By John Kelly – Washington Post
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Not so good is the news that the intercounty connector might not have a continuous bike path along its 19-mile route in Montgomery County. Bad for the environment, planners say. As opposed to, say, the six-lane highway itself and the thousands of vehicles that will travel on it?
Let’s see: There’s too much traffic. There’s too much pollution. There’s too much fat. It seems to me that every new road that’s built around here — and plenty of old ones — should include dedicated bike lanes.
Of course, riding a bike in our area can get you killed. Car plus bike often equals disaster. If you’ll excuse an Oxonian memory, I never felt nervous cycling in Oxford, even when I was pedaling on a narrow, rain-slicked road with a double-decker bus looming inches from my right elbow.
The reason I didn’t feel nervous is because I knew the bus driver had been in my shoes before, maybe when he was a kid, maybe on his commute to work that very morning. When you’ve ridden a bike regularly, you look out for bikes.
That’s not the case here. We’ve severed our relationship with these sublime machines. Making it easier to cycle — by building bike lanes and bike paths — will help us reestablish it.
Continue reading “The Beauty of Bikes — Even Ugly Ones”
Weaving a web of biking trails
The state plans to establish a safe and accessible network of paths for bikers
[The Sun’s coverage of the State’s Strategic Trail Plan ref:https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20080729093118564
While I love trails, for the most part they cannot be everywhere we need them, we will be issuing an alert next week on our own strategic plan to make a dramatic difference in the bikeability of the region for a surprising low price tag. Stay tuned.]
Continue reading “Weaving a web of biking trails”
Friday evening ride
Six o’clock in the evening Sept. 5th, starting in front of City Hall, going to Druid Lake and back.
Join us by 6:00 Pm at City Hall -or- be at Droodle around 6:30 and pedal along for a while.
Be there or be an unfit shape for a bicycle wheel.
The fifth annual F as in Fat Report
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Adult obesity rates increased in 37 states in the past year, according to the fifth annual F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America, 2008 report (https://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2008) from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Rates rose for a second consecutive year in 24 states and for a third consecutive year in 19 states. No state saw a decrease. Though many promising policies have emerged to promote physical activity and good nutrition in communities, the report concludes that they are not being adopted or implemented at levels needed to turn around this health crisis.
More than 25 percent of adults are obese in 28 states, which is an increase from 19 states last year. More than 20 percent of adults are obese in every state except Colorado. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. In 1980, the national average of obese adults was 15 percent. Now, an estimated two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and an estimated 23 million children are either overweight or obese (the report does not include new state-level data for children this year).
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"America’s future depends on the health of our country. The obesity epidemic is lowering our productivity and dramatically increasing our health care costs. Our analysis shows that we’re not treating the obesity epidemic with the urgency it deserves," said Jeff Levi, Ph.D., executive director of TFAH. "Even though communities have started taking action, considering the scope of the problem, the country’s response has been severely limited. For significant change to happen, combating obesity must become a national priority."
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The report also provides an annual review of state and federal policies aimed at reducing or preventing obesity in children and adults. It shows that many policies are missing critical components or require a more comprehensive approach to be truly effective. Among the examples highlighted:
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— While the Dietary Guidelines for Americans were updated in 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) school meal program has yet to adopt the recommendations.
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— Ten states do not include specific coverage for nutrition assessment and counseling for obese or overweight children in their Medicaid programs (Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) benefits).
— Twenty states explicitly do not cover nutritional assessment and consultation for obese adults under Medicaid.
— Only Georgia and Vermont have specific guidelines for treating obese adults in their Medicaid programs. In Nebraska and South Carolina, the Medicaid programs specifically state that obesity is not an illness and is therefore not covered.
— Forty-five states allow using obesity or health status as a risk factor to deny coverage or raise premiums. Only five states do not allow using obesity or health status to deny coverage or raise premiums.
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The F as in Fat report concludes with a recommendation that the country set a national goal of reversing the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. To help achieve that goal, the report’s top recommendation calls on the federal government to convene partners from state and local governments, businesses, communities, and schools to create and implement a realistic, comprehensive National Strategy to Combat Obesity. Some key policy recommendations include:
— Investing in effective community-based disease-prevention programs that promote increased physical activity and good nutrition;
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— Increasing the amount and quality of physical education and activity in schools and childcare programs;
— Increasing access to safe, accessible places for physical activity in communities. Examples include creating and maintaining parks, sidewalks and bike lanes and providing incentives for smart growth designs that make communities more livable and walkable;
Continue reading “The fifth annual F as in Fat Report”
Waterfront Promenade essentially complete
by ROBBIE WHELAN – Daily Record
With the opening of a stretch of red cobblestones in front of the new Ritz-Carlton Residences, city residents now have access to more than six miles of almost uninterrupted waterfront public space around Baltimore’s harbor.
The Baltimore Waterfront Promenade, which begins in the shadow of the First Mariner Bancorp Tower in Canton and ends just before the Baltimore Museum of Industry in South Baltimore, has been in the works since the mid-1980s, when a series of urban renewal ordinances passed by City Council sought to extend the Inner Harbor’s pedestrian access to other parts of the harbor.
Each new piece of legislation, starting with the Inner Harbor Urban Renewal Plan and most recently including the Key Highway Urban Renewal Plan, has stipulated that all private development by the harbor must agree to an easement placed on 20 to 30 feet of public-access promenade space along the water.
Late last month, the city approved an easement for the section of promenade in front of the newly opened Ritz, which effectively completes the connection between the Inner Harbor and HarborView, a luxury condominium and townhome development.
“The idea, just generally, going way back is that after the Inner Harbor happened, and was successful, the thinking was to extend the promenade to the east and south into the neighborhoods, because we thought public access to the waterfront was a paramount idea and something we’d like to achieve,” said Robert M. Quilter, an architect with the city’s planning department and coordinator of the promenade project.
Quilter said that the key to ensuring waterfront access to the public is to legislate it.
Easement requirements are usually built into urban renewal plans, but if a development is not located within an urban renewal area, then the city ties the easement to an agreement called a Planned Unit Development.
Under a PUD agreement, which must be approved by the city, various zoning uses such as residential, commercial and retail can be grouped together on one property. Hale Properties’ Canton Crossing and Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse’s Tide Point projects are examples of developments built outside of urban renewal areas for which an easement was a contingency for PUD approval.
“The thing about the easements is, we realized that what had happened up to [the 1980s] was that everything that happened was on city-owned land,” Quilter said. “The promenades that were done at Harbor East were also on city land, but when you get to Fells Point and Canton and Key Highway, that was on private land so it became clear that [we] needed this easement mechanism to guarantee public access.”
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On a recent bicycle ride around the harbor from Canton to Locust Point, The Daily Record found that, save for four spots, the promenade is a continuous loop along the water.
They were a break in the brick-paved path behind the Captain James restaurant in Canton, the areas around the construction sites at Harbor Point and Harbor East’s Legg Mason/Four Seasons project, and a small fenced-off portion of Henderson’s Wharf in Fells Point.
In each of these cases, a quick detour, with minimal time spent contending with street traffic, returned the rider to the waterfront in just a few minutes.
Continue reading “Waterfront Promenade essentially complete”