Posts about Seniors

Pedestrians will welcome any measures to slow down cars, make drivers stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and clear the box so that parents crossing the street to take their small children to their preschool don't have thread their way through the cars blocking the intersection and the crosswalks.

Lisa Sutter, head of photo enforcement for DC's Metropolitan Police Department, first presented her photo enforcement program to the DC Pedestrian Advisory Council in December or 2010. I thought Santa had delivered the absolute best Christmas presents. The new cameras will catch violators not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks, speeding through red and green lights, and blocking the box.

Ms. Sutter has the proof. She collects data on how her cameras affect driver behavior.

Cameras work. Drivers slow down and stop going through red lights. Plus, revenues drop over time.

Many of the complaints against cameras, such as those from AAA, say that the measure is just a play for revenue. But it is not really a good revenue source once drivers learn and begin to follow the law. Maybe new cameras would help plug a budget gap this year, but DC will not be able to count on a lot of revenue over time. What they can count in is safer streets.

Look at Connecticut Avenue north of Chevy Chase Circle. The cars go the speed limit. As a pedestrian who has had many near misses, I am all for it. And I drive a car, as well.

Besides, we all want safer streets, and we need to invest the resources to get there. If an effective method pays for itself and provides funding for more expansion, should we not support it?

Each pedestrian killed costs $3.84 million (in 2005 dollars) from losing wages and productivity, medical expenses, motor vehicle damage and employers' insurance costs. A pedestrian injury costs $52,900 (also in 2005 dollars, according to the National Safety Bureau.)

Aren't these fines a small price to pay to reduce crashes?

ANCs 3C and 3F passed a resolution in favor of photo enforcement, and other ANC's across the city are considering similar actions. It is time to view the risk of bodily harm from the traffic violations on our streets as we do the risk from crime. In fact, the risk is greater.

In their report of Traffic Safety in the New Millennium, the International Association of Chiefs of Police wrote, "More people are killed and injured and the economic losses to society are greater from traffic crashes than that from crime."

It's long past time to install more traffic cameras and make our streets safer. Mayor Gray took the right step, and the DC Council should approve the program as part of this year's budget.

AARP's "Six-Point Action Plan" (large PDF, see p. 94) for livable communities includes the following policy priorities.

• Localities should remove zoning barriers to such housing alternatives as accessory apartments and shared housing.

• Localities should carefully consider efficient mixed-use development to reduce distances between residences, shopping sites, recreation, health care facilities, and other community features. Zoning requirements should be reviewed in this context.

• State and local jurisdictions should create or adapt complete public transportation systems designed to meet the needs and preferences of diverse community residents, and communities should coordinate all agencies with an interest in transportation and the infrastructure that supports transportation.

• State and local jurisdictions should design and retrofit the travel environment for walking and bicycling for safety, connectivity, and accessibility.

While it makes sense that these would be priorities for the nation's seniors, that the AARP agrees would surprise those who have testified before local and state bodies in support of these exact policies. Opponents of these AARP positions are usually eligible to be AARP members, while advocates are more often not.

When the AARP takes a position on an issue, they represent over 40 million seniors. Furthermore, Census data indicates that the population of those 65 and older will increase 33% from 2005-2020.

Advocates with this sizable constituency would be influential in the local and state debates that determine whether communities are livable or are single-use, car-dependent bedroom communities.

The AARP is right to make livable communities a policy priority, but it is unclear what they are actually doing to advance this priority. As the size of the nation's elderly community continues to grow, let's hope that the AARP puts their money where their mouth is in advocating for their interests in livable communities.

A movement is most effective when blogs, traditional nonprofits, and elected officials work together to promote ideas in concert. The Coalition for Smarter Growth is working every day to turn what we believe in and discuss here on the blog into reality.

They're a small organization (4 full-time staff) and need our support, especially in this tough economic time, to continue doing their great work and to do even more. Plus, for the month of December, other donors will match every dollar you give to CSG.

Human services: Help those most in need this year with basic food, shelter, and more. This is especially important now with a bad economy, widespread unemployment, and governments cutting back on vital services. Direct service groups like Bread for the City and So Others Might Eat provide food, clothing, medical care, legal counseling, job training and more to the most needy.

The Capital Area Food Bank provides most of the food that the direct service organizations distribute. And DC Central Kitchen turns unused food from area businesses into meals for the needy, and trains unemployed people for culinary careers.

N Street Village helps homeless women find housing, get medical and mental health care, and job training; their center on 14th Street replaced an ugly parking lot and has become an anchor for more growth on its part of 14th Street. Charlie's Place helps homeless people with food, clothing and job training. AMEN gives emergency financial assistance to Arlington residents in crisis.

Advocacy membership organizations: Many nonprofit advocacy groups are structured as membership organizations. Being a member supports their work and sometimes comes with a few extra bonuses as well. Consider joining the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, and Maryland's Action Committee for Transit. The DC Sierra Club provided much of the driving force behind streetcars. And of course, if you think DC residents should have voting rights like all other Americans, join DC Vote.

Environmental groups: Sprawl constantly threatens our natural resources and, by extension, the quality of our drinking water, recreational opportunities, and more. Some of the many local groups working are the DC, Virginia, and Maryland Sierra Clubs, the Anacostia Watershed Society, Friends of Rock Creek's Environment, Anacostia Riverkeeper, Potomac Riverkeeper, and more. Casey Trees plants and nurtures street trees to help all neighborhoods develop a healthy tree canopy.

Education and mentoring: There are so many worthy education nonprofits it's not possible to do them justice here, but here are just a few to start with: For Love of Children connects underprivileged children with one on one volunteer tutors; they're looking for more volunteers as well as funding. College and Career Connections works in Ward 7 to encourage youth to stay motivated in school and go to college, which are key to success in the modern world. And Big Brothers Big Sisters of the National Capital Area has made a difference in so many children's lives.

Food security and urban farming: People struggling with hunger and homelessness aren't the only ones who need help with food. All children need healthy meals which are often difficult for poor families to afford. Urban farms and nutrition programs seek to make more fresh food available to poor neighborhoods.

Consider supporting the DC Farm to School Network, which gets healthy, local, and sustainable food to DC schoolchildren; Common Good City Farm, an urban farm and education center growing food for low-income residents; The Farm at Walker Jones is building a farm in the H Street area for kids to learn about food and to provide it to them and needy neighbors.

Your local aging in place "village": A number of neighborhoods have "village" associations which help senior citizens remain in their homes by providing assistance with illnesses and disabilities, small home maintenance tasks, and connections to community activities. A diversity of ages is healthy and important for every neighborhood.

There are villages in Capitol Hill, Dupont Circle, Kalorama, Palisades, Chevy Chase, and more. Also, Iona Senior Center not only provides services for the elderly but helped fund the Connecticut Avenue Pedestrian Action program to make upper Connecticut safer.

Others in the Catalogue for Philanthropy: This annual publication showcases valuable, small, effective nonprofits in the DC metropolitan area around sustainability, education, human services and more. It's a great way to find out about organizations worth supporting that you might not otherwise know about.

What other local and regional organizations do you support?

There are many senior citizens who are in such a situation. The loss of driving privileges stands between them and disconnection from the outside world. My other grandmother did not drive for most of her adult life. My grandfather always did the driving. It was how their marriage worked and how they supported each other. However, once he died, she had to learn how to drive because they lived in a very car-dependent place. She drove as little as possible, even after becoming proficient at it. It was very stressful for her. As time went on, she got out less and less. It was very sad to see from 300 miles away. I kind of think that again, a human-scale town would have been a better place for her to live out her retirement, especially after my grandfather died.

According to the National Council on Aging, suicide is more common among seniors than any other age group in the United States. Isolation is one of many possible causes of depression and suicide. What is more isolating than living in a car-dependent place alone, without access to car transportation? Seniors need stimulation, something to work on and something to look forward to just as much as anyone else. They crave a sense of belonging to a community just as much as anyone else. Most of them grew up in a human-scale walkable urban place and remember it fondly.

Rather than isolating senior citizens in a single-use pod, there should be opportunities for them to live as part of a mixed community with everyone else. Many seniors have much wisdom and experience to pass on to the rest of us. It is not possible to learn from them if they are not a part of the community but rather isolated to their own residences. Our society would be much richer both from our individual senior citizens' improved stimulation and sense of purpose, and from everyone else learning from their experience and wisdom.

There's nothing wrong with retirement homes. Why shouldn't I want to hang out with people who remember the same old songs I do and also have plenty of time to kill? But when those retirement homes morph into retirement compounds, where I've got a security guard keeping the rest of the world at bay, I'm not as enthused. Nor are people who actually are retired. Today's seniors are "aging in place," hiring local builders to retrofit their old homes to make them safe for years to come. Or they're banding together with fellow retirees to form "naturally occurring retirement communities," as one Fairfax County neighborhood is doing.

Or they're tackling the physical form of the neighborhood itself, bringing a little piece of the city to the suburbs where they raised families decades before. Outside of Atlanta, Fayetteville and Mableton are both turning their strip-malls into retiree-friendly town centers, building sidewalks, mixing uses, and increasing density so that everything is within walking distance. The end result won't be too different than what we already have here in Downtown Silver Spring or Rockville Town Square. But bringing retirees into the discussion recognizes that they stand to benefit from good urbanism as well, whether it's freedom from driving or from budget pressures:

"Space is something we thought we had to have" in the suburbs, says Ms. Trammell, age 74. "But we can't afford that today—time-wise or money-wise. Putting a single house on a one-acre lot means more street in front of that house, longer electric and gas lines to run to the house, more yard and shrubs to cut, and a bigger property-tax bill for the owners. We're all tired of that. I know I am."

The city, it seems, is where the young and old meet. Sort of. There are large groups of both who want walkable, accessible, sociable places, but I don't know if how many seniors would move to Adams Morgan, as walkable, accessible and sociable it is. But they're already moving to neighborhoods in the District and throughout the region that provide some form of urban life. These are places that provide the low-maintenance lifestyle retirees want and need with the independence that communities like Leisure World and Riderwood can't offer.

It's not surprising that baby boomers are turning away from gated retirement complexes to real neighborhoods. After all, they're more likely than I am to remember a time when people weren't stuck in their cars. And it allows them to live out retirement with the same vitality they've always enjoyed. As for my aunt and uncle, they still haven't moved to Leisure World. "Why would I want to live out there?" She keeps asking. "The houses are nice, but we don't need all that space."