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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 - 00:00:19:23
John Simmerman
Before we get into this episode, I just want to let you know that this is episode number 255, the season finale for season seven. Season eight is going to kick off in the fall, right around the September timeframe, because I am taking two months off of the podcast to travel around Europe, do some interviews and shoot some other video.
00:00:19:26 - 00:00:25:26
John Simmerman
So with all that said, let's get right to it with episode number 255 with Michael Schneider.
00:00:25:29 - 00:00:44:16
Michael Schneider
We talked a little bit about how I sort of went through this transformation, started biking everywhere. It wasn't until my wife and I started having kids that that became sort of a political rallying cry for change. I just wanted to be left alone riding my bike before. But once I had kids on the bike with me, all of a sudden I wanted a better future for them.
00:00:44:19 - 00:00:50:11
Michael Schneider
Streets for All became LA's first and still only transportation focused political action committee.
00:00:50:13 - 00:01:15:18
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the after town channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Michael Schneider from Los Angeles, California. And the streets for all organization. We're going to be talking about major LA healthy streets, Los Angeles, that just passed with really overwhelming numbers in the March election. so let's get right to it with Michael.
00:01:15:20 - 00:01:19:20
John Simmerman
Michael Schneider, it's so wonderful to have you in the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.
00:01:19:23 - 00:01:21:18
Michael Schneider
Thank you for having me.
00:01:21:20 - 00:01:28:06
John Simmerman
Michael, I love giving my guests an opportunity to take 30s out and, you know, introduce yourself. So who the heck is Michael Schneider?
00:01:28:13 - 00:01:54:12
Michael Schneider
I am a native Angelino, born and raised in Los Angeles, the car capital of the country, and I did my duty at age 16, at 8 a.m. on my 16th birthday, actually, to get my driver's license and drive everywhere. And so up until about ten years ago, I was, living life like everyone intended for me to live in Los Angeles and not think, you know, anything was wrong.
00:01:54:15 - 00:02:18:15
Michael Schneider
And, today I've done no. 180. So I guess what we'll be talking about a little bit is how that happened. But I am a former car addict turned urbanist, environmentalist. And I'm so overeducated at this point, I educate myself on the harms that cars cause and cities that I radicalize myself to dedicate my life currently to do something about that.
00:02:18:17 - 00:02:35:14
John Simmerman
I love it, I love it. Yeah. And you mentioned, your life shifted and changed a little bit. about a decade ago. It was, apparently from your post from four days ago. It was 12 years ago that this little thing happened. tell the backstory on this.
00:02:35:17 - 00:02:57:28
Michael Schneider
The backstory is that is a text message. If you click on the the graphic, it'll enlarge even more. That is a text message from my, then girlfriend, now wife, who lived in Venice Beach at the time and bought a used vintage Schwinn bike off of Craigslist. And, if you it's hard to kind of see it in the picture, but it's a five speed bike.
00:02:57:28 - 00:03:19:15
Michael Schneider
It was built in the 70s. nothing special at all. It's beautiful. And, a combination of things happened at the time that happened, and her vision for it was, oh, we'll ride on Sundays along Venice Beach. It'll be romantic and nice and whatever. And instead, what happened was I started using that bike to just get around town.
00:03:19:18 - 00:03:41:08
Michael Schneider
initially it was cause, the Great Recession of 0809. I was a startup entrepreneur. I'd hit my businesses pretty hard. And at a certain point in 2010, 2011, I had to give up my big, expensive BMW lease. I borrowed my grandfather's classic Mercedes, which was the most beautiful looking car that never worked, and it was always in the shop and I got tired.
00:03:41:08 - 00:03:59:00
Michael Schneider
This is before Uber, before I left, I just got tired of losing days, hours and sometimes days to a car. Being in the shop. So that vintage Schwinn bike that you see became my mode of transportation. I remember the week that I said, you know what? I'm just going to try going the two miles to my gym on this bicycle.
00:03:59:00 - 00:04:14:13
Michael Schneider
It seemed crazy to me and my native Le Brain that I could actually use a bike for transportation. But I tried doing it and I was like, that was kind of fun and easy, and I didn't have to look for traffic. And I was I, I didn't have to look for parking and I wasn't in traffic. let me do it again tomorrow.
00:04:14:13 - 00:04:20:19
Michael Schneider
And I did it again the next day and just kept pulling that string till today. But that that bike was very important.
00:04:20:26 - 00:04:54:04
John Simmerman
It's so funny to you. You you kind of framed yourself as, you know, that typical, Southern California dude, you know, car enthusiast. And you're not the first LA based car enthusiast I've had on the podcast and on the channel here. I also had, Ethan Tufts on and he, of course, has the, the YouTube channel Hello Road and we talked about his sort of transformation because he was this car enthusiast that just started to realize that, you know what, driving a car around LA kind of sucks.
00:04:54:06 - 00:05:29:21
John Simmerman
And having car addiction really sucks. And so he talked a little bit about that whole transformation that he went about and how that had a profound impact on his life, and so much so that he, you know, produced a couple of different, episodes, out on his YouTube channel talking about. And I think it was like part therapy for him just getting it out there about, you know, that transformation and, and realizing, yeah, how sucky it can be being stuck in traffic and has nothing to do with you mentioned it there with you.
00:05:29:26 - 00:05:43:00
John Simmerman
He came to mind when you mentioned the old Mercedes. That wasn't always, you know, it wasn't reliable in terms of working because his joke is he's always got at least 10 or 12 cars in various stages of operation that he's working on.
00:05:43:02 - 00:06:09:16
Michael Schneider
So, John, I don't know if you know this, but. Ethan, I know Ethan pretty well. He is in our slack channel. He's volunteered for streets for all and done videos for us, and he, he and I are both examples of people that that lived a certain way and didn't think anything was wrong. And when I say didn't think anything was wrong, I'm not even talking about, you know, climate change or like the big things wrong with such a car dominated place.
00:06:09:18 - 00:06:29:24
Michael Schneider
I couldn't put my finger on it. I remember going to Europe as a kid and walking around the streets of Paris with my parents and thinking, this feels different. I didn't know why, but I'm like, this feels different. I can actually walk. Oh, there's there's there's a place I can sit and and eat a sandwich. And, and it just felt really different.
00:06:29:26 - 00:06:53:20
Michael Schneider
And I'd come back to LA and, and in my head and I think in most Angelinos heads and most places that are car dominated, they're like, well that's great for there. But it would never be here. And so it wasn't until much later in life and that I educated myself about, street design and, speed limits and, just the way that, we've chosen to build our built environment and the effect that has.
00:06:53:20 - 00:07:11:17
Michael Schneider
But, yeah, I think, Ethan, there's not many of us. I'd say most people in Los Angeles are still very much, they haven't gone through the matrix yet and taken that pill and opened their eyes. They're still very much like, I need to drive for every trip all the time. And that's just the way nature intended in a city like this.
00:07:11:19 - 00:07:31:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. we have a video from Ethan, that you, provided out on the, a shared folder. And so we'll we'll play that, before we play that, though, just talk a little bit more about, going back to that origin story as you're on the bike, suddenly you're starting to move around a little bit more in, in the city.
00:07:31:14 - 00:07:50:28
John Simmerman
I get the sense that that was part of it is trying to get around in your city, not having that reliable alternate, you know, vehicle that you could, you know, depend on, sort of opened your eyes to the challenges that we have on our streets in the the greater Los Angeles Basin. There.
00:07:51:01 - 00:08:09:25
Michael Schneider
Yeah, it took a minute. So my gym was maybe two miles away. My office was a mile away. Everything was pretty close. So it was still radical even to go the short distances for me. But it wasn't that crazy. I do remember distinctly, maybe about 2 or 3 months after that first, eye opening experience of going to the gym.
00:08:09:28 - 00:08:28:02
Michael Schneider
I was having lunch with a friend in downtown Santa Monica, and I was in the West Hollywood area. That is only, let's call it 8 or 9 miles. But to my native LA brain biking that far seemed absolutely insane. And I was debating, am I going to do it or am I going to die? What am I doing here?
00:08:28:04 - 00:08:50:14
Michael Schneider
I decided to give it a shot. It took me about an hour, which frankly, between traffic and looking for parking, it's probably pretty equivalent. and today it would it would take me less because I kind of know the shortcuts now, but I got there and, I'm old friend of mine. I mean, we went to high school together, paraded me around his office being like, Michael just biked here from West Hollywood.
00:08:50:14 - 00:09:10:05
Michael Schneider
How crazy is that? And like, everyone's jaws were on the floor. People were offering to donate money to help me buy a car. you know what's wrong with you? Are you okay? And and there's just a stigma in Los Angeles. Like nobody rides a bike unless they can't afford a car. And if you can afford a car, what the hell are you doing on a bicycle?
00:09:10:08 - 00:09:17:07
Michael Schneider
And again, I, I understand that mentality because I used to be that. But obviously it's things have changed.
00:09:17:09 - 00:09:48:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And what I love about LA and you and I were talking about this before we hit record is that I'm a fourth generation Los Angelino. I didn't spend my, my childhood years so much in the Los Angeles space in the area. but I would come back for all the major holidays and all that. And then, of course, when I, did decide to to, you know, go to college, I decided to go, to school there at USC in Los Angeles and in, in downtown Los Angeles, in the center of the city.
00:09:48:23 - 00:10:06:12
John Simmerman
And, I loved getting around by bike, there in the city. I always had a car. I always had an access to a car, because I was also a surfer, too, because I loved, you know, just throwing the surfboard into the back of my my tiny little Toyota station wagon that I had for most of my time there.
00:10:06:14 - 00:10:36:13
John Simmerman
and, which, by the way, got stolen twice. it was a joy, really, to get around by bike when I had that opportunity to do so. And some you mentioned it there, some of the back routes, when you know some of those shortcuts and when you know the fact that, oh, by the way, there's a really quiet residential street that, you know, runs parallel to this other street, and it's a delightful, you know, tree canopied area and there's hardly any cars.
00:10:36:13 - 00:11:01:09
John Simmerman
And those streets actually do exist in L.A.. you need to know how to find them. And ultimately, as a municipality, the city needs to know how to really lean into those and create opportunities to transform them into, truly safe and inviting, bicycle boulevards and or bicycle priority streets, whatever you want to call them. but those do need to happen.
00:11:01:09 - 00:11:23:06
Michael Schneider
L.A is an interesting city because it's quite large. you can fit 6 or 7 other major U.S. cities in the borders of the city of Los Angeles. But what's interesting, so everyone just assumes LA is too big to get around using a bicycle. But 50% of our trips every day that are mostly taken by car are three miles or less a quarter or one mile or less, two thirds or five miles or less.
00:11:23:09 - 00:11:39:24
Michael Schneider
Another way to say it is it. In theory, it's possible that if everybody converted those trips to a bicycle, two thirds of the traffic could go away and it'd be less than a half hour bike ride. That's probably not going to happen to that extreme, but it just puts it in perspective what LA has and what I discovered.
00:11:39:24 - 00:12:01:15
Michael Schneider
And by the way, the bike infrastructure is getting better and better. And we can talk about streets for all and our efforts to do that. But when I discovered when I first started doing this, there was no Google Maps biking directions. I mean, you were kind of on your own. And because I grew up here, I knew what streets connected to what a bit, but I didn't have the empathy or the sensibility of doing that as a cyclist.
00:12:01:17 - 00:12:29:21
Michael Schneider
And that's why I think our cities look the way they do. If you've never biked in a city, you don't really have empathy for what a street is really like for people outside of a car. And, you know, one of the first things I do, I have a folding Brompton now that I fly with and take on planes with me and and I do that a because I don't want to have to drive to the airport or from the airport to my destination, but B I find that a bike is the perfect speed at which to discover a new place to.
00:12:29:23 - 00:12:55:24
Michael Schneider
And I love having my own set up and not dealing with rentals and return hours that I missed and whatever. It's just nice to have your own bike. So, going back to LA, there is actually a fairly decent network of, residential streets that form a grid that go most places. if you if it doesn't continue, it's usually a movie studio, a cemetery or a freeway in LA that cut off that grid.
00:12:55:26 - 00:13:02:28
Michael Schneider
But, in general, depending on where you live, there's usually a good alternative to a very major street that wouldn't be that safe to bike on.
00:13:03:03 - 00:13:26:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people would be surprised at just how inherently bikeable that basin is. for the most part, you're not dealing with continuous, you know, steep hills. There are some sprinkled in here and there, especially if you're, you know, trying to get to places that are sort of up in the hills. But for the most part, Los Angeles.
00:13:26:23 - 00:13:52:10
John Simmerman
And you get this when you fly into it, it's it's a pretty established grid. I mean, it was really platted out, you know, in the late 1800s. And so a good portion of the city of the basin is, in fact, a fairly tight grid pattern. The other thing that, you know, Los Angeles provides is it's got some of the best weather all year round, no snow to worry about.
00:13:52:13 - 00:13:52:26
John Simmerman
00:13:52:29 - 00:14:12:20
Michael Schneider
When I really want to mess with people in LA, I show them videos and pictures of people in Finland of kids arriving in the snow by bike, and we just have no excuse for, I mean, I guess you could say in the summer months it's maybe a little hot to ride a bike, but in general, it's, it's so temperate and lovely outside.
00:14:12:23 - 00:14:34:12
Michael Schneider
There is just there's just no excuse. We have a great event called Cycle Via that now happens every two months where cars are closed, closed off from streets and people, roll and walk and jog and whatever they want outside of a car. And tens of thousands of people come to these events, and those bikes just collect dust in their garages most of the time because they're too scared to use them.
00:14:34:12 - 00:14:36:05
Michael Schneider
So we have so much potential here.
00:14:36:07 - 00:14:58:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Okay. As promised, let's get over to Ethan's a little video, because I think this is going to set up, some of the conversation that we need to have about, the, HLR measure, the past. And so let's get, Ethan cued back up here. Okay. Let's hear from, Ethan Tufts of former guest here on the podcast.
00:14:59:01 - 00:15:27:05
Video Voiceover
In the last ten years, over 3000 people have been killed and nearly 17,000 severely injured by cars in Los Angeles. And LA's traffic death rate is on the rise. What has the city done about it? Turns out almost nothing. I'm standing at the corner of Lindley and Roscoe in the San Fernando Valley, a mere 300ft away from the Northridge Middle School playground, just a three minute walk to Tara Street Elementary School.
00:15:27:05 - 00:15:55:07
Video Voiceover
We're on a busy bus corridor. There are countless apartments nearby and quite a few pedestrians trying to cross the road here. You'd think an intersection with so much activity and close proximity to schools would be well designed to keep people safe, but due to the city's lack of action, exactly the opposite is true. At this one intersection alone, 103 people were seriously injured and two were killed in the last decade.
00:15:55:09 - 00:16:23:03
Video Voiceover
At just this one intersection here is this same intersection ten years ago. Notice any substantial changes? Neither do I. How does the city respond to all of this death and injury? By not changing a thing. But our streets don't have to be so dangerous. With some simple changes, we can reduce and eliminate death and injury by cars on our streets and make it easier to get around our city streets.
00:16:23:03 - 00:16:43:23
Video Voiceover
For all is working to make this happen, you can help by supporting measure hla visit yes on hla.com and pledge to vote yes on measure HLA la. With your help, we can counteract years of government inaction and save countless lives on our streets.
00:16:43:25 - 00:16:52:18
John Simmerman
Not it. So that's a great introduction to talk a little bit about. HLA what is HLA?
00:16:52:20 - 00:17:19:00
Michael Schneider
HLA is a ballot measure that we just won. We spent almost three years working on it. The genesis from it for it was we were so frustrated when I started streets around 2019, we looked at the city's mobility plan, which is actually pretty good, and it's a network of bike lanes, of transit corridors and pedestrian friendly streets of, neighborhood streets.
00:17:19:00 - 00:17:36:08
Michael Schneider
And if the city just implemented it, it would save a lot of lives over 50% of the injuries and deaths, like the ones Ethan was just describing, happened on a mobility plan, streets that had planned treatment that wasn't implemented. So we looked at this and we're like, oh, this is easy. All we need to do is get the city to implement its own plan.
00:17:36:12 - 00:17:55:23
Michael Schneider
And, you know, our job will be done. unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. We would go to council offices and say, hey, this street, we got a copy of the repaving schedule. The street is up. It's got a bike lane on it where you put the bike lane in, and most of the time the reaction was either no response or no, we can't do that right now.
00:17:55:26 - 00:18:22:10
Michael Schneider
Or, very rarely we'll look into it. And then nothing happened. Anyway, as it says there, 5% of the mobility plan was implemented in eight years between 2015 and 2023. It's designed to be a 20 year plan. The city at that rate has turned it into a 160 year plan. So we were frustrated. I got tired of begging, pleading and yelling for council offices and for the city to just implement its own plan.
00:18:22:12 - 00:18:43:20
Michael Schneider
So that was the Genesis. And, in 22, we started collecting signatures. We turned it over 100,000 signatures to the city. We qualified for the ballot. We missed the November 22nd election by a few weeks. But actually, that was a blessing in disguise because we had a lot of time to organize and plan, and we just ran a successful campaign and, measure a pass.
00:18:43:20 - 00:19:05:00
Michael Schneider
It didn't just pass by a little bit. It passed by almost two thirds of the vote in a primary election with that usually has more conservative voters. So now under HLA, the city cannot repave a street without implementing its own plan. It will be game changing for Los Angeles. Citizens won't have to beg council offices and go street by street.
00:19:05:02 - 00:19:13:03
Michael Schneider
And in theory, as long as the city does, adheres to the measure. Here's to the law. We should get safer streets relatively quickly.
00:19:13:06 - 00:19:41:29
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, Yeah, I mean, we've been following this. I think, you know, this that, you know, people nationally, even internationally, we're we're following along, thanks to the, you know, the beauties of social media, the Twitter verse, if you, if you want to call it that. but yeah, we were kind of following along and, and, you know, it came around and you had, a successful election.
00:19:41:29 - 00:20:12:24
John Simmerman
It was March 5th. And, and yeah, talk about getting out the vote. And that's and you're right, you mentioned it. It's it's hard to to do this in off elections and in primary elections. And yet you did. And it was a resounding victory. I have to think that if it were like on this upcoming November elections, it would have even been even more successful, which is, you know, kind of surprising and shocking to say, I think.
00:20:12:24 - 00:20:34:26
Michael Schneider
So. Primary elections. Our biggest fear with the primary election was, low turnout election, mostly an older electorate that may not care about this stuff as much. And it's just typically a more conservative, electorate. At the end of the day, the turnout was 28%, so that is pretty abysmal. But again, these are the 28% of voters that are least likely to vote for this thing.
00:20:34:26 - 00:20:38:01
Michael Schneider
So I do think in November the numbers would have been even higher.
00:20:38:04 - 00:21:00:13
John Simmerman
I have to say this, just looking at your graphic here is that because you you talked about the fact that, you know, oftentimes it's a little bit more conservative, tends to be an older electorate, but at the same time, you did a such a fabulous job on your framing about, you know, what this was about. This was about creating a safer environment on the streets of Los Angeles.
00:21:00:15 - 00:21:21:14
John Simmerman
And it's a it's a healthier environment. And the fact that the framing is such and the marketing is such is that this is for everyone, including, by the way, those people who are in wheelchairs, those people who are walking with canes and, and really, you know, being quite clear, you know, especially to that older electorate, this is for you too.
00:21:21:17 - 00:21:28:15
John Simmerman
You are some of the biggest, you know, recipients and beneficiaries of safer streets.
00:21:28:17 - 00:21:52:09
Michael Schneider
Yeah. So a few things were interesting. First of all, everyone's a pedestrian at least some of the time, even if you drive everywhere. We did polling and the polling, the one stat that I cannot stop thinking about was the number I think was 51% of Angelenos did not feel safe crossing the street near where they lived. There is no more basic interaction than crossing a street on foot, and most people didn't feel safe.
00:21:52:11 - 00:22:13:01
Michael Schneider
So that told us we had a problem. We also got lucky though. It's a terrible stat, but from a campaign point of view, we got lucky. We had a two decade high of pedestrian deaths, so it was on people's minds. We had had a couple of children hit and killed trying to get to school in the last couple of years, and that's made a lot of news and it's just horrific stories.
00:22:13:03 - 00:22:29:03
Michael Schneider
And then we had the police chief in January, and I think that videos in their march out and say, hey, City of Los Angeles, more people were killed by cars than by murders last year. So the city was paying attention more than usual to this issue. Yeah, there's the video you want to play that.
00:22:29:05 - 00:22:30:00
Impatient Driver Actor
The 2023.
00:22:30:00 - 00:22:31:20
Michael Schneider
Saw a significant increase in traffic.
00:22:31:20 - 00:22:38:04
Video Voiceover
Fatalities, fatal hit and runs, as well as fatal pedestrian and bicycle collisions. The city experienced more.
00:22:38:04 - 00:23:04:29
Michael Schneider
Traffic fatalities this last year than it did homicides.
00:23:05:02 - 00:23:29:03
Michael Schneider
So a pretty somber ad there. but the campaign was about safety. I don't think there's enough bike advocates in any city to win an election. And the mobility plan is so much more than just biking. and so our message, people could still argue with it, and they did. But it's really hard to argue with. We just want the streets safer for everybody, for kids.
00:23:29:03 - 00:23:47:19
Michael Schneider
I mean, how do you argue with that? And, I do think that message resonated, even if, you don't have, kids, you probably have empathy that kids should not be, hit and killed trying to walk to school. even if your kids are grown up, maybe you have grandkids. Like, if you drive. You're so pedestrian.
00:23:47:19 - 00:23:53:09
Michael Schneider
We tried to tap in and make it as broad as possible, and I think we were successful in doing that.
00:23:53:12 - 00:23:59:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. So successful. That's the image.
00:23:59:21 - 00:24:32:05
Michael Schneider
I want yeah. I was so emotional that night. So prior to that. So that is a room you showed the invitation earlier at a historic venue in Koreatown called The Prince. and it's got a back room that we rented, and I was so nervous. the election results dropped around 8 p.m.. I was sitting very anti socially in a corner with my wife, nibbling on some Chinese food, trying to just, you know, deal with my nerves and it was so overwhelming.
00:24:32:05 - 00:24:51:20
Michael Schneider
I didn't think it would be that way. Honestly, I thought it would be a nail biter. We had the firefighters union fighting against us. We had a counter fight against us. We had people inside city hall, bureaucrats fighting against us. And so I thought it the results might be like just above 50% or even just below 50, but we'd make it up as more votes were counted.
00:24:51:23 - 00:25:00:17
Michael Schneider
To see 67% on election night was just, emotionally overwhelming after nearly three years. It's very exciting.
00:25:00:19 - 00:25:07:02
John Simmerman
And the margin of victory grew after that, too, right? As the other votes were counted.
00:25:07:05 - 00:25:17:28
Michael Schneider
It bounced around. So it went from 67%, I think the lowest, it was 62%. And then it added with each drop it crept back up to 65.5%. Was the final.
00:25:18:00 - 00:25:59:11
John Simmerman
Was the final. It's just extraordinary. It's fantastic. And again, we're emphasizing the fact that there's already a mobility plan in place. It's a pretty darn good one, all things considered. And so this is just saying in your mandated city, you've got a plan in place. People are dying on the streets. Just do what's on your plan. Is there money associated with this in any way, shape or form, or does this require the city to to make those those choices, those difficult choices, you know, based on a general budget, to fund it appropriately.
00:25:59:13 - 00:26:19:01
Michael Schneider
So there's no money attached to it? I will say that it's tied to repaving. The city of L.A. already has a budget to repave about 500 miles of streets every year. About 6% of our streets. And when you repay the street, it's just black asphalt. You have to re stripe it. So striping in a bus lane, a bike lane, a painted curb extension.
00:26:19:04 - 00:26:43:14
Michael Schneider
This is not fancy stuff. This is not expensive stuff. I want the expensive stuff. We just don't mandate it. I want concrete curbs. I want, planters and beautification and trees. but he doesn't mandate any of that. So this is very inexpensive stuff. I want to say one more thing. We heard this a lot. Well, the mobility plan, the city acknowledges they passed it, but it's conceptual.
00:26:43:16 - 00:27:02:21
Michael Schneider
We didn't intend to actually do it like this. We just thought this is nice in theory. And really what we intended apparently, was for it to sit in a drawer and gather some dust while we didn't do much of anything. But we keep hearing that word conceptual, and I think it's an interesting word. I'm having conversations with other people in other cities.
00:27:02:23 - 00:27:20:12
Michael Schneider
you mentioned, the idea spread a little bit. It's really exciting to me that people have reached out in different places, including two different countries, saying, I want to do HLA here. And it's almost the same response universally from city staff. This is just conceptual. We really can't rush the gut, you know, jump the gun here and just rush into this.
00:27:20:15 - 00:27:39:26
Michael Schneider
And my our response to that was there's lines on a map that are on certain streets and there's a there's a key, there's a legend that says what those lines mean. It doesn't say you have to remove parking to put in a bike lane, or you have to remember traveling to put in a bike lane. But it says the street needs a bike lane.
00:27:39:28 - 00:28:03:14
Michael Schneider
So the how is flexible to a degree, but not doing anything is also not an option. I think there's probably good plans in many cities across the country, that are just collecting dust, and they probably get the same response. Well, that was just conceptual. We didn't actually that's not an implementation plan. Don't go crazy. And I think it could be a good model for change to just hold cities feet to the fire for the plans they already adopted.
00:28:03:16 - 00:28:29:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And speaking conceptual this is conceptual too. This is like visioning what a street redesign could look like. And so and we've got a video that that will also play a little bit about a vision and a conceptual ization and illustration of what things could be. Talk a little bit about this particular image and this particular street and this conceptual drawing of what the future could look like.
00:28:29:22 - 00:28:48:18
Michael Schneider
So that is on Venice Boulevard. Venice Boulevard is unique in a number of ways. It's extraordinarily wide. Used to have a streetcar on it. It's a very wide street. It's a former state highway, and it's the only street in the city of Los Angeles that goes from the ocean to downtown LA. That is entirely in the city of Los Angeles.
00:28:48:25 - 00:29:12:01
Michael Schneider
Every other major street cuts through multiple jurisdictions. the trains have long been removed, of course. And so what you're left with is an excessively wide street with three vehicle travel lanes in each direction for most of the stretch of Venice, a painted bike lane, a class two bike lane, and parking very typical at L.A. Street. This is a vision of what we call Venice Boulevard for all.
00:29:12:03 - 00:29:35:15
Michael Schneider
We launched this in 2019, just after starting Streets for all, and Covid set us back a little bit, but three miles went into the ground last year and we got the first 24 seven bus lanes outside of downtown LA, and we got parking protected bike lanes. So this vision is starting to come to reality. If you went to that intersection today, you would not see the bus line, but you would see a parking protected bike lane.
00:29:35:15 - 00:29:43:09
Michael Schneider
So we're getting there. But that is part of that project. What we're focused on now is getting that further west to the ocean and further east, all the way to downtown.
00:29:43:11 - 00:29:55:17
John Simmerman
you say that the, the bus lane, in as a red bus only lane is not in place, but I'm assuming that there is a bus that that that goes along this corridor.
00:29:55:19 - 00:30:10:13
Michael Schneider
yeah. So to be clear, three miles of bus only lanes did go in the 24 over seven. They're not painted red, so there's no red carpet, but they end just west of where this rendering is. And so just just, just the protected bike lanes turned on this stretch.
00:30:10:16 - 00:30:34:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. That you sort of channeled, something that's very personal to me. And that is the, the fact that we had the most extensive streetcar line, in the United States, in Los Angeles, both my great great grandfather and my great great great grandfather, worked at points in time on the red car line, there in downtown Los Angeles around the turn of the century.
00:30:34:15 - 00:30:52:22
John Simmerman
And so we were, you know, very much a part of that in, in my family, the law of, of the fact that we did have, that as a history of what these streets are. And so part of the reason why many of the streets are as white as they are is because they were actually carrying the streetcar lines.
00:30:52:24 - 00:31:17:27
Michael Schneider
So my grandmother died at age 106 two years ago, and she lived in Santa Monica in the 1940s. And she worked in Westwood today. If you lived and she lived at Ocean in Montana, so right at the edge today, if you lived there and worked in Westwood, your only option would be a bus. it'd be a pretty slow bus, I guess you could bike, but there really isn't good public transportation between those two places.
00:31:17:29 - 00:31:36:17
Michael Schneider
What she used to do is walk out of her apartment, walk up to San Vicente, hop on the red car and be at work in about 20 minutes, going down the median of what is now coral trees on Sammy Center. I don't think most people realize how extensive in the 1920s, LA's public transportation system was. It was the biggest in the world.
00:31:36:20 - 00:31:58:15
Michael Schneider
Yeah. And I also don't think people realize how we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when it was all privately owned, which was the problem. But there was a very narrow vote at LA City Council, I want to say, sometime in the early 50s, and we and that city could have taken over that right away, and it lost and so, other interests came in.
00:31:58:18 - 00:32:16:16
Michael Schneider
And you know what they said we're going to take away this these old, decrepit things no one wants. Everyone wants a car, but we're still going to have busses. That's going to be the public transportation system. I wouldn't have minded that if they had just given busses their own right away. But when you two mixed slow busses, of course, they become less, much less attractive compared to cars.
00:32:16:18 - 00:32:26:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. So I do want to channel this, fabulous video and, is there sound to this one or is this just a, there's no sound.
00:32:26:00 - 00:32:29:28
Michael Schneider
I can narrated a little bit before you hit play. I can't up the project.
00:32:30:00 - 00:32:33:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. Let's, let's talk a little bit about this project here.
00:32:33:06 - 00:32:58:08
Michael Schneider
So this is a project called Marina Central Park. This came from us looking at traffic volumes on LA freeways and really focusing on State Route 90, which is what you see here. It is a three mile long freeway between the 405 and Marina del Rey. It was supposed to be a 40 mile long freeway going all the way to East Anaheim and in the 1960s, due to community opposition, they didn't build the rest of the freeway.
00:32:58:08 - 00:33:18:29
Michael Schneider
They only about three miles. This cut through, residential communities kind of create a scar there. It went on top of Centinela Creek, cutting off the creek from anything, and it is la shortest and least trafficked freeway. It is essentially a glorified on and off ramp to the 405 freeway. So we looked at this and said, we're in a climate crisis.
00:33:18:29 - 00:33:45:18
Michael Schneider
We're in a housing affordability crisis. Is this the best use of land and Marina Central Park was the initial idea is to study this, to see if it would make more sense to convert this into 4000 units of affordable housing, bus rapid transit, bike lanes and walking paths, reactivation of that creek and a huge park. So if you go ahead and play the video, this is a rendering of what that could look like their State Route 90.
00:33:45:20 - 00:34:08:23
Michael Schneider
And as it zooms in, you see the concrete today of the freeway. And then it's going to over overlay it with housing, park, bike trails, bus rapid transit. just a really beautiful vision, ton of trees, a place I think anyone would want to live. And we recently applied for the Reconnecting Communities program for a federal grant to do the study.
00:34:08:25 - 00:34:23:22
Michael Schneider
We were told we made it all the way to people. Judges desk, but they already awarded a bunch of other stuff in the LA area, and they they needed to spread out the love a little bit more. But we're looking for other funding sources, and we still think it's a vision worth pursuing.
00:34:23:24 - 00:34:31:17
John Simmerman
Do you know if that that freeway the 90 has ever made it on to the, CNU freeways without a futures list?
00:34:31:19 - 00:34:32:24
Michael Schneider
I have no idea.
00:34:32:26 - 00:35:02:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's a that would be an interesting one to look at. every two years, the Congress for New Urbanism does a list of freeways without futures. And it really identifies segments and freeways like this that, you know, literally have no future, really, literally should be torn down and turned back into the community and reinvigorate the space, like you said, you know, space for people and transforming, you know, what is just basically barren wasteland.
00:35:03:02 - 00:35:16:06
John Simmerman
Because not only is just the travel lanes of the freeway, but it's it's sort of the impact zone around it or under it. And, you know, so yeah, it's it's very, very much an opportunity to transform space.
00:35:16:08 - 00:35:37:20
Michael Schneider
I wish I could turn the part of my brain off that keeps looking at what LA would look like had we not built freeways through our most popular areas. You know, the 101 through Hollywood and the ten freeway through Sugar Hill especially I just and Boyle Heights. I mean, I think there's six freeways in Boyle Heights. The Europeans did it right.
00:35:37:20 - 00:35:56:06
Michael Schneider
They built freeways between their cities, but not through them. And somehow in this country, it was fashionable to just plow through people's homes and build freeways. I'll never understand it. I do think to reverse that tide, we do have a campaign called destruction for another, which is trying to enforce widening and then ultimately reverse some of those harms.
00:35:56:09 - 00:36:16:10
Michael Schneider
some of the freeways are sunken. We could build parks on top of them. That'd be great. Some of them maybe don't need to exist. I think the 90 is worth studying. But in general, you know, the federal government spent so much money building out the interstate highway system, it's going to take, leadership and an insane amount of money to undo a lot of these past forms.
00:36:16:13 - 00:36:39:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. So with that, let's let's shift on over to, the the landing page for the website for streets for all. you had mentioned that, you were part of the movement to found this in 2019. give the overview of this organization and what you all are trying to do. Obviously, HLA was a big, huge campaign and initiative.
00:36:39:11 - 00:36:43:25
John Simmerman
that that came from this organization. But talk a little bit more about streets for all.
00:36:43:27 - 00:37:04:02
Michael Schneider
Well, first of all, I think we need to do better optimization on mobile devices because all the fonts, everything look crazy. It we need to fix that. We talked a little bit about how I sort of went through this transformation. Started biking everywhere. It wasn't until my wife and I started having kids that that became sort of a political rallying cry for change.
00:37:04:05 - 00:37:23:13
Michael Schneider
I just wanted to be left alone riding my bike, before. But once I had kids on the bike with me, all of a sudden I wanted a better future for them. I remember I started biking to LAX probably around 2017, 2018, and I remember coming back to the airport one day and thinking, why does this bike path end?
00:37:23:13 - 00:37:47:09
Michael Schneider
Or why is this bike lane? And I didn't know the answer to any of these questions. I was so ignorant. I didn't know how many people made up the city Council. The difference between the city and the county in terms of who made decisions. And I started educating myself and talking to anyone that would talk to me. And the conclusion I came to is if you sort of, first of all, the city of LA is surrounded, in some cases around smaller cities and in some cases has smaller cities on its border.
00:37:47:11 - 00:38:04:25
Michael Schneider
But if you look at it's not just from a bike point of view, but really an urbanist point of view. It's really the city of LA that's the problem. Santa Monica is doing great. Culver city is doing pretty well, West Hollywood doing pretty well. But LA is a problem. And so if you want to change the city, I concluded, you have to change the city council.
00:38:04:27 - 00:38:26:06
Michael Schneider
There was no one in LA that can tell you who to vote for. If you cared about changing the city, along these lines. And so, streets for all became LA's first and still only transportation focused political action committee, really, dedicated to supporting candidates running for office that share this vision and, telling people we released a voter guide.
00:38:26:06 - 00:38:46:26
Michael Schneider
We're we're highly political. We're not a 501 C3 on purpose. It makes it harder to raise money, but it makes it much more effective in terms of change. So that was the genesis of streets for all since then. And you can see some of these featured initiatives. We've branched out into also doing work in Sacramento and then, area specific campaigns around, freeways.
00:38:46:29 - 00:39:00:09
Michael Schneider
we have one called Westwood Connected. You just had on the screen. this is a list of our bills in Sacramento this year that chip away at small and big things that make our cities less safe and less functional than they need to be.
00:39:00:11 - 00:39:24:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I have to say this, I mean, you know, coming from Austin, Texas, I wish that our state at the state level, we had the amount of support that you all have, at, at the state level there in California. I know there's lots of challenges, but you all are certainly way far away ahead of many, other states that are out there.
00:39:24:17 - 00:39:52:21
John Simmerman
So, you know, keep keep the pressure forward. Now, this is the 2024 voter guide, and this includes, some of the most recent, election that, you know, just passed in March, as well. So we've got the measure here, the ballot measure. But you also have, again, city council races, there in the city of, Los Angeles as well as, you know, heading heading on down here.
00:39:52:23 - 00:40:09:06
John Simmerman
And this is the great thing that you can do when you are a C4 and a PAC is you can really, you know, go through you can, like, help people, you know, go to a voters guide and be able to say, you know, this is what they've said, you know, this is how the, the, the candidates have responded.
00:40:09:06 - 00:40:20:23
John Simmerman
And and this is our take on this. That's the, the unique thing that a C4 and in a, in a PAC can do, which typically is not super, super kosher for is C3.
00:40:20:26 - 00:40:45:19
Michael Schneider
not kosher at all? For a C3, you can do any candidate work. You can do a little bit of ballot measure work. I will say the candidate questionnaires and also the mobility debates that we have hosted have really raise the profile of progressive transportation ideas in elections in general. I think before streets for all in local elections, people weren't talking about bike or bus lanes, that we're talking about crime and they were talking about homelessness.
00:40:45:19 - 00:41:11:14
Michael Schneider
And certainly there's many challenges a large city like L.A. has. But I think by elevating this issue to a main political issue, especially when one of our candidates wins, you're just able to make change so much faster. I don't know if people are familiar with the structure of LA, but really, really quickly. We don't have a strong mayor system here, so the mayor can do a lot, but it's really the council members that are sort of mini mayors of their district.
00:41:11:14 - 00:41:29:16
Michael Schneider
There's only 15 of them. There's been 15 of them for about 100 years. And we've grown just a little bit in the 100 years. And so they're incredibly powerful. They oversee about 300,000 people each, which is more than the population of most towns in America. And they really control everything from housing policy to how the streets are used.
00:41:29:21 - 00:41:32:05
Michael Schneider
That's why we felt this was so important.
00:41:32:08 - 00:41:51:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I paused here on a good friend of mine, recall, who was previously, executive director, for the Congress for New Urbanism that we had mentioned earlier. Can you, and and he was actually working, I think, within the city of Los Angeles. But, he lives up in Pasadena. And so he ran for city council.
00:41:51:28 - 00:42:14:05
John Simmerman
Wonderful to see that. Yes, he won, and that was great to see. But this this does, as we scroll through here and we see Beverly Hills and we see Long Beach is that you all are not just focused on just the city of Los Angeles. You are, you know, really sort of out there working for the greater good across the entire LA basin area.
00:42:14:07 - 00:42:38:11
Michael Schneider
Well, it's all connected, right? I mean, the average person doesn't know where, the city of LA ends and Culver City begins. And so we need regional solutions. I also think, you know, the city of LA is the second largest city in the country. When the city of LA decides to do something, it can have huge, implications not just for surrounding cities, but it can be an example for other cities in the country.
00:42:38:14 - 00:42:51:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I love the fact that you named the organization streets for All. Talk a little bit about the genesis of that name.
00:42:51:26 - 00:43:11:14
Michael Schneider
The genesis of the name was I didn't want it to be just about bikes. I didn't want it to be just about pedestrians. I didn't want it to be just about public transit. I had educated myself in 2019 to the point where I realized we needed all these things to work harmoniously. If you notice, there's a car in our logo where I'm not trying to get rid of all cars.
00:43:11:14 - 00:43:33:03
Michael Schneider
I've been accused of that. But, it's just not true. I'm just anti cars having all the space. And so if you look at our logo and I used to run a design firm and branding is really important to me. If you look at our logo, these are really all the modes of transportation, all the people we want to look out for in what I consider to be a really functional city.
00:43:33:05 - 00:43:54:22
Michael Schneider
And, you know, you need shade. There's a tree there. You need mass transportation. If if people have a or an a wheelchair, you want to especially look out for them. We think scooters can play a huge part. Pedestrians, cyclists and so forth. So that's the idea behind the name. I got very lucky. streets for All Dawg was owned by, somebody in Boston who wasn't really doing much with it.
00:43:54:22 - 00:44:13:21
Michael Schneider
I think it was Boston. Might have been Seattle. I've lost track, but this is five years ago. The handle was used by somebody that hadn't used it in a long time. Just gave it to us. I mean, I come from the for profit. Well, in the for profit world, you guard everything with, your knuckles. So you don't want anyone to copy your ideas.
00:44:13:23 - 00:44:22:19
Michael Schneider
In the nonprofit world, everyone's like, oh, you want to go change Los Angeles? Here's here's a Twitter handle. Here's an Instagram handle. And and that was really exciting.
00:44:22:21 - 00:44:41:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. That's great. It fits. It fits well with my little, streets are for people, stuff and merch as well. I've got your, your merch page up, and I just love the t shirt. I have not purchased one yet, but I'm going to because I love to have, to wear around a little bit of profit.
00:44:41:20 - 00:45:01:07
John Simmerman
And, especially, you know, my, my streets are for people a t shirt when I'm walking in the neighborhood here because as, frequent listeners and viewers of the channel can attest, I talk about it a lot. We don't have any sidewalks in my neighborhood here. So all of our streets or streets for all and streets for people, all the time, 24 over seven.
00:45:01:07 - 00:45:24:26
John Simmerman
And so what we really saw as a result of the pandemic was a tenfold increase in the number of people walking, biking, pushing strollers, walking their dogs, running, etc. on the streets. And a dramatic decrease in the number of motor vehicles on our streets, especially driving fast. And that has continued, thankfully, in our neighborhood, is that, you know, we continue, I'll just pinch myself.
00:45:24:26 - 00:45:45:13
John Simmerman
I'll be on my bike riding, downtown or something like that, and I'll be on our street and I'll look up and there's like, you know, ten people, 12 people walking, biking, doing whatever in the street and maybe one car traveling through there. And it's just it's really, really cool to see. And it reinforces that fact that streets really are for people.
00:45:45:13 - 00:45:50:00
John Simmerman
It's the place for building wealth coming together as a society.
00:45:50:03 - 00:45:59:16
Michael Schneider
The other thing I like about the name is it's also hard to argue with you could, you know, no street shouldn't be for all. They should just be for cars. You could say it's not, but you sound like an asshole saying that.
00:45:59:17 - 00:46:00:02
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:46:00:04 - 00:46:08:13
Michael Schneider
And so, yeah, the, you know, the, the lack of sidewalks thing is really interesting. you're in Austin, you said. Right.
00:46:08:15 - 00:46:35:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. So, so the context is I'm in South Austin, in, a neighborhood just south of the, of the river of the lake, platted in the early 1900s. or our block was, was built in the 1940s. immediately post-World War two. And so these communities, these, these neighborhoods just got slapped in. We didn't have a lot of money immediately postwar.
00:46:35:10 - 00:46:59:16
John Simmerman
It wasn't until later into the 50s and into the 60s when you started seeing, you know, that money coming in. But yeah, so the streets were built relatively narrow, but with no sidewalks. And of course, what we have now is we have heritage trees, which everybody loves, that are have grown in that eight foot buffer where a sidewalk would go if one were to build one.
00:46:59:18 - 00:47:09:21
John Simmerman
but the net result is we have a beautiful tree canopy street, but no, no sidewalks. And right now it's it works.
00:47:09:23 - 00:47:30:28
Michael Schneider
I have a weird, viewpoint on streets that lack sidewalks. Maybe you don't agree, but, I ride my bike a lot in older parts of Bellaire, which is built in the 1920s, and places like that that don't have sidewalks. Yeah. And obviously in Bel Air case, it's very hilly. I don't think they ever expected any pedestrians. So they just didn't build sidewalks.
00:47:31:00 - 00:47:50:01
Michael Schneider
But what I have found is when you don't have sidewalks and you have relatively narrow streets, cars actually drive slower because they themselves sometimes walk on the street and they don't want to kill one of their neighbors or one of their family members. And I found it slows everything down where when there's a sidewalk cars, drivers feel more license to kind of speed.
00:47:50:01 - 00:47:52:16
Michael Schneider
I don't know if you agree with that, but I thought it's interesting.
00:47:52:18 - 00:48:20:07
John Simmerman
I do, I have, I have, a street one block over that has a sidewalk on one side and then, you know, the other block, you know, going the other direction. There are no sidewalks. And I can I can actually confirm that, yes, drivers will drive much more carefully on the streets where there are no sidewalks. And again, part of that is the friction that takes place of they're all relatively narrow streets anyways.
00:48:20:07 - 00:48:50:00
John Simmerman
And when there's parking on both sides, there's that friction for the drivers. In some cases, it's narrow enough where it serves as like a yield street where, oh yeah, the driver needs to let the other driver go first before going through. And so it's already somewhat traffic calmed in that sense. And so, there's a little bit of a beauty in that sense that, you know, the parked cars, the amount of people using it actually slows everything down.
00:48:50:02 - 00:49:32:02
John Simmerman
And where cities can actually help with that is also putting measures in place to have modal filters and help maintain and ensure that the volumes don't creep up. And so not only are the speeds low, but you can work on getting the volumes lower to make sense. Yeah, and that's part of the plan of I've seen some of the streets that, the city of Los Angeles has identified as, you know, some of those quieter residential streets that they would consider a bicycle priori d type of street, bicycle boulevard, street, and the implementation of some of those boulder modal filters, that will, you know, shunt the traffic and the motor vehicle traffic down
00:49:32:02 - 00:49:40:16
John Simmerman
to a busier street, a more of an arterial, so that that street can be a a safer street for people walking and biking.
00:49:40:18 - 00:50:06:03
Michael Schneider
I think getting rid of cut through traffic on residential streets is where, for lack of, better terms, that yimby's and Nimby is kind of a line nobody likes to cut through traffic on residential streets except for people cutting through. And I think I totally agree with you. Modal filters. Dividers could be such simple, inexpensive ways to just in Los Angeles create a bike network almost overnight.
00:50:06:06 - 00:50:24:03
Michael Schneider
And you know, we still are in a city where, oh, what do you mean I can't keep driving straight? I need to ask, you know, everybody and their relatives and their friends and their the business owners and everybody that's ever set foot on the street permission before I do something like that. But I think it could be hugely impactful.
00:50:24:06 - 00:50:24:28
Michael Schneider
Yeah.
00:50:25:01 - 00:50:32:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. Fantastic. Is there anything that we haven't covered yet that you want to make sure that we leave the audience with?
00:50:32:09 - 00:51:07:17
Michael Schneider
I always think about how can more people care about this issue, and how can it not seem just like these radical bike people or these these bike weirdos, or these public transit weirdos? Like how do you make this a mainstream issue? I jokingly told my wife, hella doesn't pass. I'm moving to Canada. But I, I did think if it didn't pass, I was going to go do something else with my life, because I always secretly believed that there were more people that supported this stuff than politicians believed, and that showed up at community meetings.
00:51:07:20 - 00:51:29:26
Michael Schneider
And hella, for me, reinforced that and made me feel not alone. But still, there's probably going to be friction. Yes, I support, citywide bike network in general, but in my area. Oh, wait a minute. What do you mean you're going to take that away or you're going to redo that? So we'll see what happens. But I spent a lot of time thinking about how can I get more people to care.
00:51:29:26 - 00:51:52:10
Michael Schneider
I don't know if you're able to go to, Streets Trails YouTube channel, but maybe we can end on a kind of a funny note. it's youtube.com slash streets roar. we started a culture change campaign, and the idea behind this was to get people to rethink their assumptions about our built environment, about our streets. I think most people assume they can't change.
00:51:52:12 - 00:52:08:11
Michael Schneider
And to even if they don't bike, at least not stand in the way of a bike lane, or even if they don't take public transit to not stand in the way of a bus lane. When the time came. And there's a video that I'd like to show and it's it's called, I think it's called The Angry Driver, the Impatient Driver.
00:52:08:13 - 00:52:12:14
John Simmerman
And traffic's killing me. I'll be there in a second.
00:52:12:14 - 00:52:14:03
Impatient Driver Actor
I'm going to cut to this neighborhood.
00:52:14:05 - 00:52:20:19
Video Voiceover
So I got a ticket last week. Man. Speeding, $200. Oh, shit. Look at this.
00:52:20:19 - 00:52:21:19
John Simmerman
I wish you could see this.
00:52:21:19 - 00:52:32:16
Impatient Driver Actor
Okay. Come on, move over, move over. Hey, I'm slowing down here. Move over. I pay taxes here, You know, sometimes I just want to, stay on the sidewalk where you belong.
00:52:32:17 - 00:52:37:21
John Simmerman
The streets are for cars.
00:52:37:23 - 00:52:44:15
John Simmerman
You're killing me. Come on. I love it. Oh, my gosh.
00:52:44:15 - 00:53:02:28
Michael Schneider
So that was my then seven year old and a very good friend of mine who's a big, bike activist and. But most people, I think, before they saw what he was honking at were like, I, I empathize with that feeling. You know, I don't like being slowed down. And then when you see it's a kid, most people hopefully will feel like, oh, man, just back off.
00:53:02:28 - 00:53:05:23
Michael Schneider
Like, let them not die in the street. Yeah.
00:53:05:26 - 00:53:07:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:53:07:19 - 00:53:28:10
Michael Schneider
There's one other one. If we have time, play the Ed Begley one. It's called driving. Mr. Begley. Ed Begley Jr is a well-known actor. from Curb Your Enthusiasm and many, many other shows. He lives in Los Angeles. Long time environmentalist, used to ride his bike to the, Academy Awards and still takes transit there.
00:53:28:15 - 00:53:47:25
John Simmerman
And, Ed also was an early proponent and adopter of electric vehicles back in the first round of an electric car. So he also understands the value of the fact that, yes, we do need to electrify our fleet, but we also need to decrease the number of motor vehicle trips to.
00:53:47:27 - 00:54:04:11
Michael Schneider
Ed told me that in his house, actually, his daughter told me that she's she's been involved sheets for all that there was a hierarchy of transportation. And if you wanted to go somewhere when they were growing up in Ed's house, you had to walk. And if you couldn't walk, you had to bike. And if you couldn't bike yet, take the bus.
00:54:04:13 - 00:54:23:07
Michael Schneider
And if you couldn't do any of those things and you had to drive, you basically had to show him why you couldn't do any of those things before you essentially got permission to drive. So this video, I picked him up and an electric cargo bike in an urban area. He's six three, six four. He's very tall. And we ran his errands.
00:54:23:07 - 00:54:48:09
Michael Schneider
And the whole idea behind this was to show you don't need a car to run errands in LA. Let's maybe play a few seconds of it. Maybe. Hey, it's Michael Snyder from Street Sprawl. A friend of mine asked me to help him run some errands today, and I thought it'd be perfect to pick him up on this electric cargo bike and prove that you do not need a car to run errands around the city of Los Angeles.
00:54:48:12 - 00:54:51:04
Michael Schneider
This is the most environmentally friendly vehicle possible.
00:54:51:06 - 00:54:55:05
Impatient Driver Actor
You got the right guy. I love bicycle.
00:54:55:08 - 00:54:56:27
Michael Schneider
And I even brought you a helmet.
00:54:56:29 - 00:55:03:26
Impatient Driver Actor
Fantastic. I must confess, I haven't been one of these yet. All right.
00:55:03:27 - 00:55:13:09
Michael Schneider
Oh, you're a longtime environmentalist. What made you connect cars and transportation and the impact of that on the environment?
00:55:13:11 - 00:55:28:11
Impatient Driver Actor
1970. I was just worried about the quality of the air. It hurt your lung to run from here to that car. I got involved, I rode my bicycle, and I not only liked it for cutting down the air pollution, but it was so inexpensive to ride my bike. Anyway, we got people riding a bike, I love it.
00:55:28:12 - 00:55:31:28
Michael Schneider
So you're 64 and you're sitting in the back seat of an electric cargo bike.
00:55:32:04 - 00:55:43:07
Impatient Driver Actor
This is something unusual to me and Michael. So, you know, it's unusual and because that's another excuse. Yeah, I'll ride a bike, but I can't go pick up a week's worth of groceries, and you can pick up a month's worth of groceries. And this thing.
00:55:43:09 - 00:55:49:21
Michael Schneider
That's a really good idea. Starting off, we could go ahead and go to the supermarket to get you what you need.
00:55:49:23 - 00:55:56:22
Impatient Driver Actor
Always a great parking spot when you're riding a bike. There sure is. See you on the. Hey,
00:55:56:24 - 00:56:14:24
Michael Schneider
So, anyway, we just had this lovely day of of running his errands, and, you know, we do these things not because we're telling someone else. You need to, give up your car and use an electric cargo bike to get your groceries or to take your kids around or whatever, but at least to get people to think about it.
00:56:14:24 - 00:56:27:28
Michael Schneider
I never thought about this stuff before. I went through my own transformation, and I'm trying to get people to just rethink their built environment, the choices they make politically that lead to that built environment, to maybe create some change.
00:56:28:00 - 00:56:46:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that too. I mean, it's part of what we're trying to do in content creation too, is show that what is possible. we're not doing this to try to do virtue virtue signaling and, and trying to make people feel guilty about their choices that they're making but.
00:56:46:26 - 00:56:47:28
Michael Schneider
Doesn't work anyway.
00:56:47:28 - 00:57:08:08
John Simmerman
It doesn't work. Yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. I love this channel. I'm so glad that you, had us pop over there. you notice I didn't subscribe yet, so I had to hit subscribe. So I'm subscribe now. All of you make sure that you also subscribe to the streets for all, YouTube channel. There's obviously some good stuff out there.
00:57:08:08 - 00:57:31:16
John Simmerman
And I'm looking forward to, digging in deeper into those videos. Yeah, folks, if you're if you're tuning in to this and you're in Los Angeles Basin area, please be sure to go to the website, donate to the cause, get involved. I'm sure that they're always looking for, other volunteer opportunities. So just click on that donate button right there, and get engaged.
00:57:31:16 - 00:57:57:07
John Simmerman
Get involved. And then also, if you're not in the Los Angeles Basin area, don't be shy. Reach out to Michael and let him know. He mentioned that there's already at least two other, countries that are or individuals or countries that were interested in doing their own HLA. And I think that this is exactly what needs to happen in terms of mobilizing, educating communities as to what is possible out on our streets.
00:57:57:10 - 00:58:19:28
John Simmerman
They don't have to be the way they are currently, and the more awareness that the populace can have in the community can have, the more likely the politicians will realize, oh, well, maybe status quo isn't the way that we need to be doing this. We possibly should be listening to the constituents out there that are saying that we value this.
00:58:20:01 - 00:58:42:17
Michael Schneider
Well, thank you for that. I will say, if you're in LA, you know, please get involved with us. We care about this cause. But for the people that aren't, don't assume that your city or your town is to fill in the blank for this stuff to work. It's not. And, this can work anywhere, I would argue, especially in smaller cities and towns, you can make much more of an impact.
00:58:42:17 - 00:59:08:29
Michael Schneider
Like most of their city council meetings probably only get, you know, 5 or 10 people making a public comment. If all of a sudden 20 people show up on one issue that can move the needle in a smaller place, but don't give up hope. One thing that's inspiring to me in the US is the transformation in New York City went through under Mike Bloomberg and Jeanette Silicon, and currently and Hidalgo and Paris, probably more than any other mayor in the world.
00:59:08:29 - 00:59:27:21
Michael Schneider
I mean, she ran for reelection on removing half the parking spaces from central Paris and making it impossible to drive across the city. You could still drive to where you need to go, but you couldn't do it in a straight line and making every street either transit friendly, bike friendly, or pedestrian friendly. And she won reelection on that campaign.
00:59:27:28 - 00:59:54:00
Michael Schneider
And Paris, cycling in Paris has double that just in the last 12 months. So, people like her give me hope, give me inspiration. I think we have major problems in LA, and this is maybe not the first thing that people think about. Maybe it's number 3 or 4, but I think it will keep rising up. And I continue to look for inspiration and hopefully to inspire our future political leaders, to actually take this issue seriously.
00:59:54:00 - 01:00:04:00
Michael Schneider
It's very popular to build safe, walkable, bikeable streets in places. And I the sooner politicians realize that, the sooner they're going to get elected more easily.
01:00:04:02 - 01:00:29:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'm really glad that you, channeled, you know, what is happening currently in Paris and, and many other locations globally. We're seeing some really, really positive stuff happening. You had mentioned earlier that Los Angeles has a weak mayor system where the same here in in the city of Austin, we have, a situation two here locally, where over the last decade we're actually building out that plan.
01:00:29:10 - 01:00:58:11
John Simmerman
So there is a plan in place for safer, more inviting streets and a what we call a Dutch inspired cycle network. And, and it's it's basically doubled in the last decade and we're anticipating doubling again and in mileage we're, we're talking about, you know, 200 plus miles are on the ground now and we're, you know, pushing towards over 400 miles of protected, separated infrastructure as well as a network of those quiet city streets.
01:00:58:14 - 01:01:25:03
John Simmerman
And so plans don't just have to sit on the shelves, you can actually build this shit. And, and the voters here locally have passed over the past decade in upwards of nearly $1 billion. That's what the be folks of, bond measures to fund the infrastructure improvements, to create these safer streets. So get it out there, work hard, talk with your neighbors, and grow your movement.
01:01:25:03 - 01:01:45:06
John Simmerman
And, if you're looking for, you know, inspiration of networks being built on the ground, look to to Austin. I've got a, a playlist of some videos of some of the infrastructure that's being built, and then also look to Los Angeles for what it takes to do a successful campaign and get that on, your ballot measures.
01:01:45:08 - 01:02:12:20
Michael Schneider
Well, I think going into into Austin now, that sounds very exciting. I will say I will give the the LA voters credit, not just the city for measure HLA, but the county metro, our county transportation agency, currently has by far the most ambitious rail expansion in the country. And it's because voters approved a sales tax increase with measure R and then made it permanent with measure M, and it's nothing even comes close for about to connect our airport.
01:02:12:22 - 01:02:32:29
Michael Schneider
There's a line next year that'll open under Wilshire Boulevard, probably the most important street in Los Angeles. It's just very exciting. So I my hope is that measure HLA plus everything going on at the county level, plus the Olympics coming here in 2028, will lead to an LA that you will not recognize in a very good way within the next, you know, 5 to 10 years.
01:02:33:01 - 01:03:07:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'll say this too, because I also travel with my Brompton. And so when I fly into LAX, I'm used to, you know, jumping on that little shuttle bus that would get me to the Green Line, which I would ride that. And then I make the transfer and make it into downtown and, you know, ride my I would stop off at USC and then, you know, go around the campus and see that transformation, ride on the protected bike lane there on Figueroa into the downtown area and then jump on the Gold Line going through Pasadena, heading out to visit the family, out in the assisted Glendora area.
01:03:07:03 - 01:03:18:26
John Simmerman
So it is possible it's even more than possible and it's going to get better. The future actually is bright for Los Angeles, and I'm glad you mentioned that about the county and metro and that build up.
01:03:18:28 - 01:03:20:15
Michael Schneider
Yeah, I'm very excited.
01:03:20:18 - 01:03:26:26
John Simmerman
Yeah. Fantastic. Michael, this has been such a joy and pleasure catching up with you. Thank you for joining me on the Active Jones Podcast.
01:03:26:28 - 01:03:28:25
Michael Schneider
Thank you for having me. It's a lot of fun.
01:03:28:28 - 01:03:43:06
John Simmerman
Again, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell.
01:03:43:08 - 01:04:08:00
John Simmerman
And if you are enjoying this content, please consider supporting my efforts here on the active Tens channel by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador, it's easy to do. Just head on over to Active Town Sorg. Click on the support button and there's several options there that you can choose from, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons do get access to all this video content early and free, so there is that added benefit.
01:04:08:02 - 01:04:25:02
John Simmerman
Again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers again. This is John just popping in to say thank you all so much for tuning in to season seven. I hope you have enjoyed it. I know I've been putting out a lot of content recently.
01:04:25:09 - 01:04:45:10
John Simmerman
This is your opportunity to catch up, as I will be taking the next two months off from the podcast. And again, I anticipate bringing the podcast back with season eight in the mid August early September timeframe. So we'll catch you then. And again, sending a huge thank you out to all my active towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patreon.
01:04:45:10 - 01:04:58:11
John Simmerman
Buy me a coffee! YouTube. Super! Thanks. 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.