Wow, where to begin. There were so many good things to come out of today’s activities that I really can’t report on all of them this evening. The day was long and FULL. I learned great information, heard wonderful ideas, made fabulous contacts… America Walks has created a “think tank” for walking.
Some contacts to follow up on are Walk Boston – they teach their *youth* to use their City’s app (like RequestIndy) and engage them in assessing their neighborhoods. They have offered up their research and information and we will certainly be taking them up on it.
Sole-Steppers of New Orleans? Started by one “established” resident who was tired of being scared to walk – she reached out to AARP and now there are 14+ “Sole Steppers” walking clubs in the City.
Jonah Berger, author of “Contagious” spoke about “Why Things Catch On” and we were challenged to come up with how to make walking contagious. His book (which we each received a copy of) breaks down the science of making something popular and there are steps that we can apply to walking as easily as it can be applied to a brand of soup. There are chapters on Social Currency (we share things that make us look good), Triggers (keeping something at the top of the mind and the tip of the tongue), Emotion (when we care, we share), Public (built to show, built to grow), Practical Value (news you can use) and the use of Stories (like trojan horses, information travels under the guise of idle chatter). The book is going to be an amazing read and I look forward to coming up with answers on how to make walking popular (and hearing what other attendees come up with).
I have pages of scribbled notes like “quarterly walks where the City Engineer takes you through a new project – connecting people with the “powers-that-be” and forming bonds.” Or how about the push to make October a National Walking Month (“Walktober”). Did you know the State of Minnesota has SEVEN people tasks with bike/pedestrian efforts? I’m very curious how many Indiana has (hey, our weather is more conducive to both activities for a much larger percentage of the year!). TOTAL Health isn’t just vital signs; it’s complete mental, social, physical health. If one doctor talks 250 patients into doing their 30 minutes of walking a day, they will walk a cumulative total of 1 million miles in a year. If 10,000 doctors each talk to 250 patients…. let’s walk a BILLION miles in a year! Make it so!
Walk 21 is a *global* organization for walking. They recently held their *14th* annual conference (it is in a different City every year). They focus on vision, voice, vocation (I’ll read up on that and get back to you). The organization doesn’t ask a City if they will host the conference – cities come to *them* and have to meet stringent criteria – they have to have a flame that can be fanned so successes can come from having the conference there. For 2014, Sydney Australia approached them saying “We can’t afford to NOT become more walkable.”
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“How long have you been infected by the car virus?”
“Transit is useless if you can’t get to it.”
“If you want to promote transit, you must also promote walking.”
“Sitting is the new smoking.”
“If your City code doesn’t require walkability, you won’t *get* walkability.”
“There are ‘canned’ people (in cars) and ‘fresh’ people (out walking). We all know that fresh is healthier than canned!”
And lots and lots of studies in statistics. Here is one that blew my mind… “The more people out walking the *less* likely you are to have vehicle/pedestrian fatalities.” Good to know!
I can go on… and on… and on… but I need to get some dinner and get to bed early. Tomorrow is “Walk the Hill” day – going to see if I can get some time in front of our Representatives and Senators (there have been cancellations due to the shutdown, but here’s hoping).