ever.

We've had the pleasure of following Steve's work for years. Check it out. Beware, your city will never look the same once you get hooked on Urban Review STL!

http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/

Gas Costs May Be the Tipping Point

2008-06-25T11:18:00.004-06:00

In 2000 Malcolm Gladwell wrote about The Tipping Point -- it's about the way things change and the point at which things that have been shifting slowly start to change quickly and dramatically.

$4 and above gasoline may just be the tipping point needed to shift the way communities are built, as well as shift the decisions Americans make. Two recent articles in the New York Times caught our attention.

Mayors Advocate for Better Transit Systems
At the recent meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, 88% of the mayors, representing a total of 132 cities, said that public transportation ridership was increasing. The rising cost of gas is hitting City Hall's budget the same way it is hitting citizens' budgets--city budgets were created with fuel costs forecasted at $2/gallon, not $4/gallon. As a result, 90% of the mayors were actively working to reduce the amount of gas guzzled by city vehicles, including encouraging city employees to do more walking and altering the operations of city departments to increase efficiency: less trips and better route planning. As much as we hope our elected officials will proactively be champions of walkability and bikeability, it seems that strained city budgets may, in fact, be the tipping point. Call your mayor and ask them what they are doing to address this issue locally. Read the full NYT story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/us/21mayors.html

Rethinking the Suburbs and Exurbs
Up until this point, cheap oil has made it possible for people to live 30, 40, even 60 miles from their workplace. Most long distance commuters complain about the time they spend in their cars, stuck in traffic, and away from family. They don't like it, yet they tolerate it. As a matter of fact, cheap oil combined with Americans' willingness to tolerate such long commutes has facilitated decades of terrible urban planning and urban sprawl. First came suburbs. Then more suburbs beyond those suburbs. Then even more suburbs. Finally, the suburbs were so far away that they couldn't be called suburbs anymore and were coined "exurbs". As a result, urban areas throughout the country rapidly lost population, leaving behind virtual ghost towns. Gas prices may be the straw that breaks the camels back, draws people back into higher density urban areas, and re-invigorates good urban planning. Read the full NYT story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/business/25exurbs.html

DO REAL PLANNING!

2008-06-13T18:20:00.004-06:00

Los Angeles has adopted a new mantra and we love it: DO REAL PLANNING

The LA Director of Planning, Gail Golderg, AICP, speaks about how this has become not only a saying within the planning department, but a community mantra. The city broadcasts this mantra far and wide, and community members hold the city accountable to this mantra at public planning meetings. Goldberg believes the whole community is better for it because the quality of planning is greatly elevated as a result. In most cities, few people understand what good planning should look like, unfortunately this includes folks in many planning departments. This mantra has really helped educate the public and create a foundation of planning values in Los Angeles. It has strengthened the community’s understanding and engagement in the creation of quality spaces. Every community should consider these elements when planning. Does your city do real planning?

Demand a walkable city
Offer basic design standards

Require density and transit
Eliminate department bottlenecks
Advance homes for every income
Locate jobs near housing

Produce green buildings
Landscape in abundance
Arrest visual blight
Neutralize mansionization
Nurture planning leadership
Identify smart parking requirements
Narrow road widenings
Get project input early

For more detail on these 14 points, download the full pdf of DO REAL PLANNING here or copy and paste the link below:
http://cityplanning.lacity.org/forms_Procedures/do-real-planning-final_1.pdf

The planning principles that were presented at this conference and are being implemented by folks throughout the country stand in stark contrast to much of the planning (or perhaps lack thereof) that takes place throughout the St. Louis region. With gas prices above $4/gallon and not going down any time soon and increasing economic pressures on families throughout our region, it is becoming increasingly important that we do real planning. It is the best way that any region can support long-term social and economic health.

Attention to Detail

2008-06-13T18:07:00.005-06:00

No matter how good your intentions, please don't forget to pay attention to the details. These folks forgot:

Caption: Oops! Looks like the streets department forgot to call the utilities department.

Urban Planning in LA... Flying Pigs!

2008-06-13T16:47:00.010-06:00

The new Director of Planning for the City of Los Angeles, Gail Goldberg, AICP, gave a presentation at the recent International Making Cities Livable Conference that struck us. Now if you've ever been to Los Angeles, you might be struck too: struck by the fact that Los Angeles HAS a city planner. Despite the fact that "Los Angeles" and "urban planning" are rarely used in the same sentence, we are confident that Goldberg's philosophy has the potential to completely transform LA and the rest of the country if it catches on.

Goldberg was formerly the Planning Director for San Diego where she and her team focused on creating a series of interconnected "urban villages." This strategy focuses on:
-Targeting compact growth in existing centers and corridors
-Creating a network of walkable, mixed-use village centers connected by transit
-Providing vibrant, engaging, playful public spaces
-Providing a diversity of housing options (income-levels and sizes)

Goldberg stressed the importance of adopting a policy plan to help guide planning and development. The policy plan is basically just a set of values/rules that helps ensure development activity creates the types of communities the planning department envisioned. For example, the policy plan could include form-based zoning or street design standards. Form-based zoning simply specifies the form of things (sizes and shapes) and not necessarily the use--think of old towns that have corner stores and living space above every storefront. And street design standards specify how streets are built (with or without sidewalks, bike lanes, etc). Form-based zoning also helps ensure that development is consistent and creates a sense of place. Form-based zoning helps ensure you get this:

and NOT this:

Goldberg also stressed that the policy plan is useless without an action plan to go with it. Don't just outline the policy, but create and execute a plan to make it reality.

To this end, Los Angeles has adopted:
-Citywide urban design principles
-Neighborhood design principles (different from one neighborhood to the next to help keep the historic and distinct sense of place that exists)
-A walkability checklist (here is a different walkability checklist)
-New street design standards
-Streetscape requirements (create pleasant, human-scale streets)
-A focus on reducing parking and promoting alternatives transportation

Making Cities Livable!

2008-06-05T22:27:00.003-06:00

Caption: a highly walkable, vibrant district. Notice how the wide crosswalk gives pedestrians clear priority.

A team of three Trailnet Staffers:
Executive Director, Ann Mack
Director of Community Programs, Cindy Mense
Active Living Program Manager, Phil Valko

attended the International Making Cities Livable Conference in Santa Fe, NM, June 2-5. The conference was focused on “Designing the Healthy City” with a special focus on children. It could not have been a better fit for Trailnet's work. The conference was a very multi-disciplinary conference, much like the groups that Trailnet works with throughout the region, with representatives from city councils, planning departments, public health officials, developers, green builders, not-for-profit folks, and more.

It was a fascinating 4 days, and we are bringing back many great ideas to incorporate into our work in the St. Louis region. As we met leaders from across the world, it was immediately clear that there is a growing international movement to create livable cities that:
- promote resident health
- foster a strong sense of community
- are economically vibrant and sustainable
- accommodate and maintain quality housing for people of all economic levels
- conserve precious resources (green design)
- encourage creativity and playfulness

All these things are becoming increasingly important as gas prices continue to rise and America keeps getting fatter and grumpier.

Throughout the course of the next few days / weeks we will be posting stories, ideas, and inspiration from the conference. We've invited the folks we met in Santa Fe to send us their ideas and inspiration to post here, as well. Check back soon!

Rules of the Road, From a Professional Cyclist

2008-06-04T15:00:00.002-06:00

The League of Illinois Bicyclists recently created a video to outline the rules for cars and bicycles to safely share roadways. The video is narrated by professional racer, Robbie Ventura, one of Lance Armstrong's former teammates on the US Postal Service Team.

Check out the Video HERE or cut and paste this link:
http://www.bikelib.org/video/

Restaurant Grease Highly Coveted!

2008-05-30T13:24:00.004-06:00

Caption: Spent fryer grease (R) is refined into biofuel (L)

With gas prices at record highs, peaking above $4.00 / gallon, people are eager for less expensive alternatives. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

In the last few months, necessity has helped transform spent deep fat fryer grease from a waste product that business owners had to pay to dispose of into a coveted commodity that is being used as biodiesel to fuel vehicles.

Read the full story HERE or here: http://tinyurl.com/5m92zc

Healthy & Active Communities!
Walkable / Bikeable communities allow residents to be far less dependent on their cars, save money, build sense of community, support a vibrant local economy, and improve the health of residents from cradle to cane. Necessity IS the mother of invention. Fortunately, we don't have to invent good community planning, we just need to practice principles of community design that were critical before cheap oil allowed us to build cities and regions that sprawl out unnecessarily.

In the upcoming posts, we'll focus on some steps that municipalities and regions can take to ensure walkable / bikeable community design. A couple of our past posts have also touched on this topic:

Improving Street Design Standards: Click HERE

Planning for Multi-Modal Transportation: Click HERE

Is Organic Produce Healthier to Eat?

2008-05-29T14:42:00.008-06:00

Caption: A participant in Trailnet/KDHX/Urban Stuio's "Adventures in Media Programs" holds up carrots organically grown at New Roots Urban Farm in North St. Louis, Summer 2007

We know that organic agriculture is better for the environment: less chemicals in our soils and our streams, but is it better for our health?

A recent study by folks at the University of California, Davis has found that the answer to this question may very well be YES:

"So far, the researchers have found that the organic tomatoes have almost double the concentration of two types of flavonoids — quercetin and kaempferol — which are considered to be healthful plant compounds with potent antioxidant activity. The 10-year mean levels of quercetin were 79 percent higher than those in conventional tomatoes, and levels of kaempferol were 97 percent higher."

Click HERE for the full NPR story. If that doesn't work, try this:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90914182

Why Does a Salad Cost More than a Big Mac?

2008-05-13T09:53:00.002-06:00

We realize that the answer to this question isn't simple. Surely it involves costs of production, processing, packaging, and shipping. Supply and demand. Global markets. Numbers, numbers and more numbers.

Nonetheless, this graphic helps shed a little bit of light on the disparity between what our federal government recommends we eat and what they subsidize. Subsidies result in lower production costs on the front end, which translates to lower consumer costs in the supermarket aisles.

In short, the Federal Nutrition Recommendations suggest that 33% of our daily servings are vegetables and fruits. Yet, less than half of 1% of Federal Subsidies for Food Production support vegetables and fruit. On the flip side, the recommendations suggest consuming only 22% of our daily serving from meats, dairy, nuts, and legumes. Yet, these foods receive a full 75% of food subsidies.

Movie: KING CORN

2008-05-07T08:40:00.007-06:00

Go rent this movie! It's funny, enlightening, and an excellent use of 2 hours of your life. Check out the Trailer below:

A Brief History of Food (Prices)

2008-04-08T09:03:00.005-06:00

In the last few years, there has been a growing national dialogue about the way we feed ourselves. What sorts of foods we eat, where they come from, how much we eat, and how much our food costs...and for good reason. Dietary habits are one half of the the looming American obesity epidemic (the other half of the equation is physical activity). Calories in, calories burned. It's a simple equation.

In the last series of months, there has been a lot of talk about rising costs of food. The recent rises have been attributed to many things, including:

-rising costs of gas needed to run farm machinery and for transporting food -- often from thousands of miles away
-increased interest in biofuels which have driven up the costs of certain crops such as corn and soy. The majority of common foods contain corn or soy in some form, including meats -- most farm animals are now fed corn.

Food prices are increasing significantly today, but they have been pretty stable in recent history, right?

Not exactly. The above graphic shows the change in food prices from 1985 to 2000. Notice that the price of fresh fruits and vegetables increased by almost 40% while the cost of soft drinks decreased by almost 25%! If you look closer at the graphic, nearly all the foods that fast food and junk food contains decreased in price while the essential foods for a healthy lifestyle, increased in price. Why?

The Farm Bill
The change in food prices has been driven, in large part, by The Farm Bill, a huge piece of federal legislation that contains over $25 billion of subsidies for corn, soy, wheat, rice, and cotton, and close to $0 to encourage nutritious fruit and vegetable production. Learn more about the Farm Bill HERE.

Below are some additional resources about food in America.

Movie:
King Corn: http://www.kingcorn.net/

Articles:
You Are What You Grow: www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html
Unhappy Meals: www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html

Books:
The Omnivore's Dilemma: www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php
Fast Food Nation: www.amazon.com/Fast-Food-Nation-Dark-All-American/dp/0060938455

This Guy Knows What He's Talking About

2008-01-28T19:03:00.001-06:00

Note: One of many pictures that pops up when you Google "John Roach"

John Roach has a lot of credits to his name. He's a lawyer, a former St. Louis Alderman, was St. Louis' first Director of Community Development, and served on the National Commission on Intermodal Transportation during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

John recently wrote a scathing editorial about our road-building habits in the St. Louis region, criticizing what appears to be the current working philosophy throughout the region: the solution to traffic/transportation issues is simply to build more and wider highways and roadways.

According to John, "roadways must become part of a system that includes a variety of modes of transportation — rail, bus, auto, walking — each of which performs its function while interconnecting easily and efficiently and in balance with communities."

Although many of the readers of this blog live outside of the St. Louis region, this is equally pertinent to you because it deals with the frighteningly common misconception in America that affects everyone's quality of life: the idea that transportation deals with moving cars and trucks, as opposed to moving people. We forget that only 60% of Americans can drive. The other 40% are too young, too old, too poor, or unable due to a disability. Transportation systems that are built to move cars and trucks, leave millions of Americans stranded with no way to get their groceries, visit their friends and family, or do just about anything.

Take a couple minutes to read what John has to say about transportation.

A little background for non-St. Louis folks -- Interstate 64/40 that cuts through the heart of the St. Louis region was recently closed for major renovation to make it bigger, better, faster. In the months leading up to the closure, people were freaking out. In the days after the closure, things didn't seem all that different.

1 Billion Participate in Car Free Day

2008-01-22T23:38:00.002-06:00

China, that is, participated in Car Free Day and the pictures are hard to believe.
Click here for more

Bicycle Boulevards

2008-01-22T15:00:00.000-06:00

Cities all over the country are re-designing their transportation systems to include pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit accommodations. Here in St. Louis, the home of Trailnet, the Bike St. Louis network of routes just added another 20+ miles of marked routes through the city. One of the crown jewels of such city networks are the Bicycle Boulevards in Berkeley, California. The fine folks at StreetFilms.org put together the following video to showcase Berkeley's bike-friendly streets. The Bike Boulevards approach is an excellent way to calm traffic on residential streets, creating a safer environment for children to play and people to walk, in addition to accommodating people on bikes.

We let kids drink this stuff?!

2008-01-18T18:56:00.000-06:00

Soda has become such a normal part of the American life that we forget (or maybe we never knew) each 12-ounce can contains roughly 11 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high-fructose corn syrup and 50-60 milligrams of caffeine.

Since it can sometimes be hard to put numbers into perspective, let's borrow some insight from everyone's favorite British nanny, Mary Poppins. Everyone remembers Mary's wisdom for sick children: "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." One simple spoonful of sugar used to seem so wise and just a little decadent, didn't it? Compare that to 11 spoonfuls of sugar in a 12-ounce can of soda! Can you imagine crunching your way through 11 teaspoons of sugar? You're mouth would go dry trying to get it all down... But Aha! With soda that problem is solved. Gulp it on down! It not only seems over the top, but also a little bit gross when you think of eating 11 teaspoons of sugar. Yet how many kids and adults do you know who drink soda daily? Sometimes many times a day.

Maybe it started with Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox...maybe it was the vastness of our country...any way you slice it, we Americans sure do like big things. The once adequate 12-ounce soda is now a mini-serving compared to the 32-ounce soda AKA, the Big Gulp or a large soda at most fast food joints, including McD's and Burger King. The next time you drink one of these big guys, you will be consuming ~29 teaspoons of sugar. To help you visualize how much this actually is, imagine filling a 12-ounce can half-full with sugar.

Back to Mary... When Mary needed a little pick-me-up after all those high energy adventures with the kids, she'd grab a cup of coffee. A 12-ounce caffeinated soda contains roughly 1/3 or 1/2 the caffeine in a soda. For seasoned adult coffee drinkers, a half cup of coffee may not be much, but for kids with smaller bodies and low tolerances, a half-cup of coffee will send them flying in a much less magical manner than the way Mary Poppins flies.

The folks at Healthbolt, with consultation from a physician, put together a really compelling description of what happens inside our bodies when we drink a soda. Check it out HERE.

There are soda machines in schools all over the country...elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Kids drink the stuff throughout the day, getting hopped-up on caffeine and sugar and then crash within a couple hours. Imagine what this does for classroom management and student achievement: Some of the kids are on sugar/caffeine highs, some of the kids are crashing and grumpy, and some of the kids are just trying to pay attention despite all of this. In addition, these types of beverages are thought to be a significant contributors to childhood and adult obesity. Within 20 minutes of drinking a Coke, Pepsi, or similar, our livers are already converting the sugar into fat. After all, soda is just filled with empty calories... 11 teaspoons = ~145 empty calories.

IMPROVING STUDENT HEALTH
In the last handful of years, districts throughout the country have developed beverage standards that eliminate the sale of sugary/caffeinated beverages on school grounds. Some school districts have argued that beverage sales generate very important revenue that helps fund sports programs among other things. A study was released in 2006 that reveals that many school districts are actually getting a Raw Deal with their beverage contracts.

Since many school districts have already made the switch to healthier beverages, there are some EXCELLENT tools and resources to help schools make the transition to fruit juices, milks, and water. One of the best resources out there is the Alliance for a Healthier Generation's School Beverage Toolkit.

Get involved with your local school district's Wellness Policy Committee or School Health Advisory Council to create beverage standards that will keep our children healthy. Consider developing a beverage policy and beverage contracts that limit beverage sales to:
• Water
• Minimum of 50% fruit juices, without additional sweeteners
• Dairy and non-dairy milks: 2% or lower milk, soy-milk, rice-milk, or similar
• Electrolyte replacement drinks with less than 42 grams of sweetener per 20-ounce serving

And finally, some quick tips for Negotiating Beverage Contracts
-Negotiate contracts that are consistent with the above beverage standards
-Retain full control over the length of the contract
-Negotiate higher commissions
-Negotiate for all schools in the district or form coalitions with other districts to strengthen purchasing power
-Require the beverage company to provide the district or school with readily understandable financial reports at regular intervals

Caffeine content Citation:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/info-u/nutrition/BJ884.html

A Growing City with a Great Vision

2008-01-14T19:29:00.000-06:00

Scottsdale, Arizona, population ~230,000, is a rapidly growing city. And with their new Transportation Master Plan, it looks Scottsdale will grow into a very easy city to navigate on foot, on bike, in wheelchair, on public transit, or in a car.

According to Reed Kempton, Senior Transportation Planner for the City of Scottsdale:
"After two years of work, the Scottsdale City Council last night unanimously adopted our first comprehensive Transportation Master Plan. This document combines all transportation planning elements into one single document and eliminates separate plans for streets, bicycles, pedestrians, transit, and so on. It includes complete streets, increased funding for non SOV (single occupancy vehicle) modes, and a host of policies that truly institutionalize bicycling in our community."

Check it out here: http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/traffic/transmasterplan/drafts.asp
and then click on the "Summaries of Transportation Master Plan Components."

This is excellent transportation policy, and we're thrilled to see a growing city planning so well for its future. Transportation systems that accommodate lots of different means of getting around, like the one outlined in Scottsdale's plan, move far more people with far less pollution, and typically result in highly livable cities. In an age of 3, 4, and 5-car households, it's easy to forget that many people don't own cars or cannot drive because they are too young, too old, or have a disability that makes driving unsafe. In certain neighborhoods in St. Louis City, as much as 40% of the population not only doesn't drive, but doesn't have access to a car. Well designed transportation systems look out for the vulnerable members of society to ensure they have the freedom to get around on their own, safely, and with dignity.

Study Finds that Kids like Real Food

2008-01-09T11:20:00.000-06:00

There is a commonly held notion swirling around school cafeterias that goes something like this: Children will not eat healthy foods. If we improve school lunches, children simply won't eat the food or they'll throw most of it away, and school lunch sales will decline. As a result, school children across the country end up eating highly processed, high-fat foods that tend to look like this:

Contrary to this notion, a recent study by three economists finds that "the conventional wisdom that you can't serve healthier meals because kids won't eat them is false," said Benjamin Senauer, one of the authors of the study.

Key Findings of the Study:
-Schools serving the healthiest foods did not see a decrease in demand.
-Serving healthy foods does require higher labor costs; however, this is offset by lower costs for more nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables compared with processed foods.

"The study also pointed out that school districts are allowed to charge their lunch programs for indirect costs such as electricity or janitorial services for their cafeterias. The authors said that can be abused by cash-strapped districts charging their lunch programs high overhead; they recommended tighter limits on those charges." (Associated Press)

What this means: Through the National School Lunch Program, schools receive money from the Federal Government for every free or reduced price lunch they serve. In a cash-strapped district with a high number of students from low-income familes, the school might receive $2.50 for every meal they serve. Some districts will pull as much as $1.50 of this to pay for overhead costs, leaving only $1.00/meal to purchase student lunches. What kind of "meal" do you think you could buy for $1.00?

The article also identified a series of obstacles, as well as, policy solutions to help improve the foods American children are eating, including:

Obstacle #1: Minimum calorie requirements for schools allow schools to meet the minimum requirements for vitamins and minerals by simply serving more food, rather than nutrient-dense foods (colorful fruits and vegetables tend to be nutrient dense, compared to French fries which are mostly starch and fat from deep-frying). Recommended Solution: Establish a target calorie range with a maximum and minimum to ensure that schools meet their nutrition requirements by serving nutrient dense foods instead of over-serving minimally nutritious foods.
Obstacle #2: Many school kitchen facilities are insufficient for the sanitary preparation of fresh, healthy foods. Recommended Solution: Develop local, state, or federal one-time grants to upgrade school kitchen facilities and train staff to enable healthy food preparation.
Obstacle #3: Schools will often use a significant portion of their lunch budget to cover overhead costs, leaving only a small amount to purchase foods, often resulting in low-quality foods. Recommended Solution: Require that schools meet their nutritional guidelines before allowing them to draw indirect costs such as electricity and janitorial services from their food budget.
Obstacle #4: A surprising number of schools are not meeting/exceeding nutrition guidelines. Recommended Solution: Create a local, state, or federal incentive structure for schools to achieve existing nutrition guidelines.

In recent years, schools throughout the country have been introducing healthier options, including salad bars full of fresh, unprocessed food, like the one below. The new offerings are typically popular with students, and teachers often anecdotally report improvements in student behavior.

For additional information, check out the actual study:

Title: An empirical analysis of and policy recommendations to improve the nutritional quality of school meals.
Authors: Wagner, Barbara; Senauer, Benjamin; Runge, C. Ford.
Citation: Review of Agricultural Economics, v.29, no.4, Winter 2007, pp.672-688, 2007.

Revised Street Standards Improve Walkability!

2008-01-03T13:29:00.000-06:00

COLUMBIA, Missouri

Image Courtesy of John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune

If your community is like most American communities, it's likely that cars now take top priority. Over the last several decades American sidewalks have steadily been shrinking and in some cases disappearing altogether while street lanes have widened and more lanes have been added. As a result, it can be nearly impossible to safely walk or bike to school, the store, or work.

Frustrated by this trend, a group of folks in Columbia, MO known as the PedNet Coaltion came up with a radical idea: They believed that all Columbia residents should be able to safely walk, bike, or wheel(chair) their way all around town. From any location to any location, and the experience should be enjoyable. With sidewalks on less than half of their streets, the idea was radical.

In addition to lacking sidewalks, they noticed that the oldest parts of the city were the most pleasant and easiest to navigate on foot, bike, or wheelchair, with narrow streets and wide sidewalks. In contrast, the newest neighborhoods had unnecessarily wide streets and narrow sidewalks. They began to ask "why?" What they learned is that nearly every city in America has a set of street design standards that specify such things as street widths, sidewalk widths, and distance between the sidewalk and the curb, and it turns out that Columbia's street standards had been changed throughout the past few decades, putting less emphasis on pedestrians and greater emphasis on automobiles.

The PedNet Coalition's individual and organizational members, which included residents, businesses, and non-profits rallied around their idea. They did extensive research into the street standards in other cities and began proposing that Columbia revise it's standards to ensure safe walking, biking, and wheeling. PedNet successfully advocated for the City to establish a task force to look into the pros and cons of adopting new street standards. After a 15-month process involving local homebuilders and developers, key city departments and volunteer commissions, and local health groups, the task force published a set of recommendations for revising the existing street standards.

Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman supported the suggested revisions and pointed to the many benefits of the proposed design changes:
-Economic benefits including enhanced recruitment and retention of University of Missouri employees because of the desirable community amenities and higher real-estate values
-Health benefits including reduced rates of obesity and related health issues - diabetes, stroke and heart disease, among others
-Community benefits including more cohesive neighborhoods with lower crime rates.
-Enhanced transportation system
-Increased outdoor recreation opportunities

Some developers contended that the new designs would be more expensive to build, raising the cost of housing. To address these concerns, PedNet brought in national experts to testify that the new residential street standards could be built at little or no additional cost.

After a 3-year process, members of the Columbia City Council adopted the new standards:
-narrow residential street widths from 32 to 28 feet
-widen all residential sidewalks from 4 to 5 feet and install 5-foot sidewalks on ALL streets
-include 6-foot bike lanes on all arterials and major collectors
-include an 8-foot shared-use path on one side of arterials and major collectors

The resulting new standards will better accommodate more bicyclists, pedestrians and wheelchair users and will slow automobile traffic through neighborhoods. The standards apply to all new construction and major repairs (when feasible) on existing streets. Columbia city officials feel confident that the new standards will enhance the lives of residents and help Columbia better compete with other college towns, such as Madison, WI, Boulder, CO, and Davis, CA, towns that draw prospective university students and faculty away from Columbia.

Local street design standards can be a highly effective tool for ensuring bicycle/pedestrian friendly environments, increased safety, and a bolstered economy.

THE PROCESS
The process began with initial meetings of interested parties. This turned into regular meetings and an unofficial Street Design Standards Working Group. The working group started a dialog with the city council, and as a result, the city council formed an official "Street Design Standards Advisory Committee" that did extensive research on street standards across the country. The Advisory Committee kept the Planning/Zoning Commission and the City Council in the loop throughout the process and finally put forth their official recommendations. Proponents of the new standards wrote Op Ed articles in the local newspaper to keep the public informed about the proposed changes. The city held a series of public meetings to gather resident and business input. These meetings were heavily attended by supporters of the new standards--residents and businesses alike that saw the new standards as important for quality of life and the local economy. At the end of a three year process, the City Council voted to approve the new standards which were adopted June 7, 2004.

Ask Yourself: Can children in your community safely walk to school? Are the sidewalks in your community wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs? What are your obstacles to walking to the store?

If the newer streets in your community are nearly wide enough to land a jumbo jet, yet the sidewalks force you to walk single file with your sweetheart, it might be time to re-examine your local street design standards, too. A great place to start is by attending local city council meetings to learn about your current standards.

For more information, contact the PedNet Coalition: pednet@pednet.org and visit their website www.pednet.org.

Trunk or Treat!

2007-12-12T17:06:00.000-06:00

The eyebrow-raiser of the week was our discovery of Trunk-Or-Treating. You read it right. Trunk, not Trick. According to the folks at About.com :

"Holding a Trunk-or-Treat Halloween activity is a great way to keep Halloween safe. What is a Trunk-or-Treat? It's when several families get together...park their cars in the parking lot, open up the trunks of their cars, and kids come around to each car to Trunk-or-Treat instead of going house to house to Trick-or-Treat."

So, what used to look like this:

photo credit: methyl_lives (Flickr), some rights reserved

Is starting to look like tailgating for toddlers:

photo credit: LocoLyn (Flickr)

Advocates for Trunk or Treating will cite the following benefits: safety from traffic, safety from crime, knowing their "neighbors", and easy walking from trunk to trunk. Interesting... Those are all the same qualities of well-designed communities.

Ironically, what many people are unable to find in their own neighborhoods, they are finding in oil-stained parking lots from coast to coast.

More than anything, the rise of Trunk-Or-Treating is a reminder of the challenges that many communities face. Fewer sidewalks, busier streets, decreased sense of community and decreased sense of safety has pushed people out of their homes and into parking lots. It's also a spooky reminder of how car-focused the average American life has become. The very idea that Trunk-Or-Treating involves kids walking around and playing on black-tar asphalt instead of a grassy park or a school football field is a tell-tale sign of our co-dependent relationship with our cars. The name "Trunk or Treat" is clever and all, but it's not enough to convince us that 3 hours in a parking lot is better than 3 hours in a park.

We need to start working to improve the places we live before empty parking lots become our safe havens, and all we're left with is junk in our trunks.

Some simple steps to take:
-Get to know your neighbors
-Start walking in your community
-Work with your city council to ensure walkability (start by learning about your existing street design standards--are pedestrian or bicycle accommodations required in your community?)
-Gather residents, city officials, and law enforcement officers to discuss and address safety concerns
-Beautify your community: organize neighborhood clean-up, pruning, and planting events