Editorial: Encouraging efforts for getting around
When a transportation expert says it’s a misconception to think that the suburbs are “completely inaccessible to bike and walk,” it’s important to keep in mind that the chief misconception resides in the word “completely.” Remove that word, and the conception is not so far off the mark.
It was encouraging to read the report this week in which Daily Herald Transportation Writer Marni Pyke quoted Dan Persky, an official with the Active Transportation Alliance, as he described advances being made in the suburbs toward more safety and convenience for people who want to traverse our towns by some other, healthier means than the expensive, smog-spewing automobile.
It was encouraging to note the commitment that Schaumburg -- a town where rows of automobile dealerships and a mega-shopping mall misleadingly beget the stereotype of a traffic-glutted bedroom community -- has demonstrated to make the entire community accessible by bicycle.
It was encouraging to note the specific advances made in this regard by communities like Des Plaines and Hoffman Estates, and we know that many other suburban towns also are placing ever-increasing emphasis on providing bicycle and hiking paths.
These are all wonderful advances for anyone who cares about recreation, personal health or simply the ease of getting around town. But as anyone knows who makes a serious effort to move about routinely in some other conveyance than a motor-driven vehicle, such efforts are only the beginning and all too rare.
It should not go unnoticed that among the countywide efforts to promote greater opportunities for pedestrians and cyclists was a $16 million grant secured not by a transportation department but by the Cook County Health Department. Dedra Ries, assistant director of chronic diseases, pointed to increasingly worrisome obesity statistics to emphasize that improved access to public streets isn’t just a convenience but a way of enhancing “healthy living.”
In that spirit, health, transportation and planning authorities throughout the suburbs are fostering a so-called “complete streets” mentality designed to ensure that people can get wherever they need to go in their communities without necessarily having to jump in the van, SUV or even hybrid compact.
The Active Transportation Alliance’s “Communities for Complete Streets” campaign, Persky noted, aims to ensure that “a person with a disability waiting for a bus, a teenager walking to school or a worker biking to a job” can get where they’re going safely and easily.
To be sure, the automobile has been a central player in the growth and vitality of suburban communities, and community planning that has taken advantage of automobile travel’s strength is not to be discounted. But as our towns and our attitudes mature, it’s also important to continue to make room in our planning for alternatives that advance a healthy balance between the automobile and other means of getting around.
To see that so many communities share this thinking is, well, encouraging.