Culture of Activity Newsletter
Vol. 2 No. 3
Thanks so much for joining us on the second year of our newsletter.
We’re delighted to have you along for the ride.
A special welcome to our newest subscribers:
Jeff M., Cyrus M., Randy H. and Mary Jo R.

Updates

The fast pace of the year has continued, hence the reason for a bit of a delay since our last newsletter, but we were able to produce 10 additional episodes on the Culture of Activity Channel. We’ve highlighted these below for you. We’ve also continued to make good pre-production progress on the exciting documentary we’re involved with (and yes, we’ll have a big announcement on this regard by July).

Our Most Recent Films

Episodes 43 through 52, plus a couple of other shorties, were released since our last newsletter in March. They fall into a few basic groups or clusters which I’ve outlined here:

CNU25.Seattle – The annual gathering of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

The following is a link to an album we’ve of the cluster of videos we’ve produced from the past two years at the Congress. Our highlights from this year are definitely the two tours. Active Towns videos from CNU 2016-2017

Episode 50 – CNU25.Seattle: Victoria, BC Tour

Episode 47 – CNU25.Seattle: Pocket Neighborhoods Tour

Boulder Walks – A cluster of videos we shot associated with this walking advocacy and encouragement program in the City of Boulder, Colorado

This group of videos starts off with a shortie introducing the program:

Boulder Walks Program Intro Video Spring 2017

It also includes two conversations with Darcy Kitching with Walk2Connect: Episode 43 – Boulder, CO: Tips for Starting a Walking Group and Episode 48 – Boulder, CO: Walk ‘n Talk with Darcy Kitching

Facility & Program Profiles – The final group of videos is a series of miscellaneous profile videos shot in and around the Austin area.

The first is a glimpse of what it is like to go for a ride in a Cycling Without Age Trike Shaw:

Episode 44 – Austin, TX: Trikeshaw Tour of Mueller

The second is a look at Austin’s bike to work day celebration:

Episode 49 – Austin, TX: Bike 2 Work Day 2017

The third is a shortie featuring folks enjoying warm late spring evening on the Pfluger bridge:

Episode 51 – Austin, TX: Early Evening Rhythms

The fourth, final and perhaps most exciting is the profile of the newly opened bike and pedestrian bridges in south Austin:

Episode 52 – Austin, Tx: New Bridge Over Barton Creek Greenbelt

Help Us Produce This Content
Just a quick reminder, as a charitable, not-for-profit organization we rely on donations and sponsorships to produce our films. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution at https://www.activetowns.org/fundraising/

Other Interesting Content

A Mind’s Eye Map: 
How well do you know you city? How about its bike network? This cool post had us all guessing 12 cities based only on their bike network map. It’s pretty fun, if you have not yet played along, give it try here: Guess the city based on it bike map

Oslo Plan Hits Bumps
Another article out of the Guardian that caught our eye talked about some of the challenges the city of Oslo is facing as they strive to make the central city essentially a motor vehicle free zone. Oslo’s car ban sounded simple enough. Then the backlash began

Bike Cities World Rankings
Every two years the Copenhagenize organization releases its world index of bike friendly cities and is usually the custom other publications start talking about these results, here’s Wired’s take:
THE 20 MOST BIKE-FRIENDLY CITIES IN THE WORLD, FROM MALMÖ TO MONTREAL

Potential Content Profile: Let us know if you see any interesting, relevant articles, research or blog posts – just drop John an email at: john@activetowns.org

Final Thoughts 

Be Conspicuously Active
Now that warmer months are upon us, many people will be heading outdoors to soak up the sun and hopefully they’ll be getting in a little activity.

We’d like to encourage you to do so in a visible and intentional manner.

Head out for a walk, hike or bike ride and bring along and help encourage someone else, preferably a normally sedentary person. And while y’all are out there, have FUN, SMILE and WAVE. That’s right, be social. Engage with those individuals you pass and are all around you, even if they happen to be trapped within a climate controlled metal box with windows and pneumatic tires. You never know, they might just notice and be curious enough to venture out themselves.

We know that our community environments are safer and more inviting when others are out walking and biking and that more people will actually consider giving it a try when they see others smiling, waving and generally enjoying their activity.

So get outside, take a friend, a child and perhaps even a parent and don’t forget to smile through the miles.

Newsletter Purpose
The primary goals of this periodic email based newsletter are to keep our subscribers up to speed on recent Active Towns original content and present relevant curated content created by others.

Subscribe
Perhaps you were forwarded this edition, if you’d like to sign up to receive the newsletter delivered to your inbox click here