American Idle (NOT American IDOL)? – Go for a walk!

The GOOD NEWS is that for our Cascadian communities (and tuly the west coast), our states and cities are doing a fine job in providing safe walking and biking environments.  As they say “It doesn’t count if you don’t count it.” Monitoring performance is critical for measuring success and finding deficiencies.  In an update of their 2007 report, a new (2010) Benchmark study released by the Alliance for Walking and Biking and funded by the Centers for Disease Control, utilizes broad inputs from a wide range of agencies and advocacy groups to assess and evaluate walking and biking in America.  They even included vetting by technical organizations like the Institute of Transportation Engineers.  Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Honolulu scored well in results (people actually walking and biking).  This land mark report sets the stage for establishing deficiencies in policy, safety and investment.  Plus it includes cool links to bike maps, advocacy groups and complete streets policies.

So as your March Madness subsides, get off the couch and go on out for a walk —- and take your friends with you.   Great job Cascadia “walking the walk”.