Dan Burden

Testimonial Michael Ronkin Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager Oregon Department of Transportation Having attended many of Dan Burden's presentations, and having collaborated with him on several, I can vouch for his greatest talent:  getting people with different viewpoints to agree on a vision for their community, by showing them the untapped beauty and potential they have in their greatest commonly-owned asset - their public streets. Dan can actually get Americans to care about cities again. And he does it by getting the traffic engineers on board, not by vilifying them, but by making them excited about being involved in change."

• Dan Burden is a nationally recognized authority on bicycle and pedestrian facilities and programs. He has had 25 years of experience in developing, promoting and evaluating alternative transportation facilities, traffic calming practices and sustainable community design. He served for 16 years as Florida DOT’s State Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator, and he presently works as Executive Director of Walkable Communities, Inc., a non-profit corporation helping North America develop walkable communities.
• There are few people in the country who know more about traffic calming practices, access management, intersection design and other strategies for creating pedestrian and bicycle friendly communities than Dan Burden. He has taught bicycle and pedestrian facility design courses in hundreds of different communities throughout the nation.
• Dan has personally photographed and examined walking and bicycling conditions in over 200 cities in the U.S. and abroad. He worked as a bicycle consultant in China for the United Nations in 1994, and he has been to Australia and many European countries to photograph their great cities. His pictures have been published in the New York Times, National Geographic, Better Homes and Gardens, Sierra Club calendars and Weekly Reader. Presentations are always richly illustrated with examples from near and far. Dan is currently part of a team collecting (videotaping) and analyzing traffic calming and innovative pedestrian facilities throughout the U.S.
• Dan served as the principle writer for the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning and Design Curriculum, being introduced at many universities. His insights are becoming a model for college courses in civil engineering and urban planning departments throughout the country. He serves as one of the main course instructors for the NHI (National Highway Institute) course on Bicycle and Pedestrian Facility Design. Dan has given staff training to traffic engineers, planners and community redevelopers across the country.
• Dan currently serves on the Florida DOT "Greenbook" Committee to draft standards for traffic calming. He has been instrumental in developing traffic calming programs in scores of cities, including: Bradenton Beach, Satellite Beach, Ormond Beach , Key Largo, West Palm Beach, South Miami Beach, Gainesville and downtown Venice in Florida; Lacey, Bellevue, Mercer Island, University Place, Maple Valley, Shoreline, Seattle and Colville, Washington; Austin, Texas; Arcata, San Diego and Santa Monica, California; Eugene, Oregon; and Asheville, Waynesville and Charlotte, North Carolina; Lansing, Traverse City, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Grand Junction, Frutia, Bayfield and Boulder, Colorado; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Honolulu, Hawaii.
• Dan Burden will serve as moderator for a highly interactive public involvement, planning process, known as a charrette. This charrette will consist of several work sessions, learning from the experts… local citizens and neighborhood leaders. Current problems will be examined in detail and appropriate solutions to curb traffic volume and speed conditions will be formulated by neighborhood residents working with planning and engineering professionals. The charrette process will also include focus group sessions, brain storming sessions and citizen-driven "design table" workshop in which local residents help with a "hands-on" approach for design solutions to neighborhood traffic problems. As part of the charrette, Dan will also make a 40 minute presentation on traffic calming practices, based on his experience with similar programs in more than 100 cities nationwide.
• Dan Burden is the founder of Walkable Communities, Inc. a non-profit consulting firm in High Springs, Florida. He has spent the last twenty-five years developing, promoting and evaluating alternative transportation and sustainable communities at national, regional, state and local levels. He specializes in transportation and land use planning, research and implementation of pedestrian, bicycle traffic calming and street improvement projects. He has communications expertise in public involvement, design charrettes and visioning. He serves as an expert witness and has produced videos on street design process.
• Dan Burden’s vision has been to assist business and community leaders in their quest to create streets, activity centers, business districts and neighborhoods for people. He brings a message about creating community for people, not just cars. His highly visual, information rich workshops, with National Geographic slides, showcase ways to plan and design better streets, town centers, and neighborhoods.

Walkable Communities Inc., 320 S. Main St, High Springs, FL   32643 (386) 454-3304
Last Updated:    March 6, 2001
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