El Paso lags far behind peer cities for biking and walking

Click on image to enlarge.

Here's a press release from Ben Foster of VeloPaso:

Nationwide study on biking and walking shows El Paso lags far behind peer cities 

El Paso ranked among deadliest city for bicyclists and pedestrians, lowest levels of biking and walking, least amount of bicycle infrastructure

"El Paso ranks among the highest in bicycle-pedestrian fatality rates, lowest in bicycling and walking levels, and dead last in bicycle infrastructure per square mile, according to the latest benchmark report on Bicycle and Walking in the United States which collects and analyzes data on the country's 51 largest cities. (See attached excerpts from report.)

“El Paso's leading in all the wrong indicators,” said Victor Cordero, vice president of the Velo Paso Bicycle-Pedestrian Coalition. “Behind these numbers we find a mom who can’t bike down the street with her family or let her kids walk to school without feeling like she’s endangering their lives. It's unacceptable and entirely preventable."

The report is published by the Alliance for Biking and Walking, a nonprofit based in Washington DC that initiated the Benchmarking Report Project, in 2003, in order to improve access to biking and walking data. The benchmark report analyzed uniform national data sources from public agencies and organizations, as well as state and local surveys, collected in 2011 and 2012.

As data collection methods become standardized and more refined, the benchmark report is able to show how biking and walking impacts a whole host of factors previously too difficult to measure.

Health: Lower levels of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity were found in cities with higher shares of commuters who bike or walk to work.

Safety: Lower bicycle-pedestrian fatality rates were found in cities with higher shares of commuters who bike or walk to work.

Economy: Increased sales for businesses, higher commercial and residential property values and lower vacancies were found in locations with enhanced walking and biking facilities.

Bicycle and pedestrian advocates see this as a sobering wake up call and an opportunity for El Paso to make great strides in a short amount of time.

“I expect to see a reversal in these trends through the Bike Advisory Committee and renewed efforts by private and public leaders to address these urgent problems,” said Scott White, Velo Paso’s policy director and member of the City of El Paso's Bike Advisory Committee. “Doing nothing is no longer an option because we can see that the old way of building roads, streets, and development led us to a dead end. A bikeable and walkable El Paso is good for our economy and good for the general health of our community.”

The first step, according to advocates, is to implement the recommendations developed by the League of American Bicyclists during their on-site assessment in February 2014. The recommendations range from “connecting a network of bike lanes and bike boulevards with sharrows and appropriate signage until protected bike lanes can substitute” to “reduce speeding through street design, public information campaigns & enforcement especially near schools and commercial districts.”

The next step is to attend TxDOT’s Texas Transportation Plan 2040 open house at the El Paso Multi-Purpose Center Ballet Room 9031 Viscount, El Paso, TX 79925, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

Advocates call on TxDOT and El Paso DOT to move away from building capacity strictly for cars to prioritizing safety and accessibility by building roads for all modes of transportation.


See the full report here: http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/2014BenchmarkingReport.pdf"

Note where El Paso ranks with bicycle infrastructure:

Click on image to enlarge.

Of the 52 largest U.S. cities, El Paso is 44th in commuter bicycling and walking but in the top 10 (number 8) for highest pedestrian/bicyclist fatality rates. When it comes to people getting recommended physical activity, El Paso has no current data in spite of setting a goal of reducing obesity and diabetes - a goal it must be said that was mere window dressing.

As you DRIVE around El Paso (perhaps enjoying some of those hardscape eye-candy features brought to you by TxDOT), how often have you seen any of this specialized infrastructure?

Click on image to enlarge.

The Friday Video: Dr. Jackson on the Built Environment

We talk a lot about doing something about obesity and diabetes here in El Paso. We set goals and say that we want to be a healthier community. A huge step in that direction would be to start immediately to implement Plan El Paso and to pass smart code and the drainage design manual. Instead, we obey the building sprawlers whose vision for El Paso was forged in the 1950s with interstate highways, V-8 automobiles, and twenty-five cent per gallon gasoline. Walking, riding a bike and other recreations are just not freedoms these big guys don't want us to have. It threatens even each farthing (one-fourth of a penny) in their treasure chests.

Here's why having more building and transportation freedom and less sprawl would be healthier for us:

MPO Approves $2.3 Million for Bicycle Programs and Infrastructure

Here's the good news from last Friday's MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization / Transportation Policy Board) meeting: $2.3 million for El Paso bicycle programs was approved.  This follows Tuesday's decision by El Paso City Council to fund bicycle sharing.  On hand were what one observer described as "many young (and not so young) energized, eloquent and inspirational El Pasoans who spoke about the need for bicycle lanes, connectivity, quality of life and access to parks." 

VeloPaso, El Paso's Bike Pedestrian Coalition, presented two documents. The first showed the how obesity (an epidemic in El Paso) falls with increased cycling and walking.

VeloPaso Health Handout on Obesity

Their second document shows El Paso's bicycle friendly policies and El Paso's room for improvement.

VeloPaso Handout 090713

Bicycle Advocate "Rider Strong" filed this report about the MPO meeting:

"The MPO Transportation Policy Board approved $2.3 million in citywide bicycle infrastructure and programs over the next three years. Several bike advocates voiced their support for bike funding, while countless others called and emailed their representatives, before and during the meeting. 

"Bicycle advocates in El Paso received an urgent 24-hour Action Alert from Bike Texas, the state's largest bicycle advocacy organization, after doubts were raised about the fund's security.

"'Infrastructure and bike programs will not only help the [City of El Paso's] new bike share program,' said Ben Foster, board member of Velo Paso, a bicycle pedestrian coalition, 'but it will inspire people to dust off their bikes sitting in their garage and ride to work, school, parks and maybe even to an Aardvarks [minor league baseball] game.'

"Plans for the $60.8 million Triple-A ballpark include 80 bike racks, a requirement for LEED certification.

"Rep. Marisa Marquez (D-77), a novice cyclist whose district includes Downtown, UTEP and neighborhoods around Fort Bliss, asked whether there were beginner bike classes she could attend and share with her constituents. 
Bicycle funds approved today could go towards education initiatives and bike classes for adults and children. These funds, considered by city officials as "seed money" for the city's new bicycle program, could also be applied toward the city's first bicycle master plan.

"'An advocacy presence may have saved this pot of money from being diverted to other projects' said a city official.

"The $2.3 million dollars in funding represents a mere 1.5% of total TIP monies authorized for the next three years. MPOs in Dallas and Bexar County allocate almost quadruple that amount.

"'Next time,' Rep. Joe Pickett (D-79), member of the powerful House Committee on Transportation, lightheartedly remarked,'wear the spandex.'"

"Next time, El Paso should demand double the bike funding to catch up to places like Dallas and San Antonio." 

Also see:

http://tejanotribune.com/archives/1531

http://bikesbelong.org/

El Paso has a long way to go

There is an excellent op-ed piece over at the Newspaper Tree. Political economist, Johanna Wallner, has written a call-to-arms: Diabetes? Easy answer: Eat smart. Type 2 Diabetes is preventable without some miracle drugs. We just have to eat smarter as she says. El Pasoans eat too much junk food, consume far too many high fructose corn syrup drinks, have too much fat in their diets and have too much of the wrong kind of fats in their diets. The result: obesity and diabetes.

Unfortunately, much must be done to turn the culture around from fast food to local, indigenous food; from supermarkets to urban gardens and even a resurgence of farms - outdoors or indoors.

Government policy doesn't encourage it. Want to have a farmers market at a park in the City of El Paso? Applying park fees it will cost the market operators $345 if they were to rent a 1 acre or less parcel of land from 7 until Noon. The hourly fee is $60 with a $45 permit fee. They could rent the space for the entire day for a flat $300 rate plus the $45 permit fee but that would only be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. This is not to mention fees vendors would have to pay, mordidas for security, street fees for closing a street partially and barricade fees. And we are just talking about a one day event. Come back the following week and you pay the same fees.

Compare that with fees on farmers markets in King County, Washington (Seattle). I helped to begin and oversee a farmers market in Carnation. The market manager in Carnation also manages a farmers market in Sammamish (a wealthy suburban neighborhood filled with Microsoft millionaires.) She tells me that:

"In Carnation we pay no money to the city for any permits and fees. The county we pay the $125 plus $25 annually for our health permit. That’s it. In Sammamish we also do not pay the city, other than $25 for the assembly fee, in fact the city gave us $40,000 to get the market going and are paying another $15,000 per year to keep it going."

Let's see, the Carnation Farmers Market is open for approximately 20 weeks per year. They pay an annual fee of $25 or $1.25 for each market day. In El Paso, to utilize a small (acre or less) city park for a farmers market that goes the same length of time (20 weeks) would be $6,900 per year! ($345 x 20 weeks.)

After 3 years on the board overseeing the farmers market in Carnation and writing a blog on local food (Conkey's Tavern) and a weekly e-letter for that farmers market 52 weeks of the year, I can tell you that no farmers market anywhere in the United States can survive El Paso fees. We simply have no policy or desire to encourage neighborhood farmers markets selling local, sustainable food.

Meanwhile, we get fatter, we do pancreatic damage, and we encourage large corporate agri-biz that has been in bed with big oil forever. We shop Albertson's where we can find food that was grown in Chile, shipped to New Jersey, shipped to Phoenix and finally shipped here. How much fossil fuel do we really burn when we drive to and purchase at the food chain store or big box store or drive down to McDonald's for that super sized high fructose corn syrup soda pop to go with our triple meat burger?

El Paso has a long way to go.