September/October 2013
Cal WALKS footPrints
News from around the Cal WALKS Network
Get Your Walking Shoes On for WALKtober!
Lace up your shoes 'cause it's time for WALKtober! As the leaves change and temperatures cool down, October is the perfect time of year to get out and enjoy your community on your own two feet--and we've collected the best walk events from across the state for you to get involved and get active. Click each event for more details or visit californiawalks.org/walktober:
If you have walk events happening in your community for WALKtober, please let us know!
Visualizing the Landscape of Traffic Injuries & Deaths
The Knight News Challenge is seeking innovative ideas for harnessing health information and data and disseminating this information through news and media outlets. 

Cal WALKS is teaming up with Dr. Rajiv Bhatia to propose the creation of compelling visualizations of vehicle-pedestrian injury data in California's urban and rural regions. Patterned off work completed in San Francisco, these visualizations will expose environmental patterns of traffic fatalities and injuries, avoidable causes and potential solutions, as well as will inform healthier planning, policy-making and transportation investments. The project will result in open-source tools that can be used across the state (and nationally) to visualize traffic safety data. Check out our proposal and vote for our project today!
New Resources
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has issued a new memorandum endorsing several innovative design guides for pedestrian and bicycle facilities. In addition to the more traditional American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO) design guides (AASHTO Pedestrian Guide, AASHTO Bike Guide), this memo endorses the use of the National Assocation of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Urban Bikeway Design Guide, as well as the Intistute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares guide. Both of these guides recognize the unique circumastances, conditions, and needs of urban environments and provide engineers with more tools, treatments, and references that have been implemented and tested in other cities.
 
The latest update to the PEDSAFE tool (available online only) provides practitioners with a comprehensive list of 67 engineering countermeasure options to improve the safety and mobility of those who walk, the cost and effectiveness of each countermeasure, 85 case studies where one or more countermeasures have been implemented, and a countermeasure selection tool that allows users to input details on basic safety problems and site conditions to generate a proposed short list of candidate treatment options for that site.
 

For the first time ever, the latest version of the FHWA Traffic Monitoring Guide (TMG) will include an entire chapter devoted to pedestrian and bicycle data collection and storage (Chapter 4). In transportation, what gets counted and monitored determines what receives funding--this new federal guidance is a huge step forward for ensuring that people walking and biking are accounted for in our transportation system! A new training course from the National Highway Institute (NHI) training course will include specific training on the pedestrian and bicycle data collection: For more info, contact David Jones at djones@dot.gov or at 202-366-5053.

 

Evaluating Active Transportation Benefits & Costs

This report from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute describes methods for evaluating and measuring the various types of benefits and costs of active transportation. The paper  discusses active transportation demands and ways to increase walking and biking, and condlues that many active transportation benefits tend to be overlooked or undervalued in conventional transportation economic evaluation. 

 
This latest white paper from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center examines past and current crosswalk marking design and concludes that high-visibility markings should be installed at uncontrolled crossing locations whenever it is determined to provide marked crosswalks and for all controlled intersections, that all legs of the intersection be marked.
 
This study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that among children living in "smart growth" communities,  there was a 46% increase in the proportion of neighborhood moderate-to-vigorous physical activityas compared to conventional community residence.
  
This June 2013 report from the Washington State Department of Transportation reviews the built environment characteristics associated with walking, biking, transit use, and Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and the tools available that utilize these built environment characteristics to estimate travel and related outcomes such as vehicle emissions and health co-benefits. 

This July 2013 study from the Ohio Department of Transportation developed a Regional Land Use Allocation Decision Analysis Tool, which enables decision makers to quantify the impacts of population and employment distribution in terms of the resulting Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). The study addresses the need for improving our understanding of the links between land use and transportation and provides a user-friendly modeling tool to develop forecasts based on different land use, transportation, and policy scenarios. 

Neighborhood design can play a significant role in public health. Recent research explores mixed-use zoning and the laws that impact this type of zoning, and how well-planned zoning could help reduce crime and increase neighborhood walkability -- two outcomes integrally tied to improved public health. In this webinar, presenters will share the latest public health law research that supports these findings, describe a new method for evaluating zoning laws, examine case studies from the East and West Coasts, and highlight some of the challenges involved in such policy work. Check out the webinar recording here 
Upcoming Events

[Webinar] Talking About Health in All Policies

Wednesday, October 2, 2013 | 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM | Hosted by Dialogue4Health

In this web forum, the berkeley media studies group will talk about how organizations can develop and refine their messages to support health in all policies and make the case for why health in all policies is essential to help protect physical and fiscal health, advance community engagement, and build relationships across government sectors. Register Here 

  

 [Mutual Aid Call] Working With Police for Smarter Enforcement

Wednesday, October 9, 2013 | 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Hosted by the Alliance for Biking & Walking 

Biking- and walking-friendly laws are important, but legal protections for bikers and walkers is only as effective as the enforcement of those laws. How can biking and walking advocates work with police departments to ensure that all people receive fair, lawful, and safe protection on community streets? Join this call to hear from advocates who have implemented innovative ways to work with police departments for smart law enforcement for active transportation. Register Here

 

[Webinar] Using Photo-Enforcement to Improve Pedestrian Safety

Wednesday, October 16, 2013 | 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM | Hosted by the Association of Pedestrian & Bicycle Professionals (APBP) | $50 for APBP Members; $85 for non-members 

From red light cameras, speed cameras and other more innovative uses, learn how communities are using photo-enforcement to improve pedestrian safety. Register Here

 

[Conference] 12th Annual Mobility 21 Southern California Transportation Summit- Connecting the Dots: Linking Infrastructure, Education & Healthcare

Tuesday, October 29, 2013 | 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM | Hosted by Mobility 21

Come to the largest one-day transportation conference in the state! It's the only place where you can mix and mingle with every transportation CEO in Southern California, policy makers and nationally-known transportation experts. This year's Summit, which will focus on vital connections between transportation, energy, water, health and education, promises a diverse group of infrastructure stakeholders, engaging breakout sessions and high-profile keynote speakers. Registration ends October 18--Register Now

 
Have an item you want to share with the Network? Send an e-mail to Tony Dang, Deputy Director.
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