Edward P. Weston leading judges during one of his epic 19th-century walks.
In February 1861, a 22-year-old named Edward P. Weston left his home in Boston for a walk. And he didn't stop -- not for 478 miles and ten days, when he reached Washington, D.C. to attend Abraham Lincoln's inaugural ball. By the time of his death in 1929, he had walked from Portland, Me., to Chicago (twice), from New York to San Francisco in 77 days (at age 71), and all over Europe. He was nationally known as an advocate for walking and active living, even on the cusp of the automobile age.
So Weston is a fitting namesake for the annual awards given by pedestrian advocacy nonprofit Oregon Walks, which held its fourth annual Weston Awards Saturday in northeast Portland. The awards honor people and groups who have made a difference in making walking safer in the region.
Lake McTighe accepted her Weston Award with brief remarks on the universal experience of walking. Photo: Nina Johnson.
Among this year's honorees: Lake Strongheart McTighe, a senior transportation planner at Metro. McTighe, who has worked at Metro for eight years, managed the development of Metro's first Regional Active Transportation Plan, adopted by the Metro Council in July 2014.
The plan, developed over several years, connects local plans for walking, bicycling and accessing transit into a regional vision of safe, comfortable choices for both long and short trips. It was formally folded into the Regional Transportation Plan update adopted by the Metro Council later that month.
Announcing McTighe's award earlier this month, Oregon Walks praised her work to "make walking and bicycling easy, safe, comfortable and enjoyable for everyone, no matter what their age, ability or income, in the region." The group also cited McTighe's service on the planning committee of the Oregon Active Transportation Summit and board membership at the Community Cycling Center and her neighborhood association.
"Walking, even more than language, is what makes us human," McTighe told the ballroom as she accepted her award.
Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington, who received Weston Awards honors in 2013, also spoke briefly this year. Photo: Nina Johnson.
McTighe went on to reflect on her unique position at Metro: working to push the agency toward making serious investments to building better places to walk and bike. "I kind of feel sheepish accepting this award because I get paid by a really great agency to do work that I value," she said, thanking the Metro Council for funding her position while also recognizing the countless hours put in around the region by volunteer advocates for safer streets.
McTighe shared honors Saturday with longtime social justice advocate and planner Anita Yap, Portland State University civil engineering professor Kelly Clifton and the nonprofit Better Block PDX, whose recent temporary redesign of Third Avenue in Portland brought public plazas and protected bike lanes to a wide downtown street. (That project was partially funded by Metro.) Also honored was Don Baack, who received a legacy award for his many decades of activism promoting and building trails in southwest Portland neighborhoods.
Previous Weston Award winners have included Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington – who also spoke briefly at Saturday's event, recounting the tragic death of her neighbor Peilan Wu as she crossed Beaverton's Walker Road to reach a bus stop – and former Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder.
Photos in this story courtesy of Nina Johnson.