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Conversations about Creating a Culture of Activity: Profiling the people, places, programs, and policies that help to promote a culture of activity within our communities.
Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:12
Krista Nightengale
We find that, you know, it takes about 90 days, takes 60 days for people to become less angry about a street change and to start to understand, not even understand it, that feel comfortable with it. And then in those, you know, 60 day, 61 to 90, you get the real data behind how it actually works in the space and how people will respond to it.
00:00:21:13 - 00:00:44:06
John Simmerman
Hi everyone, welcome to the Active Towns channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Krista Nightingale, the executive director of the Better Block Foundation. And we're going to be talking about the organization and what it does to help create more people oriented places. But before we dive 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.
00:00:44:07 - 00:01:01:04
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do here on YouTube just on the join button right down below. Or navigate over to Active Towns, or click on the support tab at the top of the page. And there are several different options. Okay, let's get right to it with Christa.
00:01:01:06 - 00:01:04:17
John Simmerman
Krista, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:04:19 - 00:01:08:16
Krista Nightengale
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Excited to chat with you, Chris.
00:01:08:16 - 00:01:14:13
John Simmerman
I love giving my guest just an opportunity to introduce themselves. So who the heck is Christa?
00:01:14:16 - 00:01:41:16
Krista Nightengale
Well, I am the executive director of Better Block. I have been in this role for about ten years. I often say age is you in dog years, so I feel like I'm getting close to retirement. Like, we've we've had some battles along the way. I grew up on a farm in small town Oklahoma, and had never really considered this idea of urban planning and urban design and traffic and streets and all of that.
00:01:41:18 - 00:02:02:17
Krista Nightengale
Until I got here to Dallas, which is where I am now. And I actually started out in journalism and we, you know, an urban designer, Patrick Kennedy, started talking about this idea of tearing down a highway between downtown, which is the neighborhood where I live, and Deep Ellum. And it just seemed like this really radical idea. And why would you ever tear down a highway?
00:02:02:17 - 00:02:24:16
Krista Nightengale
And what does that even mean? And the more I got into it, the deeper understood and realized how planning had impacted so many people and how much it impacts our daily lives and the the negative and some of the positives. And looking at that, it was just fascinating. And this idea of, you know, can community members actually be the ones to impact change?
00:02:24:22 - 00:02:52:24
Krista Nightengale
Can folks with journalism degrees help redesign intersections? You know, that was really fascinating to me. So I knew about the better block, because I had covered them in the magazine that I was working at. And Jason received a capacity grant from the John and James L Knight Foundation at the end of 2015. So in 2016, I came over and started working here and have been here ever since, just making it up.
00:02:52:27 - 00:03:17:06
John Simmerman
I love it, I love it, and before we hit the record button, I had to apologize that this is the first time that we have. We've had a chance to meet virtually, but we have not met in person. I, I remember gosh, it must have been. In early 2015, I made a road trip up to Dallas to meet up with Patrick Kennedy to to learn about the things that he was doing.
00:03:17:06 - 00:03:43:28
John Simmerman
And you and I just mentioned that, you know, I ran into Andrew and Jason in Paris for the very first car free day. And so I feel like Active Towns has been, you know, co-developing at the same time that you guys have just been chugging along, doing great stuff with Better Block. And I love that we all have this sort of common denominator of having grown up on farms and ranches and things like that.
00:03:43:29 - 00:04:28:15
John Simmerman
And I say we because also, Chuck Moran with Strong Towns, you were on his podcast not too terribly long ago, and of course, he grew up on a farm just outside of Brainerd in Brainerd, Minnesota. And I grew up on a small little ranch in Northern California. And so, you know, coming to this from rural beginnings and then really starting to understand, you know, what it means to have traditional development patterns and towns and villages and, you know, walkable ness within the town, even though I lived, you know, outside of the town and then would come in, but all my all my peers, all my, my friends that I went to school with, that if
00:04:28:16 - 00:05:01:15
John Simmerman
they lived in, in the village, in the town, they would walk and bike everywhere. It was just, you know, kind of cool. That's a fascinating story of how you go from, you know, that rural sort of farm environment to coming to the big city and then just really embracing that and, and then connecting with what do you think it was about better block and this concept of, you know, pull up a photo here of your group, here of your team.
00:05:01:17 - 00:05:08:05
John Simmerman
What do you think it was about what they were doing that resonated so profoundly with you?
00:05:08:07 - 00:05:31:06
Krista Nightengale
You know, I think the thing that I loved back then and the thing that we still, you know, make sure we do today is that we do. And so a large part of the work in this world is creating plans. And it's frustrating for community members because so many of the folks we work with are overserved and underserved.
00:05:31:10 - 00:05:53:13
Krista Nightengale
And so they're answering all the questions. They're dreaming and they're saying all the things that they want to see in these spaces. But rarely or in, you know, many over the course of many years, are they actually seeing anything happen with those with that information that they're giving? So a big part, a better block that I just loved is that, you know, people were out in the streets making things happen.
00:05:53:21 - 00:06:16:04
Krista Nightengale
And so one of the very first better blocks that I participated in was, you know, while I was still at, you know, my at working at the magazine, and it was just going out and taking a vacant lot and putting in a little library and just making something happen quickly. And it was really exciting to see how people responded to that and the excitement that kind of grew from that.
00:06:16:04 - 00:06:28:24
Krista Nightengale
So, you know, often people ask, how do you get community members to trust you? And so much of it is we just do what we say we're going to do, and we make sure that something happens with that.
00:06:28:27 - 00:06:58:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I pulled up your website here so folks can, you know, take a look at the resources that you have available and dive a little bit deeper into your your portfolio of past projects and good stuff like that. And you've got your ten year impact in the numbers. And really what I love about this concept to to your point is, it's not just about these static, unfeeling plans.
00:06:58:12 - 00:07:24:21
John Simmerman
You know, if you go to like a community open house about a project that's supposed to be happening and, you know, people are asked to look at like stuff and you talked about their over surveyed and, and, and all that, and they're giving feedback at something that's like this two dimensional thing. This is where people can have an opportunity to really get their hands on it and do it and participate in it.
00:07:24:21 - 00:08:05:10
John Simmerman
And I think that's the the one thing that was so wonderful about build better blocks and the better block organization as it was coming up. Very similar timing to Michael book on tactical urbanism, same kind of concept. Let's engage the public in participating in this transformation of the the built environment of the space. And I think that that is, is so important because you're giving people the opportunity to wrap their hands around what it is that you're you're talking about, what it is you're proposing.
00:08:05:12 - 00:08:28:29
Krista Nightengale
Yeah. A big part of our work, you know, we we work in a lot of different environments. And so sometimes we're taking vacant lots and we're reimagining them. So that that video you saw was a food park that we did. And that's probably one of my favorite projects. It was one of the first things that we were allowed to do as Covid, as people were starting to go back outside and starting to interact again.
00:08:29:05 - 00:08:52:17
Krista Nightengale
And, it was just really special. And so, you know, we proposed this idea of doing this food park in kind of a higher crime neighborhood, and we were told, no one will come to this for food. No one's going to come to this part of town for food. And, you know, when we talk to the community here, they said we want healthy sit down options like so many of our restaurants here or things that we have.
00:08:52:17 - 00:09:13:10
Krista Nightengale
It's drive through and it's fried. And, you know, we want the opportunity to be able to sit down and enjoy dinner together. And so we said, all right, we'll just we'll do this food park. We'll kind of formalize the space, formalize seating and shade. There are a lot of folks who hung out around the space. And so there was a lot of concern about adding seating, about adding shade and creating kind of a positive space.
00:09:13:15 - 00:09:37:05
Krista Nightengale
And we felt like that was important. We, you know, really focused on the design of this concept, not turning our backs to any part of the neighborhood. We want it to be open to anyone who wanted to come in and use the space. And it was up for 30 days, and we activated it with the food park each weekend, and we had more than five people coming through, and it was just so beautiful to see it for one out there.
00:09:37:06 - 00:10:10:01
Krista Nightengale
Again, it was one of the first opportunities people had to actually gather together again. And so I think it was just kind of a really special moment. But, you know, with bringing things to life the way we do it, the way we get around a lot of the permitting hurdles and, you know, financial hurdles and all of the things that take so long in creating spaces like that is that we do it temporarily, and we have found that temporary erases the fear of permanency, and it opens people up to the concepts, but it also allows us to get it done.
00:10:10:06 - 00:10:27:24
Krista Nightengale
And so in this case, you know, it was up for those 30 days. If you go back to the lot as it as it is today, it looks the same as it did before the project. However, what happened with this project is we, you know, two of the food vendors who popped up and tested out during that time.
00:10:27:28 - 00:10:49:03
Krista Nightengale
They're now permanent. They have both open brick and mortar shops on that street. And we found that the mobile food bending ordinance in Dallas was a bit behind. And, you know, the community was asking for healthy food. But when you have a mobile food vending unit, you could only go from frozen to fried with fish or poultry, so you couldn't even provide healthy food.
00:10:49:07 - 00:11:14:24
Krista Nightengale
And so, you know, we worked with the city to rewrite that ordinance and to reduce some of those barriers. So it's a it's a really interesting approach. But like you're saying, it's so important to create this space and allow people to not only touch it, feel it, move it around and experience it, but take part in the creation and be part of the ones who are actually bringing it to life and really testing it out.
00:11:15:00 - 00:11:41:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And we're just scrolling through some of your projects again, folks, go to the Better block.org website and click on projects, and you can just take a look at, you know, all the amazing projects that you've been doing here around the country. I mean, we've got better block Detroit going on here. I think there might even be a better block Honolulu group on Oahu.
00:11:41:23 - 00:11:50:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. That's that's not my I learned, but it's where most of the population is.
00:11:50:13 - 00:11:51:22
Speaker 3
Talk a little bit about that.
00:11:51:23 - 00:11:52:10
John Simmerman
I mean, how.
00:11:52:10 - 00:11:54:17
Speaker 3
Does how does that work.
00:11:54:19 - 00:12:11:24
John Simmerman
In terms of the work that you all are doing? Because I'm assuming you don't have like 100 plus employees, you know, going out and rolling out and doing these things all around. I'm assuming you're you're fairly lean and nimble.
00:12:11:27 - 00:12:12:27
Speaker 3
How does. How does.
00:12:12:27 - 00:12:30:23
John Simmerman
Better block work with a community that, you know, takes a look at a, a street that could use a transformation into a more people oriented place or an empty lot that could be activated? How does one work with Better block?
00:12:30:25 - 00:12:55:17
Krista Nightengale
Yeah, it's a great question. So in general, we have a 120 day process that we follow. And you know, at one point we tried 90 days. It was a bit too fast. So now we're really at that 120. So the first 30 days is really where we're just trying to get a lay of the land, understand what it is the community is looking for, understanding the plans that are already in place, the history of the space, you know, all of those different elements.
00:12:55:19 - 00:13:15:07
Krista Nightengale
This is when we're kind of doing the typical surveys and ruts and, you know, different things like that. Our whole process is about meeting people where they are. So we're going to start out with the surveys, keep it simple. And then we kind of start drilling down, you know, deeper into things. Once we have that piece done, we then start going into the design piece of it.
00:13:15:07 - 00:13:33:04
Krista Nightengale
And that's really, you know, putting together a block map and saying, this is what we heard from the community. This is where we think the priorities are. Does this make sense as far as the approach? Once that is said, we then begin the most fun part, which we've got about 60 days. This is where we're doing all the permitting, the planning, all of those details.
00:13:33:09 - 00:14:00:18
Krista Nightengale
So my team works on the nuts and bolts, making sure everything's organized, fabricated, all that fun stuff the community is brings to heart and soul with food, music, entertainment. So everybody kind of owns a piece of it. And we also have like job titles and estimated number of hours that they'll spend in different things like that. So these are the folks who are making this project truly unique to their neighborhood and bringing, that, that community piece of it to it.
00:14:00:21 - 00:14:21:06
Krista Nightengale
So with them, we're meeting for about 7 to 8 weeks. We're planning everything out, and then we go in and we install the changes. And this is probably where we get the most random people joining in because they're driving by the space they've seen, you know, for years, just kind of sit there and all of a sudden there's people out there painting and they're building and they're doing all of this stuff.
00:14:21:06 - 00:14:38:19
Krista Nightengale
So we get a lot of people coming in and kind of asking a lot of questions, or picking up a paintbrush and joining in. And then if we haven't gotten people up to this point, if we haven't gotten to the survey, if you're not one of the core team members, if you didn't help out with the workshops, we then have a big opening demonstration.
00:14:38:22 - 00:14:56:05
Krista Nightengale
This is a project that we did in Detroit a couple years ago. The main thing is they had three city owned parcels there in the middle, and they were looking at what should this become? They were thinking commercial retail, but they weren't sure exactly what the community was looking for. There's a community center right on the backside of it.
00:14:56:05 - 00:15:15:04
Krista Nightengale
And so they ended up becoming very big partners in this project. And then we were looking at that street that's in front of it. This is only a portion of that street. The posted speeds are 35, I think I clocked most people going 60 to 62. So it's very wide, it's very open and it's basically a race course.
00:15:15:09 - 00:15:35:15
Krista Nightengale
So the goal with this initiative was create a space that could be passive or active for a year. And then very temporarily, let's see if we can address the states on that street. So the photo on the right is what the demonstration ended up becoming. So we just created kind of the center point where we had seating and we had shade.
00:15:35:15 - 00:15:55:28
Krista Nightengale
And we have our concept of better block and a box, which is just a, you know, a rethought of shipping container that can be used, a storage, but also can be a kiosk or a vendor space. We formalized the cut through and the desire paths that people were taking to get to the bus stops. And we added in vendor spaces in a stage, different things like that.
00:15:56:03 - 00:16:20:00
Krista Nightengale
Now, I always tell people this photo is probably not the most pleasing because there's all that hey, in the middle. But for me, this photo speaks volumes because that hey was the result of a crazy rainstorm that came in that morning and flooded out the space. And we show up in our community, volunteers show up and we're all just looking at this water going, what are we going to do?
00:16:20:07 - 00:16:37:09
Krista Nightengale
Before we could even say anything, the community was gone and they came back an hour later and they had all this hay, and they just started spreading it all over this, all over that spot. And it was just so beautiful because it was, you know, our whole goal is to create stewards and let people know, like, this is your space.
00:16:37:11 - 00:16:55:17
Krista Nightengale
This is not our project. This is your project. And the fact that they were taking care of it before it was even complete showed that they would continue to take care of it while it was up. And this truly was their space. So I love the hay here. And then the other thing you can see, it's very, very small, very, very temporary.
00:16:55:19 - 00:17:18:07
Krista Nightengale
We just took over the parking lane and butted out just a little bit into one of the driving lanes and created a super simple, super temporary parklet. And throughout all of it, and what we do with all of our projects, we get pre data, we get post data. You know, we're gathering the stories for gathering the photos, the videos, and we're putting everything together.
00:17:18:07 - 00:17:37:21
Krista Nightengale
And then we make our recommendations for this space. What was great about this parklet is we did get the speeds down to 35, but even the previous day, we had staged the cones in that parking lane. So we weren't taking any traffic. We weren't, you know, doing anything like that. And it was literally just and even that slowed the speeds down to 42.
00:17:37:25 - 00:18:00:09
Krista Nightengale
So just with the tiniest bit of friction, we were able to really get those, those traffic speeds to slow down the results of that project, which one piece of it was the community center, became the folks who took over that space for the year. They continued to activate it and in the end have come to realize maybe commercial retail isn't the right approach.
00:18:00:09 - 00:18:22:17
Krista Nightengale
Maybe this should be an extension of the community center while maintaining some of the green space. So they just signed their second lease with the city, where they're kind of taking over the space at this point and really defining what this future of it's going to look like. And then the other piece of it is the city got a $24 million grant to make changes, permanent changes along Gratiot Avenue there.
00:18:22:19 - 00:18:34:21
Krista Nightengale
So they were already working on, you know, some of those things. But the data and the information that we were able to gather was able to help, you know, some of their applications and some of the work that they were doing with this.
00:18:34:23 - 00:19:01:13
John Simmerman
I love that story, too, because, I mean, it's a great example of how, you know, the focus was the these three empty lots, and you saw that goat trail going across. So there's a desire path, you know, going angling across there. And you formalized a little bit of that. And then, you know, working with the nearby center of creating a sense of ownership for it.
00:19:01:16 - 00:19:32:10
John Simmerman
But then the reality of the over wide streets that are just like motor vehicle raceways, which is so, so true. I mean, the streets in Detroit were really configured for when the city had a population of over a million. They've since lost over half of their population. And so they they don't need that level of capacity, that number of lanes.
00:19:32:10 - 00:20:00:18
John Simmerman
And so giving the city that opportunity to say, oh, well, we've got, you know, space here. This is a people oriented place now. And we've demonstrated by this maneuver that, you know, we can you know, we can take a little bit of space here. Maybe this is an opportune time to bring the temperature down and bring the speed down and make this much more of a people oriented street versus an auto sewer.
00:20:00:24 - 00:20:03:01
John Simmerman
I love that it's fantastic.
00:20:03:07 - 00:20:15:15
Krista Nightengale
Yeah, yeah. And Detroit, I love Detroit. They are doing so many incredible things there and testing so much out. So it's really fun to, you know, spend some time in Detroit.
00:20:15:17 - 00:20:24:11
John Simmerman
So one of the things that is a part of this is the wiki block talk through what this is all about.
00:20:24:13 - 00:20:48:23
Krista Nightengale
I love wiki block. Wiki block is really interesting because when I started, this was a grant that had just been awarded. And you know, they kept talking about a C and C router and I had no idea what that was or what we were talking about. And now it's such a core, core thing in life. And so wiki block is our online library of street furniture designs.
00:20:48:23 - 00:21:13:09
Krista Nightengale
As you can see here, anyone, anywhere can download any of these designs for free. And you'll get an email that has all the design files in it. You can then send that email to a fabricator. And so anyone who's got a C and C router and we've got kind of a template email that you can use that you know, lists all the specs that you need and all the details that you need.
00:21:13:11 - 00:21:32:07
Krista Nightengale
So you can reach out to a fabricator and they can build this furniture or cut this furniture out for you, and then you build it without any glue, screws or nails. So it's a fun way for community members to instantly activate spaces. So as you can see, that one in the bottom middle there is a parklet. It is quite intense.
00:21:32:07 - 00:21:54:00
Krista Nightengale
We haven't built that one in a few years. It's many sheets of plywood. But it's a really fun design. And then we have simple bench designs, you know, where you can just download a bench. And what we do with them is we have paint nights over at our office, and people come over and they paint a bench, and then we'll just go place it at a bus stop that doesn't have a bench.
00:21:54:05 - 00:22:21:01
Krista Nightengale
And we started the first time we did it, we didn't put any ownership to them. And partially because I was a little nervous about getting in trouble. But, you know, we were just kind of putting them out there. So we put no ownership to them. And how did the 12 I think seven found new homes pretty quickly, but a few of them stuck around and the community, like, chained them up to the pole and, you know, kept watch over them to make sure that they stayed there.
00:22:21:09 - 00:22:45:12
Krista Nightengale
The second round, we named them the community bus bench. And just by putting that little bit of ownership on them, help them stick around quite a bit longer. So wiki block is fantastic. We have a lot of fun with this. We, you know, some of our friends over in the UK translated it all to metrics. So anyone, anywhere truly can download these, cut them out, use them, let us know how it's going.
00:22:45:13 - 00:22:49:10
Krista Nightengale
Tag us in it. We'd love to see where Wiki Block ends up.
00:22:49:12 - 00:23:02:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, I love that too. And you just said tag us in it. Of course you are active out on social media mostly. Would I say Instagram? Is that about right?
00:23:02:06 - 00:23:09:19
Krista Nightengale
We love Instagram. Yeah, yeah. We're also on LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok. And so yeah, a lot of different places.
00:23:09:21 - 00:23:24:28
John Simmerman
But yeah, here's here's your Instagram. This is a better intersection little thing here that's out there. I do I think I think you also have a, a YouTube channel as well.
00:23:25:05 - 00:23:27:00
Krista Nightengale
We do have a YouTube channel. Yes.
00:23:27:01 - 00:23:55:16
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And in fact, if we pull that up, we want to encourage folks, you know, be sure to follow along on your your favorite platform. Of course, YouTube. Of course. We've got to do that. Please subscribe to YouTube. And there's the Ted talk from Jason from ten years ago. That's there as well. You can tune in and listen to the little bit more of the the deep history of the organization.
00:23:55:18 - 00:24:17:01
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about what you are really working on and looking at for the future. I mean, what's what's really we've talked a little bit about this, you know, the history of where you guys came from. But what's exciting and new from your perspective of leading the organization, where Better Block is heading?
00:24:17:04 - 00:24:36:21
Krista Nightengale
It's a good question. We we've been around for ten years. And so there's I feel like in this world. There's been a lot of evolution over this ten years. I was at a conference recently where someone described placemaking as top down, and I was really surprised to hear that, because that's just not the way we've ever thought about it.
00:24:36:24 - 00:24:55:05
Krista Nightengale
And and yet I see, you know, different very large firms talking about doing the work that we do and, you know, kind of taking it on and it's like, yeah, but where's the community and some of that. And so it has become something where, you know, I don't know if we're technically placemaking or tactical urbanism or urban design.
00:24:55:12 - 00:25:16:11
Krista Nightengale
There are a lot of different umbrellas I think, that we fit under. But seeing this evolution is really interesting and maintaining who we are and what we do, no matter. The term is very important that the community is at the heart of that. So that's a big part of it. You know, I always tell people as an on profit, our job is to work ourselves out of a job.
00:25:16:12 - 00:25:33:16
Krista Nightengale
You know, we want to not have to exist. We want for people to understand that they can be the ones to go out and make changes in their neighborhoods. And so, you know, we've launched something called Better Block University, where we're taking people through our process and kind of really showing them what it looks like to do this.
00:25:33:16 - 00:25:56:19
Krista Nightengale
And what does that mean? You know, working here at home is always more challenging than working anywhere else. So we're doing this Better Intersections initiative, with the hopes that we can kind of create a process that allows for some of these projects and demonstrations to be able to happen and to really test them out. And this is yeah, this is what this was all predicated on.
00:25:56:19 - 00:26:17:15
Krista Nightengale
This was this is actually looking at the intersection. It's right beyond my computer here. You can see that before. And the upper left hand corner, it was just this very wide intersection. We've got kids a school is a block down. We took our our parking lot and we turned it into a basketball court in a plaza. So the kids will come through this intersection and hang out in our plaza until their parents pick them up.
00:26:17:19 - 00:26:37:21
Krista Nightengale
And it's really bad. It was very wide, the street, each lane was 25ft. You know, you only need 10 to 12ft for per drive lane. So it was more than double what it needed to be. And so we very simply just created some bump outs and added some flexi sticks. And the striping that you see is duct tape.
00:26:37:21 - 00:27:04:11
Krista Nightengale
But we realized when we cut the lanes in half, people didn't no longer thought that they had their full lane. And so with the striping, it was a visual cue. You still have your full lane, it's still here. And then we kept it up for about three months. And we find that, you know, it takes about 90 days, takes 60 days for people to become less angry about a street change and to start to understand, not even understand it, but feel comfortable with it.
00:27:04:11 - 00:27:26:16
Krista Nightengale
And then in those, you know, 60 day, 61 to 90, you get the real data behind how it actually works in this space and how people will respond to it. So we watched it for those 90 days. We were able to increase the number of people actually stopping at that stop sign by 23%. We reduced the turning speeds by 7%.
00:27:26:18 - 00:27:44:27
Krista Nightengale
But the data point I care most about is the students saving the same, saying that this saves lives. And so we were able to take this information to our council member and our transportation director and say, hey, you know, we think there are some changes that need to be made here. And we tested out a couple of them that there are some things that could make this a little bit better.
00:27:44:29 - 00:28:07:19
Krista Nightengale
So we now have a four way stop. They formalized the crosswalks, they formalized the bump out, and they added a sidewalk down to the school, which is the biggest thing because you can see the kids are literally in the street down there. So it was really exciting to kind of see that. And it's just one of those things where it's a it's a small thing, it's small intervention, but it makes a big difference in people's lives.
00:28:07:19 - 00:28:20:22
Krista Nightengale
And, you know, that's a that's a big part of our work is showing people it doesn't have to be overthought. It doesn't have to. We don't have to go through all the what ifs. We could actually go out and do something, and it really does make an impact.
00:28:20:23 - 00:29:03:16
John Simmerman
I'm interested to hear your thoughts of how you navigate the complexity of the fact that what we're looking at on screen right now has been turned into a hot button issue. We've got an administration that's actively hostile to paint on the streets. You reside in a state. I used to reside in, that same state of where the state government looks at this as being hostile to drivers, and therefore must be removed.
00:29:03:18 - 00:29:32:06
John Simmerman
How do you, as an organization, as a nonprofit that you know, doesn't want to weed into and wade into the politics of the day? I mean, to me, to, you know, from an active towns perspective, safer streets are better for everyone, regardless of political orientation. But so much of what we're seeing right now in the rhetoric in politics is now just demonized, you know, putting paint on the street.
00:29:32:07 - 00:29:33:24
John Simmerman
How do you guys navigate that?
00:29:33:28 - 00:30:00:01
Krista Nightengale
Yeah. Oh, that is a very loaded question with very many answers. So big picture I will say, you know, as it comes to politics, our work is relevant in all sorts of environments. And we have never seen a political divide like all communities, like you said, want safer spaces and they want to be able to gather together. Like that has always been a thing.
00:30:00:01 - 00:30:20:10
Krista Nightengale
And so no matter where we are, we still see that as a commonality. And that is something that, you know, everyone kind of can gather around. So that has always been very universal in our work and not only in the US. I mean, we've done work in Australia and Ireland and Canada and, you know, different places like that.
00:30:20:10 - 00:30:42:01
Krista Nightengale
And it's it is something where it's just people want the opportunity to gather and to be outside. And there's so many benefits to that as it relates to paint on the ground. You know, we have dealt with. So all of this is is under the guidelines. And so that was something I probably started learning about day two on the job was what are these guidelines.
00:30:42:01 - 00:31:06:21
Krista Nightengale
What does this mean. And as you know, like until 2023, it was pretty prohibitive on what you could do as far as paint on the ground or what that looked like. And so, we would work around what we could and kind of get the permissions as we could. But depending on which traffic engineer you were talking to would kind of dictate whether or not you could actually do anything.
00:31:06:23 - 00:31:32:16
Krista Nightengale
In 2023, they came out with an updated recommendation, I believe, based off of many people's advocacy around it. And asphalt art became a more excepted kind of approach and around street safety and what that can look like. I think obviously the biggest benefits that I see with it are the ability to bring out the community, to allow them to take part in the process, creating the stewards and also showcasing the identity, identity of the neighborhood.
00:31:32:18 - 00:32:00:29
Krista Nightengale
So that's always a big thing. Last year we were working on a project in a suburb here in Texas, and we had just installed a Woolner. So that's basically creating a movement down a road where you're kind of making the cars do this so that they have to slow down. And in that space, that extended space, we put bowlers and then we did paint along there, and then we painted, crosswalks leading from a park into kind of this space.
00:32:01:01 - 00:32:22:19
Krista Nightengale
I think the day after, maybe two days after, the mandate came down that you couldn't do, you know, mural as crosswalks that did not help but safety and had political symbols in them. And so, you know, in talking with our partners, they decided to remove the crosswalk. So that was done. And we went on with the project.
00:32:22:19 - 00:32:47:06
Krista Nightengale
And, you know, we we talked about it and it got to officials and they called, you know, our partners that we were working with and said, hey, do you have a muralist crosswalk? And was said, no, we don't, but we do have this Woolner and they said, that's okay. It's the crosswalk. So that is our understanding is that, you know, the extended space is, okay.
00:32:47:09 - 00:33:09:24
Krista Nightengale
I believe our work, again, is temporary. So, you know, that could be another element that plays into during the World Cup. We worked with both downtown in downtown Dallas and downtown Houston and did similar approaches. And, you know, then it was washed off after the 46 days. And what's really exciting about those opportunities is the data that you can get from that.
00:33:09:25 - 00:33:51:13
Krista Nightengale
I mean, we took we took 50 or we took 41 parking spaces in downtown Dallas for 56 days, and we had no reported complaints to the Transportation Department, the council members office, or to the downtown organization, which is, you know, surprising to to me because I thought there would be some complaints about the parking that there weren't. So all that to say, we work within the parameters that we're allowed to work within and still demonstrate how spaces can be safer, not just for the communities, but safer when they're designed alongside the communities and built by the community.
00:33:51:13 - 00:34:15:04
Krista Nightengale
So I am sure it will continue to adjust and change, and we'll have to continue to adjust and change our approach. We're talking about, you know, other ways that we can, you know, really, so the community can showcase their identities. And what does that look like? Wiki block. Everything in wiki block is done with plywood, which is a great canvas for painting.
00:34:15:06 - 00:34:37:13
Krista Nightengale
So really bringing in a lot of those elements as well. Yeah. This is the, this is the project that we were doing where, you know, it was okay to leave that middle, those middle spaces. But over to the left was the crosswalk that we had to remove. But yeah. And in this one, this one was fun because we had this one up for 90 days and we had three complaints around parking.
00:34:37:17 - 00:34:55:21
Krista Nightengale
I always tell people, you know, again, this idea of temporary letting people be open to the idea and what might be is so important. But I always tell people those first two months, you're going to get a lot of angry emails. You're changing people's habits, you're changing their routines, you're slowing them down. You know, even if it's just for a couple seconds.
00:34:55:21 - 00:35:14:11
Krista Nightengale
So there's going to be some feedback. What was really interesting on this one is one of the complaints we got was from a business owner on that street, and there's a large parking lot behind just outside of this photo. And we asked, well, what about that parking lot? Could that be used? And they said, well, there's so much trash in that parking lot.
00:35:14:12 - 00:35:32:29
Krista Nightengale
The dumpster is never serviced or taken care of. And so that was something we could address. Like that was something where we could track down who it was and what needed to be done, and kind of get that on a more regular schedule. And then it was okay. And so, so often people talk about we need more parking or you can't rethink this parking space.
00:35:33:01 - 00:35:42:25
Krista Nightengale
But what we're trying to get to is why not? Why do you feel like there needs to be more parking? What are you trying to go for with that? And can it maybe be addressed in a different way?
00:35:42:28 - 00:36:10:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Fascinating stuff too, because change is difficult. I mean, you know, I try to to reinforce that my background is in public health and behavior modification and creating environments which encourage healthy, active lifestyles. And the built environment has a big part of that. But changing the built environment can be stress inducing to so many people in, you know, narrowing that space.
00:36:10:13 - 00:36:28:22
John Simmerman
You know, that lane, you know, causing people to have to slow down. Especially if you're you're talking about somebody who's used to like approaching that, that, that intersection at a fast rate of speed. And it's just like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is all constrained. I have to slow down. Exactly. That's what we want you to do.
00:36:28:27 - 00:36:30:25
John Simmerman
There's kiddos here.
00:36:30:28 - 00:36:53:04
Krista Nightengale
Yeah, yeah. And if you'll if you'll go back to that presentation, I'll see if it works. There's one of my favorite stories is a project we did in Colorado. This one, this was a fun project because so many of our when we started our projects were two days. They stayed up for two days. So the whole process is 120 days, and then the demonstration would be two days.
00:36:53:06 - 00:37:17:01
Krista Nightengale
More and more people want to see something last longer. So semi-permanent, you know, kind of looking along those lines. So this was a project that we did in Colorado a couple of years ago, and it was literally up for two days. And, you know, you can see there we created another one here in this space. And what was so interesting about this one is there was a lot of fear of change.
00:37:17:01 - 00:37:38:12
Krista Nightengale
There was a lot of concerns over found losing identity, losing the history of the space, you know, different things like that. There's also a lot of complexity here. This portion of the city had actually been taken over in the 90s because they were running out of water, and so they felt like the city that took them over was not giving them the same type of treatment, you know?
00:37:38:13 - 00:38:04:12
Krista Nightengale
And so there's just a lot and I think in this work, often we've come therapists where we're trying to impact, you know, what happened here. What are people dealing with. Like there's just so much in community, good and bad, you know. And so we learn a lot in our 120 days. So in this one, the one thing is that they had, turkeys, I think, in this area, and the turkeys kept getting hit by cars.
00:38:04:12 - 00:38:22:22
Krista Nightengale
And so we said, hey, we can slow down the traffic and we'll protect the turkey. So it was less about the pedestrians, more about the turkeys. So just fine. And then they also had a dance hall in this, they used to have a dance hall in here. And so we said, let's bring the dance hall concept out into the street, and let's create this space where you guys can activate.
00:38:22:22 - 00:38:38:27
Krista Nightengale
They have this great pavilion by their, their train. So we said you could use this and you could operate it in a little bit of a different way. But there were two businesses that do really well in this area. The others are either vacant or struggling. But those two businesses were very vocal and they said, we don't want to see anything happening.
00:38:38:27 - 00:38:57:11
Krista Nightengale
We don't want any changes here in this space. And one of the community members, you know, was pretty against the idea in the beginning. She actually ended up becoming one of our fantastic, you know, core team members. But the two businesses, you know, they they weren't on board. And so throughout this whole process, you know, trying to talk with them.
00:38:57:13 - 00:39:16:21
Krista Nightengale
So there's this little white building in the bottom, you know, corner there. And that was owned by the barbershop there. And I would go in and check on him and say, hey, how are you doing? How are things going? And he's like, not a fan, but, you know, you guys are working hard, I appreciate that. So the day we were taking his parking, I said, all right, you know, this is the day we're going to take the parking.
00:39:16:22 - 00:39:32:28
Krista Nightengale
I'll meet your clients here and I'll show them where to park. And, after about an hour of that, he came out and he said, you're good. It's parking right around the corner. And I was like, okay, great. Yeah, that's that's fantastic. And I was like, okay, but tomorrow, tomorrow we're shutting down the street. We're doing this whole festival in the street.
00:39:32:28 - 00:39:45:06
Krista Nightengale
Are you going to be okay? And he's like, I don't like it. I don't like anything about this, but I'll be here because I'm always here and we'll just see what happens. So if that video will play, we can give it a try out.
00:39:45:07 - 00:39:52:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. Let's zoom out and let's see. Let me turn the let me turn the volume up on the video.
00:39:53:00 - 00:40:02:24
Testimonial Audio
When you haven't seen anything, you're reluctant until you see it. Then you realize that it wasn't all that bad. It was kind of fun.
00:40:02:27 - 00:40:26:15
John Simmerman
I think that that is. That's the pearl right there. That's the pearl wisdom of doing tactical projects, doing better block types of projects, giving people the opportunity to feel it, touch it, see. And it helps allay some of those fears and those gut reactions of no, don't do this.
00:40:26:17 - 00:40:54:24
Krista Nightengale
Right, right. It really tests out the what ifs, and it's impossible. I always tell people don't know what if don't don't do it and it's impossible. We're humans. We're all going to sit there and think about what could be, what might happen, you know, all these different things, but actually going out and creating it, even if just for a day, even if just for three months, even if just for a year, really allows you to test out those what ifs and, you know, determine whether or not they're going to come true.
00:40:54:27 - 00:40:57:07
Krista Nightengale
Most of the time they don't.
00:40:57:10 - 00:41:06:15
John Simmerman
How often is concerns around parking the issue that that emerges.
00:41:06:17 - 00:41:26:09
Krista Nightengale
All the time? I would say, I don't know. I don't know if I could say there has been there's never been a project that didn't talk about parking, but parking is a big thing. In fact, we have shirts that say it's hard to find parking in great places. And those those shirts are fun to wear at the airport is probably where I get the most comments about it.
00:41:26:09 - 00:41:47:13
Krista Nightengale
It's really fascinating. So it's an opportunity to talk about, well, the places we love to go over built for us and not for our cars. So, yeah, this, this project here, this was in Akron, Ohio. This was about ten years ago. And, you know, on this one, if you go to the next slide, I think, you can see.
00:41:47:15 - 00:42:10:09
Krista Nightengale
Yeah. So again, this was, you know, ten years ago. So this is one of our kind of two day demonstrations. And we did a parking protected bike lane with some extended sidewalks, you know, enhance the crosswalk space. What was really great about this one is, when we started working on it, they there was a lot of depopulation in the schools were consolidating.
00:42:10:11 - 00:42:30:29
Krista Nightengale
And this stretch along here is beautiful. Great bones, great buildings, but they weren't sure maybe what their identity was. And so in doing some research and looking into it, they discovered that music was a big part. They had a lot of recording studios and different things like that, so they really embraced it. This project are main block captain.
00:42:30:29 - 00:42:56:17
Krista Nightengale
She ended up at the end of this project. She quit her job. She started a CDC for this area. In five years. She had brought in $1 million of, you know, infrastructure changes. And it looks very similar to this. And she had also brought in. I think 14 new businesses updated, a dozen facades, different things like that. Ultimately they got a school back, a $62 million deal, you know, around the school.
00:42:56:19 - 00:43:11:27
Krista Nightengale
She's no longer heading up the CDC because she's now a council member there in Akron. But the CDC is continuing on. And, you know, this avenue is doing or this boulevard is, you know, it's it's come back and it's been really fantastic to see.
00:43:11:29 - 00:43:17:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. For those who may not be familiar with that acronym, what is the CDC.
00:43:17:10 - 00:43:34:05
Krista Nightengale
Community Development Corporation? So, yeah, they they really they are kind of the stewards, I guess you'd say, of the space and have mechanisms to help with funding and to help with the small businesses and the development of the area.
00:43:34:07 - 00:44:12:15
John Simmerman
I wanted to go back to the before picture, because I think that it is worth emphasizing that these are exactly the most challenging bits of infrastructure that we have out in the the United States. You know, across the United States and North America and even globally. We've been plagued by these strobes. We've got, you know, multiple lanes, high speed corridors, overbuilt infrastructure compared to what we really need in this area is more people.
00:44:12:22 - 00:44:43:04
John Simmerman
And so it's it's been treated in the past as a flow through area as, as I like to disparagingly call it a traffic sewer. And so transforming it from a car oriented, you know, strode again, Chuck's, you know, hybrid of, of a street road hybrid where you're prioritizing both access and also speed. You can't do that. It's just it's also the most dangerous.
00:44:43:07 - 00:45:14:28
John Simmerman
Not only is it unproductive from an economic perspective, but it's incredibly dangerous being able to bring the the temperature down, slow the traffic down, create a protected environment for people walking and biking, making it a pleasant place to be as people. I mean, this is just brilliant. I love this, I mean, if you want to get John excited about something, it's like creating once again, you know, streets for people.
00:45:15:00 - 00:45:27:21
John Simmerman
This is fantastic. I get the sense that, you know, for this person, you know, if she went on and became a council member, she got really excited about transforming her city. Yeah, yeah.
00:45:27:22 - 00:45:52:17
Krista Nightengale
And that's we see that a lot. You know, in these projects, we tend to in some ways we attract the super volunteers in this city, but we also tend to attract new people who've been thinking about these things for a while and maybe haven't seen the most obvious outlet. And so they kind of come into the process. So it's always really interesting to see who gets involved in these and then what they end up doing with them and where they end up taking these different concepts.
00:45:52:17 - 00:46:12:09
Krista Nightengale
So and I will say, you know, Akron, Ohio, it's it's got a dear place in my heart. We did several projects there when I first started, and everyone is so creative and so passionate, and they have just really done so much in that city. So it's been really fun to kind of watch their stories evolve over the years.
00:46:12:11 - 00:46:37:15
John Simmerman
What's interesting to, you know, we talked about Detroit earlier and we've we've talked about Dallas. We've got Akron here. I mean, these are all cities that, you know, at one point in time we're like thriving and and happening but have fallen on difficult times. And so there there is oftentimes this, this type of situation where we have overcapacity of the streets and high speeds.
00:46:37:15 - 00:47:00:18
John Simmerman
And we need to do something to breathe life into them. And that's one of the things that I love about the projects that you're working on is you're helping give hope to many of these communities. They wouldn't be calling upon a better block to help out if they felt that they were perfect. I mean, they feel like they need some some assistance to close us out.
00:47:00:21 - 00:47:29:27
John Simmerman
I want to use this as this story, I think, as an example of how we can sort of break outside of our echo chamber of urban ism and safer streets and more people oriented places, because it seems like this kind of community engagement. You've mentioned it a couple of times where people got so passionate about the projects that it's like, I didn't get the sense that these people were already drinking the Kool-Aid.
00:47:30:00 - 00:47:47:00
John Simmerman
They, you know, start. They they're like, they're fresh to this. And they're like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. I want to keep doing this. Talk a little bit about that, of the power of this type of community engagement in breaking outside of the urbanism echo chamber.
00:47:47:05 - 00:48:09:11
Krista Nightengale
Oh, I think I mean, it's huge. I mean, this is what has given me my career. You know, I have a journalism degree. I shouldn't be, you know, changing streets. But because of the opportunity given me to test it out and to try it, you know, I started to drink the Kool-Aid and realize, oh, this is definitely something that people can do and something that we should be doing.
00:48:09:16 - 00:48:31:12
Krista Nightengale
And so, yeah, it's a it's a really fascinating process. And, you know, sometimes we tend to just throw people in and say, hey, you got to figure it out. And, you know, this project, we had a mayor out there painting alongside us and, you know, becoming a huge advocate for the work. So, so much of it, I think people yes, we have our screens.
00:48:31:12 - 00:49:01:21
Krista Nightengale
Yes, we spend a lot of time isolated from one another, having the opportunity to be out, to be in the street, to be wearing a vest and to be painting alongside each other. It's just it's super valuable on so many different levels. And I think, you know, as we think about the impact that this type of work has, it's it's a it's a tough time to be a nonprofit these days.
00:49:01:27 - 00:49:23:22
Krista Nightengale
And, you know, we're sometimes told, well, you're a nice to have, not a need to have. And I, you know, I respectfully beg to differ. I think this type of work, you know, makes the spaces and the places where you live exciting and inviting and help with mental and physical health and economic development and safety and, you know, all of the things.
00:49:23:22 - 00:49:41:19
Krista Nightengale
So it is a really, odd space that we find ourselves in, and it takes a lot of trust to work alongside us and to believe that we're going to do the things we say we're going to do. But then ultimately, everyone helps bring it all together.
00:49:41:22 - 00:50:08:13
John Simmerman
I'm focusing in on this particular slide where it says failure is okay, because that's inherent in what these projects are, is put something out there, learn, iterate, shift it, try it again. Failure is part of the the the process failure is very much ingrained in what this is all about. Talk a little bit about that for a moment.
00:50:08:16 - 00:50:26:08
Krista Nightengale
Yeah. Okay. So this specific picture was a design that we had put together. And it was really cool. And what we were trying to do, this particular space, we were trying to talk about density. And so we painted a giant brown mural showing that there used to be 12 buildings in what is now one building in a parking lot.
00:50:26:08 - 00:50:53:03
Krista Nightengale
And so we wanted to talk about bringing people into the space and having them feel like there's this, you know, 12 buildings along here. So we built these ghost facades out of PVC pipe and they lined the whole street. We learned a lot with that, and we had connected them all. So they were basically one piece. And I remember I was talking to the council member and the facades were behind her, and I could see it, and I saw one starting to tip, and I was just like, oh no, this is it.
00:50:53:05 - 00:51:14:22
Krista Nightengale
And then it was just a domino effect. They all went down and but what happened next was just so beautiful because immediately the entire community was out there doing repairs. Everybody just rushed over, started fixing it. And, you know, we're like, okay, next time let's do this and let's do that and let's make this change. And it's just and we've iterated on the design since then is great.
00:51:14:23 - 00:51:47:27
Krista Nightengale
But bigger picture allowing for these opportunities in these moments to test something. People don't get to do that. And when you go straight into a permanent build into a permanent space, it has to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be that way. But it's so great because if you get to test it first and you get to kind of see what does or doesn't work, or if people are going to use it in the way you anticipate it, I'll tell you, kids always use things in ways I don't fully anticipate, and it's really exciting to see how they're going to take something we see as a bench, and they
00:51:47:27 - 00:51:54:07
Krista Nightengale
use it as a trampoline. Like, that's fun and that's great. And that is all part of the process and part of the learning.
00:51:54:12 - 00:52:17:19
John Simmerman
And also is one of the reasons why we need to engage our youth much more in doing this. And community work is hard. We want to make sure that people understand that. Yes. You think that creating a traffic calming environment leading up to a stop sign? Oh, this makes sense. This is safety, etc. everyone should be. There are going to be haters.
00:52:17:19 - 00:52:34:00
John Simmerman
There's going to be folks that freak out about it again. Community work is beautiful, community work is hard. And Krista, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. This has been such an honor and pleasure speaking with you here today.
00:52:34:03 - 00:52:39:23
Krista Nightengale
Thank you so much, and thank you for the great questions and the conversation. I yeah, I really enjoyed it.
00:52:39:24 - 00:52:53:11
John Simmerman
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Krista Nightingale with the Better Block Foundation. 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.
00:52:53:11 - 00:53:16:10
John Simmerman
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00:53:16:12 - 00:53:43:25
John Simmerman
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00:53:43:27 - 00:53:59:01
John Simmerman
Again, I simply could not do this work without your financial support. Mahalo, new. Thank you very much. Well that's it for now. Till next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha.