Mapmaking
I’m making maps to add to a report we’re developing for the University of Denver Sustainability Council. The report recommends several transit improvements for the University of Denver campus, such as a new cycle track, bike/pedestrian signage, painted bike boxes, bike fixtations, curb cuts, green sharrow lanes, and new red crosswalks. You can read the report here: DU Land Use Transit Recommendation.
View full map: http://geocommons.com/maps/219532
DU: A Bicycle Friendly University
DU: A Bicycle Friendly University
You probably didn’t know this, but a few months ago the University of Denver Transit Committee put in overtime hours in an effort to *officially* become designated as a Bicycle Friendly University (BFU). We spent many days documenting the details of DU’s transportation infrastructure, and distilling them into clear and precise wording inside our very first application to the BFU Program.
Today that effort paid off. This morning the League of American Bicyclist named the University of Denver, along with fifteen other universities, as a Bicycle Friendly University (see announcement here).
We should be clear that there are four levels of awards in the BFU program, and DU earned the lowest level of bike friendliness (bronze). Still, we are on the map of only 44 universities that share this designation, and we’re proud of it!
The next step: Silver, Gold, and/or Platinum. So how do we improve our bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure? You can find out, and share your ideas at the next DU Transit Committee meeting, which will be held on Monday October 29th at 3pm at the DU Center for Sustainability (JMAC 142). We hope to see you there!
New Sharrows!
DU Sharrow Install
The DU area is getting a lot of attention lately with the upcoming Presidential Debates. If you didn’t know, the University of Denver will host the first debate of the 2012 election season, when President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will battle for control of the nation on October 3, 2012.
One of the benefits of being a presidential debate-hosting university is that the city comes through and re-surfaces your roads! The only problem is that our highly-cherished sharrows were removed with the old pavement.
We were quick to alert the City that we wanted our sharrows back, and voila! New Sharrows! Now we need to convince them to sharrow all the streets adjoining campus…
Denver: Bike to Work Tomorrow!
Woman Bicycling in City Park, Denver, 1900. Photo by George Lytle Beam.
Fellow Denverites: Tomorrow (June 27, 2012) is Bike to Work Day!
This is the one day (among others) that you should feel compelled to pull your bike out of the garage, pump up the tires, grease the chain, and pedal your way to work!
There will be several breakfast and bike home stations located throughout the city (See Full Map Here), one of which will be here on the University of Denver’s Driscoll Lawn. Breakfast Stations will be open 6:30-9am, Bike Home Stations will be open 4:30-6pm.
You can learn more about Bike to Work Day from our wonderful local advocacy
organizations: Bicycle Colorado, DRCOG, and (our favorite) Transportation Solutions.
Denver Bicycle Riders, 1910. Photo by Charles S. Lillybridge.
You should also support Bike Denver at the annual Bike From Work Bash, which is held at 15th & Little Raven on June 27th, 5-9pm. There will be Free Beer, Free Music, and all-around good fun with Denver’s best cyclists and bicycle advocates. So hop on your old two-wheeler and enjoy bike to work day! (Then rinse, and repeat!)
Transportation Artwork
At a recent Sustainability Council meeting, DU student group The Social Brink asked if we’d like to participate in a community art project. The group organizes students around social entrepreneurship and innovation, and their aim was to transform several old doors into colorful representations of social change. We volunteered to create a transportation-themed door, and decided to focus on bicycle transit in honor of Bike to Work Day/Month. Scroll down for images of the painting process and the final result!
DU Bicycle Friendliness Resolution Passed
Good News!
This spring, Transportation Solutions published a Bicycle Friendly Universities report for the University of Denver. The report details a number of issues related to the bicycle-friendliness of the campus area, and recommends how the University can work to improve the safety and effectiveness of bicycling infrastructure for the DU community.
In response, the DU Transportation Subcommittee drafted a resolution to adopt the recommendations of the report, and presented it to the University Sustainability Council on May 10, 2012. After a great discussion (see the meeting minutes), the council voted unanimously to support the resolution. We hope that the resolution will help to ensure that the DU community actively supports a safe and effective Bicycle and Pedestrian infrastructure in the DU area. If you wish to join this effort, please contact us! The text of the resolution can also be accessed here.
DU Transportation Sustainability Survey
DU Students: Please take the DU Transportation Sustainability survey!
https://udenver.qualtrics.com/WRQualtricsSurveyEngine/?SID=SV_55uusOZoUUZ2e8c&_=1
This is part of DU’s Sustainability and Transportation course, in which students studying the social and environmental elements of transportation and learning to promote healthier ways of meeting individual and community needs while reducing the social and environmental impacts of mobility practices. The survey will investigate the transportation behavior of DU students, both on and off-campus. The data is collected anonymously and will be used to complete the student research project, and to inform the University Sustainability Council in its ongoing work to eliminate DU’s carbon footprint.
It will take 5 minutes of your time – please complete the survey now.
Bicycle Friendliness Resolution: Passed
DU Bicycle Friendliness Resolution
Good news for Bicyclists and Pedestrians in the DU Area – the University of Denver Sustainability Council supports your transportation habits.
This morning, during the University Sustainability Council’s May 2012 meeting, the DU Transit Committee presented a Bicycle Friendliness Resolution. The resolution states the following:
The University of Denver is committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 24% before the year 2020, with the ultimate goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.1 A recent assessment concluded that approximately 12% of the university’s carbon footprint resulted from vehicular emissions of students, faculty, and staff members commuting to and from campus. In the same time period, DU bicycle and pedestrian commuters contributed to 0% of the university’s carbon footprint.2 In the effort to further reduce DU’s carbon footprint, the University Sustainability Council wishes to engage the campus community and the general public in an effort to support a safe bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure surrounding campus. To this end, the University accepts the recommendations of the Bicycle Friendly Universities report3 published in the Spring of 2012 by Transportation Solutions,4 and will actively work toward achieving the goals stated therein, with specific emphasis on the following points:
● Ensure community access to safe bicycle and pedestrian paths to and from campus, and supply sufficient bicycle parking for campus commuters.
● Aim to satisfy the Bicycle Friendly University standards, as described by the League of American Bicyclists.5
● Promote community awareness of bicycle and pedestrian traffic laws, campus security protocol, bicycle policy enforcement, and general commuter safety.
● Utilize local publications, campus events, student orientation week, social media, and other venues to implement innovative outreach campaigns.
● Maintain working relationships with the City of Denver, local organizations, and other relevant stakeholders to accelerate the city’s existing bicycle and pedestrian network improvement plans6 in the DU Vicinity.
● Work with DU faculty, staff, and students to promote teaching and learning of transportation sustainability, both in the university’s curriculum and in extracurricular campus activities.
The resolution aims to officially express DU’s support for the recommendations outlined in the recent report, Comparative Analysis of Bicycling Around Campus: Comparing Bicycle Friendly University Standards to the University of Denver.
After a lively discussion on transportation infrastructure in the DU area, the University Sustainability council unanimously passed the resolution. You can read the resolution in full here.
The Road Ahead 2012
“The Road Ahead 2012: Connecting Livable Communities”
Videography by Ethan Crawford, RockyMedia
DS106 Hello World!
photo by Stefanie Doll
This is the first of several posts related to the DS106 course I’m taking as an open-internet participant.
Here is a short description of DS106, taken as excerpts from the about DS106 page:
Digital Storytelling (also affectionately known as ds106) is an open, online course … you can join in whenever you like and leave whenever you need. This course is free to anyone who wants to take it, and the only requirements are a real computer (none of those wimpy ass iPads), a hardy internet connection, a domain of your own, some commodity web hosting, and all the creativity you can muster (and we’ll spend time helping you get up and running with at least two of the last three requirements).
As an emerging area of creative work, the definition of digital storytelling is still the subject of much debate.
In many ways this course will be part storytelling workshop, part technology training, and, most importantly, part critical interrogation of the digital landscape that is ever increasingly mediating how we communicate with one another.
The course objectives are rather straightforward:
- Develop skills in using technology as a tool for networking, sharing, narrating, and creative self-expression
- Frame a digital identity wherein you become both a practitioner in and interrogator of various new modes of networking
- Critically examine the digital landscape of communication technologies as emergent narrative forms and genres
I look forward to engaging in this interesting and important field of study. I hope to take the lessons learned and share them with my learning communities, here in Colorado and around the world. Feel free to join me in this critical discussion, you can register yourself at http://ds106.us/register/ and contribute to the discussion on your own blog, and stay in touch via the ds106 twitter feed.
