This month, Bike/Walk Central Florida will welcome a new addition to its Board of Directors. Kelly Morphy has decades of experience when it comes to working to establish better conditions for bikers and walkers. See her official bio below:
Kelly Morphy
Kelly helps neighborhoods and towns become healthier, better connected, more accessible and more sustainable through meaningful civic engagement and better built environments. She has been working toward this goal for nearly two decades. She is currently the sole proprietor of Strongfoot Group, an organization that collaborates with non-profits, government agencies and private firms. She currently is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help make streets and public places safer for bikers and walkers in Guam.
Before that, Kelly served as the Executive Director for the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute—a nationwide organization dedicated to creating connected communities that support active and healthy living through advocating for better built environments.
Kelly earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Guam.
Why are you devoting your time to this cause?
Through creating walkable, bikeable and livable communities, we can address a lot of our common issues across neighborhoods and counties. I see walkable communities as a way to ensure not only transportation equity and improved local economies, but also as a way to connect people across generations and across different parts of the community. We can do more when we aren’t only getting around in our cars by ourselves, going from garage to parking lot.
In Central Florida, we have great opportunities to improve lives through a better built environment; a walkable and bikeable environment is one element we can really focus on.
What city do you look to as a model for safe streets and courteous road users?
In my work, my experience has been that many cities have pockets where really safe, comfortable, welcoming streets exist. Where streets are designed this way, the drivers are more courteous, because the design of the street encourages that behavior.
In the greater Orlando area, you can find many examples of bikeable, walkable areas, including parts of Winter Park, where Bike Walk Central Florida is headquartered, and Winter Garden, where I am based. In every city in the U.S., I believe you can find examples of good street design, along with examples of opportunities for investment and change.
In 15 years, what does walking and biking look like in the region?
First, it’s comfortable and safe by design—through intentional design that comes from great policy and progressive approaches to transportation. Choosing active transportation should be an easy decision to make.
That’s really ambitious for 15 years, but it’s what I’d like to see. If we put our hearts and heads into it, we could make a lot of progress toward streets that are safe and comfortable for all users, regardless of their mode of travel.
