 Well good afternoon everyone welcome to the breakout session three innovation we're going to talk about re-envisioning parks and civic spaces. I am Colleen Swain and I am the Assistant Director of the Center City Development and Operations Department with the City of San Antonio and part of my job is that I oversee development in the Center City area and in the core. I most recently I had the pleasure of working on Travis Park so hopefully you've been to the new re-envision Travis Park and take our taking advantage of some of the free health and fitness classes and activities that we are programming in that space. I also worked on the mobile food truck program I've done better block, various concept plans, retail studies and also parking day so and today I'm excited because we have two fabulous speakers we have Omar Gonzales from the Hemisphere Park Area Redevelopment Corporation. Mr. Gonzales is a San Antonio native, went to Central Catholic and then he went away and he went to the School of University of Pennsylvania and he got a Bachelor's of Science in Economics from the Wharton School and then he went on to get his MBA from Stanford University. He has worked for the city and KPMG Consulting and he has worked on urban development projects. He currently serves as the Director of Planning and Operations and Development with the Hemisphere Park Area Redevelopment Corporation and he's working on the master planning and mixed use development of approximately 70 acres within San Antonio's downtown. He's also very involved in the community. He serves as Vice Chair of Loop which is a non-profit organization for San Antonio's young professionals so if you're not a member you need to talk to Omar about becoming a member and he's a trustee of the Awesome Foundation and that foundation gives out grants, thousand dollar grants every month and he's a member of the leadership San Antonio LSA Class 38. I'm also pleased to introduce Laura Exparza. She is from Trinity University and she has a bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies and a master's degree from UTSA in Kinesiology and Health. She with concentrations in Exercise Science and Health Promotion. She currently works as a project coordinator at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and her projects involve collaborating with communities to develop and evaluate programs that promote healthy lifestyles including physical activity. She also applies her professional experience and personal interest in physical activity promotion by serving as the Vice Chair of the Active Living Council of San Antonio and now I'd like to let Omar provide us some information on Hemisphere Park. Thank you Colleen. The lights are really intense there so we can't see any of your faces when we're sitting there so I'll use this opportunity to kind of get a little bit closer so I can see your reactions. So I was really excited about the title of the conference so Public Health and the Built Environment and obviously those of you who are from San Antonio are probably very familiar with Hemisphere. The site of the 1968 World's Fair obviously where the Tower of the Americas exists today and it's still activated somewhat as a park today but what we have planned if you haven't seen this before I think it's going to really change your mind about that intersection of parks in the built environment. And so you know what I was really excited about is looking at public health from a variety of perspectives and so what we're building or what we're trying to build is essentially a neighborhood district. So when I say neighborhood district it means people are going to be living there people will be working there and then people will be visiting and so it becomes this area that is very pedestrian oriented. It's very very friendly to bicycles. We're going to allow automobiles to go inside of Hemisphere which is very different than it is today but we see it in a really different way. So I'll show you some images of what complete streets are but what I'm hoping to do is really kind of broaden the conversation today and think about our parks as a real asset to our public health and then when you think of built environment start thinking about really the benefits to things like density and having mixed use structures and sharing parking and things like this. So I'll give you some images and if you don't know kind of where Hemisphere is who's from San Antonio. Okay so most of you are not all of you. This is South Alamo Street. We're at Cesar Chavez but kind of way down here to the west side so if you take Cesar Chavez traveling eastbound you'd eventually hit IH 37. This is where the ITC or the Texas Cultures is. A lot of people ask well what's going to happen with the ITC what's going to happen with the federal courthouse because those are kind of the more iconic features or structures if you will within the Hemisphere footprint. We're we don't own those or control them and when I say we H park which is Hemisphere Park Area Redevelopment Corporation is a local government corporation where nonprofit 501c3 established by city council specifically for the mandate of redeveloping and improving the park Hemisphere Park. So when I say we it's actually the city that owns all this land that's in green and what we're looking at is a series of different parks and so the first phase is called Yanagwana Garden. This is the first time in public I actually say Yanagwana Garden. Yanagwana Garden is named so because the original Paiaya natives who were here in San Antonio named the river in its surrounding so it also means refreshing water Yanagwana and we really love that word we think it's super authentic to San Antonio where else can you have a Yanagwana something and then the and then the word garden to imply you know not just green space but also an area of congregating. So this was called play escape in the past and in the negative reaction was that play escape felt like it was just for children but we want adults to play too. So Yanagwana Garden is phase one construction will start in July. Phase two is Civic Park and this will have a better name as we as we get more into it and then phase three is Tower Park. Civic Park is actually where the current convention center the western side of the convention center exists today. So if you've been annoyed by the rerouting of cars on Market Street it's going to all be worth it trust me. So Market Street is being rerouted to allow for the convention center to expand to the east. Once the convention center expands to the east they'll actually deconstruct the western portion the older 1968 portion and that will essentially be what we like to call the front porch of San Antonio. So right on the corner of South Alamo and Market Street will be the entrance to the new hemisphere. And then phase three we haven't really done a lot of design on this so I don't have much but Tower Park is what we're calling it. But the idea is this is the succession of parks so kind of a hierarchy of parks and then you'll see we actually have buildings around the parks and so we're not just providing green space but we're providing what we like to call a district. So I talked to you a little bit about Park Streets. Phase one involves four streets South Alamo Goliad which is kind of the extension of Nueva Street. Water Street which exists today if you know where that firehouse is on South Alamo Street there's a little bitty portion of Water Street left. Water Street actually used to run all the way to Commerce Street and it ran parallel to the Ezequia hence its name Water Street. So we'll reintroduce a portion of Water Street and then and then a portion of Cesar Chavez. What we're looking for when we call kind of Park Streets or Complete Streets is kind of this whole notion that everyone shares the road so roads aren't just for pedestrians and they're not just for cars either but they're for everyone and so we have some really cool learnings around the world that show how you can do these streets. This is pretty close actually so this is Goliad Street today where you see pedestrians bicyclists sharing the road which you don't see as cars you actually see why because cars aren't allowed there but what we could do is open it up something like the Pearl that you know is just down the street where you have kind of flat curbs and so that really gives a pedestrian the idea that they can walk across the street at any time. There's no striping you'll notice on this street which we also like that and it just allows for a lot more flexibility in a street than kind of the rigidity that the engineers love to put in our streets. So we could take South Alamo that looks like this today. This is the Magic Theater so you're kind of just north of the intersection at Cesar Chavez and you're looking north. This would be the Fairmont Hotel in the Hilton Palacio del Rio and so you see this street today one probably your first reaction is God it's really empty and it is about 7,000 streets 7,000 cars per day go on South Alamo that could be accomplished in a one way in each direction with just two lanes we could accommodate for that amount of traffic. So our idea is not to bring it down to necessarily to just two lanes but to create a local access area. So local access would allow for parking which is huge because there's just not a lot of parking downtown as you probably know and then a share row so a shared right away with cyclists. We also see a median landscape that also will capture stormwater and essentially purified before it enters back into the river and then we love the idea of kind of the the flat curves where you can actually spill out into the street so you could close off parking spaces whenever you need you actually close off the whole local access and still have cars going in the middle of the street so imagine Fiesta or Luminaria events like that where you could actually spill out into the street. So complete streets starts in this fall and we're looking at a spring 2015 completion time and that will actually parallel well with the Yanagwana Garden so show you what our design statement is for Yanagwana kind of the key words are this play recreational environment all ages and then obviously this is for the community and so I think what's not to be missed about Hemisphere is that downtown today is typically a place that you take your visitors. A lot of downtown today is known for the Riverwalk in the Alamo something that locals probably don't go to that often but we want Hemisphere a place that's for locals and a place that you want to frequent as often as possible so not only is it you know a place where I think we're gonna have all local shops local restaurants but it'll also be a place that's kind of dynamic and so you have changing activities changing programming so really encouraging people to visit Hemisphere as often as possible. So talking about Yanagwana Garden a bit this is kind of what it looks like from a bird's-eye view so just to orient you this is South Alamo Street again Water Street that I talked about and then Goliad and it's about a six acre site so four and a half of the six acres are essentially dedicated to park and if you're looking at it from kind of this perspective it would look something like this in a rendering so just to kind of point out the major features which are really exciting one is a promenade which runs kind of through the spine of Yanagwana and we like to parallel that to the river where if you're walking along the river there's surprises at every turn and so the idea is that this spine takes you to different areas of Hemisphere we'll have a sand dig area for children to dig up artifacts that relate back to the ITC or to UNAM to great or to Instituto three great institutions that we have on site we'll have a splash pad area so you know imagine when it starts heating up again I guess it already has you really want to get into some water pretty soon and then we imagine places for adults so maybe it's a beer garden with bachi bachi ball ping pong and so kind of the ground level it looks something like this where you could have the oversized chest pieces you've got great water play that's interactive here's kind of look at the water in the sand and then climbing structures when we first showed this to the city they said you can't build that it's a 30 foot high climbing structure but we've done all the research we've done the due diligence if you fall from the climbing structure at any point you can't fall more than four feet so despite it looking dangerous it's actually not which is pretty exciting and so we'll customize one to be more San Antonio and then we love the idea of having interactive public art so we're working closely with Pasa office on trying to figure out not just art that's pretty to look at but art that maybe teaches you something maybe requires you to interact with it some of the gateways are really cool this is a wall holo system that was developed in the Netherlands and it's an enclosed climbing structure but it also can be a really cool background where you can hang a white sheet and project movies on there so you know that becomes a gateway element if you've been through hemisphere recently you probably know it's a lot of boarded up beautiful older buildings some of them dating as far back as 1780s so the idea is how do you take these buildings then animate them so what we want to do is we want to create a place that that helps activate the park so we like the idea of cafes galleries restaurants places that you as a local want to go to so the schedule is you'll probably see a little bit of construction going on this month we're essentially building one of the emergency access roads and then come July we'll actually fence that whole southwestern part of hemisphere the Yanagwana Garden area so that by spring 2015 we can open it up and really have people enjoying the space and then Civic Park so Civic Park what I call kind of the the front porch that's our iconic community gathering area so this is what we really want people to think of you know kind of as as they enter San Antonio this is what they're going to see so again the the movement of the convention center makes way for the building of the of the Civic Park and this is kind of we just hired a designer they're out of Seattle Washington called GGN they've done some really cool things around the world like the Princess died Memorial in Hyde Park they've designed the Lori Gardens at Millennium Park in Chicago and then Olympic Park in Seattle so kind of in there in their hometown so we're going to use them to kind of create more design but we had a lot of public outreach and gather from the community kind of the elements or the amenities that San Antonians wanted and so this is where this these images come from so passive and active spaces some people just want to sit and read in the park other people want to you know throw a frisbee or hacky sack exceptional program for daily use you know I overheard y'all talking about yoga in the park so we imagine this be a perfect place to have yoga classes in the morning you can have the movies by moonlight which they currently do at Hemisphere but you could do it you know 10 times as big and then amenities they hands to enhance the park experience so you think of when you go to the park and think of if you go to Hemisphere today the first thing to say is I will where do I get a drink or where can I get some food and so these amenities will really help serve the park visitors so that you can stay longer at a park and you can enjoy it and hidden hidden parking is a key for us we know the San Antonians and Texans love to drive we're not going to get everyone out of their car but what we can do is hide the parking so we don't like the idea of surface parking lots we like to do either underground or wrapped this is Millenium Park in Chicago this entire whoops this entire area is parking so they have over 4,000 vehicles park underneath Millenium Park every day we look we're looking to maybe do the same thing at Civic Park where you can actually park under the park and have green on top Discovery Green in Houston does it as well so there are examples we love shade courtyard and water that's what all San Antonians said when we talked to them totally makes sense so we got some great courtyards will have some amazing water features a ton of interactive art and in shade of course so this timeline is a little bit longer we just kicked off the design process with GGN we're going to go through fundraising we launched separately 501 C3 called Hemisphere Conservancy and Hemisphere Conservancy wants to tap the philanthropic world because we think that this is more than just a city effort it should really be a community-wide effort then we'll get into P3 which is public-private partnerships and the idea behind P3s is that the vertical development is done by a private developer so if you think of the edges of a park those edges of the park will be built by someone on the private side and they'll pay a long-term lease to the city as land owners that long-term lease then goes towards maintenance operations and activation of the park so it's what we like to call the virtuous cycle and then Hemisphere is more than a park and so I think you all kind of get this point you know we love the idea of community gathering spaces you know places that you want to go on a frequent basis you know the whole walkable bikeable nature and then what we really refer to is in 1968 to get ready for the World's Fair the true effort really started about 1964 and so we're kind of at that point right now where we really need to harness the energy behind all the citizens and all the city leaders to say Hemisphere is our priority let's really get this done so I'll leave you with a couple of viewpoints of the Civic Park these renderings were done just recently so you can see kind of looking over the western side of the convention center this would be the major park area and then we would surround it with some new mixed-use developments and if you take a little bit of a step back you've really got this you know amazing stretch of golly at a ton of trees a lot of open space a lot of public space so get excited people and I think we'll answer questions at the end thank you okay hi I'm Laura Esparza and my job today is to talk about the role of physical activity and how parks and civic spaces are ideal places to help be people be more physically active and to improve the community health by focusing on them the evidence is clear physical activity is essential for good health it's a powerful tool to both treat and prevent chronic disease and obesity as well as premature death and as our physical activity levels increase the health benefits that we enjoy also increase physical activity has an astonishing array of harmful health effects and it doesn't matter who you are or where you live inactive lifestyle is associated with many types of disease and serious health conditions the evidence is irrefutable people who are physically active live longer and healthier lives and increasing physical activity not only prevents disease and obesity it promotes health for people of all ages for instance it reduces symptoms of stress and depression improves sleep and overall quality of life and many people are surprised to hear that it is better to be fat and fit than to be thin and unfit but the bottom line is that people who are physically active live longer and healthier lives regardless of their weight status and people can improve their health just by increasing their physical activity levels we do have national physical activity guidelines that outline the minimal amount of physical activity it takes to be to stay healthy adults need 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity aerobic activity you can think about this as a 30 minute brisk walk at least five days of the week you can cut this number of the number of minutes in half by increasing the intensity and doing 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity so for instance instance running instead of walking and then at least two days of muscle strengthening activities is important as well youth need twice that amount of activity they need at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic physical activity and kids need activities that are a variety of activities that are enjoyable and age appropriate I'm also important in it that's not in the guidelines yet is the importance of flexibility and the avoidance of excessive sitting which is one reason why we've we've tried to get everybody up and out of their chairs several times today so unfortunately we do have a physical inactivity crisis 25% of the adults that's it only 25% of the adults meet the physical activity guidelines and there's another 25% of adults that don't get any physical activity at all and then in youth only 30% of youth meet the physical activity guidelines and a 15% of youth don't get any physical activity at all there's many factors that contribute to this of course media dominated lifestyle TV phones games computers and increased dependence on cars for transportation we drive everywhere in San Antonio and an urban and suburban infrastructure that does not support active lifestyle such as lack of sidewalks and safe pedestrian crossings and lack of nearby green space and recreation facilities and lack of destinations such as stores that we can walk to so our our lifestyles are very different than just a generation ago and we have essentially engineered physical activity out of our lives and people who are not physically active enough are at increased risk for serious health problems but this is fixable and people can improve their health just by becoming more physically active so most people want to be healthy yet many do not engage in enough physical activity to be healthy so what would it take to help people be more physically active well the good news is we already know a lot about physical activity and health and what it takes to help people be more active we have the research we have physical activity guidelines that outline minimal amounts of physical activity and a national physical activity plan which is a comprehensive set of policies and programs and initiatives that aim to increase physical activity in all segments of the American population so the next step is to take these evidence-based tools and make it local to make a difference in the lives of families here in San Antonio clearly individuals must take responsibility for making lifestyle choices to improve their own health however as a community we must come together to create conditions that will help people make healthy choices and of course that's why we're here today telling people what they should do is not enough if we tell people they should be more physically active and then we send them out into communities that do not support active lifestyle the current high levels of physical inactivity will remain right where they are right now if we expect people to become physically active we must create environments that help residents make healthy choices the healthy choice should not always be the hard choice the healthy choice should often be an easy choice and this is where active living comes in so there's many ways of being physically active including exercising and playing sports and there's also active living which is as said we've talked about earlier walking to the grocery store riding a bike to work walking to school and there's many influences on our ability to live actively for instance people are more active when they live in neighborhoods with sidewalks parks bike lanes and safe streets neighborhood safety is a big concern crime and neighborhood disorder like broken windows and litter and graffiti and stray dogs make it dangerous or uncomfortable for people to be physically active outdoors research shows that residents of neighborhoods with more social disorder are less active and then there's the time we spend behind our desks or behind the wheel so why focus on active living well active living increasing physical activity is a powerful way to not only prevent obesity and chronic disease but to promote health overall for children and adults and again people who are active and fit are healthier regardless of their weight increasing people's activity levels can move the needle on our community's health status and since we've engineered physical activity out of our lives in recent decades we're now feeling the health effects of just that and reintegrating physical activity into our lives is critical to getting the overall population moving again and there's some steps that we can take to live more actively than we do now so what is it that gets people moving more two things one is programs to promote physical activity combined with changes to our built environment and there's a growing body of evidence to support this and this slide shows some key resources of evidence about environmental changes that promote physical activity I also wanted to tell you that on at the front of the stage and feel free to come up and get one either now or on your way out is a resource sheet with some other sources of evidence about active lifestyle the evidence behind active lifestyle and some other programs that you might find helpful so when it comes to transforming San Antonio into an active city and a healthier city we are already doing a lot of things right there are several examples of efforts to align goals and to collaborate across organizations and the organizations depicted on this slide the active living council mayors fitness council metro health and essay 2020 over the last couple of years we've seen a big effort among these groups to align goals and to collaborate multi sector collaboration is particularly important as well and because we get a richer and different kind of conversation when we talk across sectors and a couple of examples of that in San Antonio for one is this multi disciplinary conference today this is a relatively new concept for San Antonio and it's a great example of a multi sector collaboration and then the active living council is was deliberately structured to as a multi sector group we have business and industry education childhood after school health care mass media public health park recreation fitness and sports transportation land use and community design volunteer and non-profit and just in case we left anybody out we have another sector and a community sector no way to leave anybody out so these are just you know San Antonio has done well recently and it's increased efforts to align and collaborate across organizations and we're starting to benefit from just that so San Antonio has an active living council which is this community group committed to promoting physical activity and active living in San Antonio we also have an active living plan for a healthier San Antonio this is the first ever local adaptation of the national physical activity plan it includes strategies to increase physical activity in all segments of San Antonio and the strategies included in the plan are evidence-based and locally appropriate it's a roadmap for transforming San Antonio into an active living community and in the spirit of alignment and collaboration the mayor's fitness council not only endorsed the plan when it came out in 2012 but last year they incorporated the active living council as a full-standing mayor's fitness council committee and this year they're focused on adopting the plan for implementation so it's important to think about expanding the time people spend in public spaces because this is active time and research shows that parks and green space provide opportunities for physical activity and there's two things that lead to increased park utilization and increased physical activity one is improving a park social environment such as cleaning up graffiti improving and improving people's perceptions about the safety of the park or the public space and two is improving park quality so starting with our existing spaces how can we activate them how do we encourage physical activity in public spaces how do we transform an existing space into a healthy place well similar to what John similar one was saying earlier is if we can figure out how to make physical activity easy and fun and popular it becomes easier for us to encourage people to be physically active so when we think about what is it that will make up make it a place that people will want to be some strategies to consider are to build fun destinations and outdoor public spaces and it sounds like hemisphere is well on its way to that these places become richer destinations in the process but we health and you know live music and fun programming and if we think creatively and inventive and lightweight these are all great strategies we also have to think about safety and security so I wanted to share a few examples of successful initiatives to promote active living in San Antonio kudos to Colleen and her group for Travis Park raise your hand if you've been to Travis Park since it was repurpose let's call it that okay great several of you have so an intense focus on the social environment and park quality occurred recently at Travis Park and their makeover includes movable furniture kiosks with books and games for people to check out a giant chess board and much more and it's an example of I don't know what your budget was but it's an example of how you don't have to spend millions and millions of dollars which are resources that are not always available on a new community center on a building you can take the lighter quicker cheaper approach adding elements to an existing space to turn it into a healthy place and so and when I look at some of this picture I think about this the guy on the left they have an office worker talking on his phone maybe he's doing a little walking at lunch instead of having lunch behind lunch behind his desk and then there's kids in the background there's just a variety of activities here and it can be the kind of programming you do it can be yoga that's great yoga is great well there's yoga isn't for everybody so why not dancing so this is there's people that they're obviously Travis Park is making that possible to happen so I'm a big champion of Sinclovia this is another example of a successful initiative to promote active living in San Antonio and Sinclovia as you know probably is a five hour car free zone on several miles of city streets where participants can bike run play in the streets and participating group exercises along the way the common term for this type of event is an open streets event and some people call them temporary parks and there's a growing body of evidence about the positive impact of open street events on physical activity levels and I'm on the team at the UT Health Science Center that works with the YMCA on surveys of Sinclovia participants and on the last survey almost 60% said if they had not attended Sinclovia they would not have been active that day so which tells us that this type of event motivates people to be active more than half who attended previous Sinclovia events reported that their physical activity levels had actually increased since the event so what this tells us is this type of open street event has lasting positive effects on participants physical activity levels and almost half of participants said they had tried a new type of activity while at Sinclovia which tells us that this event exposes people to new ways of being physically active so we have two Sinclovia events per year right now in San Antonio and Bogota Columbia which started the Sinclovia concept in the 1970s they hold them every week it's just part of the fabric of that city another example of a successful physical activity initiative is the 45 now 45 mile network of Greenway trails which is still growing it's increasingly popular among pedestrians and cyclists individuals and families alike but going back to the evidence Greenway trails are nice but do we have evidence that this is a worthwhile investment so the next two slides which are also printed on posters outside are from a group funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation called active living research and active living research provides many tools that you can use to back up initiatives to promote physical activity in parks and community settings. The ALR infographics that are on display today highlight the current evidence about physical activity promotion and this slide shows research demonstrating that trails such as our Greenway trails leads to many benefits for communities such as there's an economic argument for trails one study found that for every dollar spent on trails there's almost three dollars in savings in direct medical costs and this infographic focuses on what communities can do to promote physical activity and again regarding the trails such as our Greenway trails one study found that people who live near trails are 50% more likely to meet physical activity guidelines research is available to justify these investments in trails and parks in terms of the health benefits that it brings the investment brings and again please take a hand up with you on your way out so these are a few examples of how San Antonio has activated its parks and civic spaces in the last few years and let's look at a few examples from other communities. The Red Swing Project started in 2007 as an urban intervention in Austin. The swings are made of red painted wood and hung using retired rock climbing rope. They've now hung more than 200 red swings in the United States and around the world. This is a small creative and inexpensive way to increase movement and play. Another example is of how design and public spaces encourages movement and play is are the sidewalk trampolines in Copenhagen, Denmark along the harbor and elsewhere in the city and you'll notice in the pictures that it's not just kids that are playing it's the adults too and I personally would love to see this somewhere somewhere in San Antonio because I'll be the first one on it. Another way to mix it up is this intervention introduces signage that looks like a pedestrian crossing sign and interjects a little fun by advertising a skipping only zone and there are images on the internet of people skipping adults too through this. It's just a few feet from here to the other side of the stage of a skipping only zone. It encourages physical activity and social interaction and fun and the concept was not developed by kinesiologists. It was developed by designers who have a passion for cities and public art and exercise and they wanted to explore ways that design in the public realm can encourage a more physically active and healthy lifestyle. These installations, these skipping zone installations are temporary and movable and they're located at sidewalks and street crossings and paths through parks. Simply providing information can also activate the population by promoting active transportation. This kind of signage helps overcome misperceptions about distance, the distance from one place to another that often motivates people to drive instead of walk. So on the left is an example from Raleigh, North Carolina. It was originally an unsanctioned sign that was promptly removed by the city. But then the community expressed such support for the signage that city council adopted the signs and now has them installed as a strategy for promoting active transportation. And on the right is a photo from Cleveland, Ohio and this is one I took of a sign that's in the university circle area and I thought it was great. It encourages walking because you find where you are and you're dot and then there's concentric circles going out that give you a sense of the distance from where you are to where you're going and then there's these little labels that'll tell you it's a five minute walk or a 10 minute walk or a 15 minute walk. So creative signage can help overcome perceptions about distance and promote active transportation and this doesn't cost a lot. And then there's the power of paint. Peaceful Playgrounds is an organization that offers low cost options to promote active play among kids during recess. They have templates, stencils for game markings on courts and their researchers got involved and they're finding that changing the environment with paint and creativity actually increases kids' physical activity levels during recess. And while this concept is designed for a school setting, it's a portable concept and it could be done at public parks as well. And the bottom line is that we don't always have to have large capital investments to increase physical activity in parks and civic spaces. Sometimes all it takes is paints and planters and signs and lines. And if we turn our public spaces into destinations, people will want to go there. Expanding the time people spend in public spaces is also spending the time that they're active. So these are a few examples of creative ways to activate park-sensitive spaces. And I would love for you all to be thinking about examples that you've seen on your own travels and share them with the group in a few minutes. So regardless of the sector you represent, whether it's public health, transportation, land use, community design or another sector, there are many things that you can do to promote active living. You can be an active living champion, get educated about physical activity and health, understand that physical activity is critical to health regardless of body weight. Know what works. Get to know proven strategies and approaches to help people be to help people get moving. Sources of information about this are in the active living plan that I mentioned earlier, the active living council's web page on fitcitysa.com and resources on the handout here. And also we have sector fact sheets that are on the mayor's fitness council table around the corridor. Promote and implement the active living plan for a healthier San Antonio. Foster an active living culture at your workplace or home or neighborhood. Insist on great sidewalks, more pedestrian crossings, connectivity so we have destinations to walk to and can get there safely. The inactivity crisis is a community wide challenge. People want healthy public spaces. However, engaging the community is key for finding solutions that will work for them. There are many, in closing, there's many benefits to activating our parks and public spaces. Economic development is one, quality of life is another, civic engagement and then there's health. The increased time in public spaces is increased active time. And the more physical activity we get, the more health benefits we enjoy. Increasing physical activity is not a fight against obesity. Activating the population by making our public spaces healthy space places helps everybody regardless of age or body size or health status. So let's expand our thinking about how to activate public spaces and look for opportunities to recapture even small spaces. We saw some examples of that in previous sessions. It can be done cheaply. Portable landscaping and paint, movable furniture, it creates a new destination and gives people a place to go. And be sure to involve future users as you plan. The time spent on this upfront is well spent time and critical to the long-term success of the project. And examples of that are the Metro Health Neighborhood Projects and the Spark Parts, which engages the community. And there'll be some Mayor's Fitness Council will be hosting some active living town hall meetings. The first one is at the Witte on June 17th, so keep your ears open for that. So activating the population requires a comprehensive team approach and we have to find out what the community wants. San Antonio has made a lot of progress but we have a long way to go and if every sector does its part to engage the community and engages the community along the way we can transform San Antonio into an active living community. So for more information about active living council, this is how you get to us and thank you very much. I have about 10 minutes for questions. So if anyone has a question for either Omar or Laura, let me know. Yes. So I'm really excited about Hemisphere Park. It looks great. But I'm a resident of the Denver Heights Neighborhood, which is on the other side of 37. Yes. So I'm wondering about how the new project is going to affect the connectivity of the residents that live in that area and downtown. Because I know if Market Street was a one-way street and it headed directly into the Denver Heights Neighborhood and now that's closed off and I don't know if that's going to be reopened. But maybe you've noticed that Commerce Street does not go west into downtown and so you can't get from the Denver Heights Neighborhood to downtown and then the only other thoroughfare is Iowa Street which is quite south of there. There's an east-west access and then otherwise east-west access to the east side is then all the way up on Nolan Street. So can you address that? I can. Yeah, that's a great question and we had a lot of feedback in the design process and we listened to it. So some really huge changes for the east side in terms of connectivity to downtown. One is that if you'll notice Market Street and Commerce Street is a perfect couplet. They're parallel streets that run in opposite directions but then that ends in the old situation. So before they started working on Market Street, Market Street would then kind of dive down south and then you could either get on the highway or connect through Montana Street. And so we're rebuilding that couplet so that it remains parallel. So Market Street and Commerce Street will then remain parallel. There'll be a new frontage road that connects the two. So the beauty is if you're traveling now eastbound on Market Street, you'll then be able to go northbound on the frontage road and then continue eastbound on Commerce Street. So we've really, so to your point about, you know, Commerce Street just being kind of one-way westbound, it now has that couplet that's been complete. And then the second piece is that Montana Street, so that's kind of underneath where the Alamo Dome connection is, that'll now be a two-way street that allows for westbound traffic as well. So there's really three connection points, Commerce Street, Montana Street, and Cesar Chavez Boulevard. And so what we aim to do is really create those to be gateways between the east side and downtown. I worked downtown briefly and I could ride my bike down Montana Street and then sort of, well, actually Commerce and then go through Sunset Station and then there was a thoroughfare underneath and so that would get me through Hemisphere Park to downtown. How is the walkability and bikeability going to be? Oh, it's going to be so much better. So we're looking at, you know, 16. That's what I wanted to hear. Yeah, yeah. No, we're looking at 16-foot wide sidewalks that are shared with cyclists and pedestrians. That whole frontage road, that new frontage road, once that's built, I think it'll blow your mind in terms of bike ability and walkability. Or if you'd notice on Commerce Street now, under the underpass, kind of where that lighting installation is, they've now expanded that sidewalk. So on the southern side of the street, you have a huge sidewalk and we intend to connect that all the way to the east. So huge improvements coming soon. Yeah, I know it's going to be a pain in the, you know, behind for the next few years, but I think it's all going to be worth it. So bear with us in construction. But thank you. Great comments. Good afternoon. Thanks for the presentation to both of you. This question is for Omar. Well, kind of a statement. One of your examples was Millennium Park in Chicago. There's a really nice feature in that park, just outside that park, and it's a bike facility. It's on-grade bike parking, but also a couple of levels below grade with a bike mechanic and some supplies. It might be a good thing to consider. And from the Kamal Trails Alliance, we're a small 501C, so we'd love to bring my bike all the way downtown. For sure. So we have an added benefit of having a tenanted hemisphere who is B-Cycle. And you're all, if you're not familiar with B-Cycle, it's basically a bicycle share program where you essentially run a bike for a limited number of time with stops. So we're talking to B-Cycle. They actually want to expand that operation, and we love the idea that that can become a place where you can take your bike to get repairs, maintenance. You could learn about bike repair and maintenance and maybe even have like a little trike park, so you could start teaching kids the importance of having to learn, learning how to ride a bicycle. Thank you. In terms of it being the most pedestrian unfriendly... Did I say that? Yeah, I work there. I'm very familiar with that. Is that your question? What's your question? It is. I heard a rumor, is Brian also up in here, that the Bear County Medical Foundation is going, is interested, it's a rumor, okay, so this is like third hand, is interested in looking at that issue. And one is that we need to generate demand about the issue, so people need to ask for it. I would, there is a, Mayor's Fitness Council has a new committee, you know, they're restructuring and for a lot of reasons the Mayor's Fitness Council committee structure, and part of it is they want to implement the active living plan, and so there's a new committee called the Health Care Committee, and they are the ideal people, the ideal group to talk to about that. So Jeremy Beer is the coordinator for Mayor's Fitness Council, you can talk to me afterwards, I can connect you with active living council people about that, and there's talk, I don't think there's much more than that at this point that I'm aware of anyway. So they're, they're actually looking at creating a divided sidewalk, eight foot sidewalks throughout the Medical Center, and trying to separate pedestrian vehicular traffic, adding new off, off street trails and connectivity, and I would actually like to talk with you after this about that master plan that's going underway right now. Well, that's great, I'm glad, I'm very grateful to hear that.