Bike Walk Oak Park is a new, informal group that encourages and advocates biking, walking, and transit in Oak Park.
Guest Bill McKenna, Oak Park Village Engineer, will discuss progress and challenges identified by the group at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21, at Oak Park Public Library, Main Branch, 834 Lake St., 1st Floor Community Room, in Oak Park.
A recently published scientific peer-reviewed study identified 4 high-impact lifestyle choices that produce the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The comprehensive study analyzed 39 peer-reviewed articles, carbon calculators and government sources to quantify the most high-impact personal lifestyle choices in developed countries.
Active Transportation Letter invites support for plans to narrow and improve Madison street: After years of outreach, public meetings and planning, Oak Park is moving forward with plans to narrow Madison and make it a more pleasant and safe street that is also more inviting for new development. The project has been approved, but a few residents are speaking out against the project and trying to persuade the village board to reverse course. It’s important for the village board to hear from us.
As a 20-year resident of Oak Park, I’m excited to share a number of changes coming to Oak Park that will improve conditions for biking and walking. A few weeks ago, the village board approved the Oak Park Neighborhood Greenways system as an addendum to its 2008 bike plan. Elements of the 2008 bike plan have already been adopted, such as significantly more and better bike parking near transit stations, bike lanes, wayfinding signs and creating a village government bike fleet.
Madison Street has long been a street that does not meet the expectations of safety for walking and biking for Oak Park. The Oak Park Board of Trustees will meet December 8 to discuss a plan to invest TIF money to redesign Madison Street. Let’s take this opportunity to make a significant difference in the degree of biking and walking friendliness in our community. Please see the letter/petition to OP Village Board.
Green Community Connections' upcoming Green Living & Learning Tour 2013 on September 28th offers participants the opportunity to visit an array of homes and gardens that employ a variety of sustainable living practices. Here are three unique tour stops that we wanted to highlight for you.
Ecological Design
807 Forest Ave, River Forest, Tour at 2:30 pm (#4 on 2013 Tour Map)
Ecological principles were designed and built into this sustainably built home - the first of its kind in the Oak Park/River Forest area. The home includes renewable energy, energy efficiency, water and resource conservation, and toxic free materials. It's water conservation features include rainwater catchment for irrigation, native landscaping, permeable driveway and water-saving faucets and showerheads. The homeowners have welcomed many visitors into their home since 2008 when it was built and look forward to this year's tour.
616 Wenonah, Oak Park, Tour at 4:00pm (#9 on 2013 Tour Map)
The Environmentalist’s Dilemma: Is it possible to keep your home warm in winter and cool in summer without doing a whole lot of damage to the environment? It is, and what's best, it's possible to do it on a reasonable budget. After sealing and insulating their house, the homeowners had the warmest winter in their home in 15 years and their energy bills were lower than they had ever been. Learn about air sealing and insulating and the fantastic rebates available to help make a more comfortable, environmentally friendly, (and valuable) home a reality. The Bonus: See a blower door test in action: a diagnostic tool designed to measure the air-tightness of buildings. and to help locate air leakage sites.
Biking Safely in an Urban Area & Biking Supports
Greenline Wheels, 105 S. Marion, Oak Park Drop-in: 1:00-3:00pm (#C on 2013 Tour Map)
Get tips on how to stay safe while biking in an urban area. Greenline Wheels’ safety experts are teaching safety and adventure as part of the Green Living & Learning Tour. Instruction focuses on basics such as checking and fitting gears, signaling, braking, and more. Greenline Wheels representatives will also familiarize participants with other biking supports that they offer.
For the end of the day, all are invited for a Harvest Picnic gathering at Field Park, hosted by Sugar Beet Co-Op. All are welcome to join us at 5:00 p.m. in the northwest corner of the park (Berkshire & Woodbine) for fresh food, fun, prizes and community!
For more information about the event, including registration information for all 18 sites, visit the tour page at Green Community Connections.
Saturday, Mar 2, 3P/Greenline Wheels, Oak Park - Tickets;
Sunday, Mar 3, 3P/Brown Cow, Forest Park - Tickets
2012/5 min
Follows the Chicago organization by the same name that removes discarded bikes from the waste stream and then rehabs the bikes for donation.
Saturday, Mar 2, 12:30P/
2012/60 min
Dr. Richard Jackson explains the link between our health and the way our communities — especially our suburbs — are designed. Obesity, asthma, diabetes and heart disease are all aggravated by the auto-centric way we live our lives today. It’s no secret that today’s generation of children are likely to have shorter lives than their parents because of their unhealthy lifestyles. It doesn’t have to be this way. Well-designed communities can improve both physical and mental health, as Dr. Jackson explains in this four-part public television series and the accompanying book. Searching for Shangri-La is part four of the series.
Public health has traditionally associated the “built environment” with issues such as poor sanitation, lead paint poisoning children, workplace safety, fire codes and access for persons with disabilities. If we are what we eat, it can also be said that we are what we build. We now realize that how we design the built environment may hold tremendous potential for addressing many of the nation’s – childhood and adult — current public health concerns. These include obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, depression, violence and social inequities.
Almost everything in our built environment is the way it is because someone designed it that way. The project’s goal is to offer best practice models to improve our nation’s public health by re-designing and restoring our built environment. Our country faces grave challenges in environment, economy and health. The banquet is over. “Easy oil” has disappeared, so too other resources are being depleted. And global heating increasingly will threaten human and species survival worldwide. Economies built on ever increasing consumption have contracted and secure incomes are unlikely to be available to working people for a long time, if ever. And our medical care costs will continue to escalate for reasons of technology and population aging, but particularly as the tripling of obesity and doubling of diabetes rates show their health and cost effects.
In Designing Healthy Communities PBS Series: Searching for Shangri-La, Dr. Jackson searches past and present America for healthy, sustainable communities of all sizes and shapes that can serve as models for the rest of the nation. His journey takes him to Roseto, PA, Prairie Crossing, IL, New York City, Charleston, SC, and the forgotten 1960s urban renewal project of Lafayette Park in Detroit, MI, the brainchild of 4 men, including visionary architect, Mies van der Rohe.
Also included are walkability expert, Dan Burden, and the 1960s, humorous but insightful, candid camera-‐style studies of people in public spaces by William Holly White.
Stefan Schaefer/2008/57 min (25 min clip)/FAMILY
Through interviews with leading historians, urban planners, and government officials, Contested Streets: Breaking New York City Gridlock explores the history and culture of New York City streets from pre-automobile times to the present. This examination allows for an understanding of how the city, though the most well served by mass transit in the United States, has slowly relinquished what was a rich, multi-dimensional conception of the street as public space to a mindset that prioritizes the rapid movement of cars and trucks over all other functions.
Central to the story is a comparison of New York to what is experienced in London, Paris and Copenhagen. Interviews and footage shot in these cities showcase how curtailing automobile use in recent years has improved air quality, mitigated noise pollution and enriched commercial, recreational and community interaction. Congestion pricing, bus rapid transit (BRT) and pedestrian and bike infrastructure schemes and looked at in depth. New York City, though to many the most vibrant and dynamic city on Earth, still has lessons to learn from Old Europe. Written by Stefan Schaefer.
