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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 - 00:00:21:23
Roy Symons
I didn't know when I went to the Netherlands if I would do a book or for what it would be. I just knew I wanted to see more. You can kind of see the trip log there. So it was just under a month. We were there and we had no real plan. So yeah, it was just we kind of made it up as we went along, but we felt like a few of the, I guess, showpiece.
00:00:21:26 - 00:00:22:10
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:00:22:13 - 00:00:37:16
Roy Symons
Infrastructure, I guess things for want of a better word like the hope and rang the bridge over the school and it drags but really it was just have no plan go where we want to make to the cities we wanted to go to and whatever we CBC.
00:00:37:18 - 00:00:56:11
John Simmerman
Hey everyone welcome to the activity on the channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Roy Symons, author of the book Fietspad and a couple other cool books that we are going to be talking about here today. He resides up in British Columbia, up in Canada, but he is originally from Scotland. This is a fascinating discussion.
00:00:56:11 - 00:01:07:00
John Simmerman
So let's get right to it with Roy. Roy, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:07:02 - 00:01:08:25
Roy Symons
Hi. Welcome, John. Thanks for having me.
00:01:08:28 - 00:01:14:13
John Simmerman
Hey Roy, I love having my guest. Just say a few words about themselves. So who the heck is Roy Simons?
00:01:14:15 - 00:01:35:14
Roy Symons
Yeah, so I guess if we want to go all the way back to the start or in Scotland, lived there for about 30 years and then moved to Canada, I don't have too many pictures of my hometown, but live just south of Edinburgh, about ten miles south of Edinburgh. So this is the Penguin Hills, nice city, pretty much between Penicuik and Edinburgh.
00:01:35:16 - 00:02:02:16
Roy Symons
So this is where I guess my interest in biking came from either the woods, buying the house or getting out into the hills here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I studied civil and transportation engineering in school, worked for engineering firms basically since graduation, as I still do today. So that's kind of it moved to Canada in 2008. Okay. Yeah, I've been here ever since.
00:02:02:19 - 00:02:04:18
John Simmerman
And what brought you to Canada?
00:02:04:21 - 00:02:26:02
Roy Symons
So pretty much the biking again. I used to mountain bike back home in the hills. You see there I would watch videos from the North Shore, from Whistler. Really wanted to do that. Came over for a holiday to snowboard actually. And yeah, I just loved it at the time. I worked for one of the bigger engineering firms who had offices here, as well as in Edinburgh.
00:02:26:04 - 00:02:36:07
Roy Symons
And yeah, the transfer was pretty smooth. They needed somebody. That's what I did. And yeah, it kind of the rest is history. Wow.
00:02:36:09 - 00:02:42:11
John Simmerman
And, and why don't you explain a little bit more in detail like where you're located now.
00:02:42:13 - 00:03:04:20
Roy Symons
Yeah. So maybe if you jump back a slide there to the can of gravel bike picture there. I've taken a lot of pictures from that spot there. So I live up on Burnaby Mountain, just east of Vancouver. So in the distance there, you can barely make those kind of skyscrapers. But that's starting to in Vancouver, North Shore Mountains to the to the right of the screen there.
00:03:04:23 - 00:03:33:26
Roy Symons
And this is Burnaby Mountain Park. So I lived here for the first five years when I came to Vancouver and then moved around a little bit in the Lower Mainland. And then I've been back here for about five years now. It's it's just like a really nice little community. I have bike trails on my doorstep, essentially. There just used to be the university on top of the mountain, Simon Fraser University, and I think since about 2001 I want to see they started building like a community up here.
00:03:33:28 - 00:04:01:22
Roy Symons
So there's a lot of, let's see, Canada mid-rise condos, some townhomes though I know we have like grocery store, like their store, coffee shops, fast food places and whatnot. So it's it's really grown from when I first moved here into like a really nice little complete community, albeit my commute to work, which is in Burnaby as well as 400 meters down here along the way there in about 300 meters, they claim it on the way home.
00:04:01:22 - 00:04:05:16
John Simmerman
So right, right. Yeah, we got it. Got to stay in shape, you know?
00:04:05:19 - 00:04:22:22
Roy Symons
Exactly. It's good for that. I could go I could go into so many details of, like, the pros and cons of living in e-bikes and and whatnot here, because they used to be like my main form of fitness. And then I'd mountain bike at the weekends. As you see here, that's about as good as I ever got before.
00:04:22:22 - 00:04:27:04
Roy Symons
I spend most of my weekends riding around the city taking pictures.
00:04:27:04 - 00:04:28:26
John Simmerman
But. Right. Yeah.
00:04:28:28 - 00:04:52:21
Roy Symons
I did find when I got the E-bike first, like I was using it all the time on Turbo Mode and yeah, I really felt like I lost a lot of fitness there because I was no longer kind of straighten my legs through the week. So I always kind of laugh at those arguments, which are true to a certain extent that, you know, e-bikes make you fitter, but it depends on the baseline, right?
00:04:52:24 - 00:05:06:10
Roy Symons
So I still use E-bike now, but usually it's for days where my legs are tired from doing something else and train time. So right up there on the regular bike as often as I can, just like you say, keep in shape.
00:05:06:12 - 00:05:27:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, I try to reserve the e-bike. Mine's a cargo bike, the term GSD. So it's a it's a big, huge load of a bike. And so I try to really reserve it for when I know I need it for the cargo carrying capacity. And I do live up on a on a, on a plateau on a hill. And so I've got a steep climb that I do have to get up.
00:05:27:20 - 00:05:49:20
John Simmerman
And so having that ability to, to kick that into turbo mode and let that, you know, that Bosch cargo motor kick in and get me up, that is really, really helpful. But yeah, I try to get out on my analog bike whenever I can to especially like when I'm going to the park and going to the trailhead to go for a trail run.
00:05:49:23 - 00:06:14:09
John Simmerman
You know, I need that fitness. I'm, you know, I'm 58 going on 59 years old and it's like, I can't get too lazy on this. So I certainly do lean into and use the electric assist for what it's meant to be used for. But it is humans being what we are need to make sure that we don't always take the easy way.
00:06:14:12 - 00:06:27:09
Roy Symons
Yeah, exactly. It's good to have options. And even there's like we went from two cars there to one and that was about the same time we got the E-bike. So it's almost like a car replacement. Yeah. Or it gives you the option to not have to pedal if you don't really want to.
00:06:27:11 - 00:06:50:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's interesting, too, is, you know, going back to this photo of you getting catching some air out in the mountain biking is we have a similar story in terms of I suspect that you know, you have that that recreation and sport cycling sort of orientation and that really helped draw you to the British Columbia area with the extraordinary mountain biking that was there.
00:06:50:21 - 00:07:07:11
John Simmerman
You did mention that you were there primarily for snowboarding or sneaker skiing in the beginning, but it seems like then it wasn't too long that, you know, especially given the work that you're doing and now what you're focusing on because you sort of alluded to it, you're spending a lot of time taking photos out in the urban environment.
00:07:07:14 - 00:07:39:18
John Simmerman
And then that brings us to some of your influences here in terms of some very familiar books and pretty sure I've got every one of these in my library over here. So talk a little bit about this part of your story, because I think this is fundamental to your story and for the listening only audience, this is a stack of books, you know, starting at the top with Smart, the Smart Growth manual down through tactical urbanism, walkable city from just spec happy city from Charles Montgomery right up there in in B.C. area.
00:07:39:18 - 00:07:48:11
John Simmerman
And then of course our friends the Brentwood's with curbing traffic and etc., etc.. So talk a little bit about these influences.
00:07:48:13 - 00:08:09:28
Roy Symons
Yeah. So it's it is quite interesting actually, because like to see like pictures of me reading and was learning things there. Some people may call that extreme or whatever, but it was it was fun, right? And yeah, when I moved to Canada, living in Burnaby, working in Burnaby, I wanted to start biking to work. But yet living back in Scotland, it wasn't really set up for that.
00:08:09:28 - 00:08:34:01
Roy Symons
We were about ten miles south, but it was like rural country roads, fast moving traffic. There's no way to really I was going to say, I think I did it once, so yeah, So going to Burnaby go a commuter bike started biking to work. That was about 2008. So I'm trying to think the first downtown bike lane in Vancouver protected bike lane I think was 2010.
00:08:34:01 - 00:09:01:07
Roy Symons
So obviously some people started off thinking about these things, but it wasn't top of my mind. And even working like in the transportation industry, it we talked about accommodating bikes like back in the work I was doing in Scotland. The stuff I was doing initially in Canada was a very transportation planning workload, all sorts of things, even including traffic modeling for some for some projects.
00:09:01:07 - 00:09:18:07
Roy Symons
And I was biking to work, I was biking. You may not know the streets here, but Donaghadee way, which is down the hill from Burnaby Mountain and along a little bit highway, which is kind of 70 kilometer and there were arterial roads way off, which is horrible to cycle along. And that was just the most direct way for me.
00:09:18:07 - 00:09:39:11
Roy Symons
I did it. I didn't enjoy it maybe too much, but I didn't really think there could be something better right? And then I would say so that was like 2008. There's a lot of changes going on at work at that time, a lot of changeover and stuff, and I was kind of getting a little jaded with it. Do you need some inspiration?
00:09:39:13 - 00:09:57:26
Roy Symons
As you said, there? And yeah, I started, I think one lunchtime, like I was literally waiting through, I want to see the Ibookstore bookstore, my phone, but I'm not even sure if that existed then. But I was looking through something on my phone looking for like planning books for some inspiration. And the first one was Walkable City by Jasper.
00:09:57:28 - 00:10:21:27
Roy Symons
Cool, cool. And so I started reading this and literally it was blowing my mind. Like, you know, I'd done four years of university, had been working at that point for 12 years after graduating, and there was things, you know, I can do some and I'd been doing some traffic modeling work. I'd never heard of that, which just blows my mind, like, how could I not have been taught that?
00:10:21:29 - 00:10:47:03
Roy Symons
And when you look, I guess back, like the famous quotes from a think is that we were forward or something about whistling your bell to solve congestion. Like I was never in my kind of university curriculum or whatever. So that was that book I think fundamentally changed like the course of my career, like I was after I read that, it was like, wow, like we can do a lot better here.
00:10:47:03 - 00:11:10:23
Roy Symons
And by that time, Vancouver had started doing some bike lanes of and RV was 2010. Burrard Our bridge was maybe about that time. So everything was kind of I was just started reading that book. Vancouver was doing things after that book. Of course, I bought some more and yeah, I just felt kind of really inspired to kind of do that kind of work.
00:11:10:25 - 00:11:33:28
Roy Symons
I love biking anyway, so it kind of made sense. And so in some respects, to do it as a joke sometimes, you know, that's not always the best idea, but it's worked out pretty well. So yeah, about that was like 2012. I was reading that book, 2013, the job at ESL. Kim came up, who I'm still with. No morals changed since since the start.
00:11:33:28 - 00:11:55:10
Roy Symons
But yeah, that kind of gave me a new lease of life like I was at that point in the manager or transportation planning. And so I had a bit more freedom to choose what we went after and really gave me a chance to kind of, you know, basically go in the direction I wanted to go. And then about I don't think I have any pictures for about that time.
00:11:55:10 - 00:12:16:16
Roy Symons
Again, I was forming these thoughts in my head. I was trying to kind of that was one of the things when I started reading the book, I was like, I'm just kind of going around in my business like I was taught at school. I'm not really thinking about it. It wasn't applying the critical thinking that I felt was really needed in reading those books, like it was forming thoughts.
00:12:16:18 - 00:12:25:00
Roy Symons
And I think like even just like the team has wasn't the most progressive in terms of writing infrastructure and the things he was talking about.
00:12:25:03 - 00:12:55:28
John Simmerman
And in fact, Jeff and I had that conversation, so I had him on the podcast, you know, to basically talk about the new version of So the ten year anniversary book of Walkable City has a hundred additional pages tacked on to the original book. And so he took those pages to reflect on some of the things that, you know, held true and were proven in the in the first version of the book, A Walkable City.
00:12:56:01 - 00:13:15:18
John Simmerman
But then he has an entire chapter talking about how, yeah, he he learned so much in that decade about kind of what he got wrong with how powerful bikes are, especially in empowering mobility within communities. So yeah.
00:13:15:20 - 00:13:38:27
Roy Symons
Yeah. So that was I guess I was trying to form those thoughts in my head. So I started my own kind of blog slash website and that would have been 2014 I think. And yeah, it was just putting all these ideas over. It kind of forced me to, you know, make sure I was kind of I had some thoughts.
00:13:39:00 - 00:13:58:09
Roy Symons
So it's not this used to be called transportation planning dot com and I was like, I'm just gonna talk about all the things that I do as a transportation planner. And then it wasn't until later when I started doing the books that I kind of changed it to growing in the city, because really everything I was doing was focusing, focusing on bikes and rolling essentially.
00:13:58:11 - 00:14:23:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. And so, yeah, let's just pause just a second on this since I've got your website up. So this is your new blog and again, it's called Rolling in the City. And so you oftentimes will have blog posts. And so your most recent blog post was diving into Victoria, which is one of the most bicycle friendly communities in North America.
00:14:23:28 - 00:14:43:28
John Simmerman
And they've been doing some wonderful things. You know, obviously we just had an episode with Todd Littman, and so we talked a little bit about Victoria in some of the work that he's been doing over the past three or four decades there in Victoria. But yes, so continue This was written in December 28th is when you published this particular blog post?
00:14:43:29 - 00:15:06:12
Roy Symons
Yeah, I know one of those projects actually, or I sell projects. I'm less involved in their work these days, but still I'm to a certain extent, but I also kind of designed our design in partnership with other firms, and certainly so through all the construction for the last five years, older protected bike lane projects. Yeah. So I always love going over there and kind of riding around and.
00:15:06:15 - 00:15:24:14
John Simmerman
It's been wonderful to see it, you know, obviously, you know, sort of evolve. I'm sure over the years I'm sort of following it from from a distance. I was there, I think in what year it was over there and must have been there in 2017. I was in Vancouver from.
00:15:24:14 - 00:15:25:09
Roy Symons
The start then.
00:15:25:09 - 00:15:36:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, in Vancouver. I was there in 2016 for the Walk Bike Places conference, which is there, so I was there for that.
00:15:36:14 - 00:15:37:16
Roy Symons
So we were at that. Yeah.
00:15:37:19 - 00:15:55:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. I was going to say you would have been there for that, I'm sure. And of course Chris and Melissa Brundtland were still living in Vancouver at that time, so I connected with them at that time. But yeah, it's got to be really, you know, quite satisfied lying and, and I did have Dale Bracewell on, on the podcast as well.
00:15:55:12 - 00:16:27:10
John Simmerman
So I've interviewed him about just before he left the city of Vancouver. And so I had him on to talk reflect a little bit about the development of the active mobility and the protected bike lanes in in the Vancouver area. So that was really kind of cool. But you get to be pension yourself after these, you know, the all these years of like seeing this happening right around you at the same time you're like really going for, you know, just diving in the deep end and being passionate about this kind of stuff.
00:16:27:12 - 00:16:49:02
Roy Symons
Yeah, No, it's been it's been an amazing ride. The last I would say ten years. Yeah. Yeah. I should probably I'd say it again, going back to 2014 when I started the first blog, that was about the same time I got on Twitter, which I kind of did reluctantly. But one of the guys in our firm was fishing me saying, If he ever watches this.
00:16:49:05 - 00:17:11:14
Roy Symons
And that was probably the best second best in the book learning experience, just seeing all the good and bad practice I guess shared around the world like was amazing for a kid to learn and really quickly what works and what doesn't work. And it's a bit of a sad state of affairs on Twitter these days, but there there is still some value there.
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:56:12
John Simmerman
I know, and I'll pull it up here is as well, because I know what you mean. I feel the same way. It's it's been pretty amazing, you know, kind of over the years and it's a little less amazing at this point in time. But yeah, so Roy, the planner is is who you are out on Twitter slash ex in our current world and yeah you're not anywhere near is as active as you used to be I can tell I have to spend way too much time out in social media just because I'm constantly producing content and sharing content and amplifying other people's content.
00:17:56:12 - 00:17:58:05
John Simmerman
And so yes, so.
00:17:58:05 - 00:17:58:17
Roy Symons
Yeah, so.
00:17:58:17 - 00:18:00:07
John Simmerman
Twitter was part of your story. Yeah.
00:18:00:09 - 00:18:15:03
Roy Symons
Yeah. I certainly appreciate you sharing that because it is even as somebody that has written a few books that, yeah, it kills me to get to try and promote them on there and you get like five likes and there you. Exactly.
00:18:15:06 - 00:18:36:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. You have to develop tough skin. I mean, I just keep broadcasting it out there and I get reminded occasionally though, out in the real world, you know, or I'll run into somebody and and they'll be like, man, I really appreciate the your constant flow of information on, you know, Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, you know, whatever it is.
00:18:36:07 - 00:18:51:01
John Simmerman
And I'm like, well, I had no idea because you never interact. So there's a lot of people who are just sort of very, very passive and voyeuristic on that. So that's a good thing to remember, too, is broadcasting a message out and you never have no idea who actually sees it.
00:18:51:03 - 00:18:59:16
Roy Symons
Yeah, and I'm guilty of that as well. Like, I used to engage in conversations all the time and yeah, it just got painful and.
00:18:59:19 - 00:19:13:04
John Simmerman
Well and plus if you, if you engaged in every single, you know, thing that you saw as you're scrolling by, you know, you're like scrolling past and you know, if you did that, every single image, etc., you never get any work done.
00:19:13:06 - 00:19:34:07
Roy Symons
So yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, I guess so you're on that photo there. It's it's a good place to speak to the more recent things I've been doing. So yeah, the blog kind of carried on for a while and then I think it's pretty cool with time, you know, stuck in the house, watching things on YouTube and whatever.
00:19:34:09 - 00:20:00:03
Roy Symons
For whatever reason, I came across street photography videos, people like just going around taking photos. You'd see them walking around, like with a camera strapped to them or whatever. But they were taken really like artistic photos. And I'm like, I've been taking photos for a long time before that. Like, I didn't enjoy this and I have like a Flickr page that has, I think, notes about 5000 photos sorted by by location, by infrastructure type.
00:20:00:09 - 00:20:17:21
Roy Symons
And I used to be really good at keeping that up today. I'm not not as good at that anymore. Tend to leave it in the blog, but I was always taking photos, but it was usually just, you know, raising or walking along the street. there's something or somebody interested in Snap, a photo uploaded to Flickr. It is what it is kind of thing.
00:20:17:23 - 00:20:37:14
Roy Symons
And then so I started seeing those videos and I was again, just bored during COVID, I guess. And I was like, I used to have a good camera like I did like taking photos and things, but never really had a purpose. So I was like, What if I took this and applied it to, you know, like bike infrastructure or, you know, city building, whatever you want to call it.
00:20:37:16 - 00:21:09:27
Roy Symons
So yeah, I bought a new camera. I was initially just taking photos as I was, but trying to be a little bit more intentional with it. So whereas before I would, you know, just take photos of opportune moments as I was walking right along, like pulling my phone out my pocket as I'm writing before, it was like, okay, there's a nice protected intersection, so I'll stand here for 10 minutes or 20 minutes and, you know, maybe something will come by on a cargo bike or something and I'll get like the more visually interesting shot, if you like to show off the benefits of of a protected intersection.
00:21:09:29 - 00:21:35:07
Roy Symons
So I was doing that just initially, walking around looking for interesting things, waiting around, taking photos, or if there was interest in people coming by. So going back story to that photo of the coffee shop, there am, if you would just read to the last blog post in Victoria. So that's where this is a pretty cool story. I was over there for work in December and the guy had reached there not long before that that owns the shop chain.
00:21:35:10 - 00:21:54:15
Roy Symons
He's like, If you're in turmoil, let's have a chat like Super and Dutch and for storm bike infrastructure. He goes there a while as well. So yeah, I met up with him and unknown to me at the time, like that was his coffee shop. I go in there, he has a copy of each pad on the shelves for customers there, even Amazon.
00:21:54:18 - 00:22:14:28
Roy Symons
But his shop just interested me because there was like people reading by and big. There was people sitting outside enjoying their coffee. The sun was good. I guess that's one of the biggest challenges I've had for the the photography side of it. When I would watch those videos on YouTube, they're generally walking around the city, say, looking for a good light and like opportunities for good photos, which usually means good light.
00:22:14:28 - 00:22:39:10
Roy Symons
Whereas I don't have the luxury of that. I'm working 40 hours a week here, so I'm in Victoria for the weekend. I'm going to wait around for that ten or 20 minutes for the cargo bike to come by. But I'm not going to wait for a good light necessarily. Like those photos are in black and white and the recent blog post because the light was so bad and it was like foggy, that would be better in black and white, you know?
00:22:39:12 - 00:22:42:00
John Simmerman
Well, this one came out quite well, though.
00:22:42:02 - 00:22:51:27
Roy Symons
Yeah. So that was really yeah, I think back in 2020 when I first got like a good camera and yeah, the light was awesome that day.
00:22:51:29 - 00:23:07:18
John Simmerman
Well, good, good, good on you getting out there, you know, with a good camera. I have to admit that most of the still photography that I end up, you know, catching these days is I would say eight out of ten times is my iPhone.
00:23:07:20 - 00:23:09:15
Roy Symons
I'm like, yeah, I'm.
00:23:09:15 - 00:23:30:11
John Simmerman
Like literally pulling it out because I see a scene about to happen and I'm like, boom, what's capture it? And, and I'm just really blown away at the quality that, that they are able to, to, you know, capture now reminds me of like the quality a decade ago that I was able to get with my you know fancy camera.
00:23:30:13 - 00:23:33:14
Roy Symons
Yeah that's interesting. I guess I'm going to disagree with you there.
00:23:33:16 - 00:23:47:26
John Simmerman
Well, I you know, I know, you know, from a real from a real, real camera perspective, you can't compare. But just being able to it's in my pocket anyways. Being able to do it and capture it, that's that's what I'm trying to say is just that ability to do it.
00:23:47:28 - 00:24:05:24
Roy Symons
Is like the phone does, like I have whatever it is, an iPhone 14 pro or something, but it still it doesn't compare like some of the photos from the feature fab trips, and most of them are with a good camera. There were the old ones taken from Was my phone just.
00:24:05:26 - 00:24:06:11
John Simmerman
For sure.
00:24:06:14 - 00:24:20:17
Roy Symons
Because that's what was easiest at the time. And then when I got home, it was it was really frustrating, like the difference in quality. And maybe if some of these got the book, we can look through it and figure out the couple iPhone pictures that made it in there. Yeah.
00:24:20:20 - 00:24:41:16
John Simmerman
Well, we've we've been talking about it, you know, quite a bit. So, you know, The Thief satisfied the book is right here and it looks like the photo behind you is probably the same image you're going to have on screen. We're going to dive into some of the images from this as we continue our conversation. But yeah, let's let's let's continue this.
00:24:41:19 - 00:25:01:13
John Simmerman
The next the image is again of your your your blog page and the website that you are posting your new content out. And then this one is is diving into the bike lanes book. So what really I think I know the answer to this, but what was really the inspiration for you to dive in and do this book?
00:25:01:15 - 00:25:24:27
Roy Symons
Yeah. So as I say, I was taking better photos and initially I think I was just putting them on the Flickr slate and I was like, These are starting to, you know, I'm getting pretty good at this so far away from pro photographer level. But, you know, I feel like I could do something more with these and create something, I guess more lasting than a Flickr page that probably not that many people use.
00:25:24:27 - 00:25:44:22
Roy Symons
Like I use it talking to clients and things like, have you seen how we did this year Over? We do something similar, but I wanted to do something more lasting. Never. I mean, I wrote reports and plans and things all the time but never done a book. So I was kind of just trying to think what I could do with these photos.
00:25:44:22 - 00:26:08:22
Roy Symons
Like some of them were starting to tell a bit of a story and, you know, yeah, so take this one for example. We've got somebody riding by on the protected bike when somebody's going into a store, but they're both looking at each other and it's like it's trying to say, you know, what could we be thinking about? You know, is the person going into the store looking at that person biking and thinking, you know, that looks fun or easy?
00:26:08:22 - 00:26:29:06
Roy Symons
Like, maybe, maybe I could do that. So we're trying to, again, get those messages across, which I would see on Twitter all the time. Like you know, these different perspectives. You know, some people look at it, nobody's ever going to. Right. Or these bike lanes or nobody is writing these bike lanes. I can't even remember now, like all the different things I read on Twitter.
00:26:29:06 - 00:26:45:25
Roy Symons
But it's trying to say they're not just for the people riding, right? No, it's for the people that see these people riding and realize it's easy and it might inspire them to do it. So that's kind of I actually went there because of the the pick up window, which I thought was a really neat thing that a lot of restaurants should have.
00:26:45:27 - 00:26:52:08
Roy Symons
So you can come by and pick things up on your bike. But they weren't using that that day. But I happened to capture that picture.
00:26:52:10 - 00:27:10:12
John Simmerman
Which is a great picture, and I love the title of this. Two protected bike lanes aren't even for cyclists because there's a neat little double entendre to that, just like you're you're saying is that, you know, these people who are walking into the store, they're noticing the person riding by, you know, as maybe they may even know it or recognize that person.
00:27:10:12 - 00:27:49:26
John Simmerman
Maybe that person is beaming and smiling, you know, or whatever. And to your point. Yeah, might encourage them. Hey. yeah. Hey, next time we just ride our bikes here to this, you know, to the traffic. Yeah, but the other double entendre to this too, is it's, it's not even for cyclists going back to the fact that we both made our way into this world of urban cycling, you know, from, you know, being sport and recreation, you know, cyclists, you know, quote unquote, cyclists, you know, the lycra clad cyclists and sporty people, it's like, yeah, I mean, the protected bike lanes, we don't probably really even need protected bike lanes, but it's not for us
00:27:49:26 - 00:27:55:10
John Simmerman
anyways. It's, it's really for everyone, not just quote unquote cyclists.
00:27:55:13 - 00:28:20:10
Roy Symons
Yeah. So what I was well, what I was trying to do with the book is we have a lot of technical guidance that says, you know, protected bike lanes should look like this, be this with straps should be the high maybe so it was trying to again put that into pictures so that people would be like, Victoria that that's North Vancouver that that Vancouver that that's like let's you know, share that information beyond obviously people are doing it on Twitter and social media.
00:28:20:12 - 00:28:51:15
Roy Symons
But again, this is another example. Just by chance, I was waiting there. There was lots of people going by. I just liked kind of the old guy, traditional cyclists, if you like, with a high vis, and then the younger guy coming by like it's no problem on the scooter. So yeah, I think in North Vancouver at least because of mobility lanes and I think where most places are still looking for the perfect name for a bike clean though that captures everything but excludes cars.
00:28:51:18 - 00:28:57:06
Roy Symons
So yeah, again, just another opportune moment that I could kind of use to tell the story a little bit.
00:28:57:09 - 00:28:58:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:58:20 - 00:29:23:10
Roy Symons
And really this book is again, if you're in the industry, you kind of know everything pretty well. Like it's maybe not the big for you, but it is more for those that are maybe new to kind of urbanism or bike planning and design that kind of just you can read literally the table of contents and you'd be able to talk a pretty good game about, you know, protected bike lanes and and infrastructure.
00:29:23:12 - 00:29:25:21
John Simmerman
And here's another another nice one. Yeah.
00:29:25:24 - 00:29:38:19
Roy Symons
Yeah. This one I included, I couldn't not include this. So this is in the name. All we did. There are complete street standards and guidelines, but the continuous sidewalks were the, I guess the major innovation there. Yeah.
00:29:38:21 - 00:30:06:04
John Simmerman
This is beautiful. Yeah, this is great. Yeah. And you, as you said, for the listening audience, we're looking at a photo now on screen where we have a, a continuous elevation of the sidewalk and a continuous elevation of the separated bicycle path. And so very, very, you know, similar to what we would see over in the Netherlands. And so, yeah, this is a fantastic design for North America.
00:30:06:07 - 00:30:32:17
Roy Symons
Yeah. So that kind of inspiration came from like a week long trip in Amsterdam back in 2015. And that was kind of, if anything, the one thing that I wanted to do from that trip and this project I think started in late 2018, 2019, this was built probably a few years ago now. So it's like a23 kilometer long corridor with, you know, multiple continuous sidewalks there.
00:30:32:17 - 00:31:00:06
Roy Symons
But essentially the city adopted that as the standard for that kind of local street or street intersections. So anything new that gets built there will be to that standard and that kind of at the time, I guess I was still promoting that. I mean, I still do to an extent, but promoting that on social media got a huge positive response and we won a lot of awards for it, which was really pleasing to see.
00:31:00:06 - 00:31:27:27
Roy Symons
But it was kind of spurred the later trips because I was like, like this was amazingly before the election. We do. I felt like I only really scratched the surface with the Netherlands. And then that's why trying to think 2022 we did the Fitzpatrick I really doubt yeah, that was a driver to kind of dive deeper into the Dutch bike network and infrastructure and get into the nuances of a lot more than I did on that one week trip back in 2016.
00:31:27:29 - 00:31:56:13
John Simmerman
So the last slide that we have from that first book here is, is of course, you know, hey, we need to be building these lanes. We've got protected bike lanes now, but we need to be building them so that people can safely pass. And the other thing that I think of when I see this photo toos is something that Chris Bartlett with the Dutch Cycling Embassy oftentimes emphasizes is that cycling, you know, riding a bike, people riding bikes, it should be a social activity.
00:31:56:13 - 00:32:03:22
John Simmerman
You should be able to have your facilities be wide enough that people can be, you know, riding side by side.
00:32:03:25 - 00:32:28:27
Roy Symons
You should look at a promise. We can do that all the time because, you know, in this case, this again, is one of our projects and we were fortunate we could move along a path and and that really made the space available for the way protected basically. And you can see the built in basically just kind of the where it's been and we're allocated there, which is like half the width of that new lane.
00:32:28:29 - 00:32:49:16
Roy Symons
So again, it was just trying to use the photos to convey like a pretty important founding principle or design principle more than you would see in a guideline that says, you know, a bike lane should be 1.8 to 2.5 meters wide. It's like, Well, okay, what does that look like? And I think I forget, but these are maybe 2.5, so they're at the upper end.
00:32:49:18 - 00:33:16:05
Roy Symons
But these guys are cycling comfortably side by side here. And yeah, I wish we could achieve that on all our projects. It's not always possible. We definitely have some that go to the the minimums, but I think there's debates there. You know, is is a narrower protected bike lane still better than no protected bike lane? Not everybody might agree but yeah, wherever we can we should be building them right for people to pass.
00:33:16:07 - 00:33:40:16
John Simmerman
So then the next book comes along and this is when you dive into the concept of neighborhood bike ways and we'll go through these series of photos relatively quickly. I'll just kind of scroll through these and let you just sort of riff off of them because I want to spend as much time as possible on your final book, which of course we already teased out the pizza pod book.
00:33:40:18 - 00:34:08:03
Roy Symons
Yeah. So again, this was just I was collecting more pictures. We were doing more neighborhood bike, we project and the company and it was just really, again, trying to convey planning and design principles for that specific infrastructure type because really beyond Vancouver and Victoria, there weren't a lot of neighborhood bikeways. We could buy a lot of names. I guess I feel like after the speech fabric, this really needs an update to include bicycle streets and some more progressive design ideas.
00:34:08:03 - 00:34:34:25
Roy Symons
We have a couple of projects we're going to working on that may have some of those elements. I can't see too much there at the moment, but I'm hoping in the next couple of years there will be some some good photos of something that's close to Dutch Bicycle Street. So getting away from the shower pavement markings, looking more at the kind of the city markings from the Netherlands, I think continuous sidewalks like you see here just people kind of blowing through the stops kind of thing.
00:34:35:03 - 00:35:00:10
Roy Symons
Yeah. So that was book number two. And yeah, again, just spending my summers riding around, taking pictures, trying to again visualize the challenges like here, like close passing where the road isn't too wide. It has parking, getting people across busy streets, all the things that should naturally happen along a dedicated bike route. But some things don't, right? So yeah, that was two.
00:35:00:17 - 00:35:08:20
Roy Symons
And then it was kind of felt it was time to explore the Netherlands and in a lot more detail than I had previously.
00:35:08:22 - 00:35:36:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. And that's brings us up to your most recent book again, FT's pod and talk. I'll talk a little bit about I think we know what the inspiration was because you just mentioned it, but talk a little bit about doing this. I mean, this is this is a massive book. This is 400 pages and talk a little bit about, you know, how you published it and a little bit of that, and then we'll dive into the actual book itself.
00:35:36:23 - 00:36:07:03
Roy Symons
Yeah, that's probably interesting for a lot of people as well. So I didn't use a traditional book publisher. I love the complexity of trying to go that route just didn't appeal to me. I enjoyed the process of putting it together and entertaining myself, so I don't know how I came across. Blurb, but they are essentially a self-publishing company, so you can upload any PDF essentially and they'll make it into a book.
00:36:07:03 - 00:36:27:21
Roy Symons
But the advantage of blurbs and they also have a bookstore so you can sell it. So yeah, it was a bit of a shot in the dark. Like I thought when I did bike lanes and like, Yeah, I think this is pretty good in my eyes. And of course you have so much though I go back and look at it ten times every day like, Yeah, I think people would pay for this.
00:36:27:21 - 00:36:50:02
Roy Symons
Maybe so. Yeah. I mean, obviously started with bike lanes then, except bicycles. And I didn't know when I went to the Netherlands if I would do a book or for what it would be, I just knew I wanted to see more. You can kind of see the trip log there. So it was just under a month. We were there and we had no real plan.
00:36:50:06 - 00:37:10:05
Roy Symons
We were only done for a while in Amsterdam, got the train to throw and yeah, I think we had a couple these books there, but then we kind of did everything on the fly. We kind of knew roughly like we wanted to do Delft, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen and once in that wrong, but.
00:37:10:08 - 00:37:12:06
John Simmerman
I'm not much better, so. Yeah.
00:37:12:08 - 00:37:48:14
Roy Symons
Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. You're trying to get feels me trying to get the translations right. So yeah, it was just we kind of made it up as we went along, but we felt like a few of the, I guess showpiece. Yeah. Infrastructure, I guess things for want of a better word like the hope and rang the bridge over the school and it dragged but really it was just have no plan go for where we want to bike to the cities we wanted to go to and whatever we CBC like maybe it's terrible and we're riding next the trucks on busy roads, maybe it's amazing and it turns out it was amazing.
00:37:48:16 - 00:38:15:19
Roy Symons
Like, yeah, literally everywhere we went, it was safe. It was comfortable with the exception of one. But these are traffic calming, which I think I think I included on the slides here. Yeah, it was, it was pretty incredible. So that was the bike, my bike, I think my wife was working in a hotel somewhere there and I was taking pictures of my bike because I hadn't taken any yet at that point.
00:38:15:21 - 00:38:16:18
Roy Symons
But we were already.
00:38:16:21 - 00:38:17:16
John Simmerman
On.
00:38:17:19 - 00:38:38:09
Roy Symons
Day one and it broke. So I guess that's interesting. So I'd seen obviously pictures of Utrecht on Social media and things, but not really appreciating where anything was over frivolous like Rosenberg was. But you know, we come out of the station onto this street here and it's like, my God, this is insane.
00:38:38:12 - 00:38:41:01
John Simmerman
This is the real deal.
00:38:41:03 - 00:39:00:28
Roy Symons
Yeah, I've seen that actually just off the street by chance Yeah, yeah. And the Bunk hotel, which is a really nice hotel that I had to include photos that started the book. It's like a converted church. We dump stuff. There we go. First Thing on the corner is Starbucks, and we're trying to get over jetlag. So it's like, get a coffee and you're literally looking out the window, Starbucks.
00:39:00:28 - 00:39:17:27
Roy Symons
And it's that intersection where, you know, people are kind of cross at an angle and it's just like, Yeah, my God, They just keep coming like Girl and Charles T-shirt dresses. Like, it's it's pretty crazy. It really felt like we'd landed in Utopia. Yeah.
00:39:18:00 - 00:39:24:21
John Simmerman
And even in Utopia, sometimes the the pizza pod is blocked.
00:39:24:24 - 00:39:39:15
Roy Symons
It is like it's not perfect. But I think the real beauty of it is that pretty much is perfect everywhere. So when like one minor blockage appears here, you just kind of go around. I think you navigate around.
00:39:39:16 - 00:40:00:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. I'm being a little tongue in cheek here because, yeah, it's not perfect, but so much of it is so comfortable that you just kind of you maneuver your way around. And I have really rarely seen anybody even, like, lose their temper or whatever. You know, when they see something like this, they just maneuver around.
00:40:01:01 - 00:40:12:26
Roy Symons
Yeah, there was one stories in the book, I think it was in Rotterdam where a car driver turned in across a continuous sidewalk and bike path, almost took somebody.
00:40:12:28 - 00:40:13:14
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:40:13:16 - 00:40:33:00
Roy Symons
And, you know, in North America you'd expect like expletives to be exchanged. Yeah. For the guy just kind of swerved around him. The guy stopped, got out of his car and like, was showing apologies there in the street and it's. Yeah, yeah. my God. Like it's so different here. Even like this picture here, Like it's a rural seat start, right?
00:40:33:00 - 00:40:48:14
Roy Symons
If that was back home in Scotland or if it was here, cars would be doing like 80, 9000 K along here and here we fell off the road surface treatment or just how people drive, but we feel completely safe.
00:40:48:17 - 00:41:08:27
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, in most cases with the heat stroke, with this type of treatment, it's a 30 kilometers per hour streets. And literally the meaning of it is auto to gasp the auto as the guest. And so the drivers do need to be patient, stay behind in these cyclists that are ahead of them, people on bikes ahead of them.
00:41:08:29 - 00:41:31:00
John Simmerman
And this is very analogous to what we were just talking about. The second book, when you were looking at the neighborhood bike ways, it's like our North American interpretation of this got bastardized into what got with our neighborhood bikeways. And you can see a huge difference between this type of treatment versus what we ended up with, which were the sheriff's.
00:41:31:02 - 00:41:36:03
Roy Symons
Yeah. And I think, you know, just the fact that you have a rural roadway that's 30 kilometers an hour.
00:41:36:08 - 00:41:36:28
John Simmerman
Exactly.
00:41:37:06 - 00:41:41:27
Roy Symons
We would never do that here. It's like, what's going to take me forever to get from for me to be.
00:41:42:00 - 00:42:02:22
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I think there's a couple of there might be a couple of photos in here of the more typical treatment that we see on the rural roadway, which is the edge clean roads or the quote unquote advisory lane type of scenario, which is very common in the rural settings. And I've ridden on many of them, especially outside of new tract.
00:42:02:24 - 00:42:22:04
Roy Symons
My experience is varied on those. So in the city I find they worked pretty well. There was one I think it's probably 64 hour number road there and I felt like the cars stayed in the in the central. Carlene rather than passing water I guess like they had their way we had our lane and so they passed relatively closely.
00:42:22:06 - 00:42:26:20
Roy Symons
So my my perspective on the advisory lane's going to school, but they're here.
00:42:26:21 - 00:42:56:27
John Simmerman
I just felt the example wind up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and I've been on, I've been on some scary ones there in the old ones myself too, where the what we see here, which is a very volume street in a rural environment, we can see the cattle off to the right in the screen here and again for the listening only audience, we're basically looking at a rural road here where the center lane, how many, how many meters or feet do you think that that center lane is.
00:42:57:00 - 00:43:01:24
Roy Symons
Let's say by three meters was maybe one and a half on either side for the bike lane.
00:43:01:26 - 00:43:27:02
John Simmerman
And so the the the center lane is actually of your typical gray asphalt and then the two outer strips or lanes are in our typical prototypical red asphalt treatment, the same as what we just saw with the beets trot. With that red coloring. So very, very consistent in terms of coloring of you can expect that you will see somebody on a bike in in that particular area.
00:43:27:04 - 00:43:53:15
John Simmerman
What's really unique about this type of treatment out in the rural settings of course, is that that center Gray Lane is is really a bit narrow for to the vehicles, you know, to to pass each other. And there's no center line in in this type of treatment. And so it's it's a fascinating type of of structure, of lane structure.
00:43:53:17 - 00:44:06:19
John Simmerman
I think that it works best when there's low volumes of motor vehicles. So I've been on some in the Netherlands where there have been high motor vehicle volumes and I'm like, I want off of this as quickly as possible.
00:44:06:19 - 00:44:29:11
Roy Symons
Yeah, same here. The one thing I would say with this photo and this is one of the explanation photos just to pick at the quality here, but the red surface treatment, it's fine because it's not like it was our it doesn't make us feel like that was our space to be in. Whereas I felt like if you were on just a rural road with no markings, you kind of feel like you're getting in the way right.
00:44:29:13 - 00:44:44:06
Roy Symons
And I think I took that picture as well because of the speed hump, which again, there's a few like 62 year olds that have speed humps, albeit quite shallow. But again, something we would never do on our rural roads in North America.
00:44:44:08 - 00:45:11:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah, I love it. Yeah. I'm glad you made that point as well. There's several really cool treatments like this that I've ridden on multiple times making my way out to the airport to skip all not as rural as setting, but, you know, very, very similar in terms of the structure of it. And then the strategic road humps, you know, the speed humps that you know, they have in there.
00:45:11:17 - 00:45:35:26
John Simmerman
So. Well, let's let's get back to some FT spuds real here real quick. And this is, again, the FT's part with that continuous side path and sidewalk treatment. Again, North America, this is what we need to be doing when we have these, you know, minor streets intersecting with a more major street there. There should be that continuous treatment through there.
00:45:35:29 - 00:46:01:06
Roy Symons
Yeah, it's kind of makes you wonder why we did it any other way, really. Right. Okay. Well, we'll plug our an attack, which is Transport Association of Canada Continuous sidewalks and bike path emerging practice paper. So that's something I led. But we had a lot of good people working on that last year. So we got that published. And what I'm on kind of attack working groups.
00:46:01:06 - 00:46:18:11
Roy Symons
All the recommendations in the back of sheets found a lot of what you're seeing here. We have another working group exploring kind of their potential in Canada as well and looking at it in more detail than I had a chance to do in the book, like looking at the legal challenges of some, you know, some aspects of it.
00:46:18:11 - 00:46:51:16
John Simmerman
And I'm just going to go on record and say this. I think, you know, having also had Matt Pender on on the podcast a couple of different times, I'm going to just say that I think you all, you know, north of the border here, you guys are leading the way in terms of from a North American perspective of trying to get these things sort of codified into some manuals and really pushing the envelope and I think down here in the States, we need to get get cracking and get moving on some of these things.
00:46:51:18 - 00:47:07:03
Roy Symons
Yeah. So like I worked with Matt on the continues to work on and he's on the new one as well, the active Transportation Committee, of which Matt is the chairs, is really trying to do some good things with the guidance and you know, progress to include a lot of these gentlemen.
00:47:07:06 - 00:47:48:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. And speaking of a Dutch element here, this is a wonderful unidirectional bike lane intersecting with a nice low speed roundabout. And this is this is something that I just wish we saw more of in North America, because you've got, you know, a nice, prioritized crossing for people walking and biking across the intersection, because that's one of the biggest challenges we have with the way our North American roundabouts have been, you know, created is they prioritize the through movement of motor vehicles over the safety of people walking and biking.
00:47:48:13 - 00:47:50:27
John Simmerman
That's not what we're looking at here.
00:47:51:00 - 00:48:07:06
Roy Symons
No. And of course, Netherlands have both types, I guess like there was definitely one intersection there. I didn't take photos because I was literally trying to run across and not get killed by cars. But for the most part, like single lane roundabouts are provide priority to people walking and cycling.
00:48:07:06 - 00:48:35:02
John Simmerman
Yeah, when they have that that appropriate space for the design. You can see in this particular photo here that we've got a bus navigating through the roundabout right behind this modestly sized Mercedes-Benz. But there's plenty of space if you notice just in front of the Mercedes Benz, there's actually plenty of real estate there for that person to actually queue up wait and not actually hinder that bus getting round the roundabout.
00:48:35:02 - 00:48:54:22
John Simmerman
Yeah. So I mean this, this is part of the I think the caveat of saying that, you know, this is not only it's it's not just motor vehicle infrastructure, this is people oriented infrastructure. It's human scale, people oriented infrastructure.
00:48:54:25 - 00:49:06:21
Roy Symons
You know, exactly everything that it's coming back together, that model hierarchy. Right. And prioritizing the most vulnerable, the most efficient, the cleanest nonpolluting.
00:49:06:23 - 00:49:12:27
John Simmerman
Yeah, Well, it's safer for everybody is safer for the drivers. It's safer for everyone, period. Yeah.
00:49:12:29 - 00:49:14:12
Roy Symons
Yeah, exactly.
00:49:14:14 - 00:49:20:00
John Simmerman
Nice. You know, standard sort of Dutch protected intersection here.
00:49:20:03 - 00:49:39:12
Roy Symons
Yeah. The interesting thing there was, for example, like the Amber, right turn narrow. So, you know, in North America we have where we have vehicles turning across bikes in the same signal phase. We basically have a yield to bike sign that like a static scene that is in advance. And most drivers probably don't pay attention to it. Right.
00:49:39:12 - 00:49:54:07
Roy Symons
So there's a couple of treatments in in the Netherlands as this kind of flashing a little sign. But there's also this kind of amber saying that just says, hey, you know, if you're going through, you have a green. But if you're turning right, you know, use some caution.
00:49:54:09 - 00:50:11:17
John Simmerman
You know, use caution and and also to to looking at the geometries of this to the motor vehicle by the time they get up to turning into that area, it's it's much different. This is not a high speed right turn right hook type of situation.
00:50:11:20 - 00:50:15:13
Roy Symons
Yeah. And he's going to be kind of perpendicular to the crossing, but. Exactly.
00:50:15:15 - 00:50:20:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes that's what I was trying to say. I just didn't get the word out. Perfect. But yes, thank you.
00:50:20:07 - 00:50:36:29
Roy Symons
Something that's a challenge. Yeah. There's the other kind of flashing light, obviously. So it's much, much more eye catching than, again, our static scenes. And I don't think there's any reason we can do that in North America. It's just the same.
00:50:37:01 - 00:50:40:13
John Simmerman
Now, here's some fun stuff.
00:50:40:15 - 00:50:59:25
Roy Symons
Another fun picture because my good camera can actually do this kind of image stabilization. So the phone did a pretty good job here. But yeah, the starry night path and just on the outskirts of Angel in there, it's just a great example of the Dutch doing something creative for their bypass. Right now it's a short little bypass.
00:50:59:28 - 00:51:21:19
Roy Symons
It's a short little connection. But like we went out of our way to see that and obviously I forget what they but it would be relatively late. And we had tons of people with different accents all around us, kind of checking out the starry Night path and just like it doesn't always have to be a boring bypass. It can be something fun, something that actually draws people to the area.
00:51:21:21 - 00:51:35:29
Roy Symons
I'd be really curious to see, like the numbers even have such a thing. Like how many people that broke down to heaven, How many people that often ring broke? Or maybe it's just those kind of transportation geeks go to see these things, I'm not sure, but.
00:51:36:01 - 00:51:49:08
John Simmerman
We certainly make the pilgrimage there. I remember in my first pilgrimage to Eindhoven in 2015 was to see the 11 rings. So yeah, yeah, for sure. So you're back in Scotland?
00:51:49:10 - 00:52:13:24
Roy Symons
That's what I thought. for sure. This is probably the first time we got really into the going to the rural National Park area. Yeah, this one's up near near Arnhem. I think there's a really excellent launch there. We stayed in for one night and we went back on the subsequent trip. Yeah. Even, you know, through wide open World and you have bike paths criss crossing it all paved over your very narrow life.
00:52:13:24 - 00:52:23:13
Roy Symons
It's a a fast people coming in the other direction. But just again, another amazing example that you enjoy anywhere you want to go. You can do it by bicycle. Yeah.
00:52:23:15 - 00:52:48:18
John Simmerman
Literally anywhere you want to go, you can go by bicycle. I try to emphasize that on the channel a lot is that yeah, if you want to get from from village to village, you have options. You can literally, if you happen to own a car or you rent a car, you can drive for sure. You are more or more than likely able to jump on the train and get from village to village as well.
00:52:48:20 - 00:52:59:29
John Simmerman
But honestly, you probably have a safe cycle path athletes pod just like this that you could use to get from village to village, city to city.
00:53:00:01 - 00:53:15:09
Roy Symons
Yeah, it's funny. Like the first, I don't know how many days or whatever, but, you know, we were checking our phones. Google Maps, they turn on the cycle and where is there a good bypass here? And by the end of the trip, it's really just all of the signs. Like, you know, it's going to be good. You don't have to.
00:53:15:11 - 00:53:21:05
Roy Symons
It's not like if I'm going somewhere here or maybe I'm in Ottawa for the first time, they've got to find a safe route somewhere.
00:53:21:11 - 00:53:22:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:53:22:26 - 00:53:24:09
Roy Symons
You just know it's going to be safe.
00:53:24:11 - 00:53:43:21
John Simmerman
And you have wayfinding signs at many of the critical junctions so that you know that if I continue down this path that we're looking at right here, which to the right of it, you've got a little waterway, a canal there. You're going to get to this this next, you know, city. You know, you're able to, you know, navigate very, very intuitively.
00:53:43:26 - 00:53:50:19
John Simmerman
You don't necessarily have to have a full battery on that phone or necessarily even a paper map.
00:53:50:21 - 00:53:57:09
Roy Symons
No. Yeah. And we used an old number quite a bit towards the end as well. Once we get to.
00:53:57:11 - 00:54:10:11
John Simmerman
So to wrap this up, I mean, we're getting close to the hour mark, and I'll just keep as you respond to this question, I'll just keep scrolling through some photos here. You went through this process in 2020 to correct.
00:54:10:13 - 00:54:17:11
Roy Symons
The trip was 2022. And then I kind of worked on the book from basically October 22 to April 23.
00:54:17:13 - 00:54:41:05
John Simmerman
Okay. So having having done a similar type of situation, I spent almost a month in the Netherlands in 2022 myself and, you know, it took me literally all of 2023 to process all the video and push out all the YouTube videos from that. But as you were pulling together this book and now the book is published and it's out there for for people to purchase.
00:54:41:05 - 00:55:08:21
John Simmerman
And yes, folks, we will include the links below so that you can you know, access the book and pick one up for yourself. It is an absolutely beautiful book. But talk a little bit about that process of going through all of these processing those memories. And then now that it's out in the world, some of the things that are, you know, reflections that are coming up and and things that you're sort of learning from this whole process.
00:55:08:27 - 00:55:28:20
Roy Symons
Yeah, it's so I guess all I had with me was the camera and I had an iPad mini. So at the end of each night, you know, when my wife was getting ready for bed, I would take that time to just write down a few bullet point notes of the things that I recall from the day. And then that was basically what I was left with when I got home.
00:55:28:23 - 00:55:46:16
Roy Symons
And it was really just trying to formulate that into a bit of a narrative. The book starts off really with Here's what we did, each being like on one page, and then it kind of goes into the photos that you've got there with those little captions. It has locations there. If you want to look at it on like Google Maps or something.
00:55:46:24 - 00:56:06:23
Roy Symons
Yeah, the editing. I love taking the photos. The writing in the editing is a lot of fun and a little feel a little more like a chore. Certainly I would. I felt like I was I would read through it, I would make edits, I would read through again. I'd probably make the reverse edits and just you feel like you're going back and forwards.
00:56:06:26 - 00:56:28:11
Roy Symons
And I probably do that like seven times. And then I started using I forget what it's called, but the function that reads it out to you and then to hear it getting read back to you kind of made it easier to appreciate what you're actually written. Because I'd been in it for like five or six months. So you're going to get lost in the words, I'm just going to scan over them.
00:56:28:14 - 00:56:51:22
Roy Symons
So that was definitely a process and I don't know how many test prints I did Blurb do all different types of books also cover hardcover trade paper, which is going to cost normal book paper to photo paper. I have like one version of the book and total paper, but it would cost you like 200 bucks to purchase it.
00:56:51:24 - 00:57:08:06
Roy Symons
So it's all on trade paper. It's relatively well priced, I would say, given everything I did myself, all the design, editing, writing, photographing for it. But even this I 4560 bucks or something Canadian. So that's not much in the US.
00:57:08:08 - 00:57:47:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. And to your point, I mean yeah, it the camera may or may not be able to pick up on this is that. Yeah it's it's definitely it's not the typical photo paper the glossy is that you see in like a book that Yeah. It would probably go for like $200 at 400 pages like this, but it's still but you still get a you can really appreciate how beautiful this is if any of these images if if somebody wanted to get like maybe see this image that we have, you know, on screen here, which is a rainy day, do you remember where this particular rainy day photo was at?
00:57:47:26 - 00:57:52:26
Roy Symons
Yeah, that one's for it. And we're going to track the same super busy intersection.
00:57:52:28 - 00:58:08:05
John Simmerman
So if somebody wanted, you know, to purchase, you know, one of these high resolution versions of of of these photos, is that something they can do from your website or from your Flickr or or just reach out to you or.
00:58:08:07 - 00:58:32:27
Roy Symons
No, not from the pictures. When I first started doing the books, I debated long and hard. I'd rather just make everything available or make it only available via the book. And at some point I felt like I had to value my time and effort. Like I spent a lot of money on that trip. I spent a lot of my own personal time, like, Yeah, yeah, editing the images, editing the thing all together.
00:58:32:27 - 00:58:54:01
Roy Symons
So I kind of felt like these photos live in the book. And if you want to see those photos, you get them from the book. I share a few, like on social media there. There's a blog post I'll be putting up soon. So yeah, so maybe we're saying so all the recommendations at the back or the findings at the back of the book and no pursuing through time to try and find a way to get that guidance.
00:58:54:03 - 00:59:22:27
Roy Symons
And so as part of that, obviously all those ideas will be public, essentially, which is fine. It's for the greater good. And you know, whether it's me or somebody else implementing those things, you know, we need to get one thing implemented. So the other people can learn from it. And. Right. You know, everybody can start to do it just like, you know, in looking at that, we continue sidewalks now with tons of cities exploring Edmonds and have like 30 and planning and design.
00:59:22:29 - 00:59:48:12
Roy Symons
So keep an eye out there. So yeah really if you want to see the photos, look at the books. I do share some things on social media, on Instagram, Twitter or whatever. Yeah, I guess the subsequent trip to Pittsburgh, I that's when I started blogging again after kind of closing the old website. So I explored a lot of the things in detail in more detail on that second trip.
00:59:48:14 - 00:59:57:01
Roy Symons
And those are all captured in the blog and those pictures are essentially part of the blog. Somebody could just in theory, read clicks, emails kind of thing.
00:59:57:01 - 01:00:19:03
John Simmerman
If the folks if you do that, make sure you credit right, don't don't be a jerk about it. And in fact even reach out and ask people if even with my my content if you if you need to use it, my videos all say that you know it can be you can be used, it can be shared. Just make sure that there's attribution, proper attribution of it, and reach out.
01:00:19:03 - 01:00:44:26
John Simmerman
Let me know. I'd love to to know and I'm sure Roy would love to to know too, if if you're interested in doing that kind of stuff. And again back to your your, your, your blogging page here we've got the feeds pod book is talked about here and in. Yes, you've got you know the link here for view feeds pod book any late breaking news or trips or anything for 2024.
01:00:44:26 - 01:00:48:24
John Simmerman
Are you going to be heading back to the Netherlands or somewhere else?
01:00:48:27 - 01:00:59:06
Roy Symons
I'm not sure if you got a heads up on that, but yeah, I literally booked flights last week. Okay, we'll be going there for another four weeks in April.
01:00:59:08 - 01:01:01:07
John Simmerman
okay. Fantastic. Fantastic.
01:01:01:08 - 01:01:14:10
Roy Symons
I have no idea of what the intent is. I just. My wife and I love it there. Yeah. So we'll go travel right around. I'm sure I'll take pictures. That might be blog posts. It might be something else. Yeah.
01:01:14:13 - 01:01:34:20
John Simmerman
I really. Fantastic. I don't know what else. Like, I will be there in the summer because I'm going to be attending the Velocity conference in Ghent. And so my intention is to spend, you know, several weeks in the Netherlands as well as trying to make it around to some other parts of Europe that I have not yet been able to make it to.
01:01:34:20 - 01:01:57:27
John Simmerman
So shout out to and heads up to folks there in Oslo, going to try to make it to Norway and to try to make it to Finland and to try to make it to also to Sweden as well. So, yeah, I'm looking looking to get out there and checking things out. Any final thoughts that we haven't yet discussed that you want to leave the audience with?
01:01:57:29 - 01:02:02:09
Roy Symons
Now go take a look at the website, subscribe to the newsletter.
01:02:02:12 - 01:02:21:09
John Simmerman
I've got it right here for folks for you. So it's rolling in the city at CAA and we will have all those appropriate links in the show notes as well as in the video description below. Roy It has been an absolute joy and pleasure having you on the Active Towns podcast. Thank you so much.
01:02:21:11 - 01:02:23:24
Roy Symons
No problem. It's been a pleasure for me.
01:02:23:26 - 01:02:40:02
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Roy Simon's and please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on the subscription button down below and ring that notifications bell.
01:02:40:05 - 01:02:57:29
John Simmerman
And if you are enjoying this content, please consider supporting my efforts. It's easy to do. Just head on over to active towns dawg, and click on the support button. And by the way, Patreon supporters do get access to all this video content early and free, so there is that little extra bonus. Again, thank you all so much for tuning it.
01:02:57:29 - 01:03:23:03
John Simmerman
It means so much to me. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity. Health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active towns. Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super. Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.
01:03:23:05 - 01:03:24:11
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.