Partnering with the city of Burlington’s First Response Team, community members, family, and friends, these children were completing clean-up and safety projects they’d planned this past winter as part of The Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids Program.Ī year-long partnership of the Sustainable Schools Project, Vermont Forum on Sprawl, Linking Learning to Life, and Champlain Elementary School, the program aims to reduce environmental health risks for children in Burlington neighborhoods.

Green Up Day in Burlington on May 1 held special meaning (and special responsibilities) for a group of children from Champlain Elementary School. The Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids Project Streetcar suburbs used to be widespread in the U.S., bringing people to and from work, and all of their shopping needs.Making a Difference in Our Lives and Community: Even our suburbs can benefit from reducing traffic by investing in public transit. When cities have created pedestrian streets, cities benefit. San Diego, by contrast, has more than twice the population of Copenhagen, and we still insist upon choking ourselves with car-dependent development. The businesses saw an increase in revenue and profit, traffic decreased in the local area and it is one of the most successful commercial areas in the city. Walking, cycling and public transit are the only means of getting around. For example, the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, turned its Strøget commercial district into a pedestrian-friendly area with no cars or motorbikes. I know what you’re thinking: “That’s all well and good, but what about in a big American city? Without cars, businesses won’t get the traffic they need to remain in business.” This is false. People generally take the path of least resistance, so we can reduce the amount of traffic on our streets by making our public transit have competitive arrival times. Make communities and cities navigable without requiring a car. High traffic means more customers, more residents and more tourists, but large traffic volumes mean finding parking is a pain, the roads are packed and the flow of traffic becomes deadlocked. Parking is a double-edged sword for our cities. Air pollution and noise pollution have long-term health consequences, none of them positive. By failing to design walkable neighborhoods with adequate transit connections, we have condemned ourselves to dirtier air and a louder environment. Our noise pollution comes from that traffic as well. According to the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District, 70 percent of the region’s air pollution comes from motor vehicle traffic. Every property should be sold with a warning saying that these homes are dangerous to your health because the neighborhoods can’t be safely or reliably walked or biked. If we are serious about the dangers of the health risks of our unwalkable cities, we should slap a surgeon general’s warning on every apartment, condo and house in neighborhoods with poor walkability. Which means traffic, pollution, noise and all the nightmarish parking problems that naturally follow as we all take to the road. Is there any question as to why people drive everywhere now? We have singularly failed to provide adequate public transit, even to a large sporting event, which we know that tens of thousands of people will attend. Public transit, on the other hand, will take you roughly two hours. Do you want to go to a Padres game? Driving will take you 40 minutes from Escondido to get to Petco Park. You want to go on a date? Well, you’d better have a car otherwise there is nowhere you can get to, and moreover, you’ll need it to prove to your date that you’re financially self-sufficient. You want to work? You need a car to ensure you can get there in any sort of timely manner. To even participate in Californian society, you need to own a car in most cities and towns.

Anything less is abandoning our future for today’s convenience. We must make walkable, bikeable and transit-accessible cities. If California wishes to be the state that makes the path going forward, to be an example for others to follow, then we must start working today on that solution. Our cities are unwalkable, unbikeable and downright dangerous for anyone who either does not, or chooses not, to drive. Walters is a student majoring in urban planning at Palomar Community College and a veteran.

Unwalkable meaning