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| | Traffic Garden Designs Newsletter No. 3 |
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| Sometimes I zoom out on the Global Traffic Garden Map and just stare at it for a minute. Every little bicycle symbol represents people somewhere in the world who decided that children deserve safer, more joyful space for learning and I never cease to be amazed at how many communities have worked hard to create these places.
Here at Traffic Gardens HQ, we have already identified hundreds more traffic gardens that are waiting to be added to the global map, and whenever we think we're catching up, we learn of even more. Radlobby Österreich, the national cycling advocacy organization, just sent us the wonderful Austrian traffic garden map they have created. Do keep sending us additions to the maps: every new location helps tell the 90-year story that is far larger and more global than most people realize.
Read on for news about our new website downloads designed to help you find and evaluate a traffic garden site in your community, plus a surprise blast from the past dating from my earliest days in the U.S. |
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| The Surface Matters as Much as the Product |
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Cracks, cut-off posts, faded paint lines, shabby asphalt: few surfaces are perfect, especially those being considered for a new traffic garden. Last month's article focused on the importance of high-quality surface-applied products so now I want to highlight the condition of the surface beneath them.
Dirt, cracks, and poor repairs impact the durability if not addressed properly so surface preparation is critical and well worth the investment of time and money. While quality sealing and painting extends pavement life and dramatically improves appearance, these products work properly when applied to clean, stable surfaces.
The encouraging news is that I have seen some remarkably shabby surfaces become attractive and durable traffic gardens simply because proper attention was given to the condition of the pavement before the first line was ever painted. |
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| Traffic Garden Field Guide:This month: New Free Download on the Website |
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| | One of the questions I hear most often is some variation of "Where can we find a place to add a traffic garden in our community?”. What I then enjoy sharing is how I’ve seen suitable sites hiding in plain sight all over and I fill them in on underused tennis courts, decommissioned basketball courts, closed parking lots, schoolyards, park facilities, and other often overlooked asphalt spaces.
To help people get started, I’ve created a new Finding a Traffic Garden Site 2-pager that walks through the locations that make good candidates and provides practical tips for spotting opportunities. It also highlights some of my ‘hidden gem’ locations that are frequently overlooked. Combined with these ideas, a simple exercise is browsing aerial imagery of local parks, trails, and recreation facilities. Once you start looking with the listed possibilities in mind, you'll be surprised how many promising spaces begin to appear.
The document is available as a free download from TrafficGardens.com. Click the button labelled Finding a Traffic Garden Site and you'll get immediate access so you can begin your search for the perfect site! Once you've found some potential locations, our new Evaluating a Potential Traffic Garden Site guide can help you compare and assess your options. The guide is available for purchase, and the full cost is refunded with any subsequent traffic garden plan set purchase. |
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| From Sludge to Traffic Gardens? |
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| | I recently stumbled upon this archived newsletter and although I find it a bit cringey, it does capture a big moment that changed my life entirely. I had never even been a tourist to the U.S. yet within twelve hours of landing in JFK, I was at my desk in a city government office. It was an incredibly steep learning curve given this was my first engineering job, in a new country, and within systems and processes that were completely unfamiliar. On top of that, no one could understand me when I said many words or numbers never mind how many times a day I spelled and explained my name.
I have no memory of this article and I have to say, it doesn’t even sound like me as I would never have used words like ‘faucet’ or ‘gotten’ in my Hiberno English at the time. I do love the Sally O’Brien reference which would have been absolutely impossible for a U.S. audience to decipher in the pre-internet age. Of the four of us, I’m the only one who ended up staying in the U.S. but I still see Ray on trips back to Dublin.
How I then got from ‘sludge management’ to ‘traffic gardens’ is a story too long for this newsletter. |
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| Knoxville Safety City Webinar - Wednesday June 24th |
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| I’ve been having great fun uncovering more of the early history of safety towns and tracking how they evolved into today's traffic gardens. When that original safety town was painted in a parking lot in Ohio in 1937, it became a national sensation, attracting coverage in newsreels, newspapers, and national magazines across the country. Even Life Magazine showed up to take pictures but it rained so that article never materialized. I'll tell more of the story at the Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety webinar on June 24th at 2pm ET. Most of the session will be Brad Holtz reporting on the research he has been conducting for his PhD using data from Safety City Knoxville. You can sign up for the webinar here: https://lnkd.in/gYSDCSAX |
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