Walking for Health

Does Better Walking Infrastructure Ward Off Depression?

 

 

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Walk Metro Vancouver has been exploring the link between walking and better mental health. The New York Times writes about   three new studies on depression and regular exercise that should  impact how we build cities and how we enhance walkability for sociability and mental fitness. Reviewing the habits of over one million men and women the studies  “strongly suggest that regular exercise  alters our bodies and brains in ways that make us resistant to despair.”
While the evidence has been clear that designing cities for walking has tremendous health benefits in keeping the population mobile and fit, the evidence about the mental health benefits of walkability has been less clear. By finding several studies that collectively followed  over 1.1 million adults, the link between fitness and mental health was “considerable“. Scientists found that people with the lowest fitness levels were 75 per cent more likely to have diagnoses of depression than the fittest people. The folks in the middle fitness level  were 25 per cent more likely to have  depression diagnoses.
“The pooled results persuasively showed that exercise, especially if it is moderately strenuous, such as brisk walking or jogging, and supervised, so that people complete the entire program, has a “large and significant effect” against depression, the authors wrote. People’s mental health tended to demonstrably improve if they were physically active.”
“The three reviews together make a sturdy case for exercise as a means to bolster mental as well as physical health, said Felipe Barreto Schuch, an exercise scientist at the Centro Universitário La Salle in Canoas, Brazil, who, with Brendon Stubbs, a professor at King’s College in London, was a primary author on all of the reviews.”  
That neuroscience advice to go for  a walk or go ride a bike when overwhelmed or stressed appears to be sound. Mental health improves the more active a population is. It is a  perfect rationale  to encourage the refit and reboot of wide comfortable walkable sidewalks and connections  in cities and in suburbs, keeping citizens of all ages active and engaged.
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Walking for Health

Does Owning A Dog Mean You Walk More and Are More Healthy?

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This article will be no surprise to  dog owners-in a study published by the journal BMC Public Health,  “dog owners on average walked 22 minutes more per day compared to people who didn’t own a dog”.  That extra 22 minutes a day puts you into the Surgeon General of the United States recommendation of 150 minutes of walking a week for fitness and to alleviate a host of diseases and depression. A similar study published by the CDC found that dog owners also walked more.
Researchers found that not only was there an “increase in exercise, but also the exercise was at a moderate pace”.  Walking was at 3 miles an hour  or 4.8 kilometers per hour, a kilometer faster than the average.
“Prior studies have shown that moderate-intensity walking is just as effective as running in lowering the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes and other conditions. And the more people walk, the more the health benefits increase, according to the American Heart Association.”
The study used fitness devices that measured speed, distance. Researchers were surprised at the additional activity of dog owners.”As dog owners know, when your hound leaps up onto your bed in the morning, you have little choice but to get up and go”. Researchers note that pet ownership is also linked to longevity and lower rates of depression and stress, suggesting one more reason  to add a dog to your household.

 
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Uncategorized

Children Can’t Detect Car Speed over 32 km/h

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The Telegraph follows up on a subject covered earlier in Price Tags-studies conducted at universities are showing that children have perceptual limitations when judging whether it is safe to cross a street with traffic going over 20 miles per hour  (32 kilometers per hour).
Royal Holloway College at London University suggests that children may not even be able to perceive that cars are approaching them.  “Driving over 20 mph in a residential or school area not only increases the potential severity of any impact, but also increases the risk that a child will injudiciously cross in front.”
Many municipalities in Great Britain including Portsmouth and Hull are slowing traffic down to 20 miles per hour in residential areas, noting that “Travelling one mile though a residential area at 20 mph  vs. 30 mph  will only add 60 seconds to journey time. We encourage drivers to take a minute and save a child’s life”.
While the previous British government advocated for slowing municipal speeds, the current governmental coalition has been more reticent, saying that such decisions rests with the municipalities. That is surprising when statistics show that over 1,600 children in Great Britain were killed or seriously maimed by cars in 2009 statistics.
Drivers needs to recognize the hazards. As Anna Semlyen, Campaign Manager for 20s Plenty for Us stated “It’s simplistic to blame children saying they “run out”, without checking. But this study suggests it is fast motor vehicles that create the errors, as it is then impossible for kids to make correct judgments. It’s up to adults to protect children through 20 mph  limits and for drivers to obey the signs.”
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Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians

Motordom Reigns Supreme in Ontario where a Pedestrian Crossing is a Courtesy

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Perth Ontario is located 83 kilometers from Ottawa and is an old town established after the War of 1812 in 1816. The Tay River runs through it, and it has a historical core of stone buildings and antique storefronts that are a visual delight to pedestrians. It is a perfect place to stroll and window shop, with many great restaurants and the wonder of the Gore Street Antique Market which is a huge store full of different antique vendors and some museum quality antiques. A hand painted scroll presented to one of Vancouver’s original steamship captains was found here and  is now heading to the Vancouver Maritime Museum.
With all of this interest, it made sense for the Town of Perth to make some pedestrian “courtesy” crossings for  visitors and others to cross the street. But “courtesy” takes on a whole new meaning here because in Ontario cars are not legally required to stop for them. You read that right. The use of the cross walk is at the users’ risk, and Police “would likely not lay a charge against a driver if the driver does not yield to a pedestrian. It is the responsibility of the pedestrian crossing at the ‘courtesy’ locations to ensure vehicles have stopped before they cross.” 
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Because the pedestrian crossings are really not safe pedestrian crossings where cars stop for pedestrians, the Town of Perth laid out additional signage on the poles letting pedestrians know they are liable if hit. The safe alternative under the Ontario Highway Act is  a pedestrian activated light signal which would cost in the six figures. In this case, if the motorist hit the pedestrian while the pedestrian was crossing with a walk light the motorist would be liable.

It was Allan Jacobs formerly of the San Francisco Planning Department and the author of “Great Streets” that taught the “Curb Test”. That is a specific test where you step off the curb by one foot and wait to see if traffic will stop. If traffic will not stop, you again double the space between yourself and the curb.  The Curb Test was applied  at a “courtesy crossing” on Perth’s Gore Street-no one stopped. Once the Curb Test was applied and the pedestrian attempting to cross was photographed, traffic stopped. Clearly a witness with a camera made the difference to car behaviour.
Ontario has now amended their Highway Act to allow for “pedestrian crossovers” with a painted cross walk and overhead lights and pedestrian activated flashers. These however are generally for four lane roads with a minimum speed of 60 kilometers per hour and are a major expenditure.  For those folks walking around Ontario’s small towns, those technology light, simple “courtesy” crossings are not pedestrian friendly, reinforcing that in Ontario, the “car is still king”.
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Walking for Wellbeing

Walking, a Tsunami and the Disconnected Wind Phone

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As reported in City Lab, Otuschi Japan lost ten per cent of its population in the 2011 Tsunami-about 1,600 people perished.
“A resident named Itaru Sasaki had nestled the phone booth in his garden the year before, as a way to ruminate over his cousin’s death. Longing to maintain a relationship with a departed loved one is a deeply relatable desire, but a tricky proposition. “Because my thoughts couldn’t be relayed over a regular phone line,” Sasaki told the Japanese TV channel NHK Sendai. “I wanted them to be carried on the wind.”
“The photographer Alexander McBride Wilson heard the public radio segment and traveled to Otsuchi last fall to photograph kaze no denwa, or “the wind phone,” and the people who use it. To Sasaki, the booth isn’t related to any kind of religion, Wilson says, “but you get the feeling that it’s a bit of a shrine, people who come over are kinds of pilgrims.”  Everyone is welcome to use the telephone booth. And scores of people do.
“The set-up is not dissimilar to an altar for dead relatives that’s common in Buddhist homes, said This American Life producer Miki Meek. It’s “a way to stay in touch, let [departed people] know that they’re still a big part of our family.”
“More than five years after the disaster, cities along the northeastern coast are still working to rebuild, slowly replacing temporary structures with sturdier, more rooted ones. ..As the town rebuilds, girding itself to be resilient in the face of future weather events, Sasaki’s wind phone is a reminder of those most fragile and searing losses that can’t be patched up and won’t be forgotten.”

 

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Uncategorized

Pedestrians crossing the Street~There’s an App for that!

An august group of planners in Sydney Australia, London England, Paris and Vancouver are looking at “intersection signal intervals” -how long it takes for the walk signal to activate after a pedestrian pushes the cross walk button. This group feels that the livability of a city and the quality of the walking environment can be measured on the length of time that pedestrians are given to walk across the street. It’s been fascinating to see how varied those interval times are in cities around the world.
As always, the Dutch are early adapters to  the changes in technology necessary to make walkability safer for all ages.  The Dutch city of Tilburg has been testing a smartphone application that allows seniors and those with restricted mobility more crossing time at intersections. The app has four time settings which are adjusted dependent on the user’s mobility to minimise traffic delay. While a sensor in the traffic lights scan the sidewalk adjacent to the intersection, it looks for a signal from the app to adjust crossing time.
As reported in The Guardian “Dynniq, the Dutch company that develops intelligent traffic systems and is helping the city council with the trial, explains the app works in combination with GPS and the software that operates the traffic lights, so there is no need to install extra devices. The company is also developing a spin-off for cyclists, the CrossCycle, which will sense when bikes are approaching a junction and change the lights sooner. Another version detects visually impaired pedestrians and activates the ticking sounds that tell them whether the light is red or green.”
While the app  can respond to individual users, the app can also adjust for a group of school children, so that the app will keep the crossing green for the children until a teacher confirms that they are safely across. While this initial pilot has only ten users, it is part of a pilot to enhance safety and comfort for pedestrians and cyclists. “We want to do more with smart mobility and use technology rather than just putting down more asphalt,” says Mark Clijsen, urban planning specialist at the city council.”
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Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians

Speed Bumps Versus Humps~Why are they not Everywhere?

Anyone working in municipal government  knows all about the tussle over speed humps or “bumps”, those wonderful “silent policemen”  installed by the City that slow vehicular traffic.  A speed hump is an area of raised pavement across a roadway, usually circular in shape, and is a gentler version of a speed bump, which has acute angles designed to insist vehicles slow right down. Speed bumps are designed to provide driver discomfort, and drop vehicular speeds to  approximately ten kilometers per hour.
Every neighbourhood wants these wonderful things that by their nature and design intentionally slow traffic. The City of Vancouver has a speed hump request form where residents can ask to have their street evaluated for speed humps. You can’t buy speed humps-there is a magical formula in the “warrant” system that looks at speed and volume of vehicles and  ICBC reporting of vehicular crashes and fatalities. But if your street is an emergency response route, is in an industrial area, or a near a firehall, Vancouver says you are out of luck.
Years ago I installed speed bumps in a laneway south of Oakridge Mall. The lane was being used for  vehicular rat running, but also served as the access lane and play space  for residents. Since the City could not install speed bumps outside the warrant system and at that time did not promote lane way speed bumps, the local residents cost shared the cost, and the installation was implemented. There were no complaints-except from Engineering who balked (and quite rightly) at the creation of 20 km/h signage for the lane, as that type of laneway signage had not been approved at Council-yet.

 
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Metro Vancouver in partnership with the  Corporation of Delta is showcasing an elegant solution for slowing down traffic with the use of temporary speed humps during a water main replacement. This wondrous temporary speed hump costs about $700  for each installation and generally takes a crew about 30 minutes to install. The temporary speed hump is secured using four anchor bolts.

 

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If Metro Vancouver can come up with such a simple and innovative, quick way to traffic calm on residential streets when traffic is being circumvented for water main repair, why can’t Metro Vancouver municipalities trial these low-cost speed humps to provide slower traffic speeds and enhance  livability in the neighbourhoods? Why does it take a huge traffic count analysis and warrant system  to look at ways to make the street more equal for all users? How do we get these low cost speed humps as “demonstrations” of what slower streets can look like and can function as? Why can’t this come to a neighbourhood street near all of us to make walking and cycling comfortable, accessible and more convenient?

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City rediscovers walking

Metro Vancouver, We are Jealous of Winnipeg’s Woonerf!

There is a little more Dutch in Winnipeg these days as that city welcomes its first “Woonerf”. As reported in the Metro News this is a street innovation  for pedestrians before vehicles, and achieves “calming the street down through design”.

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A typical Dutch woonerf

 
The location of the woonerf  at John Hirsch Place used to contain an old rail line. Now there is a curbless lane that  allows for slower vehicular traffic and no delineation between bikes, cars and pedestrians.
There are bollards  near the edge of the lane to keep people from driving on the landscaping (and I have seen bollards in Amsterdam that retract to allow for emergency vehicle entrance). There is seating for walkers which as soon as it was placed became a place to be with the locals.
Besides providing a pedestrian link between Waterfront Drive and a park and further trails,  the woonerf has become a new public space. Similar to the “DeepRoot” cell system installed in Vancouver’s Olympic Village for the ongoing sustenance of the street trees, Winnipeg has installed a similar system for increased street tree soil volume and rain water capture.
While this is only a demonstration project, we all toast Winnipeg for their first woonerf-and suspect with citizen use and demand, it won’t be their last. Meanwhile in Metro Vancouver~when will we get our first woonerf?

 
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Uncategorized

Walking in Central Park, the High Line and Brooklyn Park with Mitchell Silver and Julie Crimson

I spent a week in New York City where I spent time wallking  with Mitchell Silver the Park Commissioner for New York City, and Julie Grimson, City Conversations Manager for the City of Sydney Australia. Mitchell is a renown city planner who was the planning director for the City of Raleigh  and was formerly the head of the American Planning Association. He has a wonderful office in the historic Arsenal in Central Park. Robert Moses’ old office adjacent to Mitchell’s is now the board room for staff meetings.
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Famed City Master Builder Robert Moses in his office in the Arsenal, Central Park, 1940’s
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Mitchell Silver and Julie Grimson in what was Robert Moses’ “closet” in the Arsenal
One of the prime drivers of public space in New York City in Central Park and on the High Line has been the creation of conservancies or public “trusts” that bring in massive donations and bequests to fund the maintenance and improvement of public space. As Christopher Nolan who is the Chief Landscape Architect for Central Park notes, the challenge was incentivizing public space as something that people would leave money to, and to have people see it as important as endowing a building. Today 75 per cent  of the funding  for Central Parks’s 65 million dollar annual budget comes directly from the conservancy. The conservancy also undertakes all the basic care in the 845 acre park.
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Chris Nolan, Chief Landscape Architect, Central Park Conservancy
The same approach in forming a conservancy has been taken by the “Friends of  the High Line” originally formed by Joshua David and Robert Hammond. This group raised over 150 million dollars in private and public funds. The High Line was an old abandoned elevated train track that connected several warehouse buildings in the old meatpacking district. Today with an annual operating budget of $11.5 million, the Friends of the High Line maintain and run the daily operations at a cost of $5 million dollars a year.

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The High Line is a surprise-it is an elevated wonderland of plants in a pastiche carefully designed and placed by master plantsman Piet Oudolf. The plants themselves are in soil that is only 16 inches deep. There are elevators that go up to the High Line for disabled access, and many volunteers gardening and counting plants along its 2.33 kilometer length. There is an amphitheatre, a water feature for children to play in, lots of public art discoveries, and plenty of people enjoying it. It is already one of the top attractions of things to do in New York City, with over seven million annual visits. Locals  plan their own visits to the High Line around “peak times” on this elevated greenway. As Mitchell Silver notes, the amount of pedestrian traffic suggests that the walkway should have been wider. Cyclists and skateboarders are banned, and there are refreshment locations, benches, and lots of good people watching.
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Mitchell Silver describes the High Line as the incubator for the rejuvenation and revitalization of the meatpacking district. The Google Corporation purchased the former Port Authority Building, a massive  fifteen story building in this area in 2010 for  their headquarters.  The Google  building has 2.9 million square feet (the size of two Tsawwassen Mills Malls) in its interior. There is now a hotel and the new Whitney Museum of American Art abutting the High Line. There is no doubt that the renewal of this elevated space has instigated  new interest in the area.

 

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 Public Art installation on High Line by British Columbia Artist Sascha Braunig

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NYC Park Commissioner Mitchell Silver, Julie Grimson, City of Sydney Australia, and Robert Hammond, Founder of the High Line. Robert is also one of the producers of “Citizen Jane”, the acclaimed documentary on Jane Jacobs.
Alex Washburn who was the Chief Urban Designer for New York City used to say candidly that if projects could be implemented in New York City with the tangle and complexity of public interests and municipal by-laws, that those projects could be considered in any other North American place too. And maybe with the experience of the New York City High Line and  the new High Line like project in Seoul Korea called “Seoullo 7017” (which is reusing an old 1970’s elevated highway as a greenway to make the city more pedestrian friendly)  we should be  rethinking  the potential use of the  Vancouver Georgia Viaducts.
Perhaps reusing and readapting these urban engineering artifacts is a way to  creatively rebirth new people places.  New York has proven that their conservancy model works, not only in traditional landscaped parks, but in elevated engineering remnants of another urban age.

Society

Drivers Pay Attention to the Pedestrian Zebras in the Streets of La Paz

Trying to get drivers to stop their vehicles for pedestrians crossing the road can be a trying experience.    The Atlantic Monthly describes the innovative attempts of the City of La Paz Bolivia in  changing driver behaviour in the streets, slowing traffic, and helping pedestrians survive. The “cebritas” program is a hybrid to that first introduced in the 1990’s in Bogota where mimes were sent out on the street to tease and admonish drivers breaking the rules.
La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, and decided to do things a bit differently. They have 265 local volunteers dressed in full-body zebra costumes who nudge “people toward good behavior. “On a lot of busy corners you will have police directing traffic, but their method of doing it is whistling at you, yelling at you, pulling you over, giving you a ticket,” says Derren Patterson, an American who owns a walking-tour agency in La Paz. “Whereas the way the zebras do it, if a car stops in the crosswalk, they will lay across his hood.”  The volunteer zebras are popular at schools and hospitals, are interviewed on media, and participate in parades. Many are students.

The program is so well accepted that there is a “day program” that allows tourists to dress up as zebras and join the La Paz zebras in the streets. As an early program organizer noted ” “They may be dressed up as zebras, but they defend what is human about the city.” Last December the Zebras won the  “Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation, which recognizes cities and regions with innovative approaches to improving public life. The award’s organizers commended La Paz for its response to a “very serious challenge” confronting cities worldwide—the subordination of pedestrians to cars—with “great humor and understanding,” and said they hoped the project might inspire “more civilized streets” around the world.”

Championing Micro Mobility & Walkable Places