 Great. So, hello everyone and thanks for those who joined us early. I am Jared Sanchez, a policy advocate at the California Bicycle Coalition, also known as Cal Bike, which is a statewide policy advocacy organization in the state of California. Welcome to our great panel we're having today on decriminalizing jaywalking. We have several experts, advocates and delegates, elected officials and so on who will speak to their efforts in decriminalizing jaywalking and their location with the hope of joining us all together here to really spur more efforts across the country to decriminalize jaywalking and and pretextual policing of all kind for folks that you care about in your community and issues you're working on so I just wanted to welcome everyone and wanted to introduce our moderators and panelists. So the first start off, I will introduce the moderators. First is Dr Charles Brown, a renowned pedestrian safety expert. He serves as a senior researcher with the Allen and board he's transportation center, and is an adjunct professor at the Edward Bluestem School of Planning and Public Policy, both at Rutgers University. And he's also the founder of equitable cities. Thanks Charles for being with us. The other moderator for today's event is john he who is the executive director of Los Angeles walks. Before I pass it over to Charles to give us a better and proper framing for today's events. I briefly just want to mention some of the great panelists we have for today's events. First starting off with Angie Schmidt, who is a longtime national was a longtime national editor at streets blog she's also the founder and principal at three MPH planning consulting a firm focused on pedestrian safety. And she is the recent author of the book, right of way raised in class and the silent crisis of pedestrian best in America. Thanks Angie for being here. The next panelist is car to her Reggie, who is the co executive director at California walks who's also helping john and myself lead the California efforts in California so thanks for being with us. The next panelist is Michael Kelly, who is the policy director at bike walk Kansas City, also known as bike walk KC who is working on these efforts at a local level. Thank you, Michael for being with us and lastly, we'll have and you'll see on the screen is Patrick hope Patrick hope is a member of the Virginia General Assembly as a delegate from the 47th District of the Commonwealth of Virginia, who's led some great efforts for do criminalizing j walking at the state level in Virginia. So thank you all for being here and I'll pass it over to you now Charles to carry us on. Thank you. Thank you, Jared. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here with us today. Again, my name is Charles T Brown, and I'm found in principle of equitable cities. I would also like to invite you again to today's national discussion on decriminalizing j walking. As one of the nation's leading experts on pedestrian and bicycle safety. I think it is time for states and cities to consider decriminalizing j walking or eliminating the infraction, all together. And here are nine reasons why. First, j walking is a made up thing by auto companies to deflect blame when drivers hit pedestrians. Thirdly, the concept of j walking encourages drivers to be aggressive toward pedestrians and for third parties to ignore or excuse pedestrian deaths. Thirdly, our streets are not designed to make walking safe or convenient. Fourthly pedestrians are almost as likely to be struck and killed at an intersection. Fifth, when pedestrians j walk, they're often behaving rationally. Six, j walking laws are not enforced fairly. Seventh, j walking stops are frequently explosive. Eight, the focus on j walking reflects the lower political status of those who walk, not the societal societal harm of the activity. And then lastly, the safest countries globally allow j walking. There are several states and cities actively in pursuit of decriminalizing j walking in the country at the moment. They include the states of Virginia, California, Texas and the city of Kansas City, Missouri. We really appreciate those working hard throughout the country to address this issue. Now I'd like to turn things over to my co moderator john john. Thank you Dr Brown. I think you really helped sort of frame that for us right the issues that bring us to the table here today and I just want to highlight one thing you said about one of the reasons is, you know, we're acting rationally these are rational decisions that we're making and so the idea that someone should be penalized the indignity that comes with it for being taking making rational decisions and navigating your own community. I think really shows why a discussion like this is important. So thank you. So yeah, let's just open it right up. We're going to go right into our opening comments from panelists. So I'm going to ask a question. It's a very broad question but we'll go around, which each panelist and we'll answer them. And then afterwards we'll have a sort of right, a moderated conversation but at the end for all the participants, we're going to spend about 10 minutes from question or more if we have more time from questions from the audience so if you have any questions. If you've already stopped populating the document. I'm not the document that q amp a box or put it in the chat we'll keep a record so. Yeah, this is Scott. Someone wrote that maybe we're having an it issue, because they have a dark screen and there are no speakers showing on their monitor. I believe Jared was responding to them but I, I don't know what that means I don't know that means that maybe we haven't started for everybody. Yeah. Okay someone else is saying that they're good. Okay, other people are saying that they're fine. So maybe it's just this person and Jared if you give I know I saw that you were messaging them and you can try to resolve that thank you so much okay. Thank you for the active response you know that's how you navigate through the zoom world so I appreciate it everyone and Sandy I hope you and Jared can figure it out so we'll move forward and Sandy you'll join us soon I'm sure. So yeah let's just begin with opening comments we'll do around Robin as I shared. And so the question is, why is this issue important to you. Why is this issue important to you. So we're small groups so I'll let you all wrap up sort of popcorn. If anyone wants to take the first step. I guess I'll start off. So, back when I was reporting every so often. There would come a situation would come up where, like, for example I remember on the front page of the New York Post. There was a picture of like an elderly Asian man who was bleeding from his face, being loaded into the back of a police car and this is a gentleman who was stopped by police in New York, and a little bit confused about why he was being stopped and ended up having this sort of brutal arrest, and then it being on the front page of the paper and I that sort of happens over and over again. We saw it twice I saw the same thing happen twice in Austin, Texas. In Sacramento there was a very bad case in Sacramento. So over and over again there's sort of been this repeating pattern and I think when people get stopped for jaywalking, they're angry about it because it is such a trivial sort of violation it's so harmless, but then a lot of police. A lot of police that kind of reaction is unacceptable so it gets escalated very quickly. And oftentimes, you know ends very badly for the people who are involved and it's also can be very embarrassing for the cities and the police departments involved like. So, that's one reason I got interested in it. This Patrick hope I'll go next. And I'll describe what our sort of our thought process was in Virginia. We passed a law that went into has already gone into effect on March the first. And this was part of our effort under police reform and criminal justice reform. You know late in the summer we had civil unrest in many cities related to the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And you know people being pulled over or stopped and as it was stated, they can escalate really quickly. And in many cases in most cases unnecessarily. And we all know a disproportionate number of people that are cited for traffic and pedestrian stops tend to be people of color. I, I probably jaywalk every day of my life and I've never been cited for it. So what we did in Virginia is we looked at the entire traffic code code with the singular goal to eliminate some of these unnecessary interactions with law enforcement. And I hope that this exercise serves as a model for other states. So we looked at jaywalking. We looked at dangling objects that are hanging in your rear view mirror, tinted windows, a single broken tail light or break light. A big one that's related to jaywalking is odor of marijuana. A lot of cases will see that someone stopped for jaywalking and law enforcement will say I smell marijuana on you and that's an excuse to search your person or your belongings. And the reality is that police really don't care about these violations. I have to tell you, when this bill was was introduced during our special session law enforcement did not testify in opposition to this bill because the things that we identified, they really don't care about, but they do serve as an excuse to pull someone over and ask questions, and perhaps search their vehicle for a traffic infraction or their person, or their belongings. And so that was our singular purpose for for bringing the law. And that's where I hope becomes a model for other states and jurisdictions to emulate. So this is Michael Kelly and I can go next. So kind of going off of delegate hopes approach. I think what was really the impetus in Kansas City was following the protest over the murder of George Floyd Breonna Taylor, as well as some of the local cases here involving individuals such as Cameron Lamb and Breonna Hill. And the mayor here Mayor Quentin Lucas said that he wanted to review the full municipal code and see if there were instances where we could identify places to decriminalize activity so at first it wasn't just limited to transportation or housing or something else it was supposed to be a very broad stroke. And so we basically looked at that and we said, you know, there's an opportunity here for us to look at ways to decriminalize mobility. And so we began to look through the municipal code and we were basing our own review on answering two questions. First, are the laws that we're looking at, are they actually helping to make pedestrian cyclists vulnerable road users safer. And the answer is no. And the second question was, is there a chance that the way that the law is currently written, could lead to over policing. And if the answer to that was yes, then we kind of flag that and set it aside and said we would come back and look a little bit closer. And so ultimately identified three laws. J walking is one of them but we also identified bicycle inspection so police in Kansas City are allowed to arbitrarily stop someone if they believe a bike is in a state of disrepair and inspected, but also there is a dirty wheels statute on our books here so we can effectively be in violation of the municipal code. If there's trash debris mud gunk on your wheels. Hard to enforce in in on a sunny day like this but especially after some of the recent weather we've had absolutely impossible so we've been working to try to get this move forward and our hope is that we will not only be able to get this adopted but we can get all three of these struck from the municipal code but that it can be kind of a model for other communities across our region. Okay, so here in California. I'm with California walks. In 2015 I've been participating in one of our main programs which is statewide trainings, where we actually never have used a very intentionally don't use the word j walking, because according to the California vehicle code, it's a very specific definition. And what we've learned from being across the state and all types of different communities is that that laws very confusing. And what we've even seen is that people think they can't cross in particular places because it's an unmarked crosswalk. People think that they can only cross at corners that are marked. And for us this has been an issue that's just really been on our radar for years, and then I want to say maybe November, December, Jared from Cal bike, you know, approached me and approached other partners such as alley alley walks about introducing this at a state at a level through the state legislature. And so, because the definition of j walking is so again confusing and even cops don't understand it, because in 2017 I'm looking at my notes in 2017. There was a man named Nandi came junior who was beaten by Sacramento police for and was stopped initially for j walking but they actually weren't j walking. They were crossing exactly where they were supposed to cross. It was just that it was an unmarked crosswalk. So for us we're very excited we were very excited to join in to this effort for two reasons, absolutely because it's become an issue about race which I know is what what we're going to be discussing further in the panel, and also because people don't really know where they can legally walk. And that's, I believe it's a problem. Thank you all for your amazing responses I think we have such a variety from like how trivial this loss but yet how consequential it is to this is part of a national recognizing you know the national racial recognition racial reckoning that's going on right now to just more clarity for our pedestrians about the laws of the road are so I think these are some great examples. So with that, I just want to say Lisa I see your question so keep the keep the questions coming in. So with those ending this will make sure we address these questions at the end when we go to participants. So with that I'm going to pass this to my colleague, Dr Brown. Yeah, so what we're going to do now is going to ask you a series of questions, based upon a number of topics, raising from going from safety to targeting to restorative justice to infrastructure, and then lastly enforcement. One of the most comments we've gotten already is that if you're not breaking the law, then you should have nothing to fear. If you are detained by the police. And so, in the context of jaywalking, how do we balance our attempts to decriminalize jaywalking with the need to ensure that all pedestrians motorists and bicyclists are saved on our roadways. So how do you balance this need for decriminalization with the collective call for safety. If it's all right I can, I can hop in on this one. Sure, so I think it deals a lot with access. So, the idea with our transportation system kind of in general is that you need to be able to go from point A to point B to be able to access everything from job to food to medical services. And we, we don't have a transportation system that allows for that balance as relates to all road users if you're a driver sure you can get your car and get somewhere as quickly as you want in most instances with no issue but if you're someone who's walking I now have to plan okay am I going to have to cross this street or this street well this one's kind of dangerous and so the idea of safety is is really a question of who we're working to provide access for everyone deserves to be able to safely get from one place to another. But if we're not actually working to make that possible, then additional barriers that we put up, including things like jaywalking laws, don't actually work to create that balance and to create that level playing field for everyone to be able to use. Yeah, I'll jump in here for. So, we're actually not getting very good safety outcomes for pedestrians right now we've had about a 50% increase in pedestrian pedestrian deaths in the United States over the past 10 years. And the, there was sort of a paradigm shifts going on and in the way we think about traffic safety this is sort of an international movement that's just kind of coming to the United States but to sort of switch from you know in the past when someone was hurt or killed in traffic, we sort of our, our, our cultural habit was to blame an individual, somebody did something wrong, but there, there's a new sort of concept called safe system. And it comes from Europe, from some of the countries that have the safest roads in the, in the world. And the idea is not that because people make mistakes. You know we can't design a system we wouldn't design, for example, safety system inside a workplace where if, if one person makes an error they can potentially die people make errors. But we need to sort of shift responsibility a little bit from individuals to system designers, and that that includes thinking about thinking about what is the broader environment we're putting pedestrians in and right now it's not a very safe one. And I would just add to that. You know I made a confession during my opening statement that I jaywalk every single day. And I think we should disassociate jaywalking with unsafe behavior. I live in Arlington County Arlington County is a very urbanized it's a well planned community. And there's a lot of emphasis and focus on trying to make it more pedestrian friendly, but we have a lot of cars on the road and it's just for pedestrians and bikers. We're trying to make them as safe as possible. And when you have people congregate cars vehicles congregating at a four way stop or an intersection. In many cases and probably most cases. That's not the safest place to park when the cross when there's a lot of cars going back and forth. In many cases, it's safer to cross midway before the mid street before the intersection. And that's why I said I do it all the time. And so people people ask me after this law was passed. Do you think that people are now are going to jaywalk now more than ever before. And my answer is probably not. I don't think people jaywalk because they're afraid of getting cited at least in my case. It's not, it's not the case. People jaywalk because it's safer to cross the street. And that way. So I think we got to disassociate this jaywalking with being a crime and being unsafe, because it actually is safer in many cases to jaywalk. And if you get into people's mind you talk about rational thinking. That's why they jaywalk is because it's safer to do so. And I'll just add one more thing to that. I agree with everything that the rest of the panelists have shared and I'll just say that I think that we've been prioritizing drivers for too long. And I think that that kind of goes with what Angie was talking about. We need to really change from the individual sort of the individual blaming to how what is the entire setup of a street, and who is benefiting more from the use of these streets. And especially here I'm based in Southern California. I would say especially here it's it's this very much a car culture. And, and that's part of why, and you said it to that's something that we need to really change to make sure that everyone can be safe, so that the streets can be truly used for everybody. And for many who would say is conspiracy talk, when you discuss in particular you delicate hope, you stated that, as well as Angie that jaywalking is used as a pretext. Many would say, is there any data to support that number one. But the important question here for you all is, are they deliberately targeting people. The people of color and low income people, as it relates to this jaywalking law, and in answering perhaps you could move aside the advert deliberately. Are they targeting people of color and low income people as it relates to the jaywalking law. So let's go ahead and start and so the evidence that that that we saw and heard and we talked, you know, to a lot of defense attorneys, and a lot of individuals and I didn't, and I, and I said earlier, I've never been stopped for for jaywalking, but a lot of people that wind up in traffic court, or even in our lower courts because not only does the jaywalking end up in a citation for jaywalking. There's also maybe a, as I said earlier, and they smell odor of marijuana, which as you know is a very subjective test. And in many cases, maybe made up, probably is made up and because, but we only know the cases that they find and it end up going to get prosecuted and going to court, tend to be a disproportionate people of color. And so either you believe that people of color or smoking marijuana at a higher rate than whites, which is not true. But those tend to be the people that wind up in court. So we know we have clear evidence that shows that it's people of color that are being targeted for these, for these offenses. And again, this is not a serious crime that we're talking about here. What tends to happen is you're seeing people crossing the street, and a law enforcement officer wants an excuse to stop them and ask them questions and maybe to search their belongings or their person. And that's what we see a disproportionate share of. And again, and I don't, and I don't not trying to wiggle our way out of this we're being very direct of what we're trying to do in Virginia, we're trying to to eliminate some of these unnecessary stops against people of color. That was the goal. And that's just being smart policing it's our police reform of what we're trying to do. And, and this is an effort to do that. Yeah, I would add so I researched this a little bit for my book and I have like a chapter about it and in almost every case this has been looked at the, it's been wildly disproportionate it's, and primarily it's young, young men young black and brown men. So the, and the most interesting study, in my opinion is this one out of Jacksonville, Florida that Pro Publica did. They found that black people were three times more likely to be cited for jaywalking than white people and if they lived in the poorest neighborhoods they were six times more likely. So there's been studies Seattle, Chicago, New York, all the all similar findings. The way one thing that's interesting really interesting about the study is they said that in Florida there's 28 different infractions that count as jaywalking so it's not just not crossing in a mark crosswalk. You can be cited what the what the authors of the report said was you could be pretty much anyone walking any distance is going to run afoul of one of these laws, and they even recorded police in certain locations that were jaywalking. They just have very wide discretion over who they can stop and they're not stopping the kind of business, a white businessman in suits that you know make might put in a call to their manager. They're sort of citing people who are powerless or maybe who they have suspicions about that, again, go back to racism. And if I can just add a few statistics from California I'll also put in in the chat. A link where we're storing a lot of information via cowbikes domain. So in in California black Californians in San Diego are 4.3 times more likely to be cited for jaywalking than white residents. In LA by LAPD is 3.7 times higher in Long Beach it's 3.4 times higher, and in Sacramento, black Californians are cited for jaywalking five times more than the general population. I'm going to add those stats here in the chat or at least the site where you can find the stats, because we are definitely not making this up and part of what's really, I don't know just horrible is that in some of these stops, we're having cases in California, where black men are being killed for jaywalking. This is the pretext. And I have here a couple of those people's names I don't know if now's the time to share but I just wanted to say that that this is very much happening and this is why we're doing this and this really needs to end. So, so I'm a little bit unique from the other folks on the panel in that Kansas City. It is very difficult to be able to get access to data in in Kansas City because Kansas City locally does not have control of our police department we're one of the largest communities in the country where our police department is controlled by our elected officials at City Hall it's actually controlled by a board of police commissioners largely appointed by folks in Jefferson City. And so the reason why that makes it harder for us is that we have to, we have to work with city staff and sometimes elected officials here to request the data that would help us to paint a similar picture is what we see in Virginia in California and elsewhere. And so what we've had to rely on in the absence of that are the testimony of other folks. I think delegate hope was making a very good point about relying on the word of defense attorneys because those are often the folks who are having to literally go to bat and go to court for these folks to get them out of something as well as stepping one foot outside of a crosswalk or crossing at a place where the crosswalk was worn down from paint and or from water and things of that nature and so it's it's that the targeting that we know is happening is is still happening that we're hearing from criminal defense attorneys, but also the way that we need to think about it is that, going back to the idea of safety, if we felt that jaywalking laws were actually working to make people safe. Then we would know that it would be leading to a corresponding decrease in crashes, and everyone on this panel knows that that unfortunately has not been the case. That was that was excellent. Now, I'm not opposed to law enforcement, right, I think law enforcement has its place. But what is law enforcement's place, as we aim towards increasing pedestrian and bicycle safety throughout the US, what role should law enforcement play in the regulation of pedestrian and bicycle behavior or not. Let's start with you delegate hope, what are your thoughts. Well, I mean I think this is a question that I think I hope every state is having this conversation about what is the future and of course it's not just pedestrian bike safety it's also traffic enforcement as well to we're having the conversation of, you know, should law enforcement be involved in forcing traffic violations and should we should we maybe hire a different force that's unarmed. That's not law enforcement to enforce traffic laws it could be through cameras it could be other different means that we could, we could use and those conversations I hope are going on in every state and every locality in this country so it's a really good question. From us, I could just tell you what we did. We looked at the laws and the traffic infections where we thought were the most serious and kept those as crimes, but things that we did not think that were serious. Things that we felt were secondary offenses, or things that we felt that led themselves to a pretext that led to someone just saying that it's an excuse to stop someone or to pull someone over or to search a person. Those subjective tests, we turned in secondary. I mean if you're speeding you're speeding, and that's pretty obvious thing to do and you can pull someone over for that. But 10 windows, the odor of marijuana, dangling top your rosary beads that are hanging over your rear view mirror is obstructing your vision. That's all very subjective and should not be used as an excuse to stop someone and so again I hope all these conversations are going on. And, and you know this is part of our effort to reform our law enforcement to inform our police because as stated many times. These infractions are not very serious and too frequently they escalate into something that becomes serious when they don't have to. So let's go to you Michael, and in case he didn't go to California data engine. So, I think with regards to enforcement, we need to recognize that it should play a much smaller role than what it has up to this point I think that we have kind of looked at this as a, as a means of just something to kind of hand off to the police in some instances, when we realize more and more through research like Charles and Angie are doing that a lot of it is going to depend on how we're building our cities not necessarily how we're regulating them. So, if we're serious about warning to use enforcement effectively, then we need to understand that it's probably going to play a much smaller role than what we currently envision, and that is going to differ a great deal from a place like Kansas City to a state like Virginia but we don't do ourselves any favors by acting like the status quo is working because it clearly isn't. So, here in here in California. I do think a lot of different organizations and I've even heard in terms of nonprofits, and I've even heard of like different DOTs starting to have those conversations internally like what is the role of enforcement in in traffic right. I could say that here at California walks, my organization, we've decided to drop that E that enforcement period we're not interested in continuing to move forward with, let's say countermeasures solutions for safe streets that include enforcement, or any type of policing. And that way. And so I can say that about us and what we are looking into is looking into hosting, probably roundtables we've hosted a series of roundtables kind of like every year regionally. For example, last year or two years ago, I can't remember, or actually still now we're doing emerging transportation technology and I think that right because that was kind of a hot topic. Still is before COVID. And now I think the really important topic of what we all need to get on the same, same page about and to all understand how this affects all of California at regional level. We have to have those conversations and so I will say that California walks is very much interested in leading and or supporting those conversations so anyone from California. Follow up with me if you're interested in doing that too because I see that very much being a part of our role and I can't say that I think we have the answer. And I think that collectively we can figure that out. Thank you. So do you mind sharing your email in the chat box for anyone interested. Thank you. Yes, thank you. I don't know that I have a lot to add to that, but we do see much more serious infections like hidden runs that just go totally uninvestigated in our cities and it's just I think it's a poor use of police resources. You know who wants police off, you know, these open rape cases to be hassling black teenagers, you know, churches trying to walk and take care of their daily activities so that I agree that there's a whole discussion to be had. Michael you touched on something for a second there you talk about the importance of, you know, building our cities in an equitable and inclusive way. When asked each of you, what role does infrastructure or street design play in people's need to jaywalk or not. So what's this connection to the lack of or the need for additional infrastructure investments in these cities. I can start on this and I can speak to this a little bit from personal perspective so if I step outside of my house, there are no sidewalks on my street. And unfortunately, in much of the council district where I'm in there are several neighborhoods where there aren't sidewalks on our streets and so it's it's not a matter of. I'm saying this to just make a make a controversial statement I'm saying it because that's the that's the life that I live like I have two small children and I want them to be able to grow up in a place where they have the same opportunities as everyone else and that can't happen if we not only don't invest in the infrastructure that allows them to thrive, but punish them for not using that non existent infrastructure. And so, when we think about the idea of infrastructure and the role that it plays in equity, we need to be thinking about intentionally, not just how we're working to kind of stop the harm, but how we can work to kind of reverse and repair the harm that we have historically done to these communities by depriving them of these key resources, like something as simple as a sidewalk. I mean, I would certainly agree with what Michael said I mean this is going to take a coordinated deliberate funding effort in our infrastructure. And you know probably 2030 years ago, the transportation budget was all about paving roads, expanding bridge highways and bridges and things like that. And then we started talking about transit and everyone started buying into transit and doing more in transit. And now we're slowly starting to talk about infrastructure when it comes to pedestrian and bike trails and things like that. And I would like to see in Virginia us to have a dedicated funding stream in our entire transportation budget that goes towards trails that goes towards a infrastructure that localities can apply for, and have that part of their communities. But it's going to take a dedicated effort dedicated funding stream to go towards have your funding for roads, have your funding for transit, but also have some funding for for infrastructure for trails for bikes and pedestrians crossing. Yeah, if I could jump in. I were hopefully with this new administration I know that they have proposed some additional funding for biking and walking I don't think it's enough to make the sidewalk network, complete in places like Metro Kansas City, but at And I'm just trying to sort of shift the focus a little bit but one thing I want to point out that I think is really unjust about this issue is there's this very there's this regulatory document called the manual for uniform traffic control devices. And I'm working on a campaign about that but basically it's the engineering manual that traffic engineers across the country use and it's a federal regulation. So it's a law and in this it's so it's a very obscure document hardly anyone knows about it. It says that engineers are not supposed to add crosswalks with the traffic signal which is a lot of people say the safest place to cross, unless almost 100 pedestrians are crossing at the location per hour, or it used to say five people were struck The latest revision that isn't isn't final yet says they've changed it they've made a little bit better now for people over five years have to be struck for a crosswalk with the traffic signal to be warranted. And the reason for that is the engineering profession has been so focused on moving cars they don't want to delay drivers. So what what they've done is they've traded the safety of people who walk for the convenience of people who drive. And so we're well at the same time we're penalizing people for not crossing and crosswalks we have a federal regulation that makes it illegal to add crosswalks in a lot of locations so it's a it's a real catch 22 we put people in it's very unjust and there is a campaign going on that will hopefully reform. And that that provision, especially. And thank you Angie for that. And for bringing that up because I know that's something that definitely affects us over here in California so thank you to you and America walks for working on the MIT CD manual I just wanted to say I just wanted to add to to the to the question in terms of infrastructure. The reason why I think infrastructure is so important and really defines, you know, if and or where people are going to walk or jaywalk is because when I think of the road it's how it's built really is based on how it's built is how folks will respond. So it's like the, you know, literally the built environment is, it's like a map, like a live map like can I go here can I go there can I not okay. Right. And so if, if the built environment is telling you you have to do this or you have to do that but then that's really making sense with with what we, you know, an example that we share a lot is like let's say you really have to process read to reach your church your grocery store your school in a particular way and that's actually really what you need but the road isn't really allowing you to then then that's really, really the problem, a big problem and that's really why we need to make infrastructure makes sense for people who walk bike and roll, not just folks who drive. So many people would say hey it's easy to pick on designers, you know, engineers, planners, etc. And let's go to your form of profession, media delegate hope your policy maker, in many respects. And we've already touched on law enforcement. My question from Lisa is, do you think we need to shift how reporters policymakers and police department documents document crashes involving pedestrians by not blaming the pedestrian in the description. You know there's a lot of victim blaming. What role do you think that plays in this conversation around jaywalking or the need to decriminalize jaywalking. I'll jump in there that's a really good question and I one thing I'm sort of hopeful about is if we can decriminalize jaywalking or at least sort of de escalated as sort of the it sort of prevents us from addressing the systemic causes of this problem if we can just every time someone will just say oh well it was sort of their fault to too bad and that's what we're doing right now, there's two, you know, when you talk about the media they're making there there may be a paragraph or two. In the newspaper they say they're outside a crosswalk and that's it nobody, nobody loses any sleep over it. And so I think that if we can reframe I think the criminalizing jaywalking would contribute to a reframing that would lead to a safer system and the kind of cities and neighborhoods that we sort of want. And if if I could jump into I think that the way that the conversation is kind of proceeded here in Kansas City is that it's it's that reframing is also about rethinking about the broader things that we need to consider when we're wanting to bring in people who may see walking and biking as kind of a luxury or kind of just an exercise activity when we think about this and I think Charles you've done research on this as well. We find that people aren't just concerned about the lack of infrastructure that is important but what's also important are, am I going to be able to get safely from this place. Without having to worry about having to interact with police and so thinking about things like jaywalking is is one of the ways that we can begin to think more holistically about how we build that equitable transportation system that really is more usable for more of the people who who really deserve to have access to those resources. And the only thing that that I would say is policymakers need to help reframe that argument by decriminalizing it in the first place that's, that's the, that's the first step I think we can all agree at least I hope that we can is that jaywalking is safe, and that the people that do it don't do it to disrupt traffic. Because it's the safest place to cross to get to where they want to go. And again I get this question over and over with with with my new I get it from the press, a lot of press try to try to push me into a corner on this by saying, you're going to see now everyone jaywalk and now you're going to disrupt traffic. Again, I don't think a single person this because of our law change is going to jaywalk today that didn't jaywalk before. We're just now changing the conversation. And we've got to be able to make sure that we stay on top of that, because jaywalking is safe, I do it all the time. The bottom line is we're trying to stop these interactions with law enforcement for people of color which escalate and too many situations for something as minor as this. I can just add to that too. Because that really is a really good question that's something that one of our partners actually brought up to me saying hey would you know California walks maybe consider putting together a quick maybe resource guide to share with in this case it was with media about how to report on crashes involving pedestrians and people who bike and I thought yes, we totally need to do that. Because if I could also just add in our work across the state. I sometimes hear things that just to be really honest is really really heartbreaking for me like certain city staff will say yeah we had a hit and run and you know the person died but you know they were homeless. So that's, you know like that's their fault and I'm just that you know and you know sometimes I'm so taken aback by the hurtful things sometimes people say that they don't realize is hurtful and then I'm just like, you know like whoa did you really just say you know you're like try to come back to to try to steer it like well you know it's it's not their fault though you know like right so all that to say that yes we definitely need to move away from victim blaming in in every single layer like elected officials, reporters and even city staff. Yeah, many people here listening in who would say listen, we agree with you. We're on your side. We believe that it's important to decriminalize jaywalking. But please share with us, your playbook, Michael you know Kansas City, you know, two Super Bowls one one lost another one. You know there's a playbook here to help people affect policy changes around jaywalking in their city in their state in their community. Please share a little of your playbook with them. Let's start with you. Good question so one of the one of the reasons I want to do this was to sort of build support I think that you know, I think this seems like a really radical idea a few years ago. It was sort of on my radar probably about five years ago that someone proposed this in Seattle and it never went anywhere. And now I think all of a sudden because of the work activists have been doing in the streets, elevating these policing communities all of a sudden it does seem to be gaining a lot of speed so I think like as planners researchers, you know my, I'm just trying to support the best I can with research and try to ease people's fears about safety. Now one thing I just wanted to real quickly respond to Pat delegate hopes point as I don't think jaywalking is safe, but neither is crossing in a crosswalk. And now there's no guarantee of safety for pedestrians no matter where they cross a lot about a quarter pedestrians who are killed are struck in the crosswalk. So there's nothing really that magical about being in the crosswalk and that was always sort of a pretend thing like oh you're safe if you're in the crosswalk. That's not really true. You know, there's risk. There's risk in a lot of different situations. So you are. Are you saying or implying that pedestrians aren't safe anywhere they will. Yes. Yes, if you look at the actual situations where pedestrians are struck. It's just such a wide range of things. Kids playing in the street. People, you know, get struck a lot on highways when their cars are disabled those are counted as pedestrian deaths. People get people get killed in parking lots people get killed walking on the sidewalk with surprising people, you know, go through a driveway and hit someone who's standing right there on the sidewalk or veer off the road and hit someone who's standing at a bus stop so pedestrians really aren't safe in too many places in the United States there's no guarantee if they follow the rules they're going to be safe even the rule abiding pedestrians are being killed a lot in the United States right now. And so I'm on your side. Team, give me the playbook. What can I do in my city, my state of my community to change the jaywalking laws. So I think part of it is is about kind of telling the story so I think part of what we've been doing here in Kansas City is is working to demonstrate with qualitative evidence you know this is negatively impacting people we've been fortunate to receive support from a number of organizations including the Midwest innocence project who have said you know jaywalking is kind of the the first step in the revolving door that leads to a life of being punished for things that were largely out of their control. So I think taking that narrative and explaining to folks you know if we believe that we should not only be making our streets safer if we believe that people deserve second chances and shouldn't be punished for things that are out of their control. This is the low hanging fruit or low hanging stop sign I guess since we're in traffic jargon but my point is that it very much depends on telling the story and convincing your your electives and your planners to believe that this is something that is not only easy to do, but will lead to much more of the broader changes that we all believe are important to make a better transportation system for everyone. And you know I would just say from Virginia's perspective I mean we started out with a single goal is is to take a look at our, our traffic cold code and eliminate unnecessary interactions with law enforcement. And I think that's a conversation that localities and states are having right now and I would suggest that they look to Virginia. And to do that, whether it's just jaywalking, or it's other parts of their traffic cold, if they share the same goal to eliminate unnecessary interactions with law enforcement, I would suggest that they start with jaywalking. And I'm not sure that I am fully equipped to answer this question for California because the folks who really started the efforts here were cow by Jared. And I do think that they did just what a delegate hope just said which was taking, taking a step back, and thinking through where, where are the areas in which we can remove track traffic sorry traffic enforcement, is specially, and then actually analyzing some of that data which we do have as I shared out around how it's affecting in particular black Californians and those those type of, you know and then all the consequences that that come from that. And if I could add one more thing really quick to Charles. Like one of the thing that we did when we were looking at this was kind of considering you know who had gone before so Angie had mentioned Seattle, we'd also looked at Minneapolis, where they had actually struck a couple of their laws that had led to over policing people who were biking things like loitering laws anti spitting laws. And that was also kind of something that we were able to use another city's example to say, another city has done this it's not exactly what we've done but there is a format for us to be able to say, it's not Kansas City is not just in the lurch trying to do this on there are other places that we can kind of take the lead from and modify and make it better and make it work for our community. Now I've been fortunate enough to travel all over the US, I spent me much time, a lot of time on the West Coast course someone in my men in Northeast right now and I'm from the down south. Let's go back to California or the West Coast for a second. There will be many who will say, this is just another attempt by states like California, places like Seattle, these very liberal places to simply decriminalize every action possible. What's your response to reaction to that? I start my gut feeling is that no matter what people are going to well I'm noticing this and some of our other policy position. You can't make everyone happy and people will attack you if they feel like they are somehow, somehow if decriminalizing jaywalking is somehow taking away someone's power in some type of way and if that's how they perceive it and someone's going to be upset. And in this instance, I would say that it's taking away some power from drivers, because we're really saying, again, the road is for everyone. I felt that I'm really answering your question other than, you know, you take you acknowledge it and you say thank you and I'm going to move forward. This isn't just a liberal West Coast policy. This is something that Michael has a lot to say about clearly. This is something that needs to get done across the country. Let's take the pressure off of California for a second. I do want to go to Ohio, and I want to go to Virginia as well. Many would say that you all Michael you included, you're representing these large cities, you know the urban core, where you have these policies that you're pushing. What are your responses, each of you, in regards to those statements that you're simply aiming to decriminalize every activity associated to mankind. If you want me to start, I certainly will. I said earlier when we brought this bill, I didn't hear a peep from law enforcement and still to this day have not heard a peep from law enforcement about jaywalking. I've watched a lot of TV a lot of law and order and other criminal shows, and not once have they sat around the precinct saying we've got to enforce these jaywalking laws. This is smart policing. You know police want to solve really important felonies and other high misdemeanors and things like that. This is not something that they that they're looking to do they're not looking to enforce this law. But we do see them use it disproportionately to people of color, and that was the goal and purpose there, but this smart policing gives them an opportunity to focus on other things and more serious crimes. I'm sure they probably should be focusing anyway. And if the police won't do it, then we've got to change the laws. We've probably overregulated we've written too many laws in this area, and that forces their hand they have to enforcement. When you write a law and make something illegal, the enforcers have to enforce it. And so I think we're right sizing police we're being smarter with how we, we put out our law enforcement, and what we want them to focus on. And so that's how I view this as a smarter way to police. Real quickly. Sorry, I, you know, I'm not very optimistic about this going forward in Ohio at the state level at least but I know that they're looking at it in Texas. And I guess it's in response to and it actually passed out a committee. I guess it's in response to this poor guy was walking home from his job at Walmart, during their deep freeze, and ended up being arrested and having to spend the night in jail over this so I think that got some people's attention but also I think like, you know, we talk about freedom and, you know, I think libertarian ideology I think it's very Orwellian actually that the level of social control sort of involved in this regulation like you can be arrested and thrown in jail for walking wrong like I think it you know sort of on a just an instinctual level this something about it is a little bit off. I can make it even simpler than that j walking laws don't work. So the idea the whole idea with j walking laws is that they are supposed to make pedestrians safer. They've been on the laws for decades, and they have clearly not worked. The majority of crashes that we have seen have begun to involve pedestrians and cyclists more and that is only increased in Missouri, for example. 2020 was the deadliest year for pedestrians there were 126 pedestrians on our streets who lost their lives, and j walking laws did not do jack squat to prevent that from happening. So, with the idea that this is some sort of liberal policy that we're pushing just to be progressive and all of this, we're pushing this because we want to save people's lives. Like it's really is that simple that j walking laws have had their opportunity they've had their chance to prove that they are a very part of our arsenal that can help to make our streets safer, and they haven't done the job. So if you if if people want to make it conservative it's like if you gave it a chance, it didn't work, you need to get rid of it. j walking's had its chance it's had his chance for a long time, and it hasn't worked and this is us saying it doesn't deserve to keep having a chance to fail people, especially our most vulnerable. And so, all of you have spoken about the fact that people of color and low income people are disproportionately, you know targeted for j walking. Let's talk about restorative justice, knowing this impact of j walking on communities of color. What does restorative justice look like to you. What would restorative justice look like for me personally, I want reparations. I want checks written. I also want a reparation infrastructure package and communities of color from bicycle pedestrian infrastructure etc. But cash is certainly a big part of it. So what does restorative justice look like to you. Let's start with you Michael. Let's go to Virginia in California in Ohio. I think restorative justice means, kind of to your point kind of dedicated funding to specifically support the portions of our community that have suffered the most so when when we put traffic crash data overlay on on Kansas City if you put instances of asthma, you put poor health outcomes in general, and almost always falls on the east side of our city east of truce. And while we have had some economic development investments in the past I think that restorative justice would have dedicated funding to specifically support those census tracks, those communities that have bore the brunt of not just our over emphasis on enforcement but our under investment in infrastructure, and much to the chagrin of other folks and that's really what we need on some level to really begin to make some of the repairs that we know are necessary to make not just Kansas City but the rest of our country better. From a genius perspective, I mean, I agree with what Michael just said. We have this year of legalized marijuana. And it's not unrelated to jaywalking because as I said, jaywalking is used as a pretext to stop someone and to search someone. So you could say you could search with the odor of marijuana, and that's your opportunity to search their person, or to search their belongings. And so by by decriminalizing jaywalking but also legalizing marijuana. And if we bring us in the state about $300 million annually by legalizing marijuana, that is going to be directly sent in for most of it, going towards communities that have been overpoliced for marijuana and would probably be overpoliced for jaywalking for black around people because the two are linked. And so you're going to see a lot more money's going in this area the other part is that we're going to open up our infrastructure when we start a regulatory infrastructure we start selling marijuana. That gives communities of color the opportunity to own a piece of it to own the part of the retail or the growing or the manufacturing all that that's involved in it, because there's a lot of money to be made here. And so when you talk about reparations not only from the taxes are going to communities of color, but also the opportunities to own a piece of the business as well too. And that's how we're dealing with reparations in this regard. First of all, I love this question. When I think about restorative justice, I think about healing about healing wounds and and so you know how does that align with what we're talking about now. One of the ways in which I've tried to talk about complete streets is also making it about belonging. It's about knowing that I belong on the street that I'm safe on the street that I can cross that I can cross where I need to cross that in this instance, you know law enforcement isn't going to look at me a certain way or or judge me for for the color of my skin. And so I think that so tying that back restorative justice and healing and belonging to this work. That's that is very much about infrastructure and taking what we hear at California walks have also called a reparations approach to infrastructure which we probably don't really use that word reparations, very publicly because I want to acknowledge that that I'm not black and other folks on our team aren't black so I want to acknowledge that I think that's something that should be should be led by, you know by black folks black Californians but I will say just to kind of echo what what you were saying. Michael, our approach is this is why you now with the infrastructure funding that we do have. That's why now we're going we need to go prioritize all of those communities that were intentionally redlined that were intentionally, you know, cut with all kinds of freeways especially here in Southern California right so so so putting those communities and those people first. I think that's all I have to say for now I think I had more to say but I think that's it for now. The only thing I would add is in that in that interesting Jacksonville study that I mentioned earlier, they talked about the impacts that being cited for jaywalking had on people. And what can happen is so often it's very low income people who are cited and the fines weren't very big I think they're about $60, but for very low income people it often. They ended up in this trap where they couldn't pay it. So then they are they're in this escalating escalating penalties where maybe they're losing a license, maybe they're ending up in jail over or something like that so many many people after they they went back years later were not sort of resolved it hadn't been adjudicated it hadn't been paid for this very minor fine so I do think like some of this legislation and I know that this has been done with marijuana legislation legalization in some places. I think it's like the slate clean for the people at minimum and that's not that's not even restorative justice but that's just justice you know they should not be still in this sort of legal quagmire over this meaningless infraction. Two more questions then we'll wrap up here. This next question I haven't heard you, you all touch on this topic yet, which is a connection I see through jaywalking and gender based violence and or crime in general. Many of the communities I've been people have decided to cross the street outside of a crosswalk, because near that crosswalk may have been men, or a group of persons that they were simply trying to avoid. And we know how women and other sexual minorities are disproportionately targeted by don't not only by just police officers but also members of their communities. So can you speak to the need as to why to delegate hopes point. It's important to see jaywalking as people's attempt to simply be safe, or safer I should say it, because they're, they are attempting to avoid places that they know could cause harm to their persons. So, please touch on if you can anyone, potentially the connection between crime, gender based violence and jaywalking. So, I can, I can start on this and I'll site a local case that is actually still working this way through the court. There was a trans woman by the name of Brianna Hill, who was accosted by two police officers on a sidewalk. And she received very serious injuries and had to be hospitalized. And she ultimately pushed for charges she's no longer with us she was she was murdered but I think that the intersection there is that, you know, we, we really do need to need to consider again that juxtaposition that I think delegate hope and Angie we're kind of speaking to and how we consider safety in the context of mobility and the idea that it is not just about trying to kind of access something but to gaining something else and I think that, especially when we think about it in Kansas City we really unfortunately have that that local example of a woman who who just wanted to feel safe and who who had the right to expect to feel safe in the context of who we consider people of authority and she wasn't able to be afforded that and so if we believe that that is how we should be organizing our streets then we can't have situations where something like that happens, and no one is held accountable. All right, thank you. So the big question, the question of all questions. Where do we go from here. I would like to offer you each, you know, a few minutes to kind of talk through next steps and where do we go from here to close out the session. We can start with whoever is ready to to kind of offer that position, but where do we go from here. Well, I hope people don't get tired of me talking too much but I think our thoughts here in Kansas City are that we want to see this adopted and we're going to continue pushing for this legislation. But we hope that it can be a catalyst you know we bike walk KC work specifically in Kansas City, Missouri, but we work as part of a region that includes two states, eight counties and, and over 100 municipalities so our hope is that we're not just able to get something kind of, you know, say rah rah we did it but we want to create an example, where we go from here is, we use this as a means of saying you know, this is what this can look like, and this is what this can look like in Kansas City, Kansas this is what it can look like in some of our suburbs this is what it can look like even in some of our world stretches of our broader region so we really do want to be able to take this and use this as a template to encourage other communities to take that important step to decriminalize the act of jaywalking and create a safer built environment for their most vulnerable road users. Here in California the bill is a B 1238. It just passed the assembly transportation committee last Monday, I think. Time. Oh my God. It just passed last week and it will be moving into another committee. I don't have an update yet as to when it will be heard and will be voted on in that committee. I don't know that I don't know if anyone else does in California but all that to say that it sort of you know it passed its first hurdle we had a support letter that had like, I don't know 88 sign on so it was it was incredible and, and I just really need to say this again if I didn't already have that this was has was really a collaborative effort between Cal bike. Cal walks alley walks and the lawyers committee for civil rights of the San Francisco Bay area. And to also, you know, answer your, your question about where we're like kind of where do we go from here. I think for us it really is having that long larger and longer conversation about police enforcement and enforcement and law enforcement and traffic and traffic stops. And I, I feel like this is really just the beginning of that. And I'm very much looking forward to that. So thank you. Yeah, and I'm glad to follow up just from from my perspective and what we've learned it does seem like this is a movement that's gaining momentum. And, and I was glad that Virginia is on the cutting edge of doing this, but these conversations and you know taking advantage of the of the moment that we're in I mean I do think that I say this frequently. It talks that I go to, we're in the middle of history being made right now. It's hard to imagine this what what we've been through over the last year, year and a half or so has propelled policymakers lawmakers like me to rethink how we do criminal justice. I mean Angie mentioned we passed a law for expungement of all all marijuana offenses for for simple possession of marijuana but other crimes as well too. And so we're in the middle of history being made and it's hard to understand that when you're just looking at this bill by bill law by law, or day by day, but something is happening in this country and policymakers want to get it right. And I think these conversations are happening all over the country so this movement is starting to gain momentum, specifically as it relates to jaywalking. I would challenge and ask every law enforcement officer or policymaker in localities and states thinking about this does enforcing jaywalking, make your community safer. I think that the overwhelming answer to that is no enforcement is not making yourself safer of jaywalking safer so I just hope people look at that ask those questions. And I think that that more and more localities will come down that we should decriminalize jaywalking, and it's really important to have these conversations right now because it's really been ingrained in our systems that the police the cars that are in jaywalking, and if the pedestrians get hit well they they shouldn't have been crossing in the first place. And so we got to start getting out of that mentality I think passing these laws across the country is the first step. I don't know if I have a lot to add to that but I do think if we could see this pass in California 15 million people live in California, I think it would be really huge. And I do think it will set a good example and then there is also to think about some of these bike, these broken windows policing applies to cycling rules to we should look at that. It applies to transit users as well we're getting people every every every way they move you know obviously there's been a lot of attention on driving, but there is broken windows policing for bicyclists, which we saw recently in New Jersey, that horrible viral video out of Perth and boy, I'm happy for not doing that wrong. And also in people have been talking about I know there's a lot of discussion about it for transit in California with the ferry vision and that kind of thing so I am sort of hopeful about what we see going on right now and I'm rooting for California and all these places. So it sounds to me and do I can just say they have arrested people's mobility. So in closing, come this year, starting with Angie, then going to Michael, the car right then delegate hope. How can the people reach you find you stay connected to you. Angie. Yeah, I actually did want to mention. I'm trying to be a resource I'm trying to help in California there's only so much I can do but I also might be able to refer people to resources. You can reach me Angie at three MPH planning.com is my email. You do want to reach out I'll put it in the chat. Michael. Yeah, I'm always happy to talk with advocates on the ground who want to see if they can get this going and in their own communities. I'll put my name in the chat, or my email in the chat but yeah follow me on on Twitter and check out our organization's website bikewalkkc.org. Yeah, so we at California walks we have. We have an Instagram that where we've been adding a lot of a lot of videos. So you can follow us on Instagram California walk. And we also have a Twitter. That's where we primarily post, mainly our policy, our policy work and I, and I believe our Twitter handle is just at Cal yeah at California walks. And I will add our website and my email on the chat as well. And if you need to reach me I'm glad to share with you model legislation that we used in Virginia, go to my website, it's a hope for Virginia. Hope for Virginia.org. That's H O P E for F O R Virginia be IR g in a all spelled out hope for Virginia.org. Glad to share with you our legislation that you can talk to your legislators telling what we're doing and other parts and and see if there's interest in bills getting introduced but let's face it. It's not going to, it's not going to do anything it's not going to pass unless you ask. And so we need people to make the ask organize and make the ask. I want to thank each and every one of you for being here today, you are an amazing group of panelists. I want to thank my co moderated john as well as Jared. In terms of following me you can follow me at the hashtag arrest and mobility. Thank you. This has been a national. Also want to make sure we don't thank you as well for moderating this discussion. It was seen more like a conversation than a panel discussion so really thank you for the awesome questions in the agenda. You have notes from the meeting so we'll be sure to share that as well to you all. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone, please drive walk bike transit safely. It's been a pleasure. And with that, we're going to move things to a close. Thank you. Thanks everyone.