Santa Barbara Walks

(a project of COAST)

Made possible by a generous grant from the Green Park Foundation, this project is working to make walking safer and more convenient in the South Coast, from Montecito to Goleta - where our residents live, work, shop, play, catch the bus, and go to school. We aim to increase the level of walking while decreasing the number of pedestrian injuries and deaths. This benefits the personal health of those who walk, the health of our communities, and the health of our planet. Walking is, after all, the most basic, most healthful, and most environmentally friendly form of transportation. Routes to schools is a major focus of our project, but we include other areas of need as well, such as routes to transit, to senior centers, to parks, and community centers.

Some of our goals are:

• * Raise awareness and build public support for walking infrastructure and culture
• * Advocate for good pedestrian policies in major planning efforts
• * Identify trouble spots
• * Campaign to improve pedestrian safety
• * Develop resources to aid pedestrians, advocates and developers alike (such as neighborhood maps and best-practices guides)

It is important to consider that almost all of us are pedestrians at one point in our day.  Whether we commute by bus, train, car, vanpool, or on foot we often find that we end up needing to walk between bus stops, walk from the parking lot or walk from where we are able to park our bike. But alarmingly, the statistics say that we don’t walk enough.  Rates of obesity and diabetes are increasing steadily according to the Center for Disease Control, with 25% of teens and 22% of adults classified as obese.  These diseases are preventable and are directly affected by our level of activity. When you add to this the environmental benefits of walking, it’s easy to see that projects such as Santa Barbara Walks are a much needed and timely resource in our community.  Santa Barbara Walks envisions a community where people can walk to jobs, markets, entertainment and parks all from their homes.  In the US, 28% of all trips are less than a mile long, yet Americans use their cars for 66% of these trips.  Clearly, if we can shift more of these trips to walking, we have helped the environment and our health a great deal.

Please join Santa Barbara Walks in improving the health of our communities by making walking safer and easier for all of us in the South Coast.