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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 - 00:00:24:12
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So we need to like look at narrowing lanes as a building. Good infrastructure, narrowing lanes, trying new pavement treatments. Again, telling an intriguing story that gets people to stop and think and wonder and containing the, you know, people and places and context. Again, we don't want to tell a predictable story like the one above with the existing conditions.
00:00:24:12 - 00:00:34:19
Prof Bruce Appleyard
We want to tell one that has as much more contextual, has people in it, more activity and narrow lanes and bike facilities and the like.
00:00:34:20 - 00:00:55:14
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John and that is Professor Bruce Appleyard from San Diego State University. Back on the channel for a second go around. We are going to dive into his book, Livable Streets 2.0 and talk a little bit about some of the work that he is currently undergoing in terms of creating streets for people.
00:00:55:14 - 00:01:14:07
John Simmerman
But before we do that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Hey, super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here in YouTube or navigate over to Active Towns. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there are several different options, including becoming a Patreon support.
00:01:14:08 - 00:01:22:09
John Simmerman
Okay, let's get right to it with Professor Bruce Appleyard.
00:01:22:12 - 00:01:26:02
John Simmerman
Professor Bruce Appleyard, welcome back to the Active Towns Channel.
00:01:26:04 - 00:01:28:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Well, John, thank you so much. It's great to be here.
00:01:29:01 - 00:01:46:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. We were just reminiscing earlier via email back and forth as you were finishing up a World Cup game. When was the last time you were on? It was June 2021, way back in the pandemic era. It's been a minute.
00:01:46:09 - 00:01:51:16
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It's been a minute. There's a lot has gone on. So it's great to talk to you all about it.
00:01:51:18 - 00:02:07:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, obviously we go way back, but I'm sure there's some people who are tuning in from around the globe who have no clue who you are. So I'll just give this a opportunity for you to just introduce yourself real quick. Who is Bruce Appleyard?
00:02:07:12 - 00:02:31:02
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Great. Thanks for having me, everyone, and thanks for listening in. I'm a professor of city planning and urban design at the at San Diego State University, and I'm also director of our National Center for Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. And I try to work with to help people and agencies make more informed decisions about how we live, work and thrive.
00:02:31:03 - 00:02:46:26
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I work often from the human to the regional ecosystem scale. I've produced numerous publications and professional reports, and I work on coordinating housing, land use, transportation, and urban design to help places become more sustainable, livable and equitable.
00:02:46:28 - 00:02:47:20
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:02:47:27 - 00:02:50:09
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So it's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
00:02:50:13 - 00:03:09:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I love that introduction to because it it really drives home the fact this this all interrelated stuff. It's not just about the street design. It's it's everything. It's it's the built environment. It's the land use. It's it's everything all together in one.
00:03:09:10 - 00:03:23:09
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Absolutely. No, we can't we can't think about them independent of each other. Walkable environments won't work without good activities and land use and placemaking and urban design. And yeah, we need to think about it now.
00:03:23:12 - 00:03:40:22
John Simmerman
I don't know if we had this discussion during the first episode or not, but one of the primary photos that I had is with you, with your dog, and you're just laying in the middle of the street. What are you doing, man? You know, streets are for people and pooches lounging around. What are you doing?
00:03:40:25 - 00:04:15:12
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Well, we were on our way up to Portland during the pandemic, and there was road construction. We were stopped, and I. And I said, you know, look, this is a perfect opportunity for us to take over a place that usually is just available to cars. And we need to recognize in our environment how how much space we give over to vehicles, either in motion or parking, and how we really need to recolonize and claim these spaces for ourselves, for people and vulnerable, vulnerable road users and people just wanting to spend time in public spaces with other people.
00:04:15:14 - 00:04:40:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And and in fact, you know, when we look at the collage of photos that we had with that first episode two, we see this wide mixture of what it means to have streets are for people, streets for people, and the livability in all of this and your photos. And I've seen more than one photo of you lying down in the middle of the street.
00:04:40:14 - 00:05:15:13
John Simmerman
It's something that I've seen. Chuck Marone, my good friend from Strong Towns, do multiple times. The late, great Ben Hamilton. Bailey used to do it. And again, sending that message that, hey, streets really are for people. And we've allowed ourselves over the last 8 to 100 years to really seed them over to the automobile to the point where they have taken over and or undermining what we see here, which is the livability factor of our communities.
00:05:15:15 - 00:05:41:02
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah, we've really created a matrix of sorts. If you if you preciate the movie that creates this framework of automobile and auto dependance that we are shaped by, and lying in the middle of the street is one way to sort of break the matrix and to to make a statement that we can we can rethink and reimagine our streets to be very different than what they are today.
00:05:41:03 - 00:06:20:08
John Simmerman
I love this photo where there's a series of three photos here. This one here is of a typical shared street environment or home street environment. Or if you're in the Netherlands, that one photo there is most likely in Paris. It looks very French in terms of how its orientation is. Talk a little bit about this process of trying to reclaim our streets, you know, from this environment right here where we've just got massive overbuilt strobes and we're trying to say, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:06:20:10 - 00:06:36:15
John Simmerman
This is literally killing us. It's killing our environment. It's killing our communities. It's killing our people. We need to transform this. This is hard. This is hard to go from strode to livable street.
00:06:36:18 - 00:07:12:09
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Absolutely. And one of the you're asking me about which projects are really excited about right now, and I'm working with Dan Bourdon and the Blue Zones organization to to do case studies on their street transformation, or what we're calling livable streets projects. And we're capturing the safety benefits, the economic development benefits, the the livability benefits. But we're also working to capture what it takes to get projects like this built in, in spite of a lot of opposition.
00:07:12:14 - 00:07:38:20
Prof Bruce Appleyard
We're talking about The Matrix. A lot of people don't like to see the matrix change. Yeah. And so all of these projects have people who stand in opposition and just don't like to see change occur. And so we're mapping out the process to support champions, to address concerns, to ever come, the opposition to actually make these transformations happen.
00:07:38:20 - 00:07:43:03
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So that's a big project we're working on right now. And again working with Dan.
00:07:43:09 - 00:08:09:28
John Simmerman
And again Dan Burden, he goes way back. I mean, he was a lot of people know him as the walking audit guru. But but he cut his teeth. He and his his wife cut their teeth on bike touring. And they were part of the original founders of the Bike Centennial, which is is celebrating its 50th year, and the adventure cycling organization.
00:08:09:28 - 00:08:47:02
John Simmerman
And Dan and I had a wonderful opportunity to to film an on bike interview in Mueller, the Mueller district, the Miller District community in Austin, Texas. Here's blue zones. You just name checked blue zones. Of course, that is the name comes from the book of the same name that Dan Buettner wrote. And really diving in and exploring those communities that have an inordinate number of people who are living into their 100 seconds and beyond and, and really trying to understand that.
00:08:47:02 - 00:09:25:00
John Simmerman
So there's two sides to the blue zones organization. One side of it is the the consulting side of the organization. And there's also the landing page there for the books and all that good stuff. And really, one of the things that Dan Burden and I talked about on our bike ride was just this concept of, hey, if we kind of make our physical environment, our communities, just a little more safer and inviting and welcoming, humans have a natural tendency to say, oh, well, this trip is a little bit shorter.
00:09:25:00 - 00:09:47:28
John Simmerman
This trip is going to be delightful because there's a beautiful tree canopy and there's a safe environment for me. We will actually take advantage of that. So it's it's not like we have to, you know, completely reinvent the wheel in terms of when it comes to our communities. But we do need to make them less hostile and then follow up the infrastructure change.
00:09:47:28 - 00:10:14:24
John Simmerman
I like to call it activity assets that are hardware based. That's the built in in the built environment, the infrastructure, but then follow that up with encouragement and engagement activities that really get people going. That's the software. And so we talked a lot about that, that combination. This is exciting that you're doing this. And this is literally on the heels of what we talked about on our first conversation, which was.
00:10:14:26 - 00:10:16:04
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Oh, thank you so much.
00:10:16:09 - 00:10:29:07
John Simmerman
Livable, Livable Streets 2.0. This is the follow up to your father's work, which refresh my memory. This was in 1982 that the first edition or something like.
00:10:29:08 - 00:10:49:21
Prof Bruce Appleyard
That came out. It was 81. And there's a little bit of background story, and I'm not sure if I told the story the first time, but when I was four years old, I was hit by a speeding driver and nearly killed and and put it into a coma. And that was the same year my father started the research that went into livable streets, one where he.
00:10:49:22 - 00:11:11:13
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah, great, great images there where he basically if you go, yeah, there's the book. And I took the story is that my father started his research, the seminal research that became Louisville Streets one, and he was sadly killed by a speeding. So the book came out in 1981, and he was sadly killed in 1982 by a speeding, drunk driver.
00:11:11:14 - 00:11:25:16
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I took him to the San Francisco airport and never saw him again. And and then one of his students took me under his wing and apprentice me in all the the skills of looking at traffic and understanding traffic and traffic calming.
00:11:25:20 - 00:11:26:27
John Simmerman
Which student was that?
00:11:26:28 - 00:11:30:19
Prof Bruce Appleyard
His name was Nick Bevilacqua and he was a wonderful person.
00:11:30:21 - 00:11:31:06
John Simmerman
Fabulous.
00:11:31:06 - 00:11:44:24
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And and then I found out, you know, I kind of the whole idea of what we were talking about resonated with me in terms of the book. So I went back and really deeply read it, and I found that there were a lot of instances where my father talked about a parent's concerns for their children's safety.
00:11:44:27 - 00:11:45:25
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:11:45:27 - 00:11:48:03
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I and it's.
00:11:48:06 - 00:12:02:04
John Simmerman
Which goes in a whole different direction with, you know, conversations I've had with Tim Gill and with Lenore Skinner's. And, you know, how increasingly children independence is being killed off. Yeah.
00:12:02:06 - 00:12:30:02
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yes. Yeah. So I was inspired to Nick sadly died of cancer a few years after we worked together to help his neighbor it out. And I then committed myself to working in this profession and worked on updating the book, taking it from 300 to 600 pages, bringing much more information about active transportation planning and building, and how do we actually redesign and rebuild streets and reimagine them for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as street dwellers?
00:12:30:02 - 00:13:01:07
Prof Bruce Appleyard
My father talked about. And on the on the cover, you can see one of his classic graphics that I worked with Clarence and the and street films to redo the graphic. They did it very nicely. Betty Drake was the original black and black and white drawing illustrator, fantastic illustrator Betty Drake. And what it shows is that on the top you have light traffic streets, and you can see how light traffic in the bottom is a heavy traffic street.
00:13:01:07 - 00:13:17:21
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And it's very interesting that my father used light and heavy rather than low and high. It gave it gravity, weight, and on the light traffic street you can see how the community is knit together. By the street we're on the top. Whereas on the heavily trafficked street it's ripped apart.
00:13:17:26 - 00:13:32:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. And to be to be clear, for, for for both the listening only audience in the visual audience here, the, the interactions are the colored lines. So talk a little bit more about define that. What is an interaction.
00:13:32:09 - 00:13:52:19
Prof Bruce Appleyard
People just knowing their neighbors, their friends and acquaintances. So people on the light traffic street had three times as many friends and twice as many acquaintances than those on the heavily traffic street. So it's really this drew this connection between how our streets and how traffic and auto auto domination really can destroy the the social fabric of our community.
00:13:52:20 - 00:13:54:25
John Simmerman
Literally the social fabric. Yeah, yeah.
00:13:54:26 - 00:14:14:10
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And it was sort of it, it, it revealed to people and Dan Burton, as his heart tells me how much it meant to him and his colleagues to get started, that it really revealed to people the evidence that of what people felt was happening in the street environment. So it was very clear on that. And and it's.
00:14:14:10 - 00:14:38:08
John Simmerman
Great about this image, you know, Bruce, is that, you know, both from your father's original work and then your follow up work and, and then getting this, this 2.0 out is it continues to live on. You name checked Clarence and Junior with Street Films. He's got a brand new documentary that was just released on 34th Avenue. It is actually a profile.
00:14:38:08 - 00:15:06:10
John Simmerman
This, this this graphic in your work, in Donald's work, your father's work is is profiled in that documentary. It just keeps coming up over and over and over again. And the reason why is this is so incredibly significant. We have allowed the automobile to literally tear apart our communities and our neighborhoods and our social interactions, our friendships, and we're trying to, again stitch it back together.
00:15:06:12 - 00:15:25:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Right. Good way of putting it. And I think this is, I would say this, this is one of the most enduring graphics of research in in the planning profession. It's it's survived 50 years and it speaks for itself. And I appreciate all the things you said and Clarence and Junior and super helpful in helping promote this work as well.
00:15:25:28 - 00:16:10:21
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And one of the things I do is I write about in the history of street reimagination and livability projects. I talk about Dan Burton and really appreciate him for being a real pioneer and helping in a Johnny Appleseed of sorts, to help spread the idea about walkability. And because he's always been super generous with his slides, with his information, he's helped train a group of people who can do the same pedestrian bicycle audits that he's really pioneered, and with really a very savvy direction on how to work with people who have influence professionals, elected officials, to help get people to really adopt and think about how we can reimagine and redesign our streets.
00:16:10:21 - 00:16:30:10
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And so deep appreciation for him in all his work and his, you know, he's working well. He and I both had knee replacement surgery on about the same day. And he's really but he's he's 80. So yeah. Yeah I mean kudos to him for for doing that. He'll have the next knee done pretty soon as well. So.
00:16:30:12 - 00:16:35:01
John Simmerman
Well you can appreciate this. Which knee was it that you had done.
00:16:35:04 - 00:16:35:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
My right.
00:16:36:00 - 00:17:00:13
John Simmerman
You're right. Yeah. My right gave out on me a few weeks ago while running the Boulder Boulder 10-K in Boulder, Colorado. It was a mile and a half in and stepped awkwardly and then just something went, oh, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what did I just do? So I see the orthopedic surgeon next week on Thursday. We're recording this on July 1st.
00:17:00:14 - 00:17:03:03
John Simmerman
Your birthday is tomorrow. Happy birthday.
00:17:03:04 - 00:17:03:16
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Thank you.
00:17:03:18 - 00:17:23:25
John Simmerman
Thank you. Yeah. You're going to. You're going to be joining me. I'm already 61. I celebrated my birthday in New Zealand while filming and documenting some of the work that they're doing over there. Yeah. That's fascinating. So. So Dan had his done as well. I'm going to have to reach out to him and we need to get him back on the pod.
00:17:23:26 - 00:17:55:03
John Simmerman
I mean, I've never interviewed him in this format, but we've done it on bike, and you and I need to get out on bike and do something in person. Now, we just saw each other in person in Honolulu in January. Talk a little bit about that experience of, you know, not just Honolulu, but but being invited to speak all over the world about the work that you're doing and about the book and having that opportunity to serve on panel discussions and give keynotes, etc..
00:17:55:06 - 00:18:25:08
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It's really it's really a great honor for me to be able to be invited to speak. And I, you know, for most of my career, I've never really talked about the story of my being hit by a car and my father's connection, like dad, sort of. For whatever reason, I didn't it didn't feel. It didn't feel right. But but now, as I get to a certain point in my life and work on the book and realize that really come face to face with the internal motivations and the classic story, which is also very bittersweet.
00:18:25:09 - 00:18:53:24
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It's great. I think it's it's it's both there's a both a great sense of appreciation when people appreciate my father's work. And then there's it's also cut with with sadness about the loss because he was a wonderful, warm and generous person. So telling these stories and helping keep his ideas alive and carrying them forth and evolving them as much as I can, and work with people like yourself and Dan Burden.
00:18:53:25 - 00:18:56:14
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It's very enriching and I really appreciate it.
00:18:56:15 - 00:19:41:16
John Simmerman
Well, let me let me jump in and add this as well. I think telling the story, the origin story of why you do what you do is important because, yeah, I mean, this can be dense and heavy stuff sometimes, but it becomes a much more compelling read and a much more compelling story when people can relate to it and can say, oh, wow, I mean, this is what drives Bruce, this is what he's, you know, etc. it's to me, it's the old story that, yeah, you know, data is important, but data doesn't move the needle when it comes to to cultural change and really changing things.
00:19:41:16 - 00:19:48:01
John Simmerman
What does move the needle are the stories. And absolutely those narratives. Yeah, absolutely.
00:19:48:01 - 00:20:05:01
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And moving. And I work a lot in collision injury data and telling and telling the story is really important. I work also with family for Safe Streets. Who's who has been doing a great job in promoting super speeder laws throughout.
00:20:05:03 - 00:20:10:26
John Simmerman
And they've been a guest here on the channel. So folks, be sure to go check out that episode too.
00:20:10:28 - 00:20:31:12
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I think they're promoting over 20 super speed laws and past nine and probably ten soon, because I think Hawaii is about to pass theirs as well. Yeah, so and they're really dedicated to telling the story and I've really come they've really helped me as well sort of deal with the grief and loss that I have about my father.
00:20:31:15 - 00:21:10:14
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah. And I'm both uniquely sort of a victim and a survivor who's also been understands the the trauma of being hit by a car. I should probably mention, when I was hit by a car, the the memory of the collision is erased from my conscious memory. But every so often as a child, when I was growing up, I was visited by the most horrific nightmare of a wall of metal and glass rolling over me and tossing with indifference and the trauma basically through, you know, we we have some mechanism that erases the trauma from our memory.
00:21:10:15 - 00:21:15:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
But every so often it could actually visit you. And it was it was the most horrifying dream I'd have growing up.
00:21:15:24 - 00:21:40:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Well, as you know, I've made the move back to Hawaii. So we made the move in November from Austin, Texas. We had been there for 11 years, and so we moved back home here to Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. And it was so wonderful to see you in Honolulu for the Oahu MPO gathering. That came place, which was just amazing.
00:21:40:24 - 00:22:05:01
John Simmerman
And we brought in, you know, Todd Litman, we had yourself. We had. Oh, gosh, I'm blanking on his name. The other guru, Andy Schmidt, and the other guru of walkability along with Dan Burden. What was his name? Mark. Mark Fenton. Thank you. Sorry, Mark. So it was just like this. I was like, hey, I know all of you guys.
00:22:05:01 - 00:22:08:15
John Simmerman
This is great. Welcome to my state once again. But what.
00:22:08:15 - 00:22:09:02
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Was really.
00:22:09:02 - 00:22:38:18
John Simmerman
Cool, I want you to describe a little bit about what it was like to, you know, make that visit and I'll share a little bit about my story. When I moved from Boulder, Colorado to Honolulu back in 2004, 2005, something like that 20 years ago. But talk a little bit about your impressions, and then I'll pull up a photo and you and I can talk a little bit about what you saw on the streets of Honolulu.
00:22:38:20 - 00:23:14:06
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Well, certainly. First of all, I want to say Margheriti and and and his staff are fantastic who run the MPO and also support from, from the health department as well and helping fund it. So fantastic. My impression of Hawaii was it was very auto dependent that every, every bit of space for for a city that is fairly flat and, you know, could be very walkable and bike really has given itself over to the car quite a bit.
00:23:14:06 - 00:23:55:07
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So there's a practice there, I think the tourist economy and so forth. And yes, I love this picture that I had, I took I was out there actually with Tod and Angie Schmidt and having lunch, and there was this woman who is doing the hula in a painted, painted bulb out of sorts, narrowing the street. And then I caught a picture, actually, of a driver who came by, and they both them both talking and chatting, which is again, sort of a she's she's doing a wonderful job of socializing the street environment to, to, to for us to appreciate it to be as more of a, a, a communal social space for joy and happiness.
00:23:55:07 - 00:23:57:09
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And it was it was a great picture.
00:23:57:13 - 00:24:30:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'll, I'll share my story. You know, when I made that move from Boulder, Colorado to, to Honolulu, you know, again, 25 years ago or 26 years ago, it 20 years ago, it it was a shock for me. I was just blown away by how to your point, how much was ceded over of our public space to the prioritization of speed and flow?
00:24:30:10 - 00:25:09:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. And it doesn't surprise me that this kupuna takes the opportunity, you know, to to do a little bit of hula out in the street in this little gawd out area, as you said, you know, just kind of an area that's kind of necked down there to, to reclaim the street for people. It's it's amazing to me that Honolulu was able to do this in such a short amount of time, because it really is all the post-World War Two development that took place.
00:25:09:08 - 00:25:35:00
John Simmerman
I mean, you and I were were attending this event in a very historic building in a very historic part of Honolulu, which existed prior to the automobile completely taking over. But yeah, we ceded so much of our streetscape over. And I, I would would have loved to like, chatted with her and like heard in her own words. Why here?
00:25:35:02 - 00:25:51:12
John Simmerman
Because she could totally be doing hula, you know, in the touristy area on Waikiki. Waikiki Beach, where there's millions of of pedestrians, you know, passing through every week. But she chose to do it here. I wonder what she would would have said.
00:25:51:14 - 00:26:09:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It's really interesting. She could have been at a park on the beach or but doing it here, I think she she was intentionally trying to make a statement and make a connection. You know, there's there's the great idea of like a you don't if someone's driving past your home, you don't, you know, shake your fist, you wave hello.
00:26:09:22 - 00:26:18:14
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And to remind folks that you are that you're a human being and you're here in this, in this mechanized environment, trying to make connections.
00:26:18:20 - 00:26:44:07
John Simmerman
I suppose, because, you know, it's it's entirely possible to that in this dense traffic environment to and you mentioned that there was a connection with another driver. I wonder if she does it too, because she sees the smiles on their faces, like maybe, yeah, she's getting that automatic feedback because this is not what you'd expect to see on a strode.
00:26:44:07 - 00:26:52:15
John Simmerman
You would not expect to see on a three lane bore lane. You know, strode one way.
00:26:52:16 - 00:26:53:27
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Strode one way street.
00:26:53:28 - 00:27:03:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, one way street, which is designed for speed. You would not expect to see somebody doing the hula in the middle of the street. So it makes you smile.
00:27:03:22 - 00:27:26:06
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah, it does it really. It made me smile. It was really great to see, you know. Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is a one way for Lane Strode. And she took it upon herself to really draw the connections with the drivers who passed by. And by the way, I'm always having my camera out, taking pictures when I'm anywhere near an environment to capture things like this.
00:27:26:07 - 00:27:39:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And, and you and I were talking about how to prepare for this, this episode, and I'm like, Bruce, we're just going to have a conversation. Don't don't worry about it. Don't don't stress.
00:27:39:20 - 00:27:42:26
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I got I got all kinds of slides and everything like that. So, you know, if you need.
00:27:42:27 - 00:28:05:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. No, it's all good stuff. And, and I do appreciate you know, because this is the joke. Right. For urbanists and people who are in active transportation and transportation safety, mobility and everything, we're the worst to travel with because we're always pulling out our phone and snapping photos or our professional camera. And my.
00:28:05:03 - 00:28:08:03
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Kids, my kids, my kids are learning to live with it.
00:28:08:09 - 00:28:39:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And and are significant others as well. They're like, oh my gosh, rolling their eyes. When you look back to the travels that you have done, you know, we just mentioned to Honolulu and where you've been, are there any that really stick out for you that you've seen recently? And, and specifically I'm, I'm going to I'm going to pull up your trip from, from March that you did.
00:28:39:14 - 00:29:05:12
John Simmerman
Because I'm going to prompt this one because I think it's, it's an area where my my family, my cousin Cody visits frequently, Mexico City. I mean, talk a little bit about this experience. What's the jive and the vibe. And, you know, that's happening in Mexico City. How do we bring words to this? Because this is no small place.
00:29:05:13 - 00:29:10:16
John Simmerman
I mean, Mexico City is massive in size, right?
00:29:10:19 - 00:29:38:00
Prof Bruce Appleyard
You know, so so one of the things I love about Mexico City's on Sundays is they have they close down places like the Avenida de la former lover forma and have this great, wonderful bicycle experience. And I've been very impressed with the bicycling infrastructure in Mexico City, which I think, and also just Mexico City itself. It's a it's a very lush, beautiful city.
00:29:38:03 - 00:29:57:01
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It I think it rivals Paris in a lot of ways with, you know, the wonderful places to eat, places to go and visit. It has pretty soul destroying traffic congestion, which of course then makes the bicycles more, more effective and so.
00:29:57:08 - 00:30:26:24
John Simmerman
Well, can I jump in and say one thing, Bruce, is it is because I wanted to point this out. This is an Open Streets event. This is a cycle villa. In the spirit of the VA's that that emerged out of Bogota during the Enrique Pena Llosa and and Gilpin era. So these have been going on for a long time, just like the ones in Bogota have been going on for a long time.
00:30:26:24 - 00:30:48:06
John Simmerman
But I want to correct you on this. It's not about the bike and it's not about the cyclists. It's just about creating an open street, a people oriented street. And so I love I love when I see rollerblading and skateboarders and, you know, there's one, you know, shot here of the guy running, you know, in the sea of bikes too.
00:30:48:07 - 00:30:52:06
John Simmerman
So again, this is not about the bike. This is not.
00:30:52:06 - 00:30:53:06
Prof Bruce Appleyard
About right.
00:30:53:07 - 00:30:55:20
John Simmerman
It's about cyclists. This is about.
00:30:55:22 - 00:30:56:19
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Very good point.
00:30:56:20 - 00:30:58:16
John Simmerman
Creating streets for people.
00:30:58:19 - 00:31:22:01
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Streets for people. That's absolutely right. Your great point. Yeah. So so I you know I love going to Mexico City and and participating in this and also biking around myself. I've gone to the edges of the bike network, which Mexico City is a huge city. And I was I had I headed south one day and tried to make it as far as I could, which was quite, a quite, quite a long ways.
00:31:22:01 - 00:31:27:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So they've done a wonderful job in developing their bike, their bicycle network as well.
00:31:28:01 - 00:31:55:24
John Simmerman
Right now we've got a wonderful image here of, of the logistics of, okay, well how do you do a sequel like this? Obviously it comes in contact with, you know, these other massive strobes that exist within the city. Should these massive strobes exist within the city? Full stop? No, they should not. But that's another conversation. But yeah, this is the logistics.
00:31:55:24 - 00:32:32:14
John Simmerman
Sometimes the whole crowd has to stop and and wait for the green light to be able to go through. So it's it's not like it's an overly policed situation. The those cross streets are still open. And so there is that logistics aspect to it. But it really, I think does do something that I talk about all the time because open streets, events, bike busses, other types of activities that we can do masses, critical mass, these are all the types of software activity assets that I talk about.
00:32:32:14 - 00:32:46:25
John Simmerman
These are the programing and the programs and the things activities that bring life to the infrastructure. And I like to say that this helps reframe and people's minds, community members minds, what a street is for.
00:32:46:27 - 00:33:12:24
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Absolutely. This is the whole idea of reimagining the matrix and, and and rethinking this environment that's given over to cars six days a week, what they could actually be what. And this is livable streets has four main books The Conflict, power, and The Promise of Our Streets. And this helps us understand the promise of our streets.
00:33:12:25 - 00:33:14:19
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah.
00:33:14:26 - 00:33:16:09
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I love it. Yeah. No.
00:33:16:09 - 00:33:41:26
John Simmerman
It's right there that I mean, you beaming right there is it's, you know, for for folks just tuning in and listening to this on the, on the audio only. This is a shot of Bruce, you know, with a nice huge smile. It's it's fantastic. And who couldn't, you know, who wouldn't smile in that type of environment. Which is the reason why these open streets events are so incredibly important.
00:33:41:26 - 00:34:07:09
John Simmerman
It's the reason why 34th Avenue that that, that Clarence just profiled is such an important avenue and such an important film. Folks, you have to go watch that film if you have an opportunity to do so. I mean, there's like six schools along 34th Avenue. So each of those schools is now benefiting from a de facto school street installation.
00:34:07:12 - 00:34:09:00
John Simmerman
Just absolutely brilliant.
00:34:09:07 - 00:34:19:25
Prof Bruce Appleyard
As they say, cars ruined cities and their soul destroying. And, you know, if we allow them to become places for people, people have smiles.
00:34:19:27 - 00:34:44:07
John Simmerman
So I'm going to pull up your book here. So boom, boom boom. Here's your book, folks. I will include links in the show notes so that you all can can get that. All include the link directly from the publisher if you'd like. It's the same price on on on that. As with Amazon, I will include an Amazon link.
00:34:44:08 - 00:35:15:09
John Simmerman
I will also include my link, which is from my my bookstore. My bookshop is in there too, but it's much more expensive in my bookshop. That's one of the challenges of of supporting the independent books, bookshops and things of that nature. But by the way, this is an affiliate link on Amazon. So if you do purchase with my affiliate link, Active Towns as a channel will get a little I think I'll earn like a buck or two off of that.
00:35:15:12 - 00:35:17:10
John Simmerman
So it's not it's not a lot of money.
00:35:17:10 - 00:36:03:16
John Simmerman
But all these years later, now you're still being invited to speak and talk about this subject because just as you mentioned, you know, this is a timeless graphic. The the information included included in this book is timeless. And as long as we've got streets, strobes that need to be addressed, you know there's going to be an infinite amount of work for you, for me, for Peter Norton, for all of us who are trying to fight, you know, fighting traffic, trying to fight for safer streets in these years since it's been it's publication, what stands out is the most important thing in some of the most important learnings.
00:36:03:16 - 00:36:07:25
John Simmerman
And what gives you hope moving forward?
00:36:07:27 - 00:36:33:12
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Well, I think for the the book, it's about streets being for people and for our community and our social cohesion and understanding the invisible harms that that cars and traffic have in our lives. That again, being stuck in the matrix, you might not really understand why you're feeling so lousy and isolated and crappy. But when we look at look further, it's about cars and so forth.
00:36:33:13 - 00:36:59:10
Prof Bruce Appleyard
What I'm really encouraged by is that there's there are a lot of really energized young people coming up through the ranks who, who, who understand that there's something wrong. And my hope is that books like Livable Streets and others and other authors who've written on this topic can feel inspired by this. And as Dan Burton said to me when he was getting started, Liverpool streets gave him shoulders to stand on.
00:36:59:10 - 00:37:08:27
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And Hans Mondrian said the same thing to me that Louisville Streets itself was one of the seminal books to actually show the invisible harms that traffic had on communities and people.
00:37:08:27 - 00:37:22:25
John Simmerman
I think it's important to you just name checked Hans Mondrian, who I mention all the time here on the channel. Go ahead and share your information in your introduction of the late, great Hans Mondrian.
00:37:22:27 - 00:38:03:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Well, the great thing about Hans Modern was he he was an engineer and understood that if we design with a context in mind for our streets, that drivers will travel with more care. He also pioneered in practice the idea that if you make an environment look more uncertain or riskier, that it'll actually become safer if it seems less safe in some respects, but also, you know, less certain that people will drive with more care, which is which is, you know, a paradox, paradoxical thinking and turning things inside out.
00:38:03:22 - 00:38:31:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And but but it stands to reason. I mean, if we if we design environments that are tell us, tell a certain clear story that makes drivers feel they can just keep traveling fast with without any without any repercussions, they will do so. But if we if we tell a more intriguing story, a mystery novel, so to speak, then people will drive with more care.
00:38:31:28 - 00:38:44:02
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And that's Hans Monument really pioneered that. And I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with him before he passed. Yeah. And for him to tell me that little streets meant that much to him.
00:38:44:04 - 00:39:09:10
John Simmerman
I think that that is I mean, we really are standing on the shoulders of giants of, you know, the people who have done this work. Your father included Hans Monument. I mentioned the late, great Ben Hamilton Bailey, who was a disciple of Hans Mondrian, and really both both Ben Hamilton Bailey and Hans Mondrian were really all about this concept of of shared space and shared streets.
00:39:09:15 - 00:39:39:27
John Simmerman
And, you know, Hans, at some point in time, you know, said, you know, a driver doesn't wake up in the morning and say, hey, I'm going to go out and kill children today. Yeah. And and so one of his most famous, some might say, infamous installations was literally where they created a school street through a schoolyard school, you know, location with little, little kids, little tykes.
00:39:40:00 - 00:40:10:02
John Simmerman
And they had problems with the the playground being divided from the actual school. And the kids had to cross this, this high speed street. And he says, no, no, no, let's just change the design. Let's make it obvious to the drivers that you're no longer in go fast space. You're now in people's space. And and that was the context in which he, you know, he said drivers don't have an inherent desire to be murderous and run over children.
00:40:10:02 - 00:40:46:06
John Simmerman
But you need to send a clear message in your street design that this is a go slow space, not a go fast space, which gets us to, you know, the challenge of our streets is that, you know, I've zoomed in on this particular photo here where we've got this delightful scene of a parent pushing the child along, which, by the way, folks, this is the reason why you need to build your bicycle lanes and your cycle tracks wider is that any given time, we want to encourage parents and other people to ride side by side.
00:40:46:07 - 00:41:00:12
John Simmerman
It's bullshit to say that cyclists should, quote unquote, people writing bikes should be single file. No, we need to build our infrastructure so that you can be side by side. You can be three abreast, four abreast, etc..
00:41:00:16 - 00:41:02:15
Prof Bruce Appleyard
But with these activity.
00:41:02:19 - 00:41:37:00
John Simmerman
It is a social activity. But if we zoom out we see that. Yeah. I mean the biggest challenge that we have is that our space that we have done, that we have built the streets, that we have built our massively wide. It sends a different message to drivers. It says go fast. It doesn't say go slow. It doesn't say, I expect to see a person doing hula out in the middle of the street, you know, because you'd be we've we've destroyed our communities.
00:41:37:00 - 00:42:03:22
John Simmerman
We talked about this a little bit in the preamble is that we've literally destroyed our communities and the social fabric of our communities by prioritizing speed and flow of traffic, and that's a tough mind shift to deal with. Wes Marshall and I talked about this when we talked about his book, killed by a Traffic Engineer, is that it's it's the long haul.
00:42:03:24 - 00:42:31:12
John Simmerman
I mean, this is a long game that we're playing here because we need to change the thought processes of the predominant engineering and planning public, where they're trying to solve for flow and congestion in. And so they just keep adding more lanes and wider lanes and faster traffic. And so we that's a conflict that we have to deal with.
00:42:31:18 - 00:42:57:26
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Right. And one of the things I point out in Liverpool streets 2.0 and I'm not sure if we talked about last time, but it's about the increase in fatality risk with going from just 20 miles an hour to 30 miles an hour. And I presented this in many places. And one of the things that I've a neurosurgeon pointed out that this probably has to do with the fact that we have evolved to withstand head trauma, the fastest speed we can run.
00:42:57:27 - 00:43:31:00
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So there's really no reason for us to have, especially in urban areas, speeds much faster than 25 miles an hour. And I'm encouraged that New York City is trying to look to do to do this for the entire island and like and the also that your your vehicle flows are max out at about 30 miles an hour. So there's really no there's really no benefit from a, from a sociobiology and human scale perspective.
00:43:31:01 - 00:43:55:06
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And even from an engineering perspective to have cars travel much faster. So we definitely need to work on that. And I'm glad you also brought up the shared streets because because my father, my father really had the vision of of residential yards, as they're called in in Holland and in the Netherlands, as being sort of the ideal place that we should be looking to.
00:43:55:07 - 00:44:24:08
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So I'm always taking pictures of shared street environments. So this is Rue de Bushey, Ruda Bushey in Paris. I love this this graphic which is also in the book, and you can see how there's active life and active living and people walking, and there's people who bicycle through just a few moments after I took this picture and, and wonderful space to entertain and, and be fed.
00:44:24:09 - 00:44:29:25
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So these wonderful environments, we should look at shared street environments.
00:44:29:27 - 00:44:56:18
John Simmerman
If you wouldn't mind, for the listening only audience, can you describe the the stencils, the graphics that we're seeing on this street? It's something that that Paris does very, very well. In fact, France in general does a really good job of this type of of obvious messages to the drivers as to explain who streets are for.
00:44:56:20 - 00:45:21:19
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Well, it's a wonderful street with people walking in the middle of the street. Cars can also travel through, and then people are eating on the on the edges of the street as well on the sidewalks that are very low, low in elevation. So it's easy to get up and down from the sides. And there's a stencil where a person is walking that is the largest of of all the stencils to show the priority for for walking.
00:45:21:26 - 00:45:36:20
Prof Bruce Appleyard
There's a small, very small car and there are two cyclists. And again, it's, it's it conveys the shared nature of the street, but also the priority for, for for for walking. So I think it's very helpful.
00:45:36:26 - 00:46:03:28
John Simmerman
It is very helpful. It's it's also flawed. And here's the reason why it's flawed is if we look at the pedestrian realm, we see that it's been literally taken over by the cafe tables. And so if I were to if I were to improve the stencil on here, I would also include a person in a wheelchair being of equal size to the the pedestrian in here.
00:46:03:28 - 00:46:42:07
John Simmerman
And again for for the listening only audience, the relative size of the stencil on the ground. The pedestrian is huge compared to the people on bikes, and then massively huge compared to the car. In other words, the relative size indicates the relative priority being given. And so this is a people first street. And I would say that it is a person walking and a person in a wheelchair first street and then next down in terms of priority would be people on bikes.
00:46:42:07 - 00:46:58:27
John Simmerman
And then final is the people in the cars. And this sends a very strong message that, yeah, this is a super, super slow street. If I were to put a speed limit to this street, you know, we're looking at, you know, like a 10 or 15 kilometer street, you know.
00:46:59:01 - 00:46:59:12
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah.
00:46:59:19 - 00:47:12:09
John Simmerman
It's not even it's not even like a feat Strat in the Netherlands, which is a 30km street, which is, you know, give or take around 15mph, 15 to 18mph. This is really a people first environment.
00:47:12:10 - 00:47:34:19
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah. One thing I also really like to take pictures on very, very well. Well said by the way, is to take pictures of how people in cars and bicyclists share the space and how they they're in this informal choreography and negotiation, if you will, of navigating the space. And that's actually a study we're doing on campus at San Diego State University right now where we're looking.
00:47:34:20 - 00:47:42:06
Prof Bruce Appleyard
You're taking a drone, and we're watching how people and skateboarders and cyclists all navigate the space together.
00:47:42:08 - 00:48:01:27
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. On this, this one here, which is, you know, one of our classic shared street signs that we see out there, a home street sign. We do see the relative size, but it's not as obvious as the stencils there in Paris, where, by the way, is this street?
00:48:02:00 - 00:48:05:02
Prof Bruce Appleyard
This is leading to the Barcelona train station.
00:48:05:08 - 00:48:09:19
John Simmerman
In Barcelona. Okay, I have not visited Barcelona yet, so I definitely need to get there.
00:48:09:20 - 00:48:27:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Highly highly recommend. It's it's it was read. It was redeveloped in the same not similarly to well similarly to Paris, but in a different style, but with big streets and great places to live and good commercial activity.
00:48:28:01 - 00:48:29:28
John Simmerman
But I wanted to.
00:48:30:01 - 00:48:59:01
John Simmerman
Talk about on this is that size matters and context matters and design matters. And what we see here is that we have it paved in pavers. We have a curb less environment. We are sending a message very clearly here to drivers that you know, hey, you're welcome to be here as a guest, but you are not the priority.
00:48:59:01 - 00:49:29:09
John Simmerman
This is not a drive fast area. And as you mentioned, you know, it is fabulous to see when you see a driver in this environment. They intuitively know. To Hans monuments point, you intuitively know if you've got the design right, you don't need to put a speed limit sign up. If you get the design right, you don't need to say anything more because it's obvious this is a flow through slowly type of environment, right?
00:49:29:10 - 00:49:52:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And this is a challenge that I've thought of, thought about quite often, especially working on Liverpool streets 2.0 Louisville streets 2.0 Louisville streets. One was really held up shared streets. And as a high example in the streets 2.0, I actually talk about the the details of how the streets should be designed for them to work in, considering them for the US.
00:49:53:00 - 00:50:12:07
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I've looked also at examples of shared streets and pedestrian malls throughout the US in the book as well. Why? Why some succeeded, why have some failed, and how we actually can make things happen. And part of what I find too, is that we need to tell the drivers of the story before they get to the to the street like this.
00:50:12:08 - 00:50:30:26
Prof Bruce Appleyard
We need to tell them a story of transition. And where I live in San Diego, we're very freeway rich, so every car driver you encounter on the on the street probably has just gotten off the freeway. So there's a challenge there. I mean, I've been buzzed more. I've been honked at more riding my bike in San Diego than almost anyplace else.
00:50:30:27 - 00:50:52:03
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I'm up in Portland for the summer, and what I really appreciate about Portland is that I'll come to a curb, I come to a corner, the cars will stop. Not so. Not so in San Diego. And so the stories that we tell the drivers, you know, we have to manage our streets to get to the point where we have a truly shared street.
00:50:52:04 - 00:50:57:12
Prof Bruce Appleyard
We need to tell them stories along the way. And that's one of the challenges that I'm working on as well.
00:50:57:14 - 00:51:26:18
John Simmerman
I really appreciate the way that you phrased that too, is that you can't expect drivers to immediately shift in their their mindset from being in a highway environment, a freeway environment, and then suddenly be thrown in this without some sort of transition. And this what we're looking at here for the listening only audience is, again, another beautiful corner in Paris.
00:51:26:18 - 00:52:12:12
John Simmerman
I'm assuming, you know, just shared street environment. Again, a car can theoretically drive through here, but they're really only going to do it if they absolutely have to. Oh yeah. And they're going to do so with great care because it's it's rich in with life with people. And so we have to think about and Professor Kevin and, and I had this conversation just a few weeks ago about the concept of, you know, the emergency streets that he's he's working on and trying to create an awareness campaign at the site of a serious crash and fatality.
00:52:12:12 - 00:52:35:28
John Simmerman
And, and we talked about the fact that it can't just be an installation and slowing down traffic right at the site. You're going to have to go a half mile in each direction, either direction, multiple directions. If it's a if it's an intersection, to bring that traffic calming down because it's inappropriate just to spring things on people that you're there.
00:52:36:00 - 00:53:05:15
John Simmerman
Now, that being said, I've had other conversations, like in Houten in the Netherlands, where they literally have like a gate, you know, they have like a you are now entering into the community, you're no longer on the ring road, you're no longer on the go fast mode. You're making that transition. But the Dutch do this very, very well in the sense that typically when you make that transition, it's not what we're seeing here in Paris, where it's just still black asphalt.
00:53:05:15 - 00:53:32:13
John Simmerman
They will actually pave it in red bricks or red asphalt. And so it sends again the design I think in the context matters because it's it's not just the width and it's not just the size, and it's not just the richness of what we're seeing in the buildings. You're also sending a clear message in the design, whether it's pavers or a red asphalt, something that is a clear message that this is global go slow zone.
00:53:32:16 - 00:53:37:01
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah. Telling a different story. Do they actually build a build a gate or.
00:53:37:02 - 00:53:47:22
John Simmerman
It's one of them. Yeah. We were we were, we were at this one area where they, they put like a little bit of, you know, ramparts there and a little bit of a thing. It's like it sends a clear message.
00:53:47:24 - 00:53:48:04
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah.
00:53:48:04 - 00:53:51:01
John Simmerman
That's going into a different environment.
00:53:51:02 - 00:54:18:03
Prof Bruce Appleyard
A different environment. Exactly. So, so one of the challenges I think before us is how do we actually how can we actually transition people from freeway driving to a shared street environment. What how can we tell these different stories? And I think, you know, the bicycle infrastructure, again, we need to to build good protected bike, bicycle infrastructure, especially on high street high speed streets that I think can help change the story.
00:54:18:03 - 00:54:52:06
Prof Bruce Appleyard
I think narrowing lanes we found in studies by reusing and Cima that led by Amit, I should say that that narrower lanes are safer and ultimately so we need to like look at narrowing lanes as building good bicycle infrastructure, narrowing lanes, trying new pavement treatments again, telling an intriguing story that gets people to stop and think in wonder, and containing the, you know, people and places and context.
00:54:52:08 - 00:55:06:27
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Again, we don't want to tell a predictable story like the one above with the existing conditions. We want to tell one that has as much more contextual, has people in it, more activity and narrow lanes and bike facilities and the like.
00:55:07:02 - 00:55:50:16
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Last week we we released an episode with Victor Dover with his new book that he coauthored along with John Mason Gale on street design. And it's the second edition of the Street Design book. And we talked a little bit about this challenge here of, well, how do we get away from these, these existing conditions of strobes, which are incredibly efficient at killing people, killing businesses, killing our economy and killing our environment, and get to a place where we we have something for everybody and we bring that temperature down, we bring the speeds down, we bring the heat island effect down.
00:55:50:16 - 00:56:14:15
John Simmerman
And that's what we're seeing here. So it's it's a complicated environment. We're taking massively wide rights of way and reimagining what this is. This is not a war on car, folks. This is not a war on cars. Although we love the podcast, it's not a war on Cars. This is about creating people oriented places that are more sustainable and livable.
00:56:14:15 - 00:56:41:02
John Simmerman
And what we end up seeing here is that we see the best interpretation of the Complete Streets movement. And Beth Osborne and I talked about this is that too often complete streets become complete disasters because we just see a painted bike lane on a strode like this. And it does nothing to encourage changes in behavior because it's not an environment you'd like to be in.
00:56:41:03 - 00:57:05:21
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Right. And those are the important things like that Ethan and Fred Kent work on in terms of placemaking, how to actually the as we talked about earlier, the land use urban design component as well as as as what we do in terms of the transportation side. And, you know, this is really a story I can tell about for my father was that he and this is he also really liked Shared Streets.
00:57:05:21 - 00:57:24:26
Prof Bruce Appleyard
And it wasn't to ban the cars, but it was actually how the cards work with people more. And one of his colleagues, Randy Hester, one of his junior colleagues, they were they were talking about a strategy for a community. And they said, well, you know, they said the younger ones were saying we should ban the car. And my father said, no, don't ban the car.
00:57:24:28 - 00:57:47:25
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Just curb the car, but curb the car. Right. So it's just just, just downgrade the priority of cars in our lives. And that's and that's what we should we should we got to figure out how to make it work, because we've built an environment that rational consumers will continue to want to drive. We just need to make sure we can curb the cars in the right ways.
00:57:47:28 - 00:58:13:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And going back to Hans Monument again, I would say the grandfather of the shared streets movement, and he was Dutch too. I don't know that we had mentioned that he was Dutch and, and really, you know, used some of the early shared street experiments in Delft and some of the other cities that that are out there as like the platform for, for what is possible.
00:58:13:00 - 00:58:40:06
John Simmerman
If we get the design right, the drivers will behave. I think he was also quoted as saying, if you treat drivers like idiots, they'll behave like idiots. You know, we don't need to have a ton of signs saying, okay, breathe. Now you know, what we need is design that is self-reinforcing to wrap us up here, Bruce, why don't you just give a final comment about what you're excited about and working on here, moving forward in the future?
00:58:40:06 - 00:58:47:19
John Simmerman
I know you you gave us a little bit of a teaser, but anything else that you are excited about? I know you're excited about the World Cup, but something other than that.
00:58:47:20 - 00:59:13:16
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Yeah, right. I have to admit, my especially I've been I've caught World Cup fever. So definitely I'm really excited. I'm super excited to work with Dan Burden and Blue Zones Organization to do case studies on their livable, we're calling livable streets projects, in many cases, road diets. But in one case in particular, there's a there's a community from from Pierce County, Washington that had no sidewalks.
00:59:13:16 - 00:59:45:28
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So one of their big transformational projects was was mostly building sidewalks and making it available for people to walk in bicycle. Really super excited to work with Dan. It's fantastic with him and Sarah Bowman from Blue Zones Organization. All my all my students working on this. We're also coming out with a new report on speed related fatalities and the and the effects on speed and how we need to curb things oftentimes about in California, about 74% of all fatal and serious injury crashes are related to unsafe speeds.
00:59:45:28 - 01:00:26:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So we need to think about that. And there's way too much speeding going on. So we're working with the families for Safe Streets on their initiative to get super speeder laws passed to to help repeat offenders keep from offending and through intelligent speed assistance technology and and and speed governors and things like that. Also, I'm really excited to work with this is a little bit on the land use and transportation side, but this fall I'll be working with redoing who who will be spending part of his sabbatical in San Diego at San Diego State teaching his land use and transportation course that I'll be teaching with him, and we'll be working to develop a a
01:00:26:25 - 01:00:55:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
textbook out of what we do in the class. So those are just some of them. We also have an AI project where we're going to use AI and Google Street View and satellite imagery to hopefully develop automated walkability indices and bike ability indices incorporating pedestrian level, traffic stress, bicycle level traffic stress, and also one of my students thesis topics, which was a transit access and safety score.
01:00:55:22 - 01:01:01:13
Prof Bruce Appleyard
So basically coming up with measures that really tell us what's happening in terms of walkability and bike ability.
01:01:01:15 - 01:01:04:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, we got to use we got to use some AI for good, right?
01:01:04:22 - 01:01:15:15
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Use AI. Yeah, I've got a good colleague on it, Puneet Agarwal and honorary from San Luis Obispo, that will be working on these projects together.
01:01:15:15 - 01:01:37:15
John Simmerman
And I pulled up the the landing page here for the Dan Burton episode. I will include that link in the in the show notes and the video description below for this episode. Check that out. Also include the families for Safe Streets episode as well so that you can see that. And we did talk about the super speeders Bill and the work that they are doing.
01:01:37:20 - 01:01:42:28
John Simmerman
Bruce Appleyard this has been such a joy and pleasure having you on the Active Towns Channel once again. Thank you.
01:01:43:00 - 01:01:53:01
Prof Bruce Appleyard
It's my pleasure, John. Anytime. If anyone wants to look me up, it's my my email is be Appleyard at Edu. I'd be happy to hear from anyone.
01:01:53:02 - 01:01:59:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, I'll include that link as well. And is LinkedIn a good place for folks to connect with you as well? To follow what.
01:01:59:18 - 01:02:00:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
You great. Yeah.
01:02:00:25 - 01:02:11:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Link as well. All right. Well enjoy your time up in Portland and any predictions as to who's going to prevail here in the World Cup.
01:02:11:12 - 01:02:26:22
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Wow. I think that's, that's I was really impressed with with have been impressed with a lot of teams coming forward. I think I have a good feeling about France, France and Argentina. I think France and Argentina, for whatever reason. That's that's what that's why I'm going up. But I'm actually amateur at this.
01:02:26:22 - 01:02:28:21
John Simmerman
So yeah. Yeah. Very good.
01:02:28:22 - 01:02:31:01
Prof Bruce Appleyard
All right. Don't don't poly market it yet.
01:02:31:02 - 01:02:33:28
John Simmerman
No no no that's all good. That's all good. And who knows when this.
01:02:33:28 - 01:02:40:12
John Simmerman
Episode is going out. So it may be all done by then. So. All right. Thank you so much. Aloha.
01:02:40:14 - 01:02:42:16
Prof Bruce Appleyard
Aloha. Thank you so much John.
01:02:42:24 - 01:02:56:28
John Simmerman
Hey. Thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Professor Bruce Appleyard from San Diego State University. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel.
01:02:56:28 - 01:03:13:12
John Simmerman
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01:03:13:12 - 01:03:35:03
John Simmerman
Super! Thanks for. Navigate over to Active Towns. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there are several different options, including making a donation to my nonprofit advocates for Healthy Communities, where you can become a Patreon subscriber. Patrons do get early and ad free access to all this video content. And again, every little bit helps and is very much appreciated.
01:03:35:03 - 01:03:54:20
John Simmerman
I simply could not do this work without your support, and this is a great opportunity to say to all of my Active Towns ambassadors, thank you so much. Mahalo Nuea Low-A for your support. Again, thank you so much for tuning in today. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness.
01:03:54:21 - 01:03:56:13
John Simmerman
Cheers and aloha!