Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Doing our part to improve Omaha's quality of life

Omaha Bikes' mission "advocates for improved transporation, utility, and recreational bicycling infrastructure". We now have a great opportunity to improve our transportation infrastructure resulting in better living conditions for Omahans.

The timing for updating the Transportation Master Plan is perfect! We will be finishing the initial 20 miles of bike lanes and sharrows in 2011; we have hired a Pedestrian and Bicycling Planner, Carlos Morales, to see that biking is considered in all planning; now we are ready to develop a city wide bike transportation plan!


But Omaha's transportation master plan is much more multidimensional - considering many modes of moving people, and using transportation infrastructure to drive more sustainable land development and redevelopment.

Here is the Omaha Transportation Master Plan 2035 home page.
The video link on the left of the page contains the Nov 16 kickoff presentation. I highly recommend watching the consultant's presentation in minutes 18-50. Very enlightening!

The download link on the left contains the powerpoint slides in the video.
movingomaha is the facebook connection to the TMP 2035. They post recent links to sustainable urban development.

Currently, Omaha Bikes has over 750 facebook fans, movingomaha has over 75. If you want to use your bike for transportation or make Omaha more people friendly, at a minimum 'like' movingomaha.

Those who are willing to put some hours into improving the biking infrastructure and making Omaha more people friendly, attend the TMP 2035 public meetings.

For those willing to commit more time, who enjoy figuring out routes, have a background in transportation, or have contemplated how to get more people into utility bicycling, you have until Friday, Dec. 17, at 5 pm. to put in an application to participate in the TMP 2035 stakeholder committee.

Have a positive impact on the future of Omaha: get informed by watching the video, reading posted articles, and participating in the public meetings in order to make Omaha a better place to live.

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