Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:20:08
Nic Laporte
It was cool to watch it all in one whole series, which is like an hour and 15 minutes or something like that. But yeah, there was again, so many things in this trip that were inspired by watching your channel. I mentioned it in these videos, so one of them was when I went to hear it out and right there haunting, watching you with Kylie van Dam and that interview you did, I think a year and a half ago or something like that.
00:00:20:11 - 00:00:42:20
Nic Laporte
And that was the inspiration to go there. But the whole trip was originally the inspiration came from watching, Roy Symons on this show and him talking about his book. Let's pack this beautiful coffee table book about his 21 day trip, I think, around the Netherlands. So that was kind of the seed that planted and said, okay, I'm going to go check it out and see what I see and have my own pilgrimage to the Netherlands.
00:00:42:22 - 00:01:04:22
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Nic Laporte from the Nic Laporte YouTube channel @nicthedoor is the handle. And we are going to be talking a little bit about the origins and the genesis of his channel, getting interested in active mobility and urbanism. It's a good one and I can't wait to share it with you.
00:01:04:22 - 00:01:11:24
John Simmerman
So let's get right to it with Nick.
00:01:11:27 - 00:01:14:24
John Simmerman
Nick Laporte, welcome to the Active Tennis Channel.
00:01:14:27 - 00:01:26:26
Nic Laporte
Hello. And thank you so much for having me. I'm I'm a big fan of the show, as you know, but maybe your listeners don't know. I've been listening for a very long time. And to be joined with you is just it's an honor. So thanks for having me. Yeah.
00:01:27:00 - 00:01:47:28
John Simmerman
Good stuff. Nick, you and I have had the pleasure of meeting in person. We were able to to meet in person in Amsterdam this summer, which was a real joy. And thank you so much for listening and following along with the Active Towns channel, and supporting my efforts as well. You are one of my patrons, and I do appreciate that.
00:01:48:00 - 00:01:55:05
John Simmerman
But let's take this opportunity to introduce yourself, to the audience. So who the heck is Nick Laporte?
00:01:55:07 - 00:02:12:13
Nic Laporte
Who the heck is Nick Laporte? That's a question I've been asking myself for a very long time, but if I could be as extinct as possible, it would be. I'm just a regular guy. I live in Vancouver, Canada, who makes YouTube videos about urbanism and micro-mobility and that's that's the short and sweet for sure.
00:02:12:16 - 00:02:20:19
John Simmerman
The short and the sweet. So, so so you're one of those Canadian guys. You're up north, North of the border. Are good friends up there? Yeah.
00:02:20:21 - 00:02:29:24
Nic Laporte
There's a lot of us, right. There's the urban space that's kind of taken over by Canadians and in certain ways it's pretty crazy. I don't know why that's the case, but I've definitely noticed that.
00:02:29:27 - 00:02:41:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we'll we'll talk a little bit about that. But, first I want to get into the genesis of your journey, to all things urbanism, because this.
00:02:41:20 - 00:02:42:07
Nic Laporte
Isn't.
00:02:42:12 - 00:02:59:18
John Simmerman
This isn't your, your, like, world. I mean, this is kind of new, and, you were a content creator before. We'll talk a little bit about that later, but what was really the, you know, the genesis of you starting to turn your attention towards our built environment?
00:02:59:20 - 00:03:19:19
Nic Laporte
Yeah, it's it's a bit of a long story, but I think there's some interesting things along the way. But like most people, I just grew up in a town. I grew up in a small town not far from Detroit, Michigan and Canada, called Kingsville, and its claim to fame is the most southern town in Canada. But other than that, it's just it's just a regular small town of like, I don't know, 10,000 people or something.
00:03:19:22 - 00:03:38:13
Nic Laporte
And, I learned to ride a bike. And when you live in a small town, it's a bit different than a big city, because mostly you can ride places. People know who you are. People drive relatively slowly, and it's fine. But when I was a teenager, I actually moved to London, Ontario, which I'm sure many of your listeners know of London, Ontario.
00:03:38:13 - 00:04:01:06
Nic Laporte
If they've never been, at least. And that was a really eye opening experience for me, because now I could ride my bike to places instead of just, you know, to school or to my friend's house. I could go to the mall, I could go anywhere. I wanted, and I could get anything I wanted on two wheels. And this is at a time where, you know, I was younger, I was a teenager, and my sense of danger and doom was wasn't as heightened as it is now.
00:04:01:08 - 00:04:21:18
Nic Laporte
So I was willing to put up with some pretty hairy situations. Now, that being said, London was okay because they actually had some bike lanes, some grades separated bike lanes. Even back then this would have been like 2005, I think, and that was really great. I really enjoyed that. But again, I wasn't like a utilitarian cyclist or anything.
00:04:21:18 - 00:04:51:25
Nic Laporte
It was just like a thing you did because that's all I could do. I didn't have a car in transit I'd use occasionally, but as far as cycling, I was a recreational cyclist. I go to the trails, you know, Fanshawe has a beautiful lake. I do laps around there on my mountain bike. But, as I got older, I went to school, I became a paramedic, and I got to see a lot of the death and destruction that comes from from cars and car dependency, a lot of traffic violence, which is eye opening to me.
00:04:51:27 - 00:05:10:28
Nic Laporte
And I also worked in Alberta as a medic in the oilsands. So that was a whole nother side. You know, seeing the actual death and destruction that all of this fuels being fed into and then seeing how wasteful we are. I just pulling this stuff out of the ground. So I as I'm going through my life, I'm just collecting all of this data, this anecdotal stuff that's pushing me in this direction.
00:05:11:00 - 00:05:31:04
Nic Laporte
But the real start, I could say that's like somebody who got actually interested in utilitarian cycling was a trip I made to Japan, and this is the my first overseas trip. I would have been 24, I think, or 25. I did a solo trip to Japan and I decided to to vlog it because I was always interested in YouTube and exploring that.
00:05:31:04 - 00:05:47:19
Nic Laporte
And yeah, you're showing this video here, and this is where this is the first time on camera I'm talking about bikes or anything. This was not my purpose to be in Japan at all. I just happened to be in Kyoto and I thought, hey, I see people on bicycles, I see bike lanes. That seems like a reasonable way to go see the sights.
00:05:47:22 - 00:06:02:27
Nic Laporte
So that's what I did. I rented a bike and for the four days I was in Kyoto, I rode around on bike and I did the same in Osaka and it was amazing. I was like, this is pretty cool. That's cool how they do that over there. But still, my brain wasn't like, hey, maybe we can do that where I live.
00:06:02:29 - 00:06:24:20
Nic Laporte
I didn't click yet, right? But in this video, I still have a nice, decent amount of hair on my head. This is before the the locks went missing, but I think I was just talking about the differences between cycling in North America and Japan and how I noticed that, people don't wears helmets generally. And in Japan, I thought that was interesting.
00:06:24:23 - 00:06:43:07
Nic Laporte
And I was talking about the sidewalks and how people ride their bikes on the sidewalks, even though there are bike lanes too. If there wasn't a bike lane, people were perfectly legal and happy riding on the big wide, pathways for pedestrians and cyclists. And the last thing I noticed there was how few people locked their bikes to anything.
00:06:43:09 - 00:06:56:24
Nic Laporte
I thought that was very interesting. All you had to do is, you know, put the lock on the wheel and park it and you're fine. I thought that was cool. But again, like I said, it was kind of just the thing that just was foreign thing that they do in Japan. And, yeah, I can't wait to experience that again.
00:06:56:24 - 00:07:19:20
Nic Laporte
It was cool. So just one year later, after that, I had my first chance to go to Amsterdam. And this is again just another leisurely trip. This was had nothing to do with making YouTube videos, and I was with my my girlfriend at the time and we went to Amsterdam for 3 or 4 days. And again, like everybody does, you rent a bicycle and you tour around the city and the same thing.
00:07:19:23 - 00:07:34:19
Nic Laporte
This is really cool. But again, did not click on my head. This is maybe something that we can do in North America. And this photo here, that's me. That's with my my girlfriend at the time, riding through Vondelpark. I believe in Amsterdam.
00:07:34:19 - 00:07:37:04
John Simmerman
I recognize her.
00:07:37:06 - 00:07:39:08
Nic Laporte
You recognize her? Yeah.
00:07:39:10 - 00:07:43:08
John Simmerman
I recognize that smiling face. Yeah.
00:07:43:10 - 00:08:02:12
Nic Laporte
She's not a public person, so I'm not going to put her face on the internet. But. But it was a great experience. Then we had some really wonderful times. But again, moving on. So a year after that, one year, like one year after another, my girlfriend, that same person in that photo there was like, I want to move to Vancouver.
00:08:02:12 - 00:08:28:26
Nic Laporte
You know, we're living in London. And she's like, oh, no takeover. She's been there, been here a bunch of times. And I was like, sure, why not? Looks beautiful. Let's check it out. So my first time coming to Vancouver was moving here and that was seven years ago now. And that was another shift, right? Because now I got to see what in the context of North America would be a relatively good place for cycling and cycling infrastructure.
00:08:28:26 - 00:08:50:19
Nic Laporte
And the culture here was it was almost a little bit of a shock coming from London, Ontario to Vancouver to see just how much they've built out their infrastructure. And that was incredible because immediately I became a fairweather cyclist and micromobility user. If the weather was nice, I get on my bike and I'd go to work and I was like, this is nice, it feels good.
00:08:50:22 - 00:09:10:09
Nic Laporte
And this, this is something that I think a lot of people don't experience even with in North America. And it touches on that whole fact of when you when you talk to people about micromobility or even just getting on a bicycle and experiencing that on your day to day life, going to work, going to, the restaurants or just to a store to pick things up.
00:09:10:11 - 00:09:32:12
Nic Laporte
I'm like, you need to you need to get your feet over here, check it out, try to get on two wheels, roll around and just experience what that that's like. So so yeah, I, I just think people need to actually experience that. But I was happy to experience that. But for years it's still was only it still was only a fleeting thing.
00:09:32:12 - 00:09:49:21
Nic Laporte
I could say it was it was something I did, like I said, as a fairweather cyclist, but I never really was truly one over by the bicycle full time, when the weather was bad, when it was winter time, I would get on the bike or, sorry, I get on the bus or I'd get in my car sometimes to go to work.
00:09:49:24 - 00:10:10:09
Nic Laporte
But the real, the real moment, the real watershed moment that pushed me over the edge was an electric scooter. So some of my colleagues at work, two of them actually rode electric scooters occasionally to work, and I thought that was cool. One of them offered to let me try it. I rode around the parking lot, and that same day I bought one because I was like, this is so much fun.
00:10:10:09 - 00:10:30:06
Nic Laporte
Like, I want to do this more often. And that was the thing that motivated me to do that. And that was another shift here. And this was definitely the winning moment where I was like, this, this is it. This is it. I became a full time micromobility user. The only time I ever left the garage was when we had to leave the city and go long distances.
00:10:30:08 - 00:10:46:04
Nic Laporte
That's it. So I go to work every day on my electric scooter or my bicycle. I go to the store. I'd even go to Home Hardware or, you know, Home Depot and pick up big things on my scooter because I was like, why not? I don't want to have to drive like that was the pain in the butt.
00:10:46:07 - 00:11:05:23
Nic Laporte
And that was, yeah, that that that was, the real watershed moment for me that really sent me in this direction that if you're watching this, you'll see me now, is that I've been making these YouTube videos about micromobility and urban urbanism for the past few years. So it first started as just my channel, just started as electric scooters.
00:11:05:23 - 00:11:23:00
Nic Laporte
How to fix them reviews, things like that. And I thought that was the direction I was going to go. But I'm a pretty wishy washy person, and that's probably why my YouTube channel has, is and still and will always be just my name because I wanted a room to breathe and to pivot. Yeah. And my and.
00:11:23:02 - 00:11:49:08
John Simmerman
Let's, let's pause for a second here because this is not your first time. This is not your first rodeo when it comes to to YouTube. Because the reality is, is that you had a, a very I want to say, very successful. You say moderately successful. But you had a channel that, you know, had, I don't know, 40 some odd videos or whatever.
00:11:49:10 - 00:12:18:25
John Simmerman
This video right here has 2.3 million views. I think you had some 40,000 subscribers on your tech illiterate channel. And so, yeah, picking up the camera even as early as your first visit to Japan, you know, in 2015, you just started filming, you know, you know, it's probably your cell phone, but you you just started filming. There's there was a natural inclination, to document stuff.
00:12:18:28 - 00:12:32:08
John Simmerman
So take us back to, you know, tech literate in, in the fact that you, you do have this inclination to sort of document what it is that's going on in that head of yours.
00:12:32:11 - 00:12:49:22
Nic Laporte
Yeah, I think, like many people might have experienced in their own life, I'm sure a few people, at least on YouTube, is that I had an interest in making videos from a young age, like I remember when we were kids way back in Kingsville, getting this really crappy little camera where we could make just silly videos of us riding our bikes or stop motion videos.
00:12:49:22 - 00:13:09:19
Nic Laporte
And I always found that interesting. When YouTube came around and whatever it was 2006 or 7 or whatever it was around that year, that era, I was immediately hooked. I've always been watching YouTube videos ever since then, and I've continued to watch YouTube videos. And by the way, those those videos from Japan, that one that we showed was just like a vlog.
00:13:09:19 - 00:13:17:29
Nic Laporte
And it's actually available still on my Nick Laporte YouTube channel. It's just hidden there. Unlisted videos in a playlist that you, gotta believe are still there. But, well, if.
00:13:17:29 - 00:13:45:15
John Simmerman
It's if it's fine, I can I can put the the the URL, in the show notes for this video. You mentioned King ville again. I want to bring that up, simply because. Yeah, you're right. I was like, where the heck is that? You're right. It's like so far south. It's right near where, Point Pelee National Park is that, you know, kind of points down into, you know, which probably should this probably should all be, you know, U.S. territory.
00:13:45:15 - 00:13:47:15
John Simmerman
I mean, come on. Yeah, yeah.
00:13:47:17 - 00:13:51:17
Nic Laporte
No, it's actually something I think 30% of the contiguous United States.
00:13:51:22 - 00:14:05:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. If we pull back, you can kind of see that. But what I really wanted to point out is that, yeah, this is a stone's throw from Motor City, from Detroit automobile central. There you.
00:14:05:20 - 00:14:19:10
Nic Laporte
Go. Yeah. We'll continue with what we were talking about before, but actually, I was in Detroit just, last Wednesday, I was visiting with the Greenways Coalition to talk about the Greenway. I got a bike tour, and they're doing great things there. I'm really.
00:14:19:11 - 00:15:06:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, they really are. Yeah, yeah. No, I've, I've had a chance to visit there a couple of times. Prior to launching this channel, and did produce some videos, on that process, the, defender cut, which is going to be part of that Joe Louis Greenway, the circle, path that's going in. I like to say that one of the interesting things about Detroit is that when you really zoom in to Detroit and you and you realize just how overbuilt the, you know, the city was, and, and you look at, the fact that many and you probably noticed this while you were there, many of those downtown streets are just massively
00:15:06:11 - 00:15:35:03
John Simmerman
over wide, and there's so few cars. The population of Detroit now is about a million people less than it was at its peak, you know, back in the 1940s. And 1850s, etc.. And then, you know, then they lost population at a big route. So the on street network can totally be developed out because they've got all this unused space on the streets that can be reimagined.
00:15:35:07 - 00:16:01:22
John Simmerman
Their biggest challenge is they're, you know, they're still broke. You know, they they they were in bankruptcy. They're one of the few cities to go into bankruptcy. But yeah, it's been wonderful following the story of the pathway network that's being developed out. And Detroit is really having a wonderful resurgence. So it's a really nice success story. People are starting to move back into the downtown area.
00:16:01:24 - 00:16:06:14
John Simmerman
Even more so than probably we've seen in the last 5 to 6 decades.
00:16:06:20 - 00:16:25:17
Nic Laporte
So it's beautiful. Yeah. It's wonderful to see again. I'm really, really excited. The the winter coat, it's one of those things when you see like this is this is fantastic. Like that cross town Greenway in Minneapolis. Very similar. Right. Rails to trails. It's if you haven't been to Detroit ever might be worth checking you if you're not far away.
00:16:25:17 - 00:16:31:27
Nic Laporte
It's actually it's really coming along. And if you're into sports great sports city I'm just saying go Lions.
00:16:31:29 - 00:16:58:09
John Simmerman
So it's so I do want to bring us back around to micromobility. And you've got on your, your your your video, your list of videos here side by side we have what is micro mobility and in, in all of the various micromobility videos that we had seen, you know, earlier, we finally get our first bike lane type video here.
00:16:58:11 - 00:17:21:12
John Simmerman
Not a bike lane. This is not a bike lane. Why it and why we need them? We'll talk about that a little bit in a moment, but. Yeah. What is micromobility? So what is micromobility to you? What is that? What does that definition mean? Because it's a very specific term. But that term means different things to different people.
00:17:21:15 - 00:17:46:04
Nic Laporte
Exactly. I was just going to say it's a personal thing that at the end of the day, micro ability is a personal thing. The top down definition is vehicles that are electric or human powered that weigh less than 500kg and generally don't go over 45km/h. But that is like that's a massive net. That is huge. So, so Horace Dediu, he's the guy who coined the term micromobility.
00:17:46:06 - 00:18:13:16
Nic Laporte
I think he's part owner or runs micromobility. I o he kind of refined it for his definition and basically say it's the smallest device that you could, you know, practically. Right. You know, what's what's the harm the device built around the human, that's that's what micromobility is. And I really like that because with the other definition, the technical definition, that could be like a Fiat 500 at least if it's electric or, you know, Flintstone powered.
00:18:13:18 - 00:18:25:25
Nic Laporte
But that's that doesn't make sense. It's like if I'm riding to work everyday, that's a pretty big vehicle. I don't need that. So I like the idea that it's basically the smallest practicable vehicle to get the job done. That's what I like.
00:18:25:27 - 00:19:00:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and I will include the link, to this video so that folks can go through and watch this and, and kind of understand this. I am I'm kind of of the mindset too, that it is kind of broad. It doesn't have to be just the e-scooters because what has happened, especially when the e-scooters got sort of dumped on our streets, in whatever that was 2007, 2008 or no, 2017, 2018 a decade later.
00:19:00:05 - 00:19:42:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, that that just kind of it put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. As you know, the e-scooters were being dropped at the same time, the, the dockless bike share bikes were being dropped. Remember those dockless bike shakes? Yeah. You know, the non-electric ones. And so that was that was kind of part of I think a lot of, you know, it was termed as, you know, micromobility is going to save the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and micromobility and its dockless scooters and, and and of course, all of that hype kind of went through its, you know, phases and etc. and the business models of those, firms that,
00:19:42:17 - 00:20:33:15
John Simmerman
you know, dropped so many of them, millions and millions of these units onto our streets. I think there's really only 2 or 3 of those original brands still standing, you know, bird, lime lines around, you know, super pedestrian, which is a very well-run company. They, they folded and so. Yeah. So it's the the interesting thing is, is your, your orientation to it based on your, your videos that I'm seeing here was really towards that, that personal, privately owned source of an e-scooter versus the the shared e-scooter concept that in micromobility solution that was going to save the world.
00:20:33:17 - 00:20:38:13
John Simmerman
Is that kind of, a correct assumption based on what I'm seeing here? Yeah.
00:20:38:15 - 00:20:59:09
Nic Laporte
That's spot on. Yeah. I, I am a fan of shared stuff. Dockless. Absolutely not. That's like my stance. I'm like, no dockless, please God. No dockless. Like they're they're talking about bringing scooters to Vancouver. We don't have them here. We just have the shared bikes and e-bikes, which are docked. Thankfully, they're planning on having them docked or something, but they still haven't arrived either way.
00:20:59:11 - 00:21:00:28
Nic Laporte
So I know really explain.
00:21:00:28 - 00:21:06:17
John Simmerman
Your position on that. Explain your position on that. Why not dockless?
00:21:06:19 - 00:21:26:19
Nic Laporte
Why not dockless? Because when it comes to shared things in general, it can attract anti-social behavior to begin with. But when you give people the option to place something wherever they want, inevitably it's going to end up in the way of people who are walking and especially people who are ruling, who need that accessibility right in the middle of the sidewalk.
00:21:26:24 - 00:21:31:23
Nic Laporte
Just bad news that, like, that's a full stop for me. So that's that's my main gripe with them.
00:21:31:25 - 00:21:57:29
John Simmerman
Okay. Okay. Fantastic. Okay. So earlier you also sort of channeled, the fact that you made that move, you know, to, to London, Ontario. And you also alluded to the fact that, you know, all you Canadians that are, you know, kind of taking over the YouTube world, you know, that that's a that's kind of a bit, you know, there's there's there's some sort of trend.
00:21:57:29 - 00:22:17:03
John Simmerman
There's something in the water up north there, where you're at, I'm going to pull up the map here so that we can give folks, a bearing as to where London is. I knew where London was, mainly because, a very good friend of mine from when I was at graduate school at U of M over here in Ann Arbor.
00:22:17:05 - 00:22:51:07
John Simmerman
Boom. Right there in the center of the screen. I was doing my graduate work there. And then my buddy, he lived in London and he was attending Western Ontario. So he was at the university there in, in London. And so I visited London. I made a track, I drove from, you know, over the Windsor Bridge and, and or whatever the heck that's, you know, called Ambassador Bridge or whatever it is and and made my trek, over to London and visited London, at least once, maybe twice.
00:22:51:07 - 00:23:17:23
John Simmerman
I can't really remember. This was way back in the 1980s. So it was a long time ago. But what what kind of is interesting about Ontario as a province is and I've had this conversation before with, with other folks on the channel, is that what we're seeing around London here is a whole lot of farmland. And in fact, my friend John, his parents, that's what they did.
00:23:17:23 - 00:23:48:09
John Simmerman
That's that's they were farmers. They had, you know, you know, hundreds of acres or hectares or whatever you guys call them up, up north of the border, you know, growing crops and all of that. But then then you have your, your cities, expand a little bit more. You you talked about it and you highlighted a little bit of what was good about London from a kids perspective and an adolescence perspective in the active mobility that you were able to participate in.
00:23:48:12 - 00:23:55:20
John Simmerman
And then we'll we'll take a look at the criticisms of, of fake London that we have here on screen.
00:23:55:20 - 00:24:15:27
Nic Laporte
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, like I said, when I at the time when I was a teenager, I was not risk averse like many young men are. I would just bike anywhere. And even though we did have some bike lanes, a lot of times you end up in places where they don't exist and that's still the case today. So it is changing.
00:24:16:01 - 00:24:36:25
Nic Laporte
And there are things that I really like about it, especially the TTP. It's a cross town greenway and it's still one of one of the most beautiful greenways I've ever ridden in North America. Still, like it's it is so beautiful. It goes along the Thames River. It's so lush and green in the summer, and it can be actually a great connection if it's along the way to the places you're going.
00:24:36:27 - 00:24:39:04
Nic Laporte
Yeah, absolutely. Car free. Yeah.
00:24:39:06 - 00:25:08:26
John Simmerman
So you did a sort of a reply to to Jason Jason Slaughter with not just bikes. He's of course is from London and it was part of his journey and he and his wife's journey, of, you know, deciding to to to leave, Ontario. They were at the time even though he grew up in London, he at the time they were living in the suburbs of Toronto and they're like, yeah, we don't want to raise our kids here in North America.
00:25:08:26 - 00:25:34:06
John Simmerman
We want to pull up stakes in because they they have that privilege. They have the ability to do that. They had been living internationally as a couple for a while, and now that they had young kids, they're like, we want something better for the kids. And so they decided, after an extensive search. And folks, if you're interested in that story, I interviewed Jason about the origins of how they came to that decision.
00:25:34:06 - 00:25:57:22
John Simmerman
And so it's a it's a fascinating, you know, sort of chronicling of, of the decision process that took place. But he does poke fun at, at London, fake London, Ontario from time to time. And so it looks like you decided to, to head back and kind of give a critical eye of the good in the bad of.
00:25:57:22 - 00:26:18:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. What it's really like there in London with that new sort of vision, because now you're looking at this through a different set of goggles, because you've already kind of gone a little bit into the, the whole of, like, thinking about these things in a different way. What year was this that you did the, the, the.
00:26:18:08 - 00:26:21:10
Nic Laporte
Visit back to was only a year ago. This video.
00:26:21:13 - 00:26:33:00
John Simmerman
Okay, so this is a year ago. And so, you hadn't yet really, really gone down the rabbit hole big time. But you're definitely saying your way down.
00:26:33:03 - 00:26:57:10
Nic Laporte
You know, the turn had happened at this point. And to clarify this, this video is a bit clickbaity, but it was the premise of the video that I went in with was to give more context to London, Ontario, for people who have never been there and or they're only exposure to it was from watching Jason's videos, because a lot of people who are interested in this, they're going to be watching Jason because his channel's massive.
00:26:57:10 - 00:27:14:02
Nic Laporte
I have watched a lot of his videos. It's one of the reasons why I got into this in the first place. So I agreed with so many of his points, but there was a few that I disagreed with. Sure, mainly like I already talked about being stranded as a teenager. I didn't feel that at all. That was again my experience because there are bike bike lanes.
00:27:14:02 - 00:27:28:27
Nic Laporte
You can see them right there in that footage. They're, beside the sidewalk. They're not great, but they are great. Separated. They're terrible, but they are great separated. They're better than gutter bike lanes, that's for sure. So I highlight that. I highlight the TVP, the things I like, but I also confirm a lot of things that he does talk about.
00:27:28:27 - 00:27:45:20
Nic Laporte
Like there are a lot of places where bike lanes just end there. The transit is bad, it's terrible. It comes super infrequently. I had terrible experiences when I was in college getting to school on the bus, so it was more just opening the window a bit wider for people who are interested in learning about fake London.
00:27:45:22 - 00:28:20:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know what's interesting to in in and I have to credit Jason and he's been so kind to me of of coming on the channel multiple times. Is that I had no real appreciation for how powerful that is to, you know, to interview somebody who has a big following. And boy, did I learn that because I was like, I the next thing I do, I caught a tiger by the tail and I'm like, Holy moly, this whole YouTube thing, this is where I should be focusing my energies.
00:28:20:04 - 00:28:51:05
John Simmerman
Because up until that very first interview with him in July of 2021, this was primarily an audio only podcast. And so that was really the thing that I was like, you know what? This is a visual medium. This is a very visual thing that we're talking about, this urbanism stuff and active mobility stuff. I really it makes way more sense to be in this platform where we're we're talking and we can integrate some visuals.
00:28:51:08 - 00:29:13:05
John Simmerman
For those of you who are listening to this right now in your audio only, hey, I love you. We're going to do our best to, to not isolate you and and all that. I mean, but the reality is, is much of what we end up talking about is very visual in nature. And so the video, world of format, really, really, has helped out a great deal with that.
00:29:13:08 - 00:29:28:29
John Simmerman
And so, yeah, I was just blown away by it, you know, talking about that. So you mentioned Clickbaity. You made the thumbnail very much like the, you know, one of his, thumbnails. And then the little logo was not not just bikes.
00:29:29:02 - 00:29:42:10
Nic Laporte
Yeah, I guessed on it in the intro. You know, he does that. Yeah, yeah. Aerial footage of, Amsterdam and it's, you know, the bike bell and it's beautiful. So I made, you know, the awful sound of the strobes, loud strobes and the horn of the truck going by.
00:29:42:12 - 00:30:06:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now, as much as is you is you put a lot of effort in that. And it was really a is very, very it's very well done and I congratulate you on that. But it's not your best video. Your best video is, is, is is actually just changed. It was should we we tax cyclist a week. What was it a week ago, two weeks ago that you and I, when I was on your,
00:30:06:02 - 00:30:09:02
Nic Laporte
Your podcast over at Radio Free urbanism.
00:30:09:09 - 00:30:33:18
John Simmerman
Radio Free Urbanism. And we'll be sure to have the link, to Radio Free urbanism in there as well. But, yeah, I, I'm remembering that. Correct. It was should we tax cyclists was the top viewed. But I said, hey, watch this other illegal in Japan. Cycling in Japan is different. That you posted two months ago. I told you, I said it's fast charging.
00:30:33:18 - 00:30:37:19
John Simmerman
It's going to eclipse your your number one video. And it did.
00:30:37:21 - 00:30:39:04
Nic Laporte
It did. You were right. It's still.
00:30:39:04 - 00:30:42:23
John Simmerman
Moving. Yeah, it's still moving I love it Japan.
00:30:42:23 - 00:31:00:22
Nic Laporte
I could always talk about Japan. I wish I could just make a YouTube channel about Japan and move there, but that's not it. I want to come back to this, but if we can roll back a bit, is there's there's something very important I want to talk about and it's about motivations. So originally when I started making this YouTube channel, it was about the scooters, right.
00:31:00:24 - 00:31:18:19
Nic Laporte
And I wanted to angle it in a way to highlight the bottom up motivations that would make people switch or get people interested in it. And the things that motivated me to move on a scooter or a bike, and that was my main motivation. You see, some of the videos are about how much it costs, right? How much electricity does it use, stuff like that.
00:31:18:27 - 00:31:36:25
Nic Laporte
And the main things I focused on was it's fun and it's just so much fun. Like if you've read an e-bike, if you run a bike, you know it's fun, but riding an e-bike or an e-scooter game changer, so much fun it can save you tons of money, right? Which is awesome. You think about all the money you have to spend on just buying a car, end up keeping it.
00:31:36:25 - 00:31:59:06
Nic Laporte
The amount of gas you have to put into the thing, and how get moving to micromobility can help your mental health and your physical well-being. But even after digging into those things and talking to people, you know, I still have lots of friends back in Ontario who are very, you know, I don't know if we want to use the word here, but car brained, extremely car brains, conservative type people who I love.
00:31:59:08 - 00:32:21:05
Nic Laporte
But I'm trying to explain to them why I do this, you know, what are the things that motivate me to do this? And it they can understand it. They understand that it can save them money. They understand that it can make them healthier. They understand that it's fun, right? But I realized the key motivator to get people from switching the way they move around their city is making it easy.
00:32:21:08 - 00:32:38:12
Nic Laporte
And that's it. And that's it. And that's when I started switching and that's when I made that video. This is not a bike lane. And that's when I started getting into the activism here in Vancouver, because I realized the built environment is the thing that gets people to move, because the reason why I got on my scooter wasn't because I love the environment.
00:32:38:19 - 00:32:56:29
Nic Laporte
I love saving money because it was easy. It's because my mind community is uphill, which on the way back is great. On a bike on the morning. I'm not a morning person, not a fan, right? So it made it easy. And it's the same amount of time driving versus getting on my scooter. And that was the difference. That's it.
00:32:57:01 - 00:33:14:05
Nic Laporte
So that's what I wanted to do. I'm privileged enough that I have the at least good enough infrastructure where I could get to work without dealing with almost any cars, right. So I wanted to help at least push the needle a little bit in a direction where other people can experience that too, or at least just have that opportunity.
00:33:14:11 - 00:33:19:27
Nic Laporte
And that's what we need to change is are built environment to make it an easy choice. Just change the way we move.
00:33:19:29 - 00:33:46:06
John Simmerman
Yeah, it's a very interesting inflection point too, as you mentioned. You know, you you did the nano. This is not a bike lane video. And then, you know, a few videos later you did fake London. And then after that it's pretty much all just infrastructure. I don't think you, I don't think you have another e-scooter in here.
00:33:46:08 - 00:33:54:02
Nic Laporte
Yeah. I just maybe the one, I think it was like why I write an e-scooter which again was just talking about the motivations. Why. Yeah I take that over an e-bike.
00:33:54:02 - 00:33:59:11
John Simmerman
And oh yeah there it is. Boom. Yeah. But it better, better than, it's better than a bike. Question mark.
00:33:59:13 - 00:34:00:09
Nic Laporte
Mark. Yeah.
00:34:00:09 - 00:34:04:06
John Simmerman
It's a nice clickbaity one. Yeah I guess it like I don't know you tell.
00:34:04:06 - 00:34:15:09
Nic Laporte
Me you're talking about before. It's it's about personal choice. The thing that fits your life. And that's the one that currently fits my life. For again, I saw a bicycle which I ride quite frequently, but yeah, it's one of the things I use.
00:34:15:11 - 00:34:20:16
John Simmerman
Have you, have you done the e-bike commute up that hill?
00:34:20:19 - 00:34:22:07
Nic Laporte
No, I would love to. I would love.
00:34:22:07 - 00:34:49:28
John Simmerman
To. I think that would be that would be an interesting sort of like comparison is, is get you on a nice electric assist bike, not a throttle bike, but an electric assist bike, one that can carry, you know, some some more. You mentioned, you know, carrying stuff on your, on your scooter, you know, get you a nice, you know, electric assist bike where you can, you know, carry significantly more weight than you can on your scooter.
00:34:50:01 - 00:35:12:29
John Simmerman
If you ever need to or want to as part of your, your daily routines, etc.. And I wonder how you because you mentioned that hill of, you know, sort of flattening or eliminating that hill with an electric assist, high quality electric assist bike. And then you think it's fun riding the scooter downhill. That's even way more fun riding a bike, I think.
00:35:13:01 - 00:35:14:13
John Simmerman
But yeah.
00:35:14:15 - 00:35:31:00
Nic Laporte
Well, let me tell you this. If. Okay, this is I'm throwing this out there to the world right now, if any reputable brand making, you know, good e-bikes with good batteries said drop up and drop me a line, I'd be happy to take a bike tour of you and not be my main transportation, but I just can't justify getting rid of my scooter.
00:35:31:00 - 00:35:34:20
Nic Laporte
It's still working, right? So that's my the main thing.
00:35:34:23 - 00:36:10:19
John Simmerman
But I mean, you're you're a powerful influencer now, so. I mean, what the heck? I mean, we we need to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and let's talk a little bit about that, because when we were together in Amsterdam and we were, we were talking about your most popular videos and, and again at the time, the should, should we taxed cyclists was, at the top even then, during the summer, you were at less than 9000 subscribers, as I recall, at that time, and you've bumped up another 3000 subscribers.
00:36:10:19 - 00:36:39:01
John Simmerman
You're closing in on 13,000 subscribers on this channel. It's it's and again, I want to emphasize the fact that you're doing this on the side. This is just a passion project. You've you've got a real job, full time job that you're doing. So, yeah, I, I, I'm with you. I think a brand should be like, heck yeah, I want to get him on a high quality, electric assist bike.
00:36:39:03 - 00:37:04:12
John Simmerman
I'm a huge fan of the Bosch system. So any of the bikes, high quality bikes that are that are using the Bosch, powertrain system, it's you all certified, safe batteries, etc.. So, I've interviewed them before. You can go into all include the link in the in the show notes for that interview of the North American, marketing, chief, for Bosch.
00:37:04:14 - 00:37:16:11
John Simmerman
And then I've also interviewed, Josh Hahn with turn, talking about the power of e-bikes and especially at power of, electric assist cargo bikes. So I'm a huge fan too.
00:37:16:13 - 00:37:43:15
Nic Laporte
There. Yeah. They're fantastic. Again, if I get if I can get my hands on one that's going to be on the e-bikes are my favorite. Like hands down if I could, if comfortably. They are the one. Like I love riding e-bikes so much. So that's definitely the top for me. But as you were saying about my channel having this inflections, you know, like you said, catching a tiger by the tail was a recent trip that I got to take to Europe, which was kind of serendipitous.
00:37:43:15 - 00:38:00:16
Nic Laporte
We were just planning to go visit our friends in Germany for a week. My wife was going to see Taylor Swift with her friend in Amsterdam, and that was it. But I was like, why are you flying there? So I was like, I'm going to go two weeks early and go do my own thing, do some filming around Europe, because it's been a while since I've, you know, flew over the Atlantic.
00:38:00:16 - 00:38:21:03
Nic Laporte
So let's go. So the first thing I did was fly to Amsterdam and I did a little bike tour. It was, not very far, as the commenters had pointed out. And then I didn't really bike around the Netherlands. That's just Randstad, that's Holland. But anyway, I bike for about six days. It was about 305km, all in with with the tooling around the cities.
00:38:21:06 - 00:38:43:04
Nic Laporte
Yeah, I started in Amsterdam and did a loop back to Amsterdam and it was fantastic. I didn't know what was going to come out of it. I had planned to make a bunch of solo videos, like just a video about Halton, and then I'd go to Rotterdam and make a video about Rotterdam, but it turned into this hybrid vlog, kind of just highlighting these different places through the vlog instead.
00:38:43:04 - 00:39:01:12
Nic Laporte
And that just seemed like the better flow from all the footage that I had. So that's what I did. I made this 66 video biking around the Netherlands trip and in the end, I'm very I'm very happy with how it turned out. Again, you're a video creator. You know how it feels when you put out a video. You look at it a week later.
00:39:01:15 - 00:39:09:25
Nic Laporte
I could have changed that or this and it can be better this way, but overall, really well. And yeah, as far as my channel is concerned, they it exploded. Yeah.
00:39:09:25 - 00:39:41:04
John Simmerman
And I mean when you, when you really look at this too, I mean I want to emphasize again you've got 13,000 just shy of 13,000 subscribers. But your top performing video from your from your six video, sweet series of your ride around the, the Holland area, provincial area there in the Randstad, it's like at 94,000 views already a month in.
00:39:41:07 - 00:39:47:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. Again, another fast charging video. It's going to it's going to eclipse 100,000 very, very soon.
00:39:47:23 - 00:39:49:12
Nic Laporte
Maybe it will be number one.
00:39:49:14 - 00:40:17:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. And that it very well could be. And what's really cool about the way that you package these things in the way that you did the these videos was that you also clearly were able to tap into the juggernaut that is the Dutch viewers. Yeah. The and this is again, something we can credit, you know, Jason, for not just bikes.
00:40:17:24 - 00:41:00:12
John Simmerman
The Dutch are incredibly fascinated how fascinated we are with what they consider just normal life and ability and to just get around. Yeah. And they're just like, why are you guys so fascinated with this? And then they see our take on them. Some of us are producing stuff like myself, you know, all all tap into my professional background and give my take, you know, as a health promotion professional and the, you know, sort of the, the behavior or change perspective of the built environment and how that is, is impacting things others will give their take, you know, from like an infrastructure expert perspective and, and then others will give their, their take of just
00:41:00:14 - 00:41:23:29
John Simmerman
this feels wonderful and I'm look at this. This is great. But yeah, it's it's a fascinating thing. And you just got to ride that wave because it's a fun wave to be in and, yeah, I mean, your your worst performing of the six has 46,000 views. I mean, it's just fantastic. Congratulations, man.
00:41:24:02 - 00:41:40:26
Nic Laporte
Oh, thank you so much. And I have to credit the people who are watching because that's what drives it in the first place. And it really surprised me. You know I knew about this effects again. That's how Jason started his channel. He realized that there were so many local people in the Netherlands who were watching his video, and that helped it explode.
00:41:40:29 - 00:41:54:23
Nic Laporte
And I expected just to make the one video and be like, yeah, well, throw that out there and then I can start working on the real stuff, right? But as the response from the first one when I was like, okay, I gotta roll with this. So I pumped them out as fast as I could, which was once a week.
00:41:54:25 - 00:42:10:00
Nic Laporte
And when I was finally done, could take a breath for a minute and then started looking to the next thing what I'm going to work on. But yeah, I'm very happy with it. And it was, it was cool to watch it all in one whole series, which is like an hour and 15 minutes or something like that.
00:42:10:02 - 00:42:24:16
Nic Laporte
Yeah. There was again, so many things in this trip that were inspired by watching your channel. I mentioned it in these videos, so one of them was when I went to hear It's Horton right there, Horton, watching you with Kylie Van Damme and that interview did, I think, a year and a half ago or something like that.
00:42:24:18 - 00:42:46:12
Nic Laporte
And that was the inspiration to go there. But the whole trip was originally the inspiration came from watching, Royce Simmons on the show and him talking about his book, Cleats Pad, this beautiful coffee table book about his 21 day trip, I think, around the Netherlands. So that was kind of the seed that planted. And I said, okay, I'm going to go check it out and see what I see and have my own pilgrimage to the Netherlands.
00:42:46:12 - 00:43:04:20
Nic Laporte
So it was it was eye opening and I am so happy I did it. But again, I can't wait till I go back. I think I have to go again next summer and do a whole nother trip to whole different places that people aren't generally thinking about when they think about the Netherlands and the cycling infrastructure. Yeah, at least from the outside world.
00:43:04:22 - 00:43:29:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. And we're recording this on, September 10th, on on a Tuesday. And, I released another video with Kylie. She was gracious enough to take me on a wonderful guided tour of Halton and being able to, like, you know, get out there and see what that was, what the city was, is like to be able to ride on it.
00:43:29:05 - 00:44:04:15
John Simmerman
And I had the opportunity to have Billy Fields, Professor Billy Fields from Texas State University, along with me, and it was his very first time of experiencing it. So it was neat for me to film and just see his eyes just go like this, and how he was able to experience that. And, and so for folks, if you if you're not sure exactly what we're talking about with this whole Halton thing, check these videos out, check out, you know, this video that Nick put together, then watch the, the tour video that I did with, Kylie and released today.
00:44:04:18 - 00:44:30:24
John Simmerman
It'll give you an idea, but this overhead, right here is a great little visual, of I think what makes you know Halton so special is that, you know, this was an intentionally designed community, and they really wanted to deemphasize the, the automobile and try to get that graphic to stay there. Here we go. That's what we wanted to do.
00:44:30:27 - 00:44:37:08
John Simmerman
Explain a little bit about the gold pathways that you have highlighted here and what the relevance is.
00:44:37:10 - 00:44:54:13
Nic Laporte
So what I meant to do so for the audio listeners, I'll try to explain to them. So Halton is can capsule8 in in this figure eight ring road. Right. And what they intended to do was make it this bicycling city from the start from I think it was the 70s when it began. They could begin building it.
00:44:54:15 - 00:45:18:16
Nic Laporte
And what they did was that they the intention was to build for the bicycle first. Right. So what they did was build these great routes, all for bicycles. But what they did in that was build blockades, basically modal filtering where cars can't pass. There's no legal way and sometimes even physical way for them to cross these. So many of these are greenways, beautiful greenways like I talked about the TVP.
00:45:18:23 - 00:45:36:21
Nic Laporte
And in London, Ontario these are nicer, but they're not in North America. That was the qualifier had earlier. And some of these are absolutely beautiful. The North is so beautiful. Oh my God. Just ride it. You can ride back and forth along that path and just be like you make your day. It's so nice. Green. There's ponds. There's it's just it was such a lovely place.
00:45:36:21 - 00:45:55:00
Nic Laporte
But yeah, this is essentially to make it easy for, for people on bicycle or on foot to move around the city and make it more difficult, or at least give some friction to people who want to drive. And it's funny hearing the pushback on this and even in the comments on this video, and some Dutch people saying like, oh, it's so hard to drive there.
00:45:55:00 - 00:46:08:09
Nic Laporte
It's such an annoyance, like, why can't they just make it easier for driving into? It comes back to the points. Like if you make it easier for driving, how things are not going to be that small, it's going to be a lot bigger and there's going to be a lot more traffic, and you're basically going to get any other bedroom town you have in North America.
00:46:08:12 - 00:46:14:19
Nic Laporte
And this is the magic there. If you don't want to live there, I'm sure there's other places you can live that cars are more, you know, catered to.
00:46:14:22 - 00:46:40:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. There's an old saying you can prioritize people or you can prioritize cars, but you can't prioritize them both successfully. And so it's a decision. And so the car has been tamed in the sense that, yes, many of these residences that we see here on on screen, many of them do own automobiles, and they're able to access their private residence and park.
00:46:40:11 - 00:46:59:00
John Simmerman
But then the circulation plan is if they want to get to school, if they want to get to the downtown area, if they want to catch the train. The easiest way to do so is to get on your bike and ride there. And and you kind of highlight that with, you know, some of the diagrams and the routes and all of that through here.
00:46:59:03 - 00:47:15:03
Nic Laporte
Yeah, I think the best one was if you could just do this yourself, go to Google Maps, go to Halton, this is by Utrecht, and just put down a point and then select the car and just kind of drag the other point around and just see how that routing changes. And then do the same with the bicycle. And you can see the stark difference between the two.
00:47:15:10 - 00:47:39:20
Nic Laporte
Like the car, you'll be like you could be neighbors. And then you have to go take like a ten minute drive just to drive to your neighbor's house in some cases when you could walk one minute. So it's it's about encouraging people. It's about taking at least looking at mobility as this behavioral psychology experiment. Almost. Right. And it comes back to the thing I said making it easy for people to do.
00:47:39:20 - 00:47:55:17
Nic Laporte
It encourages people to do it right. It's not the motivations about the cost and stuff like smokers know that, that smoking kills them. Right? But that's not the motivation that gets them to quit smoking. Right? I feel like it's very similar with with mobility.
00:47:55:19 - 00:48:18:19
John Simmerman
One of the things that I wanted to emphasize too, on this, and people have heard me, talk about this a lot on the channel, is that this is not about cyclists. It's not about the cyclist word. The vision that comes up in your mind when you hear cyclists, when you look at this network, the cycling network here, this is about mobility.
00:48:18:19 - 00:48:47:09
John Simmerman
You just use that word. This is about mobility options and choice. One of the things that I just love about riding around in Utrecht, in Delft, in Halton and parts of of Amsterdam is you just see all of the different layers and types of active mobility that are taking place, you know, including people in adaptive cycles, people in wheelchairs and mobility devices.
00:48:47:12 - 00:49:12:19
John Simmerman
And you see that in spades when you're when you're, you know, on these streets in Halton, you're seeing, you know, like literally people who would be limited for walking maybe only a few meters, but once they get on their bike, they can roll and go for for many, many kilometers, many, many miles. When they get on their mobility device, they can get to their doctor's appointment.
00:49:12:19 - 00:49:37:28
John Simmerman
They can get to the grocery store, they can go about life. And I think that that is worth mentioning is that this isn't about bikes. It's not about bikes at all. It's about mobility options and choice and de-emphasizing the unlimited reign of the automobile. Now, I've got it freeze framed right here on the fact that automobiles exist here in in Halton.
00:49:37:28 - 00:50:05:28
John Simmerman
I mentioned that earlier. This is a fifth street. This is a shared street that is in red, pavement. It is prioritized, as a bicycle priority street. The cars are allowed traveling 30km/h or less. Because this person is trying to get to their destination, which is most likely they're either going to or coming from their private residence, their driveway.
00:50:06:00 - 00:50:26:11
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about this, because this is one of our passions, mutual passions that we have about shared spaces the Fleet Street, edge clean roads and these other treatments that we see over in the Netherlands that they do so well. But we're having such a hard time doing them well over here in North America.
00:50:26:13 - 00:50:50:24
Nic Laporte
Absolutely. Yeah. This is definitely become one of my main passions when it comes to infrastructure is the lack of infrastructure almost in some cases. So like you said, the strat is a is a street that is prioritized for bicycles and cars are guests. It's low speed, it's safe, it's infrastructure. For the most part, it's paired with good modal filtering so that the people who are driving on there generally their destination is going to be on that street for the most part.
00:50:50:28 - 00:50:55:11
John Simmerman
Okay, you just used a word, so you're going to have to define it. You said triple A infrastructure.
00:50:55:14 - 00:51:13:22
Nic Laporte
Triple-A infrastructure, all ages and abilities essentially, it's a place where people eight year old, eight years old to 80 years old would be safe riding there. If you don't want your eight year old riding there, it's not good enough. That's basically the the Triple-A infrastructure. Yeah. So that's Pete Strat is one of them that I think is very interesting.
00:51:13:24 - 00:51:36:10
Nic Laporte
And I think that should be basically the bulk of the infrastructure that we have in Vancouver or any city. It's, taking your local streets and making them safe places for thoroughfares, for anybody, no matter what they're they're riding. If it's going to be on a bicycle, they're walking. They're on one of those crazy onewheel, electric unicycle thingies.
00:51:36:12 - 00:52:04:09
Nic Laporte
It's a it's a safe place. And that's that was where the start of my interest in the infrastructure in Vancouver really came from. Because we do have really beautiful separated bike lanes. We have this beautiful seawall. There's some really, really safe and good bike lanes downtown. But where it really falls apart is the local bike ways in which we have basically some paint on the ground and a sign on the side of the street that says, this is a bicycle way.
00:52:04:09 - 00:52:26:20
Nic Laporte
It's I don't even know what to call it. They call it bikeways or bike routes, but there's physically nothing really different between a lot of these, between those bikeways and the next street. There's almost nothing different. There's tons of cars, tons of cars parked on the side. There's people speeding. I bring my speed gun out there sometimes, and some of these you'll easily get car after car after car going over 50km/h.
00:52:26:28 - 00:53:00:16
Nic Laporte
That is not Triple-A infrastructure. And that's my main gripe. So the feet stretch. One of those examples that could be used, Edge Lane roads is another one that can also be used on slower streets, arguably sometimes busier streets. Or just having local streets that are have brick pavers and plenty of modal filtering like I've seen. I think Harlem was one place where I saw a lot of that, where is very explicit modal filtering, really slow traffic, with bump outs, parking sometimes where it's useful because it can be useful in slowing traffic.
00:53:00:18 - 00:53:18:25
Nic Laporte
But yeah, it's, it's it's about making that the backbone of our network. It's, it's again like bike lanes are beautiful. I love beautiful bike lanes. They're great to see. They're really encouraging. But where we really need to work on is the low hanging fruit in my opinion. And that's our local streets. Let's make them safe. Yeah.
00:53:18:27 - 00:53:44:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, your local streets. And I paused on this just so we can give a little bit of a definition, to the sign itself. So auto to cast auto as the guest, basically inferring to instruct the driver that, they need to be patient, they need to stay behind the people who are in front of them, riding their bikes or in their wheelchair, etc., their mobility devices.
00:53:44:03 - 00:54:16:24
John Simmerman
Again, this is a cycle priority, type of street. Hence the, the term the, you know, sort of the English version of it, of a bike priority street. And I think it's really I think you bring up a very, very good point of saying that it's like the backbone of the entire network. Depending on the city in the Netherlands, somewhere between 60 to 70% of their cycle network is some form of shared space like this.
00:54:16:26 - 00:54:41:22
John Simmerman
And you'll you'll see. Oh, and you mentioned Edge Lane Road. So let's define that. So this is what we're talking about when we say edge lane road. Folks in in really it comes in different stripes literally different stripes and different versions of it. This is one version of it. You will awful. Oftentimes find these in rural environments, but you'll also see them within urban contexts.
00:54:41:25 - 00:55:03:24
John Simmerman
This one happens to be along a canal. But really what it is is that motor vehicle traffic, is kind of allowed in the area, the, the typical sort of of feet or, edge Lane road treatment is it kind of operates like this where you have a, it's a yield street. There's the motor vehicle.
00:55:03:24 - 00:55:44:13
John Simmerman
Traveling is in both directions, but it's narrow enough that, the drivers need to yield behavior and yield to the others. And so, it's it's one of those situations where we can't just say, well, oh, that's the Dutch, their culture. You know, we can't do this. I guarantee you, in virtually any city in North America, you probably have a pre-World War Two neighborhood that has narrow streets that function like a, that function like a, like a yield street, you know, where, you know, you just have to be patient and let the other and figure it out.
00:55:44:16 - 00:56:22:24
John Simmerman
And they've just formalized this, and it's not their favorite street design because they know that it has challenges to it. Ami and that kind of goes without saying. Yeah, it's a lot of things have to get go right for for the fledgling roads to really be effective. And and I think the key thing to, to that is that they, you need volumes to be appropriate and you need speeds to be appropriate, because once you have high volumes in high speed, an edge lane road is just a frightening, frightening experience.
00:56:22:27 - 00:56:23:20
John Simmerman
You probably.
00:56:23:20 - 00:56:24:00
Nic Laporte
I think.
00:56:24:00 - 00:56:25:24
John Simmerman
Probably could have found a few of those.
00:56:25:27 - 00:56:41:17
Nic Laporte
Yeah, yeah. 60 kilometer edge lane roads. Yeah. No thank you. I've read no one. And I was like that's enough. I there was one in another. Like I was like, I'm going to go across the small canal to that local street where everybody else is biking, because that's clearly a better place to bike. Yeah. The speed can't be that high.
00:56:41:17 - 00:57:00:23
Nic Laporte
30km. It's totally doable. But yeah, anything higher than that, it starts to get sketchy. And we're talking about people who are, you know, more confident. I'm not as confident as I was when I was a teenager, but again, triple infrastructure we're talking about for anybody who wants to be there and feel safe to be there, pretty much. Yeah.
00:57:00:25 - 00:57:21:07
John Simmerman
The other thing that you mentioned that I want to sort of emphasize too, because we mentioned the feet stride and we mentioned the edge Lane roads. The other option that is there is is literally just the local residential, access streets. The, the Dutch word for it, I will murder if I try to do it. It goes by.
00:57:21:14 - 00:57:48:01
John Simmerman
Mtw is is the acronym that they, they use for, for that street. And those are the streets that may not have any signage saying Fleet Street. They may just be paved in bricks, giving that reinforcement that it's this is a slow street area. It's an access street only it really sends a message to drivers and people riding bikes that this is a slow zone.
00:57:48:04 - 00:58:13:02
John Simmerman
And, again, one of those, those three different typologies in the backbone of, of, you know, access to, meaningful destinations, whether those are residential destinations or, business destinations. But to your point, they're almost all design and to reinforce 30km/h or less.
00:58:13:04 - 00:58:34:09
Nic Laporte
Yeah. And it works to great effect. And you really see that because that's, that's something you experience a lot of cities in North America and across the world is just the interaction between other road users, people and cars. When you're on a bike, you really notice quickly when you're on a bike or if you're just walking around how people driving cars see people outside of cars.
00:58:34:09 - 00:59:06:01
Nic Laporte
This is something I was in Detroit last week. I did have a good experience. A lot of people just straight up not stopping for you. I almost got hit by a car on two occasions while walking. So it's something to be aware with. So when I was in the Netherlands, I think there's maybe three times I can count in those, biking for hours and hours and hours for a week, three times where I thought that was, you know, that's some not good behavior that was a bit reckless, one of them being on a feed street that was showing on screen earlier where a guy, an American pickup truck came blasting by well over
00:59:06:01 - 00:59:18:09
Nic Laporte
the speed limit. Maybe somebody's not yielding to me while I was riding my bicycle. That was a close call. Twice. But again, it's it's it's a far cry from what we experience here in North America, as we see in the numbers.
00:59:18:09 - 00:59:27:01
John Simmerman
Right now. What haven't, we discussed yet that you want to make sure to leave the audience with?
00:59:27:04 - 00:59:38:01
Nic Laporte
I think I'd like to talk about what I plan to accomplish, or at least what I hope that my endeavors on YouTube do. If I can indulge the audience for a moment.
00:59:38:03 - 01:00:03:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Because you because you mentioned earlier, you mentioned, you know, in the beginning, I'm going to pull up your your oldest videos. You mentioned really what you hope to accomplish when you were at this stage was, you know, giving some people some, some tools to be able to inspire them to do that. How has that changed? What's your what's your most recent interpretation of what you'd like to accomplish with the general?
01:00:03:17 - 01:00:27:28
Nic Laporte
Like I've already said, one of them is definitely to inspire people and get activism going so that we can change our physical environment. But more importantly, I'd like to tell people that I'm not a particularly talented or intelligent person. I consider myself a midwest. Okay, so if I could inspire people to to tour more intelligent, more talented than myself to get into this, this is not this is not a zero sum game here.
01:00:28:01 - 01:00:50:16
Nic Laporte
We're talking this whole space, this urbanism space on YouTube where activism isn't synergistic. Okay, get out there, make a video. If you think you could do better than me, please do it. And I hope you succeed because I said this to somebody earlier. If we can wave a magic wand and turn our cities and the beautiful places that are safe and quiet and lovely places to live, places for people, I'll just.
01:00:50:17 - 01:01:05:27
Nic Laporte
I'll quit. Like I have no reason. Because that's what I want, right? I want to plant the seed whose tree? I will not enjoy the shade of that old adage, Harvard goes, I know I just butchered it, but that's what I'd like to do, right? I feel like that's what a lot of activists are doing in North America right now.
01:01:05:27 - 01:01:26:08
Nic Laporte
They know there's no other places to live. They know there's places that they could move. Some, maybe some can't, some can't. But there are places where you could really enjoy a wonderful place to raise your children or a wonderful place for you to live, a wonderful place for you to retire and spend the rest of your life. But we got to change our place or else, you know it's just going to be worse and worse.
01:01:26:08 - 01:01:44:04
Nic Laporte
So it's great to see the movement change and see how much is gained. Is groundswell in all places around North America. It's it's beautiful, really is beautiful. But please, I'm just one go do it. I don't want to have to do this. I enjoy doing it. But if someone does it better than me, I will. I'm giving you the thumbs up.
01:01:44:06 - 01:01:47:15
Nic Laporte
Anybody? Please. What I want to do.
01:01:47:17 - 01:02:19:09
John Simmerman
I don't know, I don't. I think given the fact that you have such a long history of starting YouTube channels, I think that, yeah, you do get a certain amount of joy of, of doing this and, and put it producing the content and getting it out there. Yeah. If, if miraculously, we were able to wave an active tones, one to the, you know, says, okay, here's, here's the, here's this the secret fairy dust that you can sprinkle over and we're going to get this whole, you know, taken care of a it's not going to happen.
01:02:19:11 - 01:02:51:07
John Simmerman
Don't be holding out for that, folks. But even if that were the case, I think that you would still be wanting to, you know, produce content about something. And, and with that being said, I want to give some love to your, your you and your your partners here on your podcast, the radio free Urbanism. Why don't you talk a little bit about, your, your find partners and characters that you have, on this, wonderful, podcast that I was honored to be, featured on just 12 days ago.
01:02:51:10 - 01:03:09:01
Nic Laporte
Yeah, there you are, episode 39. And this is a small little, podcast mean most of our listeners, most of our listeners or listeners are not watchers. We get a lot of people listening to the podcast, not only people watching the YouTube channel, but it's called Radio Free Urbanism. It's something I, I kind of started and I reached out to other YouTubers who we were all very small at the time.
01:03:09:01 - 01:03:25:22
Nic Laporte
When we started, we were all about a thousand subscribers. So we've we've seen our growth together. It's been fun. Mainly the podcast was a place for us to just vent our frustrations and be amongst people who share our values and are interested in the same thing, because, you know, I don't have a lot of those people here as friends.
01:03:25:26 - 01:03:43:17
Nic Laporte
So it's it's a it's a good experience for that. But basically the show is about urbanism stuff. That's what Alex says at the beginning of the show. And it's a weekly new show where we talk about the latest stuff in urbanism. Ethan, he's, climbing in transit on YouTube. He makes obviously, things about climate and transit, mainly trains and, and transit, bus and stuff like that.
01:03:43:17 - 01:04:07:17
Nic Laporte
So he's our transit quote unquote expert. Obviously, you know me. My name is Nick Laporte. I talk about micro-mobility and stuff. So that's my my niche on there. And Alex, he's kind of our he's our guy. And I love Alex so much. And I feel like his channel doesn't get enough love. He makes great videos. He has this positive spirit that is just infectious and I think he's somebody who can really motivate people to get up there and try to make change in their city.
01:04:07:17 - 01:04:23:08
Nic Laporte
But, you know, he's kind of a pedestrian guy. Like he made a video about sidewalks, which is he made it interesting, which is, you know, how easy is that? I don't think that's very easy. So it's great to see. But yeah, we're looking for always looking for co-hosts. So guest co-hosts like yourself, other content creators in the YouTube space.
01:04:23:10 - 01:04:40:26
Nic Laporte
And we occasionally interview people who are not content creators. And those are the kind of extra bonus episodes where we just talk to them about what they're doing, what they're up to, and do kind of a standard interview. I think next we might have on is it Patty, the bicycle mayor of Winnipeg? I think she's coming to join us next time.
01:04:40:26 - 01:04:43:00
Nic Laporte
But yeah, I love it.
01:04:43:02 - 01:05:01:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. No, check it out, folks. I'll be sure to include the link to this one as well. Yeah, I'm I'm wearing a t shirt instead of a collared shirt on that I dressed down for the occasion. I think I was, I was in good company there with that, I think so, yeah. I hear what you're saying, though.
01:05:01:08 - 01:05:30:21
John Simmerman
It it's I think really my passion of of wanting to do this and shifting from being somebody who was in the trenches working on a lot of this stuff and working on behavior change to being a content creator was more along the lines of how do I reach the biggest audience possible? And so that's what this is really been kind of about in and hopefully, what I try to do with the Active Towns initiative is tell the positive story.
01:05:30:23 - 01:05:51:27
John Simmerman
It's really easy to be snarky. It's really easy to be clickbaity and negative and get traction. We all know that. It's just not in my DNA. I can't do it. Every once in a while I try to do it a little bit and I'm just like. And that just makes me feel icky. And so I try to, you know, really profile.
01:05:51:29 - 01:06:15:23
John Simmerman
I like to say I profile the people, the places and the programs that are helping create a culture of activity. You fall into the category of the people who are out there doing stuff, creating content, you know, getting, spreading the word. It has been such a joy to get to meet you in person there in Amsterdam and spend this hour chatting with you here today.
01:06:15:23 - 01:06:19:23
John Simmerman
Nick, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
01:06:19:25 - 01:06:22:22
Nic Laporte
You too. John, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
01:06:22:25 - 01:06:37:29
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Nick Laporte. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring that notification spell.
01:06:38:06 - 01:07:01:22
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content, please consider supporting my efforts here on the channel by becoming a Patreon member. Hey, it's easy to do. Just head on over to Acton Town Sorg. Click on the support tab at the top of the page, and there's several different options, including Patreon. The special bonus of becoming a patron is that you do gain access to all this content early and ad free.
01:07:01:22 - 01:07:28:27
John Simmerman
Again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and again sending a huge thank you out all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patreon. Buy me a coffee YouTube. Super! Thanks! As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the Active Towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.
01:07:28:29 - 01:07:30:06
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much!