Invitation to Presentation by Dan Burden: Active Transportation, Place-making & Community Development

West Sound Cycling Club will be hosting Dan Burden, a nationally renowned walkable cities transportation consultant, on January 11 at the United Way Bldg. in Bremerton, 7 pm – 8:30 pm.  Dan will be speaking about Active Transportation, Place-making & Community Development.

For 80-years city planners and engineers have built cities for cars, forgetting the time-honored practice of building cities for people.  We have “fouled our nest”, negatively affecting both individual and community health.  The resulting infrastructure is unsustainable financially, and fails as a solution to vehicular congestion.

Dan Burden feels Bremerton is in the right place in the right time to implement a transportation network of greater sustainability, walkability, and livability:  Bremerton’s Mayor, Patty Lent, and Chal Martin, Director of Public Works, have opened the door for WSCC to collaborate on solutions;  the Washington Dept. of Transportation has shifted its focus emphasizing the multimodal nature of all roadways;  there is building interest in supporting safer, less car-centric infrastructure.  Dan has a 40-year career in transportation and community building.  He will share with you the latest tools and approaches that helped make walking and bicycling the natural and easy choice in many other Pacific Northwest communities, and reflect on how this could apply to our specific infrastructure needs in Bremerton.

Dan Burden, biography:

Dan Burden is a founder of Bikecentennial, which became Adventure Cycling, a national organization promoting bike travel throughout the United States.  He served for 16 years as the first State Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the Florida Dept. of Transportation.  This program became a model for other statewide programs, and in 1991 launched one of the nation’s first and most successful Complete Streets programs.

Dan has become a nationally recognized authority on bicycle and pedestrian facilities.  In 1996 he cofounded Walkable Communities with his wife Lys, eventually helping more than 3,500 communities throughout the world become more livable and walkable.  From 2005-2009 Dan worked as a senior urban designer with the community planning firm Glatting Jackson, recognized for transportation solutions that transform struggling suburban and urban environments into walkable, livable, valued places.  Time Magazine declared Dan “one of the six most important civic innovators in the world.”