WALKSacramento cordially invites you to hear one of the best minds and voices in sustainableplanning today, Todd Litman, founder and leader of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute: (http://www.vtpi.org/). As our region moves forward on implementing the Sustainable Communities Strategy, we need to identify proven “win-win” solutions to the challenges facing us. Please come and hear a fresh, practical yet still visionary perspective.
There are two events on Wednesday, June 13:
Noon-1:30 p.m. at SACOG. This event is focused on the transportation and planning professional community, but all are welcome. Go here: http://toddlitman.eventbrite.com/ to register.
6 – 7:30 p.m. at REI. This event is for the community at large and focuses on action for the individual. Register for the evening event at: http://tinyurl.com/ToddLitman
Drive throughs drive up profits for more companies (USA today 2012-05-21; included here because it references Citrus Heights, and drive throughs are incompatible with the city’s greenhouse gas reduction goals)
I was assaulted by a vehicle driver today on J Street. Assault includes intent to harm with a deadly weapon, which is a motor vehicle, and does not require actual battery. Having learned my lesson from the last incident, I got the license number and vehicle description right. I did not get enough of a driver ID to press charges, but it will at least go on their record.
The details:
3VFM067 CA
White Toyota 4-runner, not new
White male young
J St eastbound at 10th St
Occurred about 6:25pm, 2012-05-29
A white Toyota 4-runner driven by a young white male attempted to intimidate me off the roadway by using his vehicle as a weapon. The driver gunned their engine at me for a block, and then passed within 3 inches, I felt the mirror touch my arm. I was traveling in the rightmost lane at about 20 mph. There is no bike lane in this area, and the lane is not wide enough to share. The other two eastbound travel lanes were open, at a time of light traffic, so the driver could have easily passed but chose to intimidate me. I caught up to the person and asked why he would use his vehicle to kill another person, and he flipped me off. Another vehicle immediately following did the same thing, passing too closely, so I suspect the two drivers were traveling together.
Incident 12-146316
Responding officer R. Cabrera, Sacramento Police Department
The Streetsblog family of blogs (NYC, LA, SF, and Capitol Hill) has Daily News posts, and for the NYC, The Weekly Carnage. I find these useful for picking up interesting information I’d otherwise miss. Though I probably only average one click per list, it is still useful. Maybe this would be useful for Sacramento. Please let me know if it is useful, and please pass along articles that you think I might miss. The only news sources that I regularly follow are the Sacramento Bee and The Sacramento News & Review, but even there I sometimes miss things.
Walk Score/Bike Score offers an assessment of the bikeability of any location. It is available in any browser at https://www.redfin.com/how-walk-score-works. The Redfin app shows walk score, bike score and transit score for each listing (scroll way down). Walk Score is based on the distance to the places people want to go, such as grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, movie theaters, schools, parks, libraries, bookstores, fitness locations, drug stores, hardware stores, and clothing & music.
The next stage from the folks at Walk Score, Bike Score, is now available, for a select 10 cities. There aren’t any big surprises, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Madison are at the top.
Sacramento is not on the list of 10. If you’d like to see it there, you can go to the Bike Score page and tweet a vote for it. Please do!
Walk Score also recently released Transit Score, where Sacramento is listed, as 22 out of the 25 largest cities with accessible transit data, at a score of 32. Both the Bike Score and Transit Score are created at a city-wide level, unlike the address-specific Walk Score. So these rankings are just first steps, but nevertheless interesting and useful.
You may have seen articles in the media recently about the high correlation between walkability and housing prices, with walkable communities in high demand and unworkable suburbs in the doldrums. This is good news for all of us. Walk Score was in fact designed as a tool for helping people find real estate and apartments in places that fit their desired lifestyle. As the correlation between walkable, bikeable, transit-dense communities and livability becomes more clear, resources (societal and personal) will be shifted away from the suburbs to urban areas.
The month has started, and I’m logging my miles at May Is Bike Month, which is for the greater Sacramento region. I’ll be out of town for 10 days this month, so my mileage will be lower than usual, first a trip to Arizona without my bike, and then a backpack trip without my bike, and maybe even a second backpack trip. Oh well.
I’m logging my miles under San Juan Unified School District, my employer, though there are several other connections I have. May is Bike Month also has a Facebook presence, which seems pretty active already.
The SacBee headlined Saturday, “Arena Deal Dead.” I never really cared that much about the idea of a new arena for the Kings. I’m not a big sports fan, and of all the sports, I think that professional basketball is the most boring of them all (not so for college ball). Whether the Kings play […]
