Update on symposium and reflections on green streets during the pandemic View this email in your browser https://mailchi.mp/1dadc77c4a12/update-from-green-streets-for-sustainable-communities-symposium?e=c11dd06359 > [ https://mcusercontent.com/2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b/images/8899a9c2-4a1a-4dbf-b484-1e9b0fb8b476.jpeg ] Image used by permission of the artist, Linda Gass ©2019 Green Streets for Sustainable Communities Symposium Has been moved to Wednesday, September 23, 2020 Location: City of Palo Alto Mitchell Park Community Center or Coming to you virtually! (if health conditions require) More information and registration at this link. https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=3f18aedb45&e=c11dd06359 > Additional Resources here. https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=9f2a7a37df&e=c11dd06359 > Dear Friends, Happy Earth Day, 50th Anniversary! Thanks to those of you who have registered for our Symposium. We want to keep the dialogue going on the importance of an integrated approach to managing our streets as a crucial public asset. We can achieve multiple goals through creative, cross-functional collaboration, including making our communities more livable, improving health, keeping our neighborhoods cool, reducing green house gas emissions and adapting to the stresses of climate change (heat, drought, flooding, etc.). This is the first in a series of articles and thought pieces on the power of streets for improving community life. Mountain View City Council Member and professional urban planner, Alison Hicks, shares her thoughts and photos to get the conversation started. We welcome your comments and feedback. Wishing you, your families, communities and colleagues good health and safety during this challenging time on behalf of the Symposium organizing team, Yoriko Kishimoto, Board President Marianna Grossman, Vice President Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities Pandemic parks Our streetscapes have long acted as linear parks: Now that role is more important than ever I live in an older residential neighborhood, several blocks from downtown Mountain View. Those blocks have narrow streets, tree-shaded sidewalks and ample planting strips. I’ve often thought the best part of my day is my walk from home to our downtown grocer or drug store. It gets me off the screen into the sunshine. I notice the birds and flowers changing with the seasons. I talk to my neighbors. It makes me happy. My kids agree. As soon as they were old enough to walk downtown on their own, running shopping errands was a favorite household chore. That was before the pandemic. Now, with cars virtually gone and other places closed to us, our streets and sidewalks have become fully fledged neighborhood parks. [ https://mcusercontent.com/2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b/images/8283130e-76d0-48a6-81cb-8b7af9e420d4.jpg ] Ashvin and his wife have taken their children out to bike, walk, tricycle or stroll on the neighborhood sidewalks multiple times every day since their preschools and local playgrounds have closed. Our sidewalks teem with people. Solo pedestrians go to the grocery store and farmers’ market. They hold virtual walking meetings via cell phone. My husband walked eight miles in just one day of meetings. Couples walk hand-in-hand. Parents and children walk, scoot and stroll babies together. Youngsters, on break from school, learn to ride bikes. People walk dogs, several times per day. Bikers, runners, roller skaters and skate boarders have taken over nearly empty roads. Children decorate sidewalks and streets with chalk “murals.” Our neighborhood is planning a front porch party. We’ll picnic on our own front stoops and chat across the sidewalks and streets at a safe social distance. Maybe we’ll play music. [ https://mcusercontent.com/2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b/_compresseds/e41005ce-26f0-4de1-8128-a968267791c0.jpg ] Laurel found social distancing hard at dog parks, but the sidewalks in Old Mountain View are a pleasant alternative. Here she is on a major street, but well screened from cars by abundant foliage. The definition of the word park in the Free Dictionary online fits our streetscapes: Park. An area of land set aside for public use… A piece of land with few or no buildings within or adjoining a town, maintained for recreational and ornamental purposes. Recreation In fact, our neighborhood streetscapes support the most popular forms of recreation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, when Americans are surveyed about sports and exercise they prefer, walking outranks all other activities by far, with 30% of people reporting that they walk for exercise. Running virtually ties with weightlifting and using cardio equipment for a distant second place preference, with almost 9% of people reporting that they do each of these activities. Swimming, cycling, playing basketball and multiple other sports and forms of exercise are important for much smaller subsectors of our population. (www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/sports-and-exercise-among-americans.htm https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=c270e7a4b8&e=c11dd06359 >) But sidewalks with generous pedestrian amenities can serve a much larger proportion of our public health and exercise needs and desires. Walking is an age-friendly activity. People of all ages walk and non-walkers, including infants in strollers and people in wheelchairs, can accompany them. Clearly, if we want to create recreational space that serves the needs of the people, linear parks along streetscapes enhanced with wide sidewalks, canopy trees, benches and lushly landscaped planting strips, must be a big focus of our parks and capital expenditure budgets. Ornamentation The planting strips beside our streets provide the most vital kinds of ornamentation, shade trees and a wide variety of vegetation supporting birds, bugs and small animals. Streetside planting filters the air, shades the sidewalk and provides a psychologically beneficial dose of greenery to the people who walk there. But not all neighborhoods are as fortunate as mine. Many people sheltering in place live on streets with few trees and no planting strips. Some don’t even have complete sidewalks. When they venture out their front door, they don’t get the psychologically uplifting green immersion that I get when I walk down my street. On hot days they have no shade canopy. [ https://mcusercontent.com/2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b/_compresseds/dbc7800e-a41a-4a59-8580-08de4bb50e52.jpg ] This street is very near my neighborhood streets. The streetscaping is unshaded and uninviting. While our neighborhood streets teem with pedestrians, this street remains empty. The New York Times article “Turn Off the Sunshine: Why Shade is a Mark of Privilege in Los Angeles,” paints the starkly different picture. (www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/us/los-angeles-shade-climate-change.html https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=f5aa82e8e7&e=c11dd06359 >) Not surprisingly, street trees, planting strips and the lack thereof, correlate largely with race and income. The ill effects of bare and treeless streets are far reaching. People living in neighborhoods without street trees walk, run and bike less. As those are people’s favorite forms of exercise, they exercise less and sit more. They tend to be more obese. Without trees and plants to filter their air, air quality in treeless neighborhoods is worse. People living in unplanted neighborhoods experience asthma and other lung conditions more often. New research out of Harvard links air pollution to higher Covid-19 death rates. Breathing in microscopic pollutants, experts say, damages the lungs over time, impairing one’s ability to fight respiratory infections. The Harvard research indicates that “long-term exposure to air pollution increases vulnerability to experiencing the most severe Covid-19 outcomes.” (www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/air-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=f72a4124f3&e=c11dd06359 >) Public health professionals are now telling us that Covid-19 is likely to be with us for some time. Until a vaccination is available in a year, or maybe two, we may experience multiple periods of full or partial sheltering in place. Our streets have always played an important role as public places for exercise and a breath of fresh air. That role is now more important than ever. Luckily there is a nascent movement afoot to take back some of our streets from cars, outfit them with wide sidewalks and protected bike paths along with slowed car traffic, and to finish our streetscapes off with street trees and life-supporting planting, capturing storm water in bioswales under those trees. Known as the movement for Complete Streets and Green Streets it is supported by a wide range of professionals and some funding. Now is the time to support and strengthen this movement for Complete Sustainable Green Streets. Policy makers, city staff, environmental advocates and experts in all dimensions of streets will be meeting on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 (either in person or virtually, as conditions permit) to advance green streets for sustainable communities. Learn more here https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=a2fffd7d51&e=c11dd06359 >. Alison Hicks is an urban planner and member of the Mountain View City Council. Alison Recommends: New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/air-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=2450c388f3&e=c11dd06359 > An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/a-letter-from-the-virus-listen/ https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=ab981923c5&e=c11dd06359 > Excellent article on turning streets over to pedestrians and bikers during pandemic shelter-in-place. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-02/sidewalks-coronavirus-contagion-pedestrians https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=ac5032cd1b&e=c11dd06359 > Piece by local activist Kristel Wickham comparing the corona virus pandemic to climate change. https://enlight21.com/blogs/covid-19-and-climate-change https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=68c84a91df&e=c11dd06359 > Jeff Tumlin, head of SF MTA – Build Cities for Bikes, Buses, and Feet—Not Cars https://www.wired.com/story/cities-without-cars-san-francisco-jeff-tumlin/ https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=c1c9f40aa0&e=c11dd06359 > There are several good links in this Richard Louv piece https://www.rei.com/blog/stewardship/op-ed-finding-nature-and-each-other?utm_source=Children+%26+Nature+Network+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=72df0cc625-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_05_28_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e0808fca17-72df0cc625-38389000&mc_cid=72df 0cc625&mc_eid=feed2723fa https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=97fe8582f7&e=c11dd06359 > [Twitter] https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=c72cf3f488&e=c11dd06359 > [Facebook] https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=e1d992703c&e=c11dd06359 > [Website] https://transportchoice.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2b249a2bd69f91b8eb0d59e9b&id=e2ce3096e5&e=c11dd06359 > Copyright © 2020 Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities, All rights reserved. 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