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Planning Professor Puts STRIDE’s Mission into Action

Kelly Main

City & Regional Planning Professor Kelly Main and her graduate students are improving the public and walking spaces in Cayucos, which will, in turn, improve public health. This project puts STRIDE’s mission of obesity prevention and community partnerships into action. They have dubbed their project Connecting Cayucos: Visions and Actions for Public Space and have spent the first half of spring quarter gathering information.

“We are starting out by trying to determine what the area needs,” said graduate student Maggie Derk. “Our main goal is to reach out to the community in Cayucos and provide what they want.”

“What we have been hearing from community members is, ‘We’ll walk if you give us somewhere to walk to.’ Cayucos needs a public space that is a destination and community center,” Main said.

Better public space improves communities socially and increases their activity levels. Current analysis of the public space in Cayucos is troubling; graduate student Heather Hughes pointed out that the only connector between the north and south halves of Cayucos is the highway, which is not walkable and is dangerous for bikers. Additionally, according to Main, there are currently no sidewalks in the town. Though the beach is pleasant to walk on, it does not help residents to incorporate physical activity into their daily activities, such as running errands in the town.

“We want to improve the walkability of Cayucos and make it possible to walk and bike safely there,” graduate student Doug Bush said. Proposed ideas for the town include a central plaza and improved recreational spaces for children.

Main’s students have also done extensive research into the town's economic drivers and geographic strengths and weaknesses. Combining all of these results with local health data from a separate student study will allow the research team, in Bush's words, “to create a public space plan based on existing analyses of Cayucos, including available services, demographics and physical space.”

The plan will be the starting point for fostering active transportation in the town. “Most plans like this are not adopted initially, but the ideas from them are incorporated into larger plans or implemented independently. Our plan will yield policy or actions and projects that can be put into place,” Main said.

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