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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 - 00:00:29:12
Bryn Grunwald
E-bikes also importantly, allow people to exist without a car. I do know people who have sold a car because they've gotten to e-bikes or people who don't have a car because they have e-bikes and that probably saves them a lot of money and allows them, first of all, more choices on where to live because they don't then have to worry about parking so much and it allows them to have a bit more flexibility in their budget because they're not paying for car insurance or gas or fueling or whatever the various associated costs are.
00:00:29:14 - 00:00:54:18
John Simmerman
Hey everyone welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Bryn Grunwald from RMI in Boulder, Colorado. And we're going to be talking about e-bikes and the e-bike calculator, the benefits calculator that they have come up with there at RMI. Let's get right to it with Bryn. Bryn. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns Podcast.
00:00:54:20 - 00:00:57:28
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, thank you for having me here. Today is a great order.
00:00:58:00 - 00:01:19:10
John Simmerman
Well, I am super stoked to chat with you. You are my second RMI person to have on. I did have been whole and on the audio only version many, many years ago, or I shouldn't say many years ago, a couple of years ago. Anyways. In fact I was in Boulder and we did that that interview in person. So that was a lot of fun.
00:01:19:17 - 00:01:26:24
John Simmerman
But what don't I have? You just kind of give a real quick snapshot introduction. Who is Brian?
00:01:26:27 - 00:02:03:12
Bryn Grunwald
Well, my name is Bryn Grunwald. I am a senior associate on RMI's carbon free transportation team, where I do a lot of work, primarily around e-bikes, Micro-mobility more broadly and shifting people out of car trips and on to other forms of transportation. I'm from Boulder, Colorado, and I continue to live in Boulder, Colorado, where I think it's a great example of Micromobility broadly because Boulder makes it a very easy place to not have to own multiple vehicles.
00:02:03:14 - 00:02:27:03
Bryn Grunwald
My partner and I each own an e-bike and share a car. A 2010 Toyota Camry. And we're able to get around pretty well with that, which I think has represented a lot of savings and just also options to the two of us more broadly, I'm into a lot of things like hiking, reading and just generally being pretty active.
00:02:27:03 - 00:02:31:10
Bryn Grunwald
So this kind of podcast is great for that kind of discussion.
00:02:31:13 - 00:02:56:00
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great. And yeah, that's all. I'm always fascinated and delighted to interview people who are from the Boulder area and in you and I, you were talking about this before we hit the record button that I used to live in Boulder. I was there in the mid 1990s to just about 2004 or 25 ish before moving to Hawaii.
00:02:56:03 - 00:03:15:02
John Simmerman
But talk a little bit about that growing up in on the front Range area there in Boulder. And you mentioned before we hit the record button that yeah, you used to get around all the time by bike and originally acoustic bike and then now an e-bike. So what was it like growing up there?
00:03:15:04 - 00:03:31:25
Bryn Grunwald
Honestly, for me it was really nice. Boulder has a lot of off the road bike paths and I think that, I mean, now we know a lot more about the right types of bike lanes and whatnot, but growing up, Boulder was sort of the leader in terms of bike lanes and it was really easy to get around. This isn't a very huge town.
00:03:31:25 - 00:03:52:27
Bryn Grunwald
It's about 25 square miles, so it's pretty easy to bike from one end to another, which I think represented a lot of options to allow young Brynn Little Baby brand to explore. So starting from like age 12 onwards, during the summer, I would just take my bike, an acoustic bike. It was a trek bike and I would just sort of bike off by myself right?
00:03:52:27 - 00:04:13:06
Bryn Grunwald
Like I had a little Nokia phone. It was one of those that could survive being hit with a sledgehammer bike and they would take 20 bucks and then I would just go to the library for the whole day and then bike around. When I went to high school, I went to high school in another town, so I would have to go catch the bus at about 650 in the morning to be able to make it.
00:04:13:08 - 00:04:35:08
Bryn Grunwald
But as I had a single dad, he had to deal with my younger siblings so I would bike myself over to the bus stop, catch the bus, take my bike out and then manage getting home by myself. And this had a lot of, I think, great consequences. For me, consequences isn't quite the right word. Benefits. I had a great mental map of Boulder from a very young age.
00:04:35:08 - 00:05:02:09
Bryn Grunwald
It was pretty easy for me to figure out, Well, I'm here and I need to get here. What's the best ways to do that? And then I also had a lot of independence. And I think it really I kind of like growing up. I then watched the show old enough, and I kind of felt like this was the most American version of old enough, because as I had a single dad, sometimes it was really valuable that I could bike off by myself, even as a middle schooler, to go do things because my dad could then be like, Hey, I'll give you some money.
00:05:02:09 - 00:05:26:04
Bryn Grunwald
Can you go by the grocery store and pick up milk or something we need for dinner? And I would be able to go do that and as I got older, this worked out for going to high school. It worked out for running errands for myself that I needed to run or when I like as I got even older, going to my own doctor and dentist program or appointments by myself.
00:05:26:06 - 00:05:47:14
Bryn Grunwald
I found it so easy to get around by a combo of bike and bus actually, that I didn't really bother even thinking about getting my driver's license until I was about 21. I was pretty actively into getting my driver's license. I really did not want to do it. And then I got my my partner and I was like, I probably be too lazy to drive so we can go on dates together.
00:05:47:16 - 00:06:13:28
John Simmerman
Well, you could in the era of especially with e-bikes, which we're going to talk about quite extensively in a little bit, the era of e-bike dates or is really starting to proliferate. And I know our particular E-cargo bike, we have it configured so that there's an extra seat in the back. And so, you know, I could always. Yeah, but my partner Laura on the back and say, okay, let's go, let's go out to dinner.
00:06:14:01 - 00:06:36:02
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah. Unfortunately at the time it was a Star-Crossed love because I lived in Boulder, he lived out in Erie, which is another small town, and it doesn't really have great bike access. So I was like, Well, I want to see this person. I guess I have to drive. So yeah, that that is how transit makes or, or that is how a lack of quality transit makes love hard.
00:06:36:04 - 00:07:00:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. So I pulled up the the map of Boulder on screen here to give the viewing audience just a little bit of a visual to the fact that yes. You know Boulder, I think the joke has always been that, you know, it's like this, you know, whatever it is, 25 square miles or whatever, you know, surrounded by air in a bubble, surrounded by reality.
00:07:00:27 - 00:07:31:18
John Simmerman
And but in reality, you know, Boulder, one of the things that they did was they had, you know, a development boundary line that sort of went around the entire city. They I think at the time they called it a blue line in the city limits, as we see it here, represented in the contiguous area here in the red hash mark really is sort of that development, you know, line which has put constraints on the amount of housing, certainly.
00:07:31:25 - 00:07:54:18
John Simmerman
And then, of course, you add on a layer of zoning codes and all that. It puts even more pressure on affordable housing and all that sort of stuff. But to the point to your point, it's not very big. You can get from, you know, from top to bottom, which is the longest length of of the city, you know, on an easy bike ride.
00:07:54:18 - 00:08:14:07
John Simmerman
It's not that hard to do. And it and whether it's an acoustic bike or an electric bike, it's it's very, very doable. What I think is so cool about your story though, too, and I can attest that this is this is a real thing because I lived there for a decade and I spent a couple months in Boulder every year.
00:08:14:07 - 00:08:35:11
John Simmerman
I spent a lot of time in Boulder and have even when I've moved away, is that, yes, the kids use transit. They totally do when I jump on the bus because sometimes I'll be in town and won't have access to a car. I'll just have my bike with me. But if I need to go somewhere by bus, I jump on the bus and I'm like, look at this.
00:08:35:13 - 00:09:06:12
John Simmerman
I've got middle school kids, I got high school kids, I get college kids on the bus or TDI getting around town. They have a couple of the bus lines that are named fun things like the hop and the skip and the jump and all that. Talk a little more about that because I think that that's that's a really important factor that you brought up, is that you started navigating your city and understanding and there's a certain amount of self-efficacy that gets built and confidence that gets built for, you know, a young adult.
00:09:06:14 - 00:09:11:16
John Simmerman
And then you're getting into the young adult stage of being able to get around by yourself.
00:09:11:19 - 00:09:37:14
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, I think that when you have a system where people are very dependent on cars to get around, right. And we know a lot of car trips are pretty short, but there's a lot of factors that make cars sort of the default option, right? Lack of sidewalks, fear for safety in terms of getting somewhere. It really stunts kids abilities and older folks abilities to make independent choices for how they're going to spend their time.
00:09:37:16 - 00:10:03:22
Bryn Grunwald
And when you're a caretaker, that puts a lot of burden on you because then you're the person who has to take the people somewhere. And it doesn't necessarily matter if it's incredibly close, right? Like, there's a lot of things that can make car traffic really slow, a build up, for example, people getting into accidents, sudden squalls, bad weather, like we just recently had in Colorado, potholes, because people tend to then try to drive to avoid the potholes so they don't damage their tires.
00:10:03:25 - 00:10:23:19
Bryn Grunwald
And I think when you have a system that is, first of all, very easy to set up, right, where people can understand where to go, it's clearly labeled. And then also a culture of safety and also a normalization of people using transit as a default means to get around what you get is a lot more independence from people.
00:10:23:19 - 00:10:42:19
Bryn Grunwald
And that's sort of a neat self-reliance that they can figure out where to go. I remember one time when I was interning in D.C. talking to a coworker about her difficulty because she had to sprint home to get her kids to to class. And that was kind of odd to me because I was like, D.C. has a great transit system.
00:10:42:19 - 00:11:01:02
Bryn Grunwald
And she was like, Yeah, yeah, but I would never let my kids go on that alone. Which was interesting to me because I rode the bus by myself with my younger siblings when I was in middle school and older. Historically has been a very safe area with I think you can have your complaints about RTD, the bus system for a lot of my life has been pretty good.
00:11:01:02 - 00:11:18:27
Bryn Grunwald
You're able to get where you need to go with the combination of walking and biking, and I think that builds out a mental map of where to go. It helps kids understand where they can spend their time, right? They can go to the rec center, for example, to go to their gymnastics class or go swimming. They can go downtown to go to the library.
00:11:19:03 - 00:11:49:22
Bryn Grunwald
They can go with their friends to the comic book store and spend a few hours there. And I think it is a really vital component for children to build that sense of independence, the knowledge of getting around. But I think it's also really great for older people who might not be able to drive or people who are disabled to be able to get around because otherwise they are often limited from making their own decisions on spending their time because they're self reliant on people catering to them basically, and being able to do that.
00:11:49:22 - 00:12:11:17
Bryn Grunwald
And I think that that can be really frustrating because American culture is one that really prioritizes independence and the ability to decide what to do with your own time. So if you're older, for example, like having a reliable transit system with the busses that can go down or up or like have paratransit, that's really valuable for making sure that people are not as lonely and really integrated into the world as well.
00:12:11:20 - 00:12:35:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And you bring up a really good point too, of, you know, really channeling that it's not just good for kids, it's also good for everybody across a wide variety of of age groups. And in fact, depending on the city and the situation, somewhere around 40% of the entire population of the city is somebody who doesn't drive for one reason or another.
00:12:35:15 - 00:12:57:06
John Simmerman
It could be health, it could be, you know, they've aged out of being able to safely drive. It could be that they, you know, are just too young like we were talking about. And so there's lots of different reasons why as well as as Cathy Tuttle likes to say, the past guest on on the podcast, you know, some are doing it.
00:12:57:06 - 00:13:25:01
John Simmerman
They're choosing not to drive. They've made an intention or choice not to drive for a variety of reasons. And so we do sort of have that, you know, reality that, you know, a rather significant number of people, you know, may just not be able to drive or choose not to drive. I want to I was lingering on this because the other thing that you mentioned that was fun that you channeled was the network of Off Street Pathways.
00:13:25:01 - 00:13:56:15
John Simmerman
And that is really, I think, one of the key strengths that the city of Boulder has is this wonderful network of streets, cycle paths and multi-use paths. And they follow along the route in, you know, the creeks, you know, creek beds and all that in various areas. And so we see that we've got a whole bunch of the dark green of following those those repairing corridors.
00:13:56:18 - 00:14:22:16
John Simmerman
And and we also know that we're challenged by some of the and by the way, that since the water is flowing basically west to east, most of the most of these pathways are going from west to east. And we're challenged there in Boulder by having really high quality North-South routes, you know, especially within the street right of way.
00:14:22:18 - 00:14:59:25
John Simmerman
And that's one of the really big challenges that the city of Boulder has had over the years is how to get high quality on street protected bikeways, all ages and abilities, facilities into the environment. And so people are like, Boulder has got to be perfect. And it's like, well, no, it's not perfect that we've got lots of challenges there, but they're working on it and the city is intentionally working through that process to be able to do that so that, you know, truly because as a kid growing up and as a young professional, you know, you want to be able to get on your bike and get to your meaningful destination and feel like
00:14:59:25 - 00:15:26:09
John Simmerman
you have a safe route to do so. You've got that safe route to do so, then you can make that decision. Okay, Do I ride a regular bike? Do I ride a bike? You can you can start becoming empowered. Pardon the pun on that, too. I actually, you know, go about your daily life without having to in your case and in my case, you know, drive an aging internal combustion engine vehicle.
00:15:26:12 - 00:15:53:15
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah. Boulder is definitely getting better. I think a challenge is and there's been a couple of papers about this recently. People, I think, eventually do see the benefit of bike infrastructure, especially productive bike infrastructure. There is a lot of people, as we've talked about earlier, who are just taking short trips. Right. They're just trying to go to the grocery store and or maybe just going out to pick up a snack or something.
00:15:53:18 - 00:16:12:11
Bryn Grunwald
And they don't often need to go very far, but that every person that's on the road in a car is a large amount of space. And in this country, a lot of people take those trips in their car by themselves. It's that's why we have all these campaigns to do carpooling. And that does add to that traffic congestion, right?
00:16:12:12 - 00:16:29:17
Bryn Grunwald
You have more people on the road. You have more people trying to get through the stoplights. You have more people waiting at the stop signs. And inherently there's just not a ton of efficiency gains. You can make it a point. And we also know that you can't widen the roads. That doesn't actually help problems because of the concept of induced demand.
00:16:29:24 - 00:16:58:15
Bryn Grunwald
So instead, if you can offer people who are taking those shorter trips a quicker, more convenient and I would argue more fun way of getting to their destination, then a lot of them, I think, will take it. Not everybody, I don't think everybody wants to bike, but as we've discussed, not everybody wants to or can't drive. And so getting even like 15% of cars off the road all of a sudden means that you're going a lot faster, even if the road is a little bit more narrow because all of a sudden you've protected that bike lane.
00:16:58:15 - 00:17:25:13
Bryn Grunwald
So people are much more secure making that decision. There has been some great work looking at willingness to cycle and I think a majority of people are interested in cycling but have legitimate safety concerns. Not a lot of people want to do the vehicular cycling where they're basically acting as a car, but on a bike. And so the more we protect people, give them the option to make it a safe way of doing it and say, this is going to be fine, this will save you money and it's not going to be any more difficult.
00:17:25:16 - 00:17:57:11
Bryn Grunwald
I think that eventually that will bleed over into the people who see, we built this protected bike lane. But all of a sudden my wait time went down by 2 minutes. I'm all of a sudden able to get through this traffic light that I think has a great impact on people that especially like because people are more willing to bike more often and further when they have an e-bike that really does help get people off the roads and into other modes of transportation, making space for the people who are continuing to drive or taking a bus or some other mode where they're in the road, in a vehicle that has some sort of stronger
00:17:57:11 - 00:17:58:08
Bryn Grunwald
engine.
00:17:58:10 - 00:18:22:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. And you shared the statistic of, you know, a fairly, you know, significant number of trips are in fact short trips. And this is the data from to 2021. And yeah, I mean, that's the real opportunity that we have, is we've got a tremendous number of trips. And again, we're not talking about commute here, folks. We're not saying the commute trip.
00:18:22:24 - 00:18:40:05
John Simmerman
We're saying trips, share of trips. And you mentioned it, you know, going to the grocery store, going to out to meet somebody, you know, running errands, etc.. These are trips. And, you know, maybe some of these trips are trip chaining where you do one trip and then you go to a different destination, then you go to a different destination.
00:18:40:07 - 00:19:05:26
John Simmerman
And that's really, I think, where we start to get into some of the magic of being able to legitimately use the bicycle to be able to open up that world of doing some of these shorter trips, even more empowering in my mind and in more convenient because of the sense of agency that you have to control your own schedule than transit necessarily.
00:19:06:00 - 00:19:39:08
John Simmerman
I see transit being super, super powerful for a lot of those sort of routine trips that we're doing. Like for instance, when I lived in Boulder, I worked in downtown Denver. And so I would, you know, every day get on what was then called the Boulder Express and ride from my nearest, you know, bus stop, which was a walking distance from my home and then make it down to what was then the Market Street station, and then walk the rest of the way to my office, which was in one of the was like am the third floor of one of the towers down there.
00:19:39:10 - 00:19:59:23
John Simmerman
But yeah, so I mean that's one of the things that is so exciting about this new sort of and I say new in quotations and scare quotes here, Opportunity with the E-bike is that it empowers, I think, more and more of these short trips to be handled for these daily trips.
00:19:59:25 - 00:20:19:05
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, it really overcomes that barrier where you're confronted with a hill and you're wearing a nice shirt and you're like, I don't want to bike up that and sweat. But all of a sudden, if you have an e-bike, you can just kick up the power and you can get up that hill, no problem. It also makes it much easier to haul things right, which is a result of trip training, right?
00:20:19:05 - 00:20:45:23
Bryn Grunwald
When you when you're doing training, often what you're doing is running a bunch of errands in sequence. So for example, you're going to the library, you're picking up groceries for dinner, and then maybe you're picking up something from, I don't know, another store along the way home. If you have the ability with a bike to be able to haul all that easily, I think that that becomes a lot more promising, which if you have an acoustic cycle, it's definitely more of a workout.
00:20:45:23 - 00:21:05:11
Bryn Grunwald
But if you have an e-bike, you can just address the power upwards and count for that. So I think it really reduces that barrier to being able to handle it, which I think is a really powerful thing. E-bikes or biking has often been one of those things where you're especially in Boulder, where you're you're viewed as being an exercise fanatic and somebody who's really in shape.
00:21:05:11 - 00:21:37:07
Bryn Grunwald
And I think that when I'm on my e-bike, I don't really view it as the exercising, although that is a nice side benefit of it. I view it as I'm trying to get somewhere and just because I don't have a second car and usually my fiance has the other one and because Boulder has so many off the road bike paths and often I'm going to places where I specifically hate the parking lot, like Trader Joe's, it is faster and easier for me to just handle it by a bike, especially because in Boulder a lot of buildings are required.
00:21:37:07 - 00:21:59:06
Bryn Grunwald
It's in the building code, are required to have bike parking nearby. So I think especially in-hand with building out solid bike infrastructure that feels safe and reliable to people. If we provide bike infrastructure for parking your bike, That's right. By a shop. Also near a security camera. So that way people have less fear of them getting stolen, for example, that all of a sudden becomes a lot more feasible of an option.
00:21:59:06 - 00:22:12:19
Bryn Grunwald
Because when I go to Whole Foods, I can pull straight up to the bike rack. I know there's always space versus when I have to deal with the parking lot. It just turns into a slurry of stress and fear, right? Is that part I confusingly.
00:22:12:21 - 00:22:36:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually glad you mentioned Whole Foods there in Boulder because that's where I shop here locally too. I mean, I happen to ride my bike. I live very close to the Whole Foods Whole Foods World headquarters. So the flagship store and it I love it too, because there's a wonderful bike rack that's right up front is almost always available for me.
00:22:36:01 - 00:23:01:17
John Simmerman
And so I pull right up and park there. But the parking there in that at Whole Foods in many of the different grocery stores that they have in Boulder, oftentimes the bike parking is prominently right up front in many cases. There's also a fixed station there, a bike map there of the bike network in the city. The same in Austin.
00:23:01:17 - 00:23:23:10
John Simmerman
Here they have that prominently featured. So they're leaning into that, which is a great example of a bike friendly city or a bike friendly company that's like encouraging their patrons to actually show up by bike. We're going to have convenient bike parking. We're going to have some amenities for you and some facilities for you to try to encourage that in the security.
00:23:23:10 - 00:23:43:24
John Simmerman
To your point is, is that they're also very visible. These racks are not just tucked away around the corner somewhere where if you're locking up an expensive e-bike, you might be like, my gosh, this isn't going to be there when I get back. You know, it's around this dark and scary corner where, you know, something nefarious might happen to the bike while you're in shopping.
00:23:43:24 - 00:24:08:26
John Simmerman
No, it's right there. It's very visible. And I think that's a very good point. So we've got your landing page for AMI right up here on the front. We did just a quick introduction to it, but why don't you give a little bit of a 30,000 foot you know, snapshot of the organization itself and we'll will dive into, you know, a little bit of the work that you all are doing there.
00:24:08:29 - 00:24:49:05
Bryn Grunwald
Sure. AAM I started in the 1980s by Amory Lovins and he produced a lot of work that basically said energy efficiency is an undervalued tool and we should be trying to do more to take the climate crisis seriously. We now have 600 plus employees spanning a variety of teams. We work on everything from climate to industry to the electricity sector to internationally and essentially our goal is to accelerate the clean energy transition to keep in line with the Paris Climate Accord agreement of staying at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
00:24:49:07 - 00:25:24:09
Bryn Grunwald
So there's a bunch of levers that we're trying to pull for that. So everything from working on policy to tools to financing across geographies so everywhere from the U.S. to China to countries in Africa such as Nigeria. And this touches on a bunch of industries, right? Electricity, transportation, manufacturing, all these various things. We are doing quite a lot of work to accelerate the shift away from old technology ideas and towards new ones in an equitable and clean manner.
00:25:24:11 - 00:26:05:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, and I pulled up the the hour work tab and so there's a couple of of tabs on here that I really hone in on from an active transportation and an active towns perspective. And that is obviously the carbon free transportation sector. And then also the urban transformation section is, is areas where I'm super, super excited about and will click on the carbon free transportation here because this is kind of where you're housed and the studies that you guys are looking into and the research that you guys are working on and looking at what we need to do to to, you know, do what we were just talking about is, you know, seeing what we
00:26:05:13 - 00:26:18:09
John Simmerman
can do to have a little bit of a mode shift on some of those short trips can't are these good opportunities to get them transferred over to a more, you know, a carbon free transportation solution?
00:26:18:11 - 00:26:41:28
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, we do a ton of work across a bunch of different transportation sectors, so trucking is a big one. We also look at how do you electrify passenger fleets and how do you build out the infrastructure for EVs with a particular focus right now and interest in how do you expand their development at multifamily housing right? So if you live in an apartment complex, how do you handle the issues of charging there?
00:26:42:00 - 00:27:16:16
Bryn Grunwald
We also do a lot of work with e-bikes now and looking at how do we cut vehicle use because an e-bike consumes a much less power. So electrifying vehicles is very important. This is something we have to do. However, we have past analysis that shows that if we want to keep to the Paris Climate Accord Accords at the rate that we're going, we not only need to continually electrify our fleet while cleaning up the grid and making sure they run off of clean power, but we also need to reduce the amount that people drive, right?
00:27:16:19 - 00:27:47:15
Bryn Grunwald
Power still produces D The power still consumes natural gas right now, coal, all these other things and so every little bit that you can reduce is really valuable e-bikes because they weigh much less than cars and because it takes so few materials to produce are incredibly efficient and I'll put out a study last year I believe, that found that e-bikes produce 99% fewer operational emissions than a gas car per mile.
00:27:47:18 - 00:28:15:25
Bryn Grunwald
So I don't think that this is going to solve all transportation problems. Right. Nobody's going to be biking 30 miles to their Costco one way. But one person might do that. But I think for a lot of people, it is going to be this proportion of short trips and that's going to have a huge benefit for their finances, but also for the climate because it is such a less intensive means and it will also allow us to build out the grid in a more safe and reliable way.
00:28:15:27 - 00:28:24:21
Bryn Grunwald
E-bikes just don't take as much power. And again, they can't get you as far, but for the short trips you don't necessarily need as much power.
00:28:24:24 - 00:29:02:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I pulled up a couple of different posts here so we'll we'll include the links to all of these these documents in the show notes for the audio only version of this episode as well as in the video description below here on YouTube. And so, folks, you can dive into some of these additional documents and get to some of the research as well as this these particular blog posts is sort of channeled a little bit of the impact on on, you know, emissions and things of that nature.
00:29:02:11 - 00:29:36:18
John Simmerman
And we do know and this is what's being mentioned right here, under point two is the assessing the impact specifically of looking at the city bike and center program and the various things and really getting to the the sort of the the benefits that we see from an emissions perspective. And because one of the things I like to say here on the channel is that, yes, we need to electrify the motor vehicle fleet, but we also need to reduce the number of motor vehicles out on our roads.
00:29:36:20 - 00:30:13:02
John Simmerman
And one of the reasons that we say is that we know that specifically the particulate matter, the PM10 2.5, and that comes primarily from not completely from an only from but primarily from, you know, issues surrounding, you know, tire wear and brake pads and things of that nature. These are incredibly bad for our health and well-being. And so to your point, you sort of alluded to it is that, you know, the the bike or the e-bike is a much smaller vehicle.
00:30:13:05 - 00:30:36:17
John Simmerman
And so the negative impacts of the negative externalities of what little bit of tire wear and what little bit of brake pad wear that we see on a bike is not even comparable to what we see on extremely heavy, especially the current trend of the electric vehicles, the cars that are being built. They have very super heavy electric SUVs and whatnot.
00:30:36:19 - 00:30:49:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, we need to electrify that fleet, but we also need to decrease the number of vehicles. So I like to kind of emphasize that too, is that the e-bikes and the bikes are. Yes.
00:30:49:04 - 00:31:13:04
Bryn Grunwald
Yes, I would concur with that. My master's degree in college, I did a thesis associated with it looking at air quality and took several air quality. Air pollution control classes. So reducing particulate matter is something that I'm particularly interested in. This has a ton of negative health impacts. It increases the likelihood of stroke, it increases the likelihood of heart attack.
00:31:13:06 - 00:31:40:10
Bryn Grunwald
And it's also just not great for the general environment. It seeps into the water as microplastic waste, and that also then proceeds to get inside of our bodies when we drink water or consume produce, for example, that was watered with this microplastic food. So e-bikes are not necessarily 100% PM 2.5 free. I don't know the exact numbers because I don't think there's been a study that looks at this, but they produce far less.
00:31:40:10 - 00:32:06:27
Bryn Grunwald
It's not as heavy as you are. You can. It would be extremely challenging for a person on their e-bike to weigh the same as a vehicle and then achieve the speeds with the stopping power required where you would see similar production of particulate matter. I would imagine. So you would see, I believe, an overall reduction in this pollutant which would have really positive health impacts.
00:32:06:27 - 00:32:36:22
Bryn Grunwald
And that's not even just to get into the impact of the exercise for that you would get e-bikes are not as e-bikes are not as intensely an exercise as an acoustic cycle, but that's part of why people get odd them or and research has found that they are the equivalent of achieving a light workout which for a lot of people would go very far in towards meeting the health and exercise goals that are outlined by the CDC, the Center for Disease Control.
00:32:36:25 - 00:32:58:27
Bryn Grunwald
Many people really struggle to meet the 150 minutes that are outlined in these in these recommendations. And I believe that having cities that promote the ability to bike and support that sort of infrastructure would see more people meeting those goals and seeing a reduction in diseases that are more associated with that lack of exercise.
00:32:58:29 - 00:33:41:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, you know, and 150 they're referring to there is 150 minutes per week of light to moderate physical activity. And you're absolutely right. And we're starting to see now that we're getting more and more people out on bikes, on electric bikes, that we're able to sort of evaluate and and get some estimates back that in actuality, because it's a much more pleasurable experience and quite frankly, it's fun to people are riding more and so they're starting to catch up to that same benefit level of just riding a normal bike because they're riding more and so they're getting more activity in.
00:33:41:24 - 00:33:55:19
John Simmerman
And importantly, they're also much more likely to do it more frequently, more number of days of the week hence being able to hit that 150, you know, minutes mark on a on a per weekly basis.
00:33:55:22 - 00:34:13:21
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, I think it's much harder when that when you have that ability to turn on the power or use the throttle to get going at a stoplight, it's a little bit more difficult to convince yourself that you don't need to bike somewhere because you have all these mechanisms built into the bike where it's, well, this sort of alleviates some of the burden and helps me get going.
00:34:13:21 - 00:34:17:00
Bryn Grunwald
So it becomes just much more of a default choice.
00:34:17:03 - 00:34:48:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And you brought up a good point there too, is that there are many different types of e-bikes. Yes, there are electric assist e-bikes, which is my preference is as a good high quality. My preference is a Bosch powered electric assist bike because I know that that's a upgraded motor and battery system which is much less likely to have fire bursting capabilities and challenges with it.
00:34:48:07 - 00:35:14:26
John Simmerman
And and I do appreciate that boost to get up a steep hill. But at the same, you know, if I can just tone it down a little bit and use more of my own power versus, you know, using a throttle necessarily. So in fact, I don't think I've ever even ridden a throttle bike or if I did, I turn the throttle off because it was just like, this is like a motorcycle to me.
00:35:14:29 - 00:35:35:18
Bryn Grunwald
My bike has a throttle on it. So I use that when I'm waiting at a stoplight, for example, to get moving because it helps me get going because often at street lights you get the walk signal and the light stays red. And then there's a very short time period for you to get into the road, make sure you're visible.
00:35:35:18 - 00:36:00:16
Bryn Grunwald
So for me, at least, having the throttle helps with that. But I think it just really depends on the type of person that the type of bike. And I think it would be interesting down the line to see research on how do people use the different energy settings on their bike. Right. A lot of these bikes do come with varying levels of power output, so mine has everything from eco mode which largely offsets the weight of the bike to level one, level two and then sports mode, right?
00:36:00:20 - 00:36:03:19
Bryn Grunwald
I've never been. It's very smart. It's a little it's a little aggressive.
00:36:03:21 - 00:36:35:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I think our my the Bosch system has, you know, four main systems I think it's eco tour sport and Turbo and I pretty much only use Turbo when I'm going at a really, really steep hill. And boy, do I enjoy having that because it's a very, very heavy cargo bike. So that's good. So we're hanging out here on the the blog post from October 12th, 2023, just this past year about the calculator.
00:36:35:07 - 00:36:40:06
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about the E-bike Impact calculator.
00:36:40:08 - 00:37:05:25
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah. So we started developing this in May 2020 or Yeah, 2022 because this was around the time that Denver had launched their E-bike incentive program. So for I'm sure your listeners are aware of this, but Denver had a program where people could submit and get varying levels of E-bike rebate depending on the type of bike that they were going for, as well as their income status.
00:37:05:28 - 00:37:31:18
Bryn Grunwald
And Denver had a lot of other options at the time for other things, such as heat pumps, for example, or more efficient windows. But the it was the E-bike incentive program that ended up making the news because all the e-bike rebates got claimed within maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, the website crashed. It was this very sudden interest in e-bikes that I think surprised a lot of people and.
00:37:31:23 - 00:37:54:12
Bryn Grunwald
We looked at that and said, That's interesting. This how are people going to use this? What is going to be the climate impact of this? So we started gathering information and we used Replica, which provides data on sort of a breakdown of how are people getting around by different types of modes within their city. Right. So how many people are walking a mile versus biking a mile versus driving a mile?
00:37:54:15 - 00:38:24:02
Bryn Grunwald
And then we started using that to assess, okay, well, what would be the benefits of a shifting vehicle trips over to e-bikes overall, but also pursuing a program like Denver's. So this this calculator was created as a way to sort of demonstrate to cities, the utility of e-bike and e-bike adoption overall. So promoting a culture of e-bikes within the city, but also what would be the impact of the E-bike incentive program more broadly.
00:38:24:02 - 00:38:44:12
Bryn Grunwald
So we did speak to people associated with the Denver program such as Mike Salisbury, and he actually reviewed our calculator, provided insights on as somebody who was looking at one of these programs, what would be useful data points. So we wanted to assess obviously the climate impact but also the air quality impacts. What would be the reduction will be the reduction in vehicle miles traveled, right?
00:38:44:12 - 00:39:15:03
Bryn Grunwald
So how many miles were people biking versus driving now? And we also want to look at what would be the impact on their personal finances. So e-bikes obviously do take power to charge, so they are not inherently free even when you have a good incentive. But they are much, much cheaper per mile. And I think that that was really a driving force of their interest in the summer of 2022 because gas prices were very expensive here, and especially for lower income residents.
00:39:15:05 - 00:39:38:13
Bryn Grunwald
That was a huge burden. If you if you're lower income and you have a much more efficient car, you're probably feeling that difference a lot more acutely. But what we found with our modeling is that e-bikes are fractions of a penny per mile when you look at power costs versus cars, which can be several pennies per mile depending if it's an EV and I think it's roughly $0.10 per mile if you are driving against car.
00:39:38:15 - 00:40:00:13
Bryn Grunwald
And then when you add maintenance on top of that, cars have varying levels of maintenance, right? A gas car is more complicated. So it has the Department of Energy estimates about $0.10 per mile worth of maintenance costs. And obviously these get more complicated as the car gets older and parts might go out of stock. EVs tend to have roughly 7 to $0.08 per mile because they're more simple.
00:40:00:20 - 00:40:17:23
Bryn Grunwald
But e-bikes, I mean, we still need more estimates on it, but there's many fewer parts that are involved in an e-bike and people with some training can produce or can maintain their bike. A lot of e-bike brands such as Deuce, which is what my bike is, have videos up on the website of, okay, well your tire's flat. How do you change your tire?
00:40:17:23 - 00:40:39:00
Bryn Grunwald
Because you need to unplug the battery and make sure that it's working well. So I think that that really helps people reduce the cost of maintaining a motor transportation for these short trips. And what we found that over time is even if you're only replacing these short trips, only a portion of the year or the week, this can still save a bunch of money over time.
00:40:39:00 - 00:41:03:01
Bryn Grunwald
So this can save 2 to $300 a year depending on how you're doing it. And I think that this is something I'd like to model in the future. I think that it would be interesting to see the potential for people to just not have a second car, which would obviously reduce their costs even further. I think that both of these things just show e-bikes can be really beneficial for the climate, can be really beneficial for people's wallets and can be really great for their cities.
00:41:03:01 - 00:41:27:00
Bryn Grunwald
And so with the E-bike Calculator, we really just wanted to compile all of that data into one easy to use source so people could see what would be the value of doing that themselves. And so far I think it's been very valuable. I talked to the city of Atlanta a few times, use this calculator for their e-bike incentive program, and I've had some cities reach out to ask to be added.
00:41:27:02 - 00:41:32:04
Bryn Grunwald
So I think that there is a real desire to understand what this impact would be.
00:41:32:06 - 00:42:01:02
John Simmerman
Yeah, and you had mentioned a little bit about, you know, the benefits in the insights that were gleaned from the Denver E-bike Incentive program. And, you know, astute watchers of the channel here know that I have produced a video on the the Denver E-bike Incentive Program. I'll be sure to include the link to that video here in the video description down below and in the show notes.
00:42:01:09 - 00:42:24:23
John Simmerman
And here's some of the example insights that you had. You know, that you meaning far am I calculated including, you know, looking at about $1 million in cumulative annual savings from the program. This is pretty exciting. You've got to be just like delighted to be working on this.
00:42:25:00 - 00:43:07:03
Bryn Grunwald
I think it's a really interesting topic. I think that it provides a lot of insight into what are ways that we can help people get out of their vehicles and and other modes of transportation. Like I said, we are my has done this analysis to show that we need to cut vehicle miles traveled in addition to electrifying this is backed up by work that we've released recently rereleased this calculator Smarter Modes, which looks at the value of cutting vehicle miles traveled in every state of the country and e-bikes offer a real opportunity to do that in a way that I think would provide people with a great option to save money alongside cutting their emissions
00:43:07:06 - 00:43:35:06
Bryn Grunwald
and give them a bit more of a sense of their city. That's hard to claim because obviously there's not research on it, but there is so much research out there that says e-bikes can potentially help reduce noise pollution, that e-bikes can help people get exercise, that e-bikes can reduce air quality. And it is very empowering. Have work that shows we can not only help people achieve this goal of driving less, but do so in a way that will make their lives better.
00:43:35:08 - 00:44:15:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And for anybody listening or watching this and are like screaming at your screens or, or at your, your listening device and going, Yeah, but what about regular bikes? No, no, no. We get it, guys. We get it. Your regular bike gets all of that and more. But what we're really talking about here is reducing those that VMT, we're trying to shift, you know, more and more people considering that, hey, you know, if I've got a safe route to many of these short trips, these meaningful destinations that we need to make, what better way than to jump on the bike if the E-bike makes that much more likely for you to do it, then
00:44:15:13 - 00:44:17:00
John Simmerman
thumbs up to that.
00:44:17:03 - 00:44:38:06
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, and I think it goes back to that idea around inclusion, right? So again, vehicles leave out a lot of people who can't drive or won't drive for a multitude of reasons. And I there's a lot of people obviously who might struggle with biking but there's a whole host of modified bikes that can accomplish these needs and that I've been increasingly seeing electrified right.
00:44:38:06 - 00:45:01:02
Bryn Grunwald
So trick or nut track Rad Power had that electric tricycle that I've seen people ride around on, which looks great. There is the and I believe that Colorado has a e-bike rebate for the modified bikes for people who might need to recline while they're biking as well. And this I think, just overcomes the barrier for people who would worry about their own relative strength.
00:45:01:02 - 00:45:08:16
Bryn Grunwald
Right. Acoustic bikes are great. I have several because I live in Boulder and I think it's just a requirement. But it is.
00:45:08:16 - 00:45:21:28
John Simmerman
I think I think you I think you get your your notice of like, you know, if you haven't like in plus one added another one and a certain number of months they're like hey you might lose your boulder pass.
00:45:22:00 - 00:45:50:21
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah there's there's some things you just have to do to live in Boulder like you have to drink a boat show, you have to drink conversion, you have to own a bike. I think e-bikes are great because I think especially like as you were saying earlier, people bike more. And I think when you bike a regular acoustic bike regularly, it's impossible to imagine being in the mindset of somebody who is hesitant about biking, who worries about their ability to keep up, or if they'll be okay.
00:45:50:21 - 00:46:09:27
Bryn Grunwald
And I I've seen people with like some level of injury be able to bike in a way that's still safe. For example, my partner has a knee injury that has taken a while to heal and when we're biking somewhere, he's able to use a higher power setting on his bike and use the pedal assist to still be able to bike.
00:46:09:27 - 00:46:38:12
Bryn Grunwald
And that's really important because sometimes what you need with those injuries is just that low pressure exercise to be able to help them heal and to get around. And I think that also importantly allow people to exist without a car. I do know people who have sold a car because they've gotten to e-bikes or people who don't have a car because they have e-bikes, and that probably saves them a lot of money and allows them, first of all, more choices on where to live because they don't then have to worry about parking so much.
00:46:38:14 - 00:46:48:19
Bryn Grunwald
And it allows them to have a bit more flexibility in their budget because they're not paying for car insurance or gas or fueling or whatever the various associated costs are.
00:46:48:21 - 00:47:07:14
John Simmerman
You know, I like to refer to my bikes as my mobility devices. It's just it's a way for me to be able to go further than I would probably be able to comfortably go just walking. It's a pedestrian accelerator.
00:47:07:16 - 00:47:30:21
Bryn Grunwald
yeah, most definitely. I don't live terribly far from a grocery store. I live about a mile and a half, but when I forget to buy something, it's much easier to convince myself to go run out and grab it on the bike versus if I drive, I have to like, first of all, find my car keys. And then secondly, go get in the car and then drive in a weird, convoluted pattern of make sure to avoid that pothole that I know is there that I haven't reported to the city yet.
00:47:30:28 - 00:47:46:27
Bryn Grunwald
Then I have to find a parking spot. Then I have to get my bag versus my bike path to the grocery store is actually mostly off the road. Very easy. I only cross the road at one point, pull right up in front of it because of bike racks right by the door. Just grab my pan your lock up and then walk in it for me.
00:47:46:27 - 00:47:57:25
Bryn Grunwald
At this point due to my own experiences in my own set up with having biked for most of my life, rather than driven the cognitive load of having to drive to feel so much more challenging.
00:47:57:27 - 00:48:12:06
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Is there anything that we haven't discussed yet that you want to make sure to leave the audience with in this context of, of the the bikes and the e-bikes and the e-bike calculator.
00:48:12:09 - 00:48:18:08
Bryn Grunwald
Do you want to discuss sort of what we see as a future of biking and, biking in the country?
00:48:18:10 - 00:48:20:27
John Simmerman
Yes. Go for it.
00:48:21:00 - 00:48:40:18
Bryn Grunwald
I think definitely the great thing about Denver is we're seeing a lot more interest in adopting these programs. And I think that one of the great things that's also come out of Denver is there's been a lot of work there now that they have this amazing program that's really getting that's really showing people want to bike and are going to bike.
00:48:40:24 - 00:49:03:02
Bryn Grunwald
They're now building out the infrastructure to make it safer for people to do so. And I think that that's a great example for cities looking at following suit. And this is, I think, a really valuable thing to be doing at this point. We're in an era where car loans are pretty expensive due to rising insurance. So a lot of people, I think, would struggle with needing to buy a car, even with various incentives.
00:49:03:02 - 00:49:36:13
Bryn Grunwald
It would be pretty challenging. But getting an e-bike with an e-bike incentive offers them the ability to start saving money and electrifying their trips, now dramatically reducing their emissions and cutting back. And I believe potentially, too, if they're doing that, if they have that, that ability to save and that ability to use a safe means of electric transportation, they would then be able to save for a safe, reliable electric vehicle to replace an older car because they would not be as hindered by fluctuating gas prices.
00:49:36:13 - 00:50:14:07
Bryn Grunwald
Again, it's not going to replace all your trips, but it can replace a good number of them, which can add up to a couple hundred dollars per year depending on what you do or even more if you're able to drop down from two cars to one car and two e-bikes. And that really provides an option to, I think, provide some financial stability to people and allow them to consider what modes of transportation do they want moving forward, what works best for them, what allows them to get around safely, to engage with their city, and then they have the space to mentally plan and think about what are the things they want to be doing next.
00:50:14:10 - 00:50:42:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, and you sort of alluded to this graphic earlier in talking about the fact that, yeah, what we're really talking about here, we're not talking about trying to build out the network for, you know, the the highly competent sport riders and recreation riders. We're really looking at that vast majority of the population that would ride more frequently if it was safe to do so.
00:50:42:21 - 00:51:12:04
John Simmerman
When we call those and we have been calling those ever since. Roger Geller first did this this research out of Portland, the interested yet concerned part of the population where you know they would ride more if it felt safe to do so. And that's a really big opportunity of getting more than just you know, that that 1 to 5% of of the population that will ride, you know, regardless of the facilities that are there and the environment that's out there.
00:51:12:09 - 00:51:14:23
John Simmerman
So that's a really big opportunity we have.
00:51:14:25 - 00:51:53:04
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, in our minds work. We put all the numbers in the calculator on the weekly level because we wanted to make the point of you don't have to do this all year round right? It would be incredibly challenging to bike in Minnesota in the middle of winter, I presume. It's presumably very challenging to bike in Florida or Arizona in the middle of summer, but if you are only able to do this for roughly six months of the year, that still has tremendous potential to save people money to cut this emissions and to just help people get that exercise in and cut their transportation emissions overall, I think can often feel like we're prescribing it as
00:51:53:04 - 00:52:06:02
Bryn Grunwald
this is something that needs to be done 24 seven all the time. But I think that it's one of those things that like as you can do it, it will be a benefit for many different aspects of the world and your own personal life.
00:52:06:04 - 00:52:41:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, and you mentioned that you're really talking about these things in terms of that weekly sort of view and we see that the top ten cities in terms of the size of population on here. And as we can see in my current city of Austin, Texas is in the number ten spot. And yeah, this is exactly what the city of Austin is really working towards is, hey, how can we, you know, off shift some of those very bikeable distance, you know, trips to something other than a single occupancy vehicle.
00:52:41:00 - 00:53:16:13
John Simmerman
Can we get people more people walking to their meaningful destinations can get more people riding a bike and taking transit, you know, to their destinations. And we can see here that, you know, there's a nice little opportunity when we look at 47% of our trips, you know, from 0 to 5 miles. And I would even say that, you know, when we start to look at the power of a little bit of an electric boost, you start, you know, creeping your way up into the five plus because suddenly, you know, one of my my trips that I frequently ride to is like seven and a half, eight miles away.
00:53:16:13 - 00:54:01:16
John Simmerman
And I don't even bat an eye. I would never drive on that trip. But I know that it's that much more feasible and comfortable. and by the way, because I have a safe and inviting all ages and abilities network to ride, which you guys reference in and channel the Dutch Cycling Embassy in the cycling infrastructure. It's a great equalizer to the weather because when I know I've got a safe and inviting environment to ride in, I know that I can, you know, create a little bit of mind wind and be able to, you know enjoy that trip, even though it's like 107 degrees out, which we get here in Texas.
00:54:01:18 - 00:54:14:13
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah, I think that states are states and cities are showing a lot of creativity and I think strengths in moving forward on how they want to do this. I'm very excited to see what Denver continues to do, for example, with their program.
00:54:14:15 - 00:54:40:01
John Simmerman
I do want to see this too, about winter, because, you know, obviously in Denver and in Colorado and Boulder and you mentioned Minneapolis in the winter time. Yeah. I mean, these are cold places. They could be very snowy places. Hopefully that they will continue to be snowy places. But yeah, people still ride in these environments if they have a safe place to ride, if they have a safe network.
00:54:40:04 - 00:55:08:01
John Simmerman
And one of the profiles that I absolutely loved doing a couple of years ago was on Olefin, one that has an extensive off street network of pathways. And you know, they're very close to the Arctic Circle. And so what they do is they just have a very fastidious path, maintenance program that helps texturizing the snow. The snow. So that's nice and grippy on the tires and they ride all year round.
00:55:08:01 - 00:55:20:06
John Simmerman
In fact, the kids ride to school at like some astounding rate of 60 to 70% of kids ride their bike to school every single day. It's just it's just amazing. Through the dead of winter.
00:55:20:08 - 00:55:41:06
Bryn Grunwald
Yeah. Boulder has great programs for in the winter. They often scrape off the off the road bike paths before they do main roads. So which is great for me because when I go into the office, I am mostly on off the road bike paths. But with cold it's often you just you need a good coat, you need gloves, you need a face mask.
00:55:41:06 - 00:55:50:16
Bryn Grunwald
And it is fairly possible because once you get moving, you warm up pretty well. Our bodies are pretty good at stabilizing our internal when faced with cold.
00:55:50:19 - 00:56:13:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, and just to give some love to Boulder too. Since you grew up in Boulder, it is one of the places in North America where I have documented over and over and over again just incredibly high rates of kids walking and biking to school. Yeah, some. My favorite middle schools are like the Centennial Middle School in the Casey Middle School.
00:56:13:05 - 00:56:43:00
John Simmerman
You go there and there. Their bike racks have got hundreds and hundreds of bikes, you know, parked out there. So it can happen, folks, if you're you're in a car centric place like in North America City here or down in Australia, New Zealand, down under, it can happen. And and really the magic piece to all of this is creating that safe, inviting network so that know all ages and all abilities to get to their meaningful destinations.
00:56:43:02 - 00:56:58:07
Bryn Grunwald
Well said. Yeah, that's my hope moving forward is that a lot of people will have that option to get to 21 and then sort of decide if maybe I should get my driver's license rather than having it be something that you have to do if you want to go see your friends.
00:56:58:09 - 00:57:04:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. Brand This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:57:04:05 - 00:57:05:26
Bryn Grunwald
Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.
00:57:06:01 - 00:57:21:13
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much. Opportunity and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Brant and if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share 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.
00:57:21:15 - 00:57:41:09
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content, please consider supporting my efforts out on Patreon. Buy me a coffee YouTube. Thanks. And buying things from the active town store always got good stuff out there. Like, you know, some good streets are for people swag and you can also make a donation to the nonprofit. You can access all of that out at my website.
00:57:41:15 - 00:58:02:11
John Simmerman
Active towns are G. Again, thank you so much for tuning in. It means so much to me. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you out to all my active towns ambassadors supporting the channel on patron buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks.
00:58:02:18 - 00:58:13:14
John Simmerman
As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.