Porcari eventually sees a network of bike and pedestrian trails around the state, so people can recreate as well as commute.
"In some ways, we're restoring the original vision of Baltimore formulated in the 1800s by Frederick Law Olmsted, who saw the importance of green networks," Porcari said. Olmsted, whose father, Frederick Olmsted Sr., is considered the father of landscape architecture, unveiled a plan for a long, thin park around the Gwynns Falls Valley.
A 14-mile trail on that route from the center of the city west was finally opened in 2005, linking jobs, museums and more than 30 neighborhoods. Two other major trails are under way or planned and so are three transit-oriented developments, or neighborhoods, built around transit stations.
All this is good planning, said Greg Cantori, executive director of the Marian I. and Henry J. Knott Foundation and board president of One Less Car.
He regularly bikes 22 miles to work and recently logged his 100,000th mile. He's seen a lot of trash, breathed a lot of fumes and dodged a lot of cars pedaling on roads from Pasadena to Hampden during the past dozen years.
Cantori said accessibility and safety are still concerns for bikers, pedestrians and bus and train passengers. He said only two-tenths of 1 percent of people ride their bikes to work locally compared with four-tenths nationally.
"I think about my footprint all the time," he said. "Al Gore has more people thinking about it. But I think it's still mostly talk."
Cantori thinks more people will discover the link between their health and their community's health over time - or when it becomes financially necessary.
"Maybe when there is $6 gas," he said.
meredith.cohn@baltsun.com
Doing your part
Some tips to reduce your fitness footprint:
Bike to work, or walk to the bus or train.
Pick up trash on your walk.
Arrange a park cleanup.
Recycle your tennis shoes.
Turn off the TV and video games, and play outside.
Buy locally grown and organic food, and take your own bag.
Avoid overly processed and packaged food.
Use a push mower on the lawn and pull weeds instead of using herbicides.
Contact lawmakers about creating more bike and pedestrian paths.
[Sources: Carole Carson, Beth McGee, nutritiondata.com, One Less Car]
