Pedaling Towards a Healthier Planet: Alternative Transportation Planner Comes to Bellingham

Alyssa Fritz is Marketing and Development Coordinator at RE Sources for Sustainable Communities.

If you choose to walk, ride your bike or take public transportation at least one day a week, you will prevent up to 900 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the air every year. Cutting back on driving, especially when traveling by yourself, is generally the most effective action you can take to reduce your carbon footprint. Walking or biking is beneficial to your health, the environment, and the community.

Roughly 18 percent of Bellingham citizens currently bike, ride the bus or walk as their primary mode of transportation. Still, for many, these options may seem like an unfamiliar, inconvenient and possibly dangerous venture. Unfortunately, this won’t change unless the community does.

A community designed for people and bikes instead of cars replaces parking lots with parks, and roads with trails and sidewalks. These simple planning changes can help reduce our reliance on cars, and thereby reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But how can individuals and community members improve the infrastructure of a community and promote sustainable transportation choices?

This question is the reason that RE Sources for Sustainable Communities is teaming with the Western Washington University’s Office of Sustainability to bring Mia Birk, nationally-acclaimed transportation planner and author of Joyride: Pedaling to a Healthier Planet, to Bellingham.

This free public event will take place on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 7 p.m. in the Western Washington University Viking Union Multi-Purpose room. During this hour-long community presentation Mia will read excerpts from her book, discuss her personal journey to integrate cycling into her daily life and share her inspirational ideas for healthier communities.

Following the presentation, from 8-8:30 p.m., there will be an information fair featuring local organizations and advocacy groups who specialize in alternative transportation programs and topics. Mia will also stay on-hand to sign copies of her book.

Joyride: Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet is the story of Mia’s twenty- year crusade to integrate bicycling into daily life, and illustrates how she led a revolution that made Portland, Oregon into the #1 American cycling city. Mia was the City of Portland’s Bicycle Program Manager from 1993-99, where she led a period of rapid growth in Portland’s successful bikeway network.

As a consultant Birk has been involved across North America in hundreds of bicycle, pedestrian, trail and corridor plans. She has orchestrated the implementation of many new bikeways and walkways through establishing bicycle and pedestrian-friendly development codes, as well as programs such as Safe Routes to School, bike and walkway maintenance and bike-transit integration.

Birk has led numerous groundbreaking studies in the field of non-motorized transportation, and is a co-founder of the Cities for Cycling project of the National Association for City Transportation Officials. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer and Principal at Alta Planning and Design in Portland, Oregon, a planning and design firm, which strives to make biking and walking integral parts of our daily lives.

RE Sources for Sustainable Communities would like to thank our Cornerstone Sponsor, Sanitary Service Company, for their generous support of this project. Other sponsors include Western Washington University’s Office of Sustainability, Kulshan Cycles, Recycling and Disposal Services, EverybodyBike, A-1 Builders, Village Books, Starfish Environmental Consulting, Wilson Engineering, The Village Inn and Nimbus Restaurant.

For more information about this event please visit RE Sources for Sustainable Communities’ website: www.re-sources.org or contact Hannah Coughlin Hannah@re-sources.org. §