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WATERlOOamIB' . WM12,2012'8 I Law 0 ' I ‘ . . - ‘ A I We w‘% m I I i H "“”“ ”w" 519442.312 A more pedestrian way of life 0 O O O 0 Sustainability writer walks the streets ofWaterloo and argues for a redesrgn Br [was buxom r “ « -â€""""" ‘I'! r” dents are still leery of the investment. ,.s-__.____‘:""’"lf£‘ififlflieee.d_., ‘ The proposed road diet on Lexington .- Road in Waterloo has also been put on hold Imagine for a moment that you had to ' pending a report from stafi given concerns walk to work every day. that the installation of bike lanes will inter- lluw long would it take you? An hour? fete with traffic movement -â€"â€" namely cars. No hours? Maybe just twenty minutes? The issue of urban design has become so Unless you live and work in uptown Watch . important that the city is hostingan uptown loo or downtown Kitchener. your answer ‘ ,_ a . . transportation summit on Sept. 19. would probably be closer to the latter. “ ’ ’ For Turner. there is no debate over the And if someone asked you to describe role of public transit in any large city. your route to work. how descriptive would “i have not come across any city that has you be? Could you name every shop on regretted layingLRTtracks.” Turner said. “It’s every corner. or does the commute blur by a net positive across the board." as you sit behind the wheel of your car? He said there is often reluctance to spend Chris Turner has begun asking himself huge sums of money on these types of pro} these questions more frequently and the ects up from. but we already spend a stag- Calgary-based author, public speaker and gering amount of money on road infrastruc‘ sustainability advocate thinks we should he ture for cars and trucks. he argued. asking them of ourselves a little more often. He said major cities around the world Turner‘s interest in the walkability ol‘ have already initiated the shift away from cities grew after he began exploring a coir Events like Open Streets Uptown Waterloo give residents a taste of a carefree society, and cars and trucks and back towards more > top! known as the Marchetti Constant. shouldn‘t be the exception to the rule for pedestrians, says sustainability author Chris Turner. pedestrian-friendly modes of transportav Developed by ltalian physicist Cesare Msucnou’wmo tion. Marchetti and first published in 1994. the he said the walk in KW was uninviting. was the way the car could increase the space in 2009. Times Square in New York City Marchetti Constant suggests that through “There were old chain-link fences that commuters could travel while still adhering was closed to vehicle traffic and the results out our history, humans have aimed to trap the garbage and the weeds.” he said. to Marchetti's Constant.’l\trner said. have been impressive. It has become an spend no more than about an hour com- “That is one of the clearest signals you can “It doesn't matter if the time is spent urban space for pedestrians to enjoy and muting every day. send to a pedestrian that the landscape was walking. in a street car. on a bus or in a car. traffic flows on surrounding roads have Centuries ago that meant cities were meant to be zipped by. as longas it's an hour.“ he said. actually been improved as a result, Turner densely populated and everything from iobs “Everything about the environment was As cities grew and built new infrastruc- said. _ to the local market was within walking dis- saying ‘don't walk here'.” ture, planners maximized that constant to in Denmark. planners recently opened tance. liven up until the 19th century. the As he walked north on King Street against the automobile. Turner said city planners the country's first “superhighway” for bicy- horse was an unaffordable luxury for most the biting November wind. he made his way and commuters make the mistake of assum- Cleo between the capital. Copenhagen. and and travel by rail or ship was reserved for past parking lots and fast-food restaurants ing that what is good for cars is good for the nearby suburb of Albertslund. The 18- long distanceâ€"ioumeys. along the “cracked and uneven” sidewalks people, when the opposite isusuaily true. kilometre route is equipped with air pump Yet with the invention and widespread and set to the “constant roar of motor vehi‘ Turner gives the examples of quaint stations. rest areas for fatigued bikers and it accessibility of the automobile during the cle engines.“ he wrote. European cafes or Greenwich Village in New heady endless succession of green lights to 20th century. city boundaries could be He said he passed maybe a half-dozen York City; desirable places for tourists and keepcydetraflic moving. greatly expanded while still allowing other pedestrians during his 40-minutewalk residents alike to go for a stroll. stop for a A couple of times a yeaI'Water‘loo gets a humans to stay within Marchetti's Constant. and another half-dozen or so waiting at bus drink and chat with friends small taste of that pedesulm~friendly shin last year Turner took a walk north along stops. While the streets of Waterloo were This appeal isn't an accident â€"â€" these are with its Open Streets initiative, but closing King Street. one of the main commuter slightly more inviting to pedestrian than the environments scaled down to the human King Street to vehicle traffic for just a couple arteries that connects Kitchener with Water~ north end of Kitchener. he said the region experience where person-to-person interacâ€" of hours every year is just the tip of the loo, to test how far he could go while still faces the same challenges as nearly every don is more important than ease of parking iceberg. sticking to the constant. other city in North America; trying to get or the maximization of traffic routeshesald Canadians continue to cling to one He walked from the train station in Kitch- commuters out of their cars and onto their “There is a huge premium on great urban excuse for not hiking or walking to work ener to uptown Waterloo. just past Bridge feet or bicycle. space in cities. and we recognize at a deep more than any other. the cold depths of port Road. to see just how walkable the it's a challenge compounded by the fact level that we're social animals and want to winter. but Turner said that argument no space between the two areas is. and what that ‘anythlng bullt after the 1950: is make contact with other people.‘ firmer longer holds any weight. if commuters in the two cities looked like from a purely increasingly hostile to anything but can." said. adding we've lost that contact by movâ€" northern countries like Sweden. Denmark WWW. Wraald. ingolftheddmlhandhrtoourcan. andNorwaycanleadthewayinmtalmble He took similar strollntluougb downtown The economic and technological boom Region and city planners alike have pedestrian tunic. why can't Canadians? Calgary, Toronto. Ottawa and Montreal. and that followed the Second World War led to sought to turn Kitchener and Waterloo into [I there was the will to make meaningful publiahed his thouvtts in a recent edid0n of the enormous growth of suburban neigh- more pedestrian-friendly cities, but the change. wewouidtlnd the way. he said. Canadian Wit: magazine. in a phone bourhoods and the spread that we know ongoing debate summdlna light rail transit 'Here’s a crazy thought. What if we had interview from his Calgary home last week. today. One at the reasons behind that sprawl highlights the fact many drivers and real- heated bus stops? he asked. ’ D ~ . . G I N A S m- In man- out in . Sillilll Isl N “Illillofl 5|! "6 7090 l IIIIIM {II M