The Omaha Green Coalition hosted a great informational meeting today in Dundee with a series of speakers sharing how to get around the city without relying exclusively on cars.

Clyde Anderson (pictured), a retired Union Pacific civil engineer and transportation planner, started the meeting by discussing varied alternative transportation optionsin the city. He had some insightful and informed commentary on city planning in both the old city and western suburbs. His main focus was clearly on promoting use of the MAT bus system.

A representative from Omaha Community Bike Shop talked about all of the great work that their non-profit was doing to encourage the Midtown community to use bikes for transportation. He talked about mentoring kids and teaching self-reliance. I’ve been to the shop, and will volunteer there tomorrow. It blows me away how great the place is. They have a whole basement full of used bikes that volunteers can earn by donating time to the cause.

Tammy Dodge shared a bit about what ActivateOmaha has going on. In particular she reviewed some of the updates announced recently about cycling and pedestrian initiatives that I talked about in a recent post. She spent some extra time talking about getting bike racks on buses in Omaha and a cool Walking School Bus program that the city is getting involved in. Shockingly, she says that school principals in OPS can dictate their own policies towards kids walking or riding bikes to school. She said that some principals actually restrict kids from doing it at all. How backwards is that? If you want to learn more about kids being kids, and actually getting to school in a healthy and safe way, check out Safe Routes to School.

There was an extended conversation about safe cycling and the Bicycle Commuter Challenge. Recent announcements by the mayor were highlighted as hopeful developments in the city.

There were a couple of guys there talking about their local club promoting self-made biodiesel, and some discussion of the new Metro RideShare carpooling program. I found a great overall review of some of these initiatives in a recent Omaha By Design e-newsletter.

Corey and I walked away very happy with our experience at the meeting. We are also feeling good about our choices to sell our second car and bike or walk to more destinations.