WALKSacramento will be hosting this Webinar in the conference room at 909 12^th Street, next Tuesday, August 3. 11 – 12:30 pm.   Come join us!!

Because a well-built sidewalk is a thing of beauty.

PBIC News Brief
July 29, 2010
http://www.walkinginfo.org/webinars

Free Webinar on sidewalk design

CHAPEL HILL, NC — The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) announces the next free Webinar in its Designing for Pedestrian Safety series:

Sidewalk Design
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
2:00pm-3:30pm E.T.

Presented by:
Peter Eun, Federal Highway Administration Resource Center Safety Engineer

To register, please visit www2.gotomeeting.com/register/674641298

Pedestrians struck while walking along the roadway account for 10 to 15 percent of all pedestrian crashes. In this presentation, Peter Eun will give participants a thorough understanding of pedestrian safety and design issues that may help to reduce these types of crashes, as well as improve pedestrian mobility and increase pedestrian activity. Participants will be given an overview of how to properly design sidewalks and provide ppropriate sidewalk width, and the zone approach, including buffers between pedestrians and automobiles. Attention will also be given to ADA requirements, driveway issues, and other conditions that impact the safety of sidewalks. By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to describe the benefits of sidewalks and walkways, and select appropriate treatments and design requirements.

This Webinar is the second part in the Designing for Pedestrian Safety series. To register for upcoming Webinars and to access archived presentations in this series, please visit http://www.walkinginfo.org/training/pbic/dps_webinars.cfm.

Content from the PBIC Designing for Pedestrian Safety Webinar series is drawn from the PBIC’s in-person training focused on engineering solutions for pedestrian safety. The training is meant for engineers, planners, traffic safety and enforcement professionals, public health and injury prevention professionals, and decision-makers who are seeking ideas and solutions for making changes to the physical environment that improve safety for pedestrians. Detailed information on this and other training opportunities offered by PBIC can be found at http://www.walkinginfo.org/training.

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Connect with PBIC on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pedbike

Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center

730 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd
Campus Box 3430
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3430
Toll Free 888-823-3997
http://www.walkinginfo.org
http://www.bicyclinginfo.org

By Lauren Michele, July 23, 2010

Conceding they can’t find enough votes for the measure, yesterday Senate Democrats abandoned efforts to put together comprehensive climate change legislation that would seek to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  Here in the State of California’s maze of political and financial issues, the death of a federal climate bill certainly does not help our efforts to engage the public and promote change.  However, we should remember that it was the LACK of federal direction on climate change reform over the past decade that led California and 37 other states to develop Climate Action Plans (see Journalists Mourn the Death of the Federal Climate Bill)

The lack of federal direction provides an excellent opportunity for the State of California to make creative and long-lasting changes in its land use/transportation and environmental processes that thread through the State’s transportation revenue system.

You’re invited to “SB 375 IMPLEMENTATION AND CEQA” – an overview of policy and technical challenges in California.  Join us Wednesday, July 28^th for this opportunity to ask questions and participate in a discussion with Lauren Michele – federal and California policy expert with Policy in Motion, and Ron Milam – Principal in Charge of Technical Development with Fehr & Peers.

• What:     “SB 375 IMPLEMENTATION AND CEQA: Policy and Technical Challenges”
• Who:       Ron Milam from Fehr & Peers and Lauren Michele from Policy in Motion
• When:     Wednesday, July 28^th from 12pm-1pm
• Where:    Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, 777 12^th Street at H, third floor conference room
• RSVP:      Tuesday, July 27 to tpreston@walksacramento.org to reserve FREE LUNCH!

Please join us for an overview on how federal agency and legislative efforts tie into California’s SB 375 implementation via incentive structures, transportation/land use planning processes, and technical data collection methods and modeling tools.

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More background on this topic can be found on the California Trans&Climate Policy page and in Lauren Michele’s analysis of the implications of California’s existing regulatory frameworks as presented throughout Chapter 3 of the report: “Rethinking California’s Planning Frameworks to Support Senate Bill 375: A White Paper on Local, Regional, State and Federal Climate Change Policy Reform“

 SB 375, california policy, education, modeling  

Lauren Michele (Hilliard)

Principal / Owner

Policy in Motion | WBE/DBE

530.848.4342 | lauren.michele@policyinmotion.com | policyinmotion.com

• When: Thursday, April 22, 6 – 9 pm

• Where: SMUD Headquarters Bldg., 6201 S Street, Sacramento

• How Much: $20 (tax deductible)

• Why: To help celebrate effective and successful collaboration (ECOS is a partner in the Complete Streets Coalition of Sacramento) and have a good time. Because we –all- deserve it!!

Are you all signed up to attend the Blueprint Anniversary workshop on Friday, April 2, 2010, from 8 – 11 am at CSUS??  If not, sign up to register (you gotta register) at:

http://www.sacregionblueprint.org/implementation/anniversary5/registration/

… so that Complete Streets are in the house.  The Blueprint process has helped make a lot of our success possible, so let’s be there!!

Cindy Blain of the Sacramento Tree Foundation outlined the Foundation’s proposed Model Urban Forest Ordinance.  She noted that the draft ordinance is back on the Foundation’s current agenda and she welcomed comments from WALKSacramento.

Some of the concerns raised at today’s meeting:

Tree canopy & sidewalks & bike lanes

The current draft is considering recommending 50-70% tree canopy coverage for the overall street but doesn’t mention the sidewalks.  We’d like to see sidewalks and bike-lanes shaded to encourage both walking and bicycling.  We suggested that the ordinance sets a specific objective of shading sidewalks and bike lanes. 

Tree canopy and Safe Routes to School

We were excited to learn that the Tree Foundation is working with school districts to plant trees on school property (Twin Rivers is planting 1,000 trees and San Juan School District will be planting 1,500 trees in the next 5 years).  We urged that the Foundation and school districts plant trees along the edges of the school particularly along sidewalks and pathways children take to get to school.

The Tree Foundation has an extensive program with SMUD to encourage homeowners to plant trees to shade their homes.  We suggested that homeowners also be encouraged to plant trees to shade the routes children take past their homes to school.

Tree canopy and commercial parking lots

Commercial parking lots often have trees planted for shade but then are drastically pruned to maintain sign visibility to passing motorists.  We suggested that the Tree Foundation work with shopping center owners to provide incentives to provide greater shade coverage particularly of sidewalks and pathways.  There might be a way of providing LEED type credit for good practices.  Perhaps parking space reduction might be provided with commitment to significant shade coverage.

Provisions for large canopy trees in higher density areas

We urged the Tree Foundation to consider requirements for large shade canopy trees for higher density neighborhoods through the use of such things as “Cornell Soil” that enable large canopy trees to be planted in smaller planters than normally recommended.  Providing trees in these higher density areas and along alley’s will be important as we move toward higher density living.

Next steps:

We agreed to review some of the draft ordinance’s provisions and provide additional comments to Cindy.  We invite our members to send their comments to Chris Holm and we will forward them with WALKSacramento staff’s comments to the Tree Foundation.

http://cbs13.com/local/regional.transit.layoffs.2.1490263.html

In December we wrote and asked for your continued support for our Complete Streets efforts in and around Sacramento.  As we use the cool, grey days of an early Sacramento January to plan for the year, the challenges we face appear sharper than ever.

Sacramento County is working on updating its General Plan.  WALKSacramento has been actively engaged in this process for some time, working to ensure that lofty policy language translates into real change on the ground.  Unfortunately, as of now, it doesn’t.  The County has an extensive network of road widenings in the proposed plan.  Wide, fast six lane roads are difficult and dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists, encourage sprawl and cost too much to build and maintain.  WALKSacramento has therefore called on the County to:

1. Adopt a flexible policy on road widenings
2. Set as policy that four lanes are the preferred designated except as exception
3. Establish a community-based planning process for reviewing proposed road widenings and developing solutions.  Charlotte NC has an excellent six-step process for this.  In July 2009, WALKSacramento organized a two hour seminar at SACOG led by the lead engineer on the Charlotte process.  We need a similar process here.

Please read the attached letter to the County Planning Commission, sent December 31, 2009, for more on our concerns.  It is these concerns, in our local communities as well as around our County, and the kind of effort detailed in the letter, that we need your support for.  Our grant funding generally doesn’t allow this level of policy advocacy.

It’s our partnership with you, our members and friends, has made much of this possible.  As one of our active members says – “WALKSacramento is the go-to organization addressing basic transportation – walking – as well as biking and mass transit – in Sacramento.”  We need your continued involvement – physical, intellectual and financial in 2010.  Are you ready to support WALKSacramento for another year?  We know the answer is YES!!

• Make your tax-deductible gift to WALKSacramento today!

Your Financial Support is Critical for 2010

Your support helps us provide a strong independent voice on behalf of Complete Streets and walkable communities.  Our voice accomplished a lot in 2009:

Complete Streets:  WALKSacramento works for Complete Streets – streets that are safe for all users at all times throughout Sacramento cities and County.

• WALKSacramento organized and staffs the Complete Streets Coalition, bringing together individuals and organizations to advocate for Complete Streets.  The Coalition meets together monthly bringing partners such as Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates, Breathe CA, SACOG, AARP, Sacramento Regional Transit, ECOS, Sacramento Metro Air Quality Mgmt District and others, each organization playing a role in moving the Complete Streets agenda forward.
• WALKSacramento played a strong role in getting Complete Streets incorporated into the City of Sacramento’s updated General Plan, the Sacramento Transit District’s Master Plan and Complete Streets are in the draft update of the County’s General Plan and Circulation Element.
• WALKSacramento partnered with the Local Government Commission to co-host the Sacramento Complete Streets Symposium in July 2009, attended by over 250 planners, engineers, advocates, health professionals and others from throughout our region and beyond.  We’ve heard from many participants that this workshop provided them with new direction for policies and initiatives.

Safe Routes to School:  WALKSacramento works for Complete Streets to and around our neighborhood schools.

• We are currently working with the County Department of Transportation to identify challenges to students walking (and bicycling) safely to schools in the County’s unincorporated area and to recommend solutions to schools, parents and local agencies.
• In October we organized and hosted the first Sacramento Safe Routes to School Conference attended by nearly 100 enthusiastic participants – parents, teachers, school board members, transportation engineers and planners.  The conference provided information on local, state and national Safe Routes efforts, review of tips on building local Walk to School programs and how to find funding to implement recommendations.

Partnerships: As you can see, WALKSacramento works with many organizations in leveraging local skills and strengths to shape policy in many ways.

• Our broad-based Safe Routes to School regional conference planning committee consisted of local child safety advocates, health professionals, several transportation management associations, school districts and others.  The committee is now looking forward to our 2010 Safe Routes conference and trainings.
• In December 2009 the American Journal of Preventive Medicine published our paper “Partnership Moves Community Toward Complete Streets” – documenting what WALKSacramento achieved in partnership with many community and governmental organizations to make Complete Streets policies a reality.
• Our Partnership for Active Communities – a project funded by the Active Living by Design program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has born much fruit, including the Complete Streets Coalition mentioned above.

And the work continues

However, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation support for Complete Streets work ended in October 2009 and we are really just beginning now to work to get those great Complete Streets policies implemented on the ground.

Sacramento is considered a national leader in the “Complete Streets” movement.  But, as they say, there is still much to be done — and grant funding for our Complete Streets effort is coming to an end.  Your support will help us keep up our strong independent voice.

• Please click here to make your tax-deductible gift to WALKSacramento to help us keep working to bring Complete Streets to our communities.  We need your support to get it done.

Thank you and best regards,

Eric Fredericks, President

Anne Geraghty, Executive Director

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