Morphy, who has served as the Institute’s Director of Community Outreach since 2011, has played an integral role in the Institute’s growth by advancing strategic plans and effectively managing community projects, outreach programs, and business-development initiatives.

The new structure will allow the Institute’s co-founders Dan Burden and Sarah Bowman to focus on their areas of expertise and the things they truly love to do. For Burden, this is working at the community level to inspire change, and for Bowman, this is developing educational programs and community engagement tools to empower change-agents.

“We are very pleased to have grown the Institute to the point that we can now reposition team members to apply their natural talents in the areas they are best suited,” said Burden, who had served as Executive Director since the Institute’s founding in 2009. “I know I speak for both Sarah and me in saying that we couldn’t be more proud of the team we’ve built, our successes to date, and the direction we expect to go under Kelly’s leadership.”

With seven team members and a network of partners who are leaders in the walkability movement, the Institute provides assistance to 150 communities per year through on-site workshops, and serves thousands of residents, elected officials, leaders, municipal staff, students, and more through educational programs, a help desk, remote assistance, and outreach tools.

“I’m taking the helm of an organization that already has a well-established track record of helping communities and providing a high level of service,” Morphy said. “I look forward to building upon that success, creating plans for continued growth, and expanding the ways in which our team serves the world and pursues our charitable mission.”

Morphy’s experience prior to joining the Institute included managing communications for an urban-design firm, serving as a public-information officer for an air-pollution-control district in California, and operating two small businesses. She started her career as a journalist on her home island of Guam, and also competed internationally as a member of the Guam Women’s National Soccer Team, before relocating to the mainland. She and her husband Tim have three children and live in Winter Garden, Florida.

Dan’s 1983 bike tour of the Americas was profiled by the League of American Wheelman, now known as the League of American Bicyclists.

I have a goal for 2013, and I’m hoping you’ll join me on this journey. As many of you know, I have spent a lot of time promoting walkable communities, in a lot of places with a lot of people. I’ve logged nearly three million miles on just one airline and more than 20,000 miles per year behind the wheel, despite not having a car of my own. Most days, I easily walk the 10,000 steps a day that have become the gold standard for healthy living. And a growing number of you are doing the same.

Active transportation is a great way to help America get back on its feet. When a place becomes more walkable, it supports a higher quality of life, a healthier environment, a thriving local economy and a stronger sense of community. It brings people together. So, lace up your shoes and let’s take a walk.

First, let me tell a story. When I was in my early twenties, Dr. Clifford Graves, a sage bicycle traveler who knew of my plans to lead a bike expedition for National Geographic from Alaska to Argentina, penned a note to me saying, “Dan, your dream to bicycle the length of the Western Hemisphere is noble, you will learn much; but it must have a purpose.”  My purpose then was simple – to learn from the people and places I would visit.

It all hit home early one morning in a small Mexican village that had no paved streets. As I pedaled out of town through multi-colored grains of shimmering sand, my rear derailleur broke apart and scattered a hundred bearings along a 200-foot course. The grainy texture of the path hid the tiny bearings, but I knew I had to find them in order to keep going. So I got down on my hands and knees.

Within a few minutes, a half dozen, then a dozen, then several dozen people emerged from the surrounding modest haciendas, and on hands and knees we found every single bearing. I looked up at these people and realized how much I had learned from such a simple act of generosity. What had initially appeared to be a major problem was really a way to draw people together in a common cause. I learned there, and have learned many more times in my travels, that people have much good inside; they want to help others, no matter how simple or complex the task. A stranger in town, a person in need, gives people a reason to come together. I am certain this story has been told for years in that small town.

It’s also the kind of story we want to share regularly with this blog. Travel and the lessons that come from it don’t have to involve an airplane or automobile. Even a walk to the coffee shop on the corner can heighten our senses and our awareness of community, strengthening our connections. Tony Hiss, a former staff writer at The New Yorker magazine who has also written for The New York Times, published a book in 2010 titled “In Motion: The Experience of Travel.” He describes “Deep Travel” as “a talent we’re born with,” one that’s been ingrained in us “for about two million years, when early humans started walking exclusively upright, and became travelers, slowly leaving Africa to people the world.”

My blog will explore this state of “deep travel,” grabbing every opportunity to take a walk and see the world in our daily routines. As we share these revealing experiences, one story at a time in one community after another, we’ll discover how to collaborate to improve our blocks, our neighborhoods, our towns.

I turned 69 a few weeks ago and still wake up every day wanting to do more. I want to have an impact everywhere I go, nearly 200 towns and cities of all shapes and sizes across North America each year. We can use the blog to share our experiences and interact on a common journey. I want to make the conversation sizzle and pop, so please share your stories, test my optimism and engage with others.  There are lots of things broken that need fixing across our land – no more Band-Aids. Putting in a pedestrian overpass often only makes the core problem worse, ignoring the fact that we keep building roads that don’t allow people to walk. As a long-term investment, fixing what’s broken won’t require spending more money; but less. We need to build on – and to – what we value most.

So, let’s take a walk and look for the right threads, the ones we can stitch together to strengthen our communities with local volunteerism, local advocacy, and as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so eloquently put it, with “creative altruism.”

As we make the journey, we’ll create a stronger nation — a quilt of myriad colors, patterns and textures, of such energy and synergy that our towns and cities will take on new life. A great nation is made up not just of good people, but of dreamers and optimists who believe that they can make a difference, and do. They cannot be stopped. I see this in my travels, and you’ve no doubt seen it too.

It will take time. We didn’t get here in a single decade. But no political leader – at the national, state or local level – has the power to bring change until the people insist on it. So, let’s get started!

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”   

                                                                                                            ― Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read the full blog at The Roads Scholar | AARP Blog.

Their owners were there to show their support for the city’s plans to add bike lanes on Waialae Avenue, from the top of the hill at 11th Avenue, down to St. Louis Drive. They packed a community meeting on the issue.

The city Transportation Services Department has been studying the feasibility of removing a motor vehicle lane on Waialae to make the bike lanes a reality.

“Right now the road has more lanes than it needs, and so we can take out one lane, add in bike lanes, make it easier to park and un-park, easier to make turns,” said Dan Burden, a national street expert and executive director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute. “Sometimes having less of something is more, and this is going to be one of those cases.”

Watch the entire video or read the story here.

Read more at The Roads Scholar | AARP Blog.

A “professional pedestrian” invited to Baton Rouge to survey Government Street said Thursday that the city should consider roundabouts for several of the busy corridor’s intersections and possibly reducing it from four lanes to two traffic lanes and a center turn lane. Read more here.

Dan Burden blogs for AARP. In his most recent post, Dan describes the value of being able to age, or live, in place. He says, “I prefer the term ‘Living in place’ instead of the commonly used, ‘Aging in place.’ It sounds more active, more engaging, more positive.”

Read more at The Roads Scholar | AARP Blog.

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