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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 - 00:00:25:07
Darren Buck
I made a list the other day of just. I forget what for, but I made a list of of everything where some piece of research somewhere has proven that riding a bicycle more often has some sort of positive impact. And it's, it's it's tremendous. It's it's safety, it's public health, it's happiness. It's I'm wearing my climate changes here.
00:00:25:07 - 00:00:43:24
Darren Buck
Build more bike lanes t shirt because it's climate it's personal costs of transportation. You save a bunch of money if you're riding a bike. It's travel time. Reliability. We talk about that a ton at Federal Highway or did did travel time reliability. It's a big issue. Aloha everyone.
00:00:43:24 - 00:01:04:09
John Simmerman
Welcome to the Active Towns podcast. My name is John Simon and that is Darren Buck out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. And we're going to be talking a little bit about the work that he is doing there to advocate for safer streets for everyone. But before we do that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content on the Active Tones channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an active Town's ambassador.
00:01:04:10 - 00:01:20:04
John Simmerman
A super easy to do, just hit 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 are several different options. Okay, let's get right to it with Darren.
00:01:20:06 - 00:01:23:27
John Simmerman
Darren Buck, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:23:29 - 00:01:32:12
Darren Buck
Thanks, John. It's it's great to finally get to be here. We tried to connect so many times when I was with Federal Highway. And it's good to finally get the chance to.
00:01:32:13 - 00:01:44:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that in a little little bit before we, you know, get started right into this. Let me turn the tables over to you. Just give you about 30s to introduce yourself. Who is Darren? Yeah.
00:01:44:05 - 00:02:18:29
Darren Buck
I am a bike and bike share focused urban planner. I worked for the DC Department of Transportation for a number of years, the city of Alexandria and the DC area, and then worked at U.S. Dot's Federal Highway Administration headquarters for about seven years as a program manager, working just on walking and bicycling planning issues, primarily focusing on research policy, technical assistance all around, encouraging more people to walk to bicycle.
00:02:18:29 - 00:02:42:05
Darren Buck
For all of the many reasons that those are good things for our transportation system and for our society. So yeah, now I have I've left and I'm getting a little bit more involved in advocacy and wanting to wanting to to stay involved and help out how best I can in this kind of unprecedented era for walking and bicycling.
00:02:42:07 - 00:02:44:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
00:02:44:10 - 00:02:46:29
John Simmerman
And so you you were obviously in the D.C. area.
00:02:46:29 - 00:02:50:21
John Simmerman
For quite some time. However, that's not where you reside now.
00:02:50:23 - 00:03:22:07
Darren Buck
Yeah. Around about. Gosh. 2021. A lot was going on in the world Covid shutdown. And our agency was still largely working from home. My wife at the time got cancer, and we decided it was time to make a move. We asked the agency, hey, can I work from from Cambridge? And we moved up here primarily to be closer to family.
00:03:22:07 - 00:03:44:06
Darren Buck
But I also I also just love it. Here it is. It is truly everything you've heard about the Cambridge Somerville area. It's true. And it's every few months it's better than you can imagine. They're making just every day. It seems like there's yet another improvement. It's it's a wonderful place to be. It's a wonderful place to raise a child.
00:03:44:09 - 00:04:09:07
Darren Buck
It truly is, a place that is rapidly transforming into somewhere where anybody who wants to ride a bicycle can do it. And so it was a natural to move up here and make our home here. So we were up here in 2022. In that time, we've seen even more growth in the protected bike lane network here in Cambridge.
00:04:09:10 - 00:04:40:01
Darren Buck
Somerville is making tremendous leaps and bounds right now. They're constructing they're constructing a bike lane that was sort of the missing link in my old commute down to us, Dot and Kendall Square. And I'm just I'm I'm so excited that they're they're going to be basically it's it's a almost entirely protected route clear across the city. And it's not the only one it you know, it parallels a trail that goes along the Green Line tracks.
00:04:40:03 - 00:05:12:11
Darren Buck
It's just there's so many great ways. There's redundant routes, there's connections to just about anywhere. You need to go on a bicycle, and you're seeing it reflected in the numbers of how many people are bicycling, the the types of people you see bicycling. So much of the growth you see here is families, and it's to somebody who I, I got my first cargo bike back in 2017, and at the time that was they were sort of unusual.
00:05:12:11 - 00:05:34:29
Darren Buck
If you saw another cargo bike around, you probably knew who it was. You know, you'd met them at the bike shop or on a ride or something. And around here it's it's just everybody has a cargo bike. Every family that has children on my street. There's about, I think, eight households that have children on my street. Every single household that has a child has a cargo bike.
00:05:35:01 - 00:05:52:15
Darren Buck
It's, It's just remarkable to see the growth in that cohort of people riding. And it's it's because of the presence of an all ages network. People feel safe doing it. And it it makes it the default choice. It's just the most sensible way to get around this city.
00:05:52:16 - 00:05:57:16
John Simmerman
So yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to pull up just a short little.
00:05:57:18 - 00:06:26:23
John Simmerman
Video here of a little a little cargo bike, a tip to the cargo bike. Yeah. I mean it's it's amazing what happens when you start to transform a, a built environment into some a place that's a little bit more welcoming for all ages and abilities. You see that pent up demand? I saw that one of the cargo bikes that, you know, that went by, there was a was a cargo B cargo bike.
00:06:26:23 - 00:06:52:29
John Simmerman
And I've, I've profiled the cargo B rental scheme, of of of cargo bikes as well on the channel. Because they're also based right there. So it's, it's, it's so amazing when you see families starting to embrace another way of getting around, then just getting in, piling the kids into an SUV.
00:06:53:01 - 00:07:15:04
Darren Buck
Yeah. It's it's so fantastic. And I think I think Dot and Zach from cargo B would probably say the same thing, that none of this happens without the network. None of this happens without a street network integrated with a trail network that is just so good at connecting you to so many of the places that you need to go.
00:07:15:09 - 00:07:43:18
Darren Buck
It just then becomes a viable option. It becomes something where you're not necessarily you don't have to be fearless. You don't have to be terribly brave to be able to load your kid onto the back of a long tail, or into a cargo B cargo bike or anything even. I'm sort of getting to the age now, or my my child is where she's beginning to ride a lot more independently.
00:07:43:21 - 00:08:11:18
Darren Buck
And here they here she is with with two of her her besties piled into my cargo bike. But it just when you have a network like that, you can give her the basic instruction on dealing with motor vehicles, with drivers, with pedestrians, how to use the lanes, all of that a company or a few times get a little bit comfortable that that she knows what she's doing and that she's comfortable and she can go out and ride on her own.
00:08:11:18 - 00:08:32:05
Darren Buck
So many places in this city, and I look forward to when she reaches high school, and she has to get basically halfway across the city to get to school, I, I am not going to have much doubt in my mind that she's going to be able to do that every day safely on a bicycle in the city. And I think a lot of a lot of parents are in the same boat here.
00:08:32:05 - 00:09:04:04
Darren Buck
It's you just you remove that fear in the back of our minds and it just becomes such a viable option. So it's a real huge success story in the making. Here in Cambridge and Somerville. You're seeing you're seeing not only the safety outcomes but the ridership outcomes. And I think that's important to note is not only are people in court, not only are people having less risk of being seriously injured out on the streets or being killed, God forbid, but you're also seeing ridership rise.
00:09:04:04 - 00:09:31:24
Darren Buck
You're seeing it make a dent in peak hour congestion because so many people are taking advantage of bicycling. You're seeing kids who are able to get their their regular physical exercise. You're seeing us be able to make a dent in the climate emissions of motor vehicles here in the city because so many people are riding. And so I hope people do pay attention to Cambridge and Summerfield, because it is the proof in the pudding is is in the process right now.
00:09:31:28 - 00:09:45:04
Darren Buck
And I can't wait to see what the network looks like in five years, what our ridership looks like in 9 in 5 years. And basically these three kids in the picture to see how they're getting around the city in five years.
00:09:45:11 - 00:10:18:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And it's you know, this is not something that just happens overnight. I mean, the city, the cities, both Somerville and also Cambridge have been working on this for many, many, many years. I was there in 2019. To document some of the progress in association with and a leadership forum that they were leading there, and I was able to meet up with some city staff and profile some some wonderful things that had happened.
00:10:19:00 - 00:10:54:01
John Simmerman
In, in that era, you know, the 2018, 2019 era. And one of the things that I was blown away by was the continuous elevation of the, the sidewalk and the the cycle facilities, the bike path they're on along Western Avenue. It's like, this is world class. I mean, you you're able to have facilities that look and feel like, you know, they're from the Netherlands or inspired by Copenhagen and, and it's and it really makes a difference.
00:10:54:01 - 00:11:16:03
John Simmerman
And, and I really appreciate what you just mentioned as a parent, feeling like your kid is going to be able to have that freedom and independence, which is so incredibly important. I had Lenore Skinner's, you know, from the, the, the, the book. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on her book now.
00:11:16:09 - 00:11:17:11
Darren Buck
Oh, free range kids.
00:11:17:12 - 00:11:41:21
John Simmerman
Free range kids. Thank you very much. Sorry, Lenore. And and she and her new organization, Let Grow. That was what was in my mind was let grow. And talking about how incredibly important it is for parents to feel comfortable enough to be able to say, you know what? I need to let go. Let my kids get out there, wander, and be able to build their self-confidence and self-efficacy.
00:11:41:23 - 00:11:53:07
John Simmerman
That all becomes possible when you feel as a parent like, yeah, my built environment is pretty darn good. Go, kid, go, go have fun.
00:11:53:10 - 00:12:16:07
Darren Buck
And it's it. I think there's there's a little bit of herd mentality too, when you start seeing all of your neighbors are doing the same thing when you start getting them together on a bike bus, when you when it becomes not necessarily a an out of the box sort of thing, a lot of people begin to then consider it.
00:12:16:10 - 00:12:39:10
Darren Buck
I can think of a several examples of just neighbors who freely admit they were just. I had never considered this, but I need to. I need to get my kid to the rec center that's halfway across town, and it just it takes too long to drive and find parking. There's a safe bike route. I'm going to give this a try.
00:12:39:12 - 00:13:15:23
Darren Buck
And you have the website are for Community Pedal Power. This is a great organization that I just recently associated just just joined. They've I've been sort of involved with them for a long time. They've been a tremendous provider of bikes for our bike bus. We'll talk about we'll probably talk about the parade rides at some point later. They lend out e-bikes to anybody who is interested in trying them out, and they have been responsible for getting so many people on cargo bikes here in Cambridge.
00:13:15:23 - 00:13:38:03
Darren Buck
Just about everybody I know who has said, oh, maybe I'll give that a try. This is the first place they've gone. Been able to sample a variety of them. They get great, impartial advice from Chris Schmidt, who runs this. He is sort of our our community's acknowledged expert on the field of offerings in e-bikes and cargo bikes.
00:13:38:03 - 00:14:11:23
Darren Buck
He's guided so many families so well, to get them on the right cargo bike. So being a part of that organization, it just sort of a natural for me. I've seen what they've done for so many of my neighbors. I've seen what they've done to help me out with the bike bus. And while the lending library is sort of the the the more well-known part of the organization here in the community, they also run family bike rides, which are these huge family rides that used to be once or twice a year and now are several, I'd say at least six rides.
00:14:11:23 - 00:14:38:17
Darren Buck
They're putting together long distance rides, exploring new infrastructure, new kid friendly destinations throughout the Boston region. It's just a it's a great it's a great group of folks. And I'm kind of excited to to see how I can I can help their efforts, help support them, make sure that this is a thing that's going to I think it's going to be an integral part of how we continue to get people on bikes.
00:14:38:23 - 00:15:08:04
Darren Buck
In the Cambridge and Somerville area. We've got the sort of the the, the acquisition side nailed the the culture, bringing families in and introducing them to what can happen, what it unlocks for a whole family to be on bikes. And it's you couple that again with that backbone of of an all ages network in the region. It just, I think it's we're poised to do great things in the years to come.
00:15:08:05 - 00:15:42:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, that that is fantastic. And and this is I think one of the absolute keys is getting this movement around safer, network, safer streets. Out of the bubble, the echo chamber of advocates who have been, you know, doing this for a while, getting this to engage families and family members and parents who don't necessarily think of themselves as cyclists.
00:15:42:05 - 00:15:53:09
John Simmerman
They just people who want to be able to get to meaningful destinations, by a method other than just piling again the family back into the SUV.
00:15:53:11 - 00:16:38:23
Darren Buck
Right. It's somebody who's been here longer, can probably talk a lot more intelligently about sort of the advocacy path that took place to get things like the cycling cycling safety ordinance in place, and how advocacy has sort of benefited from that and pivoted since then. What I've observed since I've been here is a tremendously effective facility advocacy organization called, Cambridge Bike Safety, which does a tremendous job of supporting city staff when they're going out to communities, telling them about a project that is required by this ordinance, telling the community what it's going to mean, what the benefits are going to be.
00:16:38:25 - 00:17:10:24
Darren Buck
They're extremely good at supporting our politicians who support bicycling. And we have we have a city council majority that we're extremely thankful for that supports bicycling, supports the continued growth of the network. As as great as things are here in Cambridge, there's still a lot of critical gaps in the network. The primary one that I'm selfishly interested in is there's a long time project on Mass Ave, which is our main east west corridor.
00:17:10:27 - 00:17:39:05
Darren Buck
They have a project to to protect the bike lanes for basically the entire western half of that street. And that happens to be where I live. And I'm it's going to be the primary connection that gets my part of the city into the rest of the citywide network. And, so Cambridge bike safety is extremely good at supporting those politicians, making sure that they are continuing to support.
00:17:39:06 - 00:18:11:25
Darren Buck
They're bringing forward community members from all over the city who have all sorts of motivations to be able to sort of put faces to the support for this network. And yeah, increasingly it is families stepping forward and saying, I have a vision for how my kid is going to be able to freely enjoy the city and how they are going to get to school, how they're going to get to after school activities, and the cycling network that Cambridge City Council has committed to and that they've directed our Dot to carry out.
00:18:12:01 - 00:18:37:12
Darren Buck
That's a huge part of it. And there are a lot of families. There are a lot of what I think a lot of people would, would term regular people who are just living regular lives and cycling for a variety of reasons, beyond the more traditional recreational reasons, who are out here asking for a network that's safe for a children, safe for our parents, safe for everybody that gets us where we need to go.
00:18:37:15 - 00:18:52:13
Darren Buck
So it's it is definitely you're seeing you're seeing a shift in in advocacy and not only what it's asking for, but the approach it's taking and the faces that you're seeing at those city council meetings.
00:18:52:16 - 00:19:17:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. What I love to about this is, you know, this is what I would call a, a standard sort of advocacy organization. This is like one of the nonprofits is really working hard and helping target it and helping keep the city moving forward and pushing them a little bit. Whereas the community pedal power. This is what I would consider.
00:19:17:27 - 00:19:56:27
John Simmerman
You know, this is more of a grassroots. This is a community type of of initiative that engages people who may not feel like, oh yeah, no, we're not we're not advocates. You know, we're not part of this movement. Formally, maybe they they they are. Maybe there's cross membership and all that. I'm sure there is. But what I love about the tagline that's here on the landing page is Safer Streets, Better Choices, which is exactly what we were talking about earlier, is that if we create safer streets for all ages and abilities, we can make better choices as members of the community.
00:19:56:29 - 00:20:20:27
John Simmerman
It doesn't say anything about the cyclists. You know, the Lycra crowd. No we're not. That's not what we're talking about. What those guys are going to ride no matter what. We're talking about making it safer and feeling like people who are concerned can make better choices to, you know, take the more active option.
00:20:20:29 - 00:20:46:10
Darren Buck
Yeah. And I think the very existence of a of an organization like community pedal power is evidence of what I would call mainstreaming. It's it is becoming a mainstream choice in there's now there are just there are a lot of people demanding information on e-bikes and how they can fit into their lives. There are a lot of people who are interested in why on street with their kids.
00:20:46:10 - 00:21:24:00
Darren Buck
And that's the founding of an organization like community. Pedal power is just really evidence that that demand is there, and that once you begin sort of getting over the hump of providing a very basic network that is getting people interested and looking into those options, that's what you're going to see. So I, I think the the prevalence of things like e-bike lending libraries in many of the leading communities like DC, Minneapolis here, it's it's just a great I think it's a great indicator that that things are beginning to move a little bit mainstream in these places.
00:21:24:00 - 00:21:50:04
Darren Buck
And I look forward to a lot of other cities looking at that. And when they're faced with a question of, oh, should we build a protected bike lane? Should we build a network of protected bike lanes? We're starting to see the evidence that these things work as promised, where if you build a network, you're going to begin to get people interested in that, and it's going to be an interesting few years.
00:21:50:04 - 00:22:06:18
Darren Buck
I think as as we begin to finish that work, get these what are sort of what we would previously consider nontraditional audiences onto bikes, you're going to see I think you're going to see an explosion in user ship.
00:22:06:18 - 00:22:32:07
John Simmerman
So yeah. Yeah. Well, many, many years ago, Roger Geller out of Portland, you know, did some study looking at the Portland audience and, you know, talked about the that massive people, you know, in the middle, you know, of interested and yet concerned. You know folks, people that aren't riding currently but would if only the streets felt a little safer.
00:22:32:10 - 00:22:57:09
John Simmerman
They would consider picking that up. My coffee mug streets are for people. I have that declarative statement because I want to reinforce with folks that, you know, the car came along, you know, about 100, 120 years ago and sort of took over our streets. Prior to that. Our streets were really for people. It was the platform for building societies and building wealth.
00:22:57:09 - 00:23:29:19
John Simmerman
And lots of things happened in the streets. Yes. But what I love about these community organizations and the grassroots groups is it helps to to reinforce, I say this all the time. It's like the the open streets events and the bike busses and the critical masses and the critical masses and, you know, and and getting out and riding as groups help reinforce and reframe what our streets are for, for the community.
00:23:29:22 - 00:24:05:04
Darren Buck
Yeah. This is, what you're seeing here is, we every once or twice a year, our bike bus to our local elementary school, we invite members of the School of Honk, which is a local teaching brass band here in the Cambridge Somerville area. This all started. I can tell you the story of the origin story of this whole ride, but we do these rides where we carry a whole brass band on cargo bikes, and that's where we rely on places like community, Pedal Power and Cargo B to to loan us cargo bikes.
00:24:05:04 - 00:24:29:07
Darren Buck
And we rely on people who just have them to volunteer one morning to haul a bunch of musicians on cargo bikes in a company that kids on this ride, and it's the bike bus itself, is very much a joyous taking of public space in that we just we ride in the streets as a big mob. We laugh, we ring bells, we play music.
00:24:29:10 - 00:24:56:23
Darren Buck
It's just a real happy occasion. And the band was just sort of a natural addition. It started because I, I was, I had was just beginning in the beginning dating days with my partner of we were talking about how we each we there she is. That's that's Veronica. She is she's one of the mentors in the school of honk.
00:24:56:24 - 00:25:19:01
Darren Buck
And we were talking about how we're both part of these organizations that sort of invite people to come along in a big group and take over public space and just infuse it with joy. That's what we do with the bike bus. That's what School of Honk does every Sunday. They're a learning band. You show up, you learn to play a part in the band, and you go parading on your very first day.
00:25:19:06 - 00:25:45:04
Darren Buck
And both of these things bring such joy to the people who see them in public space. And we had kind of a simultaneous light bulb moment where we were both like, what if we mashed them together like chocolate and peanut butter? And that's how we we recruit every every six months or so, I go out and I beg anybody with a cargo bike to come volunteer to haul along a musician so we can play these songs.
00:25:45:04 - 00:26:07:01
Darren Buck
And the the people who live along our bike bus route. It is we. The first time we did this, we sent out fliers, we fliers, all 4 to 500 homes with like, email addresses, like more to be like if you have any complaints about us, you know, coming by your front porch at 830 in the morning with a brass band, you know, just let us know.
00:26:07:03 - 00:26:29:25
Darren Buck
We'll see what we can do. And we didn't get any complaints, thank goodness. But what we had was at least a few households had set up on their front porches to watch us go by and cheer us on. And every time we do it, it just we get more and more and more people, passers by, for whom this is an event.
00:26:29:28 - 00:26:47:16
Darren Buck
And even on just sort of regular bike bus Fridays, we have neighbors walking by the ride and they'll cheer us on the wave. They'll they'll say, hey, bike buzz, have a great Friday. And it's yeah, there's the the audio.
00:26:47:18 - 00:27:09:23
Darren Buck
This was, I think, our first stride. And we were just figuring out something called the Doppler effect, which is apparently it it takes a while for sound to carry forward to the front. So we were a little out of sync on the music, but it was, it just it was such a, it was such a fun experiment to do.
00:27:09:23 - 00:27:43:24
Darren Buck
And we we love doing it. It's a lot of work, but we love doing it every time. And again, it's just it's it's gotten such a momentum with the neighbors along the route. It's created so much goodwill. And I I'd love to believe that. Like, there's at least one neighbor who was maybe a little bit borderline on bikes, but maybe is now has a picture in their mind not of not of of somebody unsympathetic to them, but of the big brass band going by their house with 100 kids in tow.
00:27:43:27 - 00:27:48:12
Darren Buck
And it has a positive association with bicycling that.
00:27:48:15 - 00:28:17:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, here's another, another vision of that, another iteration of this. This is actually something you've posted to your Instagram. So folks, if you want to follow along with some of this, just follow Darren on his on his Instagram there I you know, this is a I just had a conversation with with Sam Balto with Bike bus World and reflecting on the last four years.
00:28:17:09 - 00:28:43:25
John Simmerman
It's like mind boggling how much Bike Bus has has just taken off. It's been around for a while. He was inspired when he saw a video of the Barcelona b c bus and and he was like, you know. Oh, yeah, you know, I need to like, transfer what I had been doing of a walking school bus when he worked in Boston to, you know, Portland.
00:28:43:25 - 00:29:09:05
John Simmerman
And he was doing walking school busses there. And he's like, I need to try this. This looks fun. And what's really, really cool about this. And Sam and I talked about this in our very first episode 3 or 4 years ago, is that there's an energy for the kids when it's on a bike. I mean, especially when you add some music to it and it's just it's so engaging.
00:29:09:07 - 00:29:28:09
John Simmerman
And I can't remember where. I think I was documenting a bike bus in Denver and, and some of the kids lived too close to the school, and so they would ride the opposite direction so that they could pick up the bike bus earlier and get a longer write in, because why not? You want to have fun?
00:29:28:10 - 00:29:49:17
Darren Buck
Yeah, we we have a few of those. We've got some reverse commuters who live like adjacent to the school. They'll bike out to our start point. We don't do a big long ride and pick up a lot of people. We're only about a little over a mile. But yeah, we do have some folks who make the trip out just to ride in with us because, yeah, it's fun.
00:29:49:17 - 00:30:18:27
Darren Buck
It's I mean, what's what's more fun than riding bikes with a bunch of your friends? It's it's a hoot. And yeah, we've we've sort of added a musical twist and added in the brass band and we've had some other musical acts come along with this as well. And it's yeah, it's great fun. It's so much fun. And for the kids, it's, I think, bicycling in general, but especially the bike bus, it gives them, it gives them an opportunity to have fun within sort of rules and constraints.
00:30:18:27 - 00:30:39:18
Darren Buck
They are not just sort of going wild, but they're having fun, but they're they're part of a group. And they recognize as part of a group, they have responsibilities and they're able to to work within the constraints. Very well of, you know, our basic rules. Listen to your adult, don't go in front of the lead bike and have fun.
00:30:39:19 - 00:31:07:00
Darren Buck
And it works. It also, it gives them a tremendous amount of confidence as well to be able to ride as a group. They get confident as riders. They get confident operating on the street. They they get confidence in in a variety of ways. We've had we had one kid who graduated from elementary school and went up to the upper school, and he became kind of a marshal in training for us.
00:31:07:00 - 00:31:28:04
Darren Buck
He began accompanying the adults, learning the ins and outs of corking traffic and watching an intersection and helping the kids along. So he was a that was an example. We had another on one of our band rides. We had an unforeseen we had to take an unforeseen detour, and we sort of just sort of had to veer around a corner.
00:31:28:04 - 00:32:09:06
Darren Buck
And we were sort of doing a kind of a half hearted job of corking traffic and don't really need to when you're you have 200 people and a big brass band like drivers can pay attention to, they will see that. And but one, one girl in her ride, she was in first or second grade at the time. She we captured this on video somewhere where she was actually she stepped out of the group and she started corking traffic, and one of her friends was cheering her on saying, yeah, go, you stop the car and she and she, she got off her bike and she put her hand up and, and the car stops and
00:32:09:07 - 00:32:34:27
Darren Buck
you hear exclaim, like, it's working, it's working. I got him to stop. And like, you could just hear the excitement and like, the kind of the empowerment. There it was. It was really cool. We obviously don't make a, a routine operation of having first graders core traffic, but it was it was such a happy moment for for her and for us to kind of discover that that had happened.
00:32:34:27 - 00:32:35:06
Darren Buck
So.
00:32:35:09 - 00:33:19:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And I've mentioned this many times before. I mean, one of the whole points and what's really special about bike buzz is, again, we're reframing what our streets are for. And the ultimate goal is that, you know, kids are going to start being able to have free range of their communities. What we want to be able to see is reframing what our streets are for getting more emphasis on getting street transformations, you know, getting the proper infrastructure in place, getting the network in place on those quiet residential streets, bringing traffic volumes and traffic speeds down so that literally kids, you know, can get around, meet their daily needs without adult supervision.
00:33:19:04 - 00:33:41:00
John Simmerman
Being able to, as we mentioned before, with your your own child feeling like, oh yeah, she's old enough, she's competent enough, she's self, she's got the self-confidence and the self-efficacy. She's going to go do it. That's the real ultimate goal is that we start seeing kids, you know, being able to ride to school every day. They don't have to just wait for bike bus day.
00:33:41:07 - 00:33:57:18
John Simmerman
And and that's, you know, when we think about, well, what's the goal of doing all this? That's the goal. That's the goal. We want this to be much more like the Netherlands, where we just see hoards and hoards of kids getting to their meaningful destinations on their own.
00:33:57:21 - 00:34:24:11
Darren Buck
Yeah, I think a lot of a lot of parents are, you know, light bulbs are going off where they're realizing that, you know, it's it's just it's not practical to act as chauffeur for your child for however many years, 16 years. It's it just doesn't work. And yeah, I don't have enough hours in the day to be able to be a chauffeur, be an escort for everything.
00:34:24:11 - 00:34:44:13
Darren Buck
And I want her to be able to do what I did as a child and be able to walk to and from school and bike to and from school and bumble into side adventures and be safe doing it, and to learn things and bond with friends and all of the things that you're not necessarily going to get to do in in the back seat of a car.
00:34:44:16 - 00:34:58:21
Darren Buck
It's just it's just not it's just a different experience. And, and I think a lot of us are realizing we want our children to have a better experience than perhaps some of us did as kids. So.
00:34:58:23 - 00:35:27:06
John Simmerman
So we've been talking about your advocacy work there, you know, locally in the community. But we also have advocacy that's happening at the national level. And the League of American Cyclists, Bicyclists, you founded back in 1880 is the League of American Wheelmen. And I've been a member and an LCI since, I don't know when my number is two, 248.
00:35:27:06 - 00:35:36:05
John Simmerman
So it was a long time ago. Talk a little bit about this organization, and I understand you're running to be on the board.
00:35:36:07 - 00:35:59:24
Darren Buck
I am, I am, I, I am running to be on the board of directors and I this this interview unfortunately will will air after voting closes. So hopefully either I'm I'm I've been elected and I'm tremendously proud to be able to serve at a national level or I'm I'm also thankful that there's a lot of strong candidates on the ballot.
00:35:59:24 - 00:36:33:22
Darren Buck
So it's, you know, there's there's no downside. There's a lot of great folks running. And I think it speaks to how highly people regard the league. They are basically they are the ones fighting for people who want an environment, a street network. That is exactly what we're discussing. A network where all ages can feel comfortable making a bicycle trip without worrying about safety.
00:36:33:23 - 00:37:04:03
Darren Buck
And, you know, the league has been really kind of a they've been our voice on Capitol Hill at the federal level for so long. And they have been they've just been working against so many headwinds recently, in recent years, with the atmosphere on Capitol Hill and at the federal executive. And I sort of when I when I left federal service, I knew that I wanted to contribute in some way.
00:37:04:04 - 00:37:24:17
Darren Buck
I wanted to make sure that so much of the work that we had done in the last few years somehow got preserved, got protected, and I wanted to get involved in that firsthand. And the league was just sort of a natural fit for me. I've known Karen Whitaker and Bill Burr and so many on staff for so many years.
00:37:24:17 - 00:38:00:07
Darren Buck
I respect so much what they do. I guess a timeless message for anybody watching the podcast is please, if you have if you have the the resources to do so, please become a member of the league. It is an organization that's just doing tremendous work on behalf of people who imagine a world where more people can bicycle more often, and if you can join the league, adding to not just sort of their coffers, but their membership tally, being able to to say proudly, we are an organization representing so many people on bikes.
00:38:00:07 - 00:38:23:03
Darren Buck
It would be a tremendous, a tremendous service to to join their organization. But yeah, I wanted to get I wanted to stay involved at a federal level in making sure that bicycling still remained part of the transportation system. And so that yeah, this screenshot is is a LinkedIn post that I posted when I left Federal Highway officially in July of this year.
00:38:23:05 - 00:39:10:05
Darren Buck
I it was such a bittersweet thing to leave. I had stayed through 2025 and all of the the Doge stuff that, we lost 28% of the people within Federal Highway. It was it was a lot of young people who were who were scared about being laid off. There were a lot of people, like structural engineers who had been working for so long at lower than market pay to serve their country, and a lot of other people who just sort of cared about their work, personal friends of mine, collaborators who were helping to move the federal government and federal highway in particular in a more progressive direction to consider that truly considered all
00:39:10:05 - 00:39:52:21
Darren Buck
users in everything we did and made safety of all users the forefront of what we did. And so many of those people really felt they had no choice to leave but to leave. I stayed through 2025 and tried to sort of stick it out, but obviously you're seeing a lot of what's coming out of USDOT today is backing away from the principles of the safe system approach, backing away from the multimodal, the truly multimodal transportation bills that have been iteratively making more and more progress each time that go through backing out on grant commitments that they'd made all of those things made it just absolutely untenable to stay for me.
00:39:52:21 - 00:40:21:29
Darren Buck
And I told many people at the time, I while I got a paycheck from Federal Highway, I work for walking and bicycling and I there's there's no work for walking and bicycling at this version of Federal Highway. So I did have to leave. And it's been it's given me life almost to be able to contribute a little bit to advocacy to protect walking and bicycling at the federal level.
00:40:22:01 - 00:40:48:17
Darren Buck
So, yeah, it's, it's a difficult time. But I do have some optimism for those who don't know, the secretary of transportation tweeted about about revoking grants for quote unquote, bike lanes and then soon after removed a lot of web mentions of things that that they find inconvenient. In this case, they deleted five what are called proven safety countermeasures.
00:40:48:17 - 00:41:15:18
Darren Buck
Proven safety countermeasures is a list of 28 things that career safety engineers, not political appointees, but people who are experts in this field have reviewed the body of evidence on these things, concluded that they are truly proven to improve safety, and designated these as things that are sort of the gold standard of what you can incorporate into a roadway project and be and be sure that it's going to improve safety outcomes.
00:41:15:24 - 00:41:53:03
Darren Buck
So they remove five of them, like lanes, road diets and three countermeasures related to speed management. All of those things, obviously, are of tremendous interest to the APB Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, a sort of a trade organization for for walking and bicycling practitioners. So I was it felt for the first time when I helped out that organization to help draft a letter to the Senate to request their assistance in intervening with Federal Highway to try and get those restored to the website.
00:41:53:03 - 00:42:28:00
Darren Buck
It very much felt like I was doing my old job again, just sort of acting as I used to sort of act almost as an internal advocate, I suppose, for for walking and bicycling within an organization that, you know, it's it's the Federal Highway Administration. It for as as much progress as it's made, it is still it is a road building, capital project, stewardship and delivery type organization and pivoting to sort of a more multimodal approach is where was very much still a work in progress.
00:42:28:03 - 00:42:46:04
Darren Buck
But it was it was great to be able to help out and contribute something to, to to fighting back for what I think so many Americans want, certainly so many people within the urban sphere want, which is a federal government that isn't working against these things.
00:42:46:06 - 00:43:14:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I've had, you know, Beth Osborne on from transportation for America and smart Growth America on and we've talked a little bit about the history of you know why. How is it we're continuing to, put money into a system that has the federal highways, a system that has been built out since early, I think 1990, 1992, I think is what she said it was when we finally completed Mission Accomplished.
00:43:14:24 - 00:43:44:25
John Simmerman
We built the interstate network, Federal Highways Administration. I mean, we're done. We should be shifting and focusing and re re that money elsewhere, because truth be told, that money is still expanding a highway network which doesn't need to be done. What we if anything, we we need to be helping maintain and make sure that, you know, it's keep being well maintained.
00:43:44:29 - 00:44:14:11
John Simmerman
But more importantly, we need to be taking pressure off of that interstate network by having legitimate options, whether that's transit as well as walking and biking. So it was always just mind boggling to me that we had we set up a system where you have conflicts like this, where, you know, it's the Federal Highways Administration that's also trying to, you know, do something about active mobility.
00:44:14:13 - 00:44:17:00
John Simmerman
It seems nonsensical.
00:44:17:03 - 00:44:59:10
Darren Buck
It's, you know, Beth and transportation for America were so ahead of the curve on this stuff. And yeah, they're they're so right that, you know, the last segment of Interstate was done in 1992, Colorado, I think. And since then, the amount of money that is still flowed into building out the system, it's it's incredible. I'm just in the middle of a book that called Overbuilt by Eric Gura, and it's all about just the degree to which we've poured more money into the system that is, is basically done, and how the marginal whatever benefit you expect to get out of a highway.
00:44:59:12 - 00:45:29:27
Darren Buck
I think everybody can agree that those benefits are going to decline once you get a highway in place, adding a lane, the benefit to that is going to decline, and it's going to have downstream effects on our cities by you're just widening the hose that's spraying cars into your city. And just the amount of money we've spent since 1992 on highways completely dwarfs what we spent before that to actually do the network.
00:45:29:29 - 00:46:20:13
Darren Buck
Another point from that book that is just incredible to me and has such parallels to what we're talking about, of building a bicycle network, is that on many of these interstates and the interchanges, these tremendously complex structures, there was no demand there. All of the demand was latent, and these things would open and experience, you know, cars a day on these massive interchanges, which is just incredible to me that we did such a huge network of building on basically on speculation and on just the faith that it was going to result in behavior change.
00:46:20:16 - 00:46:54:04
Darren Buck
And hurray, we we succeeded. We we got the behavior change. Those interchanges are not getting 8 or 9 cars a day anymore. And yet we are hesitant. We are incorporated. We are just encountering incredible barriers in our cities, in our communities, in our towns, to developing networks of all ages, bicycling facility. And one of the many arguments that's floated against them is that, well, is anything going, you know, or is this going to do anything?
00:46:54:05 - 00:47:18:16
Darren Buck
Is anybody going to use these? I don't see people riding on this one bike lane that we we did before. And, you know, we had that faith way back when when we were building out the interstate that that interchange with 8 or 9 people was eventually going to be of use. And I think there's an interesting parallel there to say, you know, we may not see a whole lot of riders in.
00:47:18:18 - 00:47:40:22
Darren Buck
I'm going to pull Boston out of the air across the river from Cambridge here. There may not be a lot of riders in Boston right now, but if we build the network, there's every reason to believe, as shown by the communities across the river, that you are going to see more riders, and that we do have to exercise a little bit of faith that that infrastructure is going to change behavior.
00:47:40:27 - 00:47:54:06
Darren Buck
But yeah, there's a link to the book I'm only halfway through, but it's it's been a it's it's it is fantastic. It's great. It's it's a very good sort of economics. Look at the highway program.
00:47:54:09 - 00:48:27:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. And and again, Island Press, the imprint now with the Princeton University Press and, and yeah, I mean, you know, Beth and I talked about this is that, you know, when President Eisenhower envisioned this in the 1956 Interstate Highway Act, it was about connecting cities. He was shocked and dismayed when he realized that the interstates were cutting right through the middle of cities and starting to devastate cities.
00:48:27:21 - 00:48:51:11
John Simmerman
But that's a whole nother topic. Yeah. I mean, the vision of being able to to put together a network so that you can have that mobility. And originally it was troop mobility. That was the whole main reason he was inspired by the Audubon in, during World War two in Germany. And so, you know, it went way beyond.
00:48:51:13 - 00:49:17:27
John Simmerman
And then what was really, really, you know, insidious is we started to take highway design standards and applying them to city streets where you end up having lanes that are 14ft wide and encouraging speeding. And at the same time, then we slap up a, you know, a, you know, a speed limit sign saying, you know, go this speed, but the road says, no, this is a highway.
00:49:17:29 - 00:49:43:25
John Simmerman
And so you have conflicts all the time. And when we look at, you know, the strobes that we have created, Chuck Marone coined the term the street road hybrid is, you know, these streets aren't acting light streets because they are highway design. And so we just we had quite, quite a mess of applying those design standards of interstate highways into our what should be our local streets.
00:49:43:28 - 00:50:16:10
Darren Buck
Yeah. And I, I think there is I believe there's a little bit of reason for optimism, or at least I did until until January 20th, 2025. Ashton, which is, you know, they they have a reputation and deservedly so. Ash show the representatives of of the 52 state dots make up the membership of ash show and they work together on a lot of guidance documents that are very influential in transportation design, engineering, planning.
00:50:16:12 - 00:50:28:10
Darren Buck
One of those is this one, the guide to the development of bicycle facilities. Not many people have seen this because it costs a fortune. Unless you work for a state dot or it is.
00:50:28:12 - 00:50:48:22
John Simmerman
Or Darren, if you're podcast producer and you you count the money and you buy it, and then you interview some of the folks that were instrumental in putting this together. But you're absolutely right. This was a huge step, which came on the heels of the new updated, NAFTA guide to yes.
00:50:48:28 - 00:51:24:22
Darren Buck
Yes. And both of these are really good harbingers for change. The ashtray. I was not involved in the Doe guide. It is it is obviously first rate. The ash show guide was it went from the the the prior guide for the development of bicycle facilities was like I think like 80 pages long. This one is about 700 it which just gives you a sort of a taste of just how much work and documentation and effort went into this.
00:51:24:22 - 00:51:48:03
Darren Buck
And it, it basically it sort of answers the question for state tots, if you want to build bicycle facilities with the end goal of making it so that regular people can ride a bike in your state, this is how you do it. And it goes into detail on every sort of facility, in every sort of land use context.
00:51:48:09 - 00:52:24:25
Darren Buck
And really, I think we were at a point in 2025 where state dots, at least on sort of the leading edge, were beginning to mainstream this sort of facility. We had state dots like that. You would expect places like Minnesota, Washington, Massachusetts that are making it part of their standard practice to include protected bike lanes in so many different roadway type projects, wherever the context was appropriate to do it.
00:52:24:28 - 00:52:57:10
Darren Buck
Many of these places are doing it is doing tremendous work around planning and identifying where the state highway network is the barrier to community connectivity for walking and bicycling. Minnesota is doing great stuff around design and making sure that just these sorts of designs are part of their day to day business, but you're also seeing it getting adopted in states that you may not suspect at first blush, would be the sort.
00:52:57:11 - 00:53:40:21
Darren Buck
Ohio Dot has one of the best state design guides for walking bicycling out there. And, you know, it's it takes a while to sort of write a ship and course correct. And how much of that is getting to the ground? I don't know, maybe somebody from from Ohio can can tell me how it's being wholesale ignored, but just the fact that state dots are beginning to shift, how they view things, I think, is the first step towards mainstreaming these sorts of things for for community types, not just the big cities where I think we traditionally think of bicycle facilities going, but I think we're starting to see a lot of a lot of college towns,
00:53:40:21 - 00:54:15:22
Darren Buck
a lot of smaller mid-sized cities, even some suburbs starting to do these sorts of things. We had a guide at Federal Highway that we we put out back in 2024 on separated by lanes, on higher speed roadways. And that was that was sort of an attempt to answer questions we were getting about getting from state dots. I should add about like, we we want to do some of these, but we have to figure out some of the design, maintenance, planning questions around them.
00:54:15:24 - 00:54:49:05
Darren Buck
And how do we do it in places where we know it's going to have a significant safety effect for people who are riding, but may not necessarily be the places where people expect to see a protected bike lane, because I think we just tend to unconsciously internalize that these are facilities for cities where people are demanding safer places to ride, but people on bikes exist everywhere, and people on bikes everywhere deserve the better protection that a protected bike lane is going to offer.
00:54:49:05 - 00:55:12:15
Darren Buck
And so it was an attempt by us to sort of prime the pump on thinking about protected bike lanes in context, where they may not necessarily have been seen before, too often, and to just sort of give, give states the encouragement to say, you're not going to be the first to do this. Somebody has done this before, and we know that.
00:55:12:21 - 00:55:35:10
Darren Buck
We know that the potential safety impact is is tremendous out in those suburban locations. It's the number one crash type that is killing bicyclists nationwide is being hit from behind. It's just it is a disproportionately severe type of bicycle crash, as you might imagine. And it's happening on high speed roads. And a protected bike lane is going to help that.
00:55:35:10 - 00:56:00:03
Darren Buck
You're going to put something between that bicyclist and that car so that there isn't that type of run off the road, hit from behind crash. So yeah, I, I do feel a little bit of optimism at the state dot level that this sort of thing can make its way into mainstream practice. Losing the tailwind of having USDOT behind that is obviously an obstacle.
00:56:00:04 - 00:56:23:10
Darren Buck
But I'm I'm hoping in the coming years, maybe through the new transportation reauthorization, there is some sort of way to continue that momentum. And looping back to the bike league. I think there through their their advocacy training, I believe they are. I believe they're pretty well poised to be good partners in in encouraging state Dot's to to to make this move.
00:56:23:12 - 00:57:00:18
John Simmerman
And and for those, you know tuning in to this and are going like wait a minute. Why is the state highway transportation organization. Why are they dealing with bike lanes and bike facilities at all? Again, it goes back to this, this convoluted system of where we have funded, you know, this highway trust fund, which then turns around and sends money to the state Dot's, which then distributes money out to meet their needs and priorities across their entire transportation system.
00:57:00:21 - 00:57:23:11
John Simmerman
And and so we end up, you know, with images like this where, you know, you could arguably say probably the image in the upper left corner might actually be a state highway. It might actually be a strode where, you know, that that's kind of a state highway. But the other two images don't scream out to you that this is a highway.
00:57:23:12 - 00:57:46:13
John Simmerman
These look more like, you know, pathways and streets, traffic, calm streets. And so it's one of the biggest challenges that we have in our communities, our municipalities, is they don't have a lot of money. I've been profiling a lot of wonderful things happening in the city of Boulder on street network of of facilities that are starting to emerge.
00:57:46:19 - 00:58:10:19
John Simmerman
They don't have a bunch of money locally to be able to apply to build out their network on street. They have to apply for grants. And so they're applying for grants to the state Dot and hoping it's a competitive situation. Hopefully they get the money. It's a long process to be able to to build that. So these timelines are ridiculously long, way longer than they need to be.
00:58:10:22 - 00:58:38:28
John Simmerman
It may take 5 to 15 years just to get a project from original ideation to on the ground. So it's a really, really frustrating and difficult when you realize that, yeah, that flow of money that a community like a boulder relies upon to be able to change the streets, whether they are streets that are state highways or not, requires this, this jumping through of hoops.
00:58:39:05 - 00:59:09:29
John Simmerman
Some cities have taken upon themselves to tax themselves. And that's exactly what we did in Austin, Texas. I lived there for 11 years, and we, the voters, decided to tax ourselves to the tune of oh gosh. Over the past decade or so, almost $1 billion in in revenue to help build out safer streets. And one of the key things that we did as part of that was we made sure that what we were talking about wasn't bike lanes.
00:59:10:01 - 00:59:47:23
John Simmerman
We're talking about creating safer streets for everyone. All ages, all abilities, and even drivers benefit from creating safer street design. And so it's really not about the bikes. It's about creating streets that are more welcoming, safer, more inviting, enhance economic vitality and vibrancy. Just create a safer, more effective, higher quality of life for everyone. And ideally, if we're doing the job right, Darren, and I hope you agree with this, is that this transcends across all political boundaries.
00:59:47:25 - 01:00:07:15
John Simmerman
Do you want to do you want a city that sucks or do you want one that's wonderful and lovable and, you know, so it should not be a situation where we are, you know, politicizing these two appoint where one party says, oh, well, this is die.
01:00:07:17 - 01:00:18:23
John Simmerman
Not even sure why that's even a bad thing, but you know what I mean. It's like, why are we politicizing this stuff now? You spent the better part of how long were you in the federal government?
01:00:18:25 - 01:00:35:29
Darren Buck
I, I was at Federal Highway in two different stints for about 11 years, and then spent a few other years in a couple of other federal agencies in a prior career. I was kind of a mid-career shift where I was doing things and said.
01:00:36:01 - 01:00:38:01
Darren Buck
I want to do bikes.
01:00:38:01 - 01:00:39:18
Darren Buck
So yeah.
01:00:39:21 - 01:00:42:01
John Simmerman
Okay, so you've been there for a while.
01:00:42:04 - 01:00:42:18
Darren Buck
Yeah.
01:00:42:22 - 01:01:07:28
John Simmerman
It's it was obvious from your post on LinkedIn that you were devastated that you felt like you had to leave and needed to leave. I was you and I connected 3 or 4 years ago and were going to try to get you on the podcast back then. And there's there's challenges, you know, with trying to get a federal official, you know, onto a podcast such as the Act of Towns podcast.
01:01:08:00 - 01:01:19:05
John Simmerman
I've been able to jump through those hoops before. I had Ken Rose from the CDC on, but it took 3 or 4 months of, you know, getting, you know, getting getting that to happen.
01:01:19:09 - 01:01:43:21
Darren Buck
If you have if you have an episode with Ken Rose, I would highly encourage everybody to pull it up. Ken and his staff at CDC, Active People, Healthy Nation, they do so many great things. They were doing things I dreamed of doing at Federal Highway. They were very much we had so much to do on the safety side on federal Highway.
01:01:43:21 - 01:02:12:16
Darren Buck
We were very much about safety, safety, safety, which is obviously job one. You cannot argue against the need to make the street network safer, but it can. And his team did such a good job of keeping up there. The fact that yes, safety, but also the more people walk and bike, the better our entire society is. We are all better off if more people are walking and bicycling more often.
01:02:12:19 - 01:02:42:19
Darren Buck
They did such tremendous research into the health outcomes in communities, the disproportional health harms caused by environmental justice concerns, and neglected infrastructure in in disproportionately underserved communities. And so much of what they did was just so valuable. They are really embedded in bicycling so much. And we think of Department of Transportation as, you know, being the be all, end all of transportation at the federal level.
01:02:42:19 - 01:03:00:13
Darren Buck
But what CDC and what can Steam does is, is tremendous. They were just such great allies, great collaborators to work with, and I do I hope they I hope they are continuing to be able to do the good work that they were able to do.
01:03:00:16 - 01:03:24:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, I hope so too. I know he is posting out on LinkedIn still. They've got they actually have some jobs they need to fill in that department there. And here is that episode. This was from September of 2021 when I had Ken on. And yeah, thank you for, for, you know, reinforcing the fact that, you know, this is something we need to look at.
01:03:24:05 - 01:03:49:09
John Simmerman
And that's one of the great things about this type of work is that it's multivariate in terms of the benefits that we have when we create streets for people, when we create an environment that is truly safe and welcoming and inviting for people, it's again it you know, the benefits just roll off your tongue. You know, my background is in public health.
01:03:49:09 - 01:03:56:22
John Simmerman
And just like, you know, Ken's. And so I look to and I see that world through the lens of will this encourage healthy, active living?
01:03:56:29 - 01:04:29:28
Darren Buck
Right. I, I made a list the other day of just I forget what for, but I made a list of of everything where some piece of research somewhere has proven that riding a bicycle more often has some sort of positive impact. And it's, it's it's tremendous. It's it's safety, it's public health, it's happiness. It's I'm wearing my, climate changes here, build more bike lanes t shirt because it's climate, it's personal costs of transportation.
01:04:30:00 - 01:04:57:07
Darren Buck
You save a bunch of money if you're riding a bike, it's travel time. Reliability. We talk about that a ton at Federal Highway or did did travel time reliability. It's a big issue. It's you know it's a 20 minute trip. Really kind of stinks if it takes an hour one out of five times, you know, on the bike, it you know, it may take me 30 minutes, but it's going to take me 30 minutes every day and time.
01:04:57:10 - 01:05:24:22
Darren Buck
And I don't need to worry about that. It's just so many different benefits that bicycling may only contribute a small amount to, but it contributes a small amount to so many issues that we have, and making sure that we are not simply laser focused on economic cases. You know, there's a growing body of research saying it's you have a street safe street network, you're getting more local commerce, you're getting more people by your store window.
01:05:24:24 - 01:05:51:09
Darren Buck
You're keeping you're keeping it closer to the community. It's just the list goes on and on and on. And where we we fall into a trap. Sometimes I think of keeping, of trying to solve one problem or trying to focus entirely on one problem, rather than looking at a whole system of problems that for which we have systemic solutions.
01:05:51:09 - 01:06:00:01
Darren Buck
And I think bicycling needs to be part of that sort of conversation about changing the system for better outcomes in a variety of ways.
01:06:00:04 - 01:06:22:13
John Simmerman
And, you know, and I like to, to reinforce with folks because, you know, because of my background in public health, a lot of people just assume that I find that that's the best way to lead forward, to try to move this, this message forward. And I don't agree. I don't think that that is the case, nor do I think it's the case that leading with climate change is is the way to do it.
01:06:22:15 - 01:07:05:13
John Simmerman
Nor do I think that leading with safer streets is the way to do it. To me, it really is all about this concept of how can we work to create a a city that is, you know, considered a high quality of life, is a vibrant place, is safe and inviting for all ages and abilities. And so it's literally all of those benefits added up together is if we create streets, you know, for people, they're safer, more inviting, so that you, as you, as a parent, as your daughter gets older and you know, you are confident that she can get around on her own, she has the skills and the decision making capacity to be able
01:07:05:13 - 01:07:28:03
John Simmerman
to to navigate, you know, your community. You're going to be like, yeah, go, you know, keep, keep in touch. Let me know. But, you know, come back before the sun goes down. You know, again, free range kids, just like Lenore had talked about in her book. And that's exactly what we're seeing in the Netherlands, is a tremendous amount of independence and mobility across all ages and all abilities.
01:07:28:03 - 01:07:52:00
John Simmerman
Because guess what, folks, at some point in time, we're going to lose our ability to drive to. Are we in our community? Are we living in a in an environment where we can get around by, you know, getting on an adaptive cycle or an electric assist cargo bike, things of that nature? I want to end this conversation on a positive note and a fun note by pulling up one of your photos.
01:07:52:00 - 01:08:06:06
John Simmerman
That, and it's a photo we've seen already. But I want to pull this back up because it just makes me smile. And and this will be this is part of your identity to, talk a little bit about Sharky.
01:08:06:09 - 01:08:30:06
Darren Buck
This is. Yeah, this is the shark bike. This is actually, this is my first shark bike. Had googly eyes on it as well. But yeah, this is kind of what I used to get around. It's my daughter is she's beginning to get a little too old to to ride in it. She's riding independently now, and I, I can't squeeze two of her friends in there with her, but,
01:08:30:09 - 01:08:49:15
Darren Buck
Yeah, this is, this is what I used to get around. I got it, I got it second hand. It's one of the first Urban Arrows brought into the US. It's gone through about four rear hubs. Got a second hand from a guy in DC. It's, It is a mechanical nightmare, but I just I love it. I ride it everywhere.
01:08:49:15 - 01:09:18:09
Darren Buck
And we also, we do bicycle dates on this. My partner and I, she, she had knee surgery a few weeks ago. And right before we taped this, I, I dropped her off at her physical therapy appointment down the street in the cargo bike. Yeah, it you know, there's really, I think, one of the constants in my life besides bicycling and and and my daughter is just my love of googly eyes.
01:09:18:16 - 01:09:46:25
Darren Buck
Nothing improves anything quite like googly eyes. Put a set of googly eyes on anything, and it's just radically improved. And so, yeah, I slapped googly eyes on my cargo bike. And there is no more reliable way to get just smiles and attention from passersby than riding by on a giant cargo bike with googly eyes. It just it's for somebody who I'm a bit of a I'm a bit of an introvert.
01:09:46:25 - 01:10:08:11
Darren Buck
So it's it's a weird. It's a little weird for me to go attracting attention in my day to day life, but it is nice to just ride down the protected bike lane en masse, Ave and have a have a mom and her kid wave at me and see the googly eyes. And, you know, sometimes you hear, you'll hear a little five year old like, exclaim, look.
01:10:08:11 - 01:10:09:12
Darren Buck
At the googly eyes!
01:10:09:13 - 01:10:32:25
Darren Buck
And it's just it brings a lot of joy to me. And, it's it's really just, I think just kind of an extension of, of the joy of just being part of your community at ground level, riding around. It's it's it's tremendously joyful. So I'd say, everybody find, you know, if there's an extra bit of joy you can bring to your, your day to day riding, it may be googly eyes.
01:10:32:25 - 01:10:45:05
Darren Buck
It could be it could be handlebar streamers, I don't know. Go ahead and do it because it's it's, bringing smiles is, I think it's. We could all stand to smile more, so.
01:10:45:07 - 01:11:01:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And you literally posted something about that on social media about the fact that that. Yeah, the googly eyes have helped you kind of break out of being that introvert and and. Yeah. And who, who can't smile. Would they see this? I mean.
01:11:01:07 - 01:11:31:25
Darren Buck
This is great. Yeah. I mean then you add in, you know, three chittering eight year olds in the cargo bed and. Yeah, it's just, it's it is a lot of fun and I don't I don't do it for advocacy reasons. It's just it's just how I roll. But, if, if we're putting a, if we're putting a happier face on something that can be a little bit divisive in our communities wrestling this, this question of making safer streets than, so.
01:11:31:29 - 01:11:59:10
John Simmerman
And I think that that's incredibly important. I'm really glad that you mentioned this. And then we'll make this. The last thing that I bring up is that I think it's really, really important for us to realize that when we put joy and a little bit of a happy face to things, I think that that's really, really important. You know, my good friend Andy Bono just posted this on LinkedIn this morning, and he's this is a post.
01:11:59:10 - 01:12:33:15
John Simmerman
And I really encourage everybody to, to, you know, subscribe to his urban speakeasy, his, his Substack, don't let the jaws effect kill bicycle advocacy. And really, what he's talking about is we need to realize that as we are advocating for safer streets, if we go overboard and we're constantly, you know, emphasizing how dangerous our streets are, it's going to be really, really hard for them to understand and resonate with this because this is more of the joy side of it.
01:12:33:16 - 01:12:56:25
John Simmerman
So leading with joy and getting some googly eyes on a on a cargo bike, because guess what? You're going to create interest and curiosity just by being on a cargo bike. Like an urban arrow. You throw googly eyes on there too. And oh my gosh, you're going to take it to a whole nother level. Darren, this has been such a joy and pleasure and honor having you on the Active Towns podcast.
01:12:56:28 - 01:13:05:10
Darren Buck
I'm so glad to finally get a chance to do it, and I'm so sorry I took this long, but, it was it was a joy. Thank you so much, John.
01:13:05:11 - 01:13:20:27
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Darren Buck. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring that notification bell.
01:13:20:28 - 01:13:39:11
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, again, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here on YouTube. You can also leave a YouTube super thanks for this episode! Or navigate over to Active Towns, or click on the support tab at the top of the page.
01:13:39:11 - 01:14:01:24
John Simmerman
And there's several different options, including making a donation to my nonprofit, advocates for Healthy Communities. Or you can become a patron supporter. Patrons do get early and ad free access to all this video content, and this is a wonderful opportunity to send a very special thank you to all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel financially. Again, I simply could not produce this content without your support.
01:14:01:25 - 01:14:10:06
John Simmerman
Mahalo nui loa! Well, that's all for now. This is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha.