 But I think just thinking about where are the places and spaces where people can just be And how that contributes. I mean, we're talking about health, but I think what often gets short shrift is mental health in addition to Physical health I'm excited to report to you that in in San Antonio at this time on our east side We do have a very exciting Experiment and comprehensive community development that is a result of a collaborative effort at the grassroots level to obtain federal funding for programs that are designed to improve neighborhood strengthen neighborhoods and To look outside of just individual issues, but at all the intersections so the area that we're focusing on we're calling East Point and and the center of that area is a an obsolete public housing development and a public middle school and SA ISD Wheatley Middle School and the city of San Antonio the San Antonio independent school district the United Way St. Phillips College and several other key partners have all come together to transform the quality of life And though we started out just focusing on education and housing We've realized that there are so many other issues that we need to deal with and At the end of the day if we don't provide opportunities for people to be healthy and whole that they won't be able to be Contributing members of the neighborhood and we won't have the stability that we're seeking So hopefully in five years, I'll be able to come back and report some wonderful results We've had made some great progress so far But that's just one example and so hopefully through through conferences like this will be able to Elevate the dialogue and get to the point of making some actions That kind of turn the tide so that we can make the kind of public policy decisions that would allow all of us to Enjoy a healthy quality of life in the session that I was in this morning Elizabeth from the Federal Reserve Bank She I wrote down some notes of one of the things that she said she showed a slide that showed the Expect life expectancy for people based on their zip code in I can't remember what city it was that she showed showed it for Oh, it was New Orleans And so it showed how in this one zip code your life expectancy was 77 and in the other it was 55 and it was wasn't very far away and Also, this a statistic that she shared was that night I think it was about 80% of your health outcomes were dictated based on behavior and environment and not as a result of Health actual health care what your doctor tells you to do a medicines that you take So I think those are really important things for us to think about as far as how we can be healthy whole individuals and communities and I challenge all of you to not just Think about it and talk about it today, but to be about it. Thank you. My name is Laura Esparza I work for the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health Science Center of San Antonio And I'm also vice chair of the active living council of San Antonio There are many ways to be physically active including exercising and playing sports There's also active living which is a way of what life that integrates physical activity into our daily routines Such as walking to the grocery store riding a bike to work or walking to school Being active is an important part of being healthy But unfortunately most youth and adults do not meet the physical activity guidelines The active living council is a community group Committed to making it easier for every person in San Antonio to be physically active Our primary goal is to influence policy and programs that remove barriers and support a healthy lifestyle and environment Active living council is made up of representatives from every segment of the community And we produce the active living plan for a healthier San Antonio a Roadmap for transforming San Antonio into an active living community Active living council is now a committee of the mayor's fitness council And we are working closely with the mayor's fitness council to implement the active living plan For more information on the active living council and the plan be sure to check out the postcard That is inside your conference packet or go to fit city assay calm or stop by the mayor's fitness council table in the foyer With respect to helping San Antonio become an active living community. Where are we now and where do we want to go? What is it that makes a town an active town and can San Antonio become one? Today we have a special guest who will talk to us about just that John Simmerman has been in the health promotion business for more than 25 years Pursuing his passion for promoting active lifestyle at the community level. He founded advocates for healthy communities He spearheaded the active towns tour Visiting towns around the country to study what makes a town an active town and the steps We can take to activate our own communities and a couple of fun facts about John When not on the active town tour he divides his time between Hawaii and Colorado think about it John flew from Hawaii on Monday this week arriving in San Antonio about five in the morning He rode on his bike from the airport to his hotel in downtown San Antonio. Okay, raise your hand if you've ever done that John has great experiences to share and many ideas to share with us So please welcome John Simmerman actively standing Thank You Laura And Thank you very much for the warm welcome. Thank you for the Reserve Bank for helping funds and make this happen And a special thanks to mr. David clear everybody up. Come on. We're gonna do some active practice and active applause here That's a pound of Kona coffee right there So active apply. Hey, I got I got chicken skin That's that's that's Hawaiian for goose bumps there's something special to this concept of getting up and moving and Laura and I experienced this in San Diego in March at the active living research conference and this is the first time I've ever heard of active applause and Guess what we're gonna get you up and moving a couple of times today Because there's some good stuff happening in San Antonio. What did you say so? Come on one more time Yes, I promise I won't be that exuberant every time But I will be asking some serious questions so I'm gonna pause a couple of times during the presentation to just ask your feedback and I had to promise David that I would get you moving, you know kind of shake off the lunch It's always hard, you know either you know being the last speaker or you know right after lunch You're trickling in thank you so much for for sticking around and Let's dive in every tour every journey begins with that first step Here's me at about 18 months in Los Angeles This is where it all began and you know, it's it's one of those weird sort of things You know when you look back at your life and you kind of recall activity and things that you're doing and as kids were amazingly adaptable The family moved from Los Angeles up to northern California up to a little ranch and the next thing I knew I was wearing cowboy boots and You know raising horses sheep and cattle and doing all this, you know cool stuff. I put this one in for Chuck That's a twins hat on their Chuck. He's a Minnesota twins fan and What happens with many of us though is we lose a big part of that activity So when I was going to school, I became passionate about preventing disease not simply treating disease but preventing disease and so I really got into into that aspect in in my Studies that you see there, you know in the in the area of behavior change and behavior modification ended up working for many large corporations which happened to be Most most often they happened to be self-insured. I had an opportunity to move to Boulder in 1996 from Chicago and Was able to experience what it was like to live in an environment that actually, you know promotes and Encourages physical activity and to be completely honest. I moved to this place for one reason It had a reputation of being a great place to train for triathlon Okay, I picked up the habit habit. Yeah, I guess I would it's some say it's a curse of Triathlon when I lived in Chicago and I heard that this place was just an awesome place to train You had altitude you have great weather by the way. There's 300 days of sunshine in the Boulder area Little did I know there were some other things that made it very very special in 2005 a job opportunity came up that allowed me to move to Honolulu and This began, you know, the Odyssey that is where I'm at now I split my time about 50 50 between Hawaii and And Boulder, Colorado however When I was in Honolulu The environment was a shock. I could not ride my bike. I got very depressed I slowed my bike and said, you know what the only place I feel safe is when I'm out in the water Opportunity came up to get to Kona Reinvigorated that passion for riding the bike it felt safer on the Big Island. It felt safer in Kona and That's when I got Involved with bicycle and pedestrian advocacy work So I took all that background in disease prevention and health promotion working in the corporate arena for over 15 years and suddenly had this epiphany of The built environment Has a profound impact on our ability to live and lead a healthy life And so and that's also when I got involved with the Congress for new urbanism and found out about strong towns and Chuck Morone and and all of those discussions because one of the things that that Came up and really became part of my epiphany is that a strong town is also going to be an active town so Here we are. Let's talk a little bit about activity There you go, San Antonio. Hey, every body Needs activity You really do it's it were designed to be active and There's different types of activity, you know, you've got activity that is your programmed you know, I'm gonna put my exercise clothes on and go out and do an activity and You've got you know the other side of activity, which is you know called the Utilitarian type of activity and Utilitarian types of activity include, you know things like meeting your daily needs So here's a picture of folks walking in LA if anybody remembers music from the 80s You know somebody said nobody ever walks in LA. There's proof they do and by the way There's a metro station subway station right there That I was able to take to get to a conference in in LA, but we also have play and recreation There's fun involved with that and by the way, it's it's okay for you all to have fun now that you're an adult I'm not sure if everybody knows that or not Meditative movement to thinking about hey, I just need to stroll around get some nature in and Distress providing at opportunities such as this. I don't know if this is very easy to see in the back there It's a little dark, but my point of this slide is to is to really highlight and illustrate That you've got a mixture of different types. So these folks This is a recreational outing and by the way, this is brutally cold too. You see the snow there It's a it's actually a pretty cold day, but these kids are walking home first from school So you have a single type of environment facility serving different types of activity So And here's another slide illustrating that as well completely different environment. This is in Lodo. This is very urban You've got this, you know, this lady just did some shopping. You've got the bike park here That's probably somebody who is you're picking something up Maybe it's one of the workers that are there and so it's an environment where again You're getting a mixture of different types of active living So I mentioned earlier that we're designed to move and I'm I'm very very careful about About saying those words because it's actually quite true. I mean heck even Santa Claus is designed to move Look at Santa Claus there. He's right up there with very we are our local professional triathlete in in Kona. So When I say that we're designed to move what I really mean is this is a very very Recent trend in the history of man where we are living sedentary lifestyles and sedentary lives day in and day out and In fact, if you take a look at every single major health issue that we're dealing with Sedentary living in inactivity is a major risk factor to those ailments so But we got a lazy gene, don't we? Yeah One of my favorite favorite photos So but I'm serious. We really do have a lazy gene So the other thing that is is critical to know is that yes, we're designed to move We have the ability to accomplish amazing things from a physical perspective But we also are Designed to conserve energy whenever we can and it usually takes a little bit of effort a little initiative on our part To be able to overcome that escalator and choose the stairs Sometimes it's a matter of will sometimes. It's a matter of Programming in terms of how we design our environment to encourage Activity and I love this photo. This is the blow up of the Photo from two two slides ago because you just see the joy on the faces here There is nothing more natural to humans than being active Okay, nothing more natural So now it's your turn I've got my volunteers. They've got their mics that are going to be able to get to you I want to get a couple of examples. What are your fondest childhood memories of activity anybody real quick? We're going to do this quick fire. So any examples Waffle ball, okay, that was good. We didn't need a mic for that one Tree climbing okay a couple more Dancing perfect What do you think I think that deserves some active applause everybody up come on Come on bring it up bring it up bring the level up So by the way, I Actually use a stand-up desk. I do not sit the reason I do not sit is after about five to ten minutes of continuous sitting Your body starts ratcheting down your basal metabolic system So the amazing studies have come out of the UK recently that takes a look at just how Devastating sitting is so there's a rhyme to my reason here of getting you up and and trying to bring some invigoration to this okay Diving in let's talk about the active towns initiative. So We founded the active towns initiative just about a year or so ago and Really it was as the result of a study that I did some surveys that I did with Support from the Ironman Foundation where I actually interviewed Ironman distance triathletes and the reason I chose those that those Weirdos, okay, and I'm one of them Is that they're out there on our streets training every single day if you want to understand? How conducive to physical activity your environment is who better to ask than the person who's walking biking out In the in the neighborhoods at all times and probably also by the way getting in three to four different swimming Exercises in as well. Okay, so I talked with these folks and I said well How do you rate your city? How do you rate the place where you live? How do you rate your town and the numbers were just coming back? So incredibly positive. I'm like, what's wrong with these people? Are they like literally that high up in Dorfins? and After doing some focus interviews with them something came out These individuals and there's something you need to understand about the typical Ironman distance triathlete as well When you look at their their demographics of this particular group their household income is well over six figures Okay, you've got a lot of CEOs. You've got a lot of doctors You've got a lot of very driven Taipei people who are out there. I'm so not bad, but whatever and This is what they said They said the reason why we're rating our town so highly is Because we moved to this place. It was all ready Wonderful environment when they decided to move to Park City when they decided to move to Boulder when they decided to go to these places These places already had a culture of physical activity So of course, what did I think how the heck did these places get this way? That's what I wanted to explore and so I set out to try to understand and try to explore How these places came about and Kaiser Permanente was generous enough to help fund last year's travel I made it to 20 some odd states and this is the 86th city in about 12 months time We launched the tour last May at a CNU in Salt Lake City and What a wild ride and guess what I've got 21 more states to visit actually 20 now since I've made it to here and another 75 Targeted cities that I'm hearing through the grapevine That are really cool happening places. They're either already an active town or they're getting there. They're emerging So I am and you'll see there. There's a Facebook up there. I'm very active on the active towns in Facebook But what are active towns? Well, these are these are walkable places We heard Chuck talk about this earlier. These places are bikeable. Take a look at this photo. It's a boring photo, right? It's of a bike rack, but that bike rack photo makes me smile every time. This is mid February It's brutally cold and all these middle schoolers at Casey Middle School rode their bike to school That is a really really cool thing. These are memorable places These are places where people will go to visit and they talk about and they rave about these places They're desirable Madison, Wisconsin on the livability index rated number five Again, there is a quality of life aspect to these places when they're active towns and They're truly lovable People were passionate about this place. They said John you're gonna be in the upper, you know Midwest You have got to take a drive. I was up visiting Chuck in in Brainerd You have got to take a drive across the UP Into and visit Mackinaw Island Okay, Mackinaw Island. Who's been to Mackinaw Island? Hand full of folks pretty special place, right? Do you realize that is our really our only car-free city that we have in the United States? It's completely car-free has always been car-free. They actually banned automobiles and I believe it was 1896 even before automobiles became the thing They were thinking about something there. Okay, so What is it? I'm looking for when I'm out there. I'm looking for activity assets. I want to better understand How the entire environment and it's not just walking and biking but it's part of it You know, it's it is the trails It's it's the the friendliness here, but it's also the additional aspects to activity Again, both utilitarian and non utilitarian both, you know that the program stuff as well as being able able To live your daily life. It's you know, we heard somebody talk about you know community gardens So there's that part of it and again access to nature. Somebody mentioned street trees Do you know what you know what trees are in in traffic engineering parlance? Anybody can shout it out? Trees street trees Well, yeah, it is it's it's an it's an FHO a fixed hazardous object. Okay That's what that's the way they're looking at street trees when I see street trees what I think of this is providing a Wonderful environment. It's an inviting environment that gives me shade There's something that's really truly amazing about when you go down on the Riverwalk and that temperature is down You've got all that shade canopy pretty cool stuff. Okay We're also looking to Chuck's point. We're looking at the land use patterns. How do the land use patterns drive and dictate physical activity on a day-in and day-out basis and a big part of this is is access and Proximity things of that nature. I'm not going to go through all of these in detail But just so you know when I visit a city and do a comprehensive report these are what I'm looking at in terms of the the Activity assets what we're hopefully going to have is get some metrics to these things some of these are actual physical Things that are on the ground and some of them are programming some of it's part of the culture But we want to be able to quantify this and create something We're calling an activity score so that a city can kind of see where they're at and see How they mesh out in terms of being an established active town an emerging active town an aspiring active town or Maybe they are a latent active town Okay, I think we've seen we've seen versions of this in a couple of the earlier presentations This is certainly an auto oriented auto-centric latent active town There's there's pockets of activity that could be happening in any of these places but on a whole they've got some challenges So when I'm looking at an aspiring active town or neighborhood, they're starting to get it They're just at the very beginning stages. This is Dexter, Michigan this pathway Provided an absolutely critical connection to a community that was completely cut off from their downtown The kids could have literally thrown a stone from their homes that they couldn't get to you know They could literally toss that stone to the downtown area But they couldn't get there unless they were driven because there was no connections and the road Had such a dangerous Underpass that they were not able to get through so there was a barrier so this created connectivity So you'll hear that word time and time again is connectivity Emerging active towns. These are the places that yeah, they get it They're already actively working on those tactical Urbanism types of things and sometimes it doesn't look like urbanism at all sometimes it looks like this in Saranac Lake where you know, they gave me a call the Saranac Lake is just up the road from from Lake Placid They they gave me a call and said John you got to get up here to upstate New York. We're an active town We're proud about it. It's part of our marketing It's part of what we are our vision and when I got up there. This is Josh. He happens to be the state bike and pad coordinator or bicycle coordinator for the state of New York and This is a great example of cross-purposing so in the winter time the this is a ski cross-country ski path right here But then perpendicular to it in the summertime that is a removable portion of that that particular Segment that he's holding there. That's part of the mountain biking trail So they're repurposing they're keeping things active keeping their assets active all year round And then of course our established active towns these are the places that when I asked somebody hey What place have you been to that you were just blown away you come back home and you're raving you're just like wow We didn't have to get in the car a single bit and it was fun It was invigorating we you know and hey Can we get a little bit more of that when we come back? So I wanted to study what was part of the DNA of these established active towns and how They got to where they are okay, so once again What places come to mind for you and this time I really do want the microphone in somebody's hand can somebody give me an Active town or a stat or an established or an emerging active town and not San Antonio because you are emerging But raise your hand and we'll have the white get you yes right here in front Philadelphia Philadelphia emerging or already established She says established I got to get to Philadelphia Fort Collins, Colorado Fort Collins, Colorado one of the other platinum League of American Bicycle Bicycle friendly cities That's a no-brainer Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska. I have not heard that one more and then we got to keep going She's working on the mic over there Just shout it out What's your city just shout it out She's a Austin you bet that's what the next stop on the active towns tour is a Austin. Okay, so When I talk about a culture of activity I Mean it permeates through all aspects of life I was out for a morning run on a very very cold morning there in Boulder and ran across this little guy He was riding his bike to school The smile on his face was just ear to ear. He was having a ball This group here. This is some friends. They were out having a noon committee meeting I kid you not you want to talk about corporate wellness programming and things of that nature their Programming activity throughout all aspects of their life go for a walk Steve Jobs was was famous about going for walks Hey, take a look at this afternoon commute in Madison. This is a bicycle Priority area here, they're gonna wait for this traffic to clear out and then they're through and they're super super casual about it There's no stress or mess there evening practice in Kailua Kona So recreation types of activities opportunities for you to connect with friends and other colleagues and things of that nature Absolutely critical, especially if you have an environment like that in Kailua Kona But what if your environment is like this in Brooklyn, you know Six degrees and we're still seeing all these different people walking and biking in Brooklyn on a very very cold day This was one of the Arctic plunges. Yes. I I do travel in in the winter time and Here's a great example of civic identity I mean the bicycle in Davis is actually the logo for the city. This is civic pride in Identity, it's part of what they present forward as being You know critical to them this particular Facility is much like your Riverwalk in the sense that it connects to all sorts of meaningful places Recreation activities like this soccer field over here these housing over here are mid to low-income housing It connects down to downtown These are meaningful ways that people can get activity in and please keep in mind from an equity perspective that active transportation is Oftentimes by necessity for people who do not have the means to support an automobile at eight to nine thousand dollars per year and Here's a great example in Los Angeles of the fact that every transit ride begins with somebody either being a pedestrian or A bicycle rider or somebody that got a ride or got dropped off, etc we need to think broadly about how people are getting around on a day-in-and-day-out basis and think of it from the the lens of You know everybody else's situations so from an equitable perspective so Some of the key learnings that we've seen from the trip thus far of It's absolutely imperative to create an inviting and invigorating environment Inviting what I mean by that is it truly is welcoming it welcomes somebody in Invigorating is just that I mean think of the the word invigorate it energizes It's something that you know you just you can't help but want to go for a stroll when you have a place like the Riverwalk Traditional land use patterns once again looking at the opportunity to Exemplify those areas that were built on that every single city has a core of some traditional Land use pattern try to reinvigorate that area for the areas They're sprawled out and you don't have that see what you can do to try to incorporate some of those aspects of development and then we're going to talk about this in detail streets for people and streets in transition Also easy access to nature and other inviting and invigorating environments that are out there including the workplace and then Finally creating community connections Engaging your communities one of the things that Chuck talked about with the neighborhood's first program was just that you're getting the community Engaged and activated if you can do that you're going to have a lot better success because Many good well-intentioned programs get killed by nimby ism Okay so Isn't that just a beautiful picture? So this is Mackinaw Island once again, and that is highway in 185 I'll say that again. That's highway in 185 That's the only highway in the in the federal system That's a state highway where motor vehicles are not allowed pretty cool stuff But again, I'm not going to really belabor this other than to say that a big part of the lens that I see things through Is how do we create authentic environments that will truly motivate? People to change their behavior Okay, you all know we got the carrot in this stick This is this is me saying that the carrot is a huge huge part of it The stick can be the policies and the legislation and you've got you know aspects of that You can all kind of think about some of them not as wonderful to think about But really what I'm saying to you is that when you create an environment that is truly inviting People will will do their best to change their behavior Especially especially if they're already working on trying to do so Okay, and I'll show you some examples of how We can better do this from the standpoint of the things that we're building and putting on the ground Because you can't have this everywhere, right? Okay So back to the the traditional land use patterns one of the wonderful things about my epiphany of understanding land use in the built environment and And the strong towns movement was the realization that wow You know if we get land use right you can have something like this a walking school district This is actually Lakewood, Ohio. They do not have buses. They have never had buses They don't need them the kids all walk or bike to school Boulder, Colorado where you have created? They drew a blue line on the map by the way back in the 60s and 70s and said this is our urban growth boundary and We're going to hold ourself to no more than 2% growth on an annualized basis year over year and they've stuck to it You get situations like this So when you have this is Brooklyn by the way and and yes I put this in for you Chuck because this is a fire a fire truck it was so cold that day that all the fire trucks were out checking to make sure that the Fire hydrants still had water that could flow they weren't completely frozen solid They had no trouble getting around on these old narrow streets, so They they didn't seem stressed at all But what I really want to point out here is that when we build and when we re-embrace this concept of Traditional land use patterns you have the value creation. You're able to create that prosperity That's so incredibly Necessary for the vitality of the environment and from my perspective You now have money to be able to invest in the maintenance of some of these things that we're talking about Like golly gee whiz. I'd love to see it in Hawaii where the public restrooms at our most famous beaches Are actually kept up. They look like they're from a third world very very embarrassing So when you have that ability to have the value creation to have the the prosperity You've got the money for the investment in the things that matter to quality of life that matter to Our health status as a society So streets for people It was brought up in the conversation a little while in the session immediately after Chuck's opening remarks About complete streets and about the challenge of trying to create streets that are that are for people I love this photo. This is in miami I love this photo because this is a convertible street in the daytime This is a an actual operating street see that street sign right there 15 miles per hour And then come nighttime. They close it off and have a party every single day Okay, it's a convertible street. This is a kids side street. I love this street too This is in mission beach down in the san diego area and This little guy he actually does pause see the little little look there He actually does he doesn't dash right across he actually does look down Looks both ways make sure that it's safe for him to continue moving through The community was just absolutely delightful with this. These used to be all motorized vehicle streets and you see what happened is that as it became part of the You know Public passageway, but also part of the private realm became an extension of their home. It's beautiful to see So but what are most of our streets look like? well, most of our streets kind of look like this and We're sort of struggling with how we go through this transition period. How do we make a You know that these massively over wide streets with motor vehicles traveling at extremely high speeds How do we somehow make them? appropriate For pedestrians and for bicyclists well the same Right of way that you just saw on the previous slide in salt lake city. This is a different outcome This is one block over and you'll see An extremely wide public realm here. It call also called a Sidewalk you've got a shared lane there in the middle and you had transit in in in the The the train the light rail that they have here. I put this up just to make fun of it. It's it's a complete street Thank you very much. You did a great job. You've got a complete street a complete street Nowhere It's not fair because the fort lauderdale was actually testing some things out Hopefully someday they're going to be able to put some value on that street So that it's a complete street to somewhere. This is a complete street to the airport So when I went to the conference in san diego, I also rode to the airport and back now Sometimes I get in trouble for criticizing the ubiquitous white white sticks But what I try to emphasize with folks is that when we put things like that out I want them to be considered transitionary I want that to be tactical in the sense that we're trying to get somewhere else This is what we really need to be thinking about when you look at the fact that if you Have a situation a crash between a pedestrian or cyclist and an automobile And the automobile is traveling at 20 miles per hour. There's an 80 chance of survival That's those are pretty good odds That's a major major reason why we need to head in this direction When we have a realm where we're trying to mix bicyclists pedestrians and motor vehicles All you have to do is go up to as high as 35 45 miles per hour and then you're at an 80 fatality rate Not the odds you want to be in So design really does matter. I like this street in and spruce street in boulder I like this street because it's a relatively quiet street. You got some nice tree canopy here And this pool right here. This is the spruce pool. This is one of the pools that I swim out in the summertime And I thought it was just ideal in the sense that they did a really good job of calming The rate at which traffic moved through here. They narrowed this lane They gave a little bit of a buffer here, but that's really hard to see but right there is a mark on the pavement That helps contain those parked cars keeps them far over there so that we prevent the the dreaded dooring effect Too often we're putting bike lanes right up next to the cars that are parked there and then cyclists are being doored Because it's very difficult You know to avoid when a door suddenly gets thrown right out at you So design really does matter. They don't all have to look alike. They don't have to look the same Rather than the ubiquitous white sticks. I'd love to see armadillos. That's a good one for uh For texas, right? But this is in barcelona and these little guys if a car actually hits that they're going to notice In fact, it's going to push them back over and the great thing is it's pretty tactical It's pretty something that you can do as a temporary experiment And you know what you can even put a little bit more space in between there so that the cyclist can can still be able To meander out of the lane in that sense So what i'm trying to say is it doesn't all have to look alike But we have to understand that this is inherently going to be more inviting Is inherently going to seem and be perceived as being safer than just some paint on the ground Than just some sticks and so when you're talking about trying to motivate The sedentary population or you're more importantly you're trying to motivate The vast number of people who say that you know, they're interested in cycling, but they're very concerned So there's an entire group of people that this type of scenario might help with So We used to do this though, you know, this actually is eastern parkway in brooklyn It was designed by frederick law holmstead and it was designed prior to automobiles being everywhere They designed these wonderful environments and they were beautiful environments and they were beautiful even at six degrees Out there and again, i'm blown away by all the people that i see Out there walking and biking even in very very very cold weather the polar vortex And these are transitions So the message really is if we're talking about a street if we're talking about what chock talked about earlier in terms of A platform for creating value for for wealth creation and for vitality to a community We may need to start heading down this direction where we're talking about cars and people mixing And being able to proceed being able to compel And encourage motor vehicle drivers to travel at human speed so One of i highly recommend this this book, um, uh, I believe Victor dover was here earlier this past year speaking about this particular book highly recommend it Very very influential for me And I I I can't recommend this enough if you haven't had a chance to pick it up It is to to chuck's point. It is a little bit pricey, but chuck to answer your question. Well worth it Okay, so I've got my mic guys around Okay, good Looking for a couple of good examples of truly Safe and inviting streets that you can think of so i want to know the street where it's located And i want you to tell me why Why it's a very you know motivating place. I see one hand up in the far back over there Then I need a couple more Go ahead and put your hand up so you can see you there you go Do we have others over here too? I'm actually thinking it's probably two streets Being that we're all mostly here in college. We all know them one is rainy and the other one's uh, six street So I don't know if you know about those out there in austin Wonderful and what makes it a special place safe and inviting place Uh, I would say out of the social aspects about it. Okay Have you ever been there? I have not been there. Yes, you'll love it. You won't remember it, but you'll love it. All right All sorts of definitions of what a street is and that's kind of the whole point the the street The definitions of streets have changed over the years. Yes, sir. Uh, city trials boulevard in new orleans It's the oldest uh transit street in the country Falls the curve of the mississippi and it has a wonderful combination of of Both upscale and medium and low-scale housing and institutions along the whole seven mile route Is that the one that has the uh the rail line going right down the middle right that was put in there in 1849 as a pulled by Horses first and then transitioned to electric. Yeah, so what he's talking about in in new orleans. There's this wonderful street and In in the area where the light rail runs it's a grassy area and When you look at a photograph of of this particular street It's it's truly fascinating because you notice something's a little bit off You notice something that looks a lot like chuck's photograph where you saw the footpath worn there The runners prefer to run on a softer surface And so the runners now run right down the middle of the the light rail in new orleans Creating a nice little beaten path The the trains are going so incredibly slow that you know as they see the train train come forward They just jump off you know go like and then they jump back in into the you know the grassy area Fascinating. Thank you very much for those examples. Hey, what do you think? Let's put your hands together stand on up active applause here Those are awesome We absolutely have to keep in mind that we need access to nature It can be as simple as those street trees It could be like this in boulder where uh an entire class of kids are learning how to mountain bike And if we've if we're done if we've done a good job at incorporating, you know trails and pathways this is on the uh in in minneapolis here and It's incredibly important for us to get that connection to nature on a daily Basis on a daily basis. This is up in Duluth, minnesota on the lake front there. That's lake superior in case you're not aware Absolutely beautiful And so we need to think about these as as opportunities My home in the boulder area is actually just about Quarter of a mile from this trailhead and it's simply A preserved open space And rather than just letting that open space sit there and do nothing they made sure that it became an asset This is a view right at the the pier in kailua kona And you can see a variety of different types of activities. You're engaging different cultures You're engaging different people This is an example of what it looks like to have a park that you know really converts itself in the winter time This is cross-country skiing They were getting ready to set up. You can't see them. They're off to the side there They're getting ready to get the the the small midget kid soccer going So wonderful aspects of it and and again I can't help but you know come back to the images from this week when I was in You know being able to explore the river walk. Absolutely beautiful This is also a wonderful Slide to to end the parks and trails with this is a pathway that goes into the national park To the best of my knowledge It's the only bike path that exists inside a national park Although yesterday I rode your bike path to a national historic park. That was pretty cool All right Yes You didn't stand I'll let that one pass So other invigorating environments when I was in la this was the environment that I found I I booked myself into a really old hotel and guess what I was on the seventh floor And I got to walk up the stairs every single time hotel. I'm in This time wonderful inviting stairs walking up and down again access to affordable rec centers and pools recreation facilities Hey, you don't have a lot of money. How about a free yoga class out on the lawn? This actually stretches for quite some time I think there was like 125 people at this this yoga class that was being done on a sunday morning And this is an example of a corporate fitness center Up in Rochester, um, minnesota. So part of the mayo clinic. This is for their employees Again creating environments which invite people To live healthy active lives The other thing and this is this is san Antonio right here Signature events having inspiring events Where you engage a large number of uh of your your your community as volunteers and then inevitably It motivates other people to get healthy get active. This is an example of a free event that's held every month in kai luakona. It's called a p-man And uh, it's just a swim and a run and it's it's a lot of fun And what it has done is it creates a low barrier to entry opportunity for people to change their lifestyle and and get healthy Opportunities for for water as well I've got about five minutes. So I need to fly through this in just a little bit here So but this is an example of again connecting with communities and really main making meaningful connections Um And and sometimes it's there's a double on tonder to that sometimes there's a literal connection and then sometimes It is about really connecting with the population and again listening to their needs and being able to get them engaged This is an example in kona of you know 125 people coming out to Get engaged work on the trail. This is their neighborhood And it was looking a little run down because the parks and rec department didn't have uh the time or the money When you look at some of your your older Communities and you you really need to be able to work with and engage Key members of that community, especially when you're starting to transform those environments You you've heard the word gentrification before you want to try to make sure that you can guide them through positive change so when we look at In taking action these are the types of things that I want you to think once again Inviting and invigorating make sure you get outside your silos your areas of expertise And have a good appreciation for where other people are kind of coming from It's absolutely important for the bike guy to think a little bit differently Understand where the planners and the engineers are coming from and vice versa and again Being able to take those small little incremental opportunities to trial things be tactical Try things out and again when you look at the the aspect of your your lower to middle income Um neighborhoods and things access is absolutely critical Don't leave them hanging out there without access to Vital resources and other activity assets And in taking action. I want you to be Inclusive Think about all ages think about all abilities not just people who you know are young and vibrant and healthy, but everybody and also Model the behavior you want to see everybody know what that means That's right. That's the reason why I ride my bike from the airport to the hotel That's the reason why I try to be authentic. I'm trying to model the behavior It's a challenge that I gave to to chuck when I was up in in Brainerd Is we really do have to model the behavior that we expect to see other others do So everybody take that into into consideration and think of how you can do that because guess what we as humans We're a hurting species if we see other people out there doing it. It looks like fun Others are going to be more likely to do it All right real quick. I know we don't have a lot of time There's Julia. She took me on a tour um real quick Things that you're excited about in san Antonio right now shout them out Yeah, this first what else? Yeah bike share Sequel via saw the that presentation earlier Linear creek parks absolutely amazing so This is just going to cycle through and give some photos but questions from the audience We only have about two minutes or so so Go ahead and and a couple of quick questions. Yeah in the back there We're going to run the mic up to you real quick so everybody can hear and by the way this is being Recorded in broadcast and so we certainly appreciate that What would you say to communities that maybe don't want to be connected to other communities? Like I can't get to almas park because there's a gun club between me and the park that's rented to the gun By the city for a dollar a year. So unless I want to get shot. I can't get to the park And it's because we're the low-income neighborhood in the private city that lives next to the gun club probably doesn't want us walking through my theory Yeah, and that's a great example too of low-income neighborhoods being partnered up next to or near other you know types of environments that are are you know Disatisfying or polluters or noisy or dangerous situations. So yeah, I mean what one has to think Well, what on earth is that doing here still after all this time? So it's a good question and it's a good challenge. I don't know that I have a specific example for that Any other quick questions? Yes in front and also you talk about how nice some of these areas are That are really cold in the winter. What do you recommend about an area that's uh It's a hundred and six degrees in the summer and 80 humidity Yeah, I mean the the real question here is you know gosh, you know, what about weather I guess the whole reason I put some of the extreme photos up there of the extreme cold and the extreme heat You know out there because some of those photos were done in really really hot weather too Is that if you have an inviting environment if you have an environment that has some mechanisms to bring the temperature level down Like the environment that you have along the river walk with the trees You can really kind of transform that to To really work with the the the environment that you have, you know the the weather pattern named who can control the weather Right So but what you can do is you can you can have you can create inviting environments by thinking things through the other thing is too is gosh You know when I'm in in minnesota and it's brutal You know brutally cold or in orado and it's a brutally cold stretch You'd be amazed at how many intrepid folks are out there doing it and when other people see that they're like Yeah, you know we'll do that same with hot weather. It's it's just a matter of framing And again, we're hurting species if we see other people doing it. We will go out there and and give it a try Okay Do I have time for one more one more? Okay In the back No, okay Yes, right here I'm stalling because I do have photos more photos of san antonio Yes, I can open up the bike too As a new urbanist in a comprehensive way, what would you recommend? The central texas area to become an active town because it's it's growing so rapidly. What is your key? Recommendation on how to become those active towns and all these negative herds with all that's happening the weather Gated communities lack of access land use changes, etc So really if I understand the question, you know correctly is you know gosh given the challenges that we have In the central texas area and the fact that you know much of it is really really built out. It's really sprawled out What do we do? Take it incrementally do it neighborhood by neighborhood with The vision of thinking connectivity and trying to connect people to meaningful places But tackle them Start being serious about you know tackling the legislative side of things from the legal side of things Of making it okay to bring traffic speeds down in environments where you're trying to create value Where you're trying to you know, gosh, why should we be driving 35 miles an hour through a residential area? Okay And the good news is is is the state of texas has actually accepted the cnu and ite Guidelines and so you can actually build a 10 foot wide Lane now travel lane and bring the speeds down to you know human speeds reasonable reasonable speeds here I think I need to wrap this up And I wanted to just you know, thank everybody for this opportunity The slides are going to continue to go here to get through san Antonio If you have to get out here right away to get to your next session the last slide says Go spurs go. Thank you