Author: WalkMassachusetts

Herald News: “Fall River wins Golden Shoe award for improving walkability”

Herald News: “Fall River wins Golden Shoe award for improving walkability”

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Herald News: “Fall River wins Golden Shoe award for improving walkability”

Fall River is now running the walking game.

On March 18, WalkBoston held its 29th annual meeting in Boston to present Fall River with an award for its progress in the city’s walkability.

This is the first time Fall River has won the Golden Shoe Award from WalkBoston. The honor recognizes the city’s improvements in walkability, including a change in the city’s policy.

“It says that there’s real dedication. … People really love their city and they’re willing to put work into the city,” said Coordinator of Mass in Motion Fall River and award-winner Julianne Kelly. She said the award is a great recognition of the partnership between city employees and volunteers, and inspires them to keep making a difference.

WalkBoston is a nonprofit organization that works as consultants for communities around the state to improve the city’s walkability and create a healthier and cleaner environment. It also recognized Springfield with an award this year.

Posted April 3, 2019

WBUR: “Advocates Say MBTA Riders Need Accessibility Now, Not Later”

WBUR: “Advocates Say MBTA Riders Need Accessibility Now, Not Later”

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WBUR: “Advocates Say MBTA Riders Need Accessibility Now, Not Later”

Wendy Landman, the executive director of WalkBoston and a consultant on PATI, praises the MBTA’s progress but acknowledges the project has barriers.

“Like everything else that we think about with public transportation in Massachusetts, the money is short and issues to solve are big,” Landman says.

In the meantime, those big issues continue to affect people with disabilities, advocates say.

Carol Steinberg, an attorney, writer and disability activist, lives near the Forest Hills stop on the Orange Line. Although she stresses that service has improved, she says she avoids the T. She worries that elevators will be out of service, or that no employees will be around to put down the ramp that helps her wheelchair cross the gap between the train and the platform.

“When I take it, I’m happy I took it. It works,” she says. “But I’m nervous about it, so I drive.”

To get her to use the T more often, she says the MBTA must keep getting better.

“Keep doing what they’re doing, but speed it up,” says Steinberg.

Aired April 3, 2019

Carol Steinberg is a WalkBoston Board member.

dollars & sense

dollars & sense

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Dollars & sense 
Walking costs cities very little, unlike driving and even public transit. A resident’s bus ride may cost $1, but costs the city $1.50 in bus operation. If a resident decides to drive, it costs the city $9.20 in services like policing and ambulances. When a resident walks, the cost to the city is a penny. — Jeff Speck, Walkability City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places

Gas taxes and other fees paid by drivers cover less than half of road construction and maintenance costs nationally. Regardless of the amount driven, the average American household bears a burden of over $1,100 annually in taxes and indirect costs from driving, over and above gas taxes or other driving fees paid.
— MassPIRG/Frontier Group, Who Pays for Roads?

This article was featured in WalkBoston’s February 2019 newsletter.
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WalkMA Network connects towns

WalkMA Network connects towns

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By Brendan Kearney/Communications Director, WalkBoston

At our WalkBoston annual meeting in March 2018, we announced that we were building a statewide WalkMassachusetts network. It would consist of advocacy organizations, municipal committees, and community groups working on walking.
The Network aims to connect and support new, emerging, and existing local organizations. Key Network features include community and statewide sharing of advocacy techniques, member recruitment strategies, and approaches for securing improvements to the built environment.

Many organizations and committees have questions about how to build constituencies for improving local walking, and we see great opportunities to learn from each other and to work together. Early interest came from points all over the state, including Western and Central Massachusetts, the North Shore, Greater Boston, Metrowest, the South Coast, and the Cape. To maximize statewide participation, we gathered at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, December 1, for our initial in-person meeting.

After introductions to let everyone learn a little bit about each person and group in the room, participants suggested topic areas to create the agenda in an “unconference” format. Each person proposed a topic they wanted
to discuss by writing it on an index card. Cards were then exchanged, and everyone ranked the new card’s topic by writing a number between 1 and 5 at the top — and then trading for another card. Once a card had five ratings, each card was totaled for a score. These were the six highest-ranked topics used for breakout sessions:

  1. Low-cost infrastructure improvements
  2. Outreach. Emails. Social media. How to do it. Resources to use.
  3. Content accessibility, navigation, mobility, features [sensory input]
  4. Tools to incentivize behavior change
  5. Vision Zero – enforcement of lower speed limits
  6. Best practices for reaching out and gaining support from people not involved in bike/ped advocacy

We’re thankful to everyone who took part for their lively conversations, questions, and suggestions. At the end of the day, we launched an email listserv/online discourse forum to continue the connections that were made in Worcester. We also added notes from each of the breakout sessions and the full list of topic suggestions to the forum so that additional resources can be shared.

We’re excited that participation in the Network is growing to include so many groups working on walking throughout the Commonwealth—and we’re gearing up for more throughout 2019. Visit walkMAnetwork.org to see participating groups and learn more about how you can get involved.

This article was featured in WalkBoston’s February 2019 newsletter.
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Join WalkBoston’s Mailing List to keep up to date on advocacy issues.
Like our work? Support WalkBoston – Donate Now!
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