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Why Don't Americans Walk Anymore?

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Commodore%20Skahill/Colin%20McEnroe%20Show%2004-23-2012.mp3

The best advertisement for our show on walking today is right out my window. I have a view of the sidewalk Wallace Stevens walked every day for 39 years from his home in the West End to the Hartford Insurance Group.
 
Stevens never learned to drive, but that's not the point. As he walked those two miles each way, he was thinking up some of the greatest poetry ever written in the English language. (I might add that our intern Heather Brandon lives in the West End and also walks a similar route.)
 
Walking is inherently good. It lowers your weight and your blood pressure and it frees your mind. It's also good bonding. I'm going to talk a little bit today about walking with your kid.
 
You'd expect walking to be a honored activity, but in the U.S. it really isn't. For years it has been scorned and marginalized and left out of transportation planning. Today on the show, we'll talk about whether there's any hope of that changing.
 
Leave your comments below or email colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
 
Special thanks to Carolyn Paine for playing the role of Chion Wolf on today's program. We also thank Sue Abell, creator of TreadPowerfully, in Burlington, Ontario, CA, for her willingness to join us. We apologize that we ran out of time.

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Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

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