{"id":12717,"date":"2015-03-30T09:38:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T13:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=12717"},"modified":"2015-03-30T09:40:13","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T13:40:13","slug":"green-corridors-are-good-for-people-business-plants-and-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/green-corridors-are-good-for-people-business-plants-and-animals.html","title":{"rendered":"Green corridors are good for people, business, plants, and animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nSome of this is happening locally: Valdosta is planting trees along Hill Avenue,\r\nLowndes County is building\r\n\r\nNaylor Park<\/a> with a boat ramp that will be part of the\r\n\r\nAlapaha River Water Trail<\/a> and VLPRA has long been thinking about a blueway\r\non the Withlacoochee River, where it already has a string of parks and ramps.\r\nValdosta has the\r\n\r\nAzalea City Trail<\/a> across several parks and VSU.\r\nImagine if that Trail extended a little farther on each end, connecting the\r\nWithlacoochee River and the Alapaha River: a greenway between two blueways.\r\nImagine if Lowndes County planted trees in that concrete median in Bemiss Road.\r\nImagine a bus running down that parkway….\r\n

\r\nJanice Astbury, the nature of cities, 29 March 2015,\r\n\r\nGreen Transport Routes Are Social-Cultural-Ecological Corridors<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n…natural corridors do not appear on the standard online GPS\r\nsystems that people increasingly use to plan their routes. In other\r\ncases, the path is suddenly interrupted by infrastructure hostile to\r\npedestrians and cyclists. It is clear that green and active\r\ntransport routes are an afterthought, an add-on, rather than a core\r\npart of the city’s transport strategy.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLocal government should invest in developing and maintaining the\r\nnatural connective tissue of the city. In the same way that\r\nsignificant investment is made in arterial roads because they are\r\nbelieved to serve everyone and to connect up vital places, so\r\ninviting connective green infrastructure should be supported. The\r\ncanals, footpaths, and cycleways that provide routes for active\r\ntransport should appear prominently on maps and signage. Whole\r\nsystems should be indicated when possible, even when portions of\r\nthem are currently inaccessible, in order to enhance system\r\nunderstanding, and to encourage thinking about connecting up\r\nfragmented corridors.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nFew people complain when a county or city spends millions of dollars on\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\npaving or widening a road, even though there’s no obvious direct\r\nreturn on investment.\r\nThe less tangible returns,\r\n\r\nalleged safety<\/a>, ease of commute,\r\nand future development, all are served just as well\r\n\r\nor better<\/a>\r\nthrough public transportation and green corridors.\r\n

\r\nVLPRA has already demonstrated that parks can bring in jobs directly\r\n\r\nthrough softball and baseball tournaments<\/a>.\r\nLinking up some more parks through greenways and blueways\r\ncould improve local quality of life still more and help attract and retain\r\nthe sorts of businesses the Chamber and the Development Authority want.\r\nValdosta recently was named \r\n“Smart Energy Municipality of the Year”<\/a> for a list of\r\naccomplishments including phasing in LED streetlights for the night.\r\nI wonder what awards local governments could win for green corridors for the day?\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of this is happening locally: Valdosta is planting trees along Hill Avenue, Lowndes County is building Naylor Park with a boat ramp that will be part of the Alapaha River Water Trail and VLPRA has long been thinking about a blueway on the Withlacoochee River, where it already has a string of parks and […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[202,1362,14,449,178,332,450,134,55],"tags":[8750,453,7923,2492,4319,8828,8369,2177,8368,8704,8701,8370,8702,12,7,5992,2126,7857,8767,155,6,8749,8765,7920,8768,8743,8727,58],"class_list":["post-12717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-bicycle","category-economy","category-transportation","category-vlcia","category-vlcoc","category-vlpra","category-vsu","category-water","tag-agriculture","tag-alapaha-river","tag-alapaha-river-water-trail","tag-azalea-city-trail","tag-bemiss-road","tag-bicycle","tag-blueway","tag-bus","tag-corridor","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-greenway","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-park","tag-public-transportation","tag-silviculture","tag-transportation","tag-trees","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia","tag-vlcoc","tag-vlda","tag-vlpra","tag-vsu","tag-water","tag-withlacoochee-river"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3j7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12717"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12720,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717\/revisions\/12720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}