My vision for GAIT is still evolving, but I’m picturing small actions to make active transportation more attractive to my neighbors.

What I did today is an example.

Yesterday on a walk to lunch at the Boarding House in Gilman Village, I saw a woman pushing a little luggage cart in the street on Juniper rather than using the sidewalk. She said she was avoiding the leaves on the sidewalk because they get stuck on the wheels of her cart.

So today I went over there on my bike with my push broom and spent five minutes getting the worst of the leaves off the sidewalk. The push broom is a sub-optimal tool for this job. So from there I rode to Lowe’s and bought a rake.

To try out my new rake I went to the part of the Pickering Trail that runs under the bridge that carries 56th over Issaquah Creek. The trail was designed to flood and it does at least a few times every winter. There is always a layer of silt left over when the city finishes removing the worst of the flood wrack from the trail. It makes things slippery, and it only gets worse when the autumn leaves fall over it. So I spent an hour raking most of the leaves off the part of the trail north of the bridge. I’ll do the part south of the bridge in a few days.

Here’s a before picture. It was too dark when I finished to do an after picture.

Pickering Trail north of SE 56th Street