| Lack of physical activity is a leading cause of current and projected heath problems in the USA. But is the solution simply to tell people to exercise more? There was time when we got all the exercise we needed in our daily lives, most of it by simply moving around - walking was a basic form of transportation. In the past 60 years things have changed - we have designed our streets, our neighborhoods and cities around automobile travel - a type of transportation that requires no physical effort whatsoever!
So if we are to encourage Americans to walk or bicycle more, as part of their daily routine, we have to rethink the way we've built our streets, our neighborhoods and our cities. We need to advocate for change in our communities.
Michael Ronkin will expose the flaws in our current transportation planning philosophy, and will propose some simple solutions, that can be applied from the ground up, enabling us to reclaim our streets from traffic and make them once again places where people, not cars, can flourish. |