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GREENSBORO – Walking and bicycling advocates are launching the Get Guilford Moving campaign.

The effort is aimed at promoting developments and streets projects in Guilford County that support biking and walking not just for recreation, but for daily transportation.

Sponsored by the Get Healthy Guilford Coalition, the Active Transportation Summit drew transportation officials, health experts, planners and more.

They touted the benefits of walking and bicycling and the need for Guilford County and its towns and cities to do everything they can to promote them.

"It's important for our decision makers and leaders to work with neighborhoods, to work with the builders,” said Merle Green, director of the Guilford County health department. “When they are developing new housing developments, for example, make sure that bike paths and walkways are included."

Planner Jesse Day said it's much easier and cheaper to make a city bicycling- and walking-friendly when street projects are in the planning stages.

“It doesn't have to be expensive. It's just an attention to more details,” said Day, a regional planner with Piedmont Triad Council of Governments. “When you do that you create access for people who may not be able to drive, who maybe are too old to drive, too young to drive.”

NCDOT's Tom Norman is a long-time cyclist who said the agency's board recognized the importance of bicycling and walking with last year's adoption of a policy it called Complete Streets.

"The idea is to include all of the surface transportation modes, including bicycling and walking into the street and highway improvement projects that NCDOT does," said Norman, director of the agency's division of bicycle and pedestrian transportation.

Summit keynote speaker and PBS television host Mark Fenton said cities and counties have the power to change lifestyles and lives.

"It's the person who lives in a neighborhood and there's a greenway right down the street, and its actually so easy to walk down to the greenway and walk to the grocery store rather than get in your car because it's actually less hassle to not have to park your car,” said Fenton. “That's how we're going to convert the masses."