Why not?

A blog at rest tends to stay at rest

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A blog in motion tends to stay in motion and once the writing stops it tends to stay at rest. MyWHaT is no different.

Despite my best intentions on maintaining two blogs, after being elected as a Traverse City City Commissioner 15 weeks ago, I’ve yet to find my voice. It’s not that the commission is all-time-consuming, but I’ve purposely given myself extra time to learn, research, and find a rhythm.

MyWHaT had a great run of four years with over 200,000 views, around 1,258 posts, and countless connections made. Although I won’t be writing on, it will remain up as a resource.In the future, who knows. For now, it will sit idle.

I’ve included below links to the top 25 posts of all-time. I will continue to share tidbits on livable streets and public spaces on the MyWHaT Tumblr, my Twitter account, and the MyWHaT Facebook page. In the future, once I’m on solid footing as a commissioner, I plan on blogging on Traverse City specific issues at aStrongTraverseCity.com.

Thank you for reading, your encouragement, and your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

1. The Streets Are Still The Same
2. The Green City By The Bay
3. Natural Playscapes and Free-range Kids; Set Them Free
4. My Car Sucks $7,000 A Year Out Of The Local Economy…Sorry
5. Complete Streets: Unfunded Mandate or Sound Economic Principle?
6. Making the Leap-Going Carless: breaking down the numbers
7. Declaration of Intent
8. Just say’in, sometimes angry motorists deserve a little visit from our friends in blue
9. Parking as an ‘economic development & urban design tool’ in small town USA
10. Everyone has a corpus callosum in need of exercise
11. Creating Playgrounds That Are Different
12. Dude, Where’s My Sharrow?
13. Got Parking? Hell Yeah
14. The Other Side of the School Car-line
15. Compost service by bicycle: 8-yr old brings it full circle
16. Are public toilets a walkability issue?
17. No Pooping In Water, Killer Skatepark, More People On Bikes, Dirt Roads And More
18. One-way & Two-way Streets Reflect a Community’s Priorities
19. BLA: Let’s Call A Spade A Spade
20. “Traffic is a social problem” and what’s needed is “an outbreak of civility”
21. The Pros/Cons Of The Boardman Lake Avenue Road Project
22. Pedestrian signals: Faster than never
23. Have you heard of “Good Roads” Earle?
24. Roundabouts Don’t Cause Chaos, People Do
25. Traffic calming penguins dispatched over weekend

 

A Story of Transformation…Love Your Bicycle

The Bicycle

Finding God, The Devil, and whatever else

from Adam Neustadter via The Dish via The Black List

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MyWHaT UPDATE: This blog is flux. Somewhere in one of the phases that is not too dissimilar to the Raleigh’s story in the above short film (which, you really need to watch). I prefer to see it as MyWHaT stored in the garage. Not quite forgotten, but waiting for a use. A change. Perhaps, a new owner.

I have updated the url and other backend features, so MyWHaT archives will remain up for another year. That’s the minimum. I’m open to suggestions. I also have another website to think about.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely a die-hard MyWHaT fan. What do you think?

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Extend your weekend: Ride a bike

NOTE: MyWHaT is on a bit of a hiatus while the editor and main contributor walks for a seat on the Traverse City City Commission. During this time of transition archived posts will occasionally be stuck to the front page.

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Recommended: A bike ride, even if it is down the street to the park.

Nice video for Specialized Women by Specialized Bicycles

“When I get on a bike I become timeless.”

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Have a great weekend.

Engage & Represent: Vacancies on TC boards and committees

Engage & Represent

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From the Clerk’s office:

Subject: Invitation to Apply — Traverse City Boards and Committees 

Traverse City residents are invited to participate in the process of government by serving on one of the city’s citizen boards and committees. Through this service, civic-minded citizens can become involved in their local government. The city, in turn, benefits from the knowledge, experience and expertise of our citizens. Seats are available on the Planning Commission, Housing Commission, and the Brown Bridge Advisory Committee.

If you are interested in serving, please contact the City Clerk’s Office at 231-922-4480 for an“Application to Become Involved” or visit our website: http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/Permit-Applications/boardapplication.pdf.

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We discussed some of these openings earlier this year.  The Planning Commission will potentially have 3-4 vacancies, depending on the upcoming election.

Let the competition begin: TC’s best bike rack

On my way for a dip in the bay, I couldn’t resist parking across the stroad at Rose Street Dental’s new toothy bike rack. Well done Dr. Wentzloff. Well done.

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Reminds me, help local businesses evaluate their bike racks with this handy guide we created a few years ago:

Posted with Blogsy

What’s to fear of slow speeds?

20’s Plenty For Us

from Streetfilms

Locally

Last week, the Traverse City Planning Commission was presented with data collected in Kids Creek Neighborhood. The volume and speed data was collected last year on 7th Street, 6th Street, and a section of Elmwood Avenue. Over the span of a week, 24%, 22%, and 15% of the vehicles passing through were traveling in excess of 30-mph, respectively on each street. The actual numbers:

• 9,460 vehicles going over 5-mph above the speed limit on 7th.
• 3,472 vehicles going over 5-mph above the speed limit on  6th.
• 1,218 vehicles going over 5-mph above the speed limit on Elmwood.

How safe do you feel knowing that nearly 14,000 vehicles are speeding through your neighborhood every week? As the Kids Creek Neighborhood president, Homer Nye asks, is this acceptable? 

As we have pointed out countless times, the difference speed makes in public safety, and consequentially health, is staggering.

What are you going to do about it?

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NOTE: Data was collected by City of Traverse City Engineering Department between July and August 2012

Resilience through reading: Horizon Books honors local luminary with display

With respect we repost this. As Bob said many times, “you should read this book?

MyWHaT

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Community elder, luminary, and cranky pirate Bob Russell from the Neahtawanta Inn and Center isn’t known by everyone, but he sure is known by a lot of us in the community, across the state and in the country. He’s worked on hyper-local projects and he’s worked on international projects, ranging from septage treatment plants to NGO communication networks. Bob is currently living with cancer and the uncertainty of the next stage is part of everyday. If you know Bob, you know that he has spent a lifetime contemplating the uncertainty of the here-and-now and how large, centralized, and impersonal systems have created dangerous dependence on unsustainable regimes. The academic term for this study is resilience.

Recently, Horizon Books set up a display of Bob’s recommended must reads from his rather large library. You’ll find it on its own stand, by the front door next to the spinning stand of cards. No links are provided below…

View original post 911 more words

Mythbusters tackle the efficiency of roundabouts

via TopStiGear

Remember when the modern roundabout was raised as an option for Traverse City? To help increase the awareness of them MyWHaT created this Modern Roundabout information page.

GT County Road Commission to consider more transportation choices

Last week, the 500th Complete Street policy in the nation was adopted in the Memphis, Tennessee. Thursday night (8/22 at 7pm), the Grand Traverse County Road Commission will consider adding to that total.

Julie Clark, of TART Trails, will present a draft resolution that came out of the Grand Vision Complete Streets Coalition this Thursday night. Similar policies have been adopted in the area by Garfield, Acme, Kingsley and TC-TALUS. Traverse City also has a Complete Streets resolution.

The County Road Commission building isn’t the easiest to get to, but if you find your way to the south end of LaFrainer Rd. (Down Barlow, across South Airport, up a big hill, and all the way to the end) at 7-pm on Thursday night it’d be great to show support for safer streets and roads that offer more choices to more people.

View this document on Scribd

Announcement: MyWHaT Bike Rack finds new home

Announcement

It’s a planter. It’s a bike rack. As passersby are fond of saying, “that’s a cute idea.”

The MyWHaT Planter Bike Rack is now on loan in front of Morsels on E. Front St.

If strategically placed, 3-4 bikes at a time can be locked to the steel bars rising above the planter. Morsels has had limited secure bike parking here and with the café seating area not fully utilized for tables, it seemed like as good as place as any for the planter rack that was formerly hosted by SEEDS on 8th St.

We just ask that on the south side, keep your bike snug against the rack and away from the sidewalk.

Happy bike parking.

* Interested in a planter bike rack of your own? Send us message.