- AT-Network - University of Manitoba Mailing Lists

Transit investments drive positive change
by Beth McKechnie 23 May '14

23 May '14

Interesting article on transit investments from the David Suzuki Foundation. Thanks to Jessica Jacques for sharing! http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2014/05/transit-investment… *From:* David Suzuki Foundation [mailto:subscribers@davidsuzuki.org] *Sent:* May-23-14 9:17 AM Transit investments drive positive change What makes a city great? Among other things, great cities welcome ethnic diversity, support and foster the arts, have access to venture capital to spur entrepreneurship and innovation and benefit from healthy environments that provide clean air and water. New York City is a driver of global finance and a hotbed of arts and culture. It's also known for green spaces, like Central Park and the award-winning High Line <http://go.davidsuzuki.org/s0Uh0410zD0I0V0E6U00N0U>. San Francisco is celebrated for its narrow streets, compact lots and historic buildings. These contribute to the city's old-world charm, but they're also the building blocks of a more sustainable, pedestrian-friendly urban form <http://go.davidsuzuki.org/DVV600J0UDz00h01400U0NE> that reduces the need for cars. The world's leading cities also owe their success to government investments in transit systems that move residents safely and affordably using a range of solutions, from light rail and subways to bus rapid transit networks. The latter include state-of-the-art fast vehicles that run in lanes separated from traffic. The City of Markham, north of Toronto, is building an impressive BRT network with rapid transit corridors<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/K00E6VD004hW0KNzU0100U0>for a fleet of modern and comfortable fast buses. Transit-oriented cities have better air quality with lower greenhouse gas emissions and benefit from reduced traffic congestion with shorter commuting times. Evidence even shows people in cities with a range of transportation options, like Vancouver, are less sedentary, get more exercise and are happier and healthier<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/ND00XVEN0001UhU0L060z04>as a result. There's growing recognition that prioritizing transit is crucial to moving a region forward. Since the 1970s, Curitiba, Brazil, a city of 1.9 million, has invested billions in its bus rapid transit network<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/f00hN040zY001D0EV0UMU06>. There, public transportation is fully integrated into planning decisions. High-density hubs with shopping centres and office buildings are located within walking distance of transit stations and commuters have access to a fleet of more than 2,000 modern, low-emission buses, servicing 390 routes that crisscross the city and connect it to surrounding communities. Eighty-five percent of Curitiba's residents use the BRT system<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/VzDN000Nh10U000V46EUZ00>, which has reduced car trips by a whopping 27 million a year. But you don't have to travel far to see how transit investments can improve residents' lives. In his book, Arrival City<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/P00000NV4D0U060i0zPU1E0>, Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders argues that easy access to transit, among other factors, is one reason Toronto's Thorncliffe Park<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/HV0000E00UQziU6041D001N>has avoided many social problems that plague similar inner-city neighbourhoods. Though most are recent immigrants, half speak a first language other than English and many are poor, Thorncliffe Park residents integrate well into Canadian society, and many enter the urban middle-class within a generation. Saunders believes this is in part because the neighbourhood is well connected to Toronto's downtown, with bus and subway routes, and easy access to schools, employment and other opportunities. Transit facilitates social and economic links to the core of the city and helps residents overcome the physical isolation that plagues many communities. Politicians are starting to recognize transit's importance<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/WV01R0D64020UNU00E0zi00>to the economic, social and environmental health of Canadian cities. It's even become a major issue in the Ontario election<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/e00z3U00000DVi0E61S4U0N>. Premier Kathleen Wynne committed $29 billion over 10 years in the recent budget to expand transit networks in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and other regions of the province, but the budget failed to pass. Other parties have committed to funding improved transit if they're elected, but all of them need to step up with concrete details and credible plans to ensure dedicated and sustained funding. More problematic is the reluctance of the major political parties in Ontario to consider new revenue tools<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/M00U0E0zVi61N00T40UD040>, such as modest increases in the gas tax or regional sales tax. Polls show most residents support increases in taxes and fees to improve transit<http://go.davidsuzuki.org/Y0N6i0U0U00Ez0004DV05U1>, and two expert panels studying the issue have recommended fiscal solutions such as these. Transit investments are a catalyst for change. They reduce barriers that strangle economic productivity and improve the well-being of commuters who would otherwise be stalled in gridlock. It's time to put people ahead of politics and support dedicated transportation investments in Ontario and other provinces. Doing so will transform the way our communities move and generate numerous other benefits. Effective transit and transportation solutions can spur economic productivity, protect the environment and improve quality of life. It's time to get moving. *By David Suzuki with contributions from Faisal Moola, Director General, Ontario and Northern Canada *

1 0

WFP - No Accident Part 6: Bumps in the road - Simple intersection fixes available (May23'14)
by Beth McKechnie 23 May '14

23 May '14

Bumps in the roadSimple intersection fixes available, but lack of cash and fear of backlash keep them from gaining traction <http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/become-a-member/> NO ACCIDENT SERIESBy: Mary Agnes Welch Part 6: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/no-accident/Bumps-in-the-road-2603… * * * * * Summary of links for No Accident series: No Accident - Part 5: Enforcement http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/the-burden-of-proof-260221091.html No Accident - Part 4: Slow zones http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/no-accident/in-the-slow-zone-26006… No Accident - Part 3: Bike lanes http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/fear--pedalling-259898271.html No Accident - Part 2: New York City's vision http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Caution--Safer-roads-ahead-25… No Accident - Part 1: The Problem http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/crash-consequences-259487791.html

1 0

WFP - No Accident Part 5: The burden of proof (May22'14)
by Beth McKechnie 23 May '14

23 May '14

The burden of proof For police, investigating and charging dangerous drivers is a tricky and frustrating process By: Mary Agnes Welch <http://greenactioncentre.ca/support/become-a-member/> No Accident - Part 5: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/the-burden-of-proof-260221091.html * * * * * In case you missed the earlier articles: No Accident - Part 4: Slow zones http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/no-accident/in-the-slow-zone-26006… No Accident - Part 3: Bike lanes http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/fear--pedalling-259898271.html No Accident - Part 2: New York City's vision http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Caution--Safer-roads-ahead-25… No Accident - Part 1: The Problem http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/crash-consequences-259487791.html

1 0

WFP - No Accident Part 4: In the slow zone - NYC has embraced speed reduction (May21'14)
by Beth McKechnie 21 May '14

21 May '14

In the slow zone NYC has embraced speed reduction, but experts question whether it would work here By: Mary Agnes Welch No Accident - Part 4: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/no-accident/in-the-slow-zone-26006… * * * * * In case you missed the first 3 parts: No Accident - Part 3: Bike lanes http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/fear--pedalling-259898271.html No Accident - Part 2: New York City's vision http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Caution--Safer-roads-ahead-25… No Accident - Part 1: The Problem http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/crash-consequences-259487791.html

1 0

The Atlantic: Fire Departments Are Standing in the Way of Good Street Design
by Patman, David 20 May '14

20 May '14

This is a common issue throughout North America... pitting walkability vs. design standards for fire engines. http://www.citylab.com/politics/2014/05/fire-departments-are-standing-in-th… David Patman, P. Eng. Transit Planner Winnipeg Transit | Service Development Division 421 Osborne Street | Winnipeg, Manitoba R3L 2A2 P: 204-986-5737 | dpatman(a)winnipeg.ca<mailto:dpatman@winnipeg.ca>

1 0

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Canadian kids need to be active throughout the day, in every way
by Jackie Avent 20 May '14

20 May '14

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Canadian kids need to be active throughout the day, in every way Green Action Centre supports global findings in the 2014 Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth Winnipeg, Manitoba; MAY 20, 2014 – Green Action Centre supports the 2014 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth, released today by Active Healthy Kids Canada and its strategic partners, ParticipACTION and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute – Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO). For the first time, the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card looked at how Canadian child and youth physical activity stacks up against 14 other countries and reveals Canada is among the top countries for having well-developed physical activity infrastructure and programs, but trails at the back of the global pack for overall physical activity levels. In Canada, we have successfully built sophisticated infrastructure and programs to support kids’ activity, but this alone is not enough to add up to an active population. The global comparisons highlight a need in Canada to examine our own culture of convenience. “Our society values efficiency—we build more, do more and impose more structure—but perhaps this approach is somewhat misguided when it comes to getting kids more active,” says Dr. Mark Tremblay, Chief Scientific Officer, Active Healthy Kids Canada. “A child’s day is so structured that there is no room for free play or walking or biking to school. Having plenty of local playgrounds is important, but what if they never get used? To increase daily physical activity levels for all kids, we must encourage a mix of opportunities, such as organized sport, active play and active transportation.” Jackie Avent, Coordinator of Manitoba’s Active and Safe Routes to School Program agrees. “Walking and wheeling to and from school is a great way for kids to incorporate physical activity into their day while having fun with friends, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from motorized vehicles and exploring their neighbourhood. School Travel Planning is an important way to learn about what schools and parents need to foster this behavior.” “Overall, child and youth physical activity levels remain alarmingly low—the Report Card tells us that only five per cent of five- to 17-year-olds are meeting the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines,” says Elio Antunes, President and CEO, ParticipACTION. “That’s why we need to encourage a wider variety of opportunities to improve the grade on kids’ physical activity levels, and in some cases we need to step back and do less. Many parents see active transportation and active play as inconvenient or unsafe, which results in kids spending their free time indoors being sedentary. In fact, these are great, cost-efficient ways to get kids moving more.” New Zealand and Mozambique lead the pack with “B” grades in Overall Physical Activity. The global comparisons reveal that New Zealand seems to have found success in providing a balance of opportunities for organized activities and active play, with most kids saying they spend an average of 78 minutes per day in free play. And, in Mozambique, where the majority of the population lives in rural environments, high physical activity levels consist largely of transport and domestic chores. “Considered in a global context, Canada is a developed country, but it might be fair to say Canada is overdeveloped when it comes to its physical activity infrastructure and programs for children and youth,” says Jennifer Cowie Bonne, CEO, Active Healthy Kids Canada. “Canada will never reap the benefits of our well-developed policies, programs and places unless we relax our grasp and give our kids room to move. Parents and families, policymakers, schools and community leaders must work together to make it easier for our kids to make the active choice, more often.” More on the global comparisons For its 10th anniversary Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth, Active Healthy Kids Canada brought research teams from 15 countries across five continents together to establish and compare grades, and seek solutions to the worldwide childhood inactivity crisis. Countries that participated in the international comparison process, based on the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card framework, included: Australia, Canada, Colombia, England, Finland, Ghana, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nigeria, Scotland, South Africa and the United States. The results of the global comparisons and Canada’s Report Card were shared with 700 international delegates at the first-ever Global Summit on the Physical Activity of Children, hosted by Active Healthy Kids Canada on May 19 to 22 in Toronto. Among the ten grades assigned to Canada, key grades and comparisons include: • “D-” for Overall Physical Activity – Mozambique and New Zealand lead with a B, and Scotland lags with an F. • “C+” in Organized Sport Participation – New Zealand leads with a B and Mozambique lags with an F. • “B+” in Community & the Built Environment – Australia leads with an A-, and Mexico and Mozambique lag with an F. • “D” in Active Transportation – Finland, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria lead with a B, and United States lags with an F. • “F” in Sedentary Behaviours – Ghana and Kenya lead with a B, and Scotland, South Africa and Nigeria also received an F. • “C+” in School – England leads with an A- and Colombia lags with an F. Full copies of the short-form and long-form Report Card, plus free presentations, articles and media materials can be found at www.activehealthykids.ca. GreenAction Centre is a non-profit, non-governmental organization focused on greener living at home, at work, at school and in the community. We share a greener, better living message through the delivery of community programs, events, education and policy work. -30- For more information or to arrange an interview please contact: Jackie Avent Active and Safe Routes to School Program Coordinator Green Action Centre 3rd Floor, 303 Portage Avenue Winnipeg, MB R3B 2B4 204-475-1327 (cell) jackie(a)greenactioncentre.ca -- Jackie Avent | Active and Safe Routes to School Green Action Centre 3rd floor, 303 Portage Avenue | (204) 925-3773 | Find us here Green Action Centre is your non-profit hub for greener living. Support our work by becoming a member

1 0

WFP - No Accident Part 3: Fear & pedalling - protected bike lanes best 'vaccine' for cyclist deaths (May20'14)
by Beth McKechnie 20 May '14

20 May '14

Fear & pedalling: protected bike lanes best 'vaccine' for cyclist deaths By: Mary Agnes Welch http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/fear--pedalling-259898271.html * * * * * In case you missed the first 2 parts, here are the links: No Accident - Part 2: New York City's vision http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Caution--Safer-roads-ahead-25… No Accident - Part 1: The Problem http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/crash-consequences-259487791.html

1 0

WFP: Want to get creative? Take a walk (May18'14)
by Beth McKechnie 19 May '14

19 May '14

Want to get creative? Study suggests a walk By: Deborah Netburn http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/health/want-to-get-crea… LOS ANGELES -- If you find yourself in a creative slump, scientists have a suggestion: Take a walk. People generate more creative ideas when they walk than when they sit, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. "Everyone always says going on a walk gives you new ideas, but nobody had ever proved it before," said Marily Oppezzo, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University and the lead author of the study. In fact, Oppezzo got the inspiration for the research while she was taking a stroll as a graduate student with her thesis adviser, Stanford University education professor Daniel Schwartz. To measure creativity, Oppezzo recruited 176 people and gave them various verbal tests. For instance, some volunteers were asked to come up with alternative uses for a common item, like a button. Oppezzo defined a creative response as one that was both appropriate (a button could serve as a tiny strainer or the eye for a doll, but it wouldn't work as a light bulb) and original, meaning no one else in the study had said it. In the first experiment, volunteers were asked to complete the creativity test twice -- first while sitting at a desk in a small room for four minutes, and then while walking on a treadmill for the same amount of time. Researchers found 81 per cent of participants improved their creative output when walking. Walkers were more talkative than sitters, but Oppezzo said the increased output of creative ideas while ambulatory was not simply the result of having more ideas in general. "We took everything they said and divided the total creative ideas by the total ideas mentioned," she said. "Walkers had more thoughts, but they also had a higher density of creative thoughts than sitters." To see whether walking improves brainpower overall, Oppezzo and her team had volunteers complete a task that measures convergent thinking. Study participants were given three words and asked to come up with another word that would combine with each of them to make a common phrase. For example, "Swiss," "cake" and "cottage" can all be combined with "cheese." On this test, volunteers performed slightly worse when walking compared with when sitting. That led the researchers to conclude the cognitive benefits of walking were specific to creative thought. In subsequent experiments, the researchers found this creative boost can linger for a period of time. People who took the creativity test while walking, and then while sitting, came up with more creative ideas in their chairs compared with other seated volunteers who hadn't gone for a walk. To make sure this wasn't just a sign the volunteers were getting used to the test, the researchers asked some participants to take the test twice and remain seated both times. Under those conditions, test performance did not improve with experience. In another set of experiments, the researchers found walking inside was just as good for creativity as walking outside, although being outdoors made participants more talkative. In the final experiment, Oppezzo tried pushing volunteers around the Stanford campus in wheelchairs and compared their creativity with that of volunteers who went for a walk outside, those who walked indoors on a treadmill and those who sat inside a lab room with no view of the outdoors. The results were clear: Walking (whether inside or outside) trumped sitting (either inside or outside). Other researchers said they found the results convincing, especially because they were confirmed in four different experiments. Jennifer Wiley, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, who was not involved in the study, said Oppezzo's results were in line with what she called the "bed, bath, bus and bar syndrome." "When we take a break from active perusal of solutions and go about our other daily activities, new ways of thinking about the solution may pop into our minds," she said. But Wiley and others were at a loss to explain why walking seemed to enhance creativity. Perhaps walking increases arousal in the brain, said Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who wasn't involved in the study. If so, that would explain why most volunteers became more chatty when they were ambulatory, he said. Oppezzo thinks it's possible that walking interferes with the brain's ability to filter thoughts. "We really don't know," she said. Oppezzo and Schwartz intend to continue their research into the connection between walking and creativity. "We've had many walking meetings to think about future ideas," Oppezzo said. -- Los Angeles Times Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 18, 2014 A6

1 0

No Accident Part 2: New York plans to eliminate all traffic deaths - but could it work for Winnipeg? (May17'14)
by Beth McKechnie 18 May '14

18 May '14

*NO ACCIDENT* *NEW YORK PLANS TO ELIMINATE ALL TRAFFIC DEATHS — BUT COULD IT WORK FOR WINNIPEG?* By employing a strategy embracing community outreach, city planning and increased enforcement, New York City has set the ambitious goal of bringing traffic deaths to zero. But can the Big Apple’s plan achieve the same effect in our city? By: Mary Agnes Welch http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Caution--Safer-roads-ahead-25…

1 0

Something droolworthy for Friday
by Stacy Matwick 16 May '14

16 May '14

Skylock - bluetooth enabled lock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gyLPjDakAc Happy Friday Stacy Matwick

1 0