The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) is pleased to present this Winter 2023 edition of “Walk this Way” - a bi-annual newsletter on walking and walkability. It is intended to serve as a community forum to support safe walking opportunities and to promote walkability for all of Maryland. 

This issue includes contributions from Anna Zevarts, Director, Disability Mobility Initiative, Disability Rights Washington and Laura Mehegan, Senior Research Advisor, AARP Research.

The Walktober initiative of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) continues to grow, strengthening partnerships and reaching new audiences across the state, the nation, and now reaching some international audiences as a forum to highlight the importance of walking and walkability. The 2022 campaign built on previous successful partnerships with state, local, and regional stakeholders, and expanded in exciting new directions to embrace new players in the private and non-profit sector. The 2022 campaign also featured an extraordinary range of informative webinars – co-hosted by MDOT and the Maryland Department of Planning (MDP), every Thursday in October. These webinars on walking, or “Walkinars,” showcased new research and planning initiatives around walking and walkability. With record attendance, the Walkinars served as a great forum for stakeholders from all “walks of life” to share notes and strategies for making transportation by walking more accessible and safe in their communities. The Walkinar recordings are now available on the Walktober website and can be viewed by clicking here.

The eighth annual Walk Maryland Day on October 5, 2022 was also a great success with over 160 walk events in 23 counties throughout the State of Maryland, as well as Baltimore City.

The MDOT extends their thanks and congratulations to all of the partners and participants who helped make Walktober 2022 such a resounding success. Keep an eye on the Walktober website for exciting news about Walktober 2023 and the ninth annual Walk Maryland Day on October 4, 2023.
 

For too long, transportation policy has been written by and for drivers. This creates major barriers for those who cannot drive or cannot afford to drive in order to access school, jobs, medical care, grocery stores, religious services, and everywhere in between. This is despite the fact that almost a third of people living in the United States do not have access to the privilege of driving where they need to go. In fact, only 69 out of every 100 Americans have a driver’s license.

In November 2020, I launched the Disability Mobility Initiative at Disability Rights Washington and began interviewing nondrivers from every legislative district in Washington state. We documented those stories in our “Transportation Access for Everyone Story Map” to increase our visibility and create a political identity as nondrivers. Two years later, it included interviews with more than 200 nondrivers about how they get around, and the biggest barriers they face in order to fully participate in community life.

To read the full story and to learn more about the challenges that face pedestrian infrastructure safety and accessibility, click the button below.   

In case anyone needs a good reason to get out and walk, research has demonstrated many positive benefits related to walking. In a recent study in the United Kingdom of over 78,000 participants over a 7-year period, those who walked close to 10,000 steps per day reduced their dementia risk by 50 percent. Other studies have shown that walking reduced knee pain in adults with arthritis, breast cancer risk in women, and the risk of hip fractures in postmenopausal women.

To read the full story and learn more about the health benefits of walking, click the button below.