[*BCM*] livable sts talk TONIGHT!!! (and next week!)

[jasmine laietmark]

Tonight! and Next Week!!!
Two events not to be missed by YOU!!!


STREETTALK! WITH SPECIAL GUEST, ROGER GELLER!
Bicycle Coordinator, Portland (OR)
Mon. Mar. 3, 6 - 8 pm
free and open to the public, donation suggested, beer/wine/drinks served
@ LivableStreets office, 100 Sidney Street, Cambridge near Central Sq.

Roger Geller has been with the Office of Transportation in Portland,
Oregon since July, 1994. Roger is the Bicycle Coordinator in the Office
of the Director Planning Division. He currently works on Bikeway Network
Signing, Technical design for bikeways, Bicycle parking, and an update
to the Bicycle Master Plan.

Roger will overview what Portland has done over the past two decades to
improve bicycling, what successes have been achieved, and how those
successes are measured. He will talk about the four types of cyclists:
"Strong & Brave", "Enthused & Confident", "Untapped majority of
potential cyclists", and "those who never will." He will talk about the
critical roles that political leadership and citizen advocacy play in
influencing change. Also, the willingness of city staff to experiment
and try out new things and measuring their effectiveness. But things
aren't finished with Portland. Roger's talk is, in a sense, a "Tale of
Teo Cities:" a city that has had significant transportation
accomplishments, but one that recognizes that it has barely scratched
the surface of what is necessary to truly succeed in shifting people out
of single-occupancy motor vehicles to transit, biking, and walking.

Beer and home-brewed soft drinks provided courtesy of Harpoon!

For more information:
http://livablestreets.info

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

STREET TALK with special guest DAN BURDEN !
Simply put, Dan helps communities find their hearts and promote walkable
communities.

Mon. Mar. 10, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Dan Burden, founder of Walkable Communities , consultant for Glatting
Jackson

NOTE LOCATION: @ Adaptive Environments showroom, 200 Portland Street,
next to North Station, Boston
click for directions...

If you've never heard Dan Burden give a presentation, you really don't
know what you are missing. In the realm of LivableStreets, Dan is a hero.

Once called the "Johnny Appleseed" of livable communities, Dan drives
forward as confidently as if he were entering his own neighborhood, and
talks about his work and his vision of the slowly emerging, post-sprawl
America. People's optimism about improving their communities often
wavers when they talk about the clutter, confusion, and congestion they
see through their windshields. It falters again when they reach inside
themselves to describe the absences sprawl imposes on their lives: It
steals time, choice, and proximity to others--not just open space. We
are not only farther away from schools and shops, from friends and
neighbors, from fields and woods; more and more of each day is given
over to a tense, effortful, unnourishing, and for now unavoidable
in-between-ness. This townless, countryless, road-bound running around
stretches us thin; our bodies are in motion-but what is there around us
to anchor our hearts and minds?

Burden is part of the suddenly arrived profession that promotes new
kinds of communities. He is one of a (small but growing) group of
itinerant designers and facilitators are now crisscrossing the country
conducting workshops with local residents. They're exploring the
possibilities of changing streets and buildings in ways that would add
pleasure and reassurance to cities and towns. Does a city become more
lovable as it becomes more livable? Can we find a balance between cars
and people? What about the even trickier balance between land and cars
and people? Can developers and local officials move from blueprints to
"greenprints," so that a town's growth plans add green space to people's
lives, instead of taking it away? These are a few of the many questions
that Dan tackles. But it's not easy. "I tell my audiences that
Schopenhauer long ago defined the three stages all new ideas go through:
ridicule, violent opposition, and acceptance," says Burden. "I've never
yet seen a single step skipped in any community."

Beer and home-brewed soft drinks provided courtesy of Harpoon!

For more information:
http://livablestreets.info
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