Stay on the move with Alta's monthly newsletter - offering interesting commentary and content from our international observatory of bicycle and pedestrian innovation! Missed the last newsletter? You can view the last issue here.

Alta’s mission—to create active communities—is part of a much larger idea. Designing and managing our cities, towns, and rural communities to allow people independence to get around without a car is not just an “extra benefit,” but a fundamental characteristic of healthy communities. It is the future.

Communities with active transportation access will create healthy and resilient neighborhoods. They will empower people to make choices. They will empower people to take decisions about mobility, health, access, and community into their own hands by being able to confidently and safely make trips, get exercise, and gather with neighbors without always relying on a car.

The inherent value of active transportation is becoming the norm in many fields, including economic development, urban design, real estate, traffic engineering, public health, and corporate recruiting. This isn't the case everywhere, but there are strong trends leading in this direction, such as:

Demographic and preference changes—according to a new study by the American Planning Association, Millennials and Boomers want many of the same things in their housing and transportation choices.
Improving our health—America is experiencing a national health crisis, especially among youth, and physical activity is a big part of the solution.
Increasing pedestrian safety—the US DOT is leading the charge, but the AARP is also becoming a major advocate of smart growth and pedestrian safety.
New housing preferences—nationwide, people are choosing housing based on walkability.

Increasingly, the debates are not about whether, but about how.

How to make choices about the way we use space, or how we allocate funding. Those are not small debates; however, it is encouraging to see that more energy is spent debating the type of action a community can take, instead of debating whether anyone out there wants to walk or bike in the first place.

The overwhelming success of the trails and greenways that Alta has led from concept to design, through construction leads to an immediate question - where can we put more trails?

Katie Mangle, Principal

Katie has 18 years of experience integrating active transportation into policy and capital projects, and has worked at the state, regional, and local levels, including eight years leading planning for small cities. Check out Katie's session at Rail~Volution in Dallas on October 26th.

Salt Lake City's pioneering ‪protected intersection is open for business!

Salt Lake City celebrated the opening of their first protected intersection this weekend with a "Biketoberfest" block party. The new design includes Utah's first protected intersection layout at 200 West and 300 South to create a safer destination for people walking and bicycling.

3 Impactful Projects For Your Active Community

Visioning Charrette

A visioning charrette is an efficient and engaging option for gathering and discussing issues, challenges and desires related to the project. It typically involves a full-day or multi-day, intensive meeting with municipal officials, developers, organizational leaders, and community members that results in realistic options that can be built over time to enhance livability, economic growth, and environmental and physical health.

Safety and Education Program

People inadvertently parking their car in a bike lane is a clue that design can only do so much—the rest has to come from education and enforcement, particularly for new infrastructure that people have never seen before. If your community installs new bikeways, particularly cycle tracks and protected bike lanes, we can help you to step up an enforcement and education program, especially if it is your first one.

Bikeway Design Training

Perhaps your community’s engineers come from a historically car-oriented training and focus. Perhaps they have not yet designed or operated a Complete Street with a one-way or two-way cycle track, enhanced pedestrian crossings, bike signals, transit priority, or rail tracks. Alta offers a variety of trainings that advance your understanding of Complete Streets principles and design approaches.

American Trails will present "How to Plan, Design, Fund, Get Right of Way, and Build a Regional Greenway System in 1,500 Days" Webinar on November 5, 2015. It is the story of how the Razorback Greenway was conceived, designed, funded, and implemented— a pivotal trail project with multiple innovative and enabling solutions. Speakers are Bob Searns, The Greenway Team (Moderator); Jeff Olson, Alta Planning + Design; Chuck Flink, Greenways Incorporated; and Matt Mihalevich, City of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The Wolf River Conservancy recently celebrated the groundbreaking of a 36-mile trail project in Memphis, Tennessee. Built in phases, the Wolf River Greenway will eventually connect neighborhoods from the Mississippi River, north of downtown Memphis, through the cities of Germantown and Collierville. Once complete, the Wolf River Greenway is expected to add 1,126,000 more bicycle trips in the county per year and 4,650,000 more walking trips. Read how else the trail will impact the community in our Health and Economic Impact Report.

Tom Tavella, Wade Walker, and Hunter Beckham will be in Chicago November 6-9 for ASLA's annual meeting and expo. Check out their sessions below:

November 06
Psychology of Urban Play: The Human Dimension

November 07
Ask the Experts: Questions about the SITES Rating System, Certification, and More

November 07
Some Assembly Required: Lessons Learned in Complete Streets Implementation

November 09
Completely Green: Developing Green, Complete, and Smart Streets—the ASLA Method

Equity in Motion is the theme of the 2015 California Bicycle Summit, taking place October 25-28 in San Diego, California. The Summit will feature 40 Packed Workshops, Six Vitally Important Plenaries, Two Parties, and a Demo. Alta will participate in 8 sessions focusing on the latest and best practice in (re-)designing streets and paths to create networks of low-stress bikeways connecting our destinations. See the full program here.

Stay On the Move

Industry news and more

The FHWA has proposed to revise current policies to encourage road design that is better tailored to community needs.The proposed changes will make it easier for engineers to design transportation projects more tailored to local travel conditions and provide safer, multimodal solutions that accommodate bicyclists, pedestrians, transit users and drivers.

What do Salt Lake City, Austin, and Vancouver have in common? Find out how these cities are protecting people biking and walking through intersections at the NACTO Designing Cities Conference in Austin on October 30th.

The PeopleForBikes Foundation, as part of the Better Bike Share Partnership, will make grants of $25,000 – $75,000 available to increase bike share use in underserved communities. Applications are due November 13th!

The Knight Cities Challenge is now open for applications. The challenge, in its second year, is a $5 million open call for ideas to make cities more successful. Applications are due October 27th!

More evidence for the economic benefit of bike lanes. A corridor in Salt Lake City removed parking, added bike lanes and sales went up. See the report here.

A new comprehensive Bicycle Parking Guidelines handbook from APBP and designed by Alta- Essentials of Bike Parking: Selecting and Installing Bike Parking that Works.

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