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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
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:35:19
Brent Toderian
I'm the former chief planner of Vancouver. I was chief planner till 2012, so I experienced that and helped plan for the Olympics, the 2010 Winter games. And that's important for the story that we're going to talk about today, because I was there when Granville Street in downtown Vancouver just absolutely was jammed with people on the last day of the Olympics when when we Canadians beat the team USA in gold medal men's hockey in overtime, or as we like to call it, the best moment in sports history.
00:00:35:19 - 00:00:58:28
Brent Toderian
And just seeing the Granville Street absolutely jammed with with people and Canadian flags. That was the first time we had the conversation about the transformation of Randall Street. So it's part of the story we're telling today. Now, I advise cities all over the world, literally all over the world, except for, I think, two continents. And and as I say, that advice is very open ended.
00:00:58:28 - 00:01:05:03
Brent Toderian
So I still call myself a city planner. I'm so proud to be a city planner, but I do find the term somewhat limiting.
00:01:05:09 - 00:01:35:10
John Simmerman
Aloha everyone! Welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Brent Toderian from the Vancouver, BC area. And we are going to be talking about a very exciting project that is in play. It is the extension of the pedestrianization of Granville Street right there in downtown Vancouver. But before we get started on that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador.
00:01:35:10 - 00:01:53:25
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here in YouTube or you can navigate over to Active Towns. Click on the support tab at the top of the page. There are several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Okay, let's get right to it with Brant.
00:01:53:28 - 00:01:57:11
John Simmerman
And thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:57:14 - 00:01:59:11
Brent Toderian
My pleasure. John, nice to be back.
00:01:59:17 - 00:02:23:07
John Simmerman
Once again. Once again, yes, we were joking before we hit the record button that it took us a couple of years to get you on, and we had you on with some of your compatriots just about three months ago, which I'll pop on over to that. Here you are, the Urban Truth Collective. Let's let's actually back this out a little bit so we can get everything, everyone on screen there.
00:02:23:08 - 00:02:26:20
John Simmerman
There you go. That was so much fun.
00:02:26:22 - 00:02:46:03
Brent Toderian
I think that's why I'm back so quick. Because I was on with my with my colleagues talking about that initiative. And thank you for having that conversation with us. And I think when you were pointing out I was the only one of the three of us who hadn't been on as a solo, and I had FOMO, I had fear of missing out.
00:02:46:03 - 00:02:50:02
Brent Toderian
So here I am with, with with a conversation just between us.
00:02:50:05 - 00:03:11:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, and it's not for lack of trying. We did try to make that happen a couple of times, but you were a busy cat. You're all over the place, traveling all over the world doing what you do. But you are super, super excited about something that's been happening on the ground right in your hometown. Talk a little bit about what's going on.
00:03:11:10 - 00:03:36:29
Brent Toderian
You know, that's a great way to to describe it because I am really excited because although I admittedly, I don't travel as much, you know, we all got better at working virtually during the pandemic. So thankfully I don't get on planes and burn fossil fuels as much as I used to do. But I certainly do work in in almost every time zone and globally in cities around the world, which is super fun.
00:03:36:29 - 00:04:04:02
Brent Toderian
But there I am often, I have often yearning for local things to ground me in my own city, in my own community, with my own particular passions. There are times when local media calls me up. Actually, I get called a lot by local media, and they want me to talk about something that's happening in the city. And I have to say, actually, I haven't been following that closely enough to comment in the media, and I'm kind of embarrassed to say that.
00:04:04:04 - 00:04:22:23
Brent Toderian
So I look for things and I try to do a third of my work locally, but by by locally, I mean in British Columbia, here in the province of British Columbia. So this this has been a lot of fun because it starts with me being really passionate about the subject matter. And should we jump right into it or should I?
00:04:22:25 - 00:04:45:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, let's pull up a visual here, because a week ago you posted this, which kind of, you know, talks a little bit about, you know, this is the second phase. This is week one of the extension. Go ahead and set up what happened prior to this extension.
00:04:45:21 - 00:05:07:29
Brent Toderian
So this is this conversation is for people who are passionate about or fascinated by or terrified by pedestrian streets. And by the way, I don't even like that term streets, because pedestrian streets makes it sound like all you do. You're walking instead of driving on it, which is both true and really limiting, because what we're really talking about is placemaking.
00:05:07:29 - 00:05:30:05
Brent Toderian
Creating a people place from a space that used to be just surrendered to cars. But for those of you who've been following the World Cup, you know that there were many, many host cities in North America, Canada, United States and Mexico, and many of the host cities had what were called pedestrian zones. I don't like the word zone either.
00:05:30:05 - 00:05:51:16
Brent Toderian
It sounds like something out of The Hunger Games, but that's what they were sort of being consistently called in in different host cities, and it was usually around the stadium where cars were were were prohibited anyway. So let's turn it into a bit of space for celebration, or at least for operational marshaling of people and people management and such.
00:05:51:17 - 00:06:12:26
Brent Toderian
So I would say, and, you know, some of my friends in cities like Seattle are going to to come at me for this, but I would say that Vancouver, it was actually ranked by Sports Illustrated as the number one host city of all the cities that that hosted games during the World Cup. And I think from a civic perspective, we knocked it out of the park.
00:06:12:27 - 00:06:36:11
Brent Toderian
And maybe because we had hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics 15 years ago, and we were yearning to do that again, and we had seen the power of transformation during these civic events. These, well, not even a civic event. It's like a commercial cultural world event. And we knew how to leverage that for placemaking and space transformation and street transformation.
00:06:36:11 - 00:07:06:09
Brent Toderian
And we kind of wanted to do it again. So I think we did the best pedestrian zone of any host city by far. And the success of it, I think, was certainly out shadowed anything we had done before, even the Olympics, because from day one, during all of those games, we hosted seven games locally, but even every other game that wasn't local, the street from day one was just filled with people.
00:07:06:09 - 00:07:28:02
Brent Toderian
It was a mediate sense that that's where you go during the games, while the game is on in between the games to celebrate before the game, to celebrate after the game. And it was a big question. We had closed the street down to to to vehicles. And an interesting distinction is Granville Street is already close to cars or regular cars.
00:07:28:02 - 00:08:00:27
Brent Toderian
It's got its got busses, it's a bus street and it's a taxi street. We, we, we organized as we've done many times, the busses to the side streets and the taxis off and transformed it into a, a programed people place. That picture you're showing right now is the team. Well from a second ago was the team that I've been working with on the downtown bank, Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Area, or downtown van celebrating essentially the handoff of Granville Street from a World Cup street to a pedestrian street post World Cup.
00:08:00:27 - 00:08:24:05
Brent Toderian
So I'll come back to talking about them. But maybe while you have them on the screen, I'll just give a shout out to Jane Talbot and her team at the Downtown Business Association. I've worked for lots of bias. I've worked with lots of bias. I think because are great. They rock it because they are flexible, they're nimble, and this is, if not the best, certainly one of the best downtown business associations I've ever worked with.
00:08:24:05 - 00:08:44:22
Brent Toderian
Great team, great leadership, a lot of passion, a lot of creativity. And unlike city halls, very nimble, can get things done quickly. And that was completely necessary in these exercises. No city hall, I think, could have pulled off this extension. Like we're pulling it off now. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. So right off the bat you have this celebration.
00:08:44:22 - 00:09:07:06
Brent Toderian
I think the Aussies were Aussie fans were one of the first on the very first game where they didn't just go to the stadium, they started off on Granville Street and there were these pictures of massive crowds with their with those smoke things that they do with the colors of the team and suddenly it's like, wow, we were hoping Granville Street would take off.
00:09:07:06 - 00:09:30:17
Brent Toderian
But this exceeded our expectations and sort of minute one of it, and then it just kept going. And not just as I say during the games and jerseys from every team. Whenever the teams are playing, they're watching it. We had, of course, failed the streets with patios that had TVs. So everybody's watching the game and cheering and celebrating on the street.
00:09:30:17 - 00:09:59:00
Brent Toderian
So it became, I think, the most successful civic space anywhere in North America during the World Cup. And if you think I'm wrong, bring it on. Tell me, tell me how your city did better, but we're coming up to the end of it, where we're having the conversation about obviously. Does this prove the concept that Granville Street should be pedestrianized?
00:09:59:00 - 00:10:24:06
Brent Toderian
People start to talk about make it permanent, or at least do it next year and or do it the next three summers. What is the what is the momentum? How do we keep it? I wrote an op ed in our in our local paper of record, The Vancouver Sun, that basically said, time to transform Granville Street for good, that I honestly actually didn't mean permanent.
00:10:24:07 - 00:10:51:07
Brent Toderian
Make it permanent. We can talk about that in a minute. But I think like Montreal and its big success here in Canada. I certainly think as a starting point, it should be a summer pilot. It should be a summer street opening, but not necessarily permanent yet. And we can talk about that. But I said I harkened back to the Olympics in 2010 and how I thought and said out loud, I was chief planner at the time that this will change Granville Street forever.
00:10:51:07 - 00:11:12:27
Brent Toderian
And it didn't. It didn't because we failed to keep the momentum. We failed to build on the success of that street transformation back then. And so my op ed piece was, we can't fail again. We need to we need to spin this off into a space for people, a place for people. And we should do it this summer.
00:11:12:27 - 00:11:34:10
Brent Toderian
We should extend it. We shouldn't end it on the last day of the Olympics. We should extend it to the end of the summer seven week extension and show that it doesn't just work when you're holding a World Cup because it was read only works when you're holding a World Cup. World Cup, then it doesn't really work because you don't get to host the World Cup very often.
00:11:34:11 - 00:12:19:03
Brent Toderian
Right? So we had to prove the sustainable idea concept, proof of concept for the idea that this could be a pedestrian street at least every summer. And to its credit, city council in Vancouver called an emergency meeting and and authorized the seven week extension to September 7th or eighth and and gave a budget for for the Downtown Business Association to do all the the design and programing of the street, turning it into a people place, a budget for policing, which is always a very touchy and controversial element of this, and a budget for City Hall for clean and safe and and garbage pickup and street maintenance and control of traffic, etc..
00:12:19:03 - 00:12:47:10
Brent Toderian
So and immediately there was a lot of support because there had actually been a, there had actually been a poll that showed that 69% of Vancouver respondents in the survey wanted it to be extended and 63% across the region. And we are we are a city city of Vancouver in a very large region with over 20 separate municipalities.
00:12:47:10 - 00:13:18:29
Brent Toderian
And they don't those other municipalities often don't necessarily think of downtown Vancouver as their downtown. And so for 63%, only 6% less than the City of Vancouver vote, 63% of the regional vote kind of blew my mind. I got to tell you that that was a turning point. I think, for us, in terms of the psychological connection, where downtown Vancouver is, the downtown of the region, it's the and Granville Street can be the pedestrian place, the people place of the entire region.
00:13:18:29 - 00:13:38:01
Brent Toderian
And that gave a lot of confidence. The Board of Trade, the tourist association, everybody was calling for extension. So it wasn't just me and my op ed, but again, to give council credit, they acted quickly. And one of the things I find when I work all over the world is there are sort of two kinds of cities. They're kind.
00:13:38:03 - 00:13:59:05
Brent Toderian
The kind of city that seize this opportunity, even though it sounds really hard and scary and there's no notice. And oh my gosh, we're going to be in a bit of a frenzy. And then there's the kind of city that seizes that, and there's the kind of city that doesn't. And I got I work in a lot of cities in other parts of the world that are the kinds of cities that sees things.
00:13:59:05 - 00:14:19:13
Brent Toderian
And it's been 15 years since I've gone from City Hall in Vancouver, and I've been working all over the world. And I've I've been frustrated that Vancouver has not been one of those cities, one of those cities that sees its opportunities. So for me, this was a cultural moment. Like a lot of people, not a lot of people wanted this to happen.
00:14:19:13 - 00:14:42:24
Brent Toderian
Some people didn't want it to happen, said it was a mistake. But I'm out there saying the mistake would have been to let the momentum die again, to fail again, and to be one of those cities that doesn't seize the obvious opportunity, the obvious momentum. So council did that, but now we're like a week away from the end of the of the World Cup.
00:14:42:24 - 00:15:11:07
Brent Toderian
And we've got a plan, a seven week extension. And it can't just be the same as the World Cup. So and the BIA, the business association, has the biggest task there because that's where all the planning and creativity and you've got to order things. This usually takes six months to plan and we've got about seven days. And and the business association reached out to me because I had written the op ed piece and because they knew me and and asked for my advice, we sat down for a meeting.
00:15:11:07 - 00:15:34:23
Brent Toderian
At the end of the meeting, they asked if they could hire me and I'd been there advisor since then. And as I say, we said at the beginning, it's been a lot of fun. I'm out on the street almost every day. We're assessing when it's. We've just finished. Week two of the seven week extensions started week three, and so things are arriving over the seven weeks.
00:15:34:23 - 00:16:02:12
Brent Toderian
This is not because of the short notice. We had. A lot of things take a long time to to get ordered so and arrive. So week one was a transition week. Week two more things arrived. We're programing heavily programing it every day and every week over the seven week extension. It's going to keep evolving all the way to the end and we see it as a massive pilot, a massive experiment.
00:16:02:12 - 00:16:29:19
Brent Toderian
We're going to learn everything we possibly can over these seven weeks to educate the next three years of summer summer openings, full summer openings and message. One is this is not the World Cup. Anyone who thinks that it's going to have World Cup crowds is wrong, and maybe positioning it for failure because, you know, as soon as those crowds don't show up, everybody says, well, it failed.
00:16:29:22 - 00:17:02:24
Brent Toderian
You got to have. One of the first things we did was define success as a sustainable, constant, successful, but not just packed with with crazy crowd celebrating kind of environment. We emphasized we wanted to attract families in particular because the nighttime activity on the street, it is an entertainment zone, Granville Street, so it tends to do well on weekend evenings, but not weekday and not week, and not for families generally.
00:17:02:26 - 00:17:26:16
Brent Toderian
And the other thing I know I'm going on for a while here, John. I'm trying to set this everything on the stage here. For those of you who talk about their pedestrian streets in their context, they're all sorts of categories of pedestrianized streets, and a lot of them are for reasonably successful commercial streets that that you want to take to the next level by pedestrians.
00:17:26:22 - 00:17:57:24
Brent Toderian
A lot of Europeans, successful European pedestrian streets that I know and have worked with are in that category. This street is a distressed street. This street is one of those streets where we were trying to revitalize it and to be part of a larger strategy, and it harkens back to the 90s when downtowns were struggling, struggling. It's when I started my career in the early 90s, and pedestrians were streets were seen as a panacea to save struggling downtowns.
00:17:57:25 - 00:18:23:11
Brent Toderian
And of course, most of those in North America failed for various reasons that we can talk about, if you'd like. And so it's almost ironic that that the idea is coming back around again. But I've been doing this for 34 years amongst every other thing I do with city planning I've been somewhat obsessed with. I do a lot of work in downtown revitalization, and I'm somewhat obsessed with pedestrian streets.
00:18:23:11 - 00:18:55:14
Brent Toderian
Why the ones succeed, succeed? Why the ones that fail, fail and and what conditions do you need for them to succeed? The point of me telling you this is this was a street that has 25% vacancy rate before the World Cup, has social issues. One of the end blocks has SROs, single room occupancy hotels for folks who would otherwise be homeless, and they were put in during the pandemic and supposed to be temporary, but then they never got addressed.
00:18:55:14 - 00:19:17:02
Brent Toderian
So there are some social issues, particularly on that end block. So this is a challenging street. If you just closed it to cars and said, let the people come and walk, it would have failed again, like so many of them failed in the 90s. What we know is for a street like that, that doesn't have obvious reasons to come.
00:19:17:02 - 00:19:37:14
Brent Toderian
You've got to create reasons to come constantly. Hence a lot of effort on programing. Design is one thing, but programing of that space with constant activities is critical. And then once people come to the programing, how do you get them to stay longer? That's the challenge. And I will take a pause and have a drink, because I know I've been going on for a while.
00:19:37:21 - 00:20:04:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And you and I, you know, basically started our careers at the same time. I'm launching my, my 36th year and, and yes, we saw a huge number of transformation of these business streets, these main streets back in the 1970s into the 1980s. By the time the 1990s came around, we saw that they were they were not thriving.
00:20:04:14 - 00:20:13:10
John Simmerman
I mean, we had our handful of places like Boulder, Colorado, with Pearl Street and Burlington, Vermont, and a few others that were just stellar.
00:20:13:11 - 00:20:40:06
Brent Toderian
They stayed in Madison. Wisconsin is exactly like the site, and it has reasons. It has reasons why. It's the seeds that other streets don't have. And people often don't really analyze those reasons or or the Commons in Ithaca, New York, as another example that my, my, my colleague in the Downtown Business Association and she's from Ithaca. And so she grew up with a relatively successful, albeit struggling back then pedestrian street.
00:20:40:06 - 00:20:44:08
Brent Toderian
So there are examples where they work, but many examples where they failed.
00:20:44:13 - 00:21:14:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. I'd like to also remind folks that it's a combination of two things. It's a combination of what I like to call the hardware activity assets, the actual physical environment. That is the attractor in that sense, but it's also the software activity assets. It's the programing and the policies and the engagement activities that bring the hardware activity assets to life and sustain them.
00:21:14:12 - 00:21:39:17
John Simmerman
You have it right here in your description here. It's that, hey, we're not trying to recreate the jet fuel of the World Cup because that's not possible. What we want is a fun, vibrant, sustainable people street every day. You know, my coffee mug streets are for people. Were trying to I mean I hate pedestrian zone to I mean pedestrian is such a derogatory sort of word.
00:21:39:19 - 00:21:41:20
John Simmerman
We want inference.
00:21:41:23 - 00:21:43:01
Brent Toderian
So pedestrian.
00:21:43:03 - 00:21:55:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. So pedestrian. We want something that's thriving and fun and exciting. And your to your point, it's a struggling street as it is. And so what is the attractor.
00:21:55:07 - 00:22:23:17
Brent Toderian
And what we had during the World Cup amongst amongst that huge civic success. There was also a business success and this is critical. I've seen too many cities with pedestrian street aspirations fail because they treat it as either a civic success or a business success. And sometimes the civic, the City Hall is fighting with the business association because one sees it as a good thing and the other one doesn't, and it's got to be seen as both.
00:22:23:18 - 00:22:49:27
Brent Toderian
It's a big mistake to think, oh, those businesses. It's their job to just bring people in the stores when we bring the people. But but if you're if your whole idea is to bring people there, but not keep them there and get them into the stores, if you're not helping the businesses, be an extension of the street and the street be extension of the businesses, then it's going to fail because the businesses will hate it and they will lobby to to kill it as an idea.
00:22:49:27 - 00:23:11:15
Brent Toderian
And we've seen that hearing even in Vancouver and many other cities. So you have to lean in on that dual definition of success, a civic success and a business success. It's got to be both. One or the other is not good enough. And so definitions of success so important. One of the first things we did is sat down and define success.
00:23:11:15 - 00:23:28:07
Brent Toderian
And I don't mean a Swot analysis where you say, you know, these platitudes that are interchangeable with every street in every city out there, I mean, defined specifically. If these don't things, these things don't happen, we think we failed. That's kind of how you define success.
00:23:28:08 - 00:23:36:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Can you help me do one thing? You said a Swot analysis. I'm sure there's some folks that are thinking, oh, what the heck is a Swat.
00:23:36:03 - 00:24:08:17
Brent Toderian
In my business? If I had a dime for every time I've done or participated in a Swot analysis, it's called strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. It's this exercise that you go through. And like any good idea, it becomes formulaic and lazy. And so I roll my eyes when I hear about a Swot analysis, I don't do them specifically. What I do is an exercise where we define success so we know so we can assess whether we succeeded based on those definitions, preferably with measurables with evidence, evidence based success.
00:24:08:17 - 00:24:30:15
Brent Toderian
And so, you know, we've got a three page definition of success. But but I can boil it down into five steps and I'll go through it with you quickly. Obviously. One, it's it's not a success unless people come and a lot of people. So you know, we were sending the message. You saw it in one of those posts I did.
00:24:30:18 - 00:24:50:12
Brent Toderian
You want all the crowds to come? I define the crowds. There's the office crowd that's sitting in their office, eating their lunch and having meetings in their boardroom when they could be eating lunch and having meetings out on the street. How do you bring them out onto the street? There's the institutional crowd, which are the universities downtown. How do you get those university students out to the street?
00:24:50:13 - 00:25:17:20
Brent Toderian
There's the families. Vancouver has the biggest success of any somewhat modern city by far, a building housing and particularly housing for families in our downtown. We have about 145,000 people living in our downtown peninsula, and we have four, 3 or 4 elementary schools if I'm keeping track. And so a lot of kids and families living within a quick walk distance to the downtown, how do you get those people to the street?
00:25:17:21 - 00:25:40:20
Brent Toderian
Also the cruise ships, the conventions, the concerts. How do you build on all of those crowds and bring them to the streets? So we're going through and assessing each of the crowds and creating strategies for how you bring them to the street. So go one. If there aren't people there, you failed. Goal two if they come but they don't stay, you failed.
00:25:40:20 - 00:26:15:15
Brent Toderian
So, you know, we we're doing free giveaways like free flowers, free cotton candy and such. And people will come for that. But if they immediately leave the street after that we failed. There's a there's a I use the term you've heard it before, sticky street. It's sticky because you stay. There's lots of ways of putting it. One of my favorite ways to say this is you can double the number of people on a street in two different ways by doubling the number of people who come, and that's actually hard to achieve, or double the length of time that they stay.
00:26:15:16 - 00:26:39:25
Brent Toderian
And that's actually easier if you've made the place magnetic, if you've made it sticky. So how do you, once you get them, how do you keep them and make them not want to leave? That's definition success level two. They come and they stayed. Then level three they go into the stores, they sit on the patio. They're spending money on the businesses because we need the businesses to succeed from this.
00:26:39:25 - 00:27:01:18
Brent Toderian
So how do you get them into the stores? Yes, that's a responsibility of the stores, but it's also a civic responsibility. It's also a strategic responsibility because the number one objectors to pedestrian streets are the businesses on those streets because they think they need cars to, to, to for to prosper financially. So we've got to prove them wrong.
00:27:01:18 - 00:27:21:19
Brent Toderian
We've got to get the people who've come and stayed to get into this businesses, to not just take advantage of the civic opportunities in the street. So how do you specifically bring the businesses out to the street and the people into the businesses? We've got strategies for that. That's level three, level four, as a result of all these things.
00:27:21:19 - 00:27:41:18
Brent Toderian
And you see how these definitions are cumulative. As a result of those things, you fundamentally change the perception of the street. Granville Street did not have a positive perception before the World Cup. And people would say, is it just going to go back to the way it was? Which was a way of nice way of saying, I don't want to go there.
00:27:41:22 - 00:28:15:03
Brent Toderian
So how do you fundamentally and particularly for families, so how do you fundamentally change that brand, that perception that that and I got to tell you, the World Cup did it. The World Cup. People were already saying, I've never seen Gravel Street like this. I've never thought of Granville Street like this before. So it was a fantastic start, one that's hard to replicate with any other way, but it would have gone away because people were ready to look for evidence that the street had just gone back to normal.
00:28:15:03 - 00:28:37:15
Brent Toderian
And so the extension people are seeing what is possible for the street after the World Cup and their perception. We want to lock that new perception in permanently change the brand, not temporarily change the brand. That's level four. And then the fifth, which people don't understand. If they're thinking about asking how the budget, how much the budget costs.
00:28:37:18 - 00:28:54:27
Brent Toderian
And don't get me wrong, I'm a penny pincher when it comes to budgets. I think you should be able to make a bang for the buck case on almost every decision you make on on a pedestrian space. Every one of them should be a great investment. But if you're only thinking about the cost, you're probably going to fail.
00:28:54:27 - 00:29:20:13
Brent Toderian
You've got to think about the value creation, the return on investment, which can be in the context of downtown staggering. You know, you've got you've got businesses that for the first time started to pay attention to Granville Street and think about that vacant space, that 25% vacant space. We got more attention from commercial leases on the street than we've had maybe ever, maybe ever.
00:29:20:15 - 00:29:46:28
Brent Toderian
But that would have disappeared again if things had gone back to normal. So if you could fill up some of that retail space, if you can fill out some of the empty office space above the retail, and if you can get developers to have confidence in their development transformations in the downtown right around Granville, because that hasn't necessarily been ground zero or the hub of the hub of the wheel or a center ice in the in the development investment.
00:29:46:28 - 00:30:16:11
Brent Toderian
If they can be investing in new body, heat, office, residential, etc., right near Granville. Not only is that great for the street, but that's a that's a influx in public money that makes the cost of this transformation look tiny. And this is what people need to understand. If you have just 1 or 2 moves that have happened as a result of this, we're talking tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars of public revenue over years.
00:30:16:11 - 00:30:36:16
Brent Toderian
And so that's the big play. That's the part that people don't perceive as the opportunity here. And some of the naysayers who were saying it was a mistake, partially because they think it couldn't succeed, that was just negativity. And it's already to be clear, it's already succeeded. Two weeks in, it's already a success and we're just building on that now.
00:30:36:16 - 00:31:00:04
Brent Toderian
But they they didn't necessarily they don't necessarily understand the bigger financial picture. So they're just looking at the cost and thinking that's sounds expensive, but the cost of normal, the cost that the street was already costing the downtown in the city, which is the economic engine of the city, the region, the province, the cost of doing nothing was already huge.
00:31:00:04 - 00:31:23:17
Brent Toderian
And we were spending that cost every year. And folks don't factor that in when they when they're thinking about whether we should invest this kind of money. So, you know, I've been rather unapologetic and deliberate in calling out. And when I hear someone in the media, there was a politician who said some things that were negative, and I was quick to go into the media and say, you've got to look at it this way.
00:31:23:17 - 00:31:45:22
Brent Toderian
You just have to, again, the wrong definitions of success or the wrong understanding of the potential of success when it comes to investing in the public, public sphere, public realm, public life. And I say all this because this is super important for every debate that every city is having on public space. We don't make the business case nearly well enough.
00:31:45:23 - 00:32:04:11
Brent Toderian
We talk about it in the context of the the value of a civic party. But that is not the economic big picture. To be clear, economics isn't the only reason to do this. But for the folks out there that are money focused, you can make a very strong, compelling business case on return on investment.
00:32:04:14 - 00:32:12:27
John Simmerman
At the end of the extension, what will this street turn back into?
00:32:12:29 - 00:32:38:08
Brent Toderian
Well, it'll the busses will come back on and the busses are a good thing. You know, we tend to focus on removal of cars. But remember in this case the busses will come back on and they pick up and and eject out thousands of people every day right onto the street. So it's a good thing. But what we won't have is the magnetism that the programing and the and the and the activations have had.
00:32:38:09 - 00:33:04:13
Brent Toderian
But what we want is that people will have a permanent, different sense of the street. We want that in the, in even within potentially the seven weeks. But certainly in the months coming after that, all those leasing agents. And by the way, we're calling together the leasing agents, we're taking them on walks on the street because we don't just hope that people will come and lease the space we're helping.
00:33:04:13 - 00:33:34:14
Brent Toderian
We want to make sure that that businesses are connecting the dots between this transformation and the opportunity it provides, and get some leases done, maybe even during the seven weeks. So hopefully we'll see some turnover and change in that. And we want the ripple effects of the new confidence, the new perception and branding to to not die out because people will know that next summer we're doing it again, because we're already going to be the next three years of summer pilots.
00:33:34:14 - 00:33:47:07
Brent Toderian
That gives the Lisas, the people leasing the space, the leasing agents confidence that they're selling a transformed street, that where the momentum is going to keep going. It's not just going to Peter out.
00:33:47:09 - 00:33:50:02
John Simmerman
Is this a bus only street?
00:33:50:04 - 00:34:00:29
Brent Toderian
It's a bus and taxi and bikes and those kinds of street. It's not regular car traffic that was taken off several years.
00:34:01:02 - 00:34:18:02
John Simmerman
Okay, so it's not regular car traffic, but it's not to your point from your to your point from earlier though, you may be dropping a lot of people off, but there's no stickiness to it. People don't want to stay on Granville Street. They go somewhere else. Yeah.
00:34:18:03 - 00:34:38:12
Brent Toderian
Correct. So there's a lot of body heat. There's a lot of opportunity from the people that are there because busses are great. Let's be clear. My starting point was and some of the retailers this is we're having the pedestrianization debates in other streets where you would be removing cars. And the retailers have their standard narrative about, well, I need those cars.
00:34:38:12 - 00:35:08:14
Brent Toderian
And the facts showed they don't that far more people come by transit and by walking and biking far more. But but we have that debate here. We all acknowledge and I'm a public transit planner too, right? I do that as well. And the transit is a great thing for the street. So the bar we've set for ourselves in terms of the crowds of people, it has to be at least as good in terms of initial crowd magnetism as the busses were.
00:35:08:14 - 00:35:16:20
Brent Toderian
But it has to be a lot better than the busses at keeping that crowd. And the busses were not necessarily good. Not good at all at keeping the crowd.
00:35:16:22 - 00:35:31:00
John Simmerman
Exactly. Well, yeah. I mean, who the who the heck would want to stay on a street that is busses and taxi? And is it rideshare to is right chair able to to to drop people off and pick people.
00:35:31:00 - 00:35:35:23
Brent Toderian
Out there and I can't remember if ride chairs allowed on it. It's a good question.
00:35:35:24 - 00:35:50:14
John Simmerman
My point being is that that's not a very attractive place to hang out. If you've got another bus and another bus and another bus rolling through there, where are the busses during this extension? Where are they?
00:35:50:16 - 00:36:03:24
Brent Toderian
Side streets. And we've done we've done closures before for things. So we know very well how to do it. It's I won't say it isn't a negative for bus service. It is a slight negative for bus service but it's very manageable.
00:36:04:00 - 00:36:04:14
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:36:04:15 - 00:36:28:10
Brent Toderian
But you know I feel that pressure. I got to tell you, as someone who who champions both things, I champion placemaking and I champion great transit service. I feel a pressure that the, the success of the street has to be so obvious that it's worth slightly inconveniencing the bus service. If it isn't, I'd be the first to say put the busses back.
00:36:28:12 - 00:36:51:05
Brent Toderian
I would, because I'm a bus transit guy too. It's got to be a success. So we're I feel a lot of pressure and we all do. And the deviate, you know, they were already exhausted after doing the World Cup. And then we had to plan this and implement it incredibly fast. Those folks are exhausted and tired, but passionate and really talented.
00:36:51:05 - 00:36:53:11
Brent Toderian
So they deserve a huge amount of credit.
00:36:53:16 - 00:37:15:06
John Simmerman
So one of the things I like to say, you know, frequently also here on the channel is that, you know, when we have an Open Streets event, when we do a mass, when we do these types of programing, that helps to reframe, you know, again, what our streets are for. Our streets are for people. What our streets are for.
00:37:15:09 - 00:37:36:10
John Simmerman
People can start to reimagine, oh, our street could be something different than this one. You know, on the East Coast, they're in Canada. We've got, of course, Montreal who has been rolling out these people, people oriented streets during the summer.
00:37:36:12 - 00:37:41:24
Brent Toderian
13 very long commercial streets across the various neighborhoods of the city.
00:37:42:02 - 00:37:56:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. And so you've got, you know, a peer city across the way there that you can look to and say, see, we can do this. And I think that one of those 13 or a couple of those 13th May have gone year round. Is that correct? It's not just in the summer.
00:37:56:09 - 00:38:27:02
Brent Toderian
No, no. And and they're facing the pressure that that every city is facing. And I got to tell you, this is this is it's a challenging moment for for urbanism and placemaking because we and some people still say these streets won't work in North America because of cars, car, culture, car, brain, etc. and they ignore the evidence that shows, at least in in urban places, not suburban, but urban places.
00:38:27:02 - 00:38:49:10
Brent Toderian
More people come by walking, biking and transit than than by car by far. And so there's still people that say this idea will fail. And then on the other extreme, and we've got too many extremes. We should do this. It's a no brainer. Pedestrianized it, make it permanent right now. Well, if you don't have the conditions to make that, make that succeed.
00:38:49:10 - 00:39:13:01
Brent Toderian
I've seen that movie before. That movie was the 1990s. If you don't have if you don't understand why some succeed and some fail, and you can't put the conditions in place with the body heat, you need to make it work. Then you then admittedly, people spend more money than cars. That's absolutely true. But if the people aren't there and the cars are gone, your street is even worse.
00:39:13:01 - 00:39:41:13
Brent Toderian
And we saw that. Okay, so you need this is there is a science and art to this that is not as simple as the two banners. You know, this is a terrible idea or this is a no brainer. Neither of those is true. This street will not inherently succeed, nor will inherently fail. It'll it'll succeed if we do a really good job with it, and we're really smart with it, because we do have the base conditions that a lot of other successful streets have had.
00:39:41:15 - 00:40:18:27
Brent Toderian
So there is a chance of success, notwithstanding the distress that the particular street is in, we have the conditions around it that will lead it to see if we can turn that around. But we've got to we've that's why we're feeling a lot of pressure to get it right. And I'm saying to the public, especially those 69% that voted for the extension, now is your time for you to get out and support the street with your body heat, because I remind people that if you're just walking on the street, sitting on the street, eating your lunch, you're contributing to the success of the street because you're you're sending the message that this is a good
00:40:18:27 - 00:40:43:10
Brent Toderian
people place. And I want to give a medal to the parents that are bringing out their, their kids and, and, and especially their really young kids, because they're not being heroic. They're not they're not being they're not trying to do the street of favor. They're just looking for places to take their kids that are interesting. And we've got slides, we've got games, we've got cotton candy, we've got all these things.
00:40:43:10 - 00:41:09:12
Brent Toderian
But when they come to me, that immediately changes the narrative about whether the street is safe or not, because parents don't bring their kids to unsafe streets, they just don't. So it's an indicator species that the street is in fact safe and it's vibrant and such. So, you know, when you can get those crowds out, you tell everybody, come out and support the street.
00:41:09:12 - 00:41:31:03
Brent Toderian
But when they do, we know that people attract other people, right? People watching is one of the base activities, no matter all the other activities that you're trying to plan and add and bring to the street. So it's we're trying to spend this message that if you if you like this idea, don't think it'll just exceed come out and help make it succeed.
00:41:31:03 - 00:41:51:00
Brent Toderian
If you're against this idea, if you were against this idea, why wouldn't you still want it to succeed? You know, what's the point of being negative just so you can say we told you so, why are you cheering against the success of your own city? Because the city needs this street to succeed. And why are you chewing against it?
00:41:51:05 - 00:42:17:11
Brent Toderian
You know, I've called some people out on that. And so because it'll work if all of us support it, the professionals working on making it a well-designed, well programed street, we feel huge pressure. But I want everyone to feel some pressure to help turn this street around, come out and support it just with your presence and hopefully your dollars when you pop into the stores or onto the patios.
00:42:17:13 - 00:42:51:10
John Simmerman
Well, I know Vancouver isn't Amsterdam, but I have to. I have to ask, you know, when you look at the concept of trying to balance a couple of different things, of trying to balance the transit corridor, trying to get that opportunity to be able to get people off, trying to create attractors, trying to create a greener environment. I mean, right now when you remove the people and you just look at what that street looks like, it's just there's no green there.
00:42:51:11 - 00:42:56:04
John Simmerman
I mean, it's just a wasteland of of asphalt and concrete.
00:42:56:07 - 00:42:57:28
Brent Toderian
You're talking about Granville.
00:42:58:01 - 00:43:00:12
John Simmerman
Granville? Yeah. Granville Street, I mean.
00:43:00:14 - 00:43:02:07
Brent Toderian
I wouldn't I wouldn't go that far.
00:43:02:10 - 00:43:07:27
John Simmerman
Okay, well, we'll go back to that. We'll go back to that photo. But I want to just I want to linger on this as.
00:43:07:29 - 00:43:19:07
Brent Toderian
But it certainly needs more green and it certainly needs more shade because, you know, we're all our cities are all getting hotter. And shade is a critical element. Water and shade.
00:43:19:10 - 00:44:10:07
John Simmerman
So as, as as somebody who's been at this a long time and you're trying to, like you said, balance that, that we need to be able to get people through here and to here. That's the transit side, part of the transit story, as well, as well as the attractors in the stickiness and keeping people there. I do I do wonder if we can learn anything from some of these experiences where we're seeing many of the Dutch cities starting to, you know, Depay and starting to create trams on, on natural surfaces and trying to bring that heat island effect down, still being able to bring masses of people off as people disembark and get to the
00:44:10:07 - 00:44:23:22
John Simmerman
different stations and then you still got to do the other stuff, you still got to do the is there a reason? Is there a there there that will keep people there stickiness? Talk a little bit about that, a little bit.
00:44:23:24 - 00:44:46:26
Brent Toderian
Greening is definitely a critical element. And, you know, not something we've been able to do a lot in the in the seven week extension. But we do have there's been sort of augmented green put in. I've got some photos that I haven't posted. You've inspired me. Maybe I'll do a post specifically about that. But as I say also green.
00:44:46:28 - 00:45:22:13
Brent Toderian
Green is great for in its in its own sake, certainly for the clean air and oxygen, but also for the cooling element, our ability it has. Excuse me. So and that works with shade and we need some, you know, artificial shading as well. But I'd say for the next summer's pilot I would say that would be one of we're going to make a list of, of you know, here are the actions and observations that we've learned from this that will educate a better job next summer and be quite deliberate about that.
00:45:22:14 - 00:45:49:07
Brent Toderian
And I think leaning in more on greening and shade will be key for just a cleaner environment. It contributes to the stickiness, like I've when I observe the days out there when people are staying. You know, if it's a hot day, they don't stay. They find the shadow. If they can, if there's no seating in the shadow, they leave because it's just too hot.
00:45:49:14 - 00:46:09:16
Brent Toderian
And so and, you know, air quality is part of that too. Air quality in cities is critically important. So I'd say for your general question, your general theme, urban greening, it has to be a critical element of this water. And green has to be a critical dimension of this kind of planning. So you see some there you go.
00:46:09:17 - 00:46:27:13
Brent Toderian
That's so the bigger trees are there before. Do you see the little behind the bench? There's a little thing in a smaller tree. That's what I mean by the sort of green augmentation. We've been putting in some extra greening just to make it feel a little more comfortable. Again, not a lot, but, you know, we had two weeks notice.
00:46:27:13 - 00:46:57:28
Brent Toderian
So, you know, we're we're working very nimbly, very fast and very nimbly. And it's the art of the possible what we can get in time to do that. Can I step back on one of your earlier comments, though? You talked about the car free days, the the experiences where the the street is taken back from being surrendered to cars and given to people and it sort of it starts to starts to we rewire people's thinking about what streets are for.
00:46:58:00 - 00:47:26:12
Brent Toderian
That's critically. I'm a big fan of car free days. It critically important. Our car free days here in Vancouver are very successful. They have not until relatively recently with this translated into summer successful summer pilots and pedestrian streets. And that shows you can be good at events and bad at at longer term placemaking. I put Vancouver in that category.
00:47:26:13 - 00:47:47:04
Brent Toderian
Vancouver has been a city that has been good at special events and bad at long term placemaking or medium to long term placement. And frankly, we needed to get better at it. And I give Montreal a lot of credit. Montreal if Montreal hadn't happened in North America, I suspect a lot of cities might still be struggling with the just the base case for this concept.
00:47:47:04 - 00:48:11:25
Brent Toderian
But Montreal not only did it with one street, you know, I joke there are streets struggling with whether they do a block or one street. Montreal started with one, then three, then 12 or 10, then I think 14, and then it actually did back to 13, because one of them's having construction issues where they couldn't do it this year and they made them longer every year.
00:48:12:00 - 00:48:34:20
Brent Toderian
They made them longer, and they went deeper into the shoulder season. So they made them longer chronologically to where isn't just summer now? It goes into spring and fall. So every year they've been growing, but they've been growing fast. That's a thing that Paris also did. Paris under Hidalgo, Mayor Hidalgo had their car free.
00:48:34:23 - 00:49:02:29
Brent Toderian
But they didn't wait long. And this is the key thing. They didn't wait long to build on that and do summer pilots and then permanent and in in Paris you can do a lot more permanent. Whereas I'm, I'm on the fence about that here. But the key is you've got to you can't get so comfortable with those special events and not turn them into something more real, frankly, more ongoing.
00:49:03:02 - 00:49:24:15
Brent Toderian
That's a big mistake. And Vancouver has been a poster child of that mistake. We're going to keep doing our 3 or 4 car free day things, but we've we up until now, we've never translated that into a successful culture of real street pedestrianization. And I should say it's our skill sets at City Hall and such have grown by leaps and bounds.
00:49:24:15 - 00:49:52:13
Brent Toderian
We've had very good success off of commercial streets, on side streets where the side streets would be closed down. So small half block or full block, modest successes. But anytime we've tried to do bigger things, it's been this clash between the business association and City Hall, this unhealthy false choice between business success versus civic success. So we've had to I why I am so enthusiastic about this pilot this time.
00:49:52:13 - 00:50:16:19
Brent Toderian
And it's and going into the next couple of years is we have the chance finally to turn the corner and break through a lot of our intellectual baggage around these ideas because we've had smart people working on it. But but the strategy around how to bring everybody onside and prove this success has not been quite there, and it has the best chance it's ever had right now.
00:50:16:21 - 00:50:25:19
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, honestly, probably the best thing that you can do for success is to create a new sport.
00:50:25:21 - 00:50:52:24
Brent Toderian
I don't think we created soccer tennis. I assume that's been around for a while, but it's the first time I've seen it. So this is one of the key. This is the key intersection on the five block street. And every Saturday night, buskers are using this space every day constantly because it's just you see there, you see how big an intersection is, a great space for having some some real space to do something.
00:50:52:26 - 00:51:27:18
Brent Toderian
The soccer tennis has been really cool on Saturday night in that evening where you're transitioning from the family day to the to the nighttime vibrancy and activity of the of the of the pubs and bars and clubs. And so soccer tennis has been particularly impressive. And I got to say those those guys are no joke. That video, I posted that video on my social media and I think they were going, God, it seemed like a minute and a half without one of them scoring a pointer, dropping a ball.
00:51:27:18 - 00:51:52:26
Brent Toderian
So as a as a lobby goes, it was impressive. But it's just when you got that space, the intersections, a lot of streets don't include the intersections because they think, well, we need that cross flow traffic. And we've done that on on most of our streets. But that intersection right there was part of the pedestrian zone and it's been more successful.
00:51:52:29 - 00:51:55:07
Brent Toderian
It's been a big part of the success.
00:51:55:09 - 00:52:04:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And for those who are screaming at the screen saying that was a pickleball net, not a tennis net, yeah, we know, we know that was a pickleball net.
00:52:04:13 - 00:52:13:26
Brent Toderian
Yeah that I can't I can't say I know pickleball well but somebody said somebody responded to my post saying pickleball with real pickles or something.
00:52:13:27 - 00:52:18:05
Brent Toderian
Yeah. There you go. That's funny.
00:52:18:07 - 00:52:50:25
Brent Toderian
So but it illustrates all the things that you have to do because your hardware and software metaphor is a good one. I just say it's the design and the programing, but you know, you've got to get both right. They've got to be contributing to each other. But the purpose of having those definitions of success in the way that I laid them out, if forces you to analyze every single idea, you have a dance, a dance.
00:52:50:29 - 00:53:09:15
Brent Toderian
We have constant different times of music, dance. What does it do? It certainly attracts it does level one. It does level two because they stay for at least an hour. But do they stay after the dance is over or do they immediately scatter? Do they go into the Shaw's and services? So do they get to level three or not?
00:53:09:16 - 00:53:33:02
Brent Toderian
Does it? It sort of jumps. Level three gets to level four. Rebranding of the street because people who participate have a more positive experience and memory of the street. So but you see how almost every idea you have, you can force it yourself to assess whether or not it's it's helping you actually, in a provable way, achieve your levels of success.
00:53:33:02 - 00:54:04:12
Brent Toderian
So there's a discipline to that, that I insist on, because if not every idea can sound like a good idea, but you've got the ideas have to be synergistic, the design has to be synergistic with the programing, and you've got to have that, that north star of, of your definitions of success. And at the end of the, the most classic example would be, I can think of a lot of ways you could program the street where you'd be entirely focused on level one, just attracting people there and never get to the other four levels.
00:54:04:12 - 00:54:10:10
Brent Toderian
And at the end of the day, you could say, well, here's our pedestrian counts, but did you really succeed?
00:54:10:16 - 00:54:36:10
John Simmerman
You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This really makes me ask the question. Is there an opportunity for a permanent infrastructure transformation? Is there an opportunity to try to create a people oriented street, 365 days of the year, not just a few weeks in the summer?
00:54:36:13 - 00:55:04:09
Brent Toderian
I'll give you the official Vancouver answer, and then I'll give you my answer. The official Vancouver answer is just what was it? Six months before the World Cup or so, city Hall passed the Granville Street plan, basically a plan to revitalize Granville Street. And it's not just the street itself, it's the buildings. It's the it's new development. It's a way of rethinking from a physical planning and design perspective, the whole street.
00:55:04:09 - 00:55:29:09
Brent Toderian
So it's a 20 year plan. That's both its advantage and its disadvantage, its advantages. You're thinking long term because you've got a big picture in mind. And I'm a big picture thinker, so all my little actions are always connected to a big pictures. And so it's a good plan from that perspective. There's there's some criticism. And I've been part of this criticism that says it was it's too patient.
00:55:29:16 - 00:55:50:01
Brent Toderian
And what we've seen in cities like Paris is you've got to move faster. Plus we don't have all the time in the world on things like climate change, etc. to to think we know an urban heat, to think we know what it's going to be like 20 years from now is a bit of hubris. It's a bit of arrogance, frankly, because conditions are starting to change much, much faster.
00:55:50:02 - 00:56:13:13
Brent Toderian
Right. So 20 year plans. As a city planner, I'd say I'm, I think, very differently about 20 year plans than I did at the beginning of my career. Plans have to be nimble. Plans have to constantly be adjusting to new realities. But on the Pedestrianization permanence question, that plan specifically calls for permanence. It calls for doing a summer pilots.
00:56:13:13 - 00:56:43:14
Brent Toderian
But those pilots were not specifically authorized by council. But it said those were part of the plan. And then around year ten of the 20 years, you start to work on the permanent side of things. So we have sort of ten years to get to permanence. That's the plan. And a lot of physical transformation, reallocation of the SROs, frankly, to better housing for the people who are in there right now.
00:56:43:16 - 00:57:10:03
Brent Toderian
And that's a huge issue. So a lot of that's going to happen over the time in that plan. But the plan does say that the end state is permanent and it's a permanent redesign transformation, a permanent public space. And it says for five blocks, I say that we have to prove that that will work here. And I referenced Montreal.
00:57:10:06 - 00:57:36:02
Brent Toderian
The notion that we Montreal, a lot of people say Montreal has been so successful, of course they should make it permanent. Not necessarily. Montreal is very smart. They're very pragmatic. They know that pedestrianized you can you do a pedestrianized street in the winter with a with Montreal sized dumps of snow? Sure. You could have toboggan races, you could do stuff, but it's going to be different.
00:57:36:02 - 00:58:19:08
Brent Toderian
It's going to be different. And will you get the constant body heat that you need, especially in that kind of extreme, like Montreal is a serious snow city. And so I don't I think they are right to have expanded into the shoulder seasons using, you know, high technology like blankets on your on your chair and your patio. But I think they are right to at least so far, have resisted the pressure to make it permanent, because I think it's I'm more on the side for Montreal right now still that it's very successful in the summer, and that does not adequately, automatically mean it will be successful permanently.
00:58:19:10 - 00:58:39:25
Brent Toderian
Similarly, with Vancouver, we don't get the snow dumps, but we get the gloom and the rain. We get a lot of rain. We can go nine, ten, 12, 15 days in a row of rain in the winter and people don't necessarily want to come out for programing. You know, we're talking about doing splash mobs like we will do creative things in the rain 100%.
00:58:39:25 - 00:59:10:11
Brent Toderian
We will embrace the rain. But even with all of that creative ideas, is it better than the transit? You know, that's the question we need to ask. So my line is I'm still on the fence. I'm actually part of that group that is neither for nor against making it permanent. I believe we need to take the next three years of summer pilots prove that it works really well in the summer, and then ask ourselves the question, what do we think?
00:59:10:11 - 00:59:31:21
Brent Toderian
But I don't agree with the part of the plan that says it's the the automatic end state in the plan is, is is permanent pedestrianization I say maybe and I think we've got three years of having to absolutely nail it. But by the end of that, probably the end of that second year, I will have an opinion. You can have me back on the show.
00:59:31:23 - 00:59:58:03
Brent Toderian
I will say, here's what we've learned with the extensions, here's the evidence we have, and I'll make a evidence based and strategic assessment of that situation. We can't just be saying it'll automatically fail or automatically succeed, frankly. You know, as I said at the beginning, I've been doing this for 34 years. A lot of my work in the 90s was fixing downtowns that had done that because they didn't think it through.
00:59:58:04 - 01:00:02:09
Brent Toderian
We need to we need to be bold, but we also need to be very smart.
01:00:02:14 - 01:00:31:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, you mentioned Paris, and so I thought I'd channel the video that I shot during Maryhill. Goes very first car free day way back in 2015. And and of course they are going to go through a massive reimagining what the Champs-ΓlysΓ©es will be. And so they're also going through that 20 year process. It won't take them that long.
01:00:31:05 - 01:00:52:27
Brent Toderian
To take anywhere near 20 years. I know what I admire about Paris is about how bad it was. People who haven't been to Paris during the car choke years. Yes. Don't know how bad Paris was with cars and how fast. How fast. They took a 20 year plan and they did it in sort of five.
01:00:53:01 - 01:00:53:27
Brent Toderian
Yes.
01:00:53:29 - 01:01:22:15
Brent Toderian
Like I remember they were putting in the bike infrastructure the last year. I was there before the pandemic. So 2019. And then they they sped things up during the pandemic. So they went from they went they went from pilots car free days to pilot transformations to permanent transformations. Fast pull the band aid off, learn, assess, but act boldly when you have enough information.
01:01:22:19 - 01:01:47:22
Brent Toderian
And and they quite wisely focused in not on climate change or climate emissions and such. When it came to car free, it was air pollution and it was urban heat. And those were two things that Parisians were already experiencing. They didn't have to debate about whether climate change was real, because you could chew the air in that city, and it was hot and it was going to get hotter.
01:01:47:22 - 01:02:13:28
Brent Toderian
And so both of those things were real life quality of life, and they were very smart on focusing on that rather than something that is still, it shouldn't be esoteric, but it is because of all the denialism and the lies and the gaslighting out there from the from the fossil fuel industries and the people getting rich off the status quo, the notion of climate change is still considered a debate when it is not.
01:02:14:01 - 01:02:23:26
Brent Toderian
But nobody debates quality of life. When your air can be chewed and your and your and you're dying of urban heat. So they were smart to lean on that.
01:02:23:27 - 01:02:51:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'll remember to how bold it was for Mary Hilldale go back in 2015. She essentially said, hey, we can't even see the top of the Eiffel Tower through the smog. We need to change. And she had that vision of saying, you know, we need to do something. This is what we're going to do. She, of course, got reelected, you know, and and was able to serve out yet another term.
01:02:51:28 - 01:02:58:02
John Simmerman
And here's a nice little snapshot from 20 2025 with the two of you.
01:02:58:04 - 01:03:00:00
Brent Toderian
Talking about this.
01:03:00:03 - 01:03:21:24
Brent Toderian
And asked me to curate. They were doing a they wanted to do a big exhibition in their city hall space, the fantastic space right in City Hall, where they hold great exhibition. And she reached out to me and wanted me to curate it. And I had never curated an exhibition before, so I was I was humble and said, how about I co-curated it?
01:03:21:24 - 01:03:49:00
Brent Toderian
Because I certainly understand the messaging in the concept, the content. But but, you know, the, the design of space. I'm fascinated by that. But I didn't want that to be my first time trying it. So we we did it as a team with her team and it was fantastic. It was about basically how cities are the key and city action bold city action going further and faster is the key to climate action.
01:03:49:05 - 01:04:20:09
Brent Toderian
You can't have climate action without urban city action. We profiled what was it, 36? Maybe cities that were doing various climate actions all around the world on all different continents. And we had key messaging about city leadership. And it was it was fantastic. And imagine if you're City Hall, wherever you are right now, imagine if your City Hall had an exhibition in City Hall about connecting the dots for people between better city making for people and climate action.
01:04:20:10 - 01:04:24:02
Brent Toderian
Same solutions, same conversation, same.
01:04:24:04 - 01:04:47:22
John Simmerman
And as a public health guy, I'll say that, you know, that's in there as well. And that's it's the same solution as we need to create more people oriented cities and people oriented places. This is your your blue sky account here. We've been sharing some photos and some imagery from your LinkedIn. I believe those are primarily your two social media areas.
01:04:47:23 - 01:04:48:00
John Simmerman
Okay.
01:04:48:03 - 01:04:48:14
Brent Toderian
Platforms.
01:04:48:15 - 01:05:14:16
Brent Toderian
Trying to get better at Instagram. I'm on threads, I'm on Mastodon for the folks you like that to, but I don't post as much on those. And yes, I'm still on X even though it's a cesspool and I don't. I don't listen to X, I just post on X because there's still folks there until until those folks leave, there's still folks there I want to reach, including politicians, media, etc. decision makers are still on, sadly.
01:05:14:17 - 01:05:25:06
John Simmerman
And you and I have been very, very intentional about trying to spread the audience there on blue Sky. We both have starter packs that are essential.
01:05:25:09 - 01:05:25:28
Brent Toderian
Guys, by.
01:05:25:28 - 01:05:32:02
Brent Toderian
Far the best urbanist, city building, conversation, community and conversation by far.
01:05:32:04 - 01:05:34:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Final word.
01:05:34:05 - 01:05:35:04
Brent Toderian
Brant.
01:05:35:06 - 01:06:06:26
Brent Toderian
Oh, God. I think, you know, people might look at the World Cup and say, that's not transferable and that's true, but people should take a look at I think I want Granville Street in Vancouver to be second only to Montreal, because they deserve the credit as the learning opportunity for successful pedestrianization and and maybe Granville Street, particularly because it's it's not again with the World Cup, not as a distraction or a red herring.
01:06:06:27 - 01:06:46:11
Brent Toderian
It's can you use pedestrianization successfully to address a distress street, which a lot of downtown streets are out there as a revitalization strategy, not an strategy because every street is starting from a different place. And I we tend to have this conversation about pedestrians pedestrianization of streets like it's one answer for all streets. That's a great way to fail, because there's I could probably categorize at least five different categories of streets commercial, not commercial, neighborhood versus Main Street, distressed versus somewhat successful.
01:06:46:14 - 01:07:12:16
Brent Toderian
We tail versus pubs and entertainment as the starting point and culture and theaters and such. You know, there's all sorts, even block lengths and number of cross streets. And do you have big body heat on either end, like State Street in Madison, Wisconsin that has the university in the state capitol on either end. So there's all sorts of categories of streets where you ask the question, could Pedestrianization work here?
01:07:12:16 - 01:07:42:28
Brent Toderian
Yes or no? And that is not a lazy yes or a lazy no. Some places it will work, some places it will not. Sorry to the true believers, but that's just true. But secondly, what's the strategy? The strategy for those different kinds of streets differs greatly. And it can't be a one size fits all. But I believe we've got an opportunity here in North America based on everything we've learned here in North America, but also elsewhere, where we could start having a lot more successes, successes.
01:07:42:28 - 01:07:53:17
Brent Toderian
This is sort of a new renaissance of the idea, but no excuse to do it. Stupidly or lazy. You've got to. You've got to do. You've got a chance to do it. Smart. Yeah.
01:07:53:19 - 01:08:15:06
John Simmerman
Well, Brant Totter, an absolute pleasure having you back on again. I'm going to resume out here so we can see your website. Folks. You can follow Brant out on blue Sky and me too, as well as LinkedIn. And then pop on over to his website right here tottering urban. Com. Brant, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
01:08:15:06 - 01:08:16:12
John Simmerman
Once again.
01:08:16:15 - 01:08:19:09
Brent Toderian
My pleasure. Really glad that we got a chance to do this.
01:08:19:09 - 01:08:19:19
Brent Toderian
John.
01:08:19:21 - 01:08:35:04
John Simmerman
Everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Brant tottering. If you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring that notifications bell.
01:08:35:04 - 01:08:51:22
John Simmerman
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01:08:51:23 - 01:09:12:22
John Simmerman
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01:09:12:23 - 01:09:27:29
John Simmerman
Every little bit adds up and is very much appreciated. Mahalo new logo and again, thank you so much for tuning in today. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and Loha.