 Good morning everybody. Good morning and welcome. Please come on in and grab a seat There's a nice big crowd here this morning, but there's still plenty of seats Especially towards the front. So just come up and grab a seat Don't be afraid of sitting next to a stranger. It's a good opportunity to make a new friend So just come on in It's it's a real pleasure To welcome you and and kind of a thrill for us all because this is the first annual conference on public health and the built environment, so you are Part of the beginning of something we hope will be very very big and grow From year to year and of course the theme of this conference is that The physical environment in which we live has a big effect on our health and That we the people in this room and others working together public health architects planners designers builders private sector public sector we have the opportunity to shape our physical environment and improve the health of Ourselves our families our neighborhoods and this beautiful community of of San Antonio and Bear County in which we live How how many people here in the audience today are not local are from out of town, could you raise your hand? Okay, well that that's great. Thank you very much for coming I hope that you'll have time while you're here to see some of San Antonio and I would especially recommend our fabulous River mission reach which is the portion of the San Antonio River that goes south south of downtown for miles and miles and miles That is definitely worth doing And you can walk jog kayak Bike and it's very easy to rent the bike here locally. So so check that out How many in the audience are public health people of one sort or another? How many are not public health people but represent some other discipline I I'd say that's pretty half-and-half. So that's impressive and that's what we were hoping for actually and we want to especially thank the Texas Public Health Association Which we are piggybacking on to their conference begins tomorrow their annual educational conference How many in the audience will be attending the TPHA conference for the rest of the week? Okay, so some but most not Great And we we appreciate that the chance to link up with TPHA and serve as a bridge Because this is something that in some respects is new to public health So we want to really Engage our own colleagues on this issue I want to thank the the sponsors of this conference who supported this financially and with their Contributions of time and expertise City of San Antonio Department of Planning and Development. Thank you very much UTSA College of Architecture and while you're here today many of the UTSA Architectural students are here and they have a display in the lobby that you'll want to Look at and and talk to the students about projects. They've been working at Very much want to thank the San Antonio chapter of the American Institute of Architects, AIA which is very very engaged in this whole notion of Public health in the built environment and they Sponsored a lunchtime lecture Several months ago. That was very well attended at the at the stables at the Pearl Brewery that highlighted this issue so in many ways this is a continuation of that and Also want to thank the the UTSA School of Public Health And San Antonio B cycle that's our bicycle sharing system here locally That you'll see the the gray racks of bicycles all over town very easy easy to rent them with a credit card and tonight There will be two Special ways to get to the evening reception that I hope you will all attend the evening reception is at La Gloria Which is a little indoor outdoor restaurant on the Pearl Brewery campus Which is just about a mile up river from here, so you can easily walk there from the From the hotel here You can also go on a special walking tour led by UTSA's architectural students walking on the river from here to the evening reception and they'll kind of Point out highlights on the way and there are many highlights It's they have some very fabulous works of art and architecture all along the river Or you can rent a bike with B cycles and ride there in about 10 minutes actually and They if there's enough interest in that Will have some extra bikes available right here. I'm told you can download a An app whatever that means to rent a B cycle, but if you want to do that ask because it's very easily done and Also in the lobby there there are other tables set up other displays in particular Witty Museum, which is a great partner and twig books Which will be selling a number of titles that have to do with this subject if you would like to view the in the sessions After today or you want to recommend it to a friend or colleague They will be available on now cast SA and they're being filmed now by Our local nonprofit organization That does wonderful work putting into video and audio Events like this to make it available to everybody and then last of all a Good reason to come back to San Antonio if you're from out of town is for sequel via on April Sunday April 7th, which is a Total blast we we closed down a major street and have bicycling Skateboarding every form of alternative transportation non-motorized Transportation going up and down in kind of a carnival atmosphere for the whole day and I would invite you to that And last of all, I would like to thank the mayor's fitness council, which was is the major financial sponsor for this conference and Through their their board of volunteers have done so much to promote this and Particularly the active living council, which is a component is Has has been very supportive and I would like to introduce Dr. Ned Zaharoff who's the chair of the active living council and a Mayor and a member of the mayor's fitness council to tell us a little bit more about that Dr. Zaharoff is a sports Medicine physician She is a very active in team sports as well as just promoting fitness and health Locally And she's been an inspiration. She continues to be an inspiration for many of us And we're so glad that she's here and part of this Annette. Please come up Wow I want to thank Dr. Schlenker and Metro health for inviting me to actually be the warm-up band for Rick Bell this morning I told them I wouldn't take too many jokes. In fact, I don't have any it's too early for me to be funny, so I'm gonna So this morning I have a few minutes to introduce some concepts with the active living council and Three years ago our council didn't exist. So I think we've come quite a quite a long way In fact, our council was initially developed through a CDC grant that was awarded to the Metro health department and through that they had the Foresight to really create an active living council one of which is one of the only local councils in the United States and Our mission really as you see is to transform Bear County in San Antonio into a healthy community through active living So we've had the opportunity with funding initially to set out in a mission and vision to do that and promote active Lifestyles throughout the community Our group is very unique in that we've modeled our our membership after the national activity plan And this model actually looks at a variety of sectors within the community Understanding that our whole mission is really trying to reduce obesity in the community as well as reduce sedentary lifestyles So our own membership is made up of eight different sectors including an additional group of community representatives And as you can see it's really a widespread group to take a look at acting as a forum for all of the community to be able to have input into issues regarding active living and To be able to provide a perspective that represents the community as a whole in developing and outlining future plans for our city So in our initial project or one of our directives was actually creating a master plan Which was a three to five year plan to help promote active living as a way of life As a way to change attitudes and change our environment in the community to actually promote active living So I'd like to just highlight that plan today with the time I have The name of our plan is the active living plan for a healthier San Antonio And this plan is modeled after the national physical activity plan And it's sharing the vision of being able to have all Americans one day be physically active Not only where they play but where they work and where they live and our job is to help implement Programs policies and help change the infrastructure that allows our environment to actually support active living So in that plan one of the things that we've done is we had created policy Recommendations to present to our local government local city city officials that look at the type of Developments that we're promoting and what type of form-based and type of coding that we're using for development So we're looking at infrastructure and policy development One of the other policy recommendations We've made is actually looking at our planning commissions and providing a health element to it So we can take a look at health impact assessments and decide how our infrastructure is being built In outlining that plan we've looked at all the various sectors within the community to represent Not only local priorities, but aligning with our local initiatives And so in that plan we've taken each of our sectors and actually contributed specific strategies Tactics and measurable outcomes so we can take a look at not only where we are today But where our works leading a student come come to a healthier group in terms of our community One of the other very unique things about this plan is that it's a very good example of public and private sector Collaboration because it's taking a look at not only what our private stakeholders in the community represent But our public interests in the Metro health department our local officials in terms of moving that needle towards a healthier community in San Antonio The plan itself is based off the national physical activity plan and because of that We were able to use a lot of evidence based information to promote the strategies and tactics that are outlined in it And we've taken a national plan and localized it and prioritized it for all the different socioeconomic groups and demographic groups in San Antonio and This encourages a lot of partnerships a lot of collaboration as I mentioned with public and private sectors And one of the most important and key points to take this plan forward is really taking a look at how it supports not only Local initiatives, but aligning with national initiatives as well to promote health and fitness in our community So one of the things that we're very proud of is that we have been recognized nationally by the physical activity Research Network and they've asked us and we have completed a submission of a manuscript to be published in the journal of the physical activity In health and hopefully what this will do is outline our process that we went through in developing our council as well as our planning and Processing and implementation of taking our plan forward our next steps are vast We are looking at implementing this plan that's going to need engagement of all the institutions and organizations and local community members and Stakeholders, and it's also partly to increase our public awareness so we're looking at developing other programs that will recognize community members and stakeholders in Activities that they do to promote active living and one of the key components for sustainability for this is really Collaborating with this private and public sector group because it's really the alignments that we've established Not only with our local groups such as SA 2020 Metro health our mayor's fitness council But taking a look at all the national initiatives that are being set forth So we can ride on the momentum of that that information and take advantage of it at a local level So we've been very fortunate in having a lot of support from our local health district our local government And certainly our dynamic mayor mayor Julian Castro who I think has been very very helpful in Instituting and carrying this momentum forward to help bring active living as a way of life in our community So I just want to thank all those groups for their sponsorship and help in our work We also have set up a table outside that will provide information further on how to get information about our council as well As links to the plan and we'd love to hear feedback from you so we can get more input This plan is a living document and hopefully will evolve as our momentum continues to grow in San Antonio. Thank you Thank you very much in it Now it is my great pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker for today. Mr. Rick Bell from New York City Who flew in last night barely made it at 1 a.m. But he's here and and ready to go We're just thrilled to have Rick who has is an architect himself and At one time he was the assistant commissioner for the Department of Design and Construction of New York City and At other times he has been a principal in a private architectural firm with offices in the United States in Europe And currently and so he's been all around the globe Currently he is the executive director of the American Institute of Architects of New York City So is the sister organization to our own a.i.a here locally and Particularly impressive is that he has organized the New York City fit city conference for for the past several years and has been a principal author of the Fabulous active design guidelines that New York City uses to develop their own physical infrastructure and this this is just a Fabulous book and if you have a chance take a look through it Because it's truly impressive what they have done in New York City, and I think we will learn a lot Where that that maybe contrasts us with New York City, but also some things that Where we are similar to them so Rick welcome. Thank you so much for being here We really appreciate you taking time out Thank you, Dr. Schlenker. It's a real pleasure to be here as you're saying I came in late last night a little bit later than I Expected because there was no on the runways. It was so cold. There was a flash blizzard and I think the Denver-based United Crew very much wanted to get out of New York before they were slammed in for a few days So I on the plane thinking that maybe I wouldn't get here I actually wrote out the remarks so that Either dr. Schlenker or or or a Tessie or Carol might might actually read it That's terrible thing to do, but if it makes the presentation a little bit more flowing We'll blame it on sleep deprivation I Also should probably say thank you for the kind words I've had a checkered career in the public sector Private sector now and not-for-profit and hearing such kind words I would say I don't deserve them to paraphrase a speech Mayor Bloomberg gave just last week But he said I don't deserve arthritis either I was gonna say sleep deprivation, but I'll blame that on United You know, I think it was in the Texas Monthly While back obviously that Molly Ivins wrote about how to give a speech And She said, you know you start with a joke you put the meat in the middle and then you end by waving the flag And I thought I'd flip it not knowing any jokes not knowing any Texas jokes Apart from Those I've cribbed from Molly Ivins and maybe from Ann Richards and Richards the former governor is the subject of a musical now On Broadway, I think it's played in Texas before so I tried seeing if I could find something relevant The jokes from the governor aren't really applicable to mixed company and thank you time for finding out that you are mixed company health Professionals design professionals are there any politicians any elected officials in the room? Good I guess Molly Ivins also said good thing. We've still got politics in Texas finest form of free entertainment ever invented So the subject of the talk today Is well, yes public health in the both environment and in particular fit city in the act of design guidelines You know the creation of the active design guidelines Was very multifaceted there was a bunch of different city agencies the Department of Design and Construction where I used to work, but also Primarily the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Combination of the Department of City Planning the Department of Buildings Department of Parks Department of Transportation They were just lots and lots of people involved with that And if they were to give them all credit it would take way too long, but and I basically did the dedication page Which was the easy part, but we also did host at AI New York Conferences That brought people together to sort of get out of their silos and their comfort zones and to start thinking In a sort of interdisciplinary or trans factorial way And I was going to try to think about those dream teams of people coming together You know Mickey Mantle and kinky Friedman on the same team, but unfortunately they never did get to play together or write together so I'll be describing examples of buildings And sites that incorporate the principles of the design guidelines and Essentially talked to public health policy as seen through the eyes of architects and planners landscape architects last time I was in Not this room, but not too far away in San Antonio is at a college of preventive medicine Conference just about two years ago. I don't know if anyone there for that It's on Riverwalk. I was there not as a speaker. I was hanging out poster session My wife's an epidemiologist Worked for the CDC for a while. It was an EIS officer. It's how I got this wonderful tie I'm told you're not supposed to wear ties in Texas. I'll take it off, but You know it was our 30th wedding anniversary and she was coming to San Antonio and I said, you know It's silly for me to be anywhere else so I had a lot of free time and I got to walk pretty much the length of Riverwalk from the AI San Antonio Wonderful Center for Architecture with Pearl Brewery over down to King William and and area around the Flower Mill and Blue Star and Because it was our anniversary. I guess I fell in love all over again with with the city And So, you know speaking of my wife's involvement with CDC, I think I better get into the talk really fast If there are if there's anybody who has seen these statistics already and I'm sure many have from the BRF SS I used to know what that stands for behavioral risk factor surveillance system If you've seen these statistics before Get another cup of coffee, you know or go to Oklahoma or even Colorado because I think what it shows is How this epidemic of obesity and overweight has taken over just about the entire country with the possible exception of Colorado There we see it And you know usually people when they talk about why Colorado stands out why it's a little bit different say well Maybe it's self-selection, you know people like to hike or backpack or ski be outside Gravitate there they go there on their own and therefore the BMI statistics are better in Colorado by kind of a artificial self-selection I look at them and others to and say well, you know, it's actually not that great in Colorado If the average overweight rate obesity rate in the country is approaching a third It's not so great to say that a fifth of the people in Colorado the best state in the country in that regard or Overweight it should be going in the opposite direction The book itself and and and thank you time for holding it up. I was going to do the same Is organized in four chapters and I've tried to take very literally the suggestion to talk about the book It's Genesis how it came together What's in it and and what it means for? Our city and maybe other cities as well how it's being implemented, but I thought I'd follow The book almost as a script not read from it. It is available online I have a couple of copies along with me if people really need for Talk they're giving later today or tomorrow or some other purpose a hard copy right away. It could be Gotten from our municipal government from city books, but it is available online The website is coming up, but there are four chapters and the first one talks about the environmental health underpinning of what we were trying to do together across these disciplinary lines the sort of Environmental health epidemiological basis for why we think is architects and planners that Changes that we make could have an impact and just this morning early in the hotel room I was trying to remember Who John Snow was and why this CDC tie has a has a Pump on it and it's a fascinating story back to 1854 and the collar outbreak in Soho in London And you probably in the health professional side of the room. It's like brightened groom It's not exactly divided up evenly, but it's half and half fascinating story about how in that case the physician, but also almost the same time in New York 1857 was the time not only when the AIA was founded in New York, but when Central Park was created and Central Park was called the working Person's working man's I guess at the time lungs a way of looking at how fresh air and Recreation opportunities wasn't called that then could change the patterns of density and and Public health problems that came with that in very dismal and crowded housing stock architects planners reformers Farth ahead thinking elected officials. We're already talking about changes in the codes and Issues pertaining to housing typologies to try to get more light and air into dwellings. Well to hear to start with Dick Jackson, Dr. Richard Jackson who had been at the CDC and then became Among other things state health officer in California talk about the complicity of architects in the obesity epidemic with images that included I Think when he lived in Atlanta, there was a photo of someone walking their dog Usually a great way of getting exercise, but there are no sidewalks in that particular part of Atlanta so person walking his dog had the Leash literally out the window of the car and of the right passenger side window of the car You don't have to see the image to realize it's absurdity. There was another image in that first slide show I heard dick give almost a decade ago Showing a strip mall in San Diego with a fitness center on the second floor two-story building Parking lot in the front of it An escalator up to the sign fits fitness center What we do to avoid physical activity is legion so we were very receptive in New York The kind of confusing image on on the left shows those CDC CDC statistics made out of Cans painted with the colors that were on the CDC charts in that exhibition we did just after Dick gave a talk to the AI in Washington DC that tried to talk about the design implications of obesity The curator Latisha Wolf was particularly fascinated by graphic designers as being part of the problem Getting people to make unhealthy food choices by their skill in relation to the advertising industry just a couple of quick images from the book Slightly reformatted to try to get the city of San Antonio flag into the picture or listen scholars The difference between the rates of chronic disease and infectious disease in New York how that's changed over time from the 1880s when infectious diseases were the primary cause of death to How that more recently has impacted What health professionals are doing? similarly How despite some recent good news not enough Rates of childhood obesity in New York City parallel those in the country The Fit City conferences that reference started I guess it's now eight years ago We'll be doing the eighth such conference in June this year And just like I guess World War one we didn't know that there would necessarily be Fit City to a year later So we just called it fit city my title the health department next it was OB city They thought that was just too cute by half Fit cities caught on and and we've done these are the covers of proceedings of the conferences. These are all available also online But by the third such conference One of the architects present David Bernie who is also commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction said the proceedings of a conference aren't good enough They're interesting to record what people said maybe to give insight or to be Interpolable to other places other times but But guidelines were really necessary to Codify in some way the principles that were being discussed at these conferences to make the case studies more relevant And generalizable and that guidelines were not hard to do and we should do them and get them out before the next such conference and leading a Very talented and diverse team He did that we did that together, but I give David Bernie a lot of the credit not just for the idea But for carrying it through I also give our health department the lion's share of the credit for Saying that this wasn't just an affectation of architects our Health commissioner back then Tom Frieden has moved on to Atlanta We get Tom Frieden and Tom Farley mixed up in New York all the time But we see Tom Farley out in the park a little bit more and that's him If you could read the caption it calls him Superman and and maybe any public health professional who is getting that many slings and arrows I Could talk about a lot of other public health policy issues and tobacco and Soft drinks that's probably made it into the national press, but I won't on the other side of the image Dressing to look like he's a member of the AA and black and red is young gal Who's an architect and urbanist from Copenhagen who in that city has probably had more to do with creation of bike lanes a network of Ways that people can bicycle not just for recreation, but to get to work I think the statistics currently are over two-thirds or around two-thirds of the population of Copenhagen gets to work Despite a climate very similar to New York Bye-bye school every day I'm told it's a smaller city. It's a more condensed city It's a flatter city, but I was there once in November and it was very cold You know, I was wearing a warm wool overcoat and you could still easily get a bicycle and go everywhere to do that The book itself as I said is in these four chapters I won't read the words on them But you know it talks to in the health issues then urban design issues building issues and within the buildings themselves and Synergies a word I won't use again But basically the linkages to other initiatives both in the city and in the country The fit city conferences have started to increasingly bring together the decision-makers in the city You see let's see seven commissioners ranging from Fatima mayor From buildings Amanda Burton from our planning department and so forth and so on I'm not sure how much we've learned to be honest from Copenhagen or San Antonio But we do learn how to do things in New York based on how they play on the road And if someone has a really good idea about bike lanes in Copenhagen, we do it I'll be talking a bit about San Antonio as the generator for us of lessons learned about linear parks And how things that could be attractive to visitors convention conference goers could also work really really well for residents Year later, they're still there I was trying to see whether they were wearing the same clothes if these really were different years You see our health commissioner smiling in the middle and his tie is similar, but not the same next to him Jeanette Sadik Khan with the black head Scarf It seems not to be wearing it there. So this is in fact The year after last year When we were also graced by the presence of Linda Gibbs Who's our deputy mayor for health and human services? If you come to fit City 8, I think it's on June 23rd for the architects in the room the Monday after convention in Denver You'll maybe see the mayor there if I say lots of people are coming from San Antonio and elsewhere Maybe he'll show up, but we've taken the show on the road already to some degree by Looking at similar issues with people from other cities this was During grassroots a couple years ago when we were benefiting from some CDC money That came through our health department to the AI it was stimulus act money, and we had a bunch of fit nation efforts then Shelley Petica from HUD and then in New Orleans workshops I was going to show images of bicyclists that a photographer in New Orleans Julie Damansky sent me. They were just credible images and New Orleans is such a beautiful city This was during the convention there also two years ago But it occurred to me that Folks in New York City Health Department would never let me use those slides because while the bicycles were beautiful the buildings are beautiful People look very healthy. They weren't wearing much In the way of helmets So we will never use a photo in New York of a bicyclist without a helmet for obvious and good public health reasons My wife trained as a pediatricians in the accidents you see and that's a debate in Europe and elsewhere Bicycles go slowly enough. Maybe the risks are somewhat less But I don't think so we have not exactly linked ourselves umbilically to Copenhagen and Denmark, but last year we did an exhibition with a Danish conceptual artist you see in the picture. I'd seen in Copenhagen That sign it says jumping zone with a sort of a ten foot or a three meter White-taped square people see the sign and are prompted to jump and the artist Roseanne Bosch was in New York Trying to figure out how to make that show relevant to New Yorkers mentality and we had apart from this sign a couple of others out on the sidewalk because ultimately active design is about the everyday Life possibilities of exercise how architects Artists and others can create that so she said well, you know, we'll do something that is American that would never fly in in Copenhagen I suggested Jumping jacks we called the jumping jacks and jills and there were two stick figures and people started doing that on the street like We did back then in elementary school but the one that she really liked is her interpretation of culture was called the Weightlifting zone and it was a stick figure holding up Bench well not bench pressing pressing to shopping bags full of whatever Prada shoes the Health background and the build up to the creation of the design guidelines I could talk about especially with the public health audience at great length, but What really is interesting to me about the book are the actual physical examples and how they relate to principles Under urban design there is something like 13 of them I just cribbed a few pages from the book I won't read all the text but can get a quality sense of the quality if not of the ideas I hope that too, but of the imagery these aren't my photos and and the issues Tendent urban design including play space part of our plan yc environmental plan is to Make sure that there is a recreational opportunity of Plaza public space park within 10 minutes of every New Yorkers Domicile or workplace And and that along with making it easier to get to places where those occur Encouraging more pedestrian experience is a part of what the urban design section is about, but there are 13 principles and I'd written them down so I could say them all at once, but I won't bother. I guess going off-screen and the first is is a mix of land use that You know, how does that contribute to active design? Well in this particular housing complex recently opened in the South Bronx called via Verde Which was built according to the precepts and principles of active design started as an AI competition with our city's housing agency HPD There are a lot of exterior stairways and this photo doesn't necessarily give a sense of the overall Connectivity of rooftops where there is agriculture urban agriculture gardens community gardens, but A variety of ways of moving through the building that wouldn't one wouldn't ordinarily see in social housing including wonderful stairwells fire stairs that benefit from natural light And bright colors and a sense of not just safety, but of welcome Transit opportunities I Could talk a lot about what's happening in Lima where my daughter lives and where she just had My first grandchild Andres said in a hospital in Miraflores Incredible transit rich city chaotic bus rapid transit as well as multiple ways of getting around a city that is Larger than New York in population and sprawl Confusing for the first time but increasingly navigable as one decipher is it The recreational opportunities that can be there year-round, but also sometimes spring up on occasion I have a similar photo. I think later in the show from Los Angeles Where ice skating seems even less plausible? I don't say yet that we thanks to global warming can ice skate year-round in New York But it's on the edge of spring and that rank is still there Player is that Can be even in the middle of some very intensely developed office parks office areas and commercial areas as this one in Tokyo and then creating places that look sedentary on the face of it But become pedestrian destinations one of the authors of The act of design guidelines was a landscape architect and urban designer named Charles mckinney from originally from Arkansas who is in charge of urban design for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation He said if you want to encourage people Especially those with mobility problems to walk more spent in parks put in more benches well, this is probably the biggest bench in New York or one of them and Coincident with it. We've now closed the major Arturie of New York Broadway not just for Summer Streets our version of Ciclavia, but forever and One of the legacies of the Bloomberg administration, which has done a lot of good things in this regard Is to leave things behind that will be hard to reverse to say that a principal Street in New York or part of it anyway in the heart of the crossroads of America is a pedestrian Destination place where there are tables and chairs, but also With the TKTS booth for Broadway just underneath this So I photographed this a zillion times and finally got the screen and back to say new thinking new possibilities And if you look closely at the next Image not shown it's the logo for the the axiom the mantra for a car company So I probably shouldn't be thinking about it too much but what we have been seeing as we talk a lot about transit and and Intermodal transit in particular the Farley building not named after our health commissioner, but but who knows is the General Post office the place in New York where you could go 24 7 pay your taxes on April 15th, even if it's a Sunday It's also directly across the street from the principal train station or one of the two principal train stations in New York and is in play as the next 21st century train station for Amtrak If they ever gets funded adequately, but that station named after Senator Moynihan Is just one of many many locations where the push carts selling food on the streets of New York are no longer Just the boiled hot dogs and the conditions of my youth, but increasingly fresh food fresh food of all stripes and the availability of produce not just in a major commercial center But in residential neighborhoods where they're inadequate provision of fruits and vegetables Has started to change the way Our health department thinks New Yorkers are are buying and getting their food Could be more and I'm proposed to say it's not just on the sidewalk But take part of the Farley building itself as a produce market You think of the market buildings in San Francisco for the ferry terminal Pikes market in Seattle to make a destination both for commuters and residents Distribution point for fresh food and maybe even a bike center like we see in Chicago and Santa Monica and other places but When you do have street connectivity complete streets so forth part of that is not just the availability of Food of different stripes, but how social space gets people out of their homes makes them feel safer as pedestrians gets them to have the opportunity to walk more see their neighbors and and and Feel like the neighborhood is coming back. The hub is very close to where the housing complex They showed a moment ago is located Another image of Times Square showing some of the seating Those chairs and tables are not bolted down. They don't disappear these temporary furnishings and and barriers are About to be replaced by something more permanent designed by the Norwegian firms Noetta And that's happening very soon the Highline is our upside-down version of Riverwalk So linear park that connects several neighborhoods and being done in three phases the third phase under construction are about to be now It's authors from the landscape architecture firm field operations and pictured here some of the architects still risk video and renfro Created something that allows for people to sit, you know and read drink coffee look at the river But also To walk without having to stop to cross streets of traffic lights to walk seeing vegetation to Early in the morning jog before it gets too crowded and socialized and be outside. It also penetrates through buildings It's an interesting experiment in animating a neighborhood and it was partly the design of the Highline itself It's gotten a lot of attention but also the concurrent planning decisions for the adjacent neighborhood that allowed for somewhat increased density different uses Industrial neighborhood of trucking became one increasingly of housing and of restaurants and and cafes and bars and galleries and Just like Chong and Chong and Seoul or I would say as a visitor to San Antonio Part part of Riverwalk the the linear park was the catalyst But you know looking also at the use of street space not just for bike lanes Not just for pedestrians passing by but But increasingly for incursions whether they're neck downs to make it easier for people to cross streets, especially if they're moving slowly I could tell a George Bush joke here about the definition of walking but Just tried to balance it a little bit because I've got a lot of Molly I mean stuff that I'm skipping over and He said if it looks like I'm strutting That's what Texan's called walking. I Think it was sort of standing still but Won't go there Standing still This is a parking space, you know How do you balance the needs of cars and people? How do you create places where the sidewalks and some of the streets are narrow to get a little bit more sitting space? This isn't you know a franchise. I mean a concession sidewalk cafe This is a design project to try to create a sitting area. I won't say in the middle of the street, but on the edge of it The bike network in New York. We're very proud of it's been a struggle There are neighborhoods where there's so much vehicular congestion that the taking away of a bike lane Especially a protected bike lane, you know, it's somehow separated from the traffic not just by a painted stripe But by a physical barrier whether that's a lane of parking or plants Can Can be difficult and but but it's ultimately been successful and that's our trend Transportation commissioner Jeanette Sadaq Khan in our space talking about as you can see from her image Slide of a slide when you ever get The imminent rollout of the bike share program somewhat delayed But very much anticipated This spring early summer New York said that To make bike share logical to get a valide type free bike program or low-cost bike program The bike network really had to be there first So that's what the city is concentrating on and it's not quite there, but it's close enough. This is some of it Jason to really beautiful linear park along the Hudson River But this takes out a lane of traffic on West Street What had been at one point like in San Francisco an elevated highway now a surface highway But carving out a lane of it Separating it by a fence and then even better barrier road trucks makes that even plausible talked about in Moynihan station before This is a deliberately very confusing image of a bike storage facility directly across the street from that post office about to be train station with the Graphics from our transportation department about biking in New York City photograph on the advertising panel of the of the street furniture That is exactly the image that you could see if you stand in a certain spot looking at the building I think this is good as far as it goes. It's great to have opportunities to park a bike under cover to symbolize more safer bike storage But the number of spaces is pitiful. It's minimal and I think we're looking at other means of encouraging bike storage including by zoning changes that bring bicycles within buildings where they're not only protected from the risk of theft and certainly from the weather but But also often create additional and larger spaces moving into the third chapter of the book which is Somewhat larger. I think there were 13 principles. I remember correctly of the urban design section a few more on on on building design by the way, I don't know who did this logo for San Antonio, but Really really like it. So, you know, I'm trying to figure out how we can do something like that for New York That isn't just the skyline of Manhattan images from the book itself about stair visibility and Changes in elevator technology that allow for skip-stop elevators while not diminishing the accessibility opportunities for those who Do need to have access to each floor How stairways can be enhanced aesthetically? by art by natural light by location if the image on the New York Street This side right of the slide looks familiar the Apple stores in New York and around the country now have been designed by one firm Peter Bolin Bolin Switski Jackson New York in collaboration with Ronette Riley and the thought of using a really wonderful stare to not only add value and create additional space within Shopping experience at a retail store. This is Apple, but but also to create social space People at the Apple store in Soho not too far from where I work Actually, just hang out on that second floor mezzanine and the stair becomes a kind of an arrival grand stair almost like a Hotel ballroom may have been in the past talked a little bit before about bicycle storage bicycle parking but the principles that are in the book I would rather talk about with some of my own slides and In my own experiences the New York Times building by Renzo Piano building workshop and FX foul Is extraordinary because they don't have corner offices instead of having you know the Separate corner office of someone who is hierarchically more important in the organization. It's where they put convenience stairs and By most codes most fire codes connecting multiple floors is patently Illegal we do it in our own building illegally well for the tape I shouldn't say illegally not in compliance with the building code by going back to the building department and getting a What's called I guess it's a legal term reconsideration What does that mean someone looked at it again and said you know if you put your Fire doors to the fire stairs on an electromagnet and that electromagnet is linked to the smoke detector system the fire detection system God forbid there's a fire the smoke detection system breaks the circuit the fire door closes automatically and the stair Whether it's pressurized or just a safe haven Becomes the same as it would have been if the door wasn't held open all the time But with the door held open all the time and an appealing stair environment behind it There's no problem. So we're trying in New York to get that exception to the rule generalizable and tripleable and In traveling a little bit conferences a so exactly the same condition in Tokyo Small commercial building with electromagnets holding the doors open and I asked the person who was giving us a tour of the building Is this legal here? They said no, we got to go back to the building department kind of beg for it It should be easier. So with the New York Times building did which is even better is instead of having Doors surrounding the stair. I'm not just inside some threshold with the glass or other door just behind me They literally have horizontal fire shutters that will similarly link to a alarm system. And if there's a fire Kind of like the hatch in a boat builds hatch The floors are separated horizontally somewhat more expensive But almost invisible what you see in this image sort of truncating one of the Stair walkers heads is a black void through which a horizontal shutter a fire shutter would would emerge here's again the Apple store slide. I showed a moment ago. It was a cover of our Fit City to report as you're seeing But increasingly this is a building that was just came online this past September University building Just across the street from the world's trade center site just north of it designed by pay-carb freed and that building Came down after September 11th. It's been rebuilt with much much more Visible stairs is pretty lousy image I took it to show the numb numerous floors rather than the beauty of an individual stair that may be more sculptural elsewhere And also before the building was occupied by students in the fall was actually a construction shot much more beautiful stair probably a little bit more expensive was At the Gates Foundation does great work in public health and otherwise This is in their new headquarters building relatively new headquarters building in Seattle by NBBJ Stairs that people use. Well, why do they use them? How do people have what's the incentive for people to use stairs? Maybe it's the shortest path of movement maybe there's a corporate or Institutional program that incentivizes is added as at DDC where I used to work with their open atrium and Stairs within it. There's a stair day. Maybe now a stair week stair month This is the stair in my own space center for architecture What it doesn't quite show is the stair prompt poster adjacent that'll come later image but it does show the vibrant colors the materials the light the sense of openness and And increasingly we're using it as part of an exhibition sequence so that in three floors of gallery space If you have a show on two floors and that show that exhibition continues in the stairwell between People have almost no reason to use the elevator unless of course they're carrying something heavy or pushing a stroller or In a wheelchair or walking with a cane or a walker and we have an elevator right next to it But we try to do calculations some degree unobtrusively of how many people use the elevator versus the stair when they have that choice and Could use either and they're right next to each other is not as if we're hiding one or the other is hiding the elevator and over 95% 98% Most of the time of people coming to our three-story space use use this stair even when it's crowded and congested Other stairs that do the same thing Well, I put this under elevators and escalators because there is beautiful building Caesar Pele in Minneapolis for the Main branch of the library These are architects on a tour they're using the stair partly because the tour guide went up the stair first But while I was there observing I didn't see anyone particularly using the escalators Which face the wrong way deliberately, you know you come in that front door and you don't see the escalators There is an elevator there as well, but it's not the first thing you see and The stair doubles back and you see it This is the rooftop slightly better image still not great, but of some of the architects and who worked on the V everdy project with hair blocking her face Vanessa Alasay is also on our AI New York board And now a national associate advocacy director But the scale of the project it's about 220 units of affordable housing is We think a replicable model It was done as I said by HPD our housing preservation development agency when Sean Donovan was its commissioner We think that he's taken that same message nationwide at HUD But what is the message that you could build the building? Sustainable and affordable based on principles that also talk about its public health implications and what are those? I mean more detail without taking too much time in one particular image or project having a play space for kids in a Protected and safe courtyard area cradled by these buildings that you see the tops of Immediately adjacent to a laundry room is a public housing project That's on the ground floor and that has windows so that a caregiver a parent a grandparent can be Doing laundry at the same time as a child is playing in sight Usually in public housing and even luxury housing not that there are so many communal Laundry facilities and luxury housing in New York, but used to be Those are in basement Same thing with the fitness center. There's a fitness center in this affordable housing project, and it's not in a basement It's not in the leftover space. It's in the best space in the building You might say views of Manhattan on one of the roofs you can get there It's actually where that trellis is you know on the level by the tree not very high roof but you can get there by walking exterior stairs and when you're there all the equipment in that gym is In a well-lit really pleasant beautiful space great views But it's not about a health centers It's really about the stairs to get there and it's about how active living and design creates opportunities to use Different ways of moving through a building that could be done with some degree of grandeur The architect of this particular building the Tokyo International Forum a commercial center in the heart of Tokyo is New York firm Raphael and Yoli's firm, and he's used the same type of device of Calls it desire path ramps Bridges really spanning wide open large spaces in the courtyard in the South Bronx struggling courtyards in a courthouse rather in the Bronx for health facilities in California and Other buildings elsewhere Not hard to do the question is do you guess right about what the path of movement should be or is that then create as zoning would at a grander scale the Added value of what's at either end of the desire path Doesn't have to be that fancy. This is a basement fitness center at the NB BJ Designed Gates Foundation building that saw a stare in otherwise What was interesting to me about this exercise room in the basement is that it was immediately adjacent to Significant numbers of showers and a bike storage room that encourage people who were working at this building for the Gates Foundation to commute by bicycle Fitness Center was there But so were things that made that type of activity somewhat easier and then Even the building exteriors This is the Brooklyn Museum It looked a lot previously like the Metropolitan Museum piano nobly entrance nothing wrong with those stairs that were shaved away But the entrance on grade animates a plaza that has now come alive And I've got just zillion other images not in the show of people bicycling and and using that plaza Which pretty previously was pretty much a dead space in comparison. I said I wouldn't use that word again I guess it's alright as energy sort of in sin within and how bad could it be but Here's Mayor Bloomberg blowing the whistle instead of cutting a ribbon. This was just a few months ago on pure five of Brooklyn Bridge Park What I liked about not so much the image Other photos I might have shown are of both a professional soccer team and kids playing soccer on soccer fields That are on prime real estate now public park former peers In the Brooklyn waterfront previously industrial waterfront looking back at some of the famous Sky scrapers of lower Manhattan skyline You can see the tall ships at South Street seaport Just beyond so the blowing the whistle was Sort of declaring the fields open and not just the mayor but other elected officials who were there were talking about the importance of active recreation In creating new parks that it's not just a bad passive enjoyment views of the skyline as it might have been or as it would have been in the past Happens elsewhere and the sense of community Participation in planning decisions the Brooklyn thing didn't just happen on its own There was a lot of discussion about what was needed in a neighborhood that wasn't only for visitors, but related upland to Locations in Brooklyn and in other cities like Paris where people didn't have the same recreational opportunities because of income disparities and and traditions reinforced by zoning of Single-use often mercantile trade trucking Be careful what you wish for a scenario. There are so many bicycles in Copenhagen and this is at a intermodal train station obviously and kind of Distribution point for commuter rail as well I'd never seen this anywhere before People like young gal are saying that it's such a problem now with so many bicycles They've got to figure out how to get through the cars completely They had a similar project like that in New York where Michael Sorkin proposed That the Brooklyn Bridge which has this great you saw in one of the fit city covers people walking and bicycling But in conflict with each other on the boardwalk of the Brooklyn Bridge depicted a number of photos of famous photographers and painters That that maybe all the cars should be removed from that and that one level should be for pedestrians and joggers And maybe one level for bicycles only A lot of people commuting up and back by a bicycle between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan His proposal was treated as Not realistic partly because he said what by the way when once you get the cars off the bridge What the bridge connects to which is a existing elevated highway in lower Manhattan on the East River? You wouldn't need that either and you could just tear it down Because the cars wouldn't be coming off the bridge onto it and I was on Exhibited in our space modest proposal and showed it to a couple of the decision-makers who might actually be able to make that happen And I said, you know just like some of the other pilot programs of the Lummerg administration. You could tear the Highway down temporarily and You know if people miss it you build it back up, you know knowing of course that no one would miss it I think this is the last of these images Is that a conference in Tokyo not all that long after the nuclear meltdown and It was much more Consciousness not that there wasn't previously in Japan about energy use and energy conservation I was trying to relate that to you know my Criticism of escalators, and I don't know if there's anyone here from the escalator industry related to anyone in it. I try When I can possibly avoid it never to take an escalator not on principle Though it might sound like that not out of the holier than now But for fear that some photographer will call out my hypocrisy It's a great YouTube video of Maybe some you've seen it of someone being stuck on an escalator. They're about halfway up the escalator just like an elevator stops They panic. They don't know what to do. There's they're standing there. They're saying, oh, how am I gonna get out of here? We got an appointment And luckily of course there's another escalator. There are always two they travel in pairs and someone says don't worry We'll rescue you and they come down the other escalator go in the opposite direction And that one then two stops and you see them there are the people the actors obviously in the YouTube You know figuring out what food they have, you know what water if their cell phone batteries gonna work because they're stuck there escalators I guess useful and friends from Hong Kong who swear by them You know, how do you traverse a vertical city without that opportunity? You can't just be by elevators and probably not there by stairs but but What I object to is escalators that don't allow for even the choice of people taking a stare so the fact coming back to the slide that With the loss of that nuclear power plant that was diminished electrical supply Not just in that part of Japan but throughout the country and certainly in Tokyo people was starting to look at Why do we have these escalators continually in use and you do see in Europe sometimes motion activated escalators that aren't continually running But just from an energy point alone, you know our stair prompt poster This doesn't have the words on and it's the last slide in the sequence says burn calories not energy and They subscribe to that I think if we could say that the essence of the active design guidelines book talks about how by conscious decisions That increasingly become part of the culture Architects and landscape architects interior designers planners city Officials working in concert with public health professionals can talk about how active design becomes more a part of everyday life That you think about walking someplace where there might have been a people mover in an airport Or worse a cart, you know How does without being retro about it? How does the level of intensity of daily life relating to physical exertion? reinsert itself in a sedentary society where most of us sit at desks We go to conferences. We sit on airplanes sometimes to get there I've had friends in public health suggest that there should be standing or walking conferences I haven't seen one quite yet, but then usually someone especially from the public health side of the line says well You've been talking long enough. Why don't we all stand up and stretch? So I'm gonna say that I've never said that at a conference where I just take a minute at this break point Just stand up and just sort of stretch a little bit, you know and stretch your legs Take a deep breath People who do this are really good at it. I'm not Yeah, they would do 15 minutes of exercises. I don't talk anymore But more seriously how that's part of daily life is the design challenge and you know David David Bernie for one says You know architects used to design stairs As a matter of course before elevators Enabled very very tall buildings and maximizing use of up floors and buildings And accessibility of course To those floors, you know that it was a gesture. I'm looking even even at this building, you know How nice it is in this? high Room to have this Valkyrie level is a stair that goes there. There must be an elevator somewhere or we probably wouldn't be here But I see the stair and you know any number of old-fashioned gymnasium would have in this same type of volume a running track around the perimeter Just two anecdotes not in the script. I Was on the board of our local YMCA Where I live and I was only architect on the board And the project was to add more equipment to the gym actually building the other gym and take over the Pre-existing gym about this scale big enough for basketball and not much bigger For you know for fitness center kind of stair masters and treadmills Stationary bikes and Head of the YMCA had proposed well by code you could Certainly fill in about a third of the area with a mezzanine level Maybe even half depending on interpretation and that would add a whole lot more equipment And I was just thinking about the quality of the space including the quality of the space that we're sitting in You know if it were diminished down to you know 10-foot ceiling or somewhat less it wouldn't have the same character So I suggested that don't lose the track who knows maybe those will come back in the short run why not put equipment on it and And they have it's some of the growing equipment It's different types of equipment and there's a little bit more equipment not as much as it would have been The only other thing I've seen similar in the city of New York was a gym where when I worked in public works So I guess I was the client or part of the client group We were collaborating in the public works agency with the parks department in adding in a gym right next to a juvenile detention center in the in the Bronx in a neighborhood where there had been a promise in the Prior administration of Mayor Giuliani to tear down that terrible terrible facility looked like the best deal And leave the gym so that people in that neighborhood who didn't have a Gym would benefit from something that had blighted the neighborhood for a while Crime statistics were down, but not particularly juvenile crime statistics the prison juvenile detention center never got torn down The gym therefore never went to the community a lot of political outcry as you can imagine So we were asked public works and parks to Get a gym built as quickly as possible in a way that it could be related to What was not done by not tearing down the prison long story short that hundred by hundred foot box Not all that different volumetrically from this room Benefited I think by an insertion of what was seen by many as an archaic Device which was that self-same 1920s style running track not used for equipment, but increasingly used for things like observers for basketball played in between and by poking it out on one side facing a softball field as a kind of a Bleachers or at least a upper deck for people being able to sit there and watch baseball made the baseball field a little bit better Softball field a bit better, but it was a design decision that wasn't easy because someone was saying well Nobody runs on an indoor track anymore. It's either on a treadmill or Outdoors in the streets or in parks So I think if we challenge the basic assumptions nobody runs and but but what happens when the weather's bad? You know too hot too humid too cold too snowy. What are the opportunities that aren't just a piece of equipment? whether it's in one's home or in a In a gym somewhere and nothing against gyms, but too easy it has been for Corporate heads institutional facilities managers Lawyers to advise them and others that you know you want to give an employee a benefit You give a chit or reimbursement for the use of a gym down the street around the corner a mile away And people get there, you know, I know I get to a gym sometimes if I'm lucky on a weekend But if that gym were in my office and you know talk about hypocrisy like why don't I just do that, you know It's sometimes space equipment Sometimes it's fear of being sued if someone falls or hurts themselves But that's the kind of decision that why not a gym like hotels have them And maybe better than hotels have them. I haven't been to the gym I think it's on the sixth floor of this hotel yet But a couple pieces of equipment in a in leftover space as opposed to making something part of the experience and making it Possible people feel like they could shower safely if necessary after it What I wanted to do is end, you know early three minutes or so to spare and Exit this slideshow if I can figure out how to do that and I may need some help. Oh This may be the last slide to get the guidelines that are referenced online. There's the nyc.gov Backslash adg for active design guidelines. My email is there as well, but if I were to exit from this one you saw 70 some odd slides quickly and Open up the other one. Thank you so much Hop up in a second Just so you know what you're getting was much easier when it was a carousel where people remember carousel projectors You can count the slides and you'd know more or less how much you were in for Except of course, you would never know how long the speaker would go on each slide Sometimes she or he would get hung up on one or another. So these are 40 slides for those who are coming tomorrow They may be the basis for a different slightly different talk of just case studies that really don't require much Explanation, I think they're more or less self-explanatory Of course, I could go into detail on each and every one of them But they've more or less organized over linear parks, including the high line over opportunities for Walking especially along a river Waterfront and walking and the they'll speak for themselves and I can come back to them during the Q&A But the idea was instead of just having a loop of the first 70 some odd slides That'll just leave these flashing. I think that's six seconds per image while we have more of a conversation and I had all sorts of other Molly Ivan's jokes in the script and if someone would be so kind as to ask a question in the form of a long statement I'll find some of those jokes while you're talking But I guess the goal really in a Q&A is just that to start with the Q And I'll do my best to answer questions that you may have about the active design guidelines I could have obviously gone into much more depth that I'm hoping that some of you have read it already Has anyone actually had the opportunity to do that? great or to Or to See it online or download it online or or get a hard copy if necessary I think we've been trying to discourage people not because of the paper Relative expense of it, but I do have as I said a few copies here if someone needs them So yeah, some of the comments you could ignore, you know, I think the default was I'd rather be in San Antonio in whatever language I I Tried to work at least into one of them someone saying something to remember. So what questions do you have? Let's switch gears Yes, okay, so I'm gonna say this off camera Yeah, yeah, okay, so repeating the question. That's good point with it. There's a microphone there I guess people may be supposed to come up to but the question was about the stare in our building at the center for architecture and In particular how we got our New York City Department of Buildings to do that reconsideration There are two or three answers I'd like to say that the primary one is logic, you know, you go to someone and There are bureaucrat I use that as a term of endearment I was a bureaucrat mid-level functionary people who sit at a desk and are empowered to make a decision have that authority Are doing their job if they make the decision if they say, oh, well, this is the way it's always been I can't even think about this fresh. They're not really occupying that desk. They're just Putting in time until they retire And I saw a lot of people like that while I was a public sector employee who had been there for a really long time But weren't taking chances any longer and it's terrible thing to say you take chances with public safety And that's not what I'm suggesting for a moment But to at least look at the code as a living document after September 11th in 2001 We really did that and change the building code in New York a lot Especially on hardening stairs making them safer making them wider having greater areas on landings where people would be safe If they were in a wheelchair waiting for someone to carry them down changing the nature of the materials that demise stairs but we because it was a safety consideration first and foremost occasioned by World Trade Center, of course, we weren't looking at trying to insist that fire stairs have Natural light as we might have if we were more pushy But New Yorkers are notoriously pushing. I'm a native New Yorker You see a challenge such as a bureaucratic impediment to do something logical and you just keep pushing it helped that Not just me but others I work with as architects knew their way around the building department We weren't coming kind of fresh to the considerations of the gray areas and code What were the gray areas open convenience stairs that link to a three floors and are deemed safe? because of other design features deluge curtains and There won't be any in this room. There are certainly sprinklers you can see But if you wanted to have a three-level atrium in a hotel and there are many and Hotels going back to the 70s by John Portman and then many others You deal with it through the sprinkling and through the protection through a mechanism And you have to be sure that that mechanism works that you test the sprinklers if you're counting on a wall of water to prevent the flow of fire from spaces where people need to exit or Similarly in an atrium situation if you're talking about the evacuation of smoke because asphyxiation Could be almost as much of a problem that you test the mechanical system regularly to make sure that There's an evacuation of smoke in a place that people might be moving through even fire stairs do that So we took the same kind of mentality and said we promised and we did to test this system regularly The way people test elevators. There are tests of building components that aren't just upon completion that are through the life and Vocumetry Different municipalities have different regulations as to the frequency of an elevator inspection, but nobody Thinks it's unusual to require that outlay of time and expense to have someone come and make sure that the elevator Isn't just convenient, but but it's safe We did the same thing with fire stairs. We said logically if we could both put something in that is Almost automatic, but that we would test and continually prove to ourselves is safe Then what's the problem and they said okay, you know your architects you know We probably believe you But reconsiderations in current New York City code parlance are as I said not Interpolable you can't say oh they did it there. We want to do it here each one is a case-by-case basis So what we're trying to do is not have these so-called reconsiderations Generalizable that under certain circumstances you could Use it if someone else did which is would be good, but half the battle. We want to just change the code And you know I'm on a couple of the code committees including accessibility that talks to with a Model code that we now have in New York. We were one of the last major cities to adopt You know international building code that we had our own particular building code for 60 years That was archaic and a balancing act between different interests union developer interests To say that we have a code that isn't politicized that isn't polarized But it's actually increasingly relating to changes in building technology. That's the starting point in logic so, you know the endpoint was Building a navigate not through personal friendships, and yes I did know the building commissioner very well, and I did serve on her kitchen cabinet and we'd work together and she trusted me But that wasn't personal. It was about the logic of the situation. It just helped to know who to ask And in anything long answer, but I was afraid maybe there weren't any other questions, so hopefully that generated a few more great I'm Jacob Dale graduate student at UTS a college of architecture, and I Guess I could ask you a lot of questions about buildings You provide a lot of really interesting anecdotes up here today But really I guess on a selfish note. I'm more interested in what's been the setback on the city bike program I'm a downtown resident of San Antonio and Probably one of the heaviest users of the B cycle program, so really curious about that. Yeah You know, I think no reason not to be candid far from home And it's not really being live streamed back in New York or is it a couple of problems The most recent and most publicized was a A storm that did some damage. We were told to the technology as Say line water washed over computer systems, and I believe that you know storing stuff in a floodplain when it gets flooded Can cause damage? Obviously But I don't think everything was stored there, you know some stuff was some equipment assets loaded down a little bit I think there's a political problem with free bikes, you know with bike share and and that has been a perception on the part of some that First of all, they're not free and they're not Sort of equanimously distributed They're really concentrated at least at the outset in some of the wealthier neighborhoods of the city some of the more touristic neighborhoods and That it's for those criticizing it I happen to disagree with this utterly but I'll put it on the table since you asked that it's not really a city-wide program It's a program for those who those who criticize our mayor say get favorable treatment I think the city has done more this administration than any other and I worked for a couple of the mayors As an intern and then as you know mid-level bureaucrat as I said to To sort of spread opportunities around the city not to concentrate everything on Manhattan New York City is a city of almost eight and a half million people only two million or so to an half million live in Manhattan But man always seems to get all the good stuff, you know the first bike lanes the first bike share So there was some pushback on that and I think there was also a feeling that well The bike lanes might go away Especially those with just demarcated by some paint paint would fade next mayor would get rid of them and she might you know, they're For democratic candidates equivalent number Republican candidates in an election that's beginning to heat up the new mayor will be elected in November Bloomberg administration has this countdown clock 300 days and counting Let's try to get everything done that they've been able to get started in 11 years with term limits to four-year terms It's almost miraculous that Mayor Bloomberg has had that third term It took much more than a reconsideration to get that but he did lose a lot of goodwill on the part of many who had supported him on other things saying It's too much So the pushback was on people who would rather not have bikes on their streets saying we don't bike You know, it's the same kind of you know, not to put my politics in mislead I think reactionary politics if someone says well, I don't have a kid in public school. Therefore. I shouldn't pay so much in school taxes If bikes get people to work easier especially in neighborhoods in Brooklyn, for instance where the Existing public transit is seriously overtaxed Williamsburg has been built up in ways without augmenting its transit capacity One can talk about mixed use as a mechanism by which people don't have to commute by trains that are elbow to elbow We don't have Tokyo pushers yet So it's not just that you bike or I bike you probably bike more than I do but that For those who are biking they are not competing for the same place on a bus or a subway and certainly not driving a car and part of the goal of Bikes in all cities that have done them is to reduce the reliance on private motorcars, especially Owned private motorcars that occupy space whether it's a parking garage on the street or on the streets in traffic lanes You know a part of the health initiative has been Shared cars the they lead program in Paris, which was one of the first was best known is paralleled in Paris by a city program to Have publicly owned shared cars, you know Not just a rental car company startup or mainstream saying that you could rent a car for an hour or two when you need it You know So what does that do if you can rent a car for an hour or two to carry something heavy or to go someplace where you can't easily get The young family, you know to a suburb It means that people don't own cars and maybe they use them less And maybe they use a bike or public transportation more for the things that don't require a car Texas, you know, I remember when Not so much Tori Carleton who I should commend not only for instigating the introduction getting here But for opening up the AI San Antonio wonderful Center for architecture but also in Austin not all that far away salient fly did something very very similar and It's an informer gas station how many anyone here from Austin been to the Center for architecture near the state cap the question of how much tarmac to give up in the sort of the macadam of the of the Center for architecture same similar question the I Center for architecture in Dallas, you know How much how much you need to park? That's a tricky question in Texas trickier than in New York but long story short there was some political pushback more, you know on on the free on the Free bike program bike share program, but I think it's Past so the real question now is timing. It's also, you know to make something a success both Perceptually, and you know, maybe that's also the press. It wasn't gonna be rolled out in the winter. They missed the fall Was it supposed to be to do that when you've got these incredible out of nowhere winter storms? It's been a lot of snow in New York this winter much more photogenic and much more logical in fact to roll something out Given the climate logical imperatives in the spring. So that's what's being discussed when in the spring. I haven't heard the Genetic con is at May And we're counting on that being part of first time ever design festival NYC by design a 12-day week in the middle of May We think it's gonna be then but not for certain in the state of the city address either by error or intent the mayor said It would be in the summer. I heard that and perked up, but I may have been a mistake You know the transit department still saying transportation department still staying in the spring still saying may Long answer again, sorry You know the cities that have One one third reason that we're working with Alta great company I've done the bike share programs in Boston and Washington and other cities including in Canada They're saying the scale of it is a little bit more complicated in New York Maybe What I was fearful of is having worked a little bit in Paris and knowing the valide program better than any other Like-share program There are economic problems with that They leave program in Paris one of which is the extent of vandalism some degree theft And also something that was perhaps not anticipated as the one-way travel requiring trucking of bicycles back to the other end of trajectory And I think there was a lot of investigation in New York to make sure that some of the problems with the Paris system That you don't read that much about weren't repeated I think we're past that not because New York is safer than Paris or has less vandals of thieves But I think there was an enhanced security mechanism or some such I'm really looking forward to seeing them Yeah Yeah, that is a big problem in New York to because you know Those of us who've been advocates for affordable housing in New York say let's get rid of the parking requirement You know if fewer and fewer New Yorkers are keeping or cars what Maybe it's different in luxury housing, but you know affordable housing luxury housing. What why is the? one space per unit rule still in effect and if we were to get rid of Parking requirements for cars Wouldn't that then make the cost of construction less expensive or free up additional space allowable by The FAR the floor air ratio calculations and zoning resolution to just have more other stuff Whatever that might be if some of its below ground it may not all be Occupiable residential units, but certainly some of the other things that are in buildings Take bike parking then is a corollary imperative if we're trying to incentivize the use of bikes people's own bikes And New York apartments are notoriously too small to store anything when only bicycle which is bigger than Fred box Where do you put a bike well hallway not quite you know in some storage room So if you mandate by zoning resolution that instead of having as much parking for vehicles for motor vehicles You have parking if you will for bicycles. Well, yeah, they're smaller. They take less space But still in all the same argument the same balancing act so We were ambivalent Collegially within the AA about how does how much to support it I think on balance we supported it pretty vigorously and it's not just in residential and not just an affordable housing units But also in commercial buildings So we created Not just bike racks in some of these images you may have seen one by David Byrne on our sidewalk But also for employees of the annual chapter a place in a basement to store bicycles out of the rain and to free up Bike rack space on the sidewalk for transient visitors But not enough, you know, if we get this number of people to an event in our space and let's say half of them We're wanting to come by bicycle There's no parking Sort of like the endemic parking problem in New York and many other places Thanks for the question. Am I And I'll be around all day If there are other questions my email was on the screen bill at AI and y.org Similar to the email the website for the document and I guess I'm here tomorrow as well in a different context, so Thank you. I Have some reminders for everyone during our break Please take a moment to visit with the UTSA students from the College of Architecture Whose work is on display and they'll be at the lobby during the breaks for you to visit with them We also have some tables and out there that sponsors you can visit and