PORT TOWNSEND — From Marion Huxtable’s well-kept Victorian home on Lawrence Street, all sidewalks lead to Port Townsend.
She treks down those walkways most of the time to get where she wants to go.
“I can walk anywhere,” Huxtable said. “I don’t need a car.”
Her walking passion led the retired social worker from a seat on the city of Port Townsend Non-Motorized Transportation Committee to a grass-roots local effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a seat on the board of Walkable and Livable Communities Institute Inc.
Walkable and Livable Communities Institute is relocating its office to Port Townsend, officially opening on Benton Street next Wednesday, Feb. 3, and will lead a group tour of Port Townsend’s best examples of healthy living.
The front porch of Huxtable’s home will be the scene of an uptown tea time for a tour group of 57 national and international visitors who will walk about downtown and uptown Port Townsend to see why it is considered a model for walkability, bicycle friendliness and encourages healthy lifestyles.
“The point of giving the tea is to demonstrate walkability,” Huxtable said overlooking the sidewalk just off her porch.
“They can sit here and watch the people walk by.”
The Walkable and Livable Communities Institute-led Port Townsend tour group will have representatives from as far away as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Mexico and California.
It is part of a three-day Pacific Northwest Smart Growth in Small Towns Tour sponsored by the Institute and led by its executive director, Dan Burden.
The tour starts in Seattle and stops at the High Point neighborhood, then goes to University Place, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Mill Creek, Snohomish, Langley, Port Townsend and Bainbridge.
All are considered model communities for placing emphasis on active community environments, encouraging social engagement and allowing seniors to “age in place.”
Each town offers ideas, techniques and examples of how to transition from a car-centered design to people centered, Institute representatives said.
“Port Townsend is a prime example of place-making — a concept that describes how environments are attractive because they are interesting, pleasurable and designed to immerse people in experiences that promote community building,” said a news release from Sarah Bowman, Walkable and Livable Communities Institute general manager.
Tour group representatives include public health officials — from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and federal Centers for Disease Control — who will be looking at how the built environment affects individual and community health.
Bowman will move into her new Port Townsend home office for the institute Thursday. The institute’s executive director has bought a Willow Street home he plans to move into some time in the future.
“I have been thinking of Port Townsend as an exemplary community,” Burden said by phone Tuesday, talking about the Port Townsend leg of the Pacific Northwest Smart Growth in Small Towns Tour.
Burden said he spoke at a Non-Motorized Transportation Committee seminar in Port Townsend in 2005 and fell in love with the place.
During the tour of Port Townsend, group members will be met by Mayor Michelle Sandoval. As part of the event, the Institute will cut a ribbon in a ceremony officially opening the nonprofit organization’s new office.
“The group will include developers from all of these nations as well as designers — people who design towns and want to start getting it right,” Burden said.
“It will give them a chance to roam and make their discoveries.”
They will walk downtown to see locations such as the Boiler Room, the new City Hall, the Northwest Maritime Center and the Water Street streetscape with rain gardens surrounding it, and the Port Townsend Skate Park.
Uptown stops include Aldich’s Grocery Store, Pane D’Amore bakery, the ReCyclery nonprofit bike repair shop and Port Townsend Library.
They will also be taken to Upper Sims Way to see the streetscape and roundabouts project under way, which Huxtable said will make that part of town walkable.
“The institution is going to bring good recognition to Port Townsend,” Huxtable said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
