abqACHIEVE

Monday, May 9, 2011

Pedestrian Perfection: The 11 Most Walk-Friendly U.S. Cities

By Kaid Benfield The Atlantic Monthly

After evaluating applicant communities in several categories related to walking—including safety, mobility, access and comfort—the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center last week announced the selection of 11 Walk Friendly Communities across the U.S. They are ranked in categories of achievement, as follows (details, and additional text, from PBIC's website):
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/05/pedestrian-perfection-the-11-most-walk-friendly-us-cities/238337/

Eight additional communities received honorable mentions.
Walk Friendly Communities is a new, national recognition program developed to encourage towns and cities across the U.S. to make safer walking environments a priority. Regular readers know that I write a lot about walkability, because it expresses so many things we look for in sustainable places: health and fitness, a richness of destinations within walking distance, street connectivity, sidewalks, even a sense of community and place. A neighborhood or community whose residents, workers, and visitors find it useful, convenient, safe, and pleasant to walk, and do so regularly, is likely to be environmentally friendly in other ways as well.
The PBIC said in a press release that community leaders can learn best practices just by participating in the application process. Applicants use a web-based program that asks a comprehensive set of questions and provides communities with feedback and ideas for promoting pedestrian safety and activity. The questions examine engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, evaluation, and planning. The Walk Friendly Community designation, awarded from bronze to platinum and modeled after the League of American Bicyclists's "Bicycle Friendly Communities" designations, is given to applicants "that have demonstrated a commitment to improving and sustaining walkability and pedestrian safety through comprehensive programs, plans and policies."

I should note that the list of honorees emphasizes places that are making commendable policy efforts to encourage walking (and that applied for the recognition), rather than communities that are more organically hospitable to walking. Boston and Washington, for example, which have the nation's highest walking mode shares for commuters, are not on the list. That's okay with me—we need a program that recognizes policy.

In a document profiling the honorees, PBIC saluted top-ranking Seattle, for example, for a comprehensive set of measures that includes collecting data through biennial pedestrian counts, developing a pedestrian master plan with performance measures, giving attention to parking management, planting street trees, fostering safe routes to school, calming traffic, and more. Santa Barbara was honored for "strong connectivity policies, a model Safe Routes to School program, and its unique pedestrian-oriented "paseos" (pedestrian-oriented shopping streets). Hoboken was designated for, among other things, "daylighting" its intersections.

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center is maintained by the University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center with funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration. Officially launched in October 2010, the Walk Friendly Community program is funded by FedEx and the Federal Highway Administration.

The program is accepting applications now for its second round of awards, with the deadline for submission on June 15, 2011. Interested communities are encouraged to visit www.walkfriendly.org to learn more about the program and review the community assessment tool.

In a related matter, I just this week received multiple announcements of an online "National Walking Survey" sponsored by the organization America Walks. The survey seems a bit geared toward people who might walk for pleasure or fitness rather than for utility; only a few of the questions have to do with the built environment or the kinds of things that the Walk Friendly Communities program seeks to encourage. I might like to see, for example, "Which of the following places, if any, do you walk to on a regular basis?" or "Would you walk to the bank/restaurant/whatever if you could reach it safely within 10 minutes?" or "Is there a public park or playground near your home or job? How often do you visit it? How do you get there?"

Transportation research indicates that these factors can be hugely influential. Still, maybe the survey will elicit some useful information; go here if you would like to participate

Thursday, May 5, 2011

ACHIEVE and Youth Food Action Project at MRCOG Wed. May 11th

Growing Youth by Growing Food: Farm and Garden Partnerships Focused on Youth Engagement

Presentations from ACHIEVE, YFAP, Dragon Farm and Growing Awareness Urban Farm

Presenters include:

- Janet Page-Reeves from ACHIEVE

- Richard Brandt from Dragon Farm

- Matt Wilson from Growing Awareness Urban Farm (a project of East Central Ministries

- We are also hoping to have one or more of the students who have been involved in these projects.

ACHIEVE (Action Communities for Health, Innovation and Environmental Change): ABQ ACHIEVE's Mission is to create a healthy community that promotes physical activity and good nutrition through sustainable community-driven policy and environmental design. The project leverages community cohesion and resources in several areas of Albuquerque including the International District, the South Valley and Santa Barbara/Martineztown -- to make lasting changes that will impact the lives of residents for years to come.

YFAP (Youth Food Action Project): This project enhances community food security and combats the obesity epidemic in a manner that engages youth, educates the community about the nature of the food system, and mobilizes residents to take action to improve food access and food quality.

Dragon Farm: A fully operational - 1 acre farm that is part of the South Valley Academy Charter School. Dragon Farm uses an experiential, service-learning curriculum, with agriculture as a mechanism to foster community participation. Dragon Farm makes academic issues tangible and creates a rich learning environment that integrates students with the food environment in a unique way. Dragon Farm is the centerpiece of this initiative.

Growing Awareness Urban Farm: A micro-business of East Central Ministries that has been in the making for 10 years. We have combined several of our home and garden projects in order to offer our customers an outstanding educational experience as well as high quality, socially conscious products.

DATE/TIME: Wed, May 11th, 9:00am-10:30am

LOCATION: MRCOG offices located at 809 Copper Ave NW

For more information: contact Ann Simon at (505) 724-3617 or at asimon@mrcog-nm.gov.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

USDA Encourages Schools To Partner With Local Farms

NPR
by April Fulton

The new nutrition law gives local providers preference when they bid for school food contracts. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images The new nutrition law gives local providers preference when they bid for school food contracts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just announced a new rule to encourage schools to partner with nearby farms as a way to get more healthy, locally-grown fruits, veggies, and more into school lunches.

Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin Concannon says the rule is "an important milestone that will help ensure that our children have access to fresh produce and other agricultural products." But access to healthy food doesn't help much if kids won't eat it, warned Alice Waters, the chef-owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, and the founder of the Edible Schoolyard program.

The "buy local" rule is just one part of the massive Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act President Obama signed into law last December. That bill is about the biggest thing to happen to school meals since the microwave.
It sets new nutrition standards and bans whole milk. It boosts funding for meal programs by about 6 cents a meal - a hard won provision in a long battle where food stamps lost out. And it's controversial, garnering over 130,000 public comments so far.

Per Wednesday's announcement, the law encourages schools to bring in more "unprocessed locally grown and locally raised agricultural products" by allowing schools to give local providers preference when they bid for school food contracts. By "unprocessed" the department means it's fine to chill, freeze, peel, slice, cold pasteurize, butcher, or dehydrate the food. But cooking it or adding a bunch of preservatives is not encouraged. The definition of "local" seems a bit more flexible.

But it's all just one tiny step on the road to addressing obesity and poor nutrition, said Waters at the Atlantic Food Summit in Washington, DC yesterday. "We should certainly try to improve diets by make school lunches more nutritious and by getting the vending machines out of the hallways," Waters said. "But we can't be sure that kids are even eating — let alone understanding — what nourishment is all about. Kids are wary of unfamiliar foods, besides they can always buy packaged junk before and after school." Waters says schools need to offer credit for edible education the way they do for phys ed, science and math. They need mandatory lunch programs, like the one in Chicago that grabbed headlines a few weeks ago. The more kids know about food and the more they have a hand in growing or preparing or serving it, the more likely they are to eat it, she says. There are some pilot programs and funding available for these programs in the new law, but nowhere near enough, Waters says.

(More research is needed on this growing concept, for sure, but I can tell you, growing kale with a kid at my house is no guarantee it gets eaten by said kid.)

Also a bit skeptical of the USDA "buy local" rule for other reasons are the big food companies that supply school meal programs. Jennifer Grossman, senior VP at the Dole Nutrition Institute, tells Shots she likes the administration's efforts to encourage better school nutrition, but schools have bigger problems. "For schools that are really very pressed on those dollars, I think that they need to be able to have access to affordable choices and sometimes those won't be grown locally... Bananas don't grow in Michigan," she says. Bananas are the cheapest items in the produce section, but they don't grow in most of the country. Dole, Chiquita, and Del Monte control about 60 percent of the worldwide banana market.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/04/29/135771070/new-usda-rule-encourages-schools-to-partner-with-local-farms?ps=sh_fthdl

Thursday, April 21, 2011

International District Community Trail Update

Great news for the advancement of pedestrian friendly streets in the International District! ACHIEVE submitted two requests in the fall of 2010 to local government in order to proceed with work on the International District Community Trail --and both requests are now moving forward.

The City of Albuquerque's Dept. of Municipal Development has reviewed ACHIEVE's list for short term fixes on the trail and funding has been identified by City Councilor Rey Garduno. Additionally our request for a preliminary design scoping study has been granted by Bernalillo County and will be forthcoming in the next few months. The scoping study report is necessary step for CIP and other funding applications for the International District Community Trail.