Green Streets Initiative

August 2009 News

Click here to read entire newsletter, with events and background

AUGUST 2009 Update   Dear Green Streets friends,   We hope you're having a great summer! We certainly are! Brookline Joins in Walk/Ride Day Movement Following a serendipitous meeting on a Green Line train in mid-July, Brookline will be kicking off a city-wide celebration of Walk/Ride Days this summer and fall! Check here for more information and to get involved.   Who's Been Celebrating Walk/Ride Days?! Someday soon, we will publish a list of the hundreds of organizations, from retail stores to sailing clubs to government offices, that are celebrating Walk/Ride Days. Walk/Ride Days continue to spread in depth and breadth, as new organizations and communities join in.   In the meantime, here are a couple of summer updates: Millenium Pharmaceuticals reported that their Cambridge office had 139 Walk/Riders on the July 31 Walk/Ride Day. In addition to the public incentives in their neighborhood, Millenium raffles off 10 cafeteria vouchers per month to participants. In Tacoma Park, MD, TV personality Diane MacEachern, the ultimate green woman and advisor to the rest of us, on her blog, in her books (Big Green Purse, How to Beat High Gas Prices and others), sent us this video of her thoughts and ways of participating in Walk/Ride Days (including locating her office walking distance from the Metro, so interns could get there without a car). Thanks to Interns Green Streets' growth is due, in part, to our wonderful summer interns, whom we wish to thank! Rachael Brill, a senior at Tufts University, not only researched grant possibilities for Green Streets, but brought on new Walk/Ride Day sponsors and a new participating organization, her summer workplace: Courageous Sailing. See interviews with and by Rachael below. Rachael will continue working with Green Streets by expanding and coordinating Walk/Ride Days at Tufts. Ariane Berelowich, a senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and Walk/Ride Day coordinator for the past two years. Among her many accomplishments as a summer intern, Ariane was the catalyst for Harvard Square Business Association's year-long calendar of Walk/Ride Day events. She also planned events, did outreach, and helped welcome and keep in touch with Walk/Ride Day business sponsors.  New Videos! Visit Green Streets YouTube channel and see many new videos on all sorts of subjects! Click here. Send us your own vidoes and subscribe so you see our new additions as  they come online! Green Vacations (or, "You Can Get There From Here!") Skip the buckling in, traffic, and fumes! Hold hands with your loved ones as you go! Revel in treading lightly as you explore! Here are some local and not-so-local vacation destinations, all accessible by public transportation from Boston: Provincetown: take a ferry, leave your car Block Island: train to bus to ferry (very easy!) The Hamptons and outer Long Island: train to New London, then ferries and bike rides/rentals Acadia National Park and the entire Maine coast: accessible by lovely train and frequent buses Walden Pond: commuter rail (you won't get closed out of the parking lot!) Singing Beach, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and the rest of Cape Ann: commuter rail Send us your green adventure routes! Zigos for Clunkers! From one of our readers: "I thought you might like our Zigo for Clunker program (click here). Working to get some cars off the streets." We did! And check out their great system... so beautiful it makes you want to have a baby! Fun Summer (or Post-Summer) Reading Momentum, the Magazine for Self-propelled People Read this great international magazine  online and/or in hard-copy. Click here for Issue #37, which features Boston, and mentions Walk/Ride Day! What fun to read!   How to Live Well Without Owning A Car: save money, breathe easier and get more mileage out of life, by Chris Balish. This is fascinating reading -- much of it is news even those of us who are already car-free! Great reading for those who are just considering going "car-lite". Fun cartoons, too! I got my copy on July's Walk/Ride Day at Greenward, for a discount!   Correction In our recent newsletters, April 2010's Walk/Ride Day date was listed, incorrectly, as April 23. The correct date is April 30, 2010. Please check your organization's calendar and make sure it is listed correctly! Our apologies for any confusion!   Need Anything? Please let us know if you need anything to support your company's, school's, town's Walk/Ride Day celebrations! We can send you flyers to be modified, stamps for stamping hands, wallet cards, and other incentives. We also have lots of great ideas we can share with you!    A Reminder: Please check in now, or on Walk/Ride Day! If you check in regularly, thanks for your input. If you've never checked in before, make this your first time!   And let us know how it goes! With best regards, Janie Katz-Christy, Director Green Streets Initiative, Inc. www.GoGreenStreets.org walk-ride-days@comcast.net

A Beautiful Square On Trafalgar Square

Green Streets is honored to have been featured in Antony Gormley's "Fourth Plinth" art project, "One and Other," on a community quilt put together by Artist/Actress Hazel Ellerby-Sansome of Nottinghamshire, England. Thanks to quilter Francine Pickering of Nottingham, Green Streets Initiative found a place on Ellerby-Sansome's quilt, which was created by the women of East Midlands, England. The quilt square is show here ("translation" below).

To see live streaming of the project through October, 2010, click here: http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

Green Streets logo on left, with the Green Street Initiative's web header and url for Green Streets West Bridgford, UK chapter website above.

• Text on the right:
• "walk, ride, but don't drive
• Started by Janie in Cambridge, US
• Brought by Karina to West Bridgford, UK,
• Expanded by ? in your area...
• Your streets can be Green Streets too."

July, 2009 Newsletter

Click here to read the whole newsletter... Here are some snippets:

July 2009 Update

 

Dear Green Streets friends,  

Harvard Square Parties on Walk/Ride Days!

The Harvard Square Business Association has put together a calendar of fabulous events for the next 12 months of Walk/Ride Days, so stay tuned!

 

This Friday, come to a Sweet Summer Go Green Walk/Ride Day Party in Harvard Square. There will be music, facepainting, and a huge variety of sweets and treats, with lots of business and restaurant sponsors, on the plaza in front of Hidden Sweets. For more information, click here. (And email us if you'd like to help out at the Green Streets table.)

 

Other Boston-Area Walk/Ride Day Events

There are lots of events going on in and around Boston (see sidebar at left). Also, don't forget to visit our sponsors across the region, for fantastic incentives. Don't be shy. They want to hear from you! Even if you visit on another day, tell them we sent you!

West Bridgford (UK) To Be Honored in "Fourth Plinth" Art project in Trafalgar Square, London

Green Streets is honored to be featured in Antony Gormley's "Fourth Plinth" art project, called "One and Other," by Artist/Actress Hazel Ellerby-Sansome of Nottinghamshire, thanks to Francine Pickering of Nottingham. Click here for more information.

 

Green Streets' Welcomes a New Board Member

Green Streets is pleased to welcome Nicole Rioles as the newest member of the organization's Board of Directors. Nicole replaces Steven Miller, one of the first members of Green Streets' Board and its first Treasurer. We are sorry to see Steven go, but delighted to welcome Nicole. She sums up her feelings about Green Streets this way: “Walk/Ride Day is, hands down, my favorite day of the month. Seeing more people traveling outside a car is music to my ears, lungs, and heart. Show me a road and sidewalk filled with bikers, walkers, runners, and skaters, and I’ll show you a happy and healthy crowd. It’s magic." Read more here.

Get the New Coordinator Recruitment Flyer

Recruiting new Walk/Ride day coordinators is a wise thing for all participating organizations to do. To aid in this process, we have published a new coordinator recruitment flyer. Click here to download the document. (Look under flyers and feel free to modify it to suit your organization's needs.) Many coordinators have found that it pays to invest a little time now, and have additional helpers later.

 

Walk/Ride Days at Cambridge Rotary Club

The Cambridge Rotary Club invited Green Streets to make a presentation about Walk/Ride Days, and provided a very receptive audience. Members from Falmouth to Jamaica Plain to Lexington all talked about using Walk/Ride Days to catalyze both individual and community green transportation efforts.

 

Fun Links:

• WGBH: WGBH's One Guest featured Walk/Ride Days and Green Streets Director, Janie Katz-Christy. Click here to see a video from the program.
• Videos of Cambridge, MA folks on Biking Click here to see Mary-Catherine Deibel from Upstairs on the Square when we caught her at a Walk/Ride Day event in Harvard Square in April. And here is one from an event put on by the school's Walk/Ride Day coordinator at a local high school. Send us yours!
  

• Green Explorations: Somerville Bike Committee Chair and Green Streets supporter Alan Moore and son visited New York City last month by bike, with a friend and his 10-year-old son. He writes: "Here are some photos of the new pedestrian zones on Broadway and the Hudson River Greenway (bike path). We tried to walk on the newly opened High Line but it was too crowded and the lines too long!"

• Trying to Travel Green with Amtrak: We adore Amtrak, and use it whenever we can! But, because Amtrak doesn't allow bikes on board, our friends (above) had to drive from Boston to New Haven, where they and their bikes took a Metro-North train into the city. It sure would be nice to be able to do some interstate bike touring with Amtrak! Let us know if you'd like to work with us on this issue.

Again, click here for the rest!