Dr. Chen and Mr. Miller say a few brief words miller: For the past 7 years Northwood students have partnered with Dr. Chen in conducting various environmental and urban survey projects in and around Wheaton. Past surveys have covered a variety of urban features like bus stops, store front signage, trees, dumpster, green spaces, and street furniture. They also included environmental aspects like, green spaces, greening opportunities, mapping garlic mustard, and the source locations of food served in Wheaton. This year we surveyed walkability and did an environmental Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threat. 1
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To help us learn more about Wheaton, local activist and Green Wheaton member, Mr. Ed Murtah, spoke to our classes. He told us about the work and ideas of environmental activist group Green Wheaton and gave us background information about the plans for a new town square. Mr. Murtah described how the square will be used and that in reality there not as much opportunity for trees and green space as the plans show. This inspired us to look for opportunities to bring more greenery. Wheaton. We will talk about some of these later when talk about our SWOT analysis
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Dr. Chen and graduate student Haley Harned developed a survey for us to use. As you can see from the copies of the surveys on your tables, the survey was very comprehensive. We looked at sidewalk characteristics, street furniture, land uses, and traffic chaacteistics. First we will describe the project. Then you can follow us through the survey as we present our results.
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Dr Chen used a mapping program called google fusion to create a map of street segments. Each team of four students and an adult was assigned a different group of street segments. Before we hit the streets we became familiar with the surveys and brainstormed possible strength weaknesses and threats. Next slide
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On the day of the audit after a brief orientation and some tasty donuts we took Metro buses to Wheaton and hit the streets armed with cameras surveys and clipboards. After the survey was finished w returned to school and entered our data into an excel file set up for us by Dr. Chen’s graduate assistant Haley Harned
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Students entered data into an excel file. Dr. Chen uploaded the excel spreadsheets into mapping software, Google Fusion to create an interactive web‐based map of the audit area. Our hope is that our data and map can help others get to know Wheaton better and help In the planning process. ( Demonstrate if possible. )
When the mouse switches from a hand to a pointer the use can click on the segment to get a synopsis of some of the data we collected. (Show how you can switch to satellite view to get a better look at each segment.)
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As you can see we found that even though there are a lot of cracks, sidewalk width is a strength in Wheaton and could lead to further greening projects. In the following slide we focused on some of the area that showed lower average scores
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65% of the segments did not have a buffer. Of the sidewalks with buffers, 57% were not vegetated and 19 percent did have plants. This leaves a lot of opportunity to plant plants to further green the non vegetative buffers like the one pictured here. 9
The low average score for furniture is more a result of the way we calculated our scores. A point was given for each f the characteristics. Therefore streets without bus stops missed the possibility for three points. As it is not realistic to have a bus stop on every street, average scores per characteristic may be a better way to evaluate furniture. The following slides show some of the strengths we found.
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20 % of the streets did not have trash cans. You could use our interactive map to determine which ones don’t have cans. Then you cold use the satellite image to see if there is a place that can be installed. 13
We found 4 street segments with bus stops. Half had shelter or seating. Only 1 had no seating. Given how close the survey area was to the Wheaton metro bus stop, it was nit surprising to find only a few bus stops in the survey area.
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If the new development proposals allow for it, we see a need for more outdoor dining/
sitting areas
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The large variety of places for people to shop and work should encourage people to walk more in Wheaton.. However to more sustainable the area we surveyed could use more housing options for people. 16
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Between the high number of traffic lights and stop signs, almost all intersection have some sort of way to stop traffic for pedestrians. Only 2 of the intersections we surveyed did not have a light or stop sign. This is a strength for walkability
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Most of the weakness we found are related to either cracked side walks or construction issues. However, the alley between University Blv. and Enalles Ave is a serious weakness. It has 22 dumpsters. Many of which are littered with trash around them. This trash that can get into local streams and find its way to the Chesapeake Bay. It is not only ugly but I is also a hazard to wildlife. 21
There are still many opportunities for greening Wheaton. Buffers could be planted with grass or other plants. More trees could be planted. The picture on the right shows an area on the corner of Enalles Avenue and Grandview Avenue that has a downspout draining into a raised area of grass. This would be the perfect place to install a rain garden. “Dumpster Alley” also has dozens of used fry oil disposal barrels like the one in the picture on left. A forward thinking diesel car owner could modify their engine to run on used fry oil. As it would Save on disposal costs and fuel costs, this could be a win for both restaurants and car owners. 22
Remember that a weakness in this report is worse than a threat. Threats are considered things that could become a weakness. Most of the treats we found were related to cracks in the sidewalk and fading street paint .
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We realize that they way we calculated out percentages and averages may have bought the scores down lower than other methods of calculating would have. Therefore we used not only the scores , but our overall impression of the data , the pictures and our experiences to rate the walkability of Wheaton on a 4 point scale. O for poor, 1 for fair , 2 for average 3 for above average and 4 for excellent. Here is the break down of student conclusions.
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The same data is shown here broken down by percentages. I hope you enjoyed our presentation. Thank you for coming. Are there any questions?
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