Walkability

This photo shows world famous walkability expert Dan Burden with a group of citizens who participated in a Walkability Audit for Rogers City. Walkability may be defined as making a community infrastructure focus on people (pedestrians) as much as automobiles in city design decisions. Walkability is a means to improve the social and economic capital in the community because walkability attracts people to a community. Mr. Burden gave us many ideas and a lot to think about when making future decisions about the design of our city. Everyone in the group agreed that we learned a many things and were suprised by many of the ideas he presented. Some of the ideas will be more difficult and more costly to implement than others. For example, the width of bike lanes can be adjust for the cost of paint, but the cost to relocate a street curb is higher. However, we must make sound design decisions if we hope to see Rogers City prosper.

Pictured from left to right are: Scott Campbell, Brian Wagner, Jim Hopp, Nico Tucker, Kevin Scheadig, Mike Modrzyinski, Dan Burden, Del Conley, Roger Wenzel, Mark Slown, Jamie Huber, Matt Quaine, and Rocky DeRoque. Angie Asam and Cindy Krupp participated in the event, but are not pictured here. There will be more information coming on the results of this walkability event! My thanks to Laurel Gikas, owner of the Pavilion Grill, for making us a great lunch.

Also, thank you to the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) for making this opportunity possible for Rogers City.

Watch for a program/presentation on cable TV about Walkability. The more you know....