Interested in making your neighborhood or community more conducive to walking? The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is promoting a series of “walkability” audits in seven communities around the state, designed to provide a hands-on evaluation of the walking conditions in a portion of the community, and a discussion of design improvement ideas.

The walkability audits are designed to help city engineers, planners, officials, residents and others realize the benefits of providing a safe and attractive environment for walking. The free audits will be conducted by Dan Burden of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, who has 40 years of experience in developing, promoting and evaluating active transportation facilities, traffic calming practices and sustainable community design.

Audits will be conducted from Aug. 12 to17. For more details, contact the community organizer.

The 2012 schedule follows:

Sunday, Aug. 12 – Paw Paw
l.nielsen@pawpaw.net

Monday, Aug. 13 – Alpine Township
s.thomas@alpinetwp.org

Monday, Aug. 13 – Wyoming
cochrant@wyomingmi.gov

Tuesday, Aug. 14 – Meridian Township
menser@meridian.mi.us

Wednesday, Aug. 15 – Gaylord
jeff@gaylord-otsego.com

Thursday, Aug. 16 – Trenton
bohling@msu.edu

Friday, Aug. 17 – Detroit
villagendet@aol.com