By Sara Judson

Walkability wizard, Jeff Speck, is coming to Lake Charles this Wednesday!  The community is invited to a free talk tomorrow, April 30th, in the Contraband Room at the Lake Charles Event Center.  Networking and meeting Jeff begins at 5pm followed by his talk from 5:30pm – 7pm.  The author’s “bible” on how to make downtowns more walkable, Walkable City, will be available for sale and book signing from 7 – 7:30pm. Speck’s session is coordinated by the Community Foundation of SWLA.

The desire to make a community’s downtown and beloved areas more walkable is a national phenomenon. Walkability is such a movement that Jeff Speck has focused his city planning on this topic for over a decade.  Last May, a group involved with the Just Imagine SWLA 50 Year Resilience Plan attended the Congress for the New Urbanism in Cincinnati to receive an international award for the Just Imagine plan.  The whole conference was exciting, and we all learned best practices to help SWLA implement the 11 catalytic projects in the Just Imagine plan, including the project on Strong Downtowns.  One workshop was led by Jeff Speck.  Each local who attended that session agreed that we need to bring him to SWLA!  After coordinating with partners including the City of Lake Charles, Visit Lake Charles and the Community Foundation, it is happening tomorrow.  He will physically walk around downtown and then drive him around a wider area to see how adjacent neighborhoods and parks connect with downtown.  Then, he will present recommendations unique to Lake Charles and give us a roadmap to make them happen.

The walkability concept continues to gain momentum and enthusiasm from people of all ages and stages.  As word got around that Jeff Speck is coming to Lake Charles, I heard that Lake Charles native, Isabela Walkin, interviewed Jeff Speck in a podcast for her Public Policy Master’s program at Georgetown.  Of course, I listened!  Their conversation centered around public policy concepts that are being implemented at both the local and national level to make walking easier, safer and more interesting.  Did you know that adding “street trees” that provide shade also make streets safer for pedestrians?  I’ve listened to Isabela’s interview with him and probably 5 other podcasts, too, because these achievable improvements and their benefits are fascinating. Jeff Speck is a rock star who helps cities increase their walkability with some easy fixes and ones that require longer term solutions.  A book club made up of young adult women are so excited about enhancing walkability that they have read Walkable City already and are attending the session together.  That really excited my now 60-year-old self to know that people in their 20s and 30s are engaging in their community to make a positive, lasting impact.  That is what we strive to do at the Community Foundation!

Strategies regarding creating successful downtowns were also highlighted at the Big Towns conference last week in Lafayette.  A team of Community Foundation and City of Lake Charles planning and public works departments heard from speakers like Mayor Tim Kelly of Chattanooga and David Dixon, an Urban Places Fellow who helps cities create livable neighborhoods, vibrant civic spaces, and vital downtowns.  They and others shared examples of cities who are making downtowns more walkable and connected, adding public green spaces, outdoor sidewalk dining, changes in parking requirements and locations, economic diversity and more.  Many concepts working in other cities are recommendations in the Strong Downtowns project of the Just Imagine SWLA plan. Best of all, the Strong Downtowns recommendations are scalable to be guides for any of our communities in SWLA.

I hope you, too, are excited about making streets more walkable and you’ll come out on Walkable Wednesday!  We’ll be looking for you in the Lake Charles Event Center at 5pm tomorrow for some visiting before the Walkability conversation begins at 5:30pm.

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Sara McLeod Judson is the CEO of the Community Foundation SWLA. She can be reached at 337-491-6688 or sjudson@foundationswla.org.