Local Motion moves many
Waterfront bike shop encourages outdoor activities

Cameron Dexter | staff editor
cdexter@smcvt.edu

Walk, bike, skip, jump. Local Motion located at Burlington’s waterfront, just wants you to get active. The non-profit organization promotes forms of travel that are safe, fun and get community members outdoors, director Charlene Wallace says.

Trail finder

Some of the many Burlington residents who prefer to bike. Photo courtesy of Larry Frisoli

The organization has just started a new initiative called “Trail Finder,” Wallace says.

“Our goal is to take inventory of every trail in Chittenden County, which is over 100 trails, and to document them all with GPS coordinates and pictures to create a comprehensive online resource of trails,” she says.

Wallace says that it’s a service that will be beneficial to the residents of Burlington who are looking for new trails to explore, and it will also be a resource for tourists who are new to the area.

There will also be a section dedicated to reviews and comments welcoming people to write-up, browse for, and obtain information, she says.

The “Trail Finder” initiative was funded by grants that came from the Vermont Trail Fund and from the Chittenden County Metropolitan Pedestrian Organization (CCMPO).

University of Vermont student Kourtney Larson says she uses a path maintained by Local Motion to bike to work three times a week.

“Without the path,” Larson says, “I would have to take the bus or drive, and I would rather bike.”

Bike and walk

Nicole Losch, of Burlington public works says that biking and pedestrian transportion is an important part of the Burlington community. Local Motion promotes and preserves this, she says.

According to Losch, her department provides information about how to budget money in order to make the most effective improvements to bike and pedestrian infrustructure.

“Local Motion comes to the Bike Council meetings and really brings a lot of energy,” Losch says. “Local Motion helps the council and initiates new ideas.”

The Burlington Bike Council is a citizens advocacy organization working to promote the safe use of bicycles for transportation and recreation in Burlington.

The Council was created by the City of Burlington's mayor's office to serve as an advisory body to the Department of Public Works, which works with the council, representing bicycling citizens, helping in the planning, as well as the development of bicycling facilities such as bike paths and bike lanes in Burlington, Losch says.

Losch says that her job responsibilities range from responding to Burlington citizens’ complaints about biking or walking infrustructre, to talking to people about the services they expect the city to provide commuters with.

According to Losch, about 18 percent of Burlington’s residents walk to work and about 1.7 percent bike.

Losch says that more people should use the alternate transportation options available to them.

“I think I’m one of the only ones here who takes the bus or uses my bike to get to work,” she says.

Many motions

Other programs and initaitives that Local Motion has been working on include the “Bike Recycle Vermont Program,” This program accepts old bycicles, even if they don’t run anymore, and the bicycle repairists at Local Motion fix up the bikes and give them to Burlington’s low-income residents who are in need of transportation, Wallace says.

“This includes refugees, the homeless and teens,” she says.

Another program, “Safety Routes to School,” is funded by the federal government and promotes children to walk and bike to school, Wallace says. Local Motion currently works with seven schools in the Burlington area and employs two coordinators who manage the initiative, she says.

Their jobs include helping schools apply for grants for infrustructure changes so that each school has sidewalks, thus making parents feel more comfortable with their children walking or biking to school, Wallace says.

“This kind of transportation builds community," Wallace says. "People connect with each other fact-to-face when they’re going a little slower and in not in their cars."