Green Streets Initiative

January 30, 2009 Walk/Ride Day, Free Breakfast in Harvard Square and Update

Click here to read whole update!

January 2009 Update

  

Dear Green Streets friends, 

 

The new year has started with a bang here at Green Streets, and we have a lot exciting things to share with you.

FREE WALK/RIDE DAY BREAKFAST IN HARVARD SQUARE! THIS FRIDAY, January 30, Holyoke Center and Forbes Plaza, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue (near Au Bon Pain), 7AM - 9AM. Indoor and outdoor! Special goodies and raffles for those who go green and wear green (but open to all)!

 

This event, enthusiastically sponsored by the Harvard Square Business Association, is the first of its kind. The HSBA would like to sponsor additional Walk/Ride Day events throughout the year.

• Spread the word with your preferred method.  Download a flyer or blurbs to use in your listserves, in-house emails, or newsletters.
  
• Make arrangements to bring family, meet friends, colleagues at the event! Dignitaries from the city and Green Streets patrons will be there -- it will be a wonderful, festive event, whatever the weather!

January 10th Meeting A Huge Success

Green Streets Meeting Notes

January 10, 2009

Thanks to

• extremely generous donations from Pemberton Market, Iggy's Bakery, and and the new Zing Pizza for providing delicious food for the meeting!

• Cambridge Cohousing for opening your doors to Green Streets!

• generous raffle donors: Urban Adventours, EMS, Sam Davis, and Bonnie's Landscape!

• And to Nicole Rioles for these notes.

Attendees

Aviva Argote
Pixie Christy
Bob Cowherd
John Cuetara
Nicole Rioles
Hilary Celentano
Lucy Edmondson
Paul Elwood
Mark Gottlieb
James Gray
Tamar Haber-Shaim
Lauren Hefferon
Trish Hogan
Jane Irwin
Janie Katz-Christy
Molly Katz-Christy
Sam Katz-Christy
Bruce Kulik
George Lynde
Trish Marti
Katie Matthews
Alan Moore
Patty Nolan
Madhvi Patil
Rob Riman
Laura Smeaton
Amy Tighe
Peter Traversy
Anita Yip

Discussion

Green Streets is growing: new activities in: West Bridgford, Nottingham, UK; Portland, ME; and in regional cities in MA, including Stoneham and Newton. Many other towns also quite interested.

Walk/Ride Day is growing in communities tied to Safe Routes to School funding; Stoneham and Newton represent 2 of the 4 funded communities for this work.

Unofficially, there are members of congress who are planning to start Walk/Ride Day participation in Congress. Stay tuned!

Jan. 30^th Walk/Ride Day celebrated in Harvard Sq. with a hot breakfast from 7:30-9:00AM in Holyoke Center. Breakfast is sponsored by the Harvard Sq. Small Business Association

Idea: host quarterly breakfasts that can draw in commuters, shoppers, students into a dense square or neighborhood hub for a nice grassroots collective. W/R participants will feel part of an event or happening and local small business owners can potentially glean new/future customers through the events.

Group recommended that the Jan. 30 Walk/Ride Harvard Sq breakfast be promoted through all the schools with posters, flyers, and information. Janie promises to email flyer and poster to the group for distribution and dissemination.

Group recommended advertising in the Gazette and the Crimson- two locally circulated papers in Harvard Sq.

Janie showed the group the new decal and card designs, which everyone loved. All were designed by Colin Barr, who is fantastic to work with.

Green Streets buttons: 6 buttons have been designed with active commuting themes. Suggestions ranged from selling the 6 buttons as a group for $10 to selling the buttons online through Green Streets page and/or other sites like Cafe Press and others. They will be for sale at the January 30 breakfast.

Mayor of Cambridge has promised an award for people who participate in all 12 Walk/Ride Days throughout the calendar year. Any prizes are still undetermined, but the Mayor's office has said she'd like to have a reception honoring those who do! There was some talk about designing a t-shirts for people who participate in all 12 Walk/Ride Days.

Pete said he could produce 15-20 posters at work that could be used/reused with the dates changed for schools and others. He also said he would look into putting Green Streets stuff, including pins, onto CafePress website.

George is making a game/quiz about Cambridge's bike parking for this coming Walk/Ride Day. He made a design for bike parking display / Ferris wheel design, that he wanted to integrate with Walk/Ride Day. He was also in touch with architect Keith Moskow who designed another one, estimated at $750K and remains "theoretical." George was considering making a cardboard mock-up of Keith's design.

George is contributing to an art show (beginning April 9, 2009) at the City Hall Annex in Cambridge (Broadway at Inman) George is designing a game/poster for both events, which will look at Bike Parking.

Janie is looking for a Cambridge coordinator to take on Green Streets Initiative work 10-15 hours per week.

There will be bike parking events in Davis Square in May to promote biking and Walk/Ride Day. Theme will include prominent bike racks in key square areas, including a few on street car park spaces.

Arlington would like to participate in Walk/Ride Day with the schools but is facing challenges including the fact that biking is not sanctioned by the administration and bikes are not accommodated on school property. Arlington is looking to built political support and goodwill towards biking.

Please review these notes and let us know if you have anything to add or change. Thank you.

Our favorite local blogger!
http://www.cctvcambridge.org/Green+Streets_Breakfast

British Consulate Celebrates Walk/Ride Days

The British Consulate in Boston is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming Green Streets Walk/Ride Day.  The Consulate will be asking its employees to "go and wear green," and strive for the most carbon-free commute and morning routine.  Our interest in Green Streets stems from our desire to engage with local organizations to combat climate change, and to promote a low carbon, high growth global economy.

Melanie Meinzer
Visits Officer, Press and Public Affairs Assistant
British Consulate-General
One Memorial Drive, Ste 1500            
Cambridge, MA 02142

Green Streets Director Featured in Organic Gardening Magazine!

Read the full article here!

Zing Pizza Coupon

Cambridge Chronicle: Harvard Square goes wild for green

By Katrina Ballard/Correspondent

Fri Jan 23, 2009, 08:49 AM EST

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Cambridge - Those wearing green next Friday are in for a special treat: free breakfast and raffles at the Holyoke Center in Harvard Square.

Read more

Cambridge Mayor's 9 in '09 Walk/Ride Day Challenge!

Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons invites everyone, old and young, to participate in 9 or more Walk/Ride Days in 2009! The Mayor will hold a special reception in January, 2010, with prizes, awards and more.

In order to be eligible to attend, all you have to do is Go Green and Wear Green and record your participation for 9 or more Walk/Ride Days in 2009.

Here's how:

1) Use green transportation  - walk, ride a bike, bus or train... even carpool or walk 10 extra blocks.

2) Wear something green - shirt, skirt, earings, tie, socks, backpack...

3) CHECK IN, in any of a number of ways:

• Best choice: Check in online (click here).
• For students: Download a School Walk/Ride Day Passport, or obtain one from your school, if they have been distributing them, and fill it in each month.
  
• For those who prefer: Download an offline check in to record your own participation each Walk/Ride Day.

If you do not check in online, please check back here later in 2009 to find out our details about getting your results to us, and about the Awards ceremony.

Individuals, groups, and businesses are all invited to participate! (We will record participation by companies when you sign-in online and indicate your organization.) Please peruse the rest of our website for other tools, including surveys, flyers, and more for helping to spread the word in your organizations.

The Mayor's Challenge awards reception is tentatively set for Monday, January 11, 2010, from 4 PM - 5:30 PM.  There will be more information later in the year about it so please check back!

Invitation: Free Walk/Ride Day Breakfast!

You are warmly invited to a...

 

FREE BREAKFAST

AND WALK/RIDE DAY CELEBRATION

IN HARVARD SQUARE!

 

Please come! And please invite others to join us. This is a great opportunity to show the business community that green commuting is good for business!

 
  Mayor E. Denise Simmons will attend and kick off her

"9 in '09" Mayor's Walk/Ride Day Challenge

 

WHEN: Friday, January 30, 7AM to 9AM

 

WHERE: Holyoke Center & Forbes Plaza, 1350 Mass. Ave., Harvard Square (Next to Au Bon Pain)

 

WHY: Harvard Square businesses want to encourage people to go green! This event is part of Harvard Square's Winter Green Carnival 2009, with festivities from from January 15 to February 1.

 

MORE: There will be special raffles and gifts for Walk/Ride Day participants, courtesy of the Harvard Square Business Association, MassBike, Green Streets, and others. Artist George Lynde is also preparing a special game about Bike Racks of Cambridge.

 

SPREAD THE WORD: We've got materials to help spread the word about the breakfast event and the Mayor's Challenge:

• To download an event flyer, click here.
• For blurbs for newsletters and invitations you can modify, click here.
• A downloadable "Mayor's Challenge Passport" will be available by January 27 on the Green Streets website, so check back for that!
  

QUESTIONS: For more information or to let us know you are coming, feel free to email us. However, there's no need to RSVP -- we are prepared to feed all who come!

 

See you there!

 

Warmly,

Janie

Janie Katz-Christy, Director

Green Streets Initiative, Inc.
www.GoGreenStreets.org
walk-ride-days@comcast.net

Wear green, go green, and check in on the last Friday of every month!

 

December (Last Walk/Ride Day of 2008!) Update

Click here to read the rest of our December, 2008 e-newsletter! Here's an excerpt:

Walk/Ride Days are spreading!

• To Newton and Stoneham, MA: Thanks to WalkBoston's Community Safe Routes to Schools Program, these two towns have agreed to participate in Walk/Ride Days. The Safe Routes Program is funded by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. For more information, contact Jean Fulkerson of Newton or Hilary Celentano of Stoneham.

• To West Bridgford, Nottingham, ENGLAND! Walk/Ride Days are being planned now, with a planning meeting January 7 and a kick-off on the April Walk/Ride Day. The effort is being spearheaded by Karina Wells, of Transition Town West Bridgford

• GRANTS: Green Streets is happy to be the recipient of two recent grants. One is from the Cambridge Community Foundation. In the other, Green Streets is part of a project proposed by the City of Somerville's Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Program, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
  
• DECALS: Window decals are in the final stages of design. They'll be available early in 2009!
  
• PLEDGES, BUTTONS, SPECIAL EVENTS: These and many more will be discussed and debuted at our upcoming meeting/party on January 10 (see Calendar below).