Walking Is Transportation

The Walker, Out of Hibernation At Last

WHEN IT'S MORE LIKE FLYING

That's the critical difference warm(er) weather makes. The distance you bridge on foot, the time you take to get there, the destination itself--all are secondary to the delight you feel as you take to the streets and peel them back, one by one, until you achieve a pace and a rhythm that seem like preparations for lift-off. In the end, you're almost disappointed to get where, after all, you were going.

That's what happened last night. I was off to a dance class, fully prepared to steel myself against the wind and the cold, et voila!: no wind, no cold. Instead, warmer temperatures and a soft breeze whose effects I didn't have to hunker down to ward off. I passed through the same dark and utterly deserted streets as I do every Monday night, but last night the streets weren't bleak and depressing, somehow. In any case, they didn't matter; I was flying.

Today, in intermittent rain, I walked about six miles, some of it fairly hilly, and the experience was the same. Joyous. On this gray, damp day, my walk felt at one point like dance and at another, like flight.

Me? On a 32-mile walk?

I'm pleased to report I've been invited to go on a group trek 'round the perimeter of Manhattan, which, the inviter reports, is a distance of 32 miles. It's set for Saturday, October 6.

Am I ready? I really don't know. My current walking speed is about 3.5 miles/hour. My average walk is about 5 or 6 miles long. The longest walk I've taken––that is, since I started keeping track––was 14 miles, which took me 3 1/2 hours.

These are not leisurely strolls. Today's trip to the shoe repair guy and back was six miles long, with lunch waiting at the end. All very commendable, but not good enough. I've got to get my speed up to speed. And there's not much time.

I had heard that shorter steps boost your speed, and so I made my steps shorter. That worked. But what else? Any thoughts?

"The real measure of distance is how long it takes you to walk there."

That welcome bit of audacity was posted here by Stephen Rees, a transportation economist and regional planner in Vancouver, B.C. and a fellow blogger ( http://stephenrees.wordpress.com ).

Rees is right. Drivers often calculate distance in minutes or miles. But to a walker--to this walker, anyway--distance is something more fluid, something you can't always measure with a pedometer or a clock. Familiar routes shrink a little more, every time you walk them. Yesterday's challenging trek is today a mere saunter around the block. And conversely, as you'd expect, in truly foul weather distances can seem to double their length.

If you want to know how far you traveled on a particular walk--and if, like me, you don't want to strap on one more piece of technology, such as a pedometer--the Google and Yahoo mapping programs have useful though limited tools. They calculate distance in car miles. They map the routes that are simplest for a car to navigate but that often are less direct and less efficient than those a walker, runner, skater or cyclist might devise.

What these programs fail to account for are (1) the altogether different rhythms of alternative transportation modes--the hastening or slackening of pace; the sudden halt, to watch a passing cloud--and (2) human variability and ingenuity--the shortcuts through alleys, parks and vacant lots a knowledgeable walker or cyclist might take, for example, in a sudden downpour.

The next generation of these programs should devise routes, calculate distances and estimate travel times using a variety of transportation modes, including walking and bicycling.