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Community invited to weigh in on making Homer a walkable, bikeable city

This weekend, the community is invited to discuss and learn about transportation in Homer. In particular, what is working, and what needs to be changed.

Satchel Pondolfino is with Cook Inletkeeper and the Homer Drawdown effort. She said the symposium at the college is meant to foster community engagement.

“There are so many components that make a town walkable and bikeable," she said. "And the event is trying to bring people in the door to help us have community input and a gathering on how we can improve that in Homer.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on a disability. That includes transportation and public accommodations.

One of the goals the City of Homer and organizers hope to achieve Saturday is brainstorming safe ADA-compliant walking and biking trails.

Matt Steffy from the Homer Parks Department said having fully accessible, ADA-compliant trails is essential for the city. He also said, less accessible trails tend to have their place too.

Accessibility is a really important topic right now," Steffy said. "When you get to ADA compliance and accessibility, trails are an interesting conversation, because we want some trails to be moderately inaccessible. That's what kind of makes them fun for some of us. But you need to have trails that are accessible too.”

Homer Drawdown is a community climate solutions group. It uses community engagement to find solutions to climate change.

Pondolfino – who’s with the group – said lowering carbon emissions is something the community can work together to do.

“This year, that looks like encouraging people to walk or bike instead of driving by making our town more safe, more vibrant, and enticing you to go business to business on foot and making our town more connected as a community," she said. "Those kinds of interactions happen more when you are out of a vehicle and bumping into people on the streets.”

TheNon-Motorized Transportation Symposiumwill be this Saturday afternoon from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Kachemak Bay Campus.

Find out more at homerdrawdown.info.

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Local News Homer DrawdownCook Inlet KeeperCity of Homer
Simon Lopez is a long time listener of KBBI Homer. He values Kachemak Bay’s beauty and its overall health. Simon is community oriented and enjoys being involved in building and maintaining an informed and proactive community.
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