Thank you for the support

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Well Said

Things don’t always go right. I know this because I still fall off my bike, not often but it does happen when I am trying something really tricky.

~ 9-year-old Martha Payne of Argyll, NeverSeconds

Argyll started a blog, NeverSeconds, to rate her school lunches. She ended-up drawing the attention of the school council and changing her school’s menu for the better (Gawker).

Nicely done. 

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Have a nice long weekend.

Thank you for the support

by GOODMagazine

This is kind of dumb.

But…still good addition to the magazine’s Bike Nation series (Good) in honor of National Bike Month (Bike League). A favorite post so far,  If You Build Bike Lanes, They Will Ride, reports findings of a study that looked at over 90 of the largest cities in the U.S. to answer the question, “what makes a city bicycle-friendly?”

The answer, ”the more infrastructure exists to encourage biking, the more people bike—and the more society reaps the public health, energy, and lifestyle benefits that come with an increasing share of people-powered transportation.”

Go build it. Go ride.

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Thank you for the support

Well, it looks quite possible that Traverse City will get another auto-centric, box-store, convenience store posing as a pharmacy as a gateway into the City as Walgreens eyes the southeast corner of Front and Garfield Ave (Ticker). Potentially losing one of those locally owned anchors of summer, Bardon’s ice cream.

Unlike CVS across town to the west, set to break ground this summer, this project likely won’t raise too much fuss-who cares about this intersection? It has for a longtime been forgotten despite being one of the most unfriendly intersections in town.

Seen this before?

The current C-3 zoning completely allows anything a big store could ever desire–a drive-through, 24-hour service, massive parking lot lighting, ect. At the moment, the City has very little in its tool box to influence the design or impact of development on this corner.

The Walgreens development doesn’t sound for certain, but this development is another reminder that there is a lot weighing on the corridor study, which inlcudes E. Front St. and Garfield Ave. There certainly is support to rethink these corridors and part of that is adopting zoning requirements that don’t restrict use per se, but do influence how private investments interact with and influence public interests.

The corrdidor study isn’t scheduled to end until this fall or the end of the year, but meetings are on-going and need public input. The next Corridor Steering Committee meeting is Tuesday, June 26 at 3pm at the Govermental Center. According to the City Planner, the committee will be reviewing draft framework plans.

What do you think, does a typical Walgreen’s box and parking lot say, “Welcome to Traverse City!” to you?

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I’m feeling lucky today.

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Reason #72 why we ride (or walk)?…Found money.

Back-story: I was feeling like I lost some money when I left the house for work this morning and so when I came upon this 10-spot in the middle of the street, I couldn’t help smiling at the universe. Certainly, found money and other valuables is a reason to ride. You just don’t find things like this when you’re in a car doing 30-plus in a 25-mph zone.

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Reminds me: last week I watched a woman stop on the side of the street and lean over without dismounting her bike to pick up a large piece of litter. Next to her people in cars continued to speed by–oblivious. Oblivious to a lot of things–as is the nature of such things. I’ve never once witnessed a driver stop, get out of their car, and pick-up a piece of random trash. Myself included, except for perhaps in a parking lot.

Back to work; a 10-spot only goes so far.

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A reminder: MyWHaT is in need of underwriters to the blog.

If you or your organization are interested, please send us a message.

]]> http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/22/the-world-provides-if-youre-paying-attention/feed/ 0 GLHowe Give money http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/21/tweed-ride-tc-2012/ http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/21/tweed-ride-tc-2012/#comments Mon, 21 May 2012 13:16:16 +0000 GLHowe http://mywheelsareturning.com/?p=20247 ]]>

Thank you

Tweed Ride TC: 2012

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A few images from Saturday’s sultry Tweed Ride. There was less tweed than last year, but you can blame that on the 86 degree temperatures (it’s still May, right?).

Click to open gallery

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Next year’s date has already been set and has been moved up a month to improve the need for tweed. Mark your calendar’s for April 27, 2012 and follow Tweed Ride TC for updates.

Saturday’s dignified assembly:

click for large version

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These images and more at the MyWHaT Flickr Site

* Photos by GLHJR

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]]> http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/21/tweed-ride-tc-2012/feed/ 2 GLHowe Give Tweed-2012--4 Tweed-2012--2-2 Tweed-2012--1-3 Tweed-2012--1 Tweed-2012--2 Tweed-2012--3 Tweed-2012--5 Tweed-2012--6 Tweed-2012--1-2 Tweed-2012--4 Tweed-2012--1-2 http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/18/does-speeding-have-you-at-your-wits-end-make-some-signs/ http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/18/does-speeding-have-you-at-your-wits-end-make-some-signs/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 13:07:32 +0000 GLHowe http://mywheelsareturning.com/?p=20217 ]]>

Community supported blogging?

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Speed kills: What are you gonna do about it?

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Always appreciative of Daniel Pink’s emotionally intelligent signage series.

The posting of the above sign was timely because I saw it shortly after a phone call with a friend who called me out of complete frustration with cars speeding by her Traverse City home. She lives near a heavily foot-trafficked intersection and has gone through Traverse City’s traffic committee process, her neighborhood’s traffic committee process, and has reached out repeatedly to the City police department to increase enforcement of the 25-mph zone…nothing has worked to help slow down traffic. The latter doesn’t pull people over unless they are going over 35-mph (more on that bullshit nonsense later).

At a certain point, taking things into your own hands is the best option. It may or may not be apparently effective, but it adds a bit of fun to the situation (on my street, we experiment with duct-tape delineation (TW) and even the penguin’s were working until stolen).

There is a market for emotional signage…Recently, a reader sent me the following image from Kingsley, Michigan, where  the community took the polite route to nudge people to slow down through the village’s main drag and neighborhood.

Kingsley’s emotional plea

In another emotional appeal from Pink’s blog, he highlights a sign from the sign company Drive Like Your Kids Live Here, which sells different versions of the same message. This is certainly a sign I could see being popular in Traverse City. 

In the town of Needham, Massachusetts, the community went for the heart-strings of drivers by having children make the appeals to slow down (Boston Globe). The town manager wrote a letter describing the strategy (.doc), “the goal of this project…was to raise awareness of the importance of speeding on local streets, and it is clear that the community is engaged and drivers are noticing these signs and thinking about their purpose.”

Needham making signs personal–do you hate kids? 

Signs aren’t going to “solve” the speeding issues in our neighborhoods, but that isn’t really the point of these emotional appeals. It’s more about showing that people, residents, are present and need to be expected to be present by those oblivious to the context of the community they are driving through.  So show them. And, don’t be afraid to be a little whacky…

via How We Drive

Signs like the one above would make  David Engwicht, who champions creating “intrigue and uncertainty”  to reclaim neighborhood streets, proud.

I can get behind that–a little cognitive dissonance created in the minds of drivers is likely to pull them out of their morning commute stupor or their end of the day slog home more than you think. Once you have them thinking about the context they are in, it is only a quick skip and a jump to realizing they are driving a 2-ton machine of death too fast for context.

What messages can you come up with? Please share…

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A few from the scribble pad and with a bit more umph:

Just place on tree lawn

Same theme, a little more direct:

I’ll go back to the scribble pad with any ideas shared here. If you’d like to organize a sign-making soiree, I encourage you to do so…keep readers posted or send me a message.

Thank you

Are we designing communities for the next 50 years or the past 50? 

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“Almost half of all 18 to 34-year-old drivers are driving less, and nearly two-thirds would drive less if alternative transportation options were available.”

~ Survey: Half of Gen Y would rather text than drive, USA Today

Graphic via Baby Boomers drive boom in new car sales (Freep)

“Those students, who are starting their college life as soon as today, are the youngest of a tech-infused millennial generation who – in sharp contrast to Baby Boomers and other previous generations – no longer view a driver’s license as a rite of passage into adulthood.”

~Marketing shift seen for Millennial generation, SFGate

]]> http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/16/the-future-is-near-design-for-it/feed/ 1 GLHowe Give Motordom http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/15/calculate-your-active-commute-with-walk-score/ http://mywheelsareturning.com/2012/05/15/calculate-your-active-commute-with-walk-score/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 12:32:24 +0000 GLHowe http://mywheelsareturning.com/?p=20175 ]]>

…it is greatly appreciated.

c

Yesterday, Walk Score announced Bike Score for a few select cities. No big surprises on the order of the scores, Minneapolis and Portland continue to bounce between the 1 and 2 spots. If you recall, Walks Score provides a rating of 0-100 for an address based on the walkability of that location. The higher the rating, the better the walkability. Real estate agents are beginning to use it and we once used it to map out City Commissioners’ home addresses (MW).

Walk Score

One of the new services the programmers at Walk Score have created is the rental search tool that filters results according to commute times by different modes of travel. So, put in the address of your work site and choose the commute time and mode of travel desired, and the results will return the listed rentals within that range. I’m not looking to move, but the tool is helpful to illustrate how Traverse City’s 14,000 plus residents are prime to be champions for more transportation choices.

Let’s say you work at the Governmental Center at 400 Boardman Avenue, where could you live that is still within a 20-minute walk?

20-minutes equates to about a mile walking at a leisurely pace of 3-mph, the speed that planners use to gauge walking times and distances people are willing to walk (I average about 3.7 mph, so distance will vary). As you can see below, if you choose to walk one-mile there is a wide area within Traverse City where you might find a home. At least 4, if not 6 different neighborhoods are within range. *

20 minute walk commute

If you’re willing to walk 40 minutes one-way (2-miles), then the range covers almost the entire city except for the outskirts in the hills. Admittedly, most people aren’t going to choose to walk 40-minutes one way, not because they are unable or they don’t have the time…it’s because for the last 50 years, in some people’s opinions anyway, walking has been trained out of us (Slate).

20 minute walk commute

Still, mapping where most Americans mentally, if not physically, are, shows that a 10-minute walking commute provides a lot of habitat for a promising city or county employee working at 400 Boardman Ave. The walkable area would even include the soon to be built Depot Property. Not to mention, the amenities found within this walking cloud are robust: parkland, grocery shopping, bars, restaurants, nightlife, a river, Lake Michigan beaches…not a bad living.

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What’s your walking cloud look like?

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Are there any surprises? What’s more in range than you thought it was?  

For comparison, the Walk Score tool also creates a commute range for bicycling, driving and for transit. The latter isn’t available yet for Traverse City, but if you choose to pedal to work your optional ranges really expand. And, despite the disconnects in infrastructure, the City is a pretty pleasant place to pedal around. These are the 15 and 20 minute bike clouds for 400 Boardman Ave. for riding at a leisurely 10-mph pace.

15 minute bike commute

20 minute bike commute

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 Apartment search tool demo:

* Walk Score apartment finder allows you to filter for other amenities you want to have in walking distance. I chose all of them in the above searches to remove the current listings in Traverse City for cleaner looking maps. 

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Related articles

• What’s Your Bike Score?: First there was Walk Score, now… (dc.curbed.com)
• Walk Score Launches Bike Score (theatlanticcities.com)
• Bike Score ranks Portland nation’s 2nd best city for being bicycle commuter (oregonlive.com)
• Top 25 Most Transit Friendly US Cities (triplepundit.com)

…it is greatly appreciated. And, needed.

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Announcements

Wednesday Night: Ride of Silence–a slow cycling procession to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while riding on public roadways. Starts and ends near the Filling Station at the old train depot in Traverse City. This is a national event and if you’re not in Traverse City likely a ride near you (Ride of Silence).

Saturday 1pm: Route 35 Dedication Ceremony–Traverse City is hosting the ribbon cutting for the establishment of Route 35, one of the newest additions to the U.S. Bicycle Route System (Wiki).  U.S. Bicycle Route 35 is a 500-mile route that runs from Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, through Michigan to Indiana generally following the Lake Michigan shoreline. A map of the U.S. system (PDF) and a map of Michigan’s routes (jpg).

Saturday 4PM: Tweed Ride–A fun, leisurely ride in your finest tweed; pretty simple. Gather at the Open Space for a departure shortly there after. No fee, no need to register, no special gear required. A post-ride social will be at the Outre Lounge at the InsideOut Gallery around 6:30pm

Wednesday May 23rd: Lucinda Means Bicycle Advocacy Day–Click through for more details and history of the this event via the League of Michigan Bicyclists. This is an annual event at the state capital. The Lucinda Means Bicycle Advocacy Day is an opportunity for those who “enjoy riding on Michigan roads, trails or dirt single track” an opportunity to advocate with other like-minded  citizens in a day of advocacy. The day kicks off with a police escorted ride, speakers, visiting Michigan legislators, lunch, and afternoon activities. Registration is required.

June 4-8, 2012: Smart Commute Week–The annual weeklong event encourages us to consider ways to lessen the number of miles spent alone in our cars. What part of your commute could you move towards more active transportation? Is pedaling that 4 miles to work an option? Walking that 1 mile? Can public transit assist your commute? Is there someone to car-pool with?  Registration for TART Trails’ 18th Annual Smart Commute Challenge is now open. TART has several events planned throughout the week, so visit TART Trails website for more information.

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Any events I’m missing?

Please add in the comments…

…it is greatly appreciated. And, needed._

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Why did men stop wearing stylish hats? (NPR)

In the 1950s — and this was one of Ike’s grand accomplishments — he built a vast highway system across America. Interstates went up everywhere. Cities extended roads, turnpikes, highways, and suburbs appeared around every major city. People, instead of taking a bus, a tram, a train to work, could hop into their new Chevy or Ford and drive.

Before Eisenhower, many more people used public transportation. After Eisenhower, they used a car. That, my father thinks, created the critical Head-To-Roof Difference.

Hmmm. Should also mention that men also stopped walking to work. Many stopped walking in general. As a man with not much protection on top, I’m sympathetic to the loss of this cultural trait. Certainly, when walking I’m almost never without a hat and now I’m reminded that my hat reserve could use a boost.

(Hat Tip to M.G. for the link.)

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This is a good time to throw out a reminder: TC TWeed Ride is May 19th…good time to lose the helmet and wear a nice looking hat.

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