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Last week, we hosted a trio of top-notch advocates and agency staff on our Safe Routes for Seniors Mutual Aid Call.

For years, many Alliance organizations have worked on Safe Routes to School programs that encourage more kids to walk and bike to school. In 2003, advocates with Transportation Alternatives in New York City applied that concept to the aging population, launching their Safe Routes for Seniors initiative. The effort was the first program of its kind to address the unique needs of elderly pedestrians and consider the role of street design in maintaining good cardiovascular health in old age.

How did TA fund and win their campaign? How has the New York City Department of Transportation implemented and advanced the program as its own? How have advocates and partners outside the city limits built on the successes of NYC?

Learn more by:

• Listening to the call recording
• Downloading the call Tip Sheet
• Reviewing the host of new resources in our online library, including a host of reports from TA’s campaign

Thanks again to our incredible panelists for sharing their time and insight: Noah Budnick, deputy director for Transportation Alternatives, Ann Marie Doherty from the New York City Department of Transportation and Will Stoner with the New York state AARP.

If you’re working on Safe Routes for Seniors in your community and have resources to share, send them my way: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

By Mike Samuelson, Alliance Opens Streets Coordinator

For a few hours, one of New York City’s most famous streets was transformed from a frenzy of car horns, squealing brakes and congestion to an oasis of people powered transportation. The reason for change: Summer Streets.

Held during the first three Saturday’s in August, Summer Streets creates a car-free route from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park, including 60 blocks on Park Avenue and connecting streets. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, from all types of backgrounds, took the opportunity to explore their city in a way they seldom have available.

As part of the Alliance’s recent grant to launch the Open Streets Project, I traveled to New York to learn more about one of North America’s largest open streets initiatives. This was my first time attending an event, and I was blown away by what I saw! Along with cyclists and walkers, the street was packed with scooters, trikes, rollerbladers and just about every other type of human propelled movement. While some spandex-wearing riders weaved in and out of the crowd, most folks took advantage of the ability to go slow and see their city from a whole new angle.

At several points on the route, there were rest stops that allowed participants to take a break and engage in fun and educational activities such as yoga classes, musical performances and bike safety demonstrations. Of course, local Alliance member organization Transportation Alternatives was on hand offering free bike valet, and using the opportunity to engage New Yorkers in T.A.’s campaigns to create safer streets for all users.

Along with taking in the excitement that is Summer Streets, I was also able to meet with some of the great folks at NYC DOT who put on the initiative, and learn what it takes to put on such a successful event. Despite the difficult financial times, NYC DOT hasn’t cut back a bit on Summer Streets because of its popularity and support from private funders.

I’m looking forward to the launch of the Open Streets website this fall, which will allow cities across the continent to share their successes and plans. Open Streets are more than an opportunity to have fun on a street normally used for cars; they’re a chance to re-imagine the way our cities could be.

T.A. probably said it best in one of their recent newsletters, “For three days every summer, we don’t need schematics and modeling to understand what New York City would look like if pedestrians were prioritized. For three days this summer, our dream is reality.”

This month, Transportation Alternatives embarks on the fourth year of Summer Streets, a program that gives bike enthusiasts and new cyclists alike the opportunity to test-ride select streets of New York City free from motor vehicle traffic. According to the latest StreetBeat, this trial period has proved successful in bringing new people onboard with T.A.’s mission.

In conjunction with this year’s Summer Streets, advocates at T.A. are extending the trial concept to its membership by launching its newest membership level: the T.A. campaign friend.

For just $10, those who fear the commitment of full membership can test out what it’s like to be part of T.A. and receive discounts at T.A.-hosted events, access to the PDF version of Reclaim (T.A.’s quarterly magazine), and e-mail updates on the group’s ongoing campaign work.

These new members join the tight-knit T.A. family by signing on as friends of one of T.A.’s two most prominent campaigns: Biking Rules, a campaign for safe and civic cycling in NYC, and Rider Rebellion, which unites transit riders in support of affordable fares, better service and the end of service cuts.

“We’re trying to reach New Yorkers outside of our already-involved, already-committed pool of prospects,” Elena Santogade, Director of Membership for T.A., explains. “The pitch is a little harder to make for folks who aren’t yet aware of T.A.’s work, so a $10 price point and association to one of our more visible campaigns seemed like a good way to bring those people into the membership.”

Street teams will pitch this newest membership level as they receive signatures for various petitions and pledges for campaigns. “Our goal is to make 10 percent of those signers become Friends,” Santogade says.

And while T.A. just unveiled this new membership level last week, it’s likely something that will stick around. “As long as we have on-street advocacy teams interacting with the public, I think this will be a permanent fixture,” Santogade says. “It’s not something that we’re going to heavily promote to other prospects. It will be focused toward the people who sign petitions [and] write letters in association with our on-street campaigns.”

Just $10 sure sounds like a foolproof way to introduce bike-ped newbies to advocacy. Want to learn more about this new membership level? Check out Transportation Alternatives on the web and be sure to subscribe to StreetBeat for all the latest news.

• The new report from Transportation Alternatives — Vision Zero: How Safer Streets in New York City Can Save Over 100 Lives a Year — cite compelling data on traffic calming measure and, more importantly, challenges the notion that traffic casualties are “accidents” that cannot be controlled, rather than environments that can be altered with specific design elements and policy changes. Absolutely essential ready for all advocates and officials working for safer streets.

• Check out a new Transportation and Health Online Toolkit from the American Public Health Association that builds a bridge between the public health and transportation communities, providing talking points, outreach materials and resources.

• See how your community rates in Transportation for America’s new report — Aging in Place, Stuck without Options — which ranks metro areas by the percentage of seniors with poor access to public transportation, now and in the coming years, and presents other data on aging and transportation.

• Did you know that vehicular travel drops by more than 3 percent and carbon emissions fall nearly 5 percent when cities’ ensure that 70 percent of their streets offer safe pedestrian space? An analysis from the Washington State Department of Transportation shows the myriad climate benefits of active transportation.

• Not to reiterate last week’s resources, but more insight on separated bicycle facilities: A study from Portland State University evaluates some of that city’s recent bicycle innovations, including a cycle track and several buffered bike lanes.

• I know I’ve been trying to get the word out about Alliance events via Facebook and Twitter (Hint, hint: Sign up for our Membership Development Training by tomorrow to save $50!), so I found this booklet — Event Marketing 2.0: How to Boost Attendance Through Social Media — particularly interesting.

• And, speaking of events, if you missed our “Cultivating an Active, Involved Membership” Mutual Aid Call, here’s a link to the tip sheet and call recording.

As always, if you have resources to share, please send them my way: Carolyn@PeoplePoweredMovement.org. Have a great weekend!

Last week, advocates at Transportation Alternatives turned the spotlight on a stunning fact: Over the past 10 years, more New Yorkers have been killed by traffic than murdered by guns.

This crime against city residents is outlined in Vision Zero: How Safer Streets in New York City Can Save More Than 100 Lives a Year, a report from T.A. and the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy. According to the analysis, traffic violence takes the life of a New Yorker every 35 hours, with an average of 317 fatalities and 3,774 serious injuries per year.

“New York’s streets are downright deadly,” Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, said in a press release about the report. “Though the city has made impressive strides in recent years to reduce traffic fatalities, traffic violence still claims the lives of hundreds of New Yorkers every year and seriously injures thousands more: over 70,000 people every year. Any number higher than zero is simply unacceptable. It’s time to challenge the culture of acceptance that acts like traffic is as uncontrollable as weather, and get serious about saving lives.”

The report commends recent improvements to the city’s streets — like bike lanes, curb extensions, speed bumps and narrower intersections — which have helped reduce fatalities. But that progress is just the first step in a much longer journey to catch up with leading cities, like Berlin, Paris and Stockholm. Those models, the advocates explain, provide a road map for saving lives. “If New York’s traffic fatality rate were the same as Stockholm’s, for instance, there would have been 1,195 fewer traffic fatalities between 2001 and 2007,” the authors’ point out. “If the rate were the same as Berlin’s, 1,426 live would have been saved. Thousands of life-altering injuries would also have been avoided.”

But the report isn’t just an outline of infrastructure recommendations. To truly transform the transportation system, the city must directly confront the deadly culture of acceptance — the notion that “accidents” are unavoidable. “New Yorkers must understand the human costs and the ethical implications of traffic crashes,” the report emphasizes. “Otherwise it will be difficult to gain the political support necessary to implement changes to the streetscape.”

That’s where T.A.‘s exciting, new campaign — Vision Zero — comes in.

“The release of the report kicks off a robust street safety campaign called Vision Zero,” the advocates announced last week. “Vision Zero means zero deaths, zero injuries and zero fear of traffic. The Vision Zero campaign will directly target one of the largest obstacles to street safety: the culture of acceptance. By educating New Yorkers and policymakers on the scope of the danger, as well as challenging the unspoken assumption that traffic violence is unavoidable, Transportation Alternatives will build momentum and support for real solutions. To that end, T.A. will continue to release reports and hold events highlighting the dangers of traffic violence. T.A. will also work with community partners and public officials to deploy the policies recommended by the Vision Zero report to reduce these dangers, with the goal of eliminating them completely.”

Click here to download the report.

It’s been a big week with Bike to Work events and news of legislative victories in a number of states, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busily uploading the latest research and exemplary materials from Alliance member organizations to the Resource Library. Here’s the latest…

• Transportation Alternatives in New York City put together a best practices guide for its innovative Play Streets initiative — which we wrote about on the People Powered Blog back in November.

• Lisa Quinn at Feet First got us psyched about her participation in our upcoming Mutual Aid Call on “Cultivating an Active, Involved Membership” by sharing these great videos about the group’s popular Walk and Talk events.

• We received in the mail (Hint: We love getting mail!) a sleek, eye-catching tip sheet from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition on “5 Easy Ways to Inspire your Employees to Bike To Work,” which the organization used in its mailing to potential business supporters and participants for its Bike to Work Day on May 12.

• Speaking of Bike to Work Day, the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition created an artsy postcard promoting its CycleMAYnia events, with a listing of events and link to a one-stop website for all the festivities.

• And another tool for Bike to Work Day: The League of American Bicyclists debuted a quick, convenient online tool that provides bicycle commuting statistics by city, based on data from the 2009 American Community Survey.

• Bike Pittsburgh also launched a fun, new tool — unveiling its Car Free Calculator, which allows cyclists to enter their miles traveled and keep track of their calories burned, dollars saved and carbon dioxide reduced. (p.s. Brought to you, in part, by funding from the Advocacy Advance grant program!)

• Brighid O’Keane, our Advocacy Advance Program Manager, put together a helpful overview that covers funding sources for bike/ped organizations, including grants, government funding, grassroots fundraising, and other resources.

• A (relatively) new study out of Oregon dispels some myths about active transportation in the suburbs.

• And another report finds that traffic crashes are more strongly correlated to the built environment itself rather than random driver error.

In 2009, during the very first round of Advocacy Advance Grant awards, the Alliance bolstered an innovative effort by Transportation Alternatives to bring together stakeholders for safer streets in New York City. The result was a comprehensive, hard-hitting and widely read report that took the media by storm and laid out specific recommendations for improvement. Just last month, that report led to a major victory.

According to T.A., Executive Order: A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety is a key reason Mayor Michael Bloomberg just signed a new law that will throw open the previously closed doors on vital, actionable traffic data. As T.A. explains in the March edition of Streetbeat, “the best advocates don’t believe in armchairs,” so their 2009 report was “hefty with actionable recommendations to improve the system.” One of the most important suggestions was aimed at the police department: Release all traffic safety data, including crashes, contributing factors and summonses. With support from the Alliance Advocacy Advance Grant, they used that springboard to launch a legislative campaign that included the Saving Lives Through Better Information Bill, a measure that addressed that public data deficiency. Last month, the bill was passed by the City Council and signed by the Mayor.

“The Saving Lives Through Better Information bill was T.A.‘s brainchild because we understand enforcement will only get better with better data,” T.A. explains in Streetbeat. “Because of T.A. advocacy, soon each month every NYPD precinct will publish online:

• Locations of every crash, pinpointing dangerous locations
• Number of crashes, fatalities and injuries of motor vehicle drivers and passengers, cyclists and pedestrians
• Contributing factors (like unsafe speed or red light running) that caused each crash, creating a priority list for summonsing efforts
• Summonses issued, indicating whether precincts are responding to problems

This summer will come with access to a wealth of information that before was hidden—all in real data you can take right to your precinct Community Council and ask what for.”

Click here to read more about T.A.’s innovative campaigns. Learn more about Advocacy Advance grants here. 

There’s no doubt that Americans are hungry for fresh, local food. Over the past decade, the number of farmers markets has doubled, with a 16 percent increase in 2010 alone. Even in the heart of New York City, urban residents savor the opportunity to wander in the open air, connecting with their regional growers.

This summer, bike-ped advocates at Transportation Alternatives came up with an innovative way to partner with their local farmers markets — and prove that kids have an appetite for open streets.

In July and August, TA worked with the Strategic Alliance for Health, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Harvest Home Farmer’s Market, a non-profit organization that runs 20 farmer’s markets in low-income neighborhoods, to produce a series of events called Play Street.

In the unused areas of farmers markets in East Harlem and the South Bronx, the streets remained off-limits to traffic and open to area children. Kids from the surrounding neighborhood turned out in droves to jump rope, play sports and even take yoga classes. Hosted in areas where more than one-third of residents live below the poverty line and more than 40 percent of primary school children are overweight or obese, Play Street drew more than 1,200 children and teenagers.

“Streets and sidewalks make up 80 percent of our public space in New York City and we need to make sure these streets benefit everyone, not just private vehicles,” Julia De Martini Day, director of transportation and health at TA, said in a press release last week. “Play streets are a great way to demonstrate the potential for NYC streets to be healthy places where kids and adults can socialize, play and exercise.”

The Play Street events went so well that advocates are hoping to expand the idea to eight other farmers markets next year. And to make their case, TA hooked up with the New York Academy of Medicine to conduct a survey of the events’ participants. The results, released last week, included some moving numbers.

- If not at the Play Street, 64 percent of children would have been doing something sedentary, like watching TV or playing video games

- Because of the Play Street, 84 percent of families felt their neighborhood was safer

- More than 90 percent said they would recommend Play Street to their friends and neighbors

“In New York City, our streets are our backyards,” Paul Steely White, executive director of TA, said. “By creating a safe space from cars at our doorsteps, play streets make the healthy choice the easy choice by allowing people to incorporate play and exercise into their daily routines.”

Read more about the project and download the Play Street report from our Resources Library.

When money gets tight, the wheels of government often grind to a halt. A tough budget year becomes politicians’ excuse for letting important issues simmer on a back burner while they tend to the financial inferno.

But, even during a particularly difficult session in the New York state legislature this year, Transportation Alternatives managed to pull out several notable victories. According to the NYC-based advocacy organization, state lawmakers in Albany passed two bills that will make cyclists’ and pedestrians’ commutes “safer and speedier.”

“The bus lane enforcement camera provision included in the State Budget and pending legislation that will establish penalties for reckless and careless drivers who claim the lives of vulnerable street users are huge breakthroughs in their issue areas,” the advocates note in their latest newsletter. “They each represent real progress, demonstrate the prowess of Transportation Alternatives’ Albany operations and punctuate the growing strength of our organization.”

And it takes a little muscle to get things done. According to T.A., state legislators can see upwards of 18,000 proposed bills each year. Barely nine percent of those pass and only a tiny sliver are issue-oriented measures, like provisions pertaining to biking and walking. “That we managed to fight for, and pass, two bills in this notoriously nasty and crowded session is truly remarkable,” T.A. says.

Read more about their legislative campaigns.

Transportation Alternatives has released its annual estimate of how many New Yorkers ride bicycles daily. There are now 236,000 daily cyclists in the five boroughs. The figure represents a 28% increase over the previous year, continuing recent double-digit growth trends.  More than 200 miles of bike lanes have been installed in New York City over the past three years. These bike lanes are helping to fuel the dramatic growth in cycling across the city. For more information, visit Transportation Alternatives.

Thanks to Claire Gron for contributing this member news.

Transportation Alternatives is competing for a $250,000 grant that will enable cyclists from all over the country to connect with fellow bike commuters nearby—but they need your vote to win it!

Streets all across the country are getting safer for cycling, but until the roads catch up, riding with a friend is one of the best ways to stay safe. Using Pepsi’s Refresh Everything grant, T.A. will develop a new generation of mobile and web applications to connect cyclists who share the same roads every day. The goal: 500,000 new cyclists on the road, encouraged by the ability to ride with a buddy. It’s called “Bike Buddy.”

Transportation Alternatives Director of Bicycle Advocacy, Caroline SamponaroIf, says “If we win this online voting competition, we would be able to collectively develop a new generation of mobile and web applications to connect cyclists who share the same roads every day. We would be linking newbies and seasoned riders—the sort of one-rider-at-a-time interaction that makes for a strong cycling community. We would pilot the program in five American cities, and with enough funding, many more thereafter.”

By voting for T.A., you’ll help usher in a new wave of green, urban-friendly bike commutes.  You can vote once per day, so come back over and over! To vote, visit http://www.refresheverything.com/BikeBuddy.

For more information on Transportation Alternatives and the Bike Buddy Program visit www.refresheverything.com/BikeBuddy and www.transalt.org.

According to Transportation Alternatives (T.A.), “First and Second Avenues (in New York City) are about to get a whole lot better for bikers, walkers and transit takers.

In response to T.A.‘s East Side campaign, the Department of Transportation has committed to building better bus, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure from South Ferry to 125th Street. Included in the agency’s plans are bike lanes, bus lanes and improved pedestrian crossings that will not only make these notoriously congested avenues safer, but also better-performing.

Though the DOT has yet to identify the exact configurations it will use when construction begins this June, all of the possibilities are huge improvements over the order-less mess that now rules the roads in this part of Manhattan, and we commend them, as well as the Volunteer Committee members, community stakeholders, local politicians and countless activists who helped the plan come together.

To ensure that this wave of street reform doesn’t simply splash on to two avenues and wash away, Transportation Alternatives is organizing an East Side Streets Coalition to help spread these changes. With the support of T.A.‘s Volunteer Committees, citizens and civic organizations from East Harlem to Chinatown, the East Side Coalition plans to push for streets that reduce pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities from vehicle crashes by 50% in the next decade.”

T.A. is issuing a call to action. “Visit the East Side Streets Coalition website to take an online survey about current conditions and future possibilities, find out about upcoming community workshops and join the Coalition.”

Transportation Alternatives (T.A.)has published two extensive reports on traffic safety and enforcement, quantitatively tallying the level of lawless driving and documenting the failure to create deterrence from dangerous driving on New York City streets.  Executive Order:  A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety examines the broken system of enforcement of traffic crimes, describing the deadly consequences of dangerous driving, the lack of moving violation enforcement, and the loopholes in traffic crime prosecution. Using sampling data and yearly totals of NYPD summonsing activity, Executive Order presents staggering statistics that reveal how often dangerous drivers evade enforcement and delay justice.  The report was released to wide acclaim, with coverage by every major New York City news organization and both Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commenting on its findings.  A follow-up study, From Chaos to Compliance:  How the NYPD Can Grasp New York City’s Traffic Safety Problem develops the methodology for measuring the state of New York streets, and employs these techniques to prove the pervasiveness of traffic law violations. 

T.A. has also launched an advocacy campaign, based on the comprehensive recommendations of over 30 experts in Traffic Safety and Law Enforcement, to change government policy towards street safety and create true deterrents to dangerous driving in New York City. In the coming months, T.A. will push the NYPD to adopt these methods to understand how best to approach the problems of dangerous driving. These reports and efforts were made possible in part by an Alliance for Biking & Walking Advocacy Advance Grant.

Download the reports:

Executive Order: A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety

and

From Chaos to Compliance: How the NYPD Can Grasp New York City’s Traffic Safety Problem

According to New York City’s Transportation Alternatives (T.A.), “The completion of Brooklyn’s new Sands Street protected bike lane makes getting on and off the Manhattan Bridge as easy as pedaling. It also closes a painful chapter in the history of New York City bike advocacy.” In 2005, Noah Budnick, T.A.‘s Senior Policy Advisor, was seriously injured when he hit a pothole while biking on Sands Street and crashed. After four years of hard work, T.A. celebrated the opening Sands Street Bike lane (aka “Budnick Bikeway”) on August 7th.

For more information on T.A., visit here…

On Tuesday, November 4, voters in Marin and Sonoma counties (California) passed Measure Q with 69.5 percent of the vote, funding a new rail-with-trail that will run for 70 miles from the Larkspur Ferry Terminal (which has a connection to San Francisco) to Cloverdale.  The expenditure plan for Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) includes $91 million for the bikeway of which 70 percent will be on a separated pathway, and 30 percent will be bike lanes on city streets.  The Marin County Bicycle Coalition worked on this project for more than 10 years, and was supported in their efforts by the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and Transportation Alternatives for Marin.

Click here to read more…

On August 6th, New York City’s Transportation Alternatives (T.A.) released a new report titled Streets to Live By: How livable street design can bring economic, health and quality-of-life benefits to New York City. According to T.A., the report, “compiles and analyses the most recent data on the benefits of great streets.  The study reveals outcomes of livable streets projects around the world. According to T.A., the report “finds that street designs that make people comfortable and draw them in are, in fact, the very groundwork for a healthy community and local economy. The study also details the benchmarks of livable streets, including physical activity, better air quality, more social cohesion and increased economic activity; benchmarks that City agencies can use to measure the livability of any given street or neighborhood.”

Download a copy of the report…

Thousands of New Yorkers turned out to participate in the first two installments of Summer Streets, a ciclovía-style event presented by the City of New York. A temporary street closure spanning 90 consecutive blocks, Summer Streets provides a car-free, recreational route between Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. Along this car-free route, the Department of Transportation and sponsors host art, dance and fitness classes, musical performances and bike-related activities. Many adjacent side streets host citizen-organized activities ranging from double-dutch tournaments to scooter races.
Summer Streets is the culmination of a season of unprecedented pedestrian-oriented street events, spearheaded by community coalitions and Transportation Alternatives, and made possible by City agencies. While raising the profile of public space is a primary goal of Summer Streets, the timing for this event has much to do with the City’s interest in reducing motor vehicle traffic, improving public health through urban design and meeting its own sustainability goals, and bringing us some summer-time fun too.

Transportation Alternatives (T.A.) held its fourth annual Tour de Brooklyn fundraising ride on May 25th. According to T.A.’s StreetBeat, “Close to 3,000 riders celebrated the Brooklyn Bridge’s 125th birthday with a sun-soaked 18-mile bike ride that started in DUMBO, stopped for a snack in Bushwick, sailed through the Navy Yards and finished up at Walt Whitman Park.  It was a perfect day made even better by thousands of smiling faces, hundreds of helpful volunteers, scores of skilled marshals and the beautiful borough of Brooklyn.”

View video from the ride from StreetFilms.org.