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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
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:28:21
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
The same applies to this is one street and say we did the second version with the red, concrete. If we did that in this one place, that then helps justify it in another local suburb. And so there is there is an argument to that, but it is the incrementalism approach. And I think being bold from the start, and actually I think looking at the two images, the one where there's the more simple design and this one here, it's obviously the same street.
00:00:28:24 - 00:00:42:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
It actually does highlight that to do things properly is going to make a much bigger difference. And, you know, of course we can start with the tactical urbanism stuff, but let's be bold in what we asked for.
00:00:42:21 - 00:01:06:16
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Matthew “Tepi” Mclaughlin out of Perth, Australia. And we're going to be talking about a recent article that he wrote with, a past guest here on the podcast, Brant Innes. But before we do that, I just want to say, hey, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Town Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador.
00:01:06:18 - 00:01:22:17
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here on YouTube or navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there's several different options. Okay, let's get right to it with TV.
00:01:22:19 - 00:01:27:28
John Simmerman
Matthew. So welcome to the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:28:00 - 00:01:30:04
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Thanks, John. Thanks for having us.
00:01:30:07 - 00:01:39:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love giving my guest just an opportunity to introduce themselves. So, who the heck is tabby? And where are you?
00:01:39:08 - 00:02:05:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I'm in Perth in Western Australia, the longest city in the world. Not a title that we're necessarily proud of. But a bit of. I'm a, I'm a self-described academic, so, a job as an academic in the last few years, and I've now swapped to working, both in academia, research and also in government, but all around physical activity.
00:02:05:22 - 00:02:17:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So it very aligned to your show, John. And active towns, but we're interested in that source movement. Health, and physical activity benefits.
00:02:17:18 - 00:02:35:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, I love it, I love it. Now, you mentioned, the longest city in the world. So yeah, we've got it pulled up here on screen, Perth in Western Australia. And, by chance, how long is the longest city of the world?
00:02:35:16 - 00:03:05:27
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I think we're touching 170km. So what's that in miles? Over a hundred miles? Yeah. Yeah, it's it's very, very long. We we keep crawling along the coast. We open up parcels of land north and south. We just keep going. Urban infill seems to be a real challenge. Because of subsidies for those urban fringes. But, yeah, we had a an interesting report here in Perth.
00:03:06:00 - 00:03:30:22
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
$90,000, so in subsidies for house building on the fringe. So we have to get we. Yeah. So that's why we get built that way. The, you know, that the housing industry is taking that advantage and as that makes sense, of those subsidies with the road building, the school building, the, sewerage. So all of that that's put into pre order.
00:03:30:25 - 00:04:14:06
John Simmerman
And I love your I love what you call yourself a academic. So this is this is so cool. You know, you're doing practical things but you have that academic background and and I'm sure we'll, we'll talk a little bit about how that manifests itself and what you do on a daily basis and, and all of that. But yeah, going going back to the longest city in the world and the sprawling, the thing that comes to mind, immediately is, you know, the, the, the whole strong Towns movement in, in Chuck Maroons perspective and looking at how as, as, as we help, you know, spread out and we expand horizontally, you're just not able to
00:04:14:06 - 00:04:39:10
John Simmerman
generate enough tax revenue to actually support the infrastructure. You know, enough of that horizontal expansion. I mean, you know, the roads, the pipes, the, you know, and, and all of this, you know, delivering services. Now, I know that there's some changes or some differences and probably the, the financial and tax stuff, you know, one country to the next.
00:04:39:10 - 00:05:00:13
John Simmerman
But I think it's, it's it's pretty solid evidence. I think that there's probably no likelihood that you can tax people out on the fringes in the, in the urban sprawl enough to actually be able to compensate the, the cost of delivering those services. Is that correct?
00:05:00:16 - 00:05:24:02
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Well, yeah, because it becomes more expensive, right, to do that sprawl and the errands of pain and we know that we can we can perhaps bring up the the Australian government report and, and on the federal report that shows, road subsidies, it shows $1 billion in road subsidies because they only collect, 30. But there it is.
00:05:24:02 - 00:05:50:12
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah, 31 billion in road related revenue. So that's from your registration of your car, your licensing, your parking levies, your fuel tax, all of those things added together at all levels of government, a total of 1 billion. Then you look at what they spend on roads, all levels of government, which we have three tiers of government in Australia local, state and federal, and all spend on roads.
00:05:50:12 - 00:06:22:21
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And it's 39 billion. So that's $8 billion in relatively. That's not even taken into account the flow on effects of that car dependency, that air pollution, roadblocks, the, the cost from the, from the hospitals to, to deal with the enormous, you know, enormous amount of serious injuries that we have from our roads. So, yeah, even just the raw numbers themselves, it's massive subsidies and and I think, yeah, you're right.
00:06:22:24 - 00:06:31:26
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We can't if we continue to sprawl like that, it's costing everybody more money including non drivers. So non drivers to pay for this. Yeah.
00:06:31:28 - 00:06:36:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah insidiously probably the worst. Yeah.
00:06:36:24 - 00:07:01:26
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
You know people we all want convenient. We all want easy ways to get around and that makes sense. So for some journeys people it makes sense to drive for some people. And society will always choose the most convenient option. But if we make the most convenient option, the subsidized car dependent option, that's what people do. And, you know, people on this podcast know that more than others.
00:07:01:26 - 00:07:17:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But, you know, we all want to live in those active towns where people are connected. People feel like they've got their friends close by. It's actually something that I'm doing at the moment. I'm a new dad as of three weeks ago.
00:07:17:21 - 00:07:19:20
John Simmerman
Congratulations.
00:07:19:23 - 00:07:49:09
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Thank you. Thank you. Writing a children's book for my daughter. Really focusing on, you know, the longest city in the world. And her friends could potentially be living 170km away. And that just being this silly idea that, you know, people's commutes are now, you know, upwards of an hour stuck in congested highways, that the why do they get the more cars they get?
00:07:49:11 - 00:08:04:27
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah. The, the solution isn't to go further and further out. The solution is to start to densify and to start to provide opportunities and convenience for people to get the things, that they want. And but to do that, we've got to cut those subsidies.
00:08:05:00 - 00:08:26:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And we're going to get to subsidies and some of the other insidious things that, that play about, we'll, we'll talk a little bit about how we get got connected in, in just a moment, but I want you to fill in the blanks a little bit more about your story. How did you get interested in this work?
00:08:26:13 - 00:08:34:00
John Simmerman
And, and, you know, even get interested in studying what you studied and, and what did you study?
00:08:34:03 - 00:09:01:16
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah. So, like, the academic thing is because, you know, obviously academics get critiqued a lot for being in their ivory towers and just kind of publishing these papers and not really connecting with the real world. And that wasn't me at all. I got very frustrated with, that early on and did a really interesting study, learn those foundational skills, in research and how to conduct really valuable research for government.
00:09:01:16 - 00:09:20:16
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I actually did my PhD within government to inform government practice over in, on the other side of Australia, in New South Wales. And so I learned those foundational skills. But I really want to be approximate, which meant not only doing the research, but trying to connect that research into the real world. And, but the physical activity thing.
00:09:20:19 - 00:09:52:23
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah. I have always been interested in physical activity. That's that is sport. And gyms and exercise to some extent. If you've got the, the time and the access to those things, that is fun. But the, the, the reality that hit me very early on is that most people don't have that time and access to those things. And if they do, they're kind of super, super, super sort of into it.
00:09:52:23 - 00:10:22:09
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And it's something that they sort of force themselves to do and it doesn't feel natural and part of everyday routines. So how can we how do we get these routine based collectivity going? And obviously people have been thinking about this for a long time and an active transport, active travel, whatever people call it. And it's the majority of all physical activity, I should say globally three times as much physical activity from walking, riding, taking public transport, those such things, leisure, physical activity like sport.
00:10:22:12 - 00:10:37:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So I was really interested. Well, we don't want to see that decline any further because it's got to be so good for it's so good for our health. So good for the societies and keeping people out of hospitals. And, the taxpayer loves physical activity because it means they pay less.
00:10:37:21 - 00:10:38:24
John Simmerman
Right, right. Yeah.
00:10:38:24 - 00:10:56:00
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Oh, yeah. I really got into it from that side of things. Is, is it was, a health based route. I went to study at Loughborough University in the UK, which is the number one in the world for sport and exercise science. Again, got a really good grounding there. So yeah, that's where I might say.
00:10:56:03 - 00:11:22:23
John Simmerman
Well, yeah. Very similar to my background with my background in exercise science and then, layering in health care cost containment strategies and, and disease prevention and health promotion, programs and all that. And yeah, as, as promised, let's, let's, you know, kind of close the loop in terms of how we got connected. And, it's all because of this guy up here in the upper left, corner here.
00:11:22:23 - 00:11:56:29
John Simmerman
Mr.. Grant Ennis. He he's like, you know, hey, John, you need to, you know, you know, connect with this guy and, this, of course, is his, episode from a couple of years ago where we, you know, really dive deep into the dark PR concept and, and the title of this book is dark PR and, you know, really taking a look at the, the corporate influences, not just in the United States, which is particularly insidious, but really globally around the world.
00:11:56:29 - 00:12:29:03
John Simmerman
And how, the, the corporate interests and the other interests that really shape the narrative and shape the message, and thus employing dark PR and, and really, you know, he in the book, he takes a look at, you know, three different really buckets. He takes a look at the, the climate, issue, takes a look at traffic safety and takes a look at, sugar in and, and diet and, just a fascinating, fascinating book.
00:12:29:09 - 00:12:32:15
John Simmerman
Now, how did you get connected with Grant?
00:12:32:17 - 00:13:17:21
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Well, I've got to say, self-confessed lover of the dark power book. It, I would highly recommend it to anybody who's interested in in this, a Super Bowl. Grant. Get to it. You get to the point this. We cannot do this without challenging the politics of this. So the thing that stuck with me most, from what Grant says, is we can't just keep asking for more stuff, like more bike lanes or more trees or more, density without actually tackling why those things all the way there and what what are those subsidies?
00:13:17:21 - 00:13:46:00
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
What are those industry influences? What is that dark PR that sits behind things? And, you know, health promotion training. John would, tell us that, you know, we've got to look at those determinants. We look at industries like tobacco, the industries like junk food industry. And it's quite obvious what those industries. But I think there's less work being unpacked in the physical activity world today.
00:13:46:02 - 00:14:12:17
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And made clear, that, yes, we absolutely have to unpack the, the sort of commercial aspects and the subsidies that undermine physical activity actions, because I'd come from this world, and we might bring up a few of these documents that I've worked on across the years that, I've been lucky to be involved with, really, but, international policy documents, so ones, the eight, investments that work for physical activity.
00:14:12:19 - 00:14:45:24
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
This is a global document. But what I really learned from reading grants work, reading other's work is that although there are, we've said that there's a investment there. And it's, it's a it's a really good starting base that we've got buckets of ways that we can invest and take action to increase physical activity. So they're things like, they are things like active urban design, active transport, active schools, active workplaces.
00:14:45:27 - 00:15:02:02
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And obviously there's eight of them. But what we need to do is start to prioritize the most effective ones, because we can't keep asking for everything at the same time because it's turning, turning people off.
00:15:02:04 - 00:15:40:16
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
The decision makers want to know what to implement that's effective, supported by community. And has that, I suppose, political side to it as well as to what's feasible to implement. But it's only feasible to implement when people get organized and start demanding that change. And I suppose that's another element of Gram's book, which is fantastic. She kind of finishes with, which is in order to combat this dark power, we have to get organized, to start to take action together, not just from an active council perspective or a physical activity.
00:15:40:18 - 00:16:05:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Health perspective. We actually have to come together with all the groups that are in aligned areas, whether it's climate action or loneliness, suicide, mental health, and come together and say, we're all interested in this. We know that our populations are actually, really, really want to live in places that support good health, that support climate, that does all of these things.
00:16:05:18 - 00:16:11:17
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yet we have all of these subsidies and things going on over here that we need to start to tackle.
00:16:11:20 - 00:16:32:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. And you've mentioned, you know, it's very much a part of, you know, of the book and in fact, it's number eight and number nine combined of, you know, the knotted where. But hey, everything is complex. There's no clear solution, you know, therefore we have to do it all. And if you're doing it all, you're not doing anything.
00:16:32:27 - 00:16:58:20
John Simmerman
And then the multi-factorial thing, the devious frames that don't work unless you combine them all, it's like, yeah, oh no, no, it's. And you can't just do one thing, you gotta do them everything. And so and what what happens with these. Because there is a grain of truth in all of that. Is that it? It just gets us to the point where because everything gets so diluted, nothing really gets done.
00:16:58:23 - 00:17:26:03
John Simmerman
And the whole point of of his book, of course, is that if we want to address this, we have to get to the root cause, as far up the chain as possible in terms of the legislation that is in place, which allows these devious frames to take a hold and, you know, shape our narrative. And we're going to talk a little bit about, your recent paper that you wrote with, Granta.
00:17:26:04 - 00:17:31:05
John Simmerman
And, in fact, when she set that up and I'll pull it up here.
00:17:31:07 - 00:17:34:29
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah, absolutely. I, perhaps just before we go on to that, I.
00:17:34:29 - 00:17:35:13
John Simmerman
Like to.
00:17:35:13 - 00:18:00:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Say one big thing for me. And, look, I'm in my sort of middle career now, starting to transition into that stage. I've gone on this journey that over time and realized that. Yeah. And so there's people out there going, well, you know, obviously that there's multiple things we need to do. And you keep saying that we need to prioritize things.
00:18:00:15 - 00:18:26:06
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
That sounds like to me, you're saying, is there a silver bullet? That's not what we're saying. What we're saying we need we need to prioritize and just for example, we have, you know, documents that have hundreds, hundreds, not ten, not 2000s of actions in them for a government to implement to increase physical activity. So it just kind of is giving them a menu of options.
00:18:26:06 - 00:18:58:04
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Sure. But also it it's kind of a little bit like, well, which ones are actually affected of those that would change population physical activity. Because to me, maybe it's not going to change the walking and cycling. Right. Or it's not going to change the the amount of people playing sport or the access to, whatever. It's going to people want to do walking or, or have access to again, what why are we promoting it as a solution, as the top priority that be a flow on benefits of getting these core fundamental things right.
00:18:58:10 - 00:19:27:08
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And there's some I really like this way of thinking about it, which is, it's the actions that we put forward must be the ones that are, essential, but perhaps not necessarily completely sufficient on their own, because if they were essential and sufficient, that's a silver bullet. But if it's essential, it means that the other stuff that we're doing won't work unless we've got that in place.
00:19:27:10 - 00:19:49:24
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And, you know, this is somewhat where we did with the International Society for Physical Activity and Health. And again, this was really to start to think about how do we prioritize those actions. And this gives us ten ways to start to think about it. Drawing on, experiences from UK policymakers and Australian government policymakers that we spoke to.
00:19:49:26 - 00:20:25:04
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And these are the types of things they were saying, but really, the one that the I'm saying now that should stand out is it should be effective at the population level, the, the action that we're, that we're lobbying for and asking for should work. That's another realization. Over the course of those years, I've gone through, you know, ten years, 15 years doing this physical activity thing, learning more and more and there's loads of things we could potentially do, hundreds of actions, but let's focus on those that have the most impact.
00:20:25:06 - 00:20:47:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And and I've been at this for 35 years. And I can tell you that really, you know, when I was first starting out, it was really all about personal responsibility. And so it was, you know, and that's kind of a form of victim blaming of, of saying, well, hey, this is this is your own fault.
00:20:47:06 - 00:21:19:26
John Simmerman
You know, you need to be able to do that. But at the same time, my entire, you know, career, the first career that I had for the first 15 years was designing an environment that would support that healthy, active lifestyle. And so even though we were helping people at the individual level and then at the corporate level and then at the societal level, it didn't work unless we created an environment which supported and made it easy for them to to basically, choose a healthier lifestyle.
00:21:19:28 - 00:21:59:19
John Simmerman
So again, in my terminology, what I, the phrasing that I'm using is I look at the world through the lens of seeing activity assets. And so when I see, you know, things in the physical realm like that, you know, that gym or the, the pathway or the protected bike lanes, these are the types of things that are like, oh, hey, this is going to encourage more people to live a healthy, active lifestyle conveniently, because, hey, just, at the end of the block, there's a wonderful public pool that encourages, you know, people to be able to get there and get some physical activity.
00:21:59:19 - 00:22:30:24
John Simmerman
And that's the hardware. The software is all of those other things the awareness activities, the engagement activities, the things that you can prioritize, you know, on a budget like this and say, hey, do we have the funding? Do we have the resources? Do we have the people that can actually engage folks and support them to try to reverse the sedentary lifestyles that we all have become accustomed to because of dot dot dot cars?
00:22:30:27 - 00:22:31:20
John Simmerman
Yep.
00:22:31:22 - 00:22:56:25
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And that individual narrative is still being pushed, right? Yeah. 35 years on, that is that's the narrative. We absolutely need to avoid falling into that trap. And there's some fantastic framing research out there. Frameworks Institute we've got one here. Common cause there's so many New Zealand workshop. There's there's loads of good framing research out there that avoid that bootstraps narrative.
00:22:56:28 - 00:23:25:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Start to think about how do we tackle those, the, the actual things that cause us to be not active or not not to walk or have to drive, or have to be stuck in traffic. So, yeah, I one of the things we talk about in the paper is, what we touch on is that neoliberal wage is the jargony term for this, I suppose, or the academic term around individual narratives.
00:23:25:21 - 00:23:28:27
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But here's our paper. Yeah. So, it was and that's.
00:23:28:29 - 00:23:36:20
John Simmerman
That's huge for number one on the, on the list, there. That's you. That's that's Matthew McLaughlin. This. There you go.
00:23:36:22 - 00:24:07:19
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
That's it. There was way too many Matthews when I was growing up. So I had to pick another name that was actually more in my class or something. So I had had to pick another name. But yeah, Joey bad and Grant, we, we got together. We're from different, parts of world. We've we've all done different types of work, really around physical activity and put our heads together on this paper because for a long time we'd been saying we don't have enemies in physical activity.
00:24:07:22 - 00:24:33:00
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We'd actually been the same. The, and we start this paper off, actually a recent with a bit of a story. We start this paper of where we were, Joey and I was in a conference in, in the in the front row there, like good schoolkids. And we were listening a way and a question was asked from the audience, who are the enemies of physical activity?
00:24:33:00 - 00:24:54:08
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And I can say it wasn't us that put that forward. But the response, from the audience was this really awkward laughter. This really kind of. Well, do we have enemies? Oh, I didn't know we had enemies. And it was kind of. Well, that's that's how it felt to me. And that's what sparked the idea of this paper.
00:24:54:11 - 00:25:46:16
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And we'd actually seen examples in papers from years gone by where people had actually explicitly said physical activity doesn't have enemies. And so what is an enemy? And, you know, okay, so those is either deliberate or, passive. Nonsupport of physical activity policies. So people that are opposed or not actively supporting, and we can think of some industries that come to mind with that, when the housing industry lobbies for more land on the urban fringe, when the road industry, lobbies for more funding for wider roads, more concrete, when we see organizations putting forward maybe certain types of physical activity, maybe the car industry and car manufacturers preferencing certain types
00:25:46:16 - 00:26:12:06
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
of physical activity like sport, and that individual narrative of you can just do it, over and above what will actually change is about, which is just making it convenient for everybody. This isn't kind of, this isn't complicated. I really like, Tom flood idea around the 50 minute Cities concept is, you know, it's, it's just because I'm lazy that I want everything close by, and.
00:26:12:07 - 00:26:38:28
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And that's absolutely right. We just want to be able to get the things that are close by means to be convenient and so the one thing that our paper also, we, we kind of already touched on this, John. But when you were saying there about your work in the past around, creating more active communities and making sure we've got the swimming pool close by and making sure we've got the bike lanes, and I'd been thinking about that, you know, that's all additive.
00:26:39:00 - 00:27:07:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And but we actually have to get political and stop the bad things. For example, there are states in Australia where there is record investment in active transport, record investment in road safety, record investment in all of the things that sound great. Yeah, awesome. But actually we're having worse outcomes than we did before. And maybe we can bring a few of those outcomes up for Perth as well.
00:27:07:17 - 00:27:41:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Touching back on to the longest city in the world, I think there's some, some fantastic, fantastic imagery by a guy called Harry Cunningham on his website. He's done a documentary that I'd highly recommend to your audience to, to find out a little bit about Perth and how we're structured. It the imagery shows, but, to me shows a really bleak, and non connected non social and but why is it like that about is what.
00:27:41:22 - 00:28:08:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah because of our, our laws and our policy documents that say this is the way housing should be developed. You know, these are the setback laws. These are the minimum parking requirements. These are the, this is the allowable height in certain areas. These are the restrictions. If you want to go for stories and more, you've got to install X, y, z expensive fire things.
00:28:08:17 - 00:28:44:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And look, all of, all of those things that I'm saying results in, in developments like this. And I'm sure this is not news to many in the American audience at this podcast, but this this is what we get. And Perth's such a fantastic climate. We have sunshine days nearly all year round. It feels like we have such a tremendous coastline with so it's natural beauty and it's been savaged by the types of development that we're subsidizing.
00:28:44:22 - 00:29:10:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So we do have to get political to, to, to address this. And, you know, I should say that I'm doing this podcast through my role as a researcher and, that uncovering these subsidies and isn't hard when the government reports actually put them out there and say, you know, here's the $8 billion in subsidies for for roads and, yeah, thanks for bringing up Pam.
00:29:10:18 - 00:29:34:21
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Tom's t there. Yeah, I think so. True. You know, we have to set up the laws to make it so that people can be lazy in their 50 minute city, because that the irony of being lazy in your 50 minute city is you're actually going to be more active than, or the population is going to be more active than if we tell people to exercise, will tell people to do more, which we know just doesn't work.
00:29:34:24 - 00:30:00:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Thomas is just brilliant. And of course, he's been on the podcast a couple of times. And his story, of course, is he was previously shaping the narratives. He was an ad executive, for the automobile industry. He did some work with, the launch of Toyota. They're up in Canada and all that. But he's just wonderful at pulling memes together and narratives together.
00:30:00:06 - 00:30:31:13
John Simmerman
And so of course, this says, you know, 15 minute cities, no big conspiracy, just lazy. I'm just lazy. And then up above in the arc, you just I just want to be close to stuff. I want stuff close by. To me, it's not a conspiracy. It really isn't. At least not at that level. Which was what boiled up, a year or so or maybe a couple of years ago there in, in, in Oxford that, this is a conspiracy.
00:30:31:13 - 00:31:02:11
John Simmerman
15 minute cities, they're trying to waffle you into, you know, this this constrained area. And you'll be, you know, you'll break the law if you leave your your little fence. Yes. There's some unfortunate framing to how it was rolled out there, but that's kind of the unfortunate thing that goes back to the narrative. And the theme of the paper is that, you know what?
00:31:02:11 - 00:31:50:29
John Simmerman
We have enemies of physical activity. I mean, really and so and it's just like what you have enemies to a livable community, you know, it's almost beyond belief. And that's why it's hard for us to take a step back, be empathetic with the fact that some people may not really, truly understand, and buy into the misinformation that is put is put out or put forth and, and the we have to be aware of the fact and we talked about this in, in, in with in Grant's interview with dark PR is that there are a very few people that are out there in organizations that are out there that have malicious intent and will shape
00:31:50:29 - 00:32:06:15
John Simmerman
narratives and will push forward dark PR because they've got stuff to sell. I mean, they have a vested interest to do what they do. And if they happen to be a corporation, that's to be beholden to their shareholders.
00:32:06:18 - 00:32:15:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And arguably that's why we we don't blame them. That's their job. And we need to do a better job of stopping them and putting the guardrails on them.
00:32:15:22 - 00:32:41:06
John Simmerman
Yes, exactly. The policy, the policy. And again, that's what the PR really comes down to. If we want to put those guardrails on, you're going to go have to go high up in the chain. To the root of the problem, which is the undue influence that corporations and industry has at the highest levels of political power.
00:32:41:08 - 00:32:42:10
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:42:12 - 00:32:44:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, that's crazy stuff.
00:32:44:05 - 00:33:11:14
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And oh, that's a nice opportunity, John. Maybe to do some some quick fire ones. We've, we've done quite a bit of media work, over the last few years and we've put out a number of articles in the online newspaper, The Conversation, and perhaps we can just bring up some of those and, I think there are some useful talking points, some useful, ideas for the audience, to, to dig into, you know, and so the quickfire style.
00:33:11:16 - 00:33:40:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You gotta love international headlines. I mean, these headlines look a lot like headlines everywhere else. Australia spends $714 per person on roads every year, but just $0.90 goes to walking, wheeling, cycling and of course, wheeling. Let's, you know, we talk walking and biking all the time. But again, to your point, we have a tremendous number of people who are non drivers.
00:33:40:16 - 00:34:05:29
John Simmerman
And there's a variety of different reasons including, you know, many people who are not able to drive, but they make it around with assistive devices, wheelchairs and other types of mobility devices. So I love walking, wheeling and cycling and, you know, trying to really let us know that it's not just about those guys on bikes, especially the sporty guys, you know.
00:34:06:02 - 00:34:29:11
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I think this one's a two fold thing. This one's saying, well, hang on, $0.90 for, you know, walking and cycling, that's a problem in and of itself. Sure. The organization that I've been doing some work with, better Street in Australia, they have a position that it should be around $15 for per person, and that's that's absolutely fine.
00:34:29:18 - 00:34:45:24
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But it's a big, for the amount we spend on roads is so high, even if we get the active transport up to $15, it's not really going far enough. Not going far enough. Let's call it as it is, is.
00:34:46:00 - 00:34:50:25
John Simmerman
Because you're still subsidizing that way of travel. Yes.
00:34:50:28 - 00:35:18:07
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
That's it. And we know that the more roads we have, the more road capacity we have. The further the population drives, the more road deaths we get, the more pollution we get. And that's because we're forced into it. The that is the most convenient option to get around when that's what's built, that's what people use. And so yeah, we talk a little in this article, about other countries and what they're doing.
00:35:18:09 - 00:35:42:19
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We don't, we don't necessarily call out as perhaps as strongly as we could here. And again, this is what I'm saying about the evolution of our thinking is, you know, holding out more strongly the funding for the roads and actually saying, you know, have we gone far enough with cutting that because, yeah, there's a there's a redirecting of the road budget, which I think is a really nice frame.
00:35:42:21 - 00:36:23:28
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So we know that when we say redirecting support from community goes up, we have a report called the What Australia Wants survey in Australia. And it surveys 3000 Australians. That report found that the support for redirecting from road funding to walking and cycling was really high, over well over two thirds. I believe, so that these those types of framing and subtleties that we can build on and get galvanized, a movement behind galvanized people that aren't just interested in the walk in the cycling but are interested in those better towns, better streets.
00:36:23:28 - 00:36:51:00
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
For whatever reason, it is, if it's because they, have mental health challenges and they need those quiet spaces, if it's the population problem of air pollution, if it's the population problem, one that doesn't get talked about enough but is a major health concern, is noise pollution. Noisy city from from cars and a road traffic noise.
00:36:51:02 - 00:37:31:13
John Simmerman
And here's a question for you. Yeah. In fact we'll go to this, you know, graph that's in the in the story here. And, and we see things like this all the time. You know, these are the financial benefits from walking and cycling etc.. And one of the frustrations that that we have in this world of trying to create more livable places and get support, garner support for that is oftentimes these types of statistics just fall flat because it doesn't mean anything to them personally.
00:37:31:15 - 00:37:56:01
John Simmerman
You know, when somebody is reading this out in the newspaper and again, this is a this is an article in a, in a, in a, in a paper, I mean, or on the conversation and somebody say taking a look at this and reading this, it doesn't really resonate to them personally of saying, oh, my life is going to be better because this financial economic benefit is to me.
00:37:56:03 - 00:38:22:08
John Simmerman
And so that's one of the main challenges because it's very, the benefits to being able to have the convenience and comfort of reaching for the car keys and very little friction to be able to drive everywhere for everything that has an immediate hit of, oh, this is this is efficient and functional and and easy to do. I'm going to keep doing this.
00:38:22:10 - 00:38:48:29
John Simmerman
And it's only when there's lots of friction points, like maybe there's gridlock or maybe there's, you know, additional taxes or it's really expensive to park, in, in my destinations, the do we as drivers start to think, yeah, God, it's not that far. I mean, gosh, it's that's all that's less than ten kilometers. You know, it's a beautiful day.
00:38:48:29 - 00:38:56:01
John Simmerman
I think I'm gonna take the beautiful route to. I'm gonna go on the river route or whatever.
00:38:56:03 - 00:39:04:19
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I know what I'm getting. Yeah, absolutely. Those policies have got to be stacked up. You know, those parking subsidies, one. That's that's. Those are all.
00:39:04:24 - 00:39:07:23
John Simmerman
Those are all point to policies. Yes yes.
00:39:07:25 - 00:39:39:05
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yes. Yeah. And look, I put my academic car back on and go, you know, it sounds like the, the old academic thing to say, but there is research out there that shows what framing techniques we should use and which ones we shouldn't. And it is again, it's I'm on that learning journey with colleagues here about the importance of framing and how we do it best, because it's so important and we hear the importance of starting with values.
00:39:39:05 - 00:39:58:09
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
If we're speaking in the media or we're speaking to friends that aren't necessarily sort of self-professed advocates or, or people like that, that, that they sign points home with, well, what do we all want? What do we all want? We all want to live in convenient town, easy to get around, not too noisy. We've got friends close by.
00:39:58:09 - 00:40:20:22
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We're socially connected. The school that our kids go to is great. And around the corner. We've got a hospital. We've got access that doesn't cost too much. All of those things that we all want. And then start with that because we've got everybody on the same page there. And then it's about how do we get there and starting to shape away from bootstraps and towards what actually is the thing that's stopping it.
00:40:20:22 - 00:40:47:25
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And sometimes that's about giving community control again of what is built for them. And all the communities here in Perth, for example, do they want the types of developments that we brought up in the images before from Harry Cunningham? Do they want that? They don't. That's that's what they said in the thing. They don't feel connected. They're spread apart.
00:40:47:25 - 00:41:09:08
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Their friends are all over the place. And, yeah. So, so important that we tackle those other things. One of the other ones that we've done is a is around space. We've done a bit of work on speed. A couple of our different articles on speed and speed limit, and I really like the global movement towards vertical and our speed limits is fantastic.
00:41:09:08 - 00:41:37:14
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We've seen great benefits, or in American context, 20 miles an hour. And in a UK context, the Wales example that we're seeing more data coming out of recently, just so many roads safety, air pollution benefits, London data. This is the types of things we need to lean into and learn from, because these are upstream policies that are making a big difference to communities.
00:41:37:16 - 00:42:11:13
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But but actually not making a huge difference to, impacting other industries. So there's obviously industry opposition. Here's, here's an, here's, aligned to that suppose and speed limits is we actually have the technology to stop people from speeding at full stop. And this we've got a little graphic. If you scroll down, scroll down into this one that shows that this technology exists or will exist very soon to be able to, to stop, people going over the speed limit.
00:42:11:15 - 00:42:16:04
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So we framed it as, of course, you'll never get a speeding fine again, but it.
00:42:16:05 - 00:42:36:11
John Simmerman
Will. And that's, that speaks to that speaks to what? What does this do for me? Oh, I don't want another speeding. Fine. And the built environment is such that it, it, it is a, you know, it's encouraging me to, to drive faster and faster and faster. Yeah. I mean, here we go. Let's let's lean it. Let's lean into technology a little bit.
00:42:36:11 - 00:42:38:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. Well, well.
00:42:38:23 - 00:43:03:21
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And that's only if we not a border into what, what Grant would call a magic solution. Yes. Yes, exactly. It's really important that we consider can this be done and is it going to be effective if we can speed it maximum speed. This I me do on e-scooters in some jurisdictions, if we can actually stop people from speeding, that's going to have road safety benefits.
00:43:03:23 - 00:43:31:26
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But it's not going far enough. Again, we still got up to these two driving. We're still going to have people journeys. It's like the autonomous car thing. So is it my top priority action a couple of years on from writing that article? Probably not. And so that's the evolution in my thinking. I just I suppose I'm just being honest with the audience here in the, you know, if you're watching this and it's difficult to watch, I think that's because because you feel conflicted at points, maybe you don't believe certain bits.
00:43:31:26 - 00:43:56:01
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I mean, all of what we're saying, these evidence, all of what was saying about the misinformation, all of what we're saying about framing being so important, all of what we're saying about enemies and industries undermining is all evidence, but it's uncomfortable because maybe it's new. And that's certainly how I felt to start with as I was getting into this and kind of looking at this in more detail, because it's challenging those assumptions that we hold.
00:43:56:01 - 00:44:17:08
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I don't know about you jump, but that's how I feel when new stuff comes to me. It it's like, okay, I have to take a breath, think about it. What does the evidence say on this? Was I wrong? And sometimes just admitting, well, actually, that wouldn't be my top priority action. Now. And, Yeah.
00:44:17:11 - 00:44:45:28
John Simmerman
Well, what I love about this particular title of this, article that you wrote, back in May of 2024 is, is there is that assumption, too? You know, a lot of people just don't even think about traffic fatalities and serious injuries and crashes. You know, here in the United States, we're talking about the size of, the impact is, is about like an air jet, an airliner crashing every single day.
00:44:45:28 - 00:45:10:17
John Simmerman
About 115 people die on on US roadways every single day. Most people don't know that. It's just not talked about. I mean, it's it's suppressed in the media, maybe not suppressed outwardly, but it's just it doesn't lead. It doesn't lead. The news that, you know, that happens if a jet crashes, it leads to the news. Same your life.
00:45:10:19 - 00:45:11:10
John Simmerman
Yes.
00:45:11:13 - 00:45:34:08
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
The area Air India crash recently. It's rather crude, but I looked at the data that day because I was very interested in it. It was getting so much coverage. The Air India crash. Rightly so. You know, lots of people died. Tragic. But the same day, twice as many people died. I think it was twice. It was definitely at least twice.
00:45:34:10 - 00:45:37:11
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
As many people died on Indian routes.
00:45:37:14 - 00:46:07:16
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. And so the step one is people just don't have the awareness. Step two, if they do have the awareness and maybe they've been affected personally, someone in their family, you know, has suffered, a horrific crash, serious injuries or fatality. Then they just are like, you know, TB John, don't you understand? This is the cost of of living in a modern society.
00:46:07:16 - 00:46:28:27
John Simmerman
You know, we got to get to the restore. And this is how we get around, and this is what we do. And because we're in the longest city, you know, we drive many, many, many kilometers every single day. So our risk is, is greater because we know that the more you drive, the more likely it is something's going to happen.
00:46:29:00 - 00:46:48:13
John Simmerman
There's a volume effect there. And so I love this title because it, it sort of dispels the other, you know, one of the other frames that that, you know, comes up in Grant's book is that, you know, hey, you just can't do anything about it. I mean, this is you just have to accept that this is what it is.
00:46:48:16 - 00:47:14:28
John Simmerman
You know, there's no problem here. You know, you look look elsewhere. You know, there's nothing here. You know, it's like the wizard behind the curtain is. No, no, no, look elsewhere. There's nothing behind here. But yes, I love the fact that you're pointing out that, yes, many cities have achieved this. How have they achieved it? And then you dive into some of that information here.
00:47:15:00 - 00:47:38:06
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And not many have achieved it multiple times as well. So it's not kind of like by accident. The Helsinki Helsinki example most recently, I, again, I'm gonna hone in on Self-critique because I think, again, it's important some of the, you know, you see from some of the subheadings we've got here that we don't go in hard enough on the need for less road capacity.
00:47:38:08 - 00:47:39:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.
00:47:40:00 - 00:48:15:01
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
That, that, that like you said before, road capacity and vehicle kilometers traveled or vehicle miles traveled a lot. And then the flow on effect of road safety is huge. And of course, there's two ways of dinner you can deal with, the existing infrastructure. And how do we make that safer and that safer speed limit, potentially limiting cars if, if that technology becomes available, are making street slower, introducing things like modal filters, which perhaps we can talk about and bring up in a second, we can do all of those things.
00:48:15:01 - 00:48:47:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But if we don't actually tackle the fundamental, we've actually got a road budget that to make, make, our walking and cycling budget look like spare change. That's where we've got the problem. And it actually is stacks and stacks, $39 billion a year. In Australia, we only have a population of 26 million. So, you know, it's an enormous amount of spending on roads to distant, far flung places that subsidizes housing on the urban fringes.
00:48:47:18 - 00:49:07:09
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And this circular problem of industries getting more and more funding for that. Ya and so forth. But of course we have got some solutions like the speed limit, say the speed limit, 30 kilometer now movement that can be implemented on current infrastructure. And I think one of the lowest possible.
00:49:07:11 - 00:49:35:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, I, I'd love for us to, to, to you know we're we're kind of getting short on time here. I think you have some wonderful graphics and, and, images because the other thing that people have a hard time imagining is how could my street look different? And, you know, because. Oh, well, you know, of course, we're driving because this is what we have and this is the way it's always going to be.
00:49:35:20 - 00:50:10:24
John Simmerman
We talked about the enormous amount of money that is budgeted for roadways in the United States. When we look at the, huge budget that is set aside for roadways, it's almost always for new infrastructure and capacity increase. It's not even for maintenance, because going back to the strong towns, you know, argument and what Chad talks about is that, you know, we basically do a deal, do do a deal with the devil in the sense of, oh, we get all this federal money to build up all this infrastructure.
00:50:11:02 - 00:50:47:07
John Simmerman
And then, oh, that's right, we have to figure out a way how to maintain it. And so in general, that big bucket of money, that $714 per person per year is almost always prioritizing new infrastructure, not the maintenance and upkeep of the potholes and things of that nature. And that's where many communities and probably this community there in Perth, if you're continuing to expand further and further out, then, you know, yeah, those new roads are fantastic.
00:50:47:07 - 00:51:29:13
John Simmerman
They're in great condition, but guaranteed there's potholes in the oldest, you know, the ones that are several life cycles. You know, back in terms of, you know, yeah they they need to be completely replaced and that those moneys are much harder. So I wanted to point that out as we then shift gears to, to help people imagine how their street can be a little bit different, because if you're imagining a street that is, you know, going to be safe for kids and now you're a parent, you're you're really honing in on this is how can that area, how can the public realm right outside of my door be more conducive to my child?
00:51:29:15 - 00:51:35:15
John Simmerman
And so let's take a look at and have you narrate this as as we go through these.
00:51:35:18 - 00:51:54:19
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So this is a street that I actually used to live on. And so we've done these sliding images. They're freely available should people want to use them. But this is a street in Perth. Needs to the airport. So people wanting to Google Perth and get a bit of a light, a lamp. And it's actually a classic, I don't know, the American terminology.
00:51:54:21 - 00:51:56:26
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Do you still use the term room?
00:51:56:29 - 00:52:04:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's mostly that's mostly a UK thing. But yeah I mean yeah. Cut through traffic rat running. Yes. Yeah.
00:52:04:11 - 00:52:30:04
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Through rats run. Yeah yeah. That story that's my back I'm from the UK coming through. Yeah. So this is a classic rat run through to the airport. People will pull off the highway and sneak through the back roads, and we used to live on this road, and so that's why I chose this one as an example. You can see quite wide road, 3.5m lane width, which is huge, footpath on one side which is very narrow, very bleak.
00:52:30:04 - 00:52:52:19
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Not a lot of trees. So what does it look like if we remove a bit of the concrete, add grass back in? Perth is a very hot climate. But it doesn't mean that we don't have a water sources to, to to to create places like this. It is doable. We have got streets that look like this in our older suburbs.
00:52:52:22 - 00:53:19:02
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And this is a modal filter, I don't know, here's here's another example, a modal filter. Slightly obviously a lot less to it. And it just cuts off that rat running in traffic, which people will also. People have heard about these before, but they're cheap is what I'm getting at. That local the, the things that help create the sort of livable neighborhoods.
00:53:19:05 - 00:53:26:28
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Everybody can get to their house by car, but it might be a little bit less convenient than if you're on a bike or walking.
00:53:27:00 - 00:53:48:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, it sounds like what you're what you're proposing here is, if we have a slightly, I think, more beautiful version of this one. Yeah, there's a slightly more beautiful version. Yeah, because it could be the first version of it is, you know, lighter, quicker, cheaper. You know, we're just going to get this this down.
00:53:48:22 - 00:54:03:02
John Simmerman
We can get it down earlier. We can demonstrate and show the effectiveness, get the support of the community, and then you can always come in and make it a little bit more beautiful and a little bit more substantial.
00:54:03:04 - 00:54:31:04
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Sure, sure. And we've got these in in Western Australia, these have existed from early developments in the 1780s, 90s. We built them in the 2000. And now we're starting to go, okay, how do we retrofit these into major rat running streets. But it it goes beyond the major rat running streets. We did an article on the super blocks of Barcelona, and obviously there's the density of those super blocks that really support the walkable environments.
00:54:31:04 - 00:55:03:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But those those super blocks had similar designs with preventing through traffic and right turn on the old left turn only. And we applied that to the. It's basically going beyond one modal filter towards multiple, you know. Yeah, we've got this. This is outside a school in Melbourne. Yeah. It this is a really difficult place for kids to be picked up because there's all of that car parking.
00:55:03:22 - 00:55:22:01
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We're learning from the school streets of Paris here. One arguing, looking at it now is that the lane width is still extremely wide. Could we have narrowed those for you to to prevent cross traffic? Yeah, sure. We could have done. Do we even need through traffic outside of the school? That will depend on the contact.
00:55:22:03 - 00:55:53:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Well, probably not not. It's probably not required. So, yeah, I think, really looking at okay, everybody can get to their house by car if they, if they need to. But how do we make it a little bit more sticky? And that's what Helsinki, story that was, you know, reading about and some of the research that they've been doing about why they had zero road that they made driving the less convenient option at the same time making the walking and cycling the more convenient option.
00:55:53:24 - 00:56:13:12
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And that's just the political reality. We I think, embracing a political mess and saying, oh no, we can just do it by doing more bike lanes and more good stuff and trees really ignores the reality that we actually do need less of the bad stuff. At the same time, that will fund more good stuff.
00:56:13:15 - 00:56:13:25
John Simmerman
Right?
00:56:13:28 - 00:56:30:29
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So, here's an example from Freemantle. We've just put a what it would look like to put a pipeline. Generally speaking, you're right. The images bring the story to life of people, and we could show these to decision makers and say, hey, this is what it would look like. They're relatively low cost to make.
00:56:31:01 - 00:56:37:14
John Simmerman
And it doesn't. And it doesn't seem like it's too radical, you know? No, this is this.
00:56:37:14 - 00:56:38:17
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Example or this.
00:56:38:20 - 00:56:53:10
John Simmerman
Is like, yeah, this is this is like, hey, this is our first step. This is sort of like a tactical urbanism sort of approach here. This isn't too radical. Let's do this is our first step. See see what that's like boom boom boom.
00:56:53:10 - 00:57:00:08
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But I think the argument would be that I think sometimes that's a weakness. Sure. As. But you know, because.
00:57:00:10 - 00:57:26:25
John Simmerman
You know, because if, if you know, it's just like that, that modal filter. Here's the quick and easy version of it. And you know, what's nice about using those materials is they're lighter, quicker, cheaper. You can you can sort of adjust them, etc.. But you can always come in and say, you know, once the behavior has started to change and the support of the community is like, yes, love this.
00:57:26:28 - 00:57:44:19
John Simmerman
Now let's make it more beautiful. Because, you know, really those flex posts are kind of ugly. So you end up planting those trees there. Same here. You start off with something lighter, quicker, cheaper, cheaper, maybe for a season or two and like, yeah, no, we love this. Okay, let's go to the next version of this.
00:57:44:22 - 00:58:07:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But yeah, yeah yeah. And and I think the same applies. But this is one street and say we did the second version with the red concrete. If we did that in this one place that that then helps justify and another local suburb. And so there is, there is an argument to that, but it is that incrementalism approach.
00:58:07:15 - 00:58:31:00
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And I think being bold from the start, and actually I think looking at the two images, the one where there's the more simple design and this one here, it's obviously the same street, it actually does highlight that to do things properly is going to make a much bigger difference. And, you know, of course we can start with the tactical urbanism stuff, but let's be bold in what we asked for.
00:58:31:00 - 00:59:05:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And this is something that Grant and I have talked about a lot. But there is this argument that incrementalism will just get stuck at step one. I've seen these parklets removed from other areas and, yeah, I think this one in Wollongong, in New South Wales, it used as a bit of a story through the town center, but I believe that there is an opportunity to route majority of traffic around the outside and to create, a lovely, pleasant shopping street.
00:59:05:24 - 00:59:35:16
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So we're bringing up some shopping street examples here. We had the housing street example before this is Shopping Street. I believe we've added density into this one because we really wanted to underscore that, you know, this is a this is an inner city suburb of Perth. It is zoned for higher density. But because of the stop these for urban fringe development, developers don't want to touch it because it doesn't stack up as much as the urban fringe developments.
00:59:35:19 - 00:59:44:06
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
So yeah, this is layered of what a what a lovely town center it currently is. But while we could make it so much better by, well, in, you know, it's.
00:59:44:06 - 01:00:08:02
John Simmerman
Something you people. Yeah. Something you said earlier really comes to life with both of these most recent examples here is you also see, you know, the, the planting of more trees and bringing more green elements in and really bringing that, heat island effect down. Because as you mentioned, it's a hot environment. It's a warm environment there.
01:00:08:02 - 01:00:19:17
John Simmerman
And so heat stress is a huge, huge factor in being able to counter that with you know, decreasing the amount of, you know, pavement period.
01:00:19:19 - 01:00:25:17
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
You. I don't know whether you've had Lucy Saunders on the podcast from the UK.
01:00:25:19 - 01:00:27:03
John Simmerman
Not yet. Yeah.
01:00:27:10 - 01:00:56:00
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
No. There we go. Potential next guest. Lucy is the leads the Healthy street organization. They do some fantastic work that I think it just really made me think when you were saying about, you know, the shade element. Lucy talks a lot about streets that are not too noisy, that people feel safe to cross, that have shade, that are pleasant and provide tools that both community can use.
01:00:56:00 - 01:01:06:25
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
But also engineers and decision makers. And all of these tools are used to help us to get that change that we need. Yeah.
01:01:06:28 - 01:01:27:22
John Simmerman
So when when you're looking at these, these examples here in getting back to, you know, your desire to like get things done, how do people respond when they see these things? You know, when we're like, oh, tabby, now I see what you mean.
01:01:27:25 - 01:01:45:11
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
It it has been like that in presentations for sure. Yeah. Okay. Right. I see I see what you're saying. I've shown them to to friends who like, what do you do for work? You're the bike lane guy, right? Like, is that all you want? I'm like, no, I'm not the bike lane guy. In fact, this is not really about bike lanes at all.
01:01:45:13 - 01:02:09:18
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
This is about streets that you and I would love to go and have a coffee on. The. You and I would love to cross that. Would love to live on. Think about the suburbs or the holiday destinations that we go to, that are always walkable. They're always green. The places that we enjoy spending time in generally have less concrete and less cars, and we have to call that out.
01:02:09:20 - 01:02:27:14
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
And positive message framing would say, I should say more green space and more people walking and cycling. I disagree to some extent when we're talking about this, we have to call out what we need to stop.
01:02:27:17 - 01:02:38:02
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
When we talking to other people, I think we have to call out this amount of concrete here, creating all this space. Well then lead into we create the green space. Yeah.
01:02:38:04 - 01:03:08:19
John Simmerman
So here's here's here it is a subtle, subtle change. But here's the challenge now because going back to the controversy that we talked about earlier with the 15 minute City, is that when we use that sort of language and it's sort of boldly in your face, it also, you know, makes people who are caught in that system, who live in car dependency and don't really have a choice.
01:03:08:22 - 01:03:32:25
John Simmerman
It makes it feel, makes them feel like they are being attacked. And then they're really susceptible for buying into the conspiracy theories and believing that this is a war on cars and by proxy, a war on me. You want to take my car away from me? You want it because you just said it to be. You want to have less concrete and you want to have less.
01:03:32:28 - 01:03:40:17
John Simmerman
You know, opportunity and fewer opportunities for parking. You're you're the enemy now to be.
01:03:40:19 - 01:04:12:13
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
I think that's why the framing stuff's really good. We start with those values. We say, what do we all want? And then we move into a really, really tight and clear single sentence that says what needs to change. And I think if we're talking about, for example, if we pick a certain policy that needs to change in, Australian context, we have density laws that mean that communities are hampered and can't build what they want to build.
01:04:12:15 - 01:04:28:22
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
They don't have control. And so this is a sort of give community control of places that they want to build. Communities want this. They're telling us they want this. Make the laws, make the policies that support that.
01:04:28:25 - 01:04:49:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and and I'm glad you framed it in that way. Is, is that you phrased it in that way and it's about the framing and it's about really delivering the message in such a way that, yes, we're calling things out. We're saying that this is what we need. We need fewer drivers, we need fewer cars, you know, choking our roads.
01:04:49:05 - 01:05:16:00
John Simmerman
We need less infrastructure focusing in on that. But it doesn't need to be, something that is, is threatening to people because if we also frame it in such a way that even drivers want fewer drivers in front of them. So for those people who really must drive, you know, they would love to have less, fewer drivers in front of them as well.
01:05:16:00 - 01:05:36:10
John Simmerman
So there's, there is that benefits of being able to to, you know, do that and deliver that message in such a way that, you know, you know, really kind of like hones in on the master that we talked about earlier. And Tom flood, you know, of bicycles deliver the freedom that, you know, the auto advertisement, you know, promises.
01:05:36:12 - 01:05:55:10
John Simmerman
That's kind of what we have to do is we have to be able to tell the message in such a way that is not threatening to individuals, but really helps tell the story of, hey, this is a major problem that we have to have, and the only way that we can get to this is we have to make some big changes.
01:05:55:12 - 01:06:11:13
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the bit that perhaps I didn't do before. And you point out really important when we do the values page and we say we all want to live in towns that look like this, that are walkable, old, socially connected. That's the first piece. The second piece is we need to change this law.
01:06:11:20 - 01:06:36:28
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
That means that communities don't get the communities that they want. This law is restricting communities from what they want. This will lead to less concrete and more trees. And that's what communities want. Circle back round to the values and what a what a story telling approach that is. It really does help, but it's tough. Hey, I'm still like everybody that's in this world.
01:06:36:28 - 01:06:55:20
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
We're all still practicing, learning. I do a lot of like radio interviews, media stuff, and I'm continually like trying to refine that skill set because it's so important in the framing, build community, support. Right. And that's yeah.
01:06:55:23 - 01:07:36:27
John Simmerman
We have that same background. And so, you know, the background is, you know, the sciences. You know, we've this is what we've studied. We understand what needs to happen from a disease prevention perspective and from a, from an exercise physiology perspective. Again, you know, listing out those, those benefits in those graphs doesn't do anything to motivate people, but being able to tell that narrative and that story, just like that story arc that you said in bringing it back and saying, I mean, that's I joke about it, you know, and say, you know, that I'm a health promotion professional with 35 years of experience turned YouTuber because I saw the need about a decade ago
01:07:36:27 - 01:07:57:08
John Simmerman
of being able to shape the narrative and tell storytelling and have wonderful conversations with the folks who are out there doing things in the world and researching it. And you're doing both to the cop. And thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. This has been such a joy and pleasure.
01:07:57:10 - 01:07:59:15
Dr. Tepi Mclaughlin
Thank you so much for having us on jump! Cheers.
01:07:59:19 - 01:08:14:26
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with champion. If you did, please hit 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 the subscription button down below and ring that notification bell.
01:08:14:29 - 01:08:39:25
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on Active Towns, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Hey, super easy to do. You can just click on the join button right here on YouTube. You can also leave a YouTube super! Thanks for this particular video. As well as navigating 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.
01:08:39:28 - 01:09:00:16
John Simmerman
Patrons do get early and ad free access to all this video content, and you can also make a contribution to the nonprofit. Hey, every little bit adds up and is very much appreciated. Okay, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness.
01:09:00:19 - 01:09:18:04
John Simmerman
Cheers! And again, just want to send a huge thank you to all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel financially via YouTube memberships YouTube super thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and joining my Patreon. Every little bit adds up and is very much appreciated. Thank you all so much.