Nationally known expert conducts walkability audit
by Angie Asam, Staff Writer
Nationally recognized expert on bicycle and pedestrian facilities and programs Dan Burden conducted a walkability audit in Rogers City last Friday. Dan and his wife Lys founded Walkable Communities, Inc. in 1996. Walkable Communities is a non-profit organization designed to promote walkability as the cornerstone of a successful and vibrant community. Rogers City was selected as one of 16 Michigan cities to receive an audit through the Michigan Department of Transportation.
Burden arrived at city hall around 10 a.m. and met with 14 city and state officials before taking a walking tour of Rogers City. The group walked and learned until a lunch at 12:30 at the Pavilion Grille. After the lunch Burden returned to city hall to compile the information into a report that he presented to the group at 2:30 p.m. in city hall. Burden brings many disciplines and issues together ? street design, traffic calming, public safety, bicycling and greenways ? to create a vision for creating healthy pedestrian and bicycle friendly communities. Burden became a Senior Urban Designer with Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Inc. in 2005.
According to Burden, Rogers City has a great bare-bones structure for walkability but needs some work to become a truly walkable community. A major focus for Burden was the water and the fact that Rogers City was designed in such a way that a majority of the streets go to the water, a good tool for a healthy community.
?You have got the right bones but are still void of elements to really draw people in,? said Burden. He saw many historical and landmark buildings, many of which he saw as recyclable buildings. He noticed wide streets lined with trees and a lot of sidewalks that need some major work.
Burden did not like seeing wide intersections and streets near the schools as they create problem areas for students, parents and motorists. ?For 50-70 years now all of our planning has revolved around the automobile. We now know this is as erroneous as Copernicus?s belief that the Earth was the center of the universe, human beings need to be the center of communities,? said Burden.
Suggestions Burden made for improving the walkability of Rogers City included creating medians or crossing islands in long intersections, particularly near schools. ?You put the island in the middle and make it very visible to the motorist and you narrow the street by doing so, making the motorist slow down without realizing it,? said Burden. He suggested that only 8 feet of road be paved and the gutter be expanded to make the width the motorist has to travel in only 13 feet. But with only 8 feet paved it seems narrower and the motorist will slow down. This way children only cross 13 feet at a time, decreasing the chances of a collision.
Burden encouraged those in attendance by saying many grants and foundations want to have a part in projects like this. He also encouraged creating new places for children in the town, something that attracts people to a community. ?There is good news for you, you haven?t had the money to destroy your town either. You have a main street, that is a lot better than some places I have been. Your main street needs some work though, it needs higher enclosure to make it more attractive,? said Burden.
Burden also spoke about the transparency of a downtown, the imageability, the human scale, the keen sense of room and the complexity of a downtown. Transparency involves building location and the number of windows a building has. Imageability is the quality of place in a downtown. Human scale is the idea that motorists should feel as though if they drive fast thr
Other ideas he proposed to make Rogers City more walkable were roundabouts, medians, back-in angle parking along streets, gateways to trails, 12-foot intersection crossings as well as the notion that wayfinding signage can be a very valuable tool. The city is currently working on a wayfinding signage project that will help with the walkability of the downtown and may consider looking at other ways to improve based on Burden?s audit and presentation.
Many of the improvements Burden mentioned can be done for a relatively low cost for the safety and attractiveness they would bring to Rogers City. Burden has done walkability audits in more than 2,500 cities and spent many years on the road in different cities conducting these studies.