Mathilde Piard

NPR story about kids’ need to exercise ends up being about biking, traffic, and urban planning

Today NPR’s Morning Edition had another installment in their series On the Run: How Families Struggle to Eat Well and Exercise,

What I found really interesting is that this story, which was supposed to be about how parents struggle to make sure their kids get enough exercise, ended up being about biking, traffic, and urban planning. One mother talked about how she spends her afternoons in Los Angeles traffic, ferrying her two boys from one sporting activity to another. She explained that her eldest can’t really just bike around in her neighborhood because it’s not bike-friendly enough. The story also profiled two other moms, both in Portland, and I especially loved how both talked about the choices we make for ourselves, for our families, for our cities (emphasis is mine)

Fahrner and her family bike, walk or take public transportation everywhere. For them, exercise is something that happens as they live their daily lives, not something they schedule. Fahrner doesn’t even own a car.

“We basically mapped out where the schools are, where hospitals are, where places to shop are, and so we very conscientiously picked a neighborhood where we can walk to all these things,” she says

So when Fahrner is scheduling activities for her 10-year-old son, she looks at what’s available in her neighborhood, choosing sports at local parks and community centers.

She and her husband used to work 70-hour weeks in the high-tech industry in California, but when their son was born they decided to simplify their lives and moved to Portland.

“It’s a choice you have to make, and, yes, it’s hard obviously,” she says. “You need to look where your job is. But if you cut down your commute from two hours to one hour, you are much happier because you have more time for yourself … and your kids.”

Janelle McAvoy and her family are making the same kind of choices. She bikes to the grocery store with her 4-year-old daughter, Clover, in a trailer and sons Jack, 6, and Everett, 8, on their bikes.

[…]

And while she acknowledges that Portland is particularly pedestrian- and biker-friendly, McAvoy believes it’s because of the choices people here are making.

“If people drive more, there’s going to be the bigger parking lot and more space on the roads. If people walk more and ride their bikes more, [there will be] more bike racks because that’s what the people want,” she says.

3 events this Thursday of interest to nerds about cities, and Atlanta in particular

That would be Thursday, February 7th, 2013:

• First Atlanta Studies Meet Up. These quarterly meetings will showcase 2 Atlanta focused projects and bring together a group of folks interested in our city.

Hannah Palmer will present a mapping project created from her research on places destroyed by Atlanta’s airport.  Her book, “I’m From Here,” is about going home again, or what’s left of it. Many of the locations explored and documented in the book have been nearly erased from existence, so she created a map. An Atlanta native, Hannah Palmer is an artist and writer who is interested in the intersection of southern stories and urban landscapes.

Michael Page and Randy Gue will present on a project at Emory’s Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC) to create an application similar to Google Maps for Atlanta from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. Users will ultimately be able to add layers and tag attributes to a series of addresses in the historic city. This combination of GIS technology and unique datasets will change the way Jim Crow Atlanta is studied by allowing researchers to visualize social changes over time.

• Open House / Community Meeting to discuss Ponce De Leon Avenue makeover

Over the next few years, Atlanta’s Ponce De Leon Avenue is slated for several road improvement projects which will enhance roadway efficiency and expand mobility options for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles on the facility. Proposed improvements include roadway resurfacing, lane reconfiguration, ADA accessibility upgrades, connectivity to the Beltline and improved access to existing public transportation service. Improvements will be concentrated between Juniper Street and Briarcliff Road/Moreland Ave with street resurfacing extending beyond this scope. The City of Atlanta and Atlanta BeltLine are partnering with the Georgia Department of Transportation to coordinate these projects.

• BeltLine Run Club (happen about once/month - the February run will mark the one year anniversary of the run club!)

Join us for a 4 mile run as we head down the Eastside trail toward Irwin Street and back towards Park Tavern for some light appetizers, beer and fun! The Run/Walk will leave at 6:30pm and we will be meeting in the meadow behind Park Tavern.