Citizens opposed to or uninterested in walkable communities ask "where are the walkers? Michiganians don't walk." We answer "No one walks because there is nowhere to walk; change designs and lots of people will walk." The truth is in-between.

If we start with our goal being to convert corridors to being walkable, the bikers and pedestrians spread thin over time and space. The naysayers appear to have their confirmation that everybody only drives.

My suggestion is that we work on designs at an extreme end of this spectrum, where distances between origins and destinations are indisputably walkable, but obstacles discourage walking. If we work on these six very local things:

1. Eliminate or cross landscaped triangles

2. Build sidewalks in front of AND between adjacent uses.

3. See that snow is regularly cleared off said paths.

4. Improve pedestrian crossings across busy streets between activity centers

5. Place buildings closer to streets instead of behind acres of parking,

6. Insure that commercial locations have bike parking.

... people WILL walk and cycle from one nearby activity to another. ONLY then the naysayers will see that someone walks under the right circumstances. After that we can expand our horizons to connect these micro-areas into walkable corridors.

-Art Slabosky