Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:24
Bill Schultheiss
The concept of comfort and safety are interrelated, and that we need to get to a system of connected networks if we're going to achieve safety. Numbers is foundational to the overall document and the way the words are written. The guidance is produced and it's it's everywhere. And so it really is why we end up rewriting. We rewrote a lot of the text from the 2012, but it's a different document.
00:00:25:26 - 00:00:47:28
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Bill Schultheiss from Tool Design Group. We're going to be talking about the newly released AASHTO Bicycle Facilities Design Guide. But before we get to that, let me just say thank you so much for tuning in. It really do appreciate it. And if you are enjoying this content here on the Active Towns cChannel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador.
00:00:47:29 - 00:01:14:01
John Simmerman
It's easy to do. Just navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page. There's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons do get early and ad free access to all this video content. Well, without further ado, let's get to it. With Bill Schultheiss talking about the AASHTO Bicycle Facilities Design Guide.
00:01:14:03 - 00:01:18:14
John Simmerman
Bill Schultheiss, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.
00:01:18:17 - 00:01:22:17
Bill Schultheiss
Hey, I'm really excited to be here, John. It's a real honor and a pleasure.
00:01:22:19 - 00:01:31:15
John Simmerman
Bill. I love giving my guests an opportunity to introduce themselves. So who's you know, what's the who's bill and what's that 30 second elevator pitch as to who you are?
00:01:31:17 - 00:01:59:08
Bill Schultheiss
Let's see. Well, I started my career saying I'm a reformed wastewater engineer. I came out of engineering school, 1998, in Boston, from Northeastern University. And then I came into the transportation field in 2003 when I started work at tool design. So I've been practicing for 23. Now it's 23 years of tool design in the transportation design space.
00:01:59:11 - 00:02:10:27
John Simmerman
Fantastic. And I'll pull up the tool design website right now. And, we can see that talk a little bit about tool design. What's the history of the organization? You've obviously been there for a while now.
00:02:11:00 - 00:02:49:11
Bill Schultheiss
So this week is actually the 23rd anniversary. We yeah, it's pretty great. It's kind of hard to believe. It's been that long. 2013 to 22. Sorry. Misspeak is 2003. When we form, it's two 2025. So, keeping up. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. When when I joined in 2003, Jennifer had, purchased this little office in Laurel, Maryland, from a company called Sprinkle Consulting that was based out of Florida, that she was her first their first satellite office.
00:02:49:13 - 00:03:08:09
Bill Schultheiss
Okay. They had invented bicycle level of service, which is this really groundbreaking, strategy, back in the 90s. But Jennifer decided to break on her own in 2003 and start tool design. So there were five of us, 22 years ago, and now we are 300 strong.
00:03:08:11 - 00:03:28:24
John Simmerman
Wow. Fantastic. And, for for those in the international audience as well and as well as in the domestic audience, what does the space that tool design really occupy and what's sort of your niche and, and what do you guys, you know, out there doing in terms of helping transform the built environment?
00:03:28:26 - 00:03:55:25
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah, Jennifer founded us as a as a firm that aspired to to build what we planned. She's a landscape architect. So we started by hiring all the disciplines. So engineering, planning, landscape architecture, and we've grown all three. So we really are a, 5050 mix of planning and analysis, studies and delivery and, building the products that we've been studying and recommending.
00:03:55:25 - 00:04:17:24
Bill Schultheiss
So we are solely in the transportation space, lots of urban reconstructions, transformations of urban streets. But we work in suburb, suburban locations and some rural locations as well. But again, we stay in the transportation realm, but we're full service in that space, right?
00:04:17:27 - 00:04:47:19
John Simmerman
Right now, you're primarily here to chat with me today about, the new Astro, bike guide. And I see right here on the website, there's a little, a little blurb about this. Looks like it was, a blog post from December to to sort of introduce this concept. Why don't you give a little background as to, this particular guide, what's what's the sort of its origins and why the heck did it need to be revised?
00:04:47:21 - 00:05:14:14
Bill Schultheiss
Well, we're really excited. It's actually been a ten year process to, to get this update published. So when it came out just before, the Christmas holidays, we felt like it was a Christmas present, to the transportation industry. And so Astro was very excited about it. We're very excited about it, very proud of the work. And so that's what you're seeing is our, that blog post was published, the day of the announcement.
00:05:14:17 - 00:05:44:18
Bill Schultheiss
But, you know, all transportation design guidance is updated. You know, the schedule varies, but we understand that things evolve and the industry's trying to stay with best practices. So some documents are updated every year, maybe with the city and some are more. And, every five years or ten years, that schedule varies. But the this guide was last printed in 2012 and a lot changed in the in the bike world.
00:05:44:18 - 00:05:53:05
Bill Schultheiss
Bike design world. Yeah. From 2012 to today. And so there was a real need for this update to happen.
00:05:53:08 - 00:06:21:13
John Simmerman
One of the things that I remember about the 2012 edition is, because I've been running the Active Towns initiative, you know, since basically 2011, when I found in my nonprofit advocates for Healthy Communities and hit the road, sort of exploring what cities were doing to become more walkable, bikeable places and encouraging active living and active mobility is my sense was that it was it was kind of already outdated for what it was produced.
00:06:21:15 - 00:06:47:13
John Simmerman
And that kind of is reflected. I've got the monster right here. This thing is just a beast. I don't even know how many pages it is because it's not labeled with the number of pages, but, it's it's it's a monster. But it it really does seem like it it needed to be updated. And some of the language in the very first pages of this document, in this guide, indicate that.
00:06:47:16 - 00:06:57:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, we were kind of in the Dark Ages, and we needed to bring it around to represent current best practices from a global perspective, for sure.
00:06:57:28 - 00:07:19:13
Bill Schultheiss
I think, you know, what's fascinating about that is in 2012, that was a big deal. Update. Yeah. The prior editions, more like 75 pages in length. Yeah. And we're like, okay, well, now this 2012 guide is now 200 pages. It's like doubled in size, went from three chapters to seven. And now we've once again, dramatically expanded what's in there.
00:07:19:13 - 00:07:49:02
Bill Schultheiss
And I think what that shows, what it says actually, is how much the industry changed from like the 1990 to now. And actually, I feel fortunate to have been working in this field at this time because when I started work at 2 in 2000, three, I'd go to meetings and it was a fight to two in a normal street bike lane and then the shared lane mark and came in and oh, that's going to change the world.
00:07:49:02 - 00:08:10:29
Bill Schultheiss
But it was really just this bad data when we weren't willing to make it a real change to a street. But that was a big deal. So we really it's hard to believe that in 2003, that was the environment we were living in. Like, yeah, just nearing a lane from 12ft to 11 was this earth shattering decision, so that you could then add doors on bike lane to a street.
00:08:11:02 - 00:08:36:23
Bill Schultheiss
And that's really where the industry was at in 2003. And now, you know, 22 years later, that's seen as a is not a good design. And that if we're not doing full separation and separated bike lanes were really, not delivering what the public wants. And I think that's, that's incredible. That's an incredible change that happened in, in a very short time.
00:08:36:23 - 00:08:53:00
Bill Schultheiss
Now it's, you know, in a standpoint of how an industry views time. I think for each advocate, each year is a, an eternity. But in the scheme of an industry changing, that's a huge fast pace of change really quick.
00:08:53:02 - 00:09:21:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. And you mentioned the size and it's it is kind of, interesting to compare, you know, side by side the, the, the Dutch, you know, cro manual and then this thing, they really put it into a small little package, but it's now it seems as if they and their systems and they and the CRO has many other manuals, just like Astro has many other manuals.
00:09:21:03 - 00:09:42:02
John Simmerman
And we'll get we'll get into talking a little bit about these guides in these manuals in just a bit. But yeah, I mean for, for the Dutch, this is like second nature. They've been doing this for, well, they're a good 50 years ahead of us in terms of really fine tuning what the bikeways are about and how to go about doing them.
00:09:42:04 - 00:10:17:07
John Simmerman
We are in the reality that, you know, we've been sort of stuck in a completely different world. We've been stuck in a world where, you know, this has been our reality. We've been a car dependent culture by design. And, you know, when when I had West Marshall on after he recently published his book, killed by a traffic engineer, we talked a lot about just how these design guides and these manuals, you know, his the historical context of them and what brought them about.
00:10:17:14 - 00:10:58:26
John Simmerman
And he was just baffled by the lack of scientific evidence. And you know, how a lot of these things came up and how some of these guides into becoming the bane of our existence, like the MacD this is oh, no, no, no, you can't do that, you know, or you can do it, but you have to, you know, quote unquote exercise that engineering judgment etc., etc., etc. but they tend to be cop outs for not doing what we need to do to create more streets for people and, in safer, more welcoming environments and, and creating places that aren't, you know, what we're looking at here, which is, you know, the car dependent culture by
00:10:58:26 - 00:10:59:29
John Simmerman
design.
00:11:00:02 - 00:11:32:10
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's something that the average person isn't. Think about. And I gotta say, as a, as a, as a former wastewater engineer, I didn't think about it. You know, I have one transportation engineering class in college. And my civil engineering program began because I was focused on the environmental side. But the advantage it gave me was I wasn't perfect and I didn't come through a traditional engineering firm, or I was kind of given pass down, training.
00:11:32:13 - 00:12:08:06
Bill Schultheiss
Right. So I came into this field kind of needing to learn everything, and I was willing to ask questions of, where does this come from? What's it based on? Why are we doing that? You know, the the annoying questions. When you're five, you ask your uncle why, why, why? And I was doing that. And then when I dug into a lot of the transportation places where we're having these, like, contentious discussions of a 12ft lane versus 11 as like, really the we're like, we're in a 25 mile an hour street, or you're telling me this is going to cause all these negative outcomes, show me the evidence and there isn't any?
00:12:08:08 - 00:12:34:13
Bill Schultheiss
You start to realize where the shaky foundations are. And it was really it caused me, as a young engineer to realize how important design guidance is. Yeah. Because once it's in that book, it just lives on and then it has an impact on generations. So it's so crucial that the design guidance is accurate. It's science based, and you can't have a study for everything.
00:12:34:13 - 00:12:54:23
Bill Schultheiss
But where you're lacking study that you're we are honest about the shortcomings so that you can then make adjustments as research comes around. And I think what was really fun for me was having that curiosity. And when I started the bike guide up to 2012, I actually took some time and dug into the history of what? What's the history of this document?
00:12:54:25 - 00:13:30:21
Bill Schultheiss
What are the sources, what's going on? And it brought me back to the 1970s and deep dive into when was the first bike lane installed in the United States, what was happening? What's the origin of some of this? And I just really, it was entertaining, you know, to me, as an, as an engineer to learn about this history, I was dealing with the After Effects 50 years later or like, well, in the 90s, 25, 30 years later, of people coming to meetings and had these, these, the cyclist saying, well, you're bike lanes dangerous.
00:13:30:21 - 00:13:51:03
Bill Schultheiss
I don't want to. I just want to ride there. I'm like, where's this coming from? And he was coming back from this 70s philosophies that were emerging at that time. And you said, we're 50 years behind. And the idea is we are we are 50 years behind. Yeah. Kind of the world was at this moment of thinking about bike infrastructure.
00:13:51:05 - 00:14:13:25
Bill Schultheiss
Some countries chose to move forward. We actually were looking to add to the inspiration that other places Davis, California, put in the first bike lane in the United States, and this person was the city traffic engineer, that design, he was so proud of it. So there was a lot of work happening, actually, research based of is this is this something we need to do?
00:14:13:25 - 00:14:37:11
Bill Schultheiss
And they were finding in this time period that it was a great thing to do, that it made a difference, made things safer. In that knowledge, got lost and it really fascinated me. Well, how did how do we lose this information? And how can we kind of return to a fact based conversation about, bike safety?
00:14:37:14 - 00:14:39:23
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. And, you know, states.
00:14:39:26 - 00:15:21:00
John Simmerman
And it is, it is interesting. I grew up not far from from Davis, actually. I grew up on a ranch in Northern California. Just, hop, skip and a jump away from Davis. And so I can remember, you know, some early visits and also some recent visits, but it we have obviously, in the last 5 to 10 years have really been leaning in towards this concept of, of protection and physical separation when it comes to bike lanes and not just, paint, you know, on the road and, again, going back to Davis, they were one of the first to, you know, work with and trial and test the, you know, the
00:15:21:00 - 00:15:49:12
John Simmerman
concept of, of a protected bike lane. They also really leaned in to, to creating a lot of a networks of separated, cycle paths. And so, in many cases throughout, the city of Davis and also getting to UC Davis, the campus, you can, you know, ride on a network of off street pathways similar to Boulder, Colorado, and get to the university, get to meaningful destinations.
00:15:49:15 - 00:16:10:24
John Simmerman
Oftentimes you do end up on shared streets, especially in the downtown area. But by that time, everything is pretty traffic calmed, and to me feels an awful lot like the Dutch network of where you have protection and separation, where you need it because the motor vehicle speeds are higher. But then you have shared space, shared streets.
00:16:10:29 - 00:16:33:13
John Simmerman
When the motor for motor vehicle speeds are below what I would call lethal level, where you're getting closer to what the Dutch use is 30km/h, you know, a essentially about 18mph, or, you know, somewhere around that 20 mile per hour mark of, you know, real speed that you're experiencing of motor vehicles out on the streets.
00:16:33:15 - 00:16:48:12
Bill Schultheiss
Absolutely. And I think it's, just fascinating that, you know, Sycamore is one of the first protected bike lanes. And then in the subsequent years, it was removed because of the narratives that started forming around bike safety at that time.
00:16:48:12 - 00:16:54:06
John Simmerman
But also there they buried the lead on that. Yeah, it was put in place and then it was removed.
00:16:54:09 - 00:17:20:11
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. And it was fascinating. It's looking back and I you know, I read, you know, when I came to work at two, I was like, well, I'm going to be doing bikeway design and I need to learn how to do it. So it's 2003 and I think I feel like I'm 50 years old and I feel like my, my generation, for what it's worth to say that and it's not a word I can't say have used that much in conversation, but, I appreciate being older now because now I have this perspective.
00:17:20:11 - 00:17:45:03
Bill Schultheiss
And I think one thing that comes from that is like we came through a unique moment where we lived through the invention of the internet and the ability of advocates to have access to information and the putting online of information. I can find a design guide, you know, and in in 2003, even at that first stage in my career that was in its infancy, I couldn't find out about this then.
00:17:45:10 - 00:18:06:20
Bill Schultheiss
It's only in the later time, more recently, that I could do the research to find this. And I think it's fascinating how I think that the internet is a huge reason that we're getting more bike friendly now, because now we're able to share information, but also fact check some things, but dig into things. So when I came to work at two, I was like, oh, you're going to be a bikeway designer.
00:18:06:20 - 00:18:30:16
Bill Schultheiss
I got to learn, well, what's the thing? I did? I kind of use the tools available to me at the time, and the resource I found to learn how to be a bikeway designer was John Forester's book. I purchased it, right, because it's like, oh, here's a guy that is an engineer that wrote about bike design and boy, I'm going to work for Jennifer till I better read that so that I know what I'm doing.
00:18:30:19 - 00:18:48:12
Bill Schultheiss
You know, she didn't tell me to do that, but that was me on my own, trying to, like, just do my, my, my research. And that's what was available of it. And it's like, okay, so this 2003, that book was published in the 70s. That's what all the engineers in the 80s were reading in the 90s and into 2000.
00:18:48:12 - 00:19:10:28
Bill Schultheiss
I'm like, okay, here's 25, 30 years of that philosophy being what's available to people. This guy knew how to this this person. More than anything. I think I got to meet him once, but it was it's kind of late in his life, and I wish I could have had a deeper conversation with them. But like, this person understood how to work the system.
00:19:11:01 - 00:19:11:26
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:19:11:29 - 00:19:35:20
Bill Schultheiss
That was his gift. He understood the importance to design guidance. He understood the levers of power. And he had an opinion that I don't want to be hemmed in the side of the road. Cyclist rights are under attack. I want to just ride wherever I want. And he was our bike racer. And when I was actually before working at two, I was a bike racer.
00:19:35:20 - 00:19:42:04
Bill Schultheiss
The mindset of the bike racing community is very unique. You're right. It's very.
00:19:42:04 - 00:20:09:16
John Simmerman
Different. It's very different from the average person who just wants to get on the bike and get to a meaningful destination and get home safely. And I say that as a former racer myself, I was an Ironman distance triathlete for the better part of two decades. And so, yeah, I mean, I spent, you know, hours upon hours upon hours on a bike, on it on a daily basis, but it was a different type of riding.
00:20:09:18 - 00:20:13:19
John Simmerman
And so, yeah, it's a different mindset for sure.
00:20:13:22 - 00:20:34:10
Bill Schultheiss
Really different. And I think, I think what Mr. Forester lacked was empathy. And I've seen it with people, that continue to this day to challenge the research because it conflicts with their value system. And his value system is I don't want to be forced to use these things. I don't want to use a no one can have them.
00:20:34:10 - 00:20:41:15
Bill Schultheiss
And I'm going to work the system to make sure that is the outcome. And he was really good at that, achieving that goal.
00:20:41:18 - 00:21:16:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I would say that historically now in hindsight, we can look back and we can say that he probably single handedly and his disciples below them, probably single handedly set us back decades in terms of the fact that he was able to gain a certain amount of influence and power, in the narrative. And so there is a reason, kind of why we're five decades behind the Dutch, you know, in in doing this because that infiltrated that mindset of vehicular cycling.
00:21:16:08 - 00:21:39:01
John Simmerman
And, people should ride as if they're motor vehicles and things of that nature. And I and I know this language very, very well because I'm a decade older than you. I'll be turning 60 in a couple of months here. And I was trained as a vehicular cyclist. I was a, you know, a league certified, instructor, an LCI, I think it's number 2 to 4.
00:21:39:02 - 00:22:07:07
John Simmerman
Eight is my, my certification number for, for teaching it. So I used to even teach the vehicular cycling, you know, mantra until I really started to understand a little bit better that sense of empathy that is so incredibly necessary to get more people riding, because that's my background, is in public health and health promotion and creating environments which encourage more people to ride, not fewer.
00:22:07:09 - 00:22:51:06
John Simmerman
And so it's incredibly important to understand there is a big difference between, you know, that 1% of the population that is, confident and skilled and can can contain or control the lean and, and just thrive in that sort of environment. And I was certainly one of those, incredibly skilled and competent, you know, riders and used to be able to, to duke it out whether I was living in downtown Chicago and needing to, to to ride through the mean streets there to get out to the country roads or when I lived in Boulder, being able to, you know, make that journey if the bad stuff relatively shorter before we got out
00:22:51:06 - 00:23:18:11
John Simmerman
onto the quiet country roads. So I think it is important to acknowledge the fact that this one character. Yeah, he he did kind of put us behind, quite a bit. But what's really, really encouraging from my, aspect in understanding the history, I think is really, really important. But appreciating the fact that we've moved past that the League of American Bicyclists has has moved past that, as well.
00:23:18:14 - 00:23:43:17
John Simmerman
Of course, they they were the league of, American Wheelman. Originally. They were part of the original group that were advocating for paved roads even before automobiles were were in the automobile associations were doing this. So they have a deep, deep history to that. But they were very, very much entrenched in that whole vehicular recycling, mantra for a while.
00:23:43:18 - 00:24:08:00
John Simmerman
But, I think we've all gone past that. So the positive thing that I've seen just in the in the couple of decades that I've been engaged in, involved with this, is that we have made a transformation. And I was very encouraged to see the language in the beginning of this designed guide. Talk about what we need to do is build for all ages and all abilities.
00:24:08:02 - 00:24:15:11
John Simmerman
This is a huge, monumental shift. I think even dating back to the 2012 manual.
00:24:15:14 - 00:24:23:18
Bill Schultheiss
It's a game changer. And I think, you know, with all respect to Mr. Forester, I think when we're racing, those strategies work for us.
00:24:23:20 - 00:24:44:28
John Simmerman
Absolutely. Well, and I think and I think that you will also appreciate that a lot of the strategies for crash avoidance and bike handling skills and how to behave are very similar to what children are taught in the Netherlands. And they get their their exams done for proficiency of knowing how to handle their bike out on the streets.
00:24:45:00 - 00:25:00:07
John Simmerman
There's a lot of similarities to that when they do their exams when they're 11 and 12 years old. So I see a lot of parallels. So yeah, I don't think that it's all one or the other, which apparently he was, he was, it was it's either black or it's white.
00:25:00:07 - 00:25:18:18
Bill Schultheiss
It's so yeah, it's funny because I look again in the history I found there was a, there was a moment and they would use editorials in the League of American Cyclists to have back and forth. So one month someone would write an article, the next month there'd be a spot. So I went down to the league office and I got all these because it was, you know, a way to because they're not digitized.
00:25:18:20 - 00:25:39:21
Bill Schultheiss
You can see the back and forth argument happening over months. But, there was there was proponents. It's like, why is it one or the other? Let's do both. Yeah. There was there was a, there was a group of people that wanted both the end. He rejected the end. But the thing that I'm really proud of asked about is that, yeah.
00:25:39:24 - 00:26:08:18
Bill Schultheiss
And that we've acknowledged it in the front of the guide is it was a rewrite. This is a different document because unfortunately, the design guidance as it evolved in the 70s, it bled into the first edition of the Astro Guide 1981 as the first official Astro document. Right. And then that became then you're doing iterative updates. So even the 2012 guide that that we worked on it too, still had a vehicular cycling foundation right in it.
00:26:08:18 - 00:26:28:27
Bill Schultheiss
And I think it's hard to the average person's not steeped in design guidance, understand what that means. But the premise was vehicular cycling is the underlying basis of it. And then yes, you can once sometimes do a side path or a bike lane. But at all these caveats about it in the new guide flips it on its head.
00:26:29:03 - 00:26:51:15
Bill Schultheiss
And so instead of that being the baseline, what we're seeing in the picture, it's like, no, in a safe systems environment where it's all ages and abilities, it makes no sense for a family to be biking down this road next to that truck, because yes, I can be taught his positioning and I can wear yellow and I can have all the stuff.
00:26:51:17 - 00:27:15:04
Bill Schultheiss
But if the truck driver makes a mistake, if I hit a pothole, if I'm looking back to scan for traffic as I'm trained and then I bike into a pothole, I'm under the wheel. That truck and I'm dead. There's no room for error in this system. And that is, I think, a timing thing where Safe Systems Vision Zero in the last decade has come into acceptance in the industry.
00:27:15:04 - 00:27:43:04
Bill Schultheiss
It was not really we talk about safety, but we weren't embracing it holistically. And now the industry is increasingly really embracing that. And when you follow it to its logical conclusion of where this leads, of creating, a system that protects when people make mistakes, right, that it is available to people of all ages and ability, including people with disabilities, children.
00:27:43:06 - 00:27:56:16
Bill Schultheiss
Then you approach the way you design things differently. And this new guide embraces that. The 2012 guide we weren't allowed to embrace it, that it wasn't. The industry wasn't ready for it.
00:27:56:18 - 00:28:26:10
John Simmerman
And a lot has really changed. I mean, when you think about the fact that the language it is you're using or was not allowed to do, that really speaks to the fact that a lot of a lot really has changed. We're starting to really speak truth to power. You know, I'm good friends with Chuck Marone and in the Strong Towns movement and his his book, confessions of a Recovering Engineer, very, you know, influential in this world I mentioned was Marshall Marshall earlier.
00:28:26:16 - 00:29:05:08
John Simmerman
We're really starting to question the the power in the control that the status quo of car dependency has had. I've had Peter, Peter Norton on multiple times here on the channel, really diving into the historical context of how motor dam really, you know, you took control of the narratives and squash it down the resistance. I mean, we we always look to the Netherlands and talk about the kinder, more movement and how the families, you know, came in in the 70s to, to try to, change the course of, of how things are going.
00:29:05:14 - 00:29:24:03
John Simmerman
But, you know, Peter mentions that, you know, it reminds us that, hey, every single decade, you know, prior to that, we saw the same sorts of protests, but they just got squashed or, you know, eventually the news cycle moved on and, you know, happy motoring continued.
00:29:24:05 - 00:29:51:25
Bill Schultheiss
And I think, you know, another part of the interesting moment is, these last 20 years has been a resurgence of, of urban areas, the city, there's been an embrace of more density, you know, now we're seeing parking minimums eliminated. So there's all these other soft, very much related issues that were not in our control but were affecting outcomes that all the different parts are coming together now.
00:29:51:25 - 00:30:14:04
Bill Schultheiss
And it's it's making biking very viable. I've watched biking through my 25 years living, and I live in DC. I've watched the city transform itself, you know, it's one street at a time, and they were painful and slow projects. But I was talking to Gabe Klein at the Nexo, bike their bike guy release party last week.
00:30:14:04 - 00:30:43:06
Bill Schultheiss
It to me, and we were reflecting on, you know, we can look back at 20 years now this of iterative change is now created a network that connects that, all those little battles have added up to a meaningful system that is functioning and usable. And now you see the results that very high rates of bike use in DC, you know, a lot more acceptance for pretty big changes to, to street operations.
00:30:43:06 - 00:31:02:10
Bill Schultheiss
You know, you don't win every battle. But by and large, the systems coming together and we're seeing that in every city. I see it in Austin, Seattle, New York. I mean, on and on. Tulsa, Oklahoma. I mean, places that you would think about, embracing these things are doing it because it just makes sense. Yeah.
00:31:02:12 - 00:31:20:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now, you just mentioned TRB. So I pulled up their website and we'll dive into that a little bit. But you also channeled the fact that we have another design guide. That is, is coming up. Was I think it's being released. I think it's being released this week. They had the party on the seventh, last week.
00:31:20:25 - 00:31:38:23
John Simmerman
And I've got Ryan Russo scheduled to come on and talk about their design guide and design guide. Talk a little bit about that whole relationship between these design guides. Are they competing or do they work in concert with each other? How does how does that all work out?
00:31:38:25 - 00:32:14:26
Bill Schultheiss
You know, it's an interesting evolution of that relationship, I think so that the Netto kind of existed as an organization. But it really came to a force in 2011, in large response to the challenges of getting the CD to be updated on a regular basis and to have that etcd reflect best practices. And what we were encountering on the on at updating MTC was some of this legacy vehicular cycling into the 2000s.
00:32:14:26 - 00:32:46:22
Bill Schultheiss
But people still have that mindset serving on that committee and really making it difficult to to make changes, meaningful changes to the CD content, which was making it hard for cities to innovate and evolve. And so nectar was, kind of relaunched and empowered by United Action to address that issue and to say, look, we're going to have our own design, and it's because we need to innovate as cities if we want to thrive in this new economy.
00:32:46:24 - 00:33:07:28
Bill Schultheiss
We were being gridlocked with traffic. We need to have alternative ways of getting around, and biking makes a lot of sense. So they published the Nectar Guide in 2011. It's interesting because you said, well, then the bike guide came out months later in 2012. So here we are a decade later, the same thing where the new Astro Bike guide is now the new NAC.
00:33:07:28 - 00:33:30:22
Bill Schultheiss
At the same time, there was no coordination. It's coincidence of of back then the timing and then today that these kind of went on that cycle. But back prior the prior edition, we actually had a chapter in the 2012 bike guide that was was cut out of the document that was for separated bike lanes and innovative bike infrastructure.
00:33:30:22 - 00:33:55:24
Bill Schultheiss
And, the powers that be at that time that were overseeing the development of that guide were not supportive of really pushing boundaries or making big changes that still really embraced this vehicular cycling under underlay. So NAFTA came out and really went the other way, and it was seen as a competition over the last ten years. Well, that covers all the stuff Astro doesn't allow you to do.
00:33:55:26 - 00:34:08:07
Bill Schultheiss
Right. Came kind of this narrative and it wasn't totally accurate. But, but Nexo did cover a lot of content that, you know, we had to cut out of the 2012 guide. So we lost a decade.
00:34:08:09 - 00:34:34:10
John Simmerman
Which from your perspective, as you're describing it sounds like that was kind of devastating because you're you're you're working for a firm that, you know, you guys are trying to do best in class. You're trying to get safe facilities out on the streets of these communities, and then you're also doing this additional heavy lift of work, of helping with these guides and then have that sort of stuff cut, which, you know, is going to save lives, has got to be rough.
00:34:34:12 - 00:34:53:29
Bill Schultheiss
It was it was hard. It was very tough on on the team. And you know, a lot of Astro members wanted it in there. But the way that organization is set up is it's continue to evolve as 50 states and you know, the the power players at that time were weren't on board with that kind of a change.
00:34:53:29 - 00:35:30:14
Bill Schultheiss
So it was heartbreaking because we knew by not having that guidance in there how difficult we would we would continue to have all these challenging conversations with, with agencies to implement and change agencies that in some cases wanted to do something different but didn't feel they had the support and protection and design guidance to try something different. And they weren't going to be the leading edge change agent that, you know, a lot of the national cities were willing to say, look, we have to innovate New York City, Portland, DC, we're going to do this and go beyond what the best practices are today.
00:35:30:14 - 00:35:55:06
Bill Schultheiss
And industry. The NAC, though guide, became their go to resource, as backup for that, because they didn't feel they could look at the Astro guide for support. A lot of these new innovative treatments in there that made that did slow down implementation. And that's why this time it's incredible because we got a new NAC guide coming out, which is up there, which is awesome.
00:35:55:09 - 00:36:16:13
Bill Schultheiss
We get the Astro Bike guide, and unlike last time where they were really covering different ground, but Astro was kind of holding back the industry from really embracing rapid change. Now they're in sync, nice. They're very complimentary of each other. I mean, if I'm a designer, I want both of those documents on my desk.
00:36:16:16 - 00:36:17:13
John Simmerman
Right.
00:36:17:15 - 00:36:23:11
Bill Schultheiss
To to make decisions. And you're going to get a lot of great design guidance from, from using them both.
00:36:23:14 - 00:36:52:24
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about how that actually works when it comes down to, you know, the quote unquote sausage making of trying to get good facilities out on our streets and, in, in we hear constantly getting feedback from, you know, from various, you know, cities and municipalities that are, oh, no, no, we can't do that. That's, that's not in the guide or that's not allowed, etc..
00:36:52:26 - 00:37:15:12
John Simmerman
How does that really work with having these now updated guides? How will that help facilitate better facilities actually being able to be built and on the ground? Is it going to be like a magic wand and saying, CC, you can do it, or is it, you know, how does it how does that really work, to try to get these things on the ground?
00:37:15:14 - 00:37:41:05
Bill Schultheiss
Well, it's the kind of two perspectives on a one game changer. Game changer. Because when design guides reflect the values of where you want to go and they're not tiny hands behind your back, they're giving the engineer the freedom to make decisions for better outcomes than that is empowering. Yeah. On the other side of that, each agency still has to be willing to make the decisions.
00:37:41:05 - 00:38:04:01
Bill Schultheiss
You know, there's no like, forced mandate to do anything. So, you know, before. So now the shackles are off as far as design guidance won't let me do x y, z. All right. The design guys now is letting you build the Dutch society if you want that. Yeah. Safe system streets. It's you can do that, you know. And and it's the permission is there.
00:38:04:03 - 00:38:34:25
Bill Schultheiss
Now you need the will to evolve through in the money. But you know, I've encountered a lot of engineers. I've never met an engineer and says, I want people to be in danger, never for what I do and can or is that people operate in the space that they they have the constraints that are under. So when I work with a an engineer that's in an under-resourced community and they don't have time for training and they're just trying to keep their head above water, that's an engineer that frequently is not able to keep up with best practices for their just.
00:38:34:25 - 00:38:46:16
Bill Schultheiss
They don't have space in their day and their time to do it. And they may not have the the structure of the city or the agency they're working for to actually try new things. So they're going to be risk averse.
00:38:46:18 - 00:39:18:18
John Simmerman
Right. Well, and you said something interesting there too, though, is that a engineers, especially, you know, engineers that are working in this field have gone through an awful lot of education. And although as to your point, they may not have had very much actual transportation and traffic associated education at the university level. And that's something that West Marshall points out is very few of the programs are actually very specified and steeped in that.
00:39:18:18 - 00:39:48:12
John Simmerman
But that's a whole nother topic. But the point is, is that these are smart, intelligent people who are not out to kill people. But we've been tasking them to solve a problem that is not necessarily aligned with what, you know, we the people and those of us who want a more walkable, bikeable, less hostile place. They're, you know, their metrics are different.
00:39:48:12 - 00:40:22:08
John Simmerman
Their metrics are, you know, well, we've been charged to, you know, maintain automobile flow and volume. You know, they have for for decades have been worshiping a level of service loss. And so I found it very, very interesting and wonderful to see in the early pages of this new guide is that it's like, yeah, now we have a different metric that we need to do where we need to be thinking about level of safety and comfort and and really looking at that, that bicycle level of service.
00:40:22:15 - 00:40:43:13
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that, because I think we just need to get our engineers and designers and planners focused on a new metric and a new goal. It's not moving cars is through. I mean, you'll appreciate this because because you're civil and you were dealing with wastewater. It's not about just moving more shit through the pipe. We don't need traffic sewers.
00:40:43:15 - 00:40:53:20
John Simmerman
We need places that are where people want to be and feel like, you know, all ages and abilities can get to their meaningful destinations, and back safely.
00:40:53:22 - 00:41:14:13
Bill Schultheiss
We talk a lot about a feeling proud about your community. Everyone wants to feel proud of their community. Like, let's feel proud about our streets and what they can do for us. And look at it. It should be a beautiful place, should be a place you're proud of it. Not like the joke where the strip mall from the, the Disney movie not anywhere USA.
00:41:14:15 - 00:41:35:21
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah, right. And just like, it's just sort of this threatening, hostile environment, right. And we can imagine those roads that exist in all of our communities where like, no one really wants that, but we've allowed ourselves to drift into that too many places. I actually saw an interesting, blue sky tweet the other day from South Burlington. Burlington, Vermont.
00:41:35:21 - 00:42:00:25
Bill Schultheiss
I grew up in Vermont, and this guy put out a picture of a school crossing. Slow down for the for the kids in the school zone. Well, this is 1950. So they're they're asking then for slower streets and safety for the kids in school. And then they proceeded over the coming decades to widen the road from two lanes to four and not do anything to make it safer for kids in the schools up until just a couple of years ago.
00:42:00:25 - 00:42:21:19
Bill Schultheiss
So 70 years after that, that sign was put up. They came and did a road, died on that road and made it finally safer for the kids to get to school. Because all these years we were shooting for a goal of just getting people to drive everywhere. And even though the public had been asking for something different, if you look close enough.
00:42:21:21 - 00:42:48:05
Bill Schultheiss
And so now it's awesome in In the Astro Bike Guy, which is really groundbreaking in this, a lot of groundbreaking stuff. In this bike guide, we one element is we really hit head on that there is a relationship between how a person feels and safety, their comfort and safety. Now, I can't quantify it necessarily, but it's real. Safety in numbers is a real thing that we're finding to research those kinds.
00:42:48:05 - 00:43:17:22
Bill Schultheiss
Steps are in the astro my gut and then they became they're actually foundational. So like before it was foundational vehicular cycling and all that stuff. And it filtered in the design guide. It's in all these ways, big and small, that you may not even notice. The concept of comfort and safety are interrelated. And that we need to get to a system of connected networks if we're going to achieve safety in numbers is foundational to the overall document and the way the words are written.
00:43:17:24 - 00:43:47:02
Bill Schultheiss
The guidance is produced and it's it's everywhere. And so it really is why we ended up rewriting. We rewrote a lot of the text from the 2012 guide. It's a different document because of that foundational change of, of of that, concept. And I think that's really when you think about, like the public meeting and you go to and and John Le Plante, one of my favorite people, was a city engineer in Chicago.
00:43:47:02 - 00:44:07:22
Bill Schultheiss
And he says, you never can win. Going to a public meeting with it with a parent and say, well, who's asking you to make the street crossing safe for the kid? You go to school and say, well, I've looked at the data. There's not a safety problem here, man. You're wrong. He's like, you're never that's you're just it's over.
00:44:07:22 - 00:44:33:06
Bill Schultheiss
He's like, the meeting is over for you if you say that. And we've really we've really as an engineering profession because we can measure level of service, we can measure the speed of a car. It's been harder to measure how someone feels right. But it matters if we want people to use our infrastructure. And so now, with the level of comfort and level of service, the way it's it's explained in these documents, there is a way to start to kind of get at that measure.
00:44:33:06 - 00:44:39:09
Bill Schultheiss
It in any analyzes is comfortable. This is something someone would want to use.
00:44:39:11 - 00:45:16:14
John Simmerman
It's it's funny you mentioned you mentioned that, you know, that that aspect of of and that brings up your cartoon that you have in your presentation that you gave it to at TRB and you're like, because, you know, this is kind of we're laughing at it, but it is also very tragic that this is kind of the language of the transportation professional and, you know, and it's very similar to the cartoon that, the Chuck Brown put together of conversations with a transportation professional, a traffic engineer, and, and similar sort of theme of, oh, yeah.
00:45:16:15 - 00:45:31:22
John Simmerman
By the way, you know, we're making an improvement in enhancement to your street and it's like, well, wait a minute. You know, my, my, my kids exist out here in this front yard. And it says, well, you probably won't want to do that anymore, but it will.
00:45:31:22 - 00:45:58:21
Bill Schultheiss
Say this in Lockwood is a real inspiration to me. And when I was early in my career, he he gave a talk and he's so visual. These are his cartoons and he's just he's really got an amazing talent of connecting, which is an absurdity. We see it in this framing with reality. I'm like, we actually did this, this, this street is Florida Avenue at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC.
00:45:58:23 - 00:46:17:19
Bill Schultheiss
Across the street is the world renowned Gallaudet University. And this is this is what their street looks like. And I should say, it looked like it'll blow your mind if you get in the street view. There's a protected bike lane on that street today. They've rotated it.
00:46:17:21 - 00:46:18:10
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:46:18:13 - 00:46:42:27
Bill Schultheiss
The sidewalk is now accessible because they took the poles out and they widened it. And you're seeing and I'd love to get a before and after of this because you're seeing the change of what our industries embrace in the last ten years. On this one block where we've recognized the absurdity of this improvement, and we're now creating a place that is a place you want to live on a street you want to live on a street.
00:46:42:27 - 00:47:03:04
Bill Schultheiss
Today's value to a community, a street that's safe. It took a while to get there, but, we're there and protected bike lanes be part of that, which is livability. Like creating a human scale place. And I think the astro bike guide is really giving you a lot of tools. I'm really proud of a section we put in there.
00:47:03:07 - 00:47:26:01
Bill Schultheiss
It's as much about pedestrian safety as bike safety. Can I cross the road? We have a whole section on trying to ensure that the engineers, as the tools and information they need to make better decisions about creating safe street crossings. You could just buy the bike ride. It'd be a better pedestrian street designer by visiting that section.
00:47:26:03 - 00:47:31:27
John Simmerman
And I believe there's a, there's an updated, a recently updated pedestrian guide to correct.
00:47:32:00 - 00:47:55:16
Bill Schultheiss
It was relatively recently updated, like two years ago. And again, the the process and timeline, it's still gets beat up for this, but I think people need to have some empathy for them. So the way they're structure set up is, is all state dots fund this organization. We all have part of these organizations. It's basically a bunch of volunteers.
00:47:55:16 - 00:48:15:22
Bill Schultheiss
Right. So each state will send their people to a meeting. And then it's the Asco meeting. And then they all oversee these different buckets. One of the buckets is updating the green book. And now they're updating the bike guide. Well these people are tasked with having a day job doing these their day job. And then on the side updating these manuals.
00:48:15:22 - 00:48:52:12
Bill Schultheiss
And so it's by committee. They meet a couple of times a year. Those processes by their nature, take a long time to work something through so that the PED guide was updated a couple of years ago and they're already, want to update it again. So they are the city out. It's due in in a few weeks, actually for a yet a new ped guide by Astro because there's very committed to being with best practices and keeping up and having a, there's a need to catch up with the safe systems thinking on the pedestrian side to now equal.
00:48:52:12 - 00:49:06:24
Bill Schultheiss
What we've been able to accomplish in the bike guide asked was very, very proud of the bike. They're calling it a transformative document for the organization, because of a lot of the principles that are baked into it that they now want to see baked into their other documents.
00:49:06:26 - 00:49:15:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, it is and not that's not necessarily going to sit well with everybody. That's part of the.
00:49:15:23 - 00:49:17:01
Bill Schultheiss
Demonization.
00:49:17:03 - 00:49:45:05
John Simmerman
It's a big organization. And and really when we look at this is this is the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, it leads one to to question it, but especially somebody like myself who originally comes from the public health arena and from, you know, an area of, health care cost containment and disease prevention and the medical world.
00:49:45:07 - 00:49:57:28
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that relationship of these guides and the association and the amount of of seemingly power that it has over what gets built on our streets.
00:49:58:00 - 00:50:13:20
Bill Schultheiss
Give me an answer. As a nonprofit that oversees manages the process. Right. So they're not they represent the state dot. So really when you're talking about the power and all this stuff, it's you're talking about state Department of Transportation's right. Know that.
00:50:13:21 - 00:50:25:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. You page through the lists of of who's, you know, on the body and who are the representation of them. These are, you know, senior officials and individuals within the state. Dots. Yeah.
00:50:25:18 - 00:50:49:20
Bill Schultheiss
And it's the same as actor. Right. So they're just an association of all the city. So but the people doing the decision making are the city's not inactive. So you know, the power in the US system of transportation is money, right? And in the 1950s, highway year, we decided to give to create a Department of Transportation and funded to build our highway system.
00:50:49:22 - 00:51:13:10
Bill Schultheiss
And in 15 years, we built an enormous highway system throughout the United States. And it's an incredible accomplishment, actually, in engineering history to to have pulled off what we did. But the funding system, the structures of money and the flow and the money flows from the feds to the states through the dots was set up then for that purpose.
00:51:13:12 - 00:51:16:02
Bill Schultheiss
But then it's only been tweaked ever since.
00:51:16:04 - 00:51:43:25
John Simmerman
Well, in a part of the our part of our biggest challenge though, Bill two is that we were applying highway design standards to local streets and, and, you know, and we were ending up with, you know, street widths of 14ft and 16ft. And you just need a mind boggling because we know that the lane width just encourages, you know, faster driving.
00:51:43:28 - 00:52:17:08
John Simmerman
And so there was like this. And I think that that's one of the great things that NATO did kind of apply in some of their earlier design guides. Urban Design Guide, street urban design guides to is, you know, kind of talking about that and using the term urban design guides is talking about, you know, hey, in these types of settings, we shouldn't be running, you know, we shouldn't treat our urban downtown streets and our residential streets as if they're the same as a a highway system.
00:52:17:10 - 00:52:26:10
Bill Schultheiss
Right. And I think, again, I feel fortunate to been an engineer in this time line because, I've watched the change happen. Yeah.
00:52:26:10 - 00:52:29:09
John Simmerman
So you literally got to also drink from the fire hose, too.
00:52:29:11 - 00:52:39:14
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah, I got it, I got it. Oh, but, you know, if you go again you can. I've looked at old editions of like, what were the Green Book. There was a red book and I think a blue book.
00:52:39:16 - 00:53:00:01
John Simmerman
Why don't you take a moment to, to pause and talk? We kept referencing the Green Book. I know what you mean. And the manual this design manual keeps referencing back to the Green Book and other manuals as well. Talk a little bit about their relationship so the audience can understand, you know, there's the design guide, the bicycle design guide.
00:53:00:01 - 00:53:06:04
John Simmerman
Now that's been redone. And but it, it references other manuals like the the The Green Book.
00:53:06:06 - 00:53:29:00
Bill Schultheiss
Right. So so again be given the funding, the way it flows from the feds to the states and the states control the large bulk of transportation funding in the United States. The documents produced by for guidance by Astro are very important. They drive a lot of what's okay to do and the funding. You can always do other things, but they're really set the floor.
00:53:29:02 - 00:53:47:21
Bill Schultheiss
And sometimes the ceiling of what's possible within the agency. So the Green Book is really the roadway and highway design manual. So they call it green because the color is green. Then you have the bike ped guy and they have a transit guide. So they all work together to create the transit system. You know, they got airport railroad stuff too.
00:53:47:21 - 00:54:11:28
Bill Schultheiss
But purposes of what we're talking about today is really the bike guide ped guide in the in the road guide road guide, euphemistically called the Green Book. And it's called the Green Book because before the highway here, there was a blue book and a red book, and the red book was the urban street design manual that Astro printed, and the Blue book was highways.
00:54:12:01 - 00:54:15:20
Bill Schultheiss
And then they combine them into one and it became blue and red and.
00:54:15:20 - 00:54:17:27
John Simmerman
Blue became green.
00:54:18:00 - 00:54:38:19
Bill Schultheiss
And and it happened in the 50s and 60s. Right. So then you know, this again, you can see so like, you could go back we could have thrown away the book and gone back to the blue book. There. And it's amazing. So like you need you, you have to build sidewalks and city streets because people, you know, the the guidance change and the reason to change the values change with this country.
00:54:38:21 - 00:55:05:19
Bill Schultheiss
And that's what when I give whenever I do a training, I always include a bit of history because no one we're not taught this like we can be mad at the state, D.O.T. or whoever or all that stuff. And I'm like, when everyone doesn't understand as well, how did this happen? There was a value system of our society that created these things, and we're living with a legacy of decisions made decades ago, and sometimes we're still making decisions in that framework of decisions more people want.
00:55:05:19 - 00:55:24:12
Bill Schultheiss
And, you know, one one example of this is like, why of why to change. I mean, imagine being a graduate of engineering school in 1955. You go to work, you're an intern. Awesome. You're being taught by the best and brightest minds in the industry. They're like, you need to one way all the streets in downtown. You need to build highways.
00:55:24:12 - 00:55:40:06
Bill Schultheiss
You need to make suburbia. They were trained to do all that, and then all the designing supported that thinking. These people became the leaders of state in public agencies in the 90s. Well, that's when I was coming into this and fighting with those people. It's like, you can't.
00:55:40:06 - 00:55:40:19
John Simmerman
Narrow the.
00:55:40:19 - 00:55:54:03
Bill Schultheiss
Lane from 12 to 11. It's dangerous. You can't do this. And what what are you base on? Well, that's just the way it is. And those are the facts and that's the books. But that's also what these people have been spent their entire careers doing. No one wants to get to the end of the career. And like, I was wrong.
00:55:54:05 - 00:56:05:03
Bill Schultheiss
Right? But no one's going to do that. It's not a nice place to be. And it wasn't that they were wrong. They were doing what they're told. But then they didn't adjust as new information came in. And that's wrong.
00:56:05:06 - 00:56:30:03
John Simmerman
Which is a really good point. I mean, and, and, and to really put a fine point on it is that for a system that is routinely killing, you know, 40,000 plus people a year in the United States, recently. Anyways, that's the the mark. We're, we're hitting these days, and increasingly more and more, a higher percentage of pedestrians.
00:56:30:03 - 00:56:58:12
John Simmerman
And there's several different factors going on. But to your point of safe systems design, I mean, that's where we have to be, like taking a step back and saying, you know, doing a, you know, a postscript on this or analysis on this and say, we need to debrief and really figure this out because clearly, maybe building wide lanes and encouraging speed in these environments is not a good idea.
00:56:58:14 - 00:57:31:14
John Simmerman
One of the biggest challenges that that I've had, one of the biggest criticisms I've had with, Vision Zero as it was originally present here in the United States, is that I just didn't get the sense that we would be successful if we weren't able to actually cut our addiction to speed, if we kept thinking that we would be able to just run our motor vehicles through these environments at these types of speeds, we would never actually, you know, physics or physics, and we were just not going to be able to get to there.
00:57:31:17 - 00:57:59:14
John Simmerman
You mentioned a little bit and we talked about earlier, we had the, the TRB page and you talked about the, you know, sharing the, the history. So you mentioned that you shared this, this historical context of the bike guide and in its origins here at TRB, take a moment to explain what TRB is. What is the role that this particular annual meeting in there in DC has sort of evolved into?
00:57:59:14 - 00:58:06:17
John Simmerman
It's it it seems like all the cool kids are there every year, at about this time of year.
00:58:06:20 - 00:58:27:01
Bill Schultheiss
I mean, it's the largest transportation conference in the world, and it pulls people from around the world, which is great because you get different perspectives of what you do. And we're not doing what we think is best practice. We, we there's always stuff to learn from someone else. Right. And so I think that conference allows some of those conversations to happen.
00:58:27:02 - 00:59:01:19
Bill Schultheiss
Those are sometimes the first moments someone's learning from something. Well, here's how we're doing it in Germany or Australia or, you know, Sweden or wherever. And so Vision Zero safe systems like this culture change we've been kind of talking about and around for the last hour is emanates in part from this event. It happens every January. Tens of thousands of transportation professionals attend, to learn from each other and share best practices and more importantly, research fact.
00:59:01:26 - 00:59:23:28
Bill Schultheiss
So yeah, the facts are we've done some research in general. Going from 12 to 11 to ten really doesn't make a difference in safety in an urban area. Right. But context on it, it's where these rules of thumb and sometimes they were based on real research that were for highways in the United States that were then misapplied research into an urban area as well.
00:59:23:28 - 00:59:46:03
Bill Schultheiss
Since I would say ice tea was transformative as a as a federal policy, it it really infused a lot of money into research for the first time, and it pressured change in like being multi-modal instead of car focus. We knew we needed to pivot, and then it planted all the seeds. And so from ice tea in the early 90s, all the way up to now.
00:59:46:03 - 00:59:47:17
Bill Schultheiss
So for the last 30 years.
00:59:47:17 - 00:59:53:12
John Simmerman
Of course, Bill, you know, I'm going to make you define what iced tea is, because some people may not know what you're talking about.
00:59:53:14 - 00:59:54:19
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah, I'm sipping.
00:59:54:19 - 00:59:59:04
John Simmerman
On my, my my cooling coffee here, but I don't think you mean that kind of iced tea.
00:59:59:06 - 01:00:22:11
Bill Schultheiss
So, you know. So iced tea was a federal transportation bill in the United States? I think it was 1990 or 91. I don't have exact date, but it's some complicated name. They always want an acronym in the south of me. So whatever it meant, coming in iced tea, like surface transportation, whatever. That became the funding mechanism for the next transportation bill.
01:00:22:13 - 01:00:23:08
John Simmerman
Right.
01:00:23:11 - 01:00:45:17
Bill Schultheiss
And then that the change for the federal transportation bills in the United States are enormously important because they they do plant seeds for change. They create the funding to make things safer. So like in the last I Safe Routes to School came out of that those programs. And really it's like, okay, this doesn't have to be a a right left, Republican Democrat thing.
01:00:45:17 - 01:01:13:02
Bill Schultheiss
Like, don't we want our kids to be safe going to school? I mean, the police guy saying from 1950 was still waiting for safety improvements in Burlington 70 years later. Like, right. People were asking for this stuff for a long time. It's a unifying thing that can bring us together. So that was amazing. And I actually think Safe Routes to School is one of these C programs that actually help lead to better streets for biking, walking, safety.
01:01:13:02 - 01:01:39:26
Bill Schultheiss
It was an easy thing that people could agree on. People may not agree on the road, but people can agree they want kids to be safe. Getting the school. So and in any event, that transportation conference has been an ongoing conversations and sharing of research, for decades now that have fed into all these manuals which are getting us to there is now we're seeing the results.
01:01:39:28 - 01:02:01:00
Bill Schultheiss
In some ways, all the research was coming in the 90s. Really another thing I'm really proud about our guide. It's the most sourced Asco document I think they've ever published. Now I'm making a leap that I haven't checked them all, but we have 600 references. And one thing that frustrated me as an engineer, as a person who's always challenged the system of like, what?
01:02:01:00 - 01:02:21:28
Bill Schultheiss
Why? Asking why? When I looked at old manuals, I couldn't answer why. It just said this. Well, what's the basis for you saying that? Well, it's not sports, I don't know. It could have been five dudes in a room, or it could have been like a real research project. But I don't know because you didn't say. And so we put a lot of effort into sourcing the AST or good.
01:02:21:28 - 01:02:44:27
Bill Schultheiss
It's the most source guide I've ever worked on. And it's largely it's not it's largely research stuff that comes from TRB, the Transportation Research Board, and the great work of our colleagues in universities doing the hard work of research and the state of T's who actually fund a lot of a lot of those are partnerships and state duties and universities that people may not be aware of.
01:02:44:27 - 01:02:55:24
Bill Schultheiss
So it's, it's a all the things are starting to work together now in a way that I think is really good for the future for, for our transportation system.
01:02:55:26 - 01:03:23:23
John Simmerman
Well, I'm convinced I need to put a tab on my list, for next year. And again, this is put on by the National Academy of Sciences, science, Engineering and Medicine. So, yeah, definitely. It's the place to be. Two quick questions. Before we wrap this up. Well, one for sure. And then the second question is, are there any final things that you would like to talk, mention about the bicycle guide?
01:03:23:25 - 01:03:43:03
John Simmerman
The first question is we've mentioned, road diets several times. People keep pressuring me, especially from the global audience, of saying, you guys got to come up with a better term for that. Yeah. Have you have you heard of a better term for a road diet that a road diet?
01:03:43:06 - 01:03:44:29
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah.
01:03:45:01 - 01:03:48:03
John Simmerman
That's not wonky.
01:03:48:05 - 01:04:14:22
Bill Schultheiss
It's funny, Dan Burton and, Peter Lager, we coined that term and are two people that were great influences on me personally as well. Peter Lager, we work for the city of Seattle for, for many decades, improving biking and walking for the city. Dan Bird was, he's he still is. But this famous traveler that he put on a road show of training for better street design.
01:04:14:22 - 01:04:34:10
Bill Schultheiss
And, the two of them were friends, and they they kind of invented the word road, dad, because the city of Seattle kind of pioneered it in many ways. And United States of the first project, you, take a four lane road, add bike lanes, add the center turn lane, and, you know, they wanted a catchphrase like they call it that.
01:04:34:10 - 01:04:54:05
Bill Schultheiss
Let's put the road on a diet. Made sense. It's since become a bit of a loaded word, and gets some backlash in. Yeah, actually, the city of Seattle themselves, I think they call them Lane. Reallocations or optimize. They were optimizing.
01:04:54:08 - 01:04:54:17
John Simmerman
Yeah.
01:04:54:22 - 01:05:16:17
Bill Schultheiss
The space to be more efficient. There's been a shift away from it, which, you know, whatever. I think marketing matters. You know, I think I think, again, you've seen in the hour that leadership matters. In some cases, marketing matters, like selling a vision that becomes acceptable to people. The words you're using can have a big impact, you know, and I think this is something we're learning.
01:05:16:20 - 01:05:33:18
Bill Schultheiss
Bicycle Boulevard was one that, again, why are we doing all this stuff for bikes? You know, you're going to turn my quiet little street into a bike highway. That sounds terrible. That's another term that, you know, we kind of alluded to in the in the Astro Guy, we said, look, this is still a word. Use the left.
01:05:33:18 - 01:05:39:00
Bill Schultheiss
But they can be called neighbor ways greenways. Like there's other words you might want to use.
01:05:39:00 - 01:06:08:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. We're trying to make a we're we're trying to make a place better for everyone. Not just not just those people on bikes again. So the the whole fifth edition of the comprehensive, bike guide, it's a monster. It's expensive. Who who will buy this? Who's, other than a knucklehead like myself? That was just like, oh, I gotta dive into this and see if it's finally better.
01:06:08:18 - 01:06:26:19
John Simmerman
It is much, much better. Yeah. Who who's who's behind this? And how do we actually force all transportation officials and engineers to have to read it and, and sign off that they, they understand these premises that are now outlined.
01:06:26:21 - 01:06:47:24
Bill Schultheiss
Also, let's say this I know when when this came out, there was like high fives across the land from state departments interpretation. They've won in this published for years themselves. You know, they understand the process takes longer than it should. But they're all excited about this. So that's exciting. They're excited to do trainings of their local staff.
01:06:47:27 - 01:07:13:14
Bill Schultheiss
They get discounts to buy these because they fund the organization. Right? So this will be available for the Dot engineers at wide scale. City engineers have budgets, you know. Yes. It's like I would never buy a book for $500. If I'm going to Barnes and Noble, like I'd feel crazy. But this is an important resource for roadway design.
01:07:13:14 - 01:07:35:23
Bill Schultheiss
And, you know, if we're going to spend $1 million designing a street, we can take $500 and buy a book. So I think as a professional who's working for a public agency, this is in your budget team to purchase. And I think there should be really no excuse to not have one etch at your desk. You know, for the advocates, you know, this is this feels hard.
01:07:35:25 - 01:07:59:15
Bill Schultheiss
And I acknowledge I even asked I would acknowledge that. And I think it's a hard place where they've got to protect the copyright and the, I mean, millions a lot of money goes into creating these, publishing them, and there's a cost. And, you know, the fact of the matter is the US is a cost based economy or we like user fees for everything, and we don't, you know, it's just a choice we've made.
01:07:59:15 - 01:08:08:09
Bill Schultheiss
And so this is kind of they're a little bit hands are tied to have to charge for this document. The way we set up our system.
01:08:08:11 - 01:08:29:10
John Simmerman
Well and I'll jump in and say this bill is that, I was only able to to purchase this bike, this particular guy, this particular book, due to a very generous contribution by a donor to the nonprofit who wanted me to have this in my hands, to be able to dive into it and go to go through it.
01:08:29:12 - 01:08:49:17
John Simmerman
And so, folks, yeah, I get it. It is ridiculous. I understand that you probably want to do that, but, and also, by the way, folks, this is where some of your donations are going to is so that, you know, so that I can actually, you know, dive into these types of things and have these types of conversations.
01:08:49:20 - 01:09:07:13
John Simmerman
Bill, what's one last thing that you want to leave the audience with about this amazing accomplishment? And, you know, I also, as part of this, I want you to wrap in the fact that one of the things that you said as soon as you posted about this out on social media, I think it was on blue Sky.
01:09:07:19 - 01:09:13:04
John Simmerman
Is that okay? Time to get started on the next edition.
01:09:13:06 - 01:09:36:22
Bill Schultheiss
Well, I think I think the thing that I'm really excited about is it represents a change in the industry. It represents a change in state dots represents a change. It represents a change in direction of where the countries that these are what's we're still a little overly complicated. You know, you pull up the Dutch manual and it's brief in it.
01:09:36:22 - 01:09:55:26
Bill Schultheiss
I mean it's this very small frontier. It's a little hard to read sometimes for older people, but, I think it's deceptive. That book would be bigger if it's printed at the font for the Astro Guide. But that said, the future is simpler. This is where we got to get. We are a complex system in the United States.
01:09:55:26 - 01:10:20:15
Bill Schultheiss
When you go to the Netherlands, when you really embrace safe systems in you, you spent 50 years iterating in the streets to get there. You end up in a simpler street system. We have an incredibly complex and complicated system here that is too complex and complex to vary too much differences. And I think in 50 years from now we'll look back and say, oh, that was crazy, you know?
01:10:20:15 - 01:10:39:06
Bill Schultheiss
But like, we will be simpler if we're going to achieve a safe systems future where our streets are more valuable and nice places to be, they'll be simpler, there'll be less variety in them, more consistency. And that's what you see in the Netherlands. But they get there. So we're only just getting started, you know, it's only now.
01:10:39:08 - 01:10:46:03
John Simmerman
Not what's not in this guide that you wished was.
01:10:46:05 - 01:10:55:17
Bill Schultheiss
It's it's the most comprehensive manual out there, I think, in the world at this moment. I don't there's nothing missing with a what I which.
01:10:55:17 - 01:11:03:06
John Simmerman
Is good which is a good place to be compared to the 2012, when you guys felt like there was a huge part of it that was missing.
01:11:03:06 - 01:11:22:26
Bill Schultheiss
So yeah, it was really held back. I mean, this guy in broke new ground. We have content that goes beyond the empty CD. That's the first time it's ever happened in a master document. We have. And so experimental devices, you know, emerging best practices are discussed in there. So it's very forward looking. This guy is going to last a while.
01:11:22:29 - 01:11:35:18
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. It may not need to be an update for a while. You know I wish it wasn't as long. I really do wish it was a little more, condensed, but it's a factor of how complicated our roads are. Like, we still want people. I want to.
01:11:35:20 - 01:11:59:28
John Simmerman
I'll jump in and say this. I mean, it's there's literally hundreds of pages that are setting the stage to try to educate, you know, the people who are picking up this book, that there's a new game in town here. And here's the reason why. Because you you go chapters upon chapters upon chapters before you start getting into the nitty gritty of any kind of actual design.
01:12:00:00 - 01:12:25:29
John Simmerman
We mentioned the M2 CD several times. That CD just went through a revision as soon as that thing dropped, people were already screaming, no, we because we didn't get a lot of this stuff in there that we wanted to have in there. And so, yeah, it seems like that guy is going right back around and trying to get redone because there's so, so much discontent that, you know, some of the things didn't get in there.
01:12:26:01 - 01:12:49:06
Bill Schultheiss
Well, I think and I'm a criticize for that. I was involved with updating that document for 15 years. And it's it's the last organization that hasn't quite gotten there. And it's it's not an organization, but it's the next evolution of the Met City has to embrace safe systems is documented. It doesn't do that. It's not a safety document.
01:12:49:09 - 01:13:11:17
Bill Schultheiss
So based in that lens. And I think that's where this bike is a pivot into the future of, like, really embracing safe systems. And you're going to start to see a lot more rapid rollout of other guides that have that underlying philosophy. And I think the key might be the last one that kind of falls in that bucket, but eventually it will happen.
01:13:11:19 - 01:13:13:07
John Simmerman
Who publishes that.
01:13:13:10 - 01:13:14:24
Bill Schultheiss
Federal highway does.
01:13:14:26 - 01:13:19:11
John Simmerman
Okay. So that's an actual federal highway document. It's not part of Asco.
01:13:19:11 - 01:13:42:01
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. It's it's the only document that's mandated in law, in federal law. And that's why there's a lot of anxiety about it, because it does ties and hands. And you can have a creative engineer that's willing to go out there and take a risk and read it. And yeah, but also for fear of lawsuits. And I've been involved in expert witness work.
01:13:42:03 - 01:13:48:14
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. Failure to comply with that document or really. Well, document why you didn't get to.
01:13:48:17 - 01:14:12:26
John Simmerman
Yeah. I mean, because it does say in the MTC right up front that, you know, this is the design guide, but know you can't use your engineering judgment, you know, don't use that as an excuse not to do something that's going to save lives. And, and, and do the right thing. And I so I think that we can't just kind of quote unquote, I'm going to push a hard on the engineers.
01:14:13:00 - 01:14:35:15
John Simmerman
We're not going to let you just kind of, you know, say, oh, I'm just following the manual, you know, and this is what the manual says I can do. And no, you can exercise engineering judgment and do the right thing of creating a safer systems approach. And yeah, let's keep our fingers crossed that the next, version of the mute TCD is, in fact, embracing the safe systems.
01:14:35:17 - 01:14:57:04
Bill Schultheiss
I'm hopeful, but I think the, you know, piece of it is, you know, that's where I'm really excited about the Azure game, because those engineers willing to to use flexibility that exists in all these documents, including MTC. Yeah, that flexibility hinges on their comfort of of making a decision. So this new bike guide is giving them a lot more explanation.
01:14:57:06 - 01:15:13:00
Bill Schultheiss
And that's why you're right. There's a lot up front, a lot of content that's really educational in the nature of safety and comfort and all these measures of the why behind some things. It's written in there for that person that needs that support to then become that.
01:15:13:00 - 01:15:37:10
John Simmerman
A lot of these folks do need that support. Yeah. Fantastic. Again, folks, we've been talking about the astro release of the fifth edition of the Comprehensive Bike Guide and, again, Bill Schultz from Tool Design. Thank you so very much for for joining me here today. To talk about this. It's been an absolute joy and pleasure.
01:15:37:15 - 01:15:42:13
John Simmerman
I'm sorry it's taken so long for us to to meet. And I'm sorry it's not in person.
01:15:42:15 - 01:16:04:29
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. Likewise. I mean, I'm really appreciate what you're doing to educate the profession. And I think it's an example where different strategies and media are effective. All the names you mentioned today are influences on me because because I'm hearing them in your social channels such as yours and their own. It's how we can learn and support each other for a better.
01:16:05:01 - 01:16:16:13
John Simmerman
So you've mentioned blue Sky a couple of times, so I'm assuming your your active out on blue sky. Where can anybody else, you know, find you. What's the best way to connect with you these days?
01:16:16:16 - 01:16:33:26
Bill Schultheiss
Yeah. Blue sky just kind of getting into it. So it's kind of a restart from the Twitter years of really I'm not going to use Twitter anymore, but LinkedIn is the professional account, you know, our website, those are the places to find me. I hide in all other spheres that yeah, good.
01:16:33:26 - 01:16:40:29
John Simmerman
Stuff gets it done. Well, Bill, again, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been a joy and pleasure having you on.
01:16:41:01 - 01:16:49:27
Bill Schultheiss
I really appreciate the opportunity. And, I know I'm thankful to be able to share the word that this, this resources out there. Use it. It'll help you.
01:16:49:29 - 01:17:04:00
John Simmerman
He thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode, 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 ring the notifications bell.
01:17:04:00 - 01:17:24:03
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here in the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. It's easy to do just navigate over to active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page, and there's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons do get early and have free access to all my video content.
01:17:24:05 - 01:17:43:28
John Simmerman
But you can also make a donation to the nonprofit advocates for Healthy Communities. Or you can even leave a tip right here on YouTube. Right down below. Every little bit helps and is very much appreciated. Again, thank you so much for tuning in today. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness.
01:17:44:00 - 01:18:00:17
John Simmerman
Cheers and again sending a huge thank you out to all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patreon. Buy me a coffee YouTube. Super! Thanks! As well as making contributions to the nonprofit. Every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.