Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:21:04
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Instead of asking people's opinion, coming from a system in which they are already locked in, you say, well, the only way to have a, an honest conversation is to first experience that that system is actually a choice. And, and there are, different choices. So, so that's that's, I think what I hope that people take out of the paper.
00:00:21:04 - 00:00:31:18
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Right. It's it's, there are better ways of having a conversation because we basically show that the current way of having the conversation, is shooting ourselves in the foot.
00:00:31:21 - 00:01:00:29
Prof. Ian Walker
Right? I think it's another constructive approach as well, which I think has got a lot of comments, is to, again, reframe the conversation very slightly away from what we are doing now, because the danger is it becomes, you know, wiping. Oh, it's about using my car or riding a bike. And ultimately, I think one of the things we've got an opportunity to do is reframe the conversation towards your goal.
00:01:01:02 - 00:01:22:14
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Professor Ian Walker and Professor Professor Marco Te Brömmelstroet. Ian is from the University of Swansea and Swansea University. Is there in Wales and Marco is a professor at the University of Amsterdam. We're going to be talking about their recent paper on Moto Normativity.
00:01:22:20 - 00:01:30:17
John Simmerman
Let's get right to it with Ian and Marco.
00:01:30:19 - 00:01:35:01
John Simmerman
Professor Ian Walker, Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:35:03 - 00:01:37:18
Prof. Ian Walker
I like really great to be here. Thanks.
00:01:37:21 - 00:01:45:08
John Simmerman
Ian, I love giving my guests an opportunity to introduce themselves. So who the heck is Ian Walker?
00:01:45:10 - 00:02:07:16
Prof. Ian Walker
I'm a professor of psychology at Swansea University in Wales. I've been working here for a couple of years, and I've been active in research related to the cycling, pedestrians, most cycling and active mobility generally from a a behavioral side, a road user side for well over 20 years now.
00:02:07:18 - 00:02:27:27
John Simmerman
I love it I love it. And before we hit record button, I was sharing with you that that's kind of my background is in behavior modification and looking at things from the psychology side. I started out as a scientist, you know, and just, you know, doing research in exercise physiology and looking at the human body and how it responds to challenges like endurance challenges and whatnot.
00:02:28:00 - 00:02:53:03
John Simmerman
And then got into, know, disease containment and health health promotion and things of that nature. So I love chatting with people who, you know, have that background of the psychology side and the human behavior side, and that interaction between our built environment and perceptions and all of that. What was that origin story for you? What really got you interested in this field of study?
00:02:53:06 - 00:03:20:13
Prof. Ian Walker
It was actually a really funny story. I was fresh out of postdoctoral research, and I've been doing that work, and I did my PhD in a very different area. It was in memory and language. And I realized at that time I didn't want to spend the rest of my career doing that. And I had this period as I was settling into my first proper academic job, trying to think, well, what am I going to devote the rest of my career to?
00:03:20:16 - 00:03:46:11
Prof. Ian Walker
And one day during this month period when I was wrestling with these questions, I was on my way to work on a bicycle and a pickup truck pulled alongside and one leaned down and shouted abuse at me. And as he drove off, I thought as he did. And that literally just became, yeah, I had all these research skills.
00:03:46:11 - 00:03:57:27
Prof. Ian Walker
I knew the techniques and things that I was looking for, the application, and that made me think, well, this matters. This makes a difference. I let's do this tend to work in this area.
00:03:58:00 - 00:04:17:08
John Simmerman
I love that, I love that, that brings up this, this graphic that I found that might have been a graphic that was, my good friends, over at the War on Cars podcast, may have used it's like, car press, plus brain and anger. It's like, what gives you.
00:04:17:10 - 00:04:22:17
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah, I think they actually used put the, episode artwork on the episode I did. Yeah.
00:04:22:17 - 00:05:00:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, I first became aware of this concept, you know, years and years and years ago with, Tom Vanderbilt's book, traffic. And he, you know, sort of introduced this concept that we have this Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of approach when we get behind the the wheel of an automobile. And psychologically, I think that there's something that happens because, you know, when we're in control of a massively powerful, you know, machine like an automobile, it's like something turns on, something switches in our brain.
00:05:00:03 - 00:05:23:25
John Simmerman
And, of course, you know, Tom wasn't the first to observe this. I mean, even this was something that, Walt Disney was familiar with in the 1954, motor mania cartoon with goofy, who turns into, Mr. Walker and Mr. Wheeler. You know, and I'm thinking that you probably know which. Yeah, yeah, it's classic. Yeah, it's really, really fascinating.
00:05:23:25 - 00:05:37:24
John Simmerman
You know how this turns on. And then, of course, there's a special level of energy, emotion, anger just for cyclists, which is what you really ended up studying.
00:05:37:27 - 00:06:06:12
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, certainly in terms of that whole issue of why do people behave differently in the car, I think there's a lot of elements to that. And there's certainly people who know a lot of that better than I do. It looks like from what I understand, there are elements of, privacy and anonymity, which seems to be quite important in that, sometimes I like to think this is a great way to understand how humanity behaves when they feel there are no repercussions for their actions.
00:06:06:12 - 00:06:29:20
Prof. Ian Walker
And it's a great way to see, it's a great way to get a very jaded view of humanity, if you think of it that way. But but there's other things that clearly work, work intent on personal space and the idea that the car, becomes an avatar. Another car, we could call it, is this, external projection that you and your identity.
00:06:29:20 - 00:07:00:23
Prof. Ian Walker
And we know that the car people cues are absolutely a reflection of their identity, but so is the way that they drive the car. And there's this notion of, like, the term, instrumental driving on something like this, where you drive in such a way as to say something about yourself. And so to challenge driving or to challenge the way people drive is probably going to hit people in lots of different ways, including their self identity.
00:07:00:25 - 00:07:21:06
Prof. Ian Walker
One of the areas that I think is particularly important that really comes into some of the work we've been doing recently, is also the norms that it is. Yeah. The kind of you're meant to drive our societies tell us that this is the right thing to do. And I think that's also one of the reasons why people get so angry at times.
00:07:21:09 - 00:07:40:07
Prof. Ian Walker
Because when they are, when they find it difficult to drive, which is very often the case, or when they are challenged by their driving, the, I suspect often people feel this is a challenge to the established order of the universe. And that is probably also the reason why people get so remote.
00:07:40:09 - 00:08:00:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, some of that earlier work that you had done, you know, you know, after that incident that really got you thinking, oh, I need to look into this a little bit more, talk a little about some of those fun early studies you and I, before we hit the record button, we even mentioned, you know, at least one of them that really popped into my mind.
00:08:00:24 - 00:08:12:09
John Simmerman
Talk about a little bit about some of those early studies and some of the things that you think the, the audience will be, you know, pretty intrigued to think, oh, this professor did this.
00:08:12:11 - 00:08:38:19
Prof. Ian Walker
For the kind of like two, three very early things. And the very first thing I did was to go out on a bicycle and on a bike, get on a bicycle, get home, take photograph of me at the junction, giving various cues and looking up my shoulder. Give me all the signals and things like that, and kind of look at, what, drivers, were picking up on when they try to judge cyclists intentions.
00:08:38:22 - 00:09:06:29
Prof. Ian Walker
And that was really interesting. And one of the things that, popped out from that was it appeared that there was a change in driver's reaction, which you could measure in their response times when the camera was arranged in such a way that I was turning and looking into the camera. And as a psychologist, that got me thinking, oh, well, eye contact is known to be quite an important thing for him being,
00:09:07:01 - 00:09:31:02
Prof. Ian Walker
And so I started looking further into that and did interesting work, where again showed people images of, cyclists making maneuvers and had them change what those maneuvers are doing, but then did it with eye trackers so you could tell exactly where people were looking and when they could say something. And again, it was very clear that was the real, homing in of the cyclist.
00:09:31:02 - 00:09:56:24
Prof. Ian Walker
Thank you. We maybe it's not surprising, but it important, because that then like some other work early on showing people scenes of traffic and asking them to describe what they see. And one of the things that's interesting from up with this incredible division between human and non-human language, which I think is related to the social nature of vulnerable road users.
00:09:56:26 - 00:10:18:22
Prof. Ian Walker
If you walk, if you cycle and to some accents, if you use a motorcycle, you are very clearly human. And what we saw in that study was that the language people use human language. Oh, a woman is crossing the road. A man is cycling along the path. He does this kind of thing, or a cyclist doing such a thing.
00:10:18:25 - 00:10:50:05
Prof. Ian Walker
But as soon as as a vehicle, the language changed and became in human language, even when you could see the driver stepping up. But one of the images we showed people had, a woman crossing on a on a pedestrian crossing and a car, and you could clearly see the driver in the car. And in almost every case, the language people would spontaneously was something like, a woman is crossing the road while a car away, and it became this non-human language.
00:10:50:07 - 00:11:18:21
Prof. Ian Walker
And of course, people like, Laura, Lenka have really picked up on this in how that non-human language feeds into media reporting of collisions and takes away a human agency and so on. And that was the very early stuff. And then, probably the thing I then did, which I suspect some of you might remember, is that old, like me is, doing work, looking at cyclists and how much space drivers leave when they have to take.
00:11:18:24 - 00:11:41:18
Prof. Ian Walker
And this is what I spent a fair bit of time cycling around with a distance sensor attached to the bike. Wearing helmets on, no helmet, wearing given clothes, and at one point guiding myself to a woman. See, women and men got treated differently. And that work got a lot of, attention and quite a bit of controversy ever since.
00:11:41:20 - 00:12:02:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I've got your website here, pulled up and there's, all sorts of fun links to, some of your past work. And so I'll make sure to include the link, in the show notes below. You know, here on this video and then for those listening, in on the listening only audience, we'll make sure that these links are in the show notes for you so you can dive into that.
00:12:02:07 - 00:12:09:29
John Simmerman
So. Well, spill the beans. What was the difference when you were wearing a wig versus the other things in terms of passing distances.
00:12:10:02 - 00:12:37:14
Prof. Ian Walker
Like the wig make different cuts. So when I go to Brown with a long, dark wig on, because at the time I had quite dark hair 20 years ago, I got on average, you know, obviously we're looking at advocacy for hundreds of drivers, but on average, drivers were leaving considerably more space when they passed. Which is interesting because it suggests that it might it might be more dangerous to look like him out on the road.
00:12:37:16 - 00:12:59:03
Prof. Ian Walker
The other thing, in many ways, that the findings of almost and without comment, interestingly, in Florida, they tested it with real men and women and found at the same thing. And then some researchers in Australia had tried it with men and women and found no difference. There's obviously some important local cultural context as well going on.
00:12:59:06 - 00:13:14:24
Prof. Ian Walker
The other finding, of course, was that, putting a helmet on seemed to lead to slightly closer passing. I think it was 8.5cm on average. And that that's being quite controversial. Some people don't like that, but, it is what appear to happen.
00:13:14:27 - 00:13:43:24
John Simmerman
And and if I remember correctly, I don't I don't know if I remember the actual study or some of the conversations. And you know, that went on, for years afterwards. It seemed to me that that there was something along the lines, too, of whether they're the driver perception, because of how you were setting it up or others, you know, had the person on the bike being, more accomplished, versus a beginner.
00:13:43:26 - 00:13:51:27
John Simmerman
We were even a child, you know, somebody who's who's less stable on a bike. Am I remembering that correctly? The differences between those. Yeah.
00:13:52:00 - 00:14:16:29
Prof. Ian Walker
No, I think that's really good memory. So what we at the end of that first study, I basically said that, you know, the two likely explanations. And in the first piece of work, it wasn't possible to separate them. So, one explanation was the kind of horrible one, which is at some level, maybe drivers are thinking he's got a helmet on, you know, he's he's safe.
00:14:16:29 - 00:14:40:07
Prof. Ian Walker
If I hit him, and feel okay to take more risks around you if you look protected. And I was hoping that wasn't the answer. I was hoping the answer was the other one, which is that people take, cycling equipment like helmets as, an index of skill in that period. Right. And, and there were reasons to think that.
00:14:40:07 - 00:15:04:25
Prof. Ian Walker
So there'd been another study, one study by, Lynn Bastard quite a long time earlier, which had kind of reported that idea. And then we did a second study. So I teamed up with a couple of colleagues from Brunel University, especially Ian Garrod, who said, look, I, I cycle 30 miles every day. Why don't we just collect loads of data while I'm doing my daily commute?
00:15:04:28 - 00:15:37:12
Prof. Ian Walker
And so we tested this idea. We devised several different outfits for into what, some of which typically were chosen to signal a different level of experience. So two of the outfits, well, one of the outfits was, you know, very much what you'd expect. Lycra, sort of from replica jersey, this kind of thing. And then I remember really distinctly we sat around the kitchen table one day, what can you wear that looks inexperienced?
00:15:37:14 - 00:16:01:03
Prof. Ian Walker
And we had this big discussion of what is in Xperia and cyclists actually looked like. And in the end, you know, we just, went along with it by getting a reflective vest made with novice cyclists on the back. So, yeah, we don't let you make sure that people definitely get the impression we want them to have.
00:16:01:05 - 00:16:26:10
Prof. Ian Walker
And we tested a few other outfits as well. But if you compare those two to the critical comparison of the racing cyclist versus the novice, I think that was practically zero difference in how they were treated by passive drivers. Which suggests that the effect I saw in that first piece of work probably wasn't down to perceived experience or skill.
00:16:26:13 - 00:16:40:14
Prof. Ian Walker
And it suggests that the horrible interpretation might be the bike won't that at some level see a helmet? And yet feel that that protection going on and therefore it's okay to drive a bit less nicely.
00:16:40:16 - 00:17:11:26
John Simmerman
In your video here that you have, you know, some of the endurance cycling stuff that you have done and the term that we of course use, you know, for those of us who have been out on the road, you know, doing long distance cycling and even racing for that matter, we almost feel like it's almost like a punishing pass to where you're like, oh, they see that we're like one of those guys, you know, the, the, the guys that we kind of hate because they're, you know, out on the road in their Lycra.
00:17:11:26 - 00:17:38:09
John Simmerman
And sometimes they're in huge groups which make life inconvenient for us. But, you know, we see the single individual out there, you know, doing his thing. And the motor is comes as, as close as they quote unquote can without actually hurting us, but scaring us. Did you did you see any validation to that sort of dynamic that could be going?
00:17:38:09 - 00:17:54:22
John Simmerman
I know that's hard to delineate that out because you can't get inside the minds of of the drivers. And it's hard to determine between just oblivious, being oblivious versus, oh, I'm going to punish this person because I don't like them.
00:17:54:24 - 00:18:17:20
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah, it's really interesting question. And and there's a couple of things that one, that point you just made at the end there about getting into the mind of the driver that feels like the holy grail back on this research. How could you possibly do that, in a way where you're going to actually get measurements of what people are really like?
00:18:17:22 - 00:18:36:04
Prof. Ian Walker
Because one of the strengths of the method we used was nobody knew they were being measured. So you were getting that true behavior. And I think there's every reason to believe that you wouldn't be getting their true behaviors if they knew they were being measured, but you'd have to kind of do that if you want to.
00:18:36:06 - 00:19:02:23
Prof. Ian Walker
I don't with that. So I don't you better data on something like punishment passes, but I have absolutely 100% experience in the the cyclist, and I in one at one time, a few years ago, someone very clearly did it deliberately and obviously I caught up with him at the next intersection and, and I said, what was that?
00:19:02:25 - 00:19:12:22
Prof. Ian Walker
And he explained, yeah. We don't deserve to be here. You don't take the road. And that's why I did it.
00:19:12:25 - 00:19:39:05
John Simmerman
Which brings up this cartoon. Because that's kind of what we're dealing with is that, you know, part of this motor normativity thought process. And we're going to dive deeper into what that actually means in just a moment here. But this is kind of the perception is that, you know, when we drive there, there's this perception that, you know, what we're doing is okay.
00:19:39:05 - 00:19:54:00
John Simmerman
But for those who are walking, running or cycling, you know, in the roadway ahead of us there, that's, you know, that's wrong and that's, you know, there's a disconnect there.
00:19:54:02 - 00:20:17:16
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah. And at some level, it's clearly seen as deviant by some people. And again, some other researchers have picked up some really interesting elements of that. So Rachel Oldroyd for example, a research based in London three years ago showed that, to a lot of drivers, cycling is seen as the toy and they see this almost an inappropriate thing to be doing.
00:20:17:16 - 00:20:43:05
Prof. Ian Walker
You're playing with your toy in the road, which is perceived as a place for serious people to be serious thing. And when I saw that, something similar years ago about this, this fundamental misunderstanding of why people on bicycle, a very, very early piece of work I did was some work with bus drivers, because there had been a lot of conflict between bus drivers and cyclists in Oxford.
00:20:43:07 - 00:21:12:13
Prof. Ian Walker
And the county council come along and do some to the bus driver. And one of the things that jumped out in the discussion was the bus drivers were sharing the road regularly with cyclists, which is what the country's biggest cycling population, with no clue in some cases about why people buy bike. And it was a real catch, and that the only reason anybody writes a bike is to save money.
00:21:12:16 - 00:21:28:09
Prof. Ian Walker
And it doesn't trigger this whole resentment. You know, you put yourself in danger of you're putting the child in danger on the back of your bike just to save money. And that misunderstanding really led to, bad feeling from the bank.
00:21:28:12 - 00:21:33:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Save money or worse. Just make my life miserable.
00:21:33:17 - 00:21:35:09
Prof. Ian Walker
00:21:35:11 - 00:22:01:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, that is really, really fascinating. So what we're we're we're striving to try to understand again is, is getting into the mind of, of the drivers. And, and there's also the problem though, and you get into this in the research with modal normative is and of course modal normativity is, is the formal name that, that you've coined.
00:22:01:25 - 00:22:04:20
John Simmerman
I believe you've created this name. Is this correct?
00:22:04:22 - 00:22:31:19
Prof. Ian Walker
Yes. So the term motor normativity was, a paper I did with Alan and Adrian Davis, and we felt, you know, not only was it quite fun to think of a scientific sounding name for something that people recognize, but we we that element of normativity was incredibly important. And we wanted to make that this idea that driving is not only common, but also seen as correct.
00:22:31:21 - 00:22:34:16
Prof. Ian Walker
And we felt we really wanted to capture that.
00:22:34:19 - 00:23:00:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. And we've got a cartoon on screen here. And I feel like this just screams that because, you know, this is, I'm assuming this is a politician or maybe, a senior administrator within a city and said, well, but people want more cars and people want more lanes. And and yet the people who are like, you know, in front of the, of the podium are like, no, no, we want better options.
00:23:00:03 - 00:23:27:14
Prof. Ian Walker
Well, I mean, you know, one of the places we see this all the time and I suspect any urbanist and almost certainly everybody watching this will be familiar with this is the Delhi elite battle. Business owners, when there's talk of taking any parking away and, yeah, every single time this happens and this, it's like a fight for every single week over and over again.
00:23:27:16 - 00:23:53:01
Prof. Ian Walker
And anytime there's talk of taking parking, like people say. But how can people reach my business? People come here by car and then again and again, organizations actually go measure it. And they show that not only do far more people go to businesses without using a car than anybody realizes. But also they show that business people, business owners systematically overestimate this, exactly about this person.
00:23:53:08 - 00:24:11:28
Prof. Ian Walker
And this has been done full time. We get multiple research studies showing those two things. Modes of people get to businesses without using a car. People who own businesses overestimate kind, and it just keeps on happening over again. And that's the textbook example of this normativity phenomenon.
00:24:12:00 - 00:24:37:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. So that reminds me to, you know, that connection between cars and business access and access to parking, brings up a conversation I had with, the late, great, Professor Donald Shoup, author of the fabulous book, The High Cost of Free Parking. And when I spoke with him in December, we just recently lost him, you know, in, in the January.
00:24:37:17 - 00:25:07:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, when I spoke with him in December, we were talking about the fact that, oftentimes those same businesses, like, you're talking about, they're they're like resisting of of giving up free parking out on, you know, on, on the shopping streets, you know, in front of their businesses. But then they're like, oh, but you mean, oh, if we actually charge for parking, we can use that revenue to like really spruce up this block, which is exactly what happened in Pasadena, which is one of the great case studies.
00:25:07:20 - 00:25:30:10
John Simmerman
Then the like, their perception completely changes because then they're like, oh, oh, it's not just a money grab. You're going to put this in the overall city coffers. You want to help my business and help that oh then I then we're okay. So it's funny how the paradigm can shift. We just have to crack that that, you know, magic code to be able to get people to to see things in a different way.
00:25:30:10 - 00:25:52:00
John Simmerman
That's paradigm shifts and that's human behavior. That brings us right back to our sweet spot, where we've been working on for many, many decades. Any any wisdom, you know, from the research that you've seen in terms of how, you know, folks are able to shift some of the car brain modal normativity, thought processes?
00:25:52:02 - 00:26:32:19
Prof. Ian Walker
Well, let me try to answer that by throwing in an extra, which is called brain phenomenon. So again, when we did that very first study, two, three years ago, my coauthor, Adrian Davis, was really keen on this idea of pluralistic ignorance, the idea that, one of the challenges might be that people support change, but, you know, the only person who does that, which if you, if you look at the world around us, would probably be a reasonable assumption, because the world is not full of urbanites waving placards demanding change.
00:26:32:22 - 00:26:50:08
Prof. Ian Walker
The world is kind of geared up, right? If you act and nobody ever question it. And so it would be completely reasonable for a typical member of the public to look at that world and say, well, I don't really like bussing this guy, but no one else seems to be complaining. Everyone else is just getting on with it.
00:26:50:11 - 00:27:17:16
Prof. Ian Walker
And so Adrian really pushed that idea. And in the most recent piece of work, which Marco and I published, just recently, we tested it and actually then we go and, actually found that this track, so we asked people, how do you support people's ability to travel by car? And then completely separately, we asked them, how much do you support people's ability to travel without using a car?
00:27:17:18 - 00:27:38:05
Prof. Ian Walker
And we ask those questions and subtract one from the other and you get a nice score. How balance do those two things that people. But we also asking the same questions about what do you think your friends and family think? And then we ask them, what do you think an average person in your town think? And we saw a huge difference.
00:27:38:07 - 00:28:02:22
Prof. Ian Walker
So the everyone we studied not so nice when I said, but the majority of people we studied in the USA, the UK and the Netherlands, had a quite strong bias towards non-college travel. So they, they generally said, supported the ability to travel without a car more than they supported a child with a car. But as soon as you went to, what do you think other people think?
00:28:02:24 - 00:28:35:00
Prof. Ian Walker
They gave completely different responses. And it manifested in a few different ways. You could pick mean just their average levels of support. The numbers for their own support, completely different to what they thought of the people that, but you also picked up another way. So if you say you know where to what's your level of support and then you subtract from that what they think other people are, you can see that it was 66 to 89% of people across the country felt that they were more supported than average.
00:28:35:03 - 00:28:58:26
Prof. Ian Walker
And, you know, impossible 69% of people to be more something than the average. If you think if you know what I mean. So so we actually measured this tendency for people to assume that nobody else supports them. Now, interestingly, we picked up something very similar a few years earlier in that piece of work as a British organization called Barclays Bank.
00:28:58:28 - 00:29:26:03
Prof. Ian Walker
So this happened actually, coincidentally just around about the start of the Covid pandemic. And there it was this time, a national representative national opinion poll done by a very practical, opinion polling company. And we did something quite similar. Again, how much do you support, changes to the street to make cycling easier? And what do you think other people think?
00:29:26:09 - 00:29:48:23
Prof. Ian Walker
And again, you get these huge gradients that personal support is high, but they believe that other people don't agree with you and that your first approximation, you've got an entire nation of people and they're all looking at each other saying, well, I want change, but not as you do. And the next person is, okay, well, I want change, but none of you do.
00:29:48:26 - 00:30:18:08
Prof. Ian Walker
And anything like a circle of people not read each minds, that's a big implication convey and very clearly. I forgotten your original question at this point, but the thinking of this is we are doing consultation work because look what we do when we when we plan streetscape changes or when we plan to take a parking space away. And what we do is local authorities or government offices go, hey, everyone, look, we're going to take this parking space away.
00:30:18:08 - 00:30:47:11
Prof. Ian Walker
Anybody got any thoughts on this? That that consultation is done that often be problematic. It's what we're claiming is correct. It is true that everybody up here, most people feel alone in wanting change. You're not going to speak up if you're if you know, even 70% of people think the parking space should go, but they all believe that's unusual, they're not going to say anything.
00:30:47:13 - 00:31:13:00
Prof. Ian Walker
And therefore the consultation will almost certainly become dominated by you loud voices who are resisting the change. So the implication is that this pluralistic ignorance, in fact, we've got to do consultations better. We've got to be doing proper representative polling and asking a good cross-section of people what they think, one at a time, and learn what people think that way.
00:31:13:03 - 00:31:33:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned the, bike as best, campaign. And, you know, three years ago or so, maybe it was even more, they came up with this, this campaign, and really, you know, talking, you know, taking a stab at reframing, you know, hey, what's the best tool to be able to do something?
00:31:33:12 - 00:31:53:22
John Simmerman
And, you know, the ridiculousness of this, and I and I think that this is kind of how we have to, to lean into just how silly it is that we think it's normal that to get a carton of milk or whatever, we get into a big SUV or a big, you know, you know, pickup truck.
00:31:53:25 - 00:32:17:15
Prof. Ian Walker
And so, yeah, yeah, I mean, one of the things this touches on, something that I think about an awful lot, which is, you know what, what's the perfect outcome, urban change. And although we we sometimes joke about it, the perfect outcome is not ban cars. The perfect outcome is not there are no cars. That's not the outcome.
00:32:17:18 - 00:32:45:19
Prof. Ian Walker
The outcome is that people. And that's exactly what the prophet was saying. People think about their journeys mindfully and select the mode of transport that is appropriate. The next trip from a menu of options in their head. That's where we'd like to get to. But one of the things that happen, and I think that that captured it nicely is people paint themselves into a corner by choosing cars.
00:32:45:22 - 00:33:12:13
Prof. Ian Walker
The the car the person chooses will often be an incredibly expensive investment. Very often they choose a large car, maybe a car that causes far more pollution and danger than necessary. And then you're in a position where every single trip you make that commitment to creating extra pollution and danger into play because, you know, options.
00:33:12:15 - 00:33:38:09
Prof. Ian Walker
And so these people cutting off their own decisions, cutting off their own option, right, is a big challenge as well as the lack of awareness of the options that they have. So this is less investment in big, dangerous, polluting vehicles, but also more simple, mindful choice of vehicle on mode on a trip by trip basis. And that would be the Holy grail.
00:33:38:11 - 00:33:54:21
John Simmerman
Love it, love it. Okay, guess what? Who? Look who came in. Boom! Marco. Welcome. Welcome to the party. Why don't you do a real quick favor? Please introduce yourself, to the audience.
00:33:54:23 - 00:34:06:11
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
My name is, Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet, and, I'm a full professor at the University of Amsterdam and Urban Mobility futures, and, I'm also the chair of the Lab of Thought.
00:34:06:14 - 00:34:30:22
John Simmerman
Fantastic, fantastic. And, and earlier, I know you from years ago when, I was, actively involved with, some people for bike study tours, to the Netherlands. And you, addressed our group, one of the study tours that I was documenting as a, videographer. You know, you were very much involved with the Urban Cycling Institute to one of the founders of that.
00:34:30:23 - 00:34:35:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. Getting that together. Yeah. So good to see you again.
00:34:35:07 - 00:34:41:23
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
The Urban Cycling Institute is now, completely, run by, Meredith Glazer, who you know as well.
00:34:41:25 - 00:34:43:25
John Simmerman
I know quite well. Yes.
00:34:43:28 - 00:34:56:18
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Academic, academic voice in the, in the field and, yeah, I'm sort of, following new paths, to study mobility, mobility narratives, imaginaries in a broader sense. And only the bicycle.
00:34:56:20 - 00:35:19:23
John Simmerman
Yes. Fantastic. Fantastic. And, we're going to dive a little bit more into the the paper, and I'll have you, say a few words about the, the paper that, you and Ian, Professor Walker have been involved in, engaged with. But before we do that, I would love to have you just say a word about your book that you did, and let's get you back in there.
00:35:19:23 - 00:35:32:25
John Simmerman
Boom. There you are. Talk a little bit about this book, and, it's a fabulous book. I loved reading it a couple of years ago when it first came out. Please introduce this book to the audience.
00:35:32:27 - 00:36:13:23
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Well, that's putting me on the spot, but I think, I can give it a give it a try. The book, starts with, a conversation I had with a journalist, Talia Sakata. And, it basically covers the, journey that we took together, and conceptual journey through the different layers of our mobility system. But it started as so often the question start, she came to me and asked me how the bicycle could be the solution, to congestion and, ahead of me providing a few, professorial, references and citations.
00:36:13:26 - 00:36:38:23
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
I kept asking her questions like, why is this a problem? Why why should the bicycle solve congestion? Why is this sticky topic you want to write about? Aren't there more interesting elements of the mobility system? And questions that, that are underlying that, that are relevant. And, that's the first chapter. So a bit of a spoiler, but it ended in sort of, both of us very, very unhappy with that conversation.
00:36:38:25 - 00:37:05:19
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But it's, somehow, in both of us, we both ended up, seeing each other as very interesting sparring partners to keep, to keep exploring those questions. And in the book, we take the reader through these different layers of thinking, that actually are below, the ways that we think about streets, the way that we think about mobility and the way that we design our mobility systems.
00:37:05:22 - 00:37:39:27
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And, I hope, I think the book does does a good job thanks to Talia as, a journalist, but also won the best journalist book award in the Netherlands. And I think that's that's definitely because of her writing. She really writes it from the perspective of a newcomer to the field. But she she's also able to take the new comer to these deeper layers and, and show, the reader that if we really want a mobility transition, we need to challenge those underlying narratives, because if we don't do that, we will never achieve the transition that we're all after.
00:37:40:04 - 00:38:08:07
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So the subtitle is How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives. I would say that the the necessary condition to do that is to question, the choices that are underneath the current system. It's not a sufficient condition. We still have to do a lot of work then. But if we don't ask questions about those, underlying imaginaries, assumptions and worldviews, we will never achieve the, the systemic change that we're all often.
00:38:08:10 - 00:38:51:09
John Simmerman
And the underlying assumptions and worldviews are very much a part of the paper that, you and Professor Walker, just did with, you know, diving deeper into, the concept of modal normativity. But before we jump into that, I want to linger a little bit more and sort of really pose the same question to you that I posed to Professor Walker, which is related to what really inspired you to, to do the work that you've been doing to to tackle these, you know, issues that you did in this book and in this book you shared a very personal story, even in tragedy, about the realities of our world, our carbon
00:38:51:09 - 00:39:07:00
John Simmerman
world. Yeah. Go back. Take us back. What's the basis of what, you know, was the inspiration for you doing this work that you've been doing across here? The not just today, but across your career?
00:39:07:03 - 00:39:10:18
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Although that assumes that there was a plan behind it. Right. So I just.
00:39:10:21 - 00:39:14:26
John Simmerman
You. And it may not be a plan. Yeah.
00:39:14:29 - 00:39:39:27
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
No. Individually, I was always interested in, in, in mobility and land use planning and in the systems behind that. But I think due to, the tragic event of of seeing my friend being killed in a traffic crash, at a very young age, I think it's sort of, made me aware that the system that we all take for granted should not be taken for granted.
00:39:39:27 - 00:40:06:23
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Right? The sort of being shocked to such an extent that you are that at the age of nine already, I was really, I had the difficulty of understanding why other people were not asking questions about the system around us, so that that sort of ties it together with modern normativity. Right. But but one, one, one addition to that is I think, the modern normativity paper is really, as you say, carbon.
00:40:06:26 - 00:40:28:08
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But I would say that there one level deeper and that that might be the follow up paper, that we can discuss here is that the also, the car and car brand, according to me, are symptoms of the of the even deeper systems and assumptions that mobility, should cater for individual fast mobility between A and B, that it's a utility.
00:40:28:08 - 00:41:00:08
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
It's something negative. I think cars, a car, brain and everything that we uncovered in the paper are, are not the problem, but are a symptom of the problem or, or result of the problem. Right. It's very logical that we end up with a system that we have, if we realize that since the 1920s, we started to think about mobility in terms of, individualized, comfort or utility for, egoistic, isolated, utility maximizers.
00:41:00:08 - 00:41:21:12
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So those assumptions that are, that are completely solidified in our norms, design guidelines, policies, streets and our imagination, I think are are the real, the, the real layers that I started to question already very early on in my life. And, and I think we need to question them if we really want to have a transition.
00:41:21:15 - 00:41:40:25
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And the work that I do in that I like a lot is I think once we do that, it suddenly opens up a much broader spectrum of possible solutions and much better conversations that we are currently having. So it's, it's also in that sense, it's a blessing and a curse, right? You start seeing something, you can't unsee it.
00:41:40:27 - 00:42:04:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But the world around us is completely solidified version of an imaginary. But, it's also a blessing because I think if as soon as you see it, you can start questioning it, you can start creating different conversations, about different topics. And in such a way, I also find out that there's much more support for change than we, generally think.
00:42:04:19 - 00:42:30:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I think that's very important, you know, is understanding these perceptions of how we're seeing the world. I remember a slide that you gave, and it might have been a presentation that you gave at, recently at some honor that was bestowed upon you at some level. But it was the perception of a deer in a forest on a road.
00:42:30:24 - 00:42:38:16
John Simmerman
And, you know, what's the context of that? Take it from there, Marco. What was that.
00:42:38:18 - 00:43:00:24
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Excellent choice from from slides. Because for me, that's the pivotal slide that is so often misunderstood. So, so basically the the point of the slides very early on in my presentation is to make people aware that, we use language and, how we use language narratives to simplify the world around us. And there's no way around that.
00:43:00:24 - 00:43:25:01
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
We need to do that. That's sort of the the human condition. And, in that process, by definition, we make choices to to look at things in a certain way. And those choices are arbitrary, but also crucial to understand because they shape our world. Right. But, more often than not, we take them for granted. And I explain that through the use of metaphors, for instance, like damage, money and all these things, but with the deer on the road.
00:43:25:01 - 00:43:41:22
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So you see, you see the picture of a deer on a road. You could, but I'm already using language now. And I ask the audience, what do you see here? And then people start, yelling. I see a deer on the road. And there's always a smart person in the room that says, no, no, I see a road through the forest.
00:43:41:25 - 00:44:04:14
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And then the next step is, I want to then explain to the audience that, neither neither of these two simplifications are more valid or better than the other. So they're they're both they they both have a similar validity, but choosing one over the other, which we have to do at the end of the day, makes us see some things while it obscures others.
00:44:04:16 - 00:44:29:00
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And this I would say, for me at least deeply philosophical point of that, we always have to take a position. It's often misunderstood in that people think there is a wrong and a right. There's a wrong in a right language. There's, for instance, if we bring it to our topic, cars are bad and bikes are good, or everything around, motor normativity is wrong.
00:44:29:02 - 00:44:56:18
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And, for a lot of me, or thinking around bicycles is always right. That's for me. Not the point. For me, the point is that both of them are, simplifications of reality, equally valid. But they they lead us in completely different understandings of what problems are and completely different understandings of what solutions are. And what I hope that I bring forward with my work is to make people lenient in that and not not an activist in saying you're thinking is wrong.
00:44:56:20 - 00:45:25:04
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
That's but more, an artist who says you're thinking is a choice and you can choose to to think and talk differently. And you can also choose to keep talking as you do, but then it's an active choice. It's no longer a matter of fact or something we take for granted. And, well, that's all covered in that one slide, which is then often indeed, if you ask people afterwards, they think, oh, Marco, he said, you told us that we, we shouldn't talk about the deer crossing the road, but it's the it's the road crossing the forest.
00:45:25:07 - 00:45:41:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
That's not the point. The point is that both are, equally valid positions. But. If you choose the one or the other, you have to be aware that that's a choice. And it's a very crucial choice because it will define everything from there on.
00:45:41:18 - 00:45:43:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.
00:45:43:10 - 00:46:05:19
Prof. Ian Walker
Could you jump in there, please? One of the things I think is really interesting is what I, I agree with everything. Mark said that. And that's a really nice framing. One of the things we touched on in this paper was then how that choice sees this way versus that way, potentially, over time, becomes self-reinforcing, to environmental changes.
00:46:05:25 - 00:46:32:08
Prof. Ian Walker
So a person sees the world this way, they therefore create they lobby to have the world reflect that world view. They lobby to have a built environment to support their interpretation. They lobby to have, legal systems to support their interpretation. Then the next person comes along and that's the environment they are exposed to, which further notice them to seek to reach the same interpretation.
00:46:32:10 - 00:46:55:27
Prof. Ian Walker
And, you know, this is almost, almost certainly at the heart of the, shared nature of these things. And it's a almost. Now, I said it out loud. It almost feels a bit like one of these thought experiments in chaos theory. Had the initial person gone the other direction, their interpretation of reality, and started to shape a world, but then maybe it would have cascaded in a completely different direction.
00:46:55:29 - 00:47:00:18
Prof. Ian Walker
But the self-reinforcing nature of this, I think, is what the really interesting thing.
00:47:00:20 - 00:47:19:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Yeah. So, so the, the terms that we use is solidification, right? It it starts out like, if you read Peter Norton's work in the 1920s, starts out at a very open, a very wide discussion of how are we going to approach this? Because we are at that point, we are inventing traffic engineering doesn't exist. So we need to find words and language.
00:47:19:18 - 00:47:38:08
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So in chaos theory, it's it's very crucial to understand who is the first person who writes the first syllabus for the first batch of students that will that will then become the first traffic engineers and according to to Norton. But maybe we can have the conversation. But that's how I interpret the book. It's, it's about it's about the engineer.
00:47:38:10 - 00:48:05:12
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And the water engineer starts to borrow from biology and, we start seeing traffic arteries that never can be clogged. And, congestion becomes the biggest problem, because we see the, the city as a body, and therefore we start building that system, over time. So this is why I'm to this day, I'm. I'm always the person, in online conversations that that points out this fact because even people that are that see themselves as activists.
00:48:05:12 - 00:48:30:19
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
There's a very beautiful paper last year by Maxwell at our who show that, even people that think that they are innovative thinkers in this field are often also scope incumbent. They are still using the same logic, the same narratives, the same metaphors. And in that sense they are much less, effective in, developing radical solutions than they think they are.
00:48:30:21 - 00:49:03:05
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And I would say that, if you again, if you go to the, to the book, movement, we see that in the Netherlands. This really played out in the 1960s and 70s, when there was this really, really wide ranging discussion where the bicycle represented not only a different mode of transport, but, a different way of organizing society, mobility and life, where John Lennon wasn't met with a bicycle, not because he thought that it would solve congestion, but because it was representative of the end of capitalism, basically.
00:49:03:08 - 00:49:26:07
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And I would say that, and I'm not studying that with a number of students, I would say my, my strong, hypothesis is that since then we have lost that, skill. We have lost the skill of really having radical conversations. So this solidification of this underlying narrative also, of course, enforced by billions and billions of, of marketing budgets, has solidified.
00:49:26:07 - 00:49:45:26
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Now, what what even Ilitch called, the last step of solidification is solidifying our imagination, which he called a radical monopoly. Right. It's a thing that we are not even aware anymore of, that we are, simplifying. So my my neighbors here, they are not even aware that the street in front of their house is designed by somebody, right?
00:49:45:26 - 00:50:03:02
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
They are not they are not consciously aware that this was a political decision to offer this public space to park a vehicle. So that also makes conversation very hard. And I think the paper shows that, Motor Normativity, I think is a very good, lever to to show this is that this is one of those taking for granted things.
00:50:03:02 - 00:50:19:13
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Right? So we, we have become, especially in the Western world and especially the people that have that have a privileged position in that world. They, completely take for granted that all of that has been political choices. And one thing I want to add then and then I'm also interested to hear what the thinks about that.
00:50:19:13 - 00:50:42:12
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But if you if we show this to people and tell it, that's for me, not the end point. It's the starting point. Because then you can say, going back to the chaos theory, everybody who makes a decision today can have a similar effect for the city in 60 or 70 years. So now the choice is yours. Either you're going to reinforce the existing narrative and rebuild the same factory over and over again.
00:50:42:15 - 00:51:05:24
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
You can do that. But in the Netherlands, I ask this to rooms of of deputy mayors, and I asked them to stand up. And I say, is that what you want? Then you can sit down and they all keep standing up. They'll say, no, no, we want we want to transition. Well, if you want to transition, you now have the obligation to really think better about the words that you use because it will shape the system in the future.
00:51:05:27 - 00:51:32:27
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And I think, that, that awareness, I so that's my activist self. I think that's, that's, that's such an important, tool or weapon almost to give to people, to shift the window of opportunity or shift the opportunity space, make it bigger, to have much better conversations. And, and that's again, I think the paper shows us how we're stuck.
00:51:32:27 - 00:51:43:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But for me, that's the starting point of thinking. Okay, but how then to get unstuck? We can't get unstuck if we keep talking with the same people in the same, in the same language.
00:51:43:18 - 00:52:04:14
Prof. Ian Walker
There's a joke that I keep saying on social media recently, and I don't know who started it, but it's something like people always talk about going back in time and making the tiniest change, and and the entire future becomes different, and they're terrified of that. But they want to make a tiny change in the present and see that as a way of changing the future.
00:52:04:16 - 00:52:27:22
Prof. Ian Walker
And yeah, I think that that is one of those things. We need people to realize something else that I think comes up with inoculation. What Marco was saying, that I think one of the things that I quite like about the work we did on the emotional maturity is it doesn't require the idea that this is deliberately malicious. It it's more a statement of just how things are.
00:52:27:27 - 00:52:51:14
Prof. Ian Walker
There's definitely a version where some people do this kind of thing in bad faith. And I think that notion of what Marco just talked about. But language can be part of that. One of the places you see this a lot is the quite sometimes inadvertent, but very often deliberate use of terms like progress as a way of capturing the narrative around the importance of monitoring.
00:52:51:14 - 00:53:12:04
Prof. Ian Walker
And actually what people tend to be doing is pushing for this very 1950s view of the world when they say, oh, the culture is that you can count progress. You want to drag it back into the past with your bicycle. So you do get the kind of bad faith version of it sometimes. And we'll see that kind of language from car industry at times.
00:53:12:06 - 00:53:34:05
Prof. Ian Walker
But fundamentally, what I think we showed is that this happens in a much more universal way. Most people are not getting out of change. They they are just a product of their environment, which causes them to see the world in a certain way that, the notion of change you're threatening because they don't really know one reality.
00:53:34:08 - 00:54:15:24
John Simmerman
And I think that's a really good point. And one of the things that I've been trying to do here on the channel is emphasize that we shouldn't be taking, this work, these studies, these results, and then using them as a tool or a weapon, as you just said, Marco, to bludgeon people over the head because, again, because of the whole nature of the framing that has been done and the, if you want to call it, brainwashing that has been done over the period of, you know, nearly 80 to 100 years as, as, you know, Peter Norton has done such a good job of documenting as a historian, we have to have a
00:54:15:26 - 00:54:42:11
John Simmerman
certain sense of empathy because we're not going to get anywhere if we just spend our time shouting at each other and saying, you're the one to blame. And, I mean, what we as researchers, any any thoughts that you might have or guidance for the audience, to try to use this. As for a way to have better enhanced awareness and empathy towards the conditions that we all find ourselves in.
00:54:42:13 - 00:55:05:28
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But if I if I can start that, that's it's, I don't know, urban planner. I'm, I'm, I'm educating, people in not only understanding the world, but also changing it. And so there's although the study itself shouldn't be used as a weapon, I think it does give us. But in indeed, first of all, empathy. So it's it's a condition we we're all, in and it's a system that you cannot just escape.
00:55:05:28 - 00:55:39:19
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
You cannot like like you can you can question capitalism, but try living without it. It's it's it's almost an impossibility. But I think, we also end the paper with that. I think there are a few, important guidelines that at least we can say that if we. So so one example in the Netherlands, we have a lot of cities that are currently in the finally, in the process of, of taking back the the notion that you can park a private vehicle for free in public space, which is a relatively recent phenomenon, but there's a lot of resistance against it.
00:55:39:21 - 00:55:54:04
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And what happens in those cities is that this is proposed. And then, political opponents, force a referendum on it. And then the referendum asks the question, do you want to pay for parking or do you want it for free? But if you ask this question to a Dutch person, what do you think the person says?
00:55:54:04 - 00:56:18:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Right. So, do you want your beer for free or do you want to pay for it? So one thing that we propose with the with this paper is that if you want to have a more honest, conversation with citizens, you should ask your question differently. So you should ask, not only do you want to pay for something or to be able to trade, but, you should ask, what are your values on a, on a range of of topics that all require space on our streets?
00:56:18:18 - 00:56:36:24
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And which of them need to go for the others? And, and we have done those studies in, in different cities. And then you see, indeed, that the conversation also starts including people that would normally be excluded from the conversation because in most Dutch cities, still we are lucky. But I think also in the UK this applies.
00:56:36:24 - 00:57:04:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Most citizens do not own a car and they don't see themselves represented in these kinds of referenda because they're like, why should I have anything to say about paying or not for parking? But if you say, well, it's also about, do you think that, the physical, mental and social health of our children is an important, part of what we do in public space, then many more people are joining the conversation.
00:57:04:16 - 00:57:28:17
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And I think that's also a matter of empathy. We need to speak. We need to listen to citizens. Sure. But we also need to then ask questions that actually bring in all citizens. So that's why I'm the second thing. The second thing that's that's that related to that is that in this condition that we are all, that we all take for granted, you can have two approaches to change.
00:57:28:17 - 00:57:50:25
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So we, we talked about this, in the paper, and I think the term that fits for me best is this whole area, this, this idea of, a lot of resistance against change from a small minority, right? This, this pluralistic ignorance element. So, so you can do a few things. You can be, an enlightened despot and just bombard over it.
00:57:50:28 - 00:58:16:23
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
I would say that's a bit what should be happening in Paris. So we are just we have a mandate and we are going to change the city. And then in the next elections, you can tell us if you like it or not, but you can also lower this hill of hysteria by saying, let's try it out. Let's let's figure out ways of experiencing a world where, for instance, children can go to school by themselves for one day in every month and then have a conversation.
00:58:16:23 - 00:58:38:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So instead of asking people's opinion, coming from a system in which they are already locked in, you say, well, the only way to have a, an honest conversation is to first experience that that system is actually a choice. And, and there are, different choices. So, so, so that's that's, I think what I hope that people take out of the paper.
00:58:38:16 - 00:58:49:01
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Right. It's it's, there are better ways of having a conversation because we basically show that the current way of having the conversation, is shooting ourselves in the foot.
00:58:49:03 - 00:59:18:15
Prof. Ian Walker
Right. I think another constructive approach as well, which I think is got a lot of comments, is to, again, reframe the conversation very slightly away from what we are doing now, because the danger is it becomes, you know, driving or it's about using my car or riding a bike. And ultimately, I think one of the things we've got an opportunity to do is reframe the conversation towards your goal.
00:59:18:18 - 00:59:43:00
Prof. Ian Walker
What are you trying to accomplish today? In almost all cases, nobody steps out to take in a metal box piloting a metal box around the town. Do also meet some people like you genuinely even do cars. And driving the car is the goal. But usually driving the car is not the goal. Usually the goal is getting to the shops or taking children in school, accessing work or whatever it is.
00:59:43:02 - 01:00:05:13
Prof. Ian Walker
And wouldn't it be amazing if we got the conversation started at that point? Rather than stopping to step down the decision process from there? Because that tends to be what happens. People are starting, not with what am I trying to accomplish? They're starting with, well, 26 years ago, I decided I always accomplish my travel goals by using a car.
01:00:05:15 - 01:00:26:12
Prof. Ian Walker
And now we start the conversation. That and again, differently. Shifting the conversation onto what people try to accomplish on a day by day basis or trip by three days. It has the potential to tackle this in a way that takes away the thing. Nobody's shouting at you about the choices. It's just asking you. And quite honestly, what are you trying to accomplish today?
01:00:26:14 - 01:00:35:18
Prof. Ian Walker
And I think that's all individual person, individual trip approach might compliment quite nicely the higher levels of the market as well.
01:00:35:20 - 01:00:42:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Well, speaking speaking of shouting, I want to pull this up and then. Yeah then go ahead Marco.
01:00:42:11 - 01:01:00:18
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
No it's not. So I think this is a is an interesting conversation that for me I interpret still as scope incumbent. Right. So if we have that conversation, which I agree is a much better way of having a conversation, it is still about shifting people from one mode to another mode, and that there's, there's good reasons. And sometimes that is the goal.
01:01:00:20 - 01:01:21:25
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But I would say that it's still limits us in thinking about streets as pipelines. Of a water engineer, where people go from A to B, and I think we can even have an even better conversation if we open up that, the goals are, are not only how, how do you get about your individual, daily routine, but also what do you need from public space?
01:01:21:25 - 01:01:38:22
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And that's often, for instance, in the Netherlands again, we have 18 million people in our country and 2 million of them, experience severe loneliness. So why are we not bringing that into the conversation? Because that's also part of how we are underway and how we use our streets.
01:01:38:25 - 01:01:41:06
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah. That's really that's.
01:01:41:09 - 01:02:00:16
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Yeah. So I follow Ian, but I would I would add, I think sometimes that's, that's something that, that, we need to, to, to contextualize sometimes the conversation is as Ian suggests, and sometimes I think there's room, to have this bigger conversation. And I would say one place to have that conversation should be in political programs.
01:02:00:16 - 01:02:35:00
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So I really hope that in the coming years, we see political programs where the mobility paragraph is no longer this technical, slightly different version of the same text, but it's radically different, connected to radically different values, showing that there are radical dilemmas that need to be solved in public space that are not only traffic. Actually, traffic, I think is mostly in the way, because I like that you show this picture, I see this picture and then Dutch Cyclist Union sees this picture and, and say, yeah, let's, let's make this red asphalt and make it into a bicycle street to cater for everybody.
01:02:35:00 - 01:03:00:24
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But what I also see is that there are no trees in the street. There's no shadow there are no children playing, and it will not be solved with making the asphalt red. Right. So, I think that but that's maybe a privileged position in the Netherlands. That time is is ripe to have the conversation and the shifted back again to the era before traffic engineering, when, streets were remaining spaces between buildings.
01:03:00:24 - 01:03:14:03
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
There were no deputy mayors, there were no ministries. It was just a space where many different, goals needed to be served. And we did that for millennia without asking traffic engineers to solve it for us.
01:03:14:05 - 01:03:54:20
Prof. Ian Walker
I think that's a really fair challenge. Really good challenge. And I think we could go even further in that direction. So a couple of times I've been asked by politicians, you know, what? What would you like me to say? This actually a very good politician question. You know what, what outcome would you like it? And whenever I've been given that challenge, I've said, well, what I've known for is a politician who stands up and their vision is, let's make a city where everybody has the amazing life without having to buy a car, and reframing it towards even higher level goal of let's just have amazing, connected, happy, healthy lives and then all this other
01:03:54:20 - 01:03:59:00
Prof. Ian Walker
stuff. Cause I would not, if you agree to that. But we're kind of getting right now.
01:03:59:00 - 01:04:17:28
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
I would, I would, I would argue that, but from a distance that's sort of what I need to go presented as, reelection platform. Right. It's not it wasn't a mobility platform. It was really about, repairing the city, basically repairing the the tissue of the city, because it was ripped apart. And, and many people recognize that.
01:04:18:03 - 01:04:45:09
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And there's also always funny if you bring that up, there's always people shouting, well, the majority's against her. And I'm like, well, democratically. No, because she was reelected. So, it seems it again, it comes back to the paper. To the paper. Right in the most normative frame. It has to be in many people's minds that everybody at now, at least a large majority should be against this, because the world works so fine and happy for us as it currently is.
01:04:45:09 - 01:05:05:27
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And they are underestimating, the extent to which it doesn't work for so many people, that they are not talking to that they are they are not represented. They don't come to evenings about traffic regulations, traffic lights, timings or, or parking policies. So, so, so again, I think one thing that I would advise planners is, you need to be empathic.
01:05:05:27 - 01:05:34:00
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
You need to be more inclusive. So you need to step away from the language that we that has excluded so many people from the conversation. That and I agreed it wasn't malicious. Although there are also we are currently, close to publishing a paper on devious frames where there's also there is some, some evil also in, there are, of course, people that that empower that, that, that, that aim to keep the current regime in place as long as possible.
01:05:34:00 - 01:05:57:13
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So there's also that. But to a large extent, it is, people that are completely unaware of this, they just think. And that's one of the things that I really like. Short anecdote is that there was a Dutch newspaper that published about our paper, and then the journalist, put on LinkedIn a message saying, I wrote this article about this, and then also included a poll.
01:05:57:21 - 01:06:29:06
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And in the poll, you basically asked this audience, do you, do you support measures for less cars in our cities? And it's completely expected. 85% of the thousands of people that were responding, supported that. But in the but in the comment section, it was only people, shouting against it. And what but what always surprises me is that these people are very, very good in using a grammar that makes it look like they are telling truisms, right?
01:06:29:06 - 01:06:48:01
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
For instance, the one that I, that always comes up is everybody loves their car. That's what people do. Everybody loves a car. You can say that without any evidence. And people are like, never. But most people do not. Most people don't own a car. Some people that own a car don't love it. And and I always bring, bring in.
01:06:48:01 - 01:06:59:23
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
I think most people love their kids as well, I hope. And, and many people love their dog. So, so we need to. We need to make, we need to bring that into the debate as well.
01:06:59:25 - 01:07:10:13
Prof. Ian Walker
But if you see how it happens, because don't look at the world around you. I'm looking at the world outside my window here. It is compatible with the hypothesis that everybody looks back.
01:07:10:16 - 01:07:11:00
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Yeah.
01:07:11:01 - 01:07:12:08
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:12:08 - 01:07:33:05
John Simmerman
And, and we saw this, cartoon earlier and this is a derivation of that same thing. Is that. Yeah, of course people want more cars. Everybody loves their cars. Yeah. We do need to bring this to a close. So in order to do that, I. I'd love the, the each of you to kind of share, what's next?
01:07:33:05 - 01:07:46:28
John Simmerman
What's the next step? You know, you may have hinted at it a little bit, Marco. There of of where? The paper where the research might go, moving forward, you know, I'll have you start off and then Marco, close this out.
01:07:47:01 - 01:08:10:03
Prof. Ian Walker
Got a few things in progress. One thing I'm quite keen to do is find best way to measure bugs. And I think that, that we just call it could be done easily, but actually, the probably the really exciting thing is from work, from a PhD student of mine, Kathleen. Not at that meeting yesterday. And she's got some really exciting new stuff coming out.
01:08:10:06 - 01:08:32:20
Prof. Ian Walker
Person that is, despite the fact that the person that, that's emerged from some work she's been doing, they started out, is questioning the notion of a vulnerable road users. So she, she's and she said, I want to pick that apart and see if there's anything real about it, or whether it's just the comfort that's causing problems.
01:08:32:22 - 01:08:58:24
Prof. Ian Walker
You know, some astonishingly good work getting to grips with that, looking at how laypeople and experts, expert in inverse commas, used the notion of vulnerability on the road, how it and trenching problems, and then trenching power relations. But then what we just found with some data she showed me yesterday is this is also leading to all sorts of really vanishingly profound victim blaming.
01:08:58:25 - 01:09:20:06
Prof. Ian Walker
And, you get a marginalization, group based on what arguably is emerging from this almost normative mindset that is feeding into this basic issue and how marginalized groups are being viewed and treated. And, I'm quite keen to explore that further as well.
01:09:20:08 - 01:09:23:06
John Simmerman
Lovely Marco.
01:09:23:09 - 01:09:48:01
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
I'm so much looking forward to that. To that, study and, a few things. I really enjoyed that. This study came about as a crowdfunding project. So, it was a very quick turn over. It started, as, as I hope you'll remember, with me looking at the YouTube video where he made the hypothesis that in the Netherlands, surely motor normativity wouldn't, would be lower.
01:09:48:03 - 01:09:57:11
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And, I think I explicitly challenge you for a bottle of wine because I thought it wasn't so I owe you a bottle of wine. Although I.
01:09:57:13 - 01:10:00:18
Prof. Ian Walker
Got some because.
01:10:00:20 - 01:10:21:04
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
But I still, I, I still want to put another bottle of wine, next to that one, because as we are indeed already hinted to, I think that we that that we should try to make this study one step deeper and, and having sort of the traffic engineering normativity, sort of this idea that streets are, throughput spaces and so on.
01:10:21:06 - 01:10:50:20
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
I think that is very strong in the Netherlands. And, I would I would really love that. And similarly to, the vulnerable road user, I think also there the, the underlying narrative of road safety is the problem, the idea that we are saving people's lives instead of taking away the danger. And through that, deliberate, construct, we are, normalizing the danger and, the danger becomes worse and worse every year.
01:10:50:22 - 01:11:18:00
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
The, the systemic violence in the system becomes worse and the disciplining of people becomes, even stronger. Now, also, the Netherlands this year will see the first big ministerial campaign to push helmets on on cyclists. So it's also there. I like to to go deeper, but what what really fascinates me is, working with all kinds of projects that into, to provoke, and radically shift the conversation.
01:11:18:00 - 01:11:39:24
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So what we call finding new narrative seeds and try to see how we can empower new stories. So one is, around, the autonomy of children, for instance. And the idea is that if you develop that story, you are creating a political reality where it's very hard to argue against with the original model normative, set of of the guidelines.
01:11:39:24 - 01:12:08:12
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Right. It's politically also in the Netherlands, it's politically very, acceptable position to hate cyclists. It's a very hard political position to hate children, I found out. So, it is interesting to see. So can we somehow. So we we create, we develop all kinds of projects, artwork, provocations, academic studies, where we try to figure out, different pathways, that can then challenge modern normativity.
01:12:08:12 - 01:12:35:15
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
And of course, if we if we apply those kinds of interventions, then, so we have now a zebra crossing printer developed where everybody who wants to can now print their own zebra crossing. It's a €200, machine that you can build yourself. But then, of course, the the notion is that this makes people aware of something. And then, of course, ideally you should have a before, during and after measurement of does this indeed, make people aware of their motor normativity.
01:12:35:15 - 01:12:54:03
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
So I see a very connected, steps forward of, of planning, doing interventions, street experiments, connected to the more, fundamental research on, can we find evidence that there is a cure for motor normativity?
01:12:54:06 - 01:12:56:13
Prof. Ian Walker
Yeah, yeah.
01:12:56:16 - 01:13:12:12
John Simmerman
I look forward to bringing you both back on after, you know, these additional research papers come out and, this has been such an honor and pleasure having you both on, and, Marco, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
01:13:12:15 - 01:13:15:15
Prof. Marco Te Brömmelstroet
Thank you. It's an honor to be on the show and to talk with you about this.
01:13:15:15 - 01:13:29:15
John Simmerman
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01:13:29:17 - 01:13:49:29
John Simmerman
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01:13:50:07 - 01:14:11:01
John Simmerman
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