Announcement – Page 40 – WalkMassachusetts

Event: Save the Date for Annual Party, March 18th 5-8pm

By WalkMassachusetts | January 9, 2019

Come join us on March 18th from 5-8PM for our annual party! This year’s keynote speaker is Eric Fleegler, MD, MPH, a pediatric emergency physician and health services researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital. His research includes articles that identify pedestrian road safety as a public health priority and ways to address racial/ethnic health disparities in pediatric asthma outcomes.

This year’s celebration will recognize Walking Champions from Fall River & Springfield with Golden Shoe Awards.
Fall River friends of walking | Friends of the Quequechan River Rail Trail; Bike Fall River; Senior Walking Champions; Fall River City Staff
Springfield Walking Champions | Benjamin Bland and Kiah McAndrew-Davis, Mass in Motion/1422, City of Springfield Dept of Health and Human Services | Matt Sokop, Chief Engineer, City of Springfield Dept of Public Works |Catherine Ratté, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission| Jessica Collins, LiveWell Springfield | Beatrice Dewberry, Wayfinders | Betsy Johnson, WalkBike Springfield

Learn more about all of our previous award winners.

What: WalkBoston Annual Party
When: March 18, 2019 5-8PM
Where: Fort Point Room / Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress St, Boston, MA (same venue as last year!)
Cost: $30 – Beer, wine + food included with your ticket

Hope to see you on March 18th!

Join us on Jan 23rd for a Day of Action at the State House

By WalkMassachusetts | January 9, 2019

Please join us and other members of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition for a Day of Action at the State House on the morning of Wednesday, January 23rd.

We’ll go door-to-door and ask our representatives and senators to support traffic safety legislation around three key issues. This legislation will save lives, reduce injuries, and bring us closer to Vision Zero. Read more about these issues below.

Event Details:
Day of Action at the State House
Wednesday, January 23, 2019, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
@ Massachusetts State House, Room 437
24 Beacon Street, Boston

Schedule:
9:30 – 10:00 am | Arrive, check in, enjoy coffee + light breakfast
10:00 – 10:30 am | Program (speakers TBA)
10:30 am – 12 pm | Meetings with legislative offices

Training materials and talking points will be provided day of. Even if you can’t commit to the full morning, you are welcome to join us for any part of the schedule! Please RSVP here.

Priorities for Traffic Safety Legislation:

Hands-free — improve the current law against texting-while-driving, which is difficult for officers to enforce, by requiring any use of mobile devices while driving to be hands-free.
Automated enforcement — allow red light cameras and speed cameras to be placed in certain locations in the Commonwealth. When enacted in other states, automated enforcement has reduced speeding and serious crashes.
Truck safety — equip state-contracted trucks with safety side-guards, mirrors, and back-up cameras to reduce the number of fatalities of people walking and biking.

Traffic fatalities are unacceptably high in Massachusetts, and we know that crashes are not accidents – they’re the tragic, preventable results of inadequate planning, policy, and unsafe behavior.

Help us spread the word about the Day of Action to your contacts by sharing this post, and via social media before and during the event using these hashtags: #crashnotaccident #visionzero #textlesslivemore

Please RSVP here. For more information, contact Emily Stein at emily@saferoadsalliance.org.

We hope to see you there!

BU School of Public Health students create WalkMassachusetts Network video

By WalkMassachusetts | January 9, 2019

This past semester, Boston University School of Public Health students in Professor Kim Kronenberg’s class SB833: “Designing and Implementing a Health Communication Campaign,” engaged WalkBoston as a client to create a video to promote the WalkMassachusetts Network. The goal of the course is to give students health communication background and hands-on experience. The video was the tool they used to learn about the health communication process.

Thanks to MPH students Sharon, Shweta, TraciAnn & Benji for their work on this effort, Professor Kronenberg for inviting us to participate — and thanks to everyone who contributed constructive feedback to their questions along the way!

Check out the video they produced below with the help of Lynn Weissman, Videography and technology instructor, and get involved with the WalkMassachusetts Network.

Chilly and fun Salem Street Walk Audit in Medford

By WalkBoston | December 7, 2018

WalkBoston was thrilled to lead a Salem Street and Haines Square walk audit with WalkMedford. Joined by Mayor Stephanie Burke, multiple city officials, local business owners, school representatives / volunteers and the public our group of 15+ walked for two hours discussing possible improvements to safety, accessibility and street design quality. So great that Lois B. joined us wearing her historic WalkBoston hat (circa 2002) from the Big Dig tunnel walk!

See more photos from WalkMedford

First WalkMassachusetts Network Forum in the books!

By WalkBoston | December 6, 2018

Photo by Price Armstrong, Holyoke Bicycle Pedestrian Committee

Thank you for your lively conversations, your questions, your suggestions, and for taking part in the first WalkMassachusetts Network gathering in Worcester. Stacey had the opportunity to present the successful results of our meeting last night at the 10 in 1 StreetTalks event put on by LivableStreets. So we bet participation in the Network will grow to include even more groups working on walking throughout the Commonwealth.

As promised, we are launching the WalkMassachusetts Network online forum. Below is a link to sign into the forum; once logged in, there is an automated helper that can walk you through different features. Additional info is pinned as a banner at the top of the page, which includes instructions on how to modify your email preferences. After poking around a bit, please let us know if you any issues using the online forum. We have already added the slides from Saturday and the notes from each breakout group to help get things started.

Create your account on the forum here

We can’t wait to read about your successes and challenges as you work to make your communities more walkable. We look forward to witnessing the peer-to-peer learning that will surely flourish as this Network continues to grow – both online and in person. If you haven’t yet, check out the list of participating groups/communities and add your group.

Thanks for all that you do and your support of WalkBoston.