Hawaii Volcanoes National Park: Housing two of the world’s most active volcanoes, this national park- located on the Big Island- offers visitors the opportunity to hike, bike, or drive around the scenic landscape. Halema’uma’u crater has continued to regularly erupt since it reactivated in March 2008. Watch live views of the volcano here.
Hawaii Map Photo Gallery
A high-quality public realm encourages everyday, routine encounters by ‘triangulating’ functions. This can be by the mere positioning of a bench, newspaper vending machine, and coffee kiosk near a transit stop. Such public places become the best breeding grounds for creativity, where people can meet easily and frequently. They start providing a choice of activity, inclusivity, and user interactivity and promote community engagement and civic participation. The Circle in Uptown Normal, Illinois, is an example of a creative breeding ground because of its proximity and connectivity to the Children’s Discovery Museum and the bustling Amtrak station, and being within walking distance of Illinois State University. The Circle promotes a micro-community of students, professors, families, children, and visitors who energize this green space at different times of the day, not only with their everyday activities but also with special events such as arts, festivals, and farmers’ markets.
Triangulating functions can connect places and recover time lost in daily commuting. Evidence suggests that each additional ten minutes lost through commuting decreases an individual’s involvement in formal community affairs by 10 percent. Studies demonstrate that a reduction in informal social interaction is also a consequence of increased commuting time. Further, car-dependent commuting negatively impacts the health of the local and global ecosystems due to air pollution and transport greenhouse gas emissions, along with the health of the commuters and the wider community. Short, solitary car commutes in congested traffic, which are common in high-income countries, contribute to road traffic injury. Moreover, the spread of car-based infrastructure is associated with negative social justice outcomes such as gentrified neighborhoods separated by elevated motorways or impoverished enclaves concentrated along congested urban arterials and at urban peripheries. Heavy traffic on
Globally, over 1.2 million people, mostly pedestrians, die per year in traffic crashes. The number of deaths has been growing every year. Studies show that the severity of injuries of pedestrians and cyclists in accidents and collisions is directly related to impact speed. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau estimates that for every 10-kph reduction in speed on an urban main road, road crashes and fatalities drop by 30 percent.
