by Marlene Berlin
How much we move throughout the day depends on our environment. How we structure our indoor and outdoor environment to encourage movement is important to our health.
We are fortunate in Forest Hills to have sidewalks and hiking trails as well as easy access to buses and Metro. This is a transportation-rich environment that encourages us to walk. The big challenge for us is to make room for bikes, another active form of transportation, without jeopardizing the quality of the walking environment.
New Mexico Avenue, after much controversy, is getting bike lanes. How can we add bikes to our own transportation infrastructure? What are your ideas?
Tom Lalley says
I bike to my office downtown nearly every day. With it’s wealth of lightly trafficked streets, upper northwest is the easy and enjoyable part of my ride. But there are many gaps. For instance, the bike lane on Upton disappears at Reno forcing bikes onto the sidewalk or to face the ire of impatient drivers. Mapping these gaps and addressing them will help bikers, pedestrians and drivers alike. I also believe that some kind of bike infrastructure on Connecticut Avenue is inevitable. It may not happen in the near future but it’s coming.