In New York, Walking is Transportation
Over the weekend I brought you the story of Jimmy Justice, a loud man with a video camera on a mission to give NYC law enforcement officials a piece of their own medicine. Today I want to share the story of a friend of mine, a lifelong New Yorker, Dan Icolari.
Dan, now in his mid 60s, grew up in Manhattan during the time you’d see folks like Jane Jacobs and Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul & Mary) out on the street in Greenwich Village. In fact, Dan saw both!
He and his lovely wife Ellen, also born in Manhattan, now live in a wonderful home in the borough of Staten Island, a not too far walk from the ferry. They raised their sons in Brooklyn.
The image of Dan, at right, is of course on the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn’t take this shot as I am the one in the orange shirt seen in the background. Having walked with Dan around New York, across one of the most famous bridges and through the neighborhoods of Brooklyn I can tell you he is one experienced walker. And fast!
Dan has been a reader of my blog for sometime now, and has written for NYC’s StreetsBlog so it was no surprise to me when Dan decided to begin writing about walking in his new blog, Walking is Transportation:
The goal of this weblog is to get people to think of walking as more than exercise–as, in addition, an alternative form of transport, one that merits a place in any discussion of transportation policy and planning. Like bicycling.
Like most in NYC, Dan doesn’t drive or own a car. But Staten Island isn’t exactly SoHo when it comes to an urban lifestyle. But after a good walk you are at the Staten Island Ferry terminal and headed to Manhattan. While many others take transit or bicycle, Dan enjoys a good brisk walk — for miles. Sure, Dan takes transit at times, and depending upon distance, but his main mode of transit is himself.
It wasn’t always this way for Dan, a semi-retired advertising executive. From an entry on his site:
I used to drive. I actually owned a car–even though I live in New York, said to be the most walkable of American cities and one blessed with great public transit. Despite all that, like most American drivers, I was convinced my personal mobility–my Freedom, for heaven’s sake–depended on the pathetic hunk of steel, plastic and rubber parked outside my door.
Exactly. The freedom of getting from A to B under your own power is a wonderful feeling. Granted, it takes the right shoes or the feeling may not be so great! If you want to learn more about walking as a form of transportation I suggest you follow the writings of Dan Icolari.
Walking and biking creates a “green dividend” that is distributed to the whole community. The funds not used to support autocentrism are then distributed in more productive ways as reported to the organization known as CEO for Cities. SEE: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1187576751202450.xml&coll=7&thispage=1
The extra benefit of living a healthy life style also impacts our brains according to recent neurological studies. Exercise helps create a stronger and faster brain and even impacts the structure of our brains. The latest study has hit the world of neurological world “like a thunderclap” as reported in the NYTimes. SEE: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/sports/playmagazine/0819play-brain.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187542873-HzXBXHfqF3ox5eAAmkCFVg&oref=slogin
Locally we have been expanding, not shortening, travel distances thus making the area more dependent on autos. Perhaps this lack of activity explains why we’re doing so poorly in our decision making.
CMT has a walking program that links walking with public transit called the 10 Toes Express program. Our initial outreach targeted individuals over 60. We have had more than 900 people sign up for the program.
We have over 50 destinations mapped out at http://www.cmt-stl.org/tentoes/ten_toes.html. The idea is that by using public transit you get more exercise which leads to better health. We will kickoff the fall program at Kiener Plaza noon September 26.
It seems to me that I read a rather lengthy piece in the NYT on walking through NY. Did this article mention Dan? I am almost certain I read the piece in the past 12 months or so. I certainly wish I could remember details like this.
Mark R.:
To my knowledge, the NY Times has never written a word about me and walking. But . . . this past weekend, in the Times’s “City” section–which is available online–there were two articles about walking.
One, by Alex Marshall, an editor/writer at the Regional Plan Association (and a writer for Streetsblog as well), featured interviews with four long-distance walkers. Though none of the interviewees mentioned walking as transportation per se, two of them talked about walking to and from work–both, if I recall correctly, taking pretty substantial daily treks.
In New York, we are seeing the beginnings of some very major change–starting with a new and very progressive team at the city’s Department of Transportation, whose new commissioner is an active cyclist.
Congestion pricing, which you’ve no doubt heard about, is another positive development, one that’s conditionally funded by the feds–and this is just to get the project underway–at $325 million.
And more bike lanes and walkways are planned or in place in every borough.
Maybe best of all, there’s the proposed decommissioning, or whatever it’s called, of the most underutilized highway in the city–the Sheridan Expressway, which duplicates roadways all around it and aggravates the already disastrous levels of children’s asthma in the South Bronx, where it’s located.
The recent proliferation of articles on walking–in the Times and in many other New York-area print and online media–confirms that change is underway on the biped front, too.
It’s a new day.
Great article. I was able to get both Bicycle and walking added to the Clean Air Challenge! Give it a try at:
http://www.cleanair-stlouis.com/pledgeForm.html
They have prizes and trip to Mexico!
Keep Cycling or Walking!