Title: San Jose Wellness Event
Location: San Jose, CA
Description: Jenna Norwood presentation about the power of getting back to nature with the way we eat.
Start Time: 08:00
Date: 2010-04-09
End Time: 17:00

Title: James Madison University
Location: Harrisonburg, VA
Description: Film & Discussion of \”Supercharge Me! 30 Days Raw\”
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2010-04-20
End Time: 21:00

Greenbelt City Administration,

Subject: Using Snow to Prevent Shopping and Dining-Out at Christmastime.

Hi All,

I think that when Greenbelt becomes white it forgets that it is green. Were this not so, we would not have seen massive piles of snow plowed into the paths of persons who merely wanted to walk and bike about our city and to safely access public transportation. But, then, how much of this is our own doing, and how much can we blame on others, such as residential property owners, the County or State?

Having encountered several self-propelled transit disappointments, since our large snowfall ended at about 8pm, 6 days ago (This document dated Dec 25^th), I decided to check whether there had been progress in snow season accessibility for walkers and bicyclists in the routes to Greenway Shopping Center and to Greenbelt Town Center. Also on Dec 23^rd I had made some observations near Beltway Plaza and along Lakeside Drive.

There has been virtually no progress along Southway and Greenbelt Road since our Feb 2007 experience. Nevertheless the bus stop nearest Town Center did get snowplowed, but with deep snow still within the bus stop, and with the bus-alighting-area sidewalk mostly still somewhat treacherous, I volunteer-shoveled for about 50 minutes to make it safer and easier to use.

And I found that once again the walkways from Town Center to Greenbelt Road were basically impassable for walkers and bicyclists, and that the majority of the walkway along Greenbelt Road was in inappropriate condition for persons not interested in suicide.

While I am confident that major, expensive, and perhaps sometimes even heroic, work has once again been done in the clearing away of snow from our critical areas, I am left wondering about the thinking and influence of the Town’s businesses. Could they have more effectively influenced local, County and State entities for more comprehensive snow removal? Clearing as much snow as possible, ASAP, from roadways, parking lots and shopping areas did seem to be a reasonable strategy. Then, within a few days, some of the community walkways had also been cleared.

But, what about persons living along Southway, or not far from Southway, who wanted to shop at Greenway Center? They found that, even if they could walk or bike out to Southway, there was no safe way to get to Greenway Center. Over the years, in meetings about improving Greenbelt, the topic has always come up about how we could make better connections among the people residing in the various areas of Greenbelt. What about people meeting and actually talking with each other in snow-cleared sidewalks? When they go by in cars they tend not to talk (but sometimes do “share” certain gestures).

And, what about persons living along Lakeside drive, where the large majority of sidewalks (at least along the C2 bus route portion) leading toward Town Center had not been cleared? I suspect that many of these persons who might ordinarily drive elsewhere to shop, when snowed in, might have happily walked to Town Center and Greenway Center. Perhaps one of them was attempting to walk to Town Center about 4 years ago when he got killed because of walking out in the roadway, because the sidewalk was impassable, because of un-removed snow and ice.

Near Beltway Plaza a couple of days ago I again saw that major snow-removal work had been done. But the walker (or the person who finally found a place to park his car and tried to walk, shop and dine in the area) might have found himself in a non-path of virtually hostile snow and ice obstacles in front of the many businesses across Greenbelt Road from Beltway Plaza. I could not walk from one business to the other without actually walking out onto Greenbelt Road. This is a time when people, scared to death of doing injury to themselves or their cars, had finally summoned the courage to go out in their cars. They needed to minimize movement of their cars in order to increase their safety margins and to decrease their anxiety. I would recommend that businesses be sensitive to this.

And, what about the timing? Here we get a deep snow right at a heavy-duty Christmas shopping time, and most people find themselves immobilized car-wise, and are reluctant to dig their cars out and drive because of fear of car and people damage and possibly even financial liability damage. But, suppose those few thousand people living near Town Center and Greenway Center had looked outside and found their sidewalks cleared, found sidewalks along the main thoroughfares cleared, and found easy walking access to all of the Greenbelt shopping areas. Of course many of them would have immediately walked and shopped.. Some might even have “killed time” in dining establishments as they peered out at the snow-clearing melee.

One of our Greenbelt mantras has been, “Shop Local!” And we don’t mean within a 10-100 mile radius – we mean within a 2-3 mile radius. But how can we shop local if we can’t even walk to the stores? Local merchants should have been aware that the populace has virtually no choice but “shop local” when they cannot move their cars!

While there has been spotty evidence of community spirit, via individual snow-shoveling and teamworking of neighbors within some of the courts, I think that at present, we have far greater potential than realization. One of the lament-driven issues that regularly comes up in our “make a better Greenbelt” workshops has been about creating a stronger sense of community. Wouldn’t a massive, neighbor-powered snow-shoveling effort add some feeling of community? Why not create and coordinate, through the Greenbelt Aquatic and Fitness Center a “Greenbelt Snow Army,” registered persons who could be called upon to shovel, to sign out shovels, and to lead a snow shoveling campaign?

Or, are nearly all of us in such bad physical condition that we feel we must heed the dire media warnings about abstaining from shoveling snow lest we have heart attacks? I am a regular exerciser, so snow and ice shoveling is just another exercise. But the existence of our elaborate exercise facilities and programs tell me that I could not be the only regular exerciser around. Why don’t we see these regular exercisers (along with a few necessity and inspiration driven others) out shoveling snow in lieu of their regular exercise routines at this critical time? There is little that matches the community spirit available from a “bunch” of neighbors teamworking to clear away deep snow. Media etc become almost irrelevant – it’s just actual people, united by a common challenge and goal, invigorated by the outdoor air and the departure from routines, learning who each other are and becoming better able to appreciate their own neighbors and neighborhoods.

I have seen no promotion at the Greenbelt Aquatic and Fitness Center, nor at the Empirian Village gym and fitness center, of the idea that people should exercise regularly in order to be in shape to safely shovel snow – or to perform other strenuous, unpredictable tasks. Why wouldn’t there be a special exercise “course” for families who plan to move within a few months? It’s as if people are exercising purely for exercise’s sake. Nevertheless, any kind of regular vigorous exercise, for almost everybody, persisted in for years, accompanied by a reasonable diet, will substantially diminish the heart attack risk for would-be snow shovelers. And regular weight-lifting, especially if some of it is done cautiously in an asymmetric manner, will substantially reduce the chances of muscle strain or body damage at snow shoveling time. Still, snow shovelers, especially if middle-aged and older, need to stay aware that if their ordinary exercising intervals are, say, 1/2 hour, they have no business shoveling snow for a single stint of 4 hours, regardless of their perceived urgency of getting the car out, helping neighbors, or going shopping. An example: While we were receiving the heavy snow, as a senior, I volunteer-shoveled the walkways three times in front of and behind our building – executing widely-spaced exercise intervals of 30, 20 and 20 minutes.

Unfortunately I have also noticed that GAFC does not have a “snow shoveling machine,” in its weight lifting room, and I think that my own soreness for a couple of days after shoveling is indicative of a need for such a machine. Does it exist? If so, what would it look like? How about two large piles of dirt and several shovels – outdoors. Snow shoveling happens outdoors, and we need to better accustom ourselves to our own climate in order to improve our durability. In this situation, the exerciser, driven by the examples of ambitious locals, and guided by “safe-shoveling” posters, would just do the obvious a few times each week or month. And, for the really ambitious and competitive types, a sort of truck scale could be installed from which they could derive their shoveled tonnage per session, or their shoveled tonnage per hour, or even their calories expended.

And, here are some pictures of the snow obstacles I encountered on Dec 25th:

In this first photo, I had, without problems, just biked from Town Center, up Gardenway, across the Spellman BW Parkway overpass and down Hanover Parkway. But, was seeing my first problem.I am about to push the button for a timed light that will facilitate my crossing of Greenbelt Road. But, as you can see, if I were to stand near the pushbutton, when the light was indicating that I may cross, I would first have to scramble over a snow embankment, wasting precious seconds, as the crossing light countdown proceeded. It would be reckless and dangerous to attempt a rapid climb over this embankment, because I could not predict how particular parts of it would respond to my weight. Also I could fall into the street, and if unlucky, might not be able to get up before the light changed. My choice was to just walk out into the street into a half-cleared car traffic lane, and to just wait there, causing some drivers to wonder. Of course this would be a more dangerous situation at night, which is exactly when stores were hoping to draw more people out for their for holiday shopping.

In this next pic I have almost crossed Greenbelt road and am confronted by another snow embankment with a car approaching, with a driver wondering what this fool is doing standing in the road with a camera and a bicycle.

And here in this pic I am about to cross the right turn lane which is branching off Greenbelt Road, and, while the path does not look inviting (but instead looks hazardous) it does reveal that there has been plenty of foot traffic – that is – walkers do exist in our neighborhood who would actually like to go to Greenway Shopping Center, even when there has been a deep snow. Concerned about whether drivers could see me around the bend, I hurriedly crossed the right-turn lane, and within a few yards I was home free and into the gas station area at Greenway Center. Still, the interaction between me and the automobile drivers did become a bit strained, as I proceeded along the driveway (out in the road walking my bike) parallel to the Safeway. Only half of the length of the sidewalk there had been cleared – despite this being a high-pedestrian-traffic area.

In this next pic I have bravely, but perhaps irrationally, decided to return home via Greenbelt Road and Southway. This is what I encountered upon heading out toward Greenbelt Road.

Wow! In this next pic I have reached cleared sidewalk along Greenbelt Road stretching 75-100 yards uphill from the main entrance to Greenway Center. Unfortunately there is no access to this sidewalk except through deep snow,

And in this next pic, unfortunately, the cleared sidewalk has ended at an exit ramp from the BW Parkway, where there is clearly no safe way to cross.

And, in the next pic we can see, as we proceed up Greenbelt Road and onto the BW Parkway bridge, that there has been no effort to clear the snow off the sidewalk (from either side of the road). I thought it notable that there was not a huge number of footprints along the covered sidewalk here. Other years, after less-deep snows, the many thousands of footprints told me that hundreds of pedestrian transits must have occurred, suggesting a non-trivial pedestrian shopping potential.

And in this next pic I am walking along an exit ramp from Greenbelt Road onto Southway, and again, there is no travel way cleared for bicyclists or walkers or even riders of motorized wheelchairs. Motorists showed concern that I was actually walking out in the street.

And in this next pic, I am walking toward Greenbelt Town Center on Southway where I have found no accommodation on either side of the road. Nor was the bus stop between Greenbelt Road and Ridge Road cleared, meaning that would-be and alighting riders had to wait and depart the buses in a lane of traffic. One Metrobus driver told me that this hazard was one of the reasons that Metro temporarily withheld some of its bus service from within Old Greenbelt.And, finally, here in this pic, on Southway, approaching Town Center, I encountered some cleared sidewalk!

Certainly a smarter choice for me would have been to return home via Hanover Parkway and the Spellman Overpass, since I had a bicycle with me. But for walkers along Southway, for example, that would have incurred perhaps an extra two miles of walking, which they probably would not do.

Greenbelters need to be figuring out and communicating with persons and entities responsible, long before any deep snow. They will need to learn who are variously responsible for the clearing of the sequence of sidewalks they will need to be using. We can’t expect the agencies and individuals to respond appropriately to our needs at “snow time” if they haven’t heard from us. Perhaps such information could come to exist on the City website.

While we might tend to think that the State of MD (which is responsible for clearing snow from most or all of the areas I photographed) would have no interest in our situation, we need to remain aware that successful business within Greenbelt will help “feed” the State. Thus, if we can plausibly argue that cleared pedestrianways would stimulate business, the State might hear us. Sure, we are in a time of extraordinarily tight budgets, including the State’s and Greenbelt’s, but one method of ameliorating that would be to stimulate business in whatever ways we can.

Hopefully, with this reading, we Greenbelters will find ourselves in a position to better help ourselves and to better summon help from other agencies, so that we will be able to actually look forward to our next deep snow.

Best Wishes,

Bill Norwood