Sep 6, 2006

WalkIcon Event: ProWalk/ProBike Conference

ProWalk/ProBike is a V.I.C. (very important conference)--a WalkIcon that's an event! Here's what Gary MacFadden, Director of Operations for the National Center for Bicycling and Walking had to say about the international confab's relevance for people like us who walk for sport, walk for recreation and walk for wellness.

Special thanks goes to Gary for taking time to share comments pre-conference as he also put finishing touches on the event that is being held in Madison, Wisconsin this year. Please go ahead and add your own comments to the dialog and, most important, visit the association site at http://www.bikewalk.org for more walking community insight and info.

WALKTOPIA: Speaking to the average citizen who walks for fun and recreation, what would you say is the main purpose of the national ProWalk/ProBike conference?

GM: The main purpose of the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference is to give pedestrian advocates and professionals (and their cycling counterparts) a forum for sharing their ideas, techniques, and technical information face to face. We have more than 170 presenters speaking during the three days of the conference and roughly 600 conference attendees registered as of this writing.

Many of those presentations are panel discussions and workshops. We also host four poster presentations during the three days; the posters generally cover more technical-oriented topics.

The "average citizen" you're talking about might find some of this stuff pretty dry, given that we're talking about how to finance sidewalks, what the widths and materials should be...pretty techey things like that. But we also have workshops and presentations that are more for encouragement, people talking about ways they've made their neighborhoods and communities more pedestrian friendly, for example.

And this year we're bringing in eight neighborhood advocates chosen from around the country who will sit down with the experts in a couple of sessions and talk with them about what they feel is needed in the way of programs at the very local level. That series is being run by our Active Living Resource Center, (www.activelivingresources.org).

WALKTOPIA: Speaking to the average person who may not walk nearly enough, if at all...what is the the most important expected conference outcome?

GM: We're trying to build the movement that will demand that our communities will make it mandatory for people of all ages to be able to safely and conveniently use methods of transportation (especially walking and bicycling) within the community, and stop designing all transportation facilities for the exclusive use of the automobile.

Kids should be able to walk to school safely if they live within, say, a mile. We should be able to walk or bike down to a corner grocery and get a quart of milk.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) just released traffic fatality numbers for 2005: all categories were up from the previous year. We killed 43,000-plus people in auto crashes. The number of pedestrian and bicycle deaths and injuries were up.

We need to get some better design into our communities now!

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