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Walkable and Bike able Communities

December 19, 2007

In my Internet trolling yesterday I came across a great video on You Tube that looks at the idea of planning for more walkable and Bike able Communities. The video looks at the community of Port Townsend in Washington state and discusses their efforts to envision a more sustainable transportation future.

This has been a topic of discussion around these parts from time to time. It appears that isolated efforts are being made to promote trail networks and occasionally the paper addresses councils interest in more bike lanes for city streets. This topic is near an dear to me for several reasons. In my previous career teaching Geography I spent a good deal of time teaching the ideas of smart growth, sustainable transportation, and more generally our patterns of land use that have been increasingly influenced by the car. If you haven’t seen end of Suburbia I encourage you to do so as the movie offers a good look at the impact of car culture in North America.

I am also quite interested in the topic of sustainable transportation locally because I get the idea of Peak Oil. This post isn’t going to be a peak oil lesson but I will try to cover the topic in more detail soon enough. For more on Peak Oil check out the End of Suburbia, or listen to my interview with the writer director, or simply Google “Peak Oil” and see what you get. I bring up peak oil at this point in part because it appears to be a driving force behind the program ” Peak Moment” from which the video below is a part.

Finally I am very much interested in the idea of more walkable/Bike able communities because that’s how I get around. Our family has been car free for over two years now. We gave up on the car while still living in Toronto, opting to take advantage of public transit options our wise choice in choosing an apartment. Location, location, location… it’s a really big part of reducing your transportation energy demands and improving your quality of life. When we purchased our first home upon returning to Owen Sound we had really only one deal breaker. The house had to be “in the valley” (as it turns out we actually bought a house on a dead end street partially embedded in the valley wall = don’t have to bike the really big hills but there’s still a bit of an incline on the way home). In hindsight this has proven to be quite a boon as well given that it adds a little more resistance to our training (oops!, I meant commute there but as you might imagine there are some pretty significant health benefits to moving about under your own power.

I’ll leave my commentary for the moment at that and let you get on with the show… otherwise I might have to start weighing in on the numerous other benefits of our reduced car lifestyle. Perhaps you have some thoughts to share? If so leave a comment below or leave an audio comment by calling 519 416 6936 (OWEN). As you can see I could likely go on about this topic at great length… if you are interested in carrying on with this discussion it only takes a moment of you time to share your thoughts/ideas not to mention give me a little more reason to dig up more resources on this topic.

Enjoy the show….

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Sustainability, Community, Video, Transportation 

Comments

3 Responses to “Walkable and Bike able Communities”

  1. Jon Says:
    December 19th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Since moving to Toronto this fall I’ve noticed a couple interesting things about bikes. One is the massive number of people I see biking around after dark, like at 3am while I’m waiting for the night bus. I guess it’s a good time traffic wise though.

    The other crazy thing I’ve observed is people still biking through the two feet of snow we got this past weekend. That’s persistance!

    Toronto seems to be moving ahead, though slowly, at getting the promised bike lanes in. But it’s still a pretty car centered place in most areas. :( You really can get anywhere on the TTC though, so yay for that! Owen Sound could sure use some work on their public transit.

  2. Nathan Says:
    January 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    It sure would be nice to have some more bike-able areas in Owen Sound. Going downtown is alsmot impossible when on a bike because the roads are too narrow and the sidewalks are peds only.

  3. Andrew Thomson Says:
    January 17th, 2008 at 8:25 pm

    Hey Mr. Owen;

    Youzes are doing a great job on the site! I miss OS a lot.
    I rode downtown tdot for 6 years in all seasons (99-05): all I can say
    is that streetcar tracks are tricky and hard on derailers, but that they get little snow (relatively to OS). It is more than doable, but I recommend a snowboard
    helment and goggles setup dans l’hiver!
    Now in Ottawa (skiing is better . . .)
    Good to see ya Adam!

    AT

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