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Conversations about Creating a Culture of Activity: Profiling the people, places, programs, and policies that help to promote a culture of activity within our communities.
Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:36:16
Doorae Shin
It's really obvious looking at places that have successfully transitioned from a driving culture to a more multimodal culture. There are going. Once you're making that transition, you're making sidewalks wider and bike lanes protected, and, you know, you have bikeshare programs and all those projects in place that you are going to lose a lane, possibly maybe two lanes in the driving experience, you might lose parking, and there will be a few or a handful of years where that transition is difficult and challenging and inconvenient.
00:00:36:16 - 00:01:01:19
Doorae Shin
But on the other side of that, you get walkable communities. You get people who are healthier and more active. You get reduced emissions, which is not only good for our environment, but also good for public health, especially the health of children and babies and women who are more susceptible to this public health impacts. And so I'm really excited about the holistic impacts of that.
00:01:01:20 - 00:01:22:19
Luca Cuniberti
At this point, we need to be aggressive. We need to be aggressive in our policy, being in our implementation. And even though as I was kind of contradicting to what I was saying before, you know, the youth I think are being heard more, but it's not enough. I think we need to be recognized more kind of in this field is because when we grew up, we're going to be coming into this, into this world.
00:01:22:25 - 00:01:35:26
Luca Cuniberti
We have to experience everything. We have to deal with it. So I think listening to the plaintiffs, listening to the hike, listening to youth advocates in general saying, we need to spend this much money a year, don't put it towards the highway funding.
00:01:35:27 - 00:01:53:08
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Doorae Shin and Luca Cuniberti. And we're going to be talking about the Hawaii Youth Transportation Council. But before we dive into that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an active town's ambassador.
00:01:53:09 - 00:02:09:20
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here on YouTube down below, or you can navigate over to Active Towns or click on the support tab at the top of the page. Okay, let's get right to it with Door and Luca.
00:02:09:22 - 00:02:15:09
John Simmerman
Luca and Doorae thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.
00:02:15:11 - 00:02:16:02
Doorae Shin
Thank you.
00:02:16:03 - 00:02:18:21
Luca Cuniberti
Thank you so much. Great to be on here.
00:02:18:27 - 00:02:28:09
John Simmerman
I love giving my guest just an opportunity to say like 30s of a quick little introduction to, you know, let everybody know who you are. Let's start with you.
00:02:28:10 - 00:02:51:04
Doorae Shin
Yeah. My name is dear. I have lived in Hawaii for 5 or 15 years, and I've been an activist pretty much the entire time. I've been doing climate and environmental advocacy since I was an undergrad and have worked at lots of different nonprofits and organizations. So really passionate about taking climate action.
00:02:51:07 - 00:02:53:21
John Simmerman
Love it, love it. Luca.
00:02:53:23 - 00:03:08:27
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah. So I mean, as a young person getting started with the Youth Transportation Council, I'm the North Shore representative there, as well as our policy and legislation chair. I do a lot of other transit advocacy around the island and around the state.
00:03:08:29 - 00:03:15:25
John Simmerman
Fantastic, fantastic. Now, you mentioned 15 years here in the state of Hawaii. Where were you before then?
00:03:15:27 - 00:03:22:27
Doorae Shin
I am originally from Pennsylvania, so my parents immigrated to Pennsylvania from Korea. So that's where I'm from.,
00:03:23:04 - 00:03:26:15
John Simmerman
Are wild. Well, what part of Pennsylvania?
00:03:26:17 - 00:03:31:13
Doorae Shin
I'm from outside of Philly. So Westchester and Upper Darby are the towns that I came from.
00:03:31:15 - 00:03:44:27
John Simmerman
Yay! Fantastic, fantastic. Now, Luca, you're you're up on the North Shore, I hope. I hope you fared well during all the rains. Because it was really crazy. Crazy storm recently. Were you okay?
00:03:44:29 - 00:03:53:03
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, we were all good. I was quite lucky because I live up on a hill. But, you know, many of my friends in Wailua did not fare as well.
00:03:53:10 - 00:04:12:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we're going to be talking about a very famous study or not a study, a very famous settlement that took place. Who would like to give a little bit of the context in the background to what it is we're going to be talking about here today?
00:04:12:07 - 00:04:38:21
Doorae Shin
I can share a little bit first and then if you want to add Luca. So in 2022, 13 youth plaintiffs across Hawaii filed a case against the state of Hawaii and the Department of Transportation for threatening their right to a safe and healthy climate, which is a right that is protected in the Hawaii State Constitution. Only six other states in the country have that right specifically stated in their state constitution.
00:04:38:21 - 00:05:09:03
Doorae Shin
And so in 2020, four years after the case was filed, a historic settlement was reached that commits the state and the Department of Transportation to zero emissions across the transportation sector by 2045. So a lot has come from that in the last couple of years since that settlement agreement was signed. The youth council is one of them, which is an active part of as well as Dot's new office with dedicated staff to meet the obligations of the settlement agreement.
00:05:09:03 - 00:05:23:07
Doorae Shin
And we're doing a lot of work at our Children's Trust and Earth Justice, which are the two law firms that brought the case forward, to be sure that the implementation aspect of the work is successful.
00:05:23:09 - 00:05:56:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, and I've got our Children's Trust's website here, as well as the Earth Justice website. So these were the two legal firms that were helping navigate this. What's the origins? How the heck did this group of youth decide to come together to try to sue the state government? I mean, I at the time I was living in Austin, Texas, I had moved from Hawaii over to Austin in November of 2014.
00:05:56:28 - 00:06:06:15
John Simmerman
So I'm following this from Austin before moving back here to Hawaii just this past November. What's the origins? How did this come about?
00:06:06:17 - 00:06:47:04
Doorae Shin
Yeah, well, our Children's trust has a unique legal approach where they're actually creating new legal theory that you have rights to a healthy climate. And they've started out with the case federally, and they have a lot of cases across the country in different states. And so using this new legal theory, they've been finding a lot of a lot of progress and victory in proving that youth do, in fact, have a right to a healthy climate and that the government, you know, that we live within have been largely failing at meeting that meeting those rights.
00:06:47:04 - 00:07:21:05
Doorae Shin
And so Hawaii was, I think, a natural case for them to pursue because the, as you know, tropical island, we are more vulnerable to climate change. And, you know, when I was in high school and college, like, a lot of these impacts hadn't quite hit us yet at our doorstep. But now, you know, over ten years have passed and we're seeing that we're seeing these hundred year flood happening twice in a month, three times in a month in Hawaii.
00:07:21:05 - 00:07:40:22
Doorae Shin
And so I think a lot of those predictions that scientists have made have come true. And Hawaii is more vulnerable. And seeing this impact, you know, one of our plaintiffs. She has been displaced twice, and she's only 15 years old, and she was eight years old when the case was filed. And she had been displaced once by a flood already at that point.
00:07:40:22 - 00:08:02:14
Doorae Shin
And that was the premise of her becoming a plaintiff. And a few years ago in the Lahaina fires in Maui, her whole family was displaced again and lost their homes again for the second time. By the time she's, you know, 12. So those are this is one example of the things that these plaintiffs have been through in their very short lives.
00:08:02:19 - 00:08:10:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. Luca, what inspired you to want to get involved and be a part of this movement?
00:08:10:13 - 00:08:35:10
Luca Cuniberti
Well, John, I think one of the biggest things is transportation has always been a big part about living in Hawaii. You know, that's how we get a lot of our goods. That's, you know, we import almost all of our goods. It's how you get anywhere. And I think the Youth Council really jumped out to me as it was a very it was youth forward, you know, being able to give back to my community.
00:08:35:11 - 00:08:46:02
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah. I think that was the two main things that really jumped at me. And it seemed like a place where we could really enact some great change on the backs of this landmark settlement.
00:08:46:04 - 00:08:51:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. Tori, why the Department of Transportation specifically?
00:08:51:19 - 00:09:17:04
Doorae Shin
So the transportation sector accounts for the largest portion of our greenhouse gas emissions in the state of Hawaii. And so I think it was kind of a clear decision. And you need to pick a specific agency for a case like this. And so it just made the most sense, in addition to the fact that a lot of other agencies have worked really hard to reduce their emissions.
00:09:17:04 - 00:09:52:09
Doorae Shin
And there's obviously a lot of difficulties in doing that with the type of, you know, planning and design and the culture that we've cultivated in, in Hawaii and America. But I think with the transportation sector specifically, we're so car dependent here. And I think that's kind of the case for a lot of American cities and states compared to, say, Europe or places where the infrastructure has really been centered around transit, public transportation, walking, biking.
00:09:52:11 - 00:10:21:25
Doorae Shin
And it's one of their greatest potential opportunities to reduce and eliminate emissions as a community. And, you know, instead of focusing on that, I think we've been really in a car culture here. And the department had been for a really long time focused on lane expansion, making driving more convenient and really, I think, unintentionally facilitating high dependance on driving and single occupancy vehicles.
00:10:21:25 - 00:10:42:23
Doorae Shin
And so that's the culture that we're trying to change. And I think the settlement is doing that. And they've been working really hard even before the settlement, on electrification efforts for their fleets, airports, etc.. And so we you know, this all just makes us all work faster towards those goals.
00:10:42:26 - 00:11:20:05
John Simmerman
Fantastic. I see we've got a graphic and infographic on screen right now. Luca, why don't you talk a little bit about your cohorts and the folks that are on the council here, and a little bit of the introduction from your perspective of applying? It looks like they were 82 other applicants, you know, other young adults in youth that were interested in becoming part of this council and narrowed it down to ten that were selected, or, excuse me, 20 that were selected, ten for a one year term and ten for a two year term.
00:11:20:07 - 00:11:25:20
John Simmerman
Take it away. Talk a little bit about this process and some of your cohorts that you're working with.
00:11:25:27 - 00:11:56:05
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, well, it has been so amazing working with everyone at the Hawaii Transportation Council. There's so many people that are doing amazing things, you know, being a part of other organizations. We have our chairs on our board of education. Yeah. I think, you know, for me applying for it, it was definitely just putting myself forward. Everything I had done up to that point, which really wasn't that much in what I've done since I've applied.
00:11:56:07 - 00:12:26:08
Luca Cuniberti
But, you know, it's significantly improved by the people that I've been around. And we have people, as you can see, all across the island, you know, wide variety of where they live and how they really experience the infrastructure, where they're at and the environment of where they're at. It's really we see that applied, you know, how we how they engage with the council and how we engage with politics and how we engage with the Department of Transportation, frankly.
00:12:26:14 - 00:12:39:07
Luca Cuniberti
So it's been really great just noticing how the environments that we're living in, as kind of, Doreen was saying, are now affecting the use of the council.
00:12:39:09 - 00:12:56:23
John Simmerman
Right. And I see that five of the original 13 plaintiffs are continuing on with the Youth Council. Anything else that you'd like to add in terms of context based on this particular graphic that we're looking at here?
00:12:56:26 - 00:13:22:22
Doorae Shin
Yeah, the Youth Council was one of the key things that we wanted as part of the settlement ingredient, because I think given that the case was brought by youth, we wanted to ensure that those voices were not only listened to and tokenized, but that they were really prioritized and had influence in the decision making process that uses to approve or facilitate or fast track projects.
00:13:22:22 - 00:14:05:23
Doorae Shin
And, you know, this is the first year of the council inaugural. And so part of that agreement was also to have plaintiffs that were part of the case be a part of it, at least in the transitional process, especially because they'll probably age out soon. A lot of them will be aging out. But just to get keep some continuity and historical knowledge as to the intentions of the Youth Council as being one really important tool to ensure that there's accountability on the agency front, and that youth opinions and voices are, you know, a part of a real part of that process for for the agency.
00:14:05:23 - 00:14:09:17
Doorae Shin
So it's been really cool to see that develop in its first year.
00:14:09:20 - 00:14:44:16
John Simmerman
Now, Luca, I met you in Ohio at the Transportation Forum. And so we were listening to a whole bunch of different speakers, keynotes. Friends and colleagues of mine actually were on the panel that were presenting that had come over from the mainland, and you had that opportunity to be part of the room. You had the opportunity to hear the director of the Department of Transportation, editor sniffin, recognize and and acknowledge the settlement.
00:14:44:19 - 00:15:01:07
John Simmerman
How did that make you feel? To feel, you know, to feel like you're in the room with all these professionals and adults and experts. Talk a little bit about that experience of as a, as a young person, as a youth, you know, feeling heard.
00:15:01:09 - 00:15:21:07
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah. Well, I think it was really profound for myself because growing up as a young person and kind of one of the many places on Oahu where it's not well represented, definitely felt like youth didn't really have a voice. And I think in that specific moment it really felt like, you know, we were there, we were being paid attention to.
00:15:21:09 - 00:15:43:09
Luca Cuniberti
And that kind of sentiment was echoed throughout that. But then even further beyond when we met, when we were advocating for keiki, right, for our free transportation bill that sadly died in our legislature. You know, we we felt like we were really being heard and that the problems of young people were being acknowledged as much as, you know, our kupuna or older people, you know, working class families.
00:15:43:10 - 00:16:04:17
Luca Cuniberti
You know, I think all of these problems need to be equally addressed. But as young people start growing up, they become working class. We become, you know, when we get significantly old, we become kupuna. So I think starting off youth where they have a good ground to push off of. So we're successful later in life is really quite important.
00:16:04:17 - 00:16:15:09
Luca Cuniberti
So, you know, being able to push our problems now so that we can get acknowledged for that and kind of get those quick. So we have those that kind of platform to move off from.
00:16:15:11 - 00:16:21:10
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Is there any significance to the name of the settlement?
00:16:21:11 - 00:16:49:09
Doorae Shin
I don't think so. I think it's more just yeah, whoever is willing to be kind of their have their name really public. So you know who is the plaintiff. They're in the middle of that photo. She and her family come from multiple generations of Carlo farming, which is what was and is the main crop for Native Hawaiians, you know, for caloric intake, food security.
00:16:49:11 - 00:17:13:19
Doorae Shin
And they also have a really spiritual connection to that crop. So her climate impact story was really around traditional farming practices being threatened by unpredictable changes in climate. And they faced, you know, a lot of issues around that over her life. And so, yeah, we're really grateful for her as one of our major plaintiffs being the name of the case, which, you know, we say every day.
00:17:13:26 - 00:17:38:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. And it's a beautiful name. So I that's that's fabulous. And I love that story to the background, the context of the fact that of, you know, that sustainable harvesting of food. Because when we when we think about the fact that here in the Hawaiian Islands, 2000 miles away from anything, we are probably the most vulnerable. We are the most vulnerable state out there.
00:17:38:17 - 00:17:56:22
John Simmerman
And food insecurity is a huge issue here. So the fact that this points back to, you know, the her legacy, her family's legacy of, you know, actually harvesting sustainable food in. That's huge. I think that's absolutely quite beautiful too.
00:17:56:23 - 00:18:21:27
Doorae Shin
Yeah. And something to note is that nine out of the 13 plaintiffs are Native Hawaiian. And if we look to I think, you know, a lot of us know about the system and how, you know, Hawaiian societies were, you know, organized by water, waterways and how water moved through communities, and that they lived extremely sustainable and generative lives that were connected to natural systems.
00:18:21:27 - 00:18:41:09
Doorae Shin
And so I think we've become really disconnected from that post colonization of Hawaii and across all Western and developed places. And so I think going back to those indigenous beliefs and practices will also really help us find that sustainability again, that we had here.
00:18:41:11 - 00:19:11:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the system of land use because it has profoundly impacted land use land use patterns throughout the Hawaiian Islands, you know, from from makai to mauka, Malka to Makai. I mean, you've got all these little slivers of land that have done. And so it presents some challenge from creating sustainable land use going forward. Anything that you'd like to add to that?
00:19:11:02 - 00:19:19:17
John Simmerman
Because I think that that's an interesting subtext that, you know, is, is a part of the challenge from a land use perspective.
00:19:19:20 - 00:19:41:26
Luca Cuniberti
I think Hawaii, when it was first founded by the Native Hawaiians, it was really built as kind of a sustainable community. And when it got colonized and through colonization, it kind of went away from being that kind of sustainable as community. So now we're having to go back to that and, you know, relearning a lot of these practices.
00:19:41:27 - 00:19:52:22
Luca Cuniberti
So I think that's just kind of what we're having to incorporate, just kind of going back in time, almost back to the future in a way, taking what we're learning from the past and bringing that to the future.
00:19:52:29 - 00:19:55:07
John Simmerman
Anything you'd like to add to that? Hooray!
00:19:55:11 - 00:20:28:11
Doorae Shin
No. Yeah, I, I feel like it's integrative. Like we need to use both and, you know, modernize indigenous beliefs and practices so that, you know, that they're technologically based. And we have all the solutions we need to achieve zero emissions. And we've just been really, really behind on doing that. And there's political will reasons for that. There's you know, we have a societal addiction to convenience and issues like that that have become barriers to progress.
00:20:28:11 - 00:20:51:15
Doorae Shin
And so what's been frustrating for me as an advocate that started as a youth activist is knowing and seeing like these very clear solutions we have and advocating for them and seeing a lot of just business as usual and defensiveness around taking any action around them. So we're hoping that we can start to move that needle a bit faster.
00:20:51:17 - 00:21:36:15
John Simmerman
Because I want to really make a point here in saying that. Okay, great. There was this settlement, there's these commitments, these sort of least targets, but I know how hard it is to actually put infrastructure on the ground. I've been actively working in this arena for the better part of the last 25 years. The, the, the thing that really opened my eyes to the challenge that Hawaii had was way back in in the fall of 2005, when I moved from Boulder, Colorado to Honolulu, and I was just shocked by how car centric it was and how hostile it was out on the road.
00:21:36:15 - 00:22:09:03
John Simmerman
And so that's what inspired me to get engaged, get involved at the community level. Eventually, after a year, I moved had the opportunity to move from Wahoo to the Big Island. So I moved here to Kailua-Kona, got involved with the local advocacy, work here to try to promote and advocate for more multimodal network design and uptake. And yeah, I mean, again, better part of 20 some odd years of trying to get progress on this.
00:22:09:05 - 00:22:31:21
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that, Luca, of how you on the council or like trying to ensure that you all are making progress. I know your area of of passion is really to get more youth writing transit. So let's start with that. And then, DeRay, I'll have you fill in any of the gaps that might present themselves at that point.
00:22:31:22 - 00:22:33:14
John Simmerman
Go ahead Luca.
00:22:33:16 - 00:22:56:18
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah. I mean, you really I was about to say like, this is the time that my area expertise or almost like my big passion when it comes to, you know, the work I do, giving youth voices, having youth on transit, getting people on transit. It cuts down on a lot of the carbon emissions that are affecting us now that are as Dorian, you guys are saying earlier, it's blatantly obvious that it's happening now with the flooding and the fires.
00:22:56:21 - 00:23:20:14
Luca Cuniberti
So it's cutting down on that, but it's also making it better for residents and tourists that come and help our economy, making it easier for us to move around. One of the biggest things that we were saying while we were advocating for Keiki Ride Freeze, that bill would promote promote the youth freedom of movement, being able to get to work, being able to get to school, to social events.
00:23:20:14 - 00:23:39:22
Luca Cuniberti
So it's really just promoting us, being able to get around affordably and quickly while not, you know, having all these greenhouse gas emissions. So it's really, I wouldn't say a two double edged sword. It's like kind of the opposite of that. It still has those two edges, but it's helping more than it's hurting.
00:23:39:24 - 00:23:41:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:41:23 - 00:24:00:23
Doorae Shin
And I'll add to that, originally when I got involved in the environmental movement, it was very much just focused on emissions reduction and environmental protection, which I still believe should be our primary North Star and ethos because we are living in the midst of a sixth extinction, extinction and a climate crisis. And that needs to be first and foremost.
00:24:00:23 - 00:24:37:27
Doorae Shin
But what I think is cool about what I'm seeing now is we're having, you know, a cost of living crisis in addition to that. And now we're seeing that the solutions to the climate crisis are in lockstep, in full alignment with the solutions to the cost of living and affordability issues that people in Hawaii and really everywhere in America especially, are facing, because transportation is one of the highest costs for a local family, and it accounts for a huge part of their monthly annual budget.
00:24:37:27 - 00:25:00:03
Doorae Shin
And it's because most of them are driving in cars and driving a gas car specifically is thousands and thousands and thousands. I think it's it can be up to $10,000 that you would save over the lifetime of owning an electric vehicle, an equivalent electric vehicle to a gas car because of the fuel and maintenance that your cost that you're saving.
00:25:00:10 - 00:25:28:09
Doorae Shin
Just just to switch the car. Right. And then if you're to switch to affordable electric car and then you're using transit and walking. ET cetera. That's really what we want to see. And that's going to not only cut our emissions very significantly, but it's going to save families the money that they really need. And, you know, half of almost half of Hawaii families are living paycheck to paycheck, and they're on the brink of homelessness.
00:25:28:09 - 00:25:57:29
Doorae Shin
If they don't have a social support network to house them if something went wrong. And so, you know, I really see these solutions, even as a really passionate environmentalist. They're holistic, right? What's good for us is going to be good for the planet. It's going to be good for the economy. So I believe that, you know, public investment in these, in this type of infrastructure so that we can choose between a lot of different modes of transportation and be incentivized to drive electric cars and ride electric busses and use bike share.
00:25:58:02 - 00:26:04:20
Doorae Shin
That's really the solutions. And and, you know, we're working to socialize all of that with the community.
00:26:04:22 - 00:26:40:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. One of the biggest challenges of change of, of actually implementing change is that the status quo is just kind of what we're living in. The term terminology that we use is we're like fish and water. We have no actual comprehension of what water is. And so we we have been become so dependent on drive everywhere for everything that the status quo gets sort of adopted as, oh, well, this is just the way it is.
00:26:40:18 - 00:27:10:02
John Simmerman
And clearly it can't change. Luca, you're trying to encourage specifically encourage the adoption of, of youth being able to use transit, which I think is just one of the the beautiful hacks that we can have based on a system that may already be in place and could get even better with some additional routes and more frequent routes and more convenient routes and things of that nature.
00:27:10:03 - 00:27:35:21
John Simmerman
But it's almost like a mind shift, a little bit of a twist of if we can make it cool and fun and normal for kids to use, for youth to be able to use it. Maybe that delays them needing feeling the necessity to get a driver's license. And to your point, Dre, the economic benefits of not having to support yet another car within the household.
00:27:35:22 - 00:27:50:22
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that from your perspective, Luca, of how do we shift that mindset of for, for, for, you know, your peers that, hey, it's actually cool to take the bus. Let me show you how to do it.
00:27:50:24 - 00:28:14:06
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, totally. That's that's an amazing question. I think one of the biggest parts is talking to people. A lot of what I do now, co-founding Transit Riders, which is a new Transit Writers union here in Wong, who is just talking to youth and to people that are taking it. And just like, what would make this better? What would make you actually want to take transit over being in a car or other forms of commuting?
00:28:14:06 - 00:28:38:04
Luca Cuniberti
And, you know, a lot of what we're hearing is speed, comfortable comfortability and frequency. So those are kind of the main pillars. And that's, I guess, kind of the cool factor to it, making sure that you're on the bus, you can be with your friends just chatting. You don't have to worry about because I know one of my biggest worries, because I do, actually, I have a driver's license and I drive sometimes because where I live, the transit isn't that great.
00:28:38:10 - 00:28:57:12
Luca Cuniberti
And one of the reasons I like taking the bus over driving my car, is because I feel a lot safer in the bus. I don't personally think my driving is good enough to be on the road, so I feel like I'm safer in the bus and other people might be safer with with me in the bus almost, because my vision is not that great.
00:28:57:17 - 00:29:15:16
Luca Cuniberti
So it's making people feel comfortable and cool taking the bus and also keeping it affordable, because that's one of the biggest things. I've talked to a lot of youth that are, you know, they're trying to get places. And one of the biggest factors isn't just, oh, the the bus needs to be comfortable, it needs to be fast. It needs to be affordable.
00:29:15:16 - 00:29:41:24
Luca Cuniberti
And as you guys are saying before, it's like having these multimodal solutions isn't just an environmental solution now. It's also an affordability solution. So keeping it so youth are able to easily pay for transit so they can just go on tap with their card, or they can use cash if they need to. Don't punish them for using cash if that's all that they have access to, making it easier.
00:29:41:24 - 00:29:51:28
Luca Cuniberti
So all used of all ages and backgrounds are able to use it. So it's almost like this inclusivity equity kind of deal as well.
00:29:52:00 - 00:30:20:10
John Simmerman
During one of the biggest challenges that we have of making transit, you know, truly useful for for everybody is the problem of the first mile, last mile situation. If, you know, if we have a built environment that is just credibly hostile to anybody not being inside a car, inside of her medically sealed protected metal box, it's hard to get uptake over that.
00:30:20:17 - 00:30:41:04
John Simmerman
I suspect that that's a big part of what you all are trying to to do and hold the Department of Transportation accountable to is, is we need this to be serious. We need this to be safe and inviting and welcoming for people to be able to walk and bike, you know, for those first and last mile destinations.
00:30:41:05 - 00:31:02:15
Doorae Shin
Yeah. And as someone who by bicycled exclusively for several years and took the bus sometimes when it was raining or I needed to go further distances, I think I will say it was very dangerous. I don't think I would do it now at this age. I think in my early 20s I didn't really notice danger as much and you just more of a risk taker.
00:31:02:15 - 00:31:46:12
Doorae Shin
But I do know that that's a big factor is the lack of safety and convenience. And, you know, one thing that it's really obvious looking at places that have successfully transitioned from a driving culture to a more multimodal culture, there are going once you're making that transition, you're making sidewalks wider and bike lanes protected, and, you know, you have bikeshare programs and all those projects in place that you are going to lose a lane, possibly maybe two lanes in the driving experience, you might lose parking, and there will be a few or a handful of years where that transition is difficult and challenging and inconvenient.
00:31:46:12 - 00:32:11:11
Doorae Shin
But on the other side of that, you get walkable communities. You get people who are healthier and more active. You get reduced emissions, which is not only good for our environment, but also good for public health, especially the health of children and babies and women who are more susceptible to this public health impacts. And so I'm really excited about the holistic impacts of that.
00:32:11:11 - 00:32:49:05
Doorae Shin
And I think that's what we're working on is articulating that vision. Right. Like it's going to be inconvenient. And that's the nature of change. And, you know, growth happens at the end of our comfort zone. I think that's a lot of like the body self help people say, but that's true for planning as well. And I and I think that the government struggles sometimes in communities struggle to I think government struggles to take action because the public is complaining and the public struggles to accept change because they don't know what's going to be on the other side of it.
00:32:49:11 - 00:33:07:29
Doorae Shin
And so those are some of the factors that, you know, we need to soften some of those barriers by working together and building our coalition. And if you look at a project like skyline, which was really controversial, I mean, I've been there throughout, like all those discussions and just watching how heated it was, and I really stayed out of it.
00:33:07:29 - 00:33:23:27
Doorae Shin
But like in my heart of hearts, I knew that once that once that rail was up and running, it was going to really, really benefit the communities that needed it most. It was going to get people out of their cars. And that's what we're seeing now. But I think before it was running, it was really easy to criticize.
00:33:23:28 - 00:33:46:18
Doorae Shin
Of course, it wasn't perfect and some money was wasted and time was wasted. But I, you know, I hope that our communities can really see the benefits of things and be open to new projects being potentially good for everybody, rather than focusing on those fears of things not going well and, you know, feeding into that distrust of government.
00:33:46:18 - 00:33:51:15
Doorae Shin
So it's a lot to work on, you know, on those fronts.
00:33:51:17 - 00:34:36:18
John Simmerman
It really is a lot to work on. And I want to say this too, is that the the points that are outlined in the settlement are incredibly ambitious. I'm going to pull up the very last point here and just call this out. I mean, from a from an investment standpoint, from an infrastructure standpoint, the build out, the completion and the build out of the pedestrian and bicycle and transit network in five years, dedicating a minimum of $40 million to expand and dedicating a minimum of 40 million to expand the public electric vehicle charging network by 2030.
00:34:36:21 - 00:34:40:12
John Simmerman
That's insane.
00:34:40:15 - 00:35:05:12
John Simmerman
I mean, as somebody who, again, had been has been in this for 20 some odd years, and I'll give you some context to how crazy that really is. The build out of the the pedestrian and bicycle and transit network. In five years. You might be able to accomplish that on one island in one little area, but it's not going to happen.
00:35:05:12 - 00:35:31:26
John Simmerman
I can tell you that right now definitively it is not going to happen. And I can say that pretty confidently, even based on what I'm seeing with some of the priorities that have been identified and have been rolled out in some of these meetings that took place just this past fall, they're all wonderful steps in the right direction, but they're all incremental.
00:35:31:26 - 00:36:02:11
John Simmerman
And if if we continue at this incremental rate, it's going to be 30 some odd years before it gets implemented. So I think it it bears acknowledging that we need to actually see some significant sea change in terms of how federal dollars that get, you know, brought down to the state level and the NPA level and then distributed to local counties level, which is in Hawaii.
00:36:02:12 - 00:36:28:23
John Simmerman
Folks are our lowest level of of of government out here on the neighbor islands as counties. So we don't have any cities, incorporated cities here. We have to see a pretty major sea change in terms of attitude. Chuck Marone from Strong Townsend I just did a live stream broadcast where he, you know, introduced their most recent initiative, which is mission accomplished.
00:36:28:24 - 00:37:10:14
John Simmerman
We need to stop investing in expansion of of highway miles. We've done it. You know, the the vision of President Eisenhower in the 1950s of building out the interstate network and building highways. We did it. It's complete. We should not be adding any more money, any more expansion to highway miles. We need to get serious about really investing in these other multimodal networks and systems, because if we if we don't, if we keep just getting these tiny, tiny little slivers of a massive, massive amount of money that's going to our highway miles, we're never going to get there.
00:37:10:16 - 00:37:17:23
John Simmerman
Look, I'm going to have you respond to that first because you're nodding going, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'll have you comment as well. Go ahead.
00:37:17:28 - 00:37:40:29
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah. I think at this point we need to be aggressive. We need to be aggressive in our policy and being aggressive in our implementation. And even though, as I was kind of contradicting to what I was saying before, you know, the youth I think are being heard more, but it's not enough. I think we need to be recognized more kind of in this field is because when we grew up, we're going to be coming into this, into this world.
00:37:41:04 - 00:37:59:03
Luca Cuniberti
We have to experience everything. We have to deal with it. So I think listening to the Navajo plaintiffs, listening to the ITC, listening to youth advocates in general, saying, we need to spend this much money a year, don't put it towards the highway. Funny, don't make the pot like the potholes on the H-3 any better. Like upgrading the H theory.
00:37:59:04 - 00:38:19:06
Luca Cuniberti
The H2 are highways, put it towards expanding our pedestrian and biking infrastructure, make our electric vehicle charging better, make put more money into Becky, you know, fund our public transportation. So I think I totally agree where it's unreasonable at the pace we are right now. So we need to be more aggressive with that pacing. We need to be spending.
00:38:19:09 - 00:38:32:18
Luca Cuniberti
Make sure to have use and people push Dot and local county governments to be spending this kind of money at this kind of pace. Don't let them just drag their feet.
00:38:32:21 - 00:38:35:11
John Simmerman
Three your your response to that.
00:38:35:17 - 00:39:07:05
Doorae Shin
Yeah, it's I agree with you. It is extremely ambitious and I think probably the word complete for the pedestrian, bike and transit network is a strong word. And so we're kind of grappling with all of that live. And I you know, what I'm seeing is that the intentions of the agency are really good. But there are many things in place that don't allow us to move as quickly as the people we work directly with heart want to move, or that we want to move, or the youth want to move.
00:39:07:05 - 00:39:34:12
Doorae Shin
I think we're all kind of in alignment, that we want to move way faster than we're able to. And so I think we're trying to identify like, what are those barriers? And, you know, Ezra Klein recent book abundance talks about this how like Democrats who hypothetically support all of these types of efforts and support government funding, these types of projects that are going to improve lives of residents and transportation infrastructure.
00:39:34:18 - 00:40:01:27
Doorae Shin
They have built so many regulations to prevent bad actors from developing too quickly, but it has an equalizing effect on good actors who want to build a bike path. And so the length of time it takes to prove anything is so unrealistic, unnecessarily long for something as simple as a bike path or a sidewalk. And those are some of the barriers that we're trying to remove with the agency.
00:40:01:27 - 00:40:24:10
Doorae Shin
And, you know, one of the political things that are really in the way is, is the corruption that exists within how bills get passed and that, you know, chairs of committees have absolute power over their committees, even if all the other committee members voted against them. Well, I guess the problem is that all the other committee members wouldn't vote against the chair.
00:40:24:10 - 00:40:51:20
Doorae Shin
So there is this like corrupt, strange culture of protection of each other within the state legislature, for example, that, you know, Luca and I both faced in the bills we are championing this year. And so when we have a chair that's not not even friendly to the issue, but genuinely an obstacle to the state meeting its own obligations, how are we to meet those obligations?
00:40:51:21 - 00:41:16:28
Doorae Shin
Right. And the agency can't do it without the legislature, like all three branches of government are required to work together. And right now the legislature is not participating or acknowledging that they have that shared obligation and that is not good, and we need to work on that. And so this was our first year getting involved. So I think we're starting to identify those things more clearly and we need to work on that.
00:41:16:28 - 00:41:44:22
Doorae Shin
But yeah you're hitting kind of like the major pain point 100%. And what I always see in my work as an advocate is and my work with nonprofits who are mission driven is that our job is to provide the government cover to do what they want to do, because typically the government, they have the laws and they have the authority they need to do things, but we need to be effective at organizing so that they feel safe to move forward.
00:41:44:29 - 00:42:12:16
Doorae Shin
And because a lot of the times these bike and transit projects get a lot of opposition from people who are really used to the status quo, and they want to keep driving their cars and they want six lanes, etc.. And so we need to come, you know, with our people, I believe we are the majority, but we haven't been vocal that support multimodal projects and reducing emissions and taking climate action.
00:42:12:22 - 00:42:30:00
Luca Cuniberti
I mean, I agree with a lot of what you just said. You know, we've there's been significant obstacles to a lot of our bills and our initiatives that we were just trying to push through as a council and as a youth and as advocates, really, you know, there's been politicians who listen more to lobbyists than they do to the youth.
00:42:30:03 - 00:42:53:06
Luca Cuniberti
There's been, you know, politicians that listen more. They look at very short term solutions instead of looking at longer term solutions. And even the opposite sometimes just depending on what we're doing. So I think it's it's definitely a complicated obstacles that we're having to work around, but we're slowly working around them as fast as we can.
00:42:53:10 - 00:43:09:18
John Simmerman
I want to have you respond to this to Ray, as somebody who was a part of the organization that was, you know, part of this original, and you have another organization that you found it correct.
00:43:09:26 - 00:43:21:02
Doorae Shin
I have been a part of a few organizations I have worked on. I created an organization called Good Food Movement, which promotes plant based lifestyles. But I used to work at Surfrider Foundation and.
00:43:21:09 - 00:43:53:21
John Simmerman
Oh, you did okay. Good. Yeah, I'm good friends with Stuart Coleman for back in the day. And I want to I want to say this and have you respond to this. It seems like we've put the foxes in charge of the henhouse here by having this sit in the department, the Hawaii State Department of Transportation, and literally their URL is highways.or.gov Hawaii.
00:43:53:23 - 00:44:20:20
John Simmerman
Again, it drives me nuts that highways are literally a part of their identity and their name. And we have to stop investing in highways they're built at most. We need to have a little bit of money set aside for appropriate maintenance of said highways. And and especially with some of our major events that we've had, the responding to damage that happens to these highways.
00:44:20:20 - 00:44:34:12
John Simmerman
But I think what you touched upon a little bit is there's this resistance because there's still a culture of, yeah, we're about cars, we're about throughput of motor vehicle traffic. And that's what we do. I'll have you respond to that.
00:44:34:13 - 00:45:03:23
Doorae Shin
Yeah. And more of the technical, boring parts of the settlement agreement include that Dot is required to change how they rank projects, the scoring that projects get based on emissions, greenhouse gases and VMT reduction. And that's all in progress right now. And so they have, you know, multiple tools and dashboards that they're working on and really saying and all of it will be public.
00:45:03:25 - 00:45:51:27
Doorae Shin
But the goal is for that to be used internally for them to deprive and really divest from highways, as it's just very clear that, you know, and are frustrated by those same issues, that the disparity and investment is just not appropriate anymore. And and then to reinvest in projects that meet the climate obligations of the settlement, the commitment of the state has made long before the settlement, and that aligned with our rights in the state constitution, that we all have a right to a clean and healthful environment and make sure that the the infrastructure and the world that the youth in Hawaii inherit is one that is livable and facilitates health.
00:45:51:27 - 00:46:20:24
Doorae Shin
And yeah, so and protects our environment and ecosystems, especially in Hawaii where our ecosystems are so fragile. So yes, we are working on all of that and HR is working on that, and we are seeing a true effort on their part. I do believe that the office that has been hired is still understaffed. And so in my mind, I like to see that office grow three or 4 or 5 fold over the next few years.
00:46:20:24 - 00:46:42:04
Doorae Shin
They started with four full time staff, and they are going to grow to about eight at some point this year or next year. So that's in progress. But you know, I think to get to zero emissions transportation, you need you're going to need a huge team, very large team. And you're going to need buy in from the whole department, which is, you know, it's one of the biggest agencies in the state.
00:46:42:04 - 00:46:50:03
Doorae Shin
So yeah, there's a lot more to do. And you know, we're monitoring all those gaps in the first two years.
00:46:50:05 - 00:47:23:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now Luca, my background is in public health and specifically in the part of public health that deals with behavior change and getting people to, you know, setting up an environment so that it's intuitive and natural that they take on healthy, active lifestyles as part of your passionate area of getting, you know, getting youth writing transit more and getting transit adopted so that it makes it easier and more attractive for the youth to to do this.
00:47:23:05 - 00:47:50:09
John Simmerman
What do we need to be thinking about in terms of the critical factors that is going to make it easier and more intuitive and more comfortable for youth to feel like, oh yeah, this is a legitimate thing for me to do. In other words, what are the what are the things in the environment that we need to help change so that it feels safer and more welcoming for youth to to want to be able to use transit?
00:47:50:10 - 00:48:22:09
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, that's actually a really great question. I think it's just starting kids off young with transit, you know, when they're little, having them use public transit as much as they can, provide funding for schools to have field trips just to take the bus around so they know it's a mode that they can use on their free time if they want to go hang out with their friends or something, you know, and make it affordable, make it, you know, implement something like take your eye free almost everywhere where it's it's basically free for youth to go do what they do, do have fun, be be a young person.
00:48:22:11 - 00:48:51:03
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, I think that's kind of the main ways I would say. And then also it's good to promote the health benefits of it. And a lot of youth Bailey's like I think a lot of people like, oh, I want to be healthier. And it's like, you can do that pretty easily by just taking transit, the walking at the beginning and end of your trip, or just being around less emissions is significantly healthier than taking a car, a car everywhere you go, and then also listening to the problems they face when taking transit.
00:48:51:03 - 00:49:08:03
Luca Cuniberti
If you know a bus stop is not adequate, they're having to wait in the rain, or if a route comes to and frequently to their school, or doesn't even go to their school at all. I mean, I've been working with some youth here on the North Shore. We're at my high school. The bus doesn't even go there. It goes right next to it, but it doesn't stop at the high school.
00:49:08:04 - 00:49:14:16
Luca Cuniberti
So that's kind of the main thing. Listening to use, getting them used to it early and making making a difference.
00:49:14:18 - 00:49:44:16
John Simmerman
So listening to youth has been a recurring theme here on the Active Towns channel over the past few weeks. I had Tim Gill and Alice Ferguson from London, England, talking about their new report that they put together that really focuses in on childhood independence and mobility, and the necessity for us to to listen to, to the youth and really take the things that they're saying seriously and then, you know, acting upon it.
00:49:44:16 - 00:50:13:07
John Simmerman
And they made the point of saying, we can't just like, not our heads as adults and say, okay, yeah, we're hearing you. We're hearing you. There has to be material things changing. Look, I'm going to stick with you, and I'm going to shift gears a little bit because I'm going to challenge you to think about maybe your parents and parents of your friends and other, you know, parents that, you know, maybe the youth are hearing your message and going, yeah, Lucas, this is cool.
00:50:13:07 - 00:50:37:18
John Simmerman
This is fun. This is practical. Practical. And this gives me some mobility, independence. What are the concerns that you have heard from some of your peers, from the parents? What and what can we do to make their allay some of their fears and make it more conducive? So the parents are like, encouraging their children to to utilize transit?
00:50:37:21 - 00:50:50:21
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, I think that's that's another really great one. You just have a lot of bangers right now. Yeah. I think the biggest one.
00:50:50:23 - 00:51:16:00
Luca Cuniberti
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I think one of the biggest things is perceived safety for parents, because compared to a lot of other transit systems, Oahu in particular, and the state in general, has a very safe transit system. But I think it's just perceived safety because there's always going to be incidents, but it's making it so parents, you know, they know where their kids are.
00:51:16:01 - 00:51:25:22
Luca Cuniberti
They can they know that the transit system is safe. They know what precautions are implemented like security cameras or.
00:51:25:24 - 00:51:45:04
Luca Cuniberti
I don't know what else, but just making it so the parents, they feel and they know that the transportation system is safe, even if it already is, and that could be taking them on the bus later at night. And seeing like, this really isn't that bad. You know, you can let your kids on the bus. You can you can see this is the this is what they're interacting with.
00:51:45:07 - 00:51:48:10
Luca Cuniberti
It's really not that bad. It's not much different than just taking your car.
00:51:48:11 - 00:52:05:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. Earlier you referenced the fact that you used to ride your bike quite a bit and get around through that mechanism. So it sounds like the perceived safety that Lukas just talking about is, is also a concern for adults, including yourself.
00:52:05:12 - 00:52:23:28
Doorae Shin
Yeah, I think safety is a big issue in Hawaii right now, and I imagine it's similar for other places because of the drive and culture. I think also drivers are more distracted now than they ever have been. And so we've seen like more traffic fatalities that we have in a while. And there's all these goals to reduce that.
00:52:23:28 - 00:52:53:00
Doorae Shin
But I think it's been quite a struggle. I do think, though, from a crime perspective, the safe, you know, the concerns are like Lucas said, they're perceived and not real. And you see that nationally to it's like people believe that crime is higher, but it's actually lower than it's ever been. And so I think there's a storytelling opportunity there to share folks like Lucas stories and other transit riders through the new union that they're building to share.
00:52:53:01 - 00:53:25:19
Doorae Shin
Like, I've been writing transit for this many years, and it's very safe. And, you know, maybe extrapolating some real data to say this is how many less incidents there are on the bus and how much safer it is to ride the bus compared to a vehicle. And so I'm really passionate about social change. It's really a matter of positive peer pressure and slowly planting seeds and watering them and trickling people in with these compelling stories, meeting people with those stories and hitting them with some facts as well.
00:53:25:19 - 00:53:43:06
Doorae Shin
So I think socializing all of this is like it's our greatest opportunity to fill. And that's not really an area where there has been a ton of advocacy and organizing and marketing. And so that's something that, yeah, we need to be actively improving every day.
00:53:43:09 - 00:54:05:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. We're going to bop on over and talk a little bit about some of the social media channels that the Hawaii Youth Transportation Council has out there. But real quickly, Luka, do you your new group that you're you're founding, do you have a social media presence yet with that organization?
00:54:05:13 - 00:54:11:00
Luca Cuniberti
I don't believe just yet. I can grab I can get you the handle once I confirm.
00:54:11:05 - 00:54:38:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, let let us know when you do and we'll we'll include a link to that in the show notes for this. And before we, we get to the, the the Instagram page here for the council, I just want to also say that earlier when we were talking about the build out, the completion of these networks, and I use completion in in air quotes here, because the real truth is, is that they're never complete.
00:54:38:03 - 00:55:02:23
John Simmerman
You're always working on them. You're always expanding, not necessarily expanding, but you're always tweaking them. They're always making them safer and more inviting. The Dutch have the the most complete network that's out there in the world, and they're constantly making improvements to them. So there is no such thing as mission accomplished, job done, except for with our highway lane miles that we've done.
00:55:02:23 - 00:55:30:24
John Simmerman
So we need to stop investing in expansion of lane miles. But with the bike networks, one of the most important aspect, I think, specifically for walking and cycling, is that we need to make it truly an all ages and abilities level of quality. It has to be something where the oldest to the the youngest need to feel like this is an environment that's safe for me to be able to get around.
00:55:30:24 - 00:55:50:28
John Simmerman
If we're using transit as an example. Luca, you know you and you've got a friend, a buddy who's going to join you on a ride. You can't, you know, have the fail of it be you get to your the end of your transit line, you get off and it's a miserable experience and you feel like your life is being taken into your hands.
00:55:50:28 - 00:56:28:00
John Simmerman
So that terminology that I use over and over and over again here on the channel is the it has to be safe and inviting for all ages and all abilities. And that's the bare minimum standard, that safety that you were talking about, dear. That has to be the bare minimum of standard. Beyond that, we need to make it beautiful and inviting and welcoming so that we can get the repetition starts really working on habit formation, and then it becomes just as natural to reach, you know, for your, your, your bike versus reaching for the car keys.
00:56:28:00 - 00:56:55:06
John Simmerman
So I just wanted to mention that I think is incredibly important that we realize when we say the completion of the network, it's got to be it's got to be a high quality all ages and abilities, high comfort facility. Otherwise it's not even a true network because you will not be able to get the 60 to 70% of the population that would do active modes if it were only safer and more inviting to do so.
00:56:55:07 - 00:57:15:29
John Simmerman
Okay, shifting gears, this is the the social media presence, the Instagram account. Luca, take it away. Talk a little bit about, you know, the the presence. Oh wait, there you are on social media. And watch how you guys are trying to communicate and post information out here.
00:57:16:01 - 00:57:43:28
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, I think one of the main things is just working with our partner organizations like Y Appleseed, our children's trust, Earthjustice, so we can reciprocate what they're saying to a younger audience, and also just kind of getting out the initiatives that we're trying to do. I was like that one video of me was talking about Keiki ride free, you know, working with our the people that we're trying to work with, getting the message out about that so people can.
00:57:43:29 - 00:57:47:04
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah.
00:57:47:06 - 00:58:03:29
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, yeah. But like, you know, getting people so they submit testimony with us so that they, you know, help us support it. And that's kind of one of the main things that we're doing with the Instagram right now.
00:58:04:01 - 00:58:33:05
John Simmerman
Derek, shifting gears a little bit here, how do we get the message out to the adults and to the folks that may still be like and again, as you mentioned earlier, it's it's not their fault that they're living in a car dependent air, you know, area environment. But at the same time, it's really change is really, really difficult.
00:58:33:05 - 00:58:57:06
John Simmerman
And we see every single project, every single bike lane. We can't have such a long, drawn out battle to try to create these all ages and abilities facilities. Talk a little bit about that messaging that you all are doing within your organizations to try to facilitate speeding this up. Again, we can't continue doing it at the current pace that we are.
00:58:57:06 - 00:58:59:17
John Simmerman
We really need to accelerate this.
00:58:59:19 - 00:59:29:28
Doorae Shin
Yeah. And so I think social media has been really accessible for older folks to especially recently. And a lot of people do get their news and updates that way. So definitely utilizing social media for a larger number of generations than they were used previously. And also traditional media outlets. Right. Like our radio. I think we've been leaning more especially the youth have been leaning more into the letters to the editor, and we've been doing more op eds and press releases.
00:59:29:28 - 01:00:03:03
Doorae Shin
So I think those are all great avenues at the end of the day. Like, I think we know social change is a lot about knowing other people who are also doing it. And that's really it's like word of mouth. And that tends to be the most influential way people get on board. So yeah, I think we we need to identify people in their communities that are more influencers or who are part of big families or big communities that are willing to make those changes and talk, talk about them with their communities and influence others to do so.
01:00:03:03 - 01:00:09:23
Doorae Shin
So like, we need traditional influencers and we need social media influencers. So all of the above.
01:00:09:25 - 01:00:59:27
John Simmerman
One of the challenges that we have in this arena is this is so foreign for us in our car centric worlds, to imagine what it would be like to be able to to ride a bike or to take transit or to walk to meaningful destinations just because we haven't done it in generations. And so it it occurs to me that we one of the things that we need to accelerate, in addition to building out the infrastructure, is we need to accelerate that sort of practical, hands on application, whether it's through pilot projects or open streets events, things that can like sort of open people's eyes up to the fact that.
01:00:59:28 - 01:01:29:12
John Simmerman
Oh, this is what a protected bike lane is like. Oh, this is what a people friendly street is like. You know that that's not 30mph. It's more like 30km/h, which is like 18mph. You know, it's it's it's respond to that Luca a little bit. How how do we make this a little bit easier for people to grasp by giving them a little taste?
01:01:29:13 - 01:01:38:16
John Simmerman
I mean, is that one of the things that you're noticing with, you know, youth transit is just give them a little taste and they'll be like, oh, well, this wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.
01:01:38:18 - 01:01:59:27
Luca Cuniberti
Yeah, I mean, that actually, I mean, just keeps going back to listening to you. I'm working with one of my peers at my school right now, getting a some safer streets up in where we are at in LA, working on that currently. So I helped her get in front of a bunch of people at Dot and at her at MPO, and that's actually moving forward.
01:01:59:27 - 01:02:19:10
Luca Cuniberti
It's one of those great instances where they're really listening to to her and to youth, but it is just kind of giving people a taste like bringing them to like pedestrianized Avenue, see, like, oh, like there's no cars here. You can just walk. You don't have to feel stressed out about walking here. You don't have to worry about a car coming to hit you.
01:02:19:17 - 01:02:28:13
Luca Cuniberti
It's just like, yeah, getting a feel like this actually feels really nice when I feel safe walking or biking beside the road.
01:02:28:16 - 01:02:37:25
John Simmerman
DeRay, anything you want to add to to that in terms of what we can do to give people a little bit of a taste of what this would be like?
01:02:37:28 - 01:02:58:03
Doorae Shin
Yes. I don't know if you all remember or were there for the Kawa Sundays that they did during Covid. So Mayor Caldwell at the time was like a really big champion of bike lanes and transit. And so do you remember? Were you guys there? Do you remember that the Sundays that they did.
01:02:58:05 - 01:03:10:07
John Simmerman
So I was still living in Austin, Texas, so I was able to follow along remotely, but I wasn't able to experience it personally. Luca, do you remember that?
01:03:10:10 - 01:03:12:24
Luca Cuniberti
I think I might have been a little too young for that.
01:03:12:25 - 01:03:13:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.
01:03:14:01 - 01:03:16:27
Doorae Shin
I guess I can't believe that was six years ago, but.
01:03:16:28 - 01:03:17:13
John Simmerman
I know.
01:03:17:15 - 01:03:48:22
Doorae Shin
They did a handful of them in Waikiki. And because Waikiki was shut down from the pandemic for so long, I think the mayor and his administration, being champions of this issue, were able to fast track that project approval. And so for a handful of Sundays, they shut down all of Kalakaua to cars, had it blocked off, and then you were only allowed in if you were on a bike, a skateboard, roller skates, and you just I've just never seen that many families and kids and couples just enjoying bike.
01:03:48:23 - 01:04:12:01
Doorae Shin
You know, my partner and I went, we would just biked around and you just saw kids roller skating. And it was so fun. And I think one of the statistics that's really cool to hear is that businesses, small businesses, actually do better when people are not in their cars because it's easier to stop and pop into a store or a cafe, and there's less of a parking concern.
01:04:12:02 - 01:04:34:28
Doorae Shin
But that was one glimpse of an optimistic project that, you know, I think something you mentioned, Dawn, that I did remember that we did that. And that also makes me think like we need a good champions. Right. And the mayor at the time was really into that stuff. And so, you know, we need leaders in positions of power that are willing to champion that because that's what helps us move faster.
01:04:35:00 - 01:04:58:10
John Simmerman
Yeah I like to say that we it's a hardware and software issue. The hardware of course is the built environment, the actual facilities building out the networks. That is a critical part. And if you don't get that done and if you don't do it right, then you can't activate it. And the activation comes from the programing and the policies that bring the hardware to life.
01:04:58:10 - 01:05:18:10
John Simmerman
So it's a hardware and software issue. Luca, to close this out, your final words of inspiration, based on the Hawaii Youth Transportation Council, for folks that may be tuning in around the globe and maybe they're like, we should do this.
01:05:18:12 - 01:05:46:05
Luca Cuniberti
I think you guys should totally do it. You know, if you feel an inkling, like we should be listening to young people more, we should be acting on a lot of these issues, like totally make the Youth Transportation Council for where you live, make the Chicago Transportation Council, make the California Transportation Council, you know, having it so people can really impact and, you know, do that kind of thing where you are.
01:05:46:07 - 01:06:11:11
Luca Cuniberti
And I think not just with the Transportation Council, but like be more active in what you're doing. If you if there's a transit Writers union where you live, be a part of it. Reach out to your transportation agency. Just if they're not going to listen back to you, just tell them your concerns. Get more people to tell people their concerns, because the more people that you have, the more they're going to want to listen, because then that's kind of infringing on them getting reelected.
01:06:11:13 - 01:06:27:15
Luca Cuniberti
That's that's kind of what you're saying. If we like the more people we kind of see complain that we'll see politicians start to shift that way. Because the concern that, you know, once youth turn 18, they can vote. So I, you know, you'll be all scared of that. Yeah.
01:06:27:22 - 01:06:31:10
John Simmerman
Yeah for sure. Final word.
01:06:31:12 - 01:06:59:26
Doorae Shin
Yes. I think to go off of that I really believe in the power of our democracy. It's not perfect, but I have seen a lot of huge changes happen when somebody in a position of power at the legislature or otherwise, is challenged by a candidate that's promising more to their constituents than they have been able to deliver. And even if that incumbent ends up winning, they end up doing way more.
01:06:59:28 - 01:07:21:28
Doorae Shin
I mean, we saw that with Scott Psyche, who's the speaker of the House, who was challenged by Kim Coco, and he ended up winning by a very small margin. And after that, he passed like the most consequential minimum wage law that we've seen in a really long time that he previously was formally opposed to and specifically getting in the way of.
01:07:21:28 - 01:07:49:28
Doorae Shin
And so we know for a fact that elections work. We need people who are comfortable in politics and who identify as politicians to feel like their job is under threat. And I really like the code of the people lead and the leaders will follow. I sometimes I think we feel powerless, but I've seen many, many times that leaders will see that there's a sea change in the culture and what they're being demanded to do, and they will do it whether they believe it in it or not.
01:07:50:00 - 01:08:07:24
Doorae Shin
Or maybe you've convinced them over time. I have seen that happen. And so I believe we really need to exercise our rights during local elections, put people up and make them compete for their positions, and then hold them to account when they're in those roles. And then we'll be a lot more successful.
01:08:07:26 - 01:08:32:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, I'd like to say all the time here on the channel, if you are inspired by any of these messages here on On the Channel, please start talking with your neighbors, start getting organized and yes, absolutely vote in, you know, because if you're not hearing it, if you're not feeling heard from your current leaders, change your leaders. And Luca, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns Channel.
01:08:32:19 - 01:08:33:25
Doorae Shin
Thank you for having us.
01:08:33:26 - 01:08:35:20
Luca Cuniberti
It's been an awesome opportunity.
01:08:35:22 - 01:08:51:20
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Dorian Luca. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and be sure to ring that notifications bell.
01:08:51:20 - 01:09:09:25
John Simmerman
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01:09:10:01 - 01:09:30:04
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01:09:30:04 - 01:09:43:06
John Simmerman
I simply could not produce this content without your financial support. Mahalo. Thank you very much. Well, until next time. This is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha!