New Westminster has walked its way into winning the Golden Shoe for the second year in a row.
For the second consecutive year, Burnaby and New Westminster residents competed in the Walk30 Challenge, with New West once again winning the Golden Shoe.
“In reality we have all won, as across both communities more than one million minutes of walking were logged by community members this year – 300,000 more minutes than last year’s challenge,” said a press release from the New Westminster and Burnaby Walkers Caucus. “On average, participants walked 40 minutes per day, compared to 27 minutes per day during last year’s challenge.”
In addition to vying for bragging rights and the Golden Shoe award, Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley issued a challenge that would see the “losing” mayor don wrestling attire and serve lunch at a community function of the “winning” mayor’s choice. Because of this year’s final results, Hurley will wear gold lamé pants when serving lunch at the Union Gospel Mission
Mayor Jonathan Cote thinks the Walk30 Challenge is a great program that helps New West and Burnaby residents get out and enjoy their walkable communities. He’s pleased with the response from local residents who got out and won the challenge for New Westminster.
“It’s just a fun way for the community to get engaged in how we can build more walkable communities and get residents to get out there,” he said. “If it means the mayors have to get into wrestling pants and help out the communities, then we are prepared to do that.”
Cote wore gold lamé pants when competing as Johnny X in April’s Royal City Wrestling event, a move that prompted Burnaby’s mayor to issue the wrestling attire challenge as part of Walk30. Rish Koya of Royal City Wrestling has already arranged for a custom pair of gold lamé pants to be made for Hurley.
“It looks like me and the mayor of Burnaby will have matching gold lamé pants. Who knows where this might lead us?” Cote laughed. “Mike Hurley has been a good sport – I think he’s really happy to participate in this. Who knows? The two of us might jointly be wearing gold lamé pants as we serve lunch – we are going to serve together.”
Walk30 organizers were thrilled that participation from school districts nearly doubled in both cities, with top classes walking nearly an hour a day, every school day, for five weeks. More than 80 classes in the Burnaby School District and nearly 50 classes in the New Westminster School District participated in the challenge.
“The top schools in each district were Ecole Marlborough, and Lord Kelvin Elementary School, each creating a sustained walking culture with students,” said the press release. “Honourable mention goes to New Westminster Secondary School, as students created their own team and logged individual minutes on behalf of their school for the first time this year.”
The five-week walking challenge is part of both cities’ commitment to promoting walking as a convenient form of transportation for all and encouraging people to rethink how they get around the community.
“Walking is a great way to relax and connect with other people and the community. I am very pleased that so many people got involved with Walk 30,” Hurley said in a statement to the Record. “We will keep up the efforts to get more people walking, more often.”
In an effort to support walkable, connected communities, the Walk30 partners are hosting the Feet on the Street walking forum, which will include informative dialogue, breakout sessions, a walking tour and a keynote presentation by Happy City, an urban planning, design and architecture consultancy that uses the science of wellbeing to create healthier, happier and more inclusive communities. The free Feet on the Street event is on Thursday, May 30 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at Burnaby Neighbourhood House.
For more information and registration, go to www.eventbrite.com (Search for Feet on the Street). More information about the Walk30 challenge is at www.walkerscaucus.ca/walk30-burnaby-newwest.
