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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 - 00:00:22:08
Sara Kirk
We interviewed parents about their experiences and some children as well, actually with and some parents have their kids with them, and we've got some information from the children as well, but we're actually writing a manuscript right now about those experiences and, and, and their motivations for, for joining the rides. And it's quite interesting, actually, the things that we're finding.
00:00:22:08 - 00:00:42:05
Sara Kirk
And you wouldn't be surprised to hear that Motonormativity is a big part of the the reason for that. You know, and again, Tom flood said it, you know, just want to take your kids out on a bike and all of a sudden you realize just how hard that is to do. But yeah, mass is probably the highlight of my year, actually, when I spend time with those kids.
00:00:42:06 - 00:01:04:11
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Sara Kirk from way up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We're going to be talking about some of the work that she is doing there at the university and out in the field as a parent and advocate. But before we get into 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 town's ambassador.
00:01:04:12 - 00:01:20:22
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do right here on YouTube. You can just click the join button right down below, or you can navigate over to Active Talents or click on the support tab at the top of the page. And there's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons duke it early and ad free access to all this video content.
00:01:20:24 - 00:01:27:19
John Simmerman
Okay, let's get right to it with Sara.
00:01:27:21 - 00:01:31:15
John Simmerman
Sara, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.
00:01:31:15 - 00:01:34:14
Sara Kirk
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
00:01:34:14 - 00:01:59:14
John Simmerman
I'm really excited to. And you and I got connected because of a previous episode that I did with a trio of chaps with the urban. What what are they called the Urban Truth Collective? Yes, yes. Yeah. Brant and Tom and Grant, which are the trio? Are you most familiar with.
00:01:59:16 - 00:02:04:28
Sara Kirk
Branson? Tom? Really? I think although Grant's book is on my list to read. Next.
00:02:05:04 - 00:02:09:25
John Simmerman
You've got to read dark PR. Oh my gosh, yes, you're going to your going to love Grant's.
00:02:09:25 - 00:02:38:16
Sara Kirk
Book about it. Actually, yeah. I've had a colleague who read it and was just like blown away. So yeah, I've been following Tom for several years, originally on on what used to be Twitter and now on blue Sky, and have used his work a lot in my talks. I've gone out and put posters up and stickers around my town and yeah, and Brant is like, he's so well known.
00:02:38:16 - 00:02:50:10
Sara Kirk
He's been around for such a long time in the urban planning field. So obviously, you know, I was kind of a little bit starstruck when, when I was connected with him.
00:02:50:12 - 00:02:57:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, I love it, I love it. Well, I love giving my guests just an opportunity to introduce themselves. So who the heck is Sarah?
00:02:57:22 - 00:03:32:27
Sara Kirk
So I'm a professor of health promotion at Dalhousie University, which is in or Halifax in in Nova Scotia, which is also known traditionally as Margie. I have been at Dalhousie for 20 years as a professor of health promotion. I essentially work on how we create supportive environments for chronic disease prevention. So my research really recognizes that the way that our environments are designed, and in many cases, it is designed, can help or hinder us being able to eat healthily or be active.
00:03:32:27 - 00:03:44:07
Sara Kirk
And so, you know, I'm really trying to understand some of those system level political policy, environmental barriers to healthy living.
00:03:44:09 - 00:04:07:16
John Simmerman
I love it, I love it, and I don't know if you know much about my background, but that's basically my background as well. I just I just went a different direction. I wasn't a professor, I, I, I started my career out right out of graduate school in disease prevention and health promotion, working with fortune 500 companies with health care cost containment strategies.
00:04:07:16 - 00:04:42:08
John Simmerman
It wasn't until about 15 years into my 35 plus year career that that I made the shift of really focusing in on the built environment and how it influences healthy, active living and hence active towns was born over a decade ago to really celebrate the good news and the things that were happening out in the field in terms of communities trying to create environments to create a more livable place and encourage healthy, active living.
00:04:42:09 - 00:04:50:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. What about you? What's what sort of your your backstory? Where are you originally from and how did you get interested in this topic?
00:04:50:13 - 00:05:17:21
Sara Kirk
Yeah, yeah. So I was born in the UK, my dad was in the military, and so we moved around a lot when I was a child. So it's always a difficult question. Yeah. So we've just put up the photograph of me as a child. So I'm the one on the left. This is my siblings. We had a childhood where we actually spent so so we're we're just in, in in the sea, in the Mediterranean here.
00:05:17:24 - 00:05:43:28
Sara Kirk
We lived in Cyprus in those formative years. So, so in those early parts of my, my life, my childhood was sunshine and freedom, actually. And I, you know, we think about this as the work of Tim Gill and Alice you had on recently. You know, I had that free range childhood. I had that kind of roaming around in many parts of, you know, we lived on base, very safe.
00:05:44:01 - 00:06:02:08
Sara Kirk
But we were playing in, in, you know, essentially jungle for some parts of our, our day. You know, we got booted out of the house in the morning and left to our own devices, and it was great. I was the youngest of the four. So I had, I think, even more freedom than perhaps my my other siblings did because of that.
00:06:02:08 - 00:06:22:09
Sara Kirk
So they, they used to follow them around. And my dad always used to say, you know, I was quite the water baby because I just followed the kids, the others into the water and didn't drown. So, you know, so it was really lovely, a really lovely, idyllic childhood. And, and, and subsequently I think I've always been active, you know, it's always been something that's valued in my family.
00:06:22:10 - 00:06:54:01
Sara Kirk
And I actually learned about a real interest in, in food and nutrition. So when I left school, I went to university, I studied dietetics, which is, you know, obviously a nutrition focused career. And then I practiced as a dietitian for about a decade in the National Health Service in the UK. And I specialized really quickly, actually, in mental health, which is was very, very wasn't something that was happening a lot in the health system there where you're connecting physical health and mental health.
00:06:54:01 - 00:07:30:27
Sara Kirk
And I actually specialize in eating disorders at the time. So it was a very you know, my career has been quite eclectic and it's changed quite a lot since those early days when that's what I was looking at. But in that work, I discovered that I was much more interested in why people ate than what. And so I started to look into doing research, and somehow I got sucked into doing a PhD, and it wasn't actually my intention to ever go back to university in somewhat ironical that I now work and one as well, but I, I was really like looking at like why people eat what they do, the beliefs that they held about
00:07:30:27 - 00:07:54:07
Sara Kirk
foods. It's really blending nutrition and psychology. And then after that, you know, I did try to sort of blend research and clinical practice, but it was quite hard to do. I had the opportunity to go into an academic position, essentially a postdoc, really, and then kind of joke about this, but it's sort of the truth. My husband and I had a midlife crisis, decided we'd moved to Canada.
00:07:54:08 - 00:08:03:19
Sara Kirk
And so we we applied for permanent residency. I got a position at Dalhousie University, and I've been there ever since.
00:08:03:20 - 00:08:29:12
John Simmerman
The rest is history. The rest is history. Yeah. It is interesting when you're when you're practicing in health promotion and disease prevention, as I did for that first half of my career, the first 15 years of my career. Yes. You end up being very much in the weeds of diet, nutrition, activity and health and well-being and behavior change and all of this.
00:08:29:12 - 00:08:59:03
John Simmerman
And so it all goes hand in hand. And yes, nutrition was part of my minor that I had, you know, at the undergraduate level. And then at the graduate level, psychology and health behavior was was very much a part of it, as was gerontology too. It's I, I had the I was wise enough back in my younger days back in the 80s to, to to see the demographics and say, oh, we need to be thinking about the aging of our population.
00:08:59:03 - 00:09:35:22
John Simmerman
And so both in undergraduate and graduate level studies, I had a minor in gerontology, too. One of the things that you mentioned in your intro is, is talking a little bit about Tim Gill there in the UK as well, and Free Range Kids, and one of the things that he and I talk about a lot is and, and I noticed this too, when I was living in his home as a home stay for a week when I was in the UK to two summers ago, is the arrogance of drivers to just take up space wherever.
00:09:35:22 - 00:09:48:22
John Simmerman
And so we have to share this, because one of the hindrances that we have when we're trying to encourage people to live a healthy, active lifestyle is that you? You suddenly come face to face with this reality.
00:09:48:27 - 00:10:11:21
Sara Kirk
Yeah. So I would sort of say that, you know, a little bit like Tom flood would talk about his story, you know, having children. I actually had twins, and I used to have to navigate them around the streets of my, my village in, in, in England would come across a driver parked on the, on the sidewalk or the pavement, as we would call it.
00:10:11:21 - 00:10:29:07
Sara Kirk
When I was living there. It, it used to drive me absolutely insane that I had to then push my children onto the road, because in the case of this picture, which is a car parked on that sidewalk, there's a hedge down the side, there wasn't enough space for my for me to push the stroller past.
00:10:29:10 - 00:10:32:15
John Simmerman
With twins, you were probably a double wide stroller, correct?
00:10:32:18 - 00:10:54:10
Sara Kirk
Yeah, so it was a wide stroller both side by side. And we just simply, you know, I said we couldn't get past, so I would have to go on, on the, on the road itself to navigate past. And then I'm asking myself the question, why am I putting my children in danger? Because somebody feels that they have the right to park on the space that's designed for pedestrians.
00:10:54:18 - 00:11:17:07
Sara Kirk
And so you say that was my radicalization. I think my moment of like, one Earth. Is this all about from a, you know, I'm looking at this from a research perspective, and then I'm experiencing it on a day to day. And yeah, so that that kind of set me off on, you know, my blending, my advocacy and my research, which is not always the way that we do it, but I think it's absolutely critical.
00:11:17:08 - 00:11:43:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. You have to be cognizant of wearing the different hats. Right? It's the same thing that when I interview city staff, they have to wear the hat of, okay, this is my role within the city, and I have to be careful not to be too much of an advocate and activists to the point where it's it's blurring the lines.
00:11:44:00 - 00:12:03:28
John Simmerman
Same with academia. You know, you you have a certain amount where you're a parent, you're a human, you want to exist and you want to live a healthy, active lifestyle. And so you want to advocate for change, etc. but it's a different manner when you are also like, okay, but what is the research actually say? And what is the data say?
00:12:03:28 - 00:12:33:13
John Simmerman
And let's put on the goggles or the hat of being an academic to. So I love that blending of of doing both. And, you know, some of the best minds in this world that are doing work. You've you've mentioned Tom flood and we talked about Tom flood. His background, of course, was in advertising and specifically worked for Toyota and doing some advertising for the in the automobile industry.
00:12:33:13 - 00:12:58:12
John Simmerman
So he knows that very, very well. But from an academic standpoint, we've got, you know, wonderful folks like Bruce Appleyard and Peter Norton who've been on the channel, Ian Walker, who've been on the channel, you know, these are the types of folks who are also in the like. You in the the midst of, from an academic perspective, trying to think about this stuff.
00:12:58:13 - 00:13:32:26
Sara Kirk
Absolutely. And I was also very struck by the the interview with Carter, Levin, Lavin. That interview really, for me, sort of spoke to the similar kind of thing sometimes, you know, we're all human, we're all exposing these things, and I'm trying to implement things that we know work. So I've spent years of my life, decades really doing research, you know, producing this, this, this evidence that then doesn't get used either sits on a shelf or, or it's ignored.
00:13:32:26 - 00:13:54:08
Sara Kirk
And so maybe it is part of my career stage and I'm just thinking I have to change the way that we do things here. I can't allow this research not to be not to be used. And I also do a lot of qualitative research. So an important part of qualitative research is the to understand your positionality, to understand what you're bringing to the research.
00:13:54:09 - 00:14:16:00
Sara Kirk
And I use more often not. And again, you're most likely familiar with the socio economic model which really looks at situating people, individuals within the context of these broader societal factors that influence them, you know, from who they spend time with through to where they live, all the way up to the sort of the policies and the social norms that sort of create these things.
00:14:16:00 - 00:14:28:09
Sara Kirk
So this is something that I, I feel allows that a little bit of that blending without it sort of compromising the the utility or the value of the research that's being done.
00:14:28:10 - 00:14:52:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned Carter. So I went to hold went ahead and pulled up the landing page for his second episode that I interviewed him on, which really focused in on his fabulous book. If you want to win, You've Got to Fight, which is really all about this concept of understanding how to get change to actually happen.
00:14:52:20 - 00:15:18:18
John Simmerman
And it's if folks, if you haven't read that book yet, be sure to get a copy. It's it's phenomenal. It really is. I'd like to go over to one of the images that you sent over and and talk a little bit about. It's a kind of a follow up to what we just saw with that car infringing upon the the sidewalk or the pavement, and that is this complete streets hierarchy.
00:15:18:20 - 00:15:20:02
John Simmerman
Walk us through this.
00:15:20:06 - 00:15:54:06
Sara Kirk
Yeah. So I've been obsessed with this whole Complete Streets hierarchy since the the city that I live in, Halifax in Nova Scotia, released the Integrated Mobility Plan back in 2017 or 18, certainly several years ago. And this I thought this was a really great plan when I when I first saw again with the work that I do with somebody who walks on wheels for my primary mode of transportation, to see this happen was was really great.
00:15:54:07 - 00:16:15:25
Sara Kirk
So this is the integrated mobility plan. They've put this Complete streets hierarchy in the goal to shift mode share away from the private motor vehicle advocates. You know by this time I would you know, I'd actually sort of frame myself as an advocate. And that actually came from, you know, like the stroller and the parking on the, you know, the sidewalk.
00:16:15:25 - 00:16:41:14
Sara Kirk
When we moved into the city of Halifax, actually sort of closer to work because we used to live out in the suburbs, I decided I was going to ride my bike to work, and it seems like such a great idea. You know, it's three kilometers, not very far. Takes me, you know, 12 minutes or something. And then somebody drove into me and I wasn't hurt, thankfully, because I kind of got that sense, you know, you just have that spidey sense that this person has not seen me.
00:16:41:16 - 00:16:58:06
Sara Kirk
They're not actually looking at me. They're looking past me. And so I took a base of action. And so she just grazed my leg. But what she said to me kind of filled me with horror. And it was that, you know, she was she was mortified. She had her kids cycled and she was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this.
00:16:58:06 - 00:17:21:26
Sara Kirk
I'm so sorry I didn't see you because I wasn't looking for a bike. This is a street that's supposed to be a bike, kind of like a urban urban cycle where I think they called it. I had my high vision. I had my lights on my bike. It was daylight, it was raining. And the fact that she didn't see me, like, just really freaked me out.
00:17:21:26 - 00:17:46:01
Sara Kirk
And then I became I joined the Halifax Cycling Coalition. I became a board member of Velo Canada Bikes, which is the national organization for everyday cycling in Canada, and I wrote various sort of op eds about people getting killed and the narrative that was sort of coming around that around blaming the victim. And then and so this was all before this complete streets hierarchy appeared in this document.
00:17:46:01 - 00:18:05:10
Sara Kirk
And this is like, okay, you're going to change the way that we do this. So it's going to prioritize people walking and wheeling. But it just didn't happen. So they talk about this, you know, shift in this integration of mobility. But it just hasn't happened. And so we're now say eight years on from it being released and there's more cars on the road.
00:18:05:12 - 00:18:27:16
Sara Kirk
There's pushback happening, which is now an international phenomenon of bike clash and pushing back on on infrastructure for safety. That just is so frustrating because the evidence is there. We know it all. You know, we know that it's important that if people feel safe, they will be more likely to use. If they have, like protected infrastructure, they'll be more likely to walk.
00:18:27:16 - 00:18:57:21
Sara Kirk
And we'll and we have a physical inactivity crisis. You know, it's causing ill health strongly linked with things like Alzheimer's obviously heart disease, cancers. You know, these are the diseases that will probably kill all of us. And yet, you know, the political will is just not there to make the changes happen. So so that's why I put this some, you know, this, this, this complete streets hierarchy in there because it puts, you know, pedestrians and people cycling at the top, cars at the bottom.
00:18:57:21 - 00:19:01:10
Sara Kirk
But in reality that's just not translating into action on the streets.
00:19:01:14 - 00:19:33:26
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to you that that blindness factor that happens when we get behind the wheel of an automobile. There's a couple of things that happen, and I talk about it frequently. Tom Vanderbilt wrote a wonderful book, traffic, a decade or so ago, that really delved into kind of that transformation that happens to us humans when we get behind the wheel of an automobile.
00:19:33:26 - 00:20:01:24
John Simmerman
And it could be because we're we're in command of an incredibly powerful machine. It's such a powerful innovation that we have. And when we do that, it's like, it's anything that's out there in the world that's a friction to us, going as quickly as possible, as seamlessly as possible from A to B is viewed as friction and an irritant.
00:20:01:24 - 00:20:27:19
John Simmerman
And but we also are in this hermetically sealed bubble, too. And because you're in this hermetically sealed bubble, there's this unintentional blindness that then takes place. And on the periphery you miss so much of life, you miss, you can't hear the same things. You don't smell the same things. You can't interact with stuff the same way you can if you're walking or biking.
00:20:27:21 - 00:20:54:09
John Simmerman
Life at three miles per hour. Life at 15mph is much richer because you're feeling it. You're seeing it. You your peripheral vision is is really activated. And you notice friends right over there and you're like, oh, hey, how's it going? And so I'm never surprised when somebody says, you know, sorry, mate. Didn't see you there. You know, it's like literally, you know, because they they don't see you there.
00:20:54:10 - 00:21:23:28
John Simmerman
You know, it doesn't matter how bright your clothing is, how many flashers you have. None of that matters. The one and only time I was nearly killed by an automobile, by a driver of an automobile. I was wearing the brightest, amazing clothing that you could imagine. And the driver was focused on the other cars as he was making a left turn and T-boned me in an intersection and sent me flying, you know, broke my hip and did this and did that.
00:21:23:28 - 00:22:00:24
John Simmerman
Was lucky to be alive. But the point being is they literally just didn't see me until the very last moment when I saw his face and my face were making eye connection through the windshield before I ricocheted off, and I was like, yeah, he literally never saw me until that last minute. And so it's important to it's important to understand that, that we're in a situation where this hierarchy has to manifest itself, not in safety and saying we're going to blame the victims and saying was, were they wearing helmets?
00:22:00:24 - 00:22:46:19
John Simmerman
Were they wearing high viz. Were they wearing flashers? Know what this really says is we need to prioritize people walking, people rolling, people taking transit. And that needs to manifest itself in the built environment so that we can encourage more people to do so. Because that's the the really I think the part that doesn't get talked out about enough, that is one of the secret sources of the Dutch system and many of the others, is the reason why it is so much safer is you have so many people doing it that as a driver, you're on hyper alert to the number of pedestrians and the number of people on bikes that are all around you.
00:22:46:19 - 00:23:06:01
John Simmerman
And even when you get into the more rural country roads and suddenly you don't see, you know, a cyclist or a pedestrian every second, they're much less frequent. You're still as a driver on hyper alert that around every corner you're going to see a child on a bike right there.
00:23:06:02 - 00:23:31:24
Sara Kirk
Yeah. And, you know, this is the you know, obviously this is a safe systems approach, which hopefully your, your listeners, viewers will be very familiar with. You know, because we it's exactly right. You know, but the narrative is still there about victim blaming, you know, and, I it just frustrates me. And, you know, the I forget the exact name of the sort of like the psychological kind of phenomenon that we're talking about here.
00:23:31:24 - 00:23:55:19
Sara Kirk
But, you know, a lot of people will probably have seen the video of the people playing basketball and a gorilla walks through, you know, maybe selective attention or something. So, you know, you focus so much on on, say, yeah, you're not expecting to see a person on a bicycle or a person walking, but then also that street design, you know, the fact that we have and it blows me away.
00:23:55:19 - 00:24:19:14
Sara Kirk
I grew up in a, you know, sort of when I started to learn to drive, it was in, you know, we were living in a rural community. It was like, couldn't wait to get my license, couldn't wait to be able to to drive a car. But we lived in this, you know, rural part of East Anglia, which is the sort of big, sticky outbid on the side of about 100 miles north of London.
00:24:19:14 - 00:24:42:18
Sara Kirk
And and the roads were very windy and narrow. And, you know, I, you know, I don't like driving, I'll be honest with you. And, you know, moved to North America where the roads are really wide and overbuilt. And, you know, either scenario is I prefer not to be in a, in a, in a car. I prefer to be walking and wheeling.
00:24:42:21 - 00:25:02:13
Sara Kirk
You know, we actually live car free. We made this, made the decision three and a half years ago now because we live in a very, very we live in a 15 minute neighborhood, absolutely out of the quality of a five minute neighborhood. It's literally five minutes for me to to walk to the grocery store, say work is three kilometers away.
00:25:02:15 - 00:25:30:19
Sara Kirk
We have everything we need very close by and I love it. I love not having the responsibility of a car. I love not having the cost of it, you know? But and I say, I don't have a car, but we actually do have a car in our driveway. It's just it's a, it's a car share. So we have a fantastic car share program here in Halifax and in other parts of the the country is sort of like a, you know, called commune auto.
00:25:30:19 - 00:25:53:10
Sara Kirk
And so the car's there when we need it. We just have to remember to book it. But we worked out that our car was parked for 98% of the time because we walked everywhere. And then the irony was we were like the the things we were doing with the car is taking the dog for a walk, you know, because we wanted to go somewhere nicer than, you know, our neighborhood.
00:25:53:10 - 00:26:07:16
Sara Kirk
Well, you know, we're just used to walking around our neighborhood and our dogs actually getting quite old now. So he doesn't need to go very far anyway. And even then, you know, like, yeah, we're going to use the car. We just make sure we book it so that we have it literally on tap.
00:26:07:22 - 00:26:26:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Now you are the second person I've interviewed from from Halifax. And so it's always wonderful to get, you know, this, this perspective of that. And it's wonderful to hear that you do consider it more of like a 15 minute city, places where a place where you can kind of get around.
00:26:26:06 - 00:26:28:09
Sara Kirk
Well, where I have. Yeah.
00:26:28:10 - 00:26:37:20
John Simmerman
Where you live. Yeah. The first interview that I did was, was actually with Tristan Cleveland. Are you familiar with Tristan? Yeah.
00:26:37:26 - 00:26:39:21
Sara Kirk
I guess I know Tristan.
00:26:39:21 - 00:26:46:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And I'm not sure if he's still with with Happy City and that organization, but.
00:26:46:15 - 00:26:47:03
Sara Kirk
Yeah.
00:26:47:06 - 00:27:18:27
John Simmerman
So yeah. Yeah. Really good stuff. I want to pull up this, this graph that you have here on children's cycling to school. And I was shocked to see China at 60% above the Netherlands of of children cycling to school. But then I looked at the how all the data was. The the data is actually quite, quite old and it would be interesting to see this refresh to see if they're still cycling at that level because they China.
00:27:18:27 - 00:27:44:15
John Simmerman
And by the way, tomorrow's episode, we're recording this on May 7th. On May 8th I'll be releasing my interview with Chris Brunton from the Dutch Cycling Embassy. And he's been spending a lot of time in China. It's we're calling this China Part two, because we did an interview about a year ago on his work that he's doing there in China.
00:27:44:15 - 00:28:13:15
John Simmerman
But yeah, China went all in on the automobile to the point where about a decade ago, they really started to notice the car addiction, negative externalities coming in, declines in health, decline in air quality, people sitting in gridlock all the time. And so they they started to realize relatively recently that, oh, we went too far. We swung too far over because it used to be a cycling nation.
00:28:13:16 - 00:28:28:14
John Simmerman
Hence the reason why we see this. But now they're struggling to come back. But what did you really want to share about this concept, though, of the number of children cycling to school in these other countries?
00:28:28:15 - 00:29:02:02
Sara Kirk
Yeah. So more recently I've started to do more research around active school travel and you know, and again, this sort of comes from my, my research interests, obviously, in creating supportive environments, but also from my personal experience, like I've always, you know, strongly believed that my kids need the opportunity to walk and wheel into school. And we used to walk to school when, when they were little, in the little village that we lived in where the cars used to park on the, on the sidewalks.
00:29:02:02 - 00:29:21:22
Sara Kirk
And so I really kind of wanted to show that again. And there's lots of other graphics out there that would show how many children now do not walk to school or have the opportunity to walk a wheel to school? And of course, that makes it dangerous for everyone. So so the purpose of putting this is like it's cultural for a start.
00:29:21:22 - 00:29:45:24
Sara Kirk
So we do know that there are you know, obviously the Netherlands is always you know, they they did what I wish we had all done. You know the countries that I've lived in, you know, so far, I think it was the 1970s crisis that they, you know, and all just pragmatic. I mean, and I think this is the other thing that blows me away with the when we're talking about infrastructure for walking and wheeling is cheaper.
00:29:45:24 - 00:30:09:20
Sara Kirk
You know, the Dutch realize that. So that's why they invested in it. They realize that it was it was cheaper to to reduce car, car transportation because of the damage that they do. And you know, we're having this conversation in, in, in Halifax right now around how we we simply cannot afford to keep building roads. We can't afford to maintain roads.
00:30:09:20 - 00:30:32:06
Sara Kirk
But it's still seems to be. Well, you know, Ian Walker says it, you know, and it's it's motor normativity. We're just not seeing the, the hidden, the sunken costs of this car dependency car normativity that we have right now. But my kids wanted to ride their bikes to school, and it never felt safe for them to do it.
00:30:32:06 - 00:31:01:13
Sara Kirk
So now they don't ride their bikes at all, you know? So their behavior was shaped by their environment, by my concerns as a parent, that it wasn't safe for them to to walk and wheel. And but more recently, you know, we're looking at ways that we can actually make it safer for kids to, to walk and. Well, and, you know, literally just yesterday it was in a, in a meeting around and, you know, how we can implement more active school travel initiatives within this city.
00:31:01:16 - 00:31:49:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. And to be clear, one of the the main things that happens when a community is safer for kids to be able to get to school, to get to many meaningful destinations, is that they are able to be free range kids. They're able to we're able to to to lean into the discussions that I've had with with Alice Ferguson and also Tim Gill and Lenore Skinner's is that you're able to, you know, give children the opportunity to be children and to be able to explore and for parents not to feel like they have to hover over them as helicopter parents to protect them from the evils that exist out there.
00:31:49:03 - 00:32:46:24
John Simmerman
They can like, go, go out and play, go, go play in the street, you know, go because it's a safer environment. And and from that comes a different level of development and exposure and, and just amazing stuff. So one of the things that we've been having to do, because our built environment has swung so far over to being dominated, is that we have gone through a phase recently, especially recently, of bike busses and masses and things where we, the people sort of take over the streets with our children and, and redefine, I think, how we as a society, we as community members, view the street and what a street is for.
00:32:47:01 - 00:32:57:12
John Simmerman
You know, my mantra says that streets are for people. So walk us. Walk us through what's happening here on screen because this just makes me smile.
00:32:57:14 - 00:33:20:18
Sara Kirk
Yeah. Oh my gosh. So this is a photograph from one of the chemical mass rides that we that happen in Halifax since 2022 actually is sort of amazing group of people who recognize the need. Again, you know, that realization that I just want to cycle to, you know, cycle on my streets with my kid and and we've made it so dangerous to do that.
00:33:20:18 - 00:33:27:21
Sara Kirk
So mass is built on the critical mass movement, which I think started in the US in the.
00:33:27:24 - 00:33:29:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. San Francisco. Yeah.
00:33:29:16 - 00:34:00:09
Sara Kirk
Yeah. That's right. We have these rides usually and I say we, I volunteer to, to marshal them. So I'm one of the people whose sort of, you know, usually cycling at the back where I took this photograph. So this is a photo of the back of the ride with people just sort of, you know, enjoying themselves, you know, and I there is no better thing to do on a Sunday morning than, than, than volunteer and spend my time with little kids on balanced bike, parents and kids chatting on their bikes.
00:34:00:12 - 00:34:23:10
Sara Kirk
You know, you mentioned it earlier. You know, the sights and sounds and smells and you know, the things that we see when, when we are walking or wheeling in a neighborhood, a just so much more powerful and then that disconnect. I certainly recognize that myself. Now that I don't spend a lot of time in cars, I tend to go out and bury early in the morning as well, and I go for my walks and so quiet.
00:34:23:10 - 00:34:49:10
Sara Kirk
And, you know, here the birds, you know, the sort of birds in the sort of, you know, early morning sounds and but yeah, mass is really taken off in Halifax year on year. The rides have got bigger and I have actually been able to blend my research with this. So we've done interviews and not I think it's the year before last of 2024 into the 2025 season.
00:34:49:10 - 00:35:11:15
Sara Kirk
We interviewed parents about their experiences and some children as well actually, and some parents had their kids with them, and we got some information from the children as well. But we're actually writing a manuscript right now about those experiences and, and, and their motivations for, for, for joining the rides. And it's quite interesting, actually, the things that we're finding.
00:35:11:15 - 00:35:31:19
Sara Kirk
And you wouldn't be surprised to hear that Motor Normativity is a big part of the the reason for that, you know, and again, Tom flood said it, you know, just want to take your kids out on the bike and all of a sudden you realize just how hard that is to do. But yeah, mass is probably the highlight of my year, actually, when I spend time with those kids.
00:35:31:21 - 00:36:10:16
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And and the image here for the listening only audience is, you know, a beautiful tree lined street, tree canopy street, not a particularly wide street, just, you know, being taken over by families, riding bikes, writing scooters. And one of the things that that kind of stands out about a street like this, and literally there's thousands upon thousands of streets that are like this in our, our cities around the globe is that this is just your prototypical sort of tree lined residential street.
00:36:10:19 - 00:36:33:24
John Simmerman
There are sidewalks off to the side. You've got beautiful street trees here as well, which creates a traffic calming environment to you almost feel like you're being hugged by the trees as you motor through. You know, as you as you roll through and walk through this space. And one of the things that I think is, is the missed opportunity that many, many cities have here.
00:36:33:24 - 00:37:27:22
John Simmerman
And this kind of points to a recent video that I did with Avi Stopper from the Bike Streets app, which illuminates and brings streets like this to life within people's minds, is that these can be extraordinarily safe and inviting. Types of streets, a street network where there should not be speeding motor vehicle traffic through these areas. If only we can ensure that there is appropriate traffic calming elements and these streets don't become rat running, cut through traffic routes, then you would expect that really the people who are on the street driving are the people who live here, and if the people who live there are starting to see more of this, more families riding frequently
00:37:27:22 - 00:38:15:14
John Simmerman
and rolling down this area, then it could be just a huge asset to the community. In my terminology, I call bike lanes and sidewalks and quiet residential streets like this. Activity assets, their assets, their an inventory of assets that a community has that encourages healthy, active living. Talk a little bit about that situation. I mean, because I would I would much rather see that we see a lot of people, especially kids, especially the older adults, getting to their meaningful destinations by writing and rolling on these quiet residential streets every day, not just on Sunday when there's a critical mass.
00:38:15:16 - 00:38:40:07
Sara Kirk
Yes, exactly. So I think this is one of the photos I took from my neighborhood. Actually, there's another photo that I shared with you, which is from the other side of the harbor where which I always I love that one too, because the there's a bubble, you know, because one of the things we have with these, with these rides is, you know, like the bubble machine, you know, streaming out behind bars and, sorry, the bikes.
00:38:40:07 - 00:38:42:16
Sara Kirk
And I managed to catch a photograph of.
00:38:42:19 - 00:38:44:19
John Simmerman
The bubble right there.
00:38:44:21 - 00:39:05:28
Sara Kirk
And again, you have the same thing. You know, you've got the it's a lovely sunny day. You've got the tree lined streets, but a lot of effort goes in to planning those routes. So the team that puts together the routes, we normally will start at a play park and again in a community. So different communities every every time.
00:39:06:01 - 00:39:28:24
Sara Kirk
And then journey has to be planned really, really carefully to avoid some of those places where we are exposing those children to maybe more traffic than we would like. And as marshals were very, very careful to, you know, we again, we're planning like where do we go, where do we sort of, you know, stop a, a street so that, you know, the kids can can roll through.
00:39:28:26 - 00:40:04:08
Sara Kirk
You know, we do that obviously for the safety of the children. But it's so frustrating because streets should be like this all the time, you know, and, and children should have that freedom and not be, you know, forced into these, these, these, these smaller places, these narrower sort of confines that we, we deem as child appropriate. And, and I think that's the that's the sort of mental shift I really, you know, I want to see just through that, the understanding and recognition that children have a right.
00:40:04:09 - 00:40:28:20
Sara Kirk
They have a they actually have a human right to have a healthy, safe environment. These types of streets that we ride through are, you know, they are residential streets. So they're also, you know, there's there's there's always cars parked on the side of the road because, you know, the private public storage or private motor vehicles, you know, still people don't see the you know, there's anything wrong in that.
00:40:28:20 - 00:40:50:13
Sara Kirk
And again, another frustration of mine. You know, and again, there's you know, I think one of the mayors once talked about that, you know, we wouldn't expect you to put your fridge on the, on the I can't really who that was, but it was, you know, I think you probably know the person. I mean, why should we be paying for, you know, why should people store their, their private vehicles on public roads?
00:40:50:13 - 00:41:07:04
Sara Kirk
And why shouldn't children be allowed to have that freedom and be able to walk independently to and from school? And yeah, let's let's make it safer for people. Let's make it for safer for families to be able to to ride like that and walk around and what have you.
00:41:07:06 - 00:41:17:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too, because I get the sense that this particular neighborhood in this particular street was probably is probably newer.
00:41:17:08 - 00:41:20:09
Sara Kirk
Yes. This is a suburb. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:20:09 - 00:41:48:06
John Simmerman
And the reason I say that is because you can tell right away how much wider the street is. You don't feel like you're being embraced as much by the trees, even though there's plenty of trees there, because the canopy doesn't go over. And one of the things that I try to reinforce is that as part of the Active Towns initiative, we're very, very strategic about embracing parking, car parking on the street when we can use it to our advantage.
00:41:48:06 - 00:42:13:13
John Simmerman
In other words, if we can help, if that actually helps narrow the space of the street to the point where it becomes a traffic calming element. This particular street right now, as it's as it exists, looks like a runway for a jet. I mean, you could literally is so incredibly wide. So this is the type of street that encourages speeding because it doesn't feel narrow, it doesn't feel small.
00:42:13:13 - 00:42:31:21
John Simmerman
If I were to allow car parking on street car parking in this type of environment, I might say, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to we're going to narrow this thing up and we're going to create a parking protected active mobility lane, either on both sides of the street or on one side of the street.
00:42:31:27 - 00:43:01:12
John Simmerman
Either way, and will use that the infrastructure of those parked cars to help protect, you know, the squishy humans so that we can do that. Anything to narrow this up. Because again, this is this is just your classic sort of suburban context of, I mean, seriously, why would you design something this wide? And yet you've got the driveways just off to the right there.
00:43:01:16 - 00:43:20:16
Sara Kirk
Well, this this this is also another reason why I, you know, put this in because of the mass. But the other reason I put that one is that's the street. That's the sort of street we lived in when we first moved to, to Canada. Like many people moving over, we you know, we looked at where we wanted to live and we got some advice.
00:43:20:19 - 00:43:34:08
Sara Kirk
We wanted to go to, you know, kids to be able to walk and wheel to school. And it blew me away like I used to moan about people parking on the sidewalks in, in the UK. And then the street that I moved to had no sidewalk. Right? I just not get my head around.
00:43:34:14 - 00:43:38:18
John Simmerman
Or you end up or you end up with a sidewalk where you're like this.
00:43:38:19 - 00:44:00:22
Sara Kirk
So again, this is literally around the corner from where I live. And actually that's this is the one from I have another photograph that has not I don't think I may be shared it with you, but this is actually on ran around the corner from my office. So this is our temporary bike lane, pilot bike lane that was installed in like, I don't know, 2016 or something.
00:44:00:22 - 00:44:30:28
Sara Kirk
And it's still temporary and pilot high hasn't changed. And another of my major bugbears is when we we have infrastructure for people walking or cycling, and it's still used as car storage in the case of bike lanes. And in this in this photograph again, which is a tree lined street that's taken in the fall, you've got the lovely colors of the fall in those trees, but there's an orange construction sign that's right across the sidewalk.
00:44:31:00 - 00:44:50:00
Sara Kirk
And, you know, I find myself I can't help myself sometimes, but I find myself, you know, talking to the construction workers, just saying, you know, how come it's on the sidewalk if it's designed for drivers and, well, we're not allowed to put it in legally, not allowed to put it on the road. But it's like but you're blocking the sidewalk.
00:44:50:01 - 00:45:14:22
Sara Kirk
How does somebody in a wheelchair get past that, you know, as an accessibility issue. And it's just as if it's like it's like I'm talking a different language. They don't understand what I'm saying or why I'm saying it, and they just keep defaulting to that, you know? Well, we can't legally put it anywhere else. And so, you know, I, I do go around and move them as much as I can safely, obviously, because, you know, you can't move it too far over.
00:45:14:24 - 00:45:46:24
Sara Kirk
It'll be blocking the bike lane. And this in the instance of this photograph. Yeah. These these things, these are system level issues, their decisions that are made by somebody somewhere that doesn't actually kind of consider like how this, you know, and it's all in favor of cars as well. I think that's the other thing that's really critical here is that, you know, we don't have safe systems approach because we're still looking at the movement of vehicles through an environment rather than the movement of people.
00:45:46:24 - 00:45:52:09
Sara Kirk
And I feel so irritated by that on so many occasions.
00:45:52:12 - 00:46:21:20
John Simmerman
It's interesting too, because, you know, we've we've known this for a long time, and we've dealt with this for a long time. And we've in the early days, we would call it windshield bias. And then, you know, about a decade ago we started calling it, you know, car brain. And then, you know, Ian Walker coined the term moto normativity and added a level of, of sophistication and science to this and doing research on this.
00:46:21:20 - 00:46:50:27
John Simmerman
But it really is this unintentional blindness, just like we started off our conversation with the driver, the unintentional blindness. It's this unintentional blindness that favors all things cars and movement of cars and and so much so that it's they look at you like you're crazy. Well, well, where else are we going to put the construction in sign other than on the sidewalk?
00:46:50:28 - 00:46:58:07
John Simmerman
I mean, where do you want us to put it? On the lawn? And it's like, yeah, over there or, you know, or.
00:46:58:09 - 00:46:59:25
Sara Kirk
I see that.
00:46:59:27 - 00:47:30:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. The driver won't see it there. And that is true. And so maybe we like you said, it's part of the systems and part of the, the part of the challenge is not only is it the blindness of the lack of appreciation from the standpoint of the actual workers, the people who you are dealing with, but it's also the blindness of the designers, of the systems that have been caught and put in place.
00:47:30:07 - 00:48:07:24
John Simmerman
So yes, these are systematic changes that have to take place. And a big part of the challenge of this, and Professor Wes Marshall and I talked about this when we discussed his his book, killed by a Traffic Engineer. So much of this is has been shaped by a mythology that has been codified into design manuals and books and guide guides that, you know, the transportation system designers and engineers point to and say, well, it's in the book.
00:48:07:27 - 00:48:41:09
John Simmerman
Well, guess what? That book isn't based on anything other than, you know, some things, some numbers that were made up and, and it's not scientifically valid. And so we've, we've got a real challenge ahead of us because we have two major things happening at the same time. We have a profession that has adopted a way of doing things, a system, as you mentioned, a systematic challenge, but then you also have a cultural expectation, the motor normativity that, well, this is normal.
00:48:41:12 - 00:48:44:01
John Simmerman
I mean, this is the expectation, you know.
00:48:44:03 - 00:48:58:10
Sara Kirk
Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, and to loop it back to the integrative ability plan, which say was, was, was, you know, theoretically implemented or it wasn't implemented, but it was released back in in 2018.
00:48:58:12 - 00:49:02:26
John Simmerman
I mean, this is a vision. This is like, hey, this is what we believe in. This is our vision.
00:49:03:03 - 00:49:24:25
Sara Kirk
What we believe in. And then but then what happens is exactly what you just said. We come across this, the system is designed this way. And the you know, we want to change it to this way, but we haven't the tools to do that. So it was like fiddling around the edges. And we'll do a little bit here.
00:49:24:25 - 00:49:45:18
Sara Kirk
And you know, so for example with the bike infrastructure that was this minimum grid, you know, the integrated mobility plan talked about a minimum grid by 2022. Well, you know, we're four years past that and we're still not having it's going to be 2028. And you know I don't think anybody who cycles in Halifax believes it will happen even then.
00:49:45:18 - 00:50:17:21
Sara Kirk
So what we have is a system, you know, like drivers can go everywhere and, you know, kind of channeling Tom floods. You know, drivers can go everywhere at the expense of children going go everywhere at the expense of children going anywhere. You know, that idea that, you know, it has to be frictionless journey for a driver, but for a cyclist or if you're walking, you know, we don't have construction mitigation to make it safe to walk past or that construction that's happening because we're obviously growing city and we are having a lot more much needed housing being built, of course.
00:50:17:21 - 00:50:53:27
Sara Kirk
But, you know, all of a sudden you're thrown into traffic or you have to cross the other side of the road or, you know, bike lane that stops and suddenly again, you're thrown into, into traffic. And so, you know, this is not pointing fingers at you. No particular individuals because it is a system level issue. But, you know, staff within the municipality, you know, to my understanding of doing the best they can with the constraints that they have, because some of this, you know, and you know, the other challenge we have in, in my city is that the province can overrule things if they so choose.
00:50:53:28 - 00:51:05:24
Sara Kirk
You know, we are a child of the province as a municipality. And in fact, they have already stepped in to put the brakes on a key part of the bicycle network. And.
00:51:05:26 - 00:51:21:14
John Simmerman
Well, they're following following suit with some of your other nearby provinces, too. I mean, you're a city. You're a city of like 400,000 plus individuals. So this is not some tiny little town. I mean, this is a metropolitan city.
00:51:21:16 - 00:51:26:00
Sara Kirk
We call ourselves a world class, but we're not yet.
00:51:26:02 - 00:51:28:01
John Simmerman
So how old are your children now?
00:51:28:02 - 00:51:30:09
Sara Kirk
Oh, that's 25.
00:51:30:12 - 00:51:52:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. So their 20s now. So they're they're young adults now. And I think you referenced the fact that since they didn't have that opportunity to really grow up in a situation where being a free range kid was a possibility for them, I think you mentioned or alluded to the fact that, yeah, riding a bike and getting around, but through active mobility is not part of their life now as young adults.
00:51:52:21 - 00:51:54:06
John Simmerman
Is that correct? Yeah.
00:51:54:06 - 00:51:58:12
Sara Kirk
Yeah. Correct. Yeah. They walk and they use public transit, but they.
00:51:58:13 - 00:52:01:09
John Simmerman
That's better than nothing. Yes. Yeah, exactly.
00:52:01:09 - 00:52:20:15
Sara Kirk
And you know, I it was real shame because I mean I learned to ride a bike, you know, like 80% of kids learn to ride a bike based on I think it's data from the UK. 70% of parents or thereabouts think that it's a vital life skill. So we, you know, this is the other thing. We give them that opportunity.
00:52:20:16 - 00:52:44:12
Sara Kirk
We we, you know, look at them whizzing around on their bikes or their scooters or whatever, and that sense of freedom that they get. And then we literally throw them under an F-150, you know, and it's just when they when they're growing up and it's just like, why do we do that? Like why where's the disconnect? You know, so, you know, when I talk to people, they were like, you know, and this is another thing that really frustrates me when people say, oh, stay safe.
00:52:44:13 - 00:53:02:28
Sara Kirk
You know, when I'm riding my bike. Well, yeah, I, you know, but when my kids, I took my kids to, to the Netherlands, actually, and we, we biked there and they were just amazed, you know, they loved it. Absolutely loved it. They cycled in Paris because again, Paris is, you know, changed things around.
00:53:02:28 - 00:53:04:27
John Simmerman
It's getting better. Yeah, yeah. It's getting.
00:53:04:27 - 00:53:28:04
Sara Kirk
Much like, you know, when I was when I was younger, I lived in the UK and Paris wasn't that far. You know, we used to go and visit there. I remember the time when the River Seine was like literally a highway now, you know, recycled with my kids there. We we walked along the sand. There's the beautiful Paris plage, you know, the beaches that they have there now.
00:53:28:06 - 00:53:54:04
Sara Kirk
Oh my gosh, it's just completely transformed and you know, and so we can do it. It does require political will and it requires that culture shift away from this, you know. Well, we can't do that here. I find Halifax particularly is very much that sort of place where, you know, we we're not that unique actually. And so we could do some of these things.
00:53:54:04 - 00:53:59:25
Sara Kirk
But you know, that culture shift hasn't happened yet and it really needs to.
00:53:59:27 - 00:54:29:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. I think one of the greatest aspects of the Paris success story is, in fact, how they embraced the school Streets program and trying to really make it safer for children to be able to arrive and depart from school, but also embracing the fact that we're going to make this zone in front of the school like a permanent infrastructure, a bit of permanent infrastructure.
00:54:29:19 - 00:54:54:00
John Simmerman
Some of the videos that I've, that I've produced from Paris is exactly that. It's it's like you've transformed this space so that it's it's something where families can feel safe and invited, you know, all the time, not just at school time. So I think children are a big part of what we need to focus in on if we're going to change this environment.
00:54:54:01 - 00:54:57:16
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about the uplift program. What are we looking at here?
00:54:57:19 - 00:55:24:25
Sara Kirk
Yeah. So the uplift partnership was gosh, probably the I sort of describe it as probably the hardest project as well as the most rewarding project. And this actually, this is really, truly in my research field. And I when I first moved over to Nova Scotia and started working, I was connecting with various people. And one of the things that really attracted me to Nova Scotia was a place to kind of live and have my kids grow up.
00:55:24:27 - 00:55:46:09
Sara Kirk
Was this idea of there was a lot of investments, and when I moved over here, a lot of investment in school based health promotion, there's an international model from the World Health Organization called Health Promoting Schools. Nova Scotia actually implemented that in 2005. So this is before I came into the province. And the research that surrounded that had been going on since the 90s, actually.
00:55:46:09 - 00:56:07:08
Sara Kirk
And so I connected with one of the researchers who had been doing that work, and we had the opportunity to sort of develop to get some more funding, to do some research around the data that this guy had had collected. And we were looking at we were sort of looking at like how this health promoting schools actually showing up in the school system, what are the impacts on kids?
00:56:07:08 - 00:56:42:27
Sara Kirk
But also, you know, like what are the kind of strengths and limitations and the challenges that schools were facing. And what we found is that, you know, implementation was variable. It didn't happen in the way that we that it could have done, you know, based on what was happening in other parts of the world. And so and I was also at the time connected and working with a, with a cardiac surgeon, a pediatric cardiac surgeon called Doctor Camille Friesen, who was at the local children's hospital, the IWK, and then has actually subsequently is is you have her in the US.
00:56:42:27 - 00:57:08:14
Sara Kirk
She's actually in children's Nebraska. Incredible woman who was doing she would be doing surgery on these kids and seeing the damage that that are kind of, you know, unhealthy behaviors were sort of causing even at very young ages. So she quite insightfully, I think for like, I don't want to stereotype people in the medical profession, but like, you know, often it's, you know, you're dealing with a body part and you're fixing it.
00:57:08:15 - 00:57:37:13
Sara Kirk
Whereas she really could see the upstream, you know, the causes and the things that we needed to be doing. So making it healthier for kids to be active. So she and I actually worked together on a project called the Healthy Kids Project, and we went into schools in the in the Halifax region, and we worked with the children themselves and helped them to mentor other children in the school system, in their classes to be more active.
00:57:37:15 - 00:57:58:21
Sara Kirk
So it was a peer mentoring program, and then all this other research that I was doing around the health promoting schools model culminated in this kind of a hard moment where it was like, well, what if we actually had the funding to do this as it should be done? So actually going in the dose required, I found a source of funding through the Public Health Agency of Canada.
00:57:58:21 - 00:58:26:09
Sara Kirk
It's called Multisectoral Partnerships for Chronic Disease Prevention, and enabled us to leverage $5 million of funding. But we also needed to get private sector funding. That was really hard. So, you know, it's not as if there's billionaires on every street corner in this part of the world, you know? So we had to find funding from, you know, we actually got a consortium together of different fundraising organizations and they fundraised $3 million.
00:58:26:12 - 00:58:47:26
Sara Kirk
And I am so grateful that that happened. So the image on the screen right now is actually one of the schools that we worked with in the Uplift partnership because of the donor. So the situation we used to give these children giant checks because, I mean, basically the model that we use in uplift was the youth engagement for health promoting schools.
00:58:47:26 - 00:59:11:03
Sara Kirk
So we had positions in the in the sort of the corner of the, the adult in the in the room underneath the Every Child Matters sign is the youth engagement coordinator. And the other side of the room is the teacher. And then in this particular, this is probably my favorite photograph from the Uplift partnership. So just to describe it, for those who are listening, only these kids were all dressed as animals.
00:59:11:03 - 00:59:41:09
Sara Kirk
It was like some kind of spirit day. That day they have the giant check at the front, their in their in their classroom or part of the school, and they're just also excited because we gave school, we gave the schools $5,000, you know, not a lot of money, actually, in the grand scheme of things, if you think about the budget that goes into health and education, but we gave those kids the agency through the youth engagement coordinators to actually come up with the an idea that would make their school a healthier place to be.
00:59:41:09 - 01:00:12:04
Sara Kirk
So in some cases it would be, you know, some this this one I think was an inside out outside, sort of like some space that they could have where they could be active and playing. And in some cases it would be like we have another one where we, we gave them 24 bikes and they actually use those bikes to, to ride the trails of the schools, backed on to a series of trails in their community and actually became like trail ambassadors.
01:00:12:07 - 01:00:32:15
Sara Kirk
And that's a really interesting story as well, that one, because those kids now they have a bike bus in that school. And this was like a 2020. You can see in some of these photos the kids are wearing wearing masks. We actually started this project, got it into the schools in 2019. And so the pandemic happened in 2020 and schools closed.
01:00:32:15 - 01:00:56:27
Sara Kirk
And it was like a bit of a challenge. We went to 163 schools in in the province, mostly in the rural communities, because we looked at the need and readiness of schools to do that, and the need is greater in the rural areas because they don't have good access to safe places to walk and roll, for example. And so in this photograph we have these are the children on their bikes.
01:00:56:27 - 01:01:13:01
Sara Kirk
And you can see it's a very you know, this is they got the trees in the background. There's a school where there are lots of outdoor space. You know, this is one again. And this is another of my favorite projects that we ran. It was a really hard project though, because we were working with two very big systems.
01:01:13:01 - 01:01:35:28
Sara Kirk
So health and education are big systems in their own right. They work together with health promoting schools, but the youth engagement coordinators, their role was literally to go into those schools to engage the young people. And this was elementary and junior high. So it was quite young in some cases. You know, the first photograph was of a very young class, maybe grade 2 or 3.
01:01:36:00 - 01:01:58:01
Sara Kirk
And you know what those kids learned, though, through that process, you know, they learned about negotiation and compromise because they may have had a really fantastic idea, but that wasn't the idea that got picked by the school as to be the one that went forward. And it had to be a really a good, like a sustainable change. So not just like a health fair.
01:01:58:02 - 01:02:30:02
Sara Kirk
That was a one and done sort of thing. It was something, a physical change to the environment, you know, nature trail, outdoor garden, all sorts of different things. And so the uplift website that you shared earlier basically tells the story of the uplift partnership. And it also has like a whole project catalog of like the different ideas that that, that students came up with and so that they can be reproduced by other people and used in, in other schools, in other parts of the province and indeed elsewhere.
01:02:30:02 - 01:02:52:28
Sara Kirk
So, yeah, it was it was a fantastic project. There was many a time when I was in the midst of it all and dealing with the politics and, you know, of working in these big systems where I questioned my sanity. But yeah, honestly, probably the thing I'm most proud of in my, in my career is like getting this done and and getting the success that we had with this.
01:02:53:01 - 01:03:18:21
Sara Kirk
And the big success was this that we actually had. Those positions were sustained in the House, in the health system after the funding ended. And from a systems change perspective, that's huge. From an academic perspective. You know, it's not so great because the money was coming to Dalhousie and then flowing out to our partners. And so it wasn't sort of money that I had, you know, held kind of particularly myself.
01:03:18:21 - 01:03:43:06
Sara Kirk
But and yeah, and part of the work actually, it was very interesting because through uplift, you know, as an academic, I wanted to be able to do research, but because of the way that the funding was, was structured, public health agency actually requires you to get a third party evaluator. So somebody external to the project to actually assess the outcomes.
01:03:43:08 - 01:04:04:12
Sara Kirk
So I had to find other ways of learning and understanding about what was happening to children in the province, that I could sort of connect that to the work that we were doing. And so I also got involved in a project called One Chance to Be a Child, which developed the first Child and youth wellbeing profile for the province of Nova Scotia.
01:04:04:12 - 01:04:35:13
Sara Kirk
And we we took a really strong child rights lens to this work. So again, really situating this in the voices of children where we could and in data that really aligned with the Canadian Index of Child and Youth well-being. So are we happy? Are we healthy? Are we protected and all those kind of things? So we're really trying to sort of ground it in in the youth voice and, and what was what mattered to children.
01:04:35:20 - 01:04:54:09
Sara Kirk
This was another kind of project that sort of started before the pandemic and then sort of was a little bit derailed. And then we had to sort of, you know, we managed to get it over the finish line in 2022. Again, some of the data that we found, you know, we you know, Nova Scotia's called Canada's Ocean playground.
01:04:54:12 - 01:05:16:19
Sara Kirk
But you know, there are children who don't have access to safe places to play, safe places to be, the ability to be active. You know, again, because we have a high level of rural, rural communities. You know, schools often in rural communities, kids have bus long distances. They don't have that opportunity for active school travel in the same way.
01:05:16:21 - 01:05:40:25
Sara Kirk
So this was our way of really benchmarking what was happening in schools. You know, at the time when we actually started the work of uplift. And ultimately we want to repeat this, this work again as well. And, you know, with, with with updated data, that's not pre-pandemic data because things have changed for kids. You know, we know that the pandemic screens all those kind of things, you know, there are all threats to children's well-being.
01:05:40:26 - 01:05:46:09
Sara Kirk
They're threats to children's ability to be active and and safe and in their environments.
01:05:46:09 - 01:06:24:10
John Simmerman
So yeah, yeah, this reminds me of a recent episode that I just released on the Navajo settlement here in Hawaii, where the 13 youth basically sued the state government and specifically sued the Department of Transportation because the future generations are protected in the state constitution. And so the the gist of the lawsuit was, is we're suing you because you're destroying our future with continually leaning in on expansion of motor vehicle, roadways and highways.
01:06:24:10 - 01:07:11:12
John Simmerman
And so it will. It's still yet to be seen what sort of impact that's going to have in terms of, again, like that, that upside down, you know, pyramid that we saw. It's like it's one thing to say you're going to prioritize people in active mobility. It's completely another to actually see that manifest in changes on the roadways and starting to prioritize active mobility and healthy systems and redundancy in mobility systems, so that the walking network and the cycling network and the transit network and the automobile network run in parallel so that people actually have mobility choice, authentic, safe and inviting mobility choice for all ages and abilities.
01:07:11:12 - 01:07:33:08
John Simmerman
So it yet remains to be seen how that will manifest itself. But this program sort of reminds me about that because it's like, are we secure? Are we learning? Are we happy? Are we healthy? It's like, yeah, these are the questions we need to be asking. And also, are we bequeathing a destroyed environment to our future generations because of the decisions we made?
01:07:33:09 - 01:07:33:22
John Simmerman
Yeah.
01:07:33:24 - 01:07:53:18
Sara Kirk
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's actually what keeps me up at night. You know, as I think about my kids going into the world and, you know, and potentially having kids of their own, you know, like, what are we doing? And, you know, children have that, that. Right. And, and good for those kids for doing that. I mean I think we need to see more of that actually.
01:07:53:19 - 01:08:14:12
Sara Kirk
And, you know, I'm a huge proponent from this work, you know, of, you know, equipping kids to to have that voice and advocacy to, to fight for their rights, again, going back to parties. But, you know, maybe that should be on the the high school curriculum, you know, because I feel like.
01:08:14:14 - 01:08:42:08
John Simmerman
Well, even earlier too, it's like, you know, my my conversation with Mara misr, with the growing Boulder program and the the conversation with Tim and Alice, Tim Gill and Alice Ferguson about engaging youth and listening to youth about actual planning of our communities. These are the types of things that we need to be doing. If we really want to activate our younger generations and get them moving.
01:08:42:10 - 01:08:50:03
John Simmerman
Is there anything that we haven't yet mentioned that you want to make sure that we share with the audience before we bring this to a close?
01:08:50:04 - 01:09:10:22
Sara Kirk
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, we've covered a huge amount of stuff. And for me, the, the, the, the work that I've done around youth engagement I think is probably the, the most impactful. Exactly as you say. You know, we, you know, what we learned from those kids is that if we give them that that agency, you know, they, they make magic.
01:09:10:27 - 01:09:44:11
Sara Kirk
They really do. And it was just brilliant to see these young people working together, coming up with great ideas. And like $5,000 wasn't a great deal of money. But that's a that's a lot to kids. And they were just like blown away by that opportunity. And, and but yeah, I mean, you know, personally there is the for me I don't know, as I get a little bit older I'm becoming I get a bit more ballsy and wanting to sort of take more direct action.
01:09:44:11 - 01:10:04:27
Sara Kirk
So other things that I've been doing recently, as I mentioned earlier, that I'm on the board of Canada Bikes and we have through that role again, I've brought some of my research into that. We actually got some research funding to develop a national bike bicycle count, which is actually coming into its sixth year. We do it in June, the first week in June, usually on a Tuesday.
01:10:04:27 - 01:10:25:19
Sara Kirk
It's going to be the 2nd June. But if it rains that day in our communities and Canada's a big country, then they can do it on like the you know, when they say all the Thursday of that week as well. And then we also do a weekend day. That has been another piece of work that has been really important to me in terms of, you know, we need data, but we also can't just just produce data.
01:10:25:20 - 01:10:52:14
Sara Kirk
We need action as well. And then very recently, like literally in the last few months, I, in a group of other people who were just getting a little bit peed off with the fact that nothing changes, have set up a Vision Zero Chipotle, which is Halifax Group, which is again advocating for safer streets and a Vision Zero approach, because we talk about Vision Zero and the goal for Halifax is towards zero.
01:10:52:14 - 01:11:16:01
Sara Kirk
But really any community anywhere in the world, no deaths are acceptable on the roads. And and I you know, we know that other countries have done it. Other cities have done it. So, you know, we're just trying to sort of put a little bit more pressure on, on elected officials to actually act, to make it safer from safer for people walking and wheeling.
01:11:16:01 - 01:11:35:07
Sara Kirk
And we just launched a an incident report form that was enabled enables people if they are like, you know, we just don't know about the near-misses. You know, what we see when we get these statistics of somebody being killed or seriously injured, it's it's the tip of the iceberg. So we're trying to sort of capture, okay, what's happening?
01:11:35:07 - 01:12:01:07
Sara Kirk
What are people seeing, witnessing, experiencing that isn't hurting them necessarily hopefully. But is is is is something that it puts people off being active, you know. And you often hear that as well. I mean, I'm sure you've heard it probably probably with everybody you've interviewed, this sort of, you know, the sense of what we perceive as safe. You know, I mentioned earlier, like people when they say to me when I get on my bike and cycle off, you know, like, oh, be careful.
01:12:01:09 - 01:12:16:12
Sara Kirk
Like, you know, my ideal world, my dream is that that, you know, we create a world that our kids can live in safely and they can do the things that they want to do. And I don't want to die before that happens. Not to not to be a downer, but.
01:12:16:14 - 01:12:44:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I wanted to linger on this for the last image. I wanted to linger on this of a street just filled with people because it brings that sense of joy. But it also reinforces a couple of things that you just said there. And you mentioned near misses. And one of the great things about, like the Dutch network, again, is that 60 to 70% of the Dutch cycling network is shared space.
01:12:44:07 - 01:13:08:04
John Simmerman
It's streets just like this that have been traffic calmed, where you have low volumes and low speeds, and what you get when you have low volumes and and low speeds is you mentioned it near misses. It's like a it's it doesn't show up as a statistic, as a of a collision, of an injury, of a fatality because it never happened.
01:13:08:04 - 01:13:45:15
John Simmerman
And because this when you have motor vehicle speeds closer to 15mph in the Netherlands, it's 30km/h. So 18.64mph. It's like, yeah, it never occurred because it's much easier for a human driving a car to avoid hitting another car, hitting another human, and so that it doesn't show up on this data as near misses, because it also wasn't a very threatening near-miss either, because it's you're just you're able to respond much better.
01:13:45:16 - 01:14:24:12
John Simmerman
We as humans just don't handle speed very well. Nothing about our evolution, you know, prepared us for hurtling ourselves through space at inhuman speeds in metal boxes. We just don't have that ability. So what I like to reinforce with folks is it doesn't all have to be protected bike ways. It can be traffic, calm streets. It can be welcoming residential areas where you have strategically diverted, cut through traffic away, and it can be done and it can be done quickly.
01:14:24:13 - 01:14:47:15
John Simmerman
Again of stopper and the bike streets movement that's happening in Denver is a great model for how cities can do this overnight. So it's not like a 30 year process of trying to build out a Dutch level type of thing. Because remember the Dutch you mentioned it earlier is they started this journey back in the 1970s. It was more than just the oil embargo.
01:14:47:15 - 01:15:11:00
John Simmerman
It was a confluence of many different things and many different factors, but it took them decades to get it. In fact, they didn't really start to buckle, buckling down and working on it until the 1990s. And so we need to embrace the fact that we can do things much more quickly if we are creative about really understanding what it takes to create.
01:15:11:01 - 01:15:36:06
John Simmerman
Yes, protect when you have to. If the speeds are greater than 30km/h, but then shared space and really working and reinforcing on sort of courtesy and community and sociability. And if you're driving as your driver, as many of us are from time to time, we take a deep breath and realize, oh, yeah, it's human nature to want to go fast.
01:15:36:06 - 01:15:50:15
John Simmerman
When we're in control of this automobile. Take a deep breath. They're squishy humans out there that we need to pay attention to. So good stuff. Sarah, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
01:15:50:16 - 01:16:04:26
Sara Kirk
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's a little bit sort of nervous about what we were going to end up talking about. We've covered a huge amount of of the things that I think are really important to me personally, but also.
01:16:04:28 - 01:16:24:01
John Simmerman
And, you know, what I need to do is I need to follow up with you and pay you a visit. I love doing on bike interviews. And so Halifax, I have to figure out a way to bring the Active Towns tour to Halifax. So funders, hey, be thinking about that. Make a donation to my nonprofit. Let's get me out to to Halifax.
01:16:24:02 - 01:16:34:08
Sara Kirk
I would love to. I would love to host you, especially if you come in the summer when we have a mass ride. It's. Yeah, there's no better way of spending a Sunday. That's all I can say.
01:16:34:10 - 01:16:49:13
John Simmerman
Very, very good. Again, thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you. Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Sarah Kirk. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel.
01:16:49:14 - 01:17:06:24
John Simmerman
Just click on that subscription button down below and be sure to ring that notifications bell. And again, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an active Town's ambassador. Again, super easy to hit the join button right here on YouTube. You can leave a YouTube super thanks as well.
01:17:06:26 - 01:17:26:20
John Simmerman
Navigate over to Active Towns. Click on the support tab at the top of the page, and there's several different options, including making a donation to the nonprofit advocates for Healthy Communities. Also, you can buy me a coffee and as I mentioned earlier, you can become a Patreon supporter. Patrons do get early in ad free access to all this video content.
01:17:26:21 - 01:17:45:21
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 aloha! And of course, I have to give a quick shout out to all my Active Towns ambassadors supporting my efforts financially. I simply could not do this without your support.
01:17:45:22 - 01:17:49:02
John Simmerman
Mahalo new. Thank you very much.