Find out how to make Hudson more 'walkable'
By Angela Greiner Contributing Writer

Hudson - Interested residents are encouraged to tighten their laces and dig out their walking sticks: Hudson has been chosen as one of 20 towns in Massachusetts to participate in a Walkable Community Workshop. The workshop, which is hosted by the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), will take place Monday Sept. 17, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium at the Hudson Town Hall.

The Boston Region MPO, established as part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962, is responsible for implementing and overseeing the federally required planning process for 14,000 square miles of transit and highway projects in 101 eastern Massachusetts town and cities.

MPO representative Cathy Buckley Lewis will present the state- and federally-funded workshop. The program's goal, according to Lewis, is to help the community target and solve issues that impede the town from becoming a walkable community. The workshop, which is open to all community members, begins with a 45-minute presentation of several design plans that would encourage a pedestrian-friendly town.

Following the presentation, Lewis will guide the residents on a tour of the downtown area. During the tour, she will point out the particular areas in the designs and discuss with the group how to make Hudson more inviting to walkers.

The group then will return to Town Hall to pull out maps and investigate how to create a downtown area that will encourage both children and adults to walk there.

Attracting walkers and shoppers to the downtown area, Lewis said, will enhance economic development in the town center.

"America Walks," a national coalition of local grassroots organizations committed to the development of walkable communities that the MPO partners with, has discovered that in the past 25 years the number of people who walk either to work or for other needs has dropped by 55 percent, according to the Web site at www.walkamerica. org. Researchers found that the reason people do not walk in downtown areas is because of a lack of destinations.

The workshop was initiated in response to several to several conditions, Lewis said. One reason is that 54 percent of adults and 25 percent of children in America are overweight. Another is the heightened awareness and willingness of communities to look to alternative solutions for the impending global warming crisis.

The workshop will provide city planners and residents an opportunity to plan a downtown area that will be walk-friendly for both children and adults, Lewis said. Given that today's traditional suburban community actually encourages the need for automobiles because most of the shops and schools have left the Main Street area, towns like Hudson now have a unique opportunity to work with experts in this field to develop an action plan to bring the residents back into town and rejuvenate a pedestrian-friendly town.

For more information about the upcoming event, contact Michelle Ciccolo at 978-562-9963.