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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
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:16:17
Chris Dempsey
Walkable places are more inclusive places, they're more equitable places. They're places that are better for public health, they're better for the environment, they're more economically vibrant. I mean, the list goes on and on, but everybody is included in that vision of walkability. Even people that are.
00:00:16:17 - 00:00:29:21
Jeff Speck
There more, they're more rollable and they're more bikeable, for sure. Yeah. You know, anything you do to make a place more rollable, or surprisingly and perhaps more bikeable, makes it safer for pedestrians. And that's a surprise.
00:00:29:23 - 00:00:53:20
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Jeff Speck and Chris Dempsey with Speck Dempsey, a new super firm that has been formed. We are going to be talking about why they teamed up to create their own firm trying to transform our built environment, our cities into more walkable, bikeable, livable places.
00:00:53:22 - 00:01:05:16
John Simmerman
It's a good one. So let's get right to it with Jeff and Chris. Jeff. Chris, welcome to the Active Towns podcast.
00:01:05:19 - 00:01:07:05
Chris Dempsey
Great to be with you.
00:01:07:07 - 00:01:09:24
Jeff Speck
Yeah, thanks. And great to be back, John. Yes.
00:01:09:25 - 00:01:22:02
John Simmerman
Yes. A return visit from Jeff Speck. Chris, Jeff and I go way back. So I you get to start off with the intro. Who the heck is Chris Dempsey?
00:01:22:05 - 00:01:43:19
Chris Dempsey
John, really appreciate the chance to be on with you and have enjoyed catching up on your podcasts and YouTube presentations. So it's an honor to be on. I grew up in Brookline, which is where I still live and Jeff and I are neighbors in this community. It's a walkable, transit oriented community, and transportation policy has really been the theme throughout my career.
00:01:43:22 - 00:02:27:12
Chris Dempsey
I served as assistant secretary of Transportation for Governor Deval Patrick in the first term of his administration. I also led Massachusetts largest transportation advocacy group called Transportation for Massachusetts, working statewide to invest in public transportation, walking and biking, making our transportation system more sustainable, more environmentally friendly. And I served at the local level in my community as a elected town meeting member and as an appointed member of the Transportation Board, where we had responsibility for really all of the entire public way from from curb to curb to property line to property line, making decisions on sidewalk widths and where to stop signs go and parking policies.
00:02:27:14 - 00:02:50:17
Chris Dempsey
So whether it's in my professional career or in my civic engagement, I've always been engaged and involved in transportation and delighted to have launched Speck Dempsey with Jeff on January 1st of this year. We've got a great set of clients and I'm sure we'll be able to talk about today. But it's very much a continuation of all that I've been about in my 20 years experience.
00:02:50:20 - 00:03:14:24
Jeff Speck
And John, I should add that when I mean, I didn't know Chris all that well at this time. But when when COVID hit and Brookline led, the Boston area was ahead of Boston in terms of turning driving lanes into biking lanes and parking lanes, into, you know, expanded sidewalks and all that stuff that that some people did in response to COVID.
00:03:14:27 - 00:03:32:05
Jeff Speck
Chris was one of the people behind that. I only found that after we partnered, but we had the Boston news cameras down here in Coolidge Corner, and I had one kid on a bike and one on a pogo stick, and we were taking advantage of the the four lane that had become a two lane or so that we had extra room for for walking and biking.
00:03:32:05 - 00:03:35:25
Jeff Speck
And that's the kind of stuff Chris has been doing for some time.
00:03:35:28 - 00:03:50:12
Chris Dempsey
That effort actually got the Transportation Board in Brookline into the New York Times, which I don't think it ever happened before. And normally it's the sleepy, locally focused body. But in that case, we were proud to be leading the country on that.
00:03:50:12 - 00:04:00:26
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, Jeff, I'm assuming that most of the audience knows who the heck you are, but you never know. So who's Jeff Speck?
00:04:00:28 - 00:04:17:26
Jeff Speck
Which is? Well, I should introduce my my other partner who's joined me for this call. This is fun. Ditto. Yeah. Who is has been a favored participant in other similar exercises. I'll let him go and focus on myself.
00:04:17:29 - 00:04:45:04
Jeff Speck
I'm a city planner who is trained as an architect and who saw that he was going to be doing buildings. And I like to say, you know, the kitchens and bathrooms of the very rich for a career. Until in 1989, I heard Andre Stuani speak and give his classic lecture, which was called Towns versus Sprawl. And I thought it was the best story I'd ever heard.
00:04:45:07 - 00:05:08:26
Jeff Speck
I knew that I wanted to redirect my design career towards, you know, the scale of work that would have a greater impact on people's quality of life. I also knew that it had to be a book like, my God, you know, the fact that there are places we love and places we hate and there are rules that underlie both, and the rules only allow us now to make places we hate.
00:05:08:29 - 00:05:40:12
Jeff Speck
And we can change that with such an important message. And I actually wrote André San Luis in 1989 and said, Let me go straight this for you. And they never return the letter. But by 2000, when I had been working with them for seven years, we finally came out with Suburban Nation, which was that story, right? But I spent ten years at TPC managing or leading about 40 projects, including a lot of new town work, a lot of downtown masterplan work on street redesign, that sort of thing.
00:05:40:15 - 00:06:03:18
Jeff Speck
Then I got appointed to the National Endowment for the Arts, where I led the design discipline for four years and got to oversee the Mayor's Institute on City Design, which is this incredible program that brings mayors and designers together. I left there in seven, and since then I was running what was effectively a one man firm, strangely called Spec and Associates.
00:06:03:20 - 00:06:37:09
Jeff Speck
The name came out of the fact that I had an employee at first, but after she had our second child, my wife Alice, resigned from the firm to pursue greener pastures and I've been operating in collaboration. I didn't take the associates away because I've been operating in collaboration with lots of other firms, with Dbsa, with Stantec, Urban places, with Nelson Nygaard, with Overland Associates, with Cronenberg, you know, so many great urbanists who we've all come to know, John at the Seenu and in the other forums that we enjoyed together.
00:06:37:11 - 00:07:11:21
Jeff Speck
I've had a great time doing jobs with people I admire and who I learn from for over six years. But I reached the point where I didn't feel like I was getting this to scale right? And more instrumentally, the demand for the kind of work that we've been doing, particularly downtown street network redesign, street redesign and downtown master planning that the demand is just now through the roof.
00:07:11:29 - 00:07:38:13
Jeff Speck
Yeah. And you know, 15 years ago, nobody knew what a walkability study was because I hadn't done one yet. I've now done about 17 of them. And cities are now asking for those by name. So that's an important tranche of the sort of work that we do that that that Chris and I are pretty convinced is going to become the biggest tranche of what we do right, because it's so easy to fix a downtown.
00:07:38:15 - 00:08:00:14
Jeff Speck
And most of our downtowns are historic. Downtowns are doing pretty well in terms of their urban design, with the exception of the streets. Right. And so as early as three years ago or so, I started looking for the right partner who could grow this operation to scale. And I wasn't determined to do it unless I found the right partner.
00:08:00:17 - 00:08:27:09
Jeff Speck
And I wasn't putting a lot of effort into into business models or business plans or anything. But when Chris became available, I knew that he was the right person. And the how long has it been? Chris James For the three months that we've been working together with a lot of months of planning beforehand have convinced me that we're going to have a pretty big operation within a pretty limited amount of time.
00:08:27:11 - 00:08:29:06
John Simmerman
So far, so good,
00:08:29:08 - 00:08:30:15
Jeff Speck
Yeah, Yeah.
00:08:30:18 - 00:08:54:11
Chris Dempsey
It's been it's been very busy aspect. Dempsey and I overcomplicated or further complicated things by also welcoming my first child to the world in January. So in that very first month. So I've got an eight week old at home. So it's been a busy three months for this This young dad, but a ton of fun. And it's going to be a very productive and successful partnership.
00:08:54:13 - 00:09:17:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, a it was a huge surprise to me that this got rolled out. I'd known Jeff for so long, you know, being this, you know, pretty much solo operator. And like you said, Jeff, you know, working in concert with other firms and other individuals that we know in the urbanism realm. But when I saw that, I was like, this is cool.
00:09:18:01 - 00:09:21:11
John Simmerman
Now who the heck is Christine? So I started.
00:09:21:13 - 00:09:22:24
Chris Dempsey
I reached out to Yvonne.
00:09:22:26 - 00:09:37:07
John Simmerman
On LinkedIn, or maybe we were already connected. I can't remember. But I think you and Jeff correct My my, my memory here. But I think you actually got out on LinkedIn because before you weren't. Correct.
00:09:37:09 - 00:10:04:18
Jeff Speck
Well, I don't know. I don't know how exciting this is going to be to your listeners, but I am on LinkedIn now. Yeah. And I was on it when I started my firm. And then I found that I was just overwhelmed with staff stuff. And, you know, I didn't mention my book Walkable City, which I guess I should when introducing myself, but when Walkable, Walkable City came out in 2012 and then I did a couple of TED talks after that.
00:10:04:21 - 00:10:15:21
Jeff Speck
Yeah, I just got too many people reached out and now I have Chris who's excited about people reaching out. So he, he told me to get back on LinkedIn. So I did.
00:10:15:23 - 00:10:47:03
John Simmerman
I was delighted. Thank you, Chris. I was delighted for that because, you know, obviously as a content creator, you know, with the after sales channel, I'm pushing content out multiple times a week and I'm also managing that content and pushing that content and advertising that content across multiple platforms. I think I counted at last count it's something like nine different platforms or multiple identities on the same platform, including acts including LinkedIn and Facebook and whatnot.
00:10:47:05 - 00:10:53:12
John Simmerman
So thank you for for getting Jeff over into the professional world of LinkedIn. That was wonderful too.
00:10:53:12 - 00:10:58:13
Jeff Speck
It's a lot less it's a lot less toxic than Twitter, where I've been spending my time.
00:10:58:13 - 00:11:01:19
John Simmerman
So they all have their pros and cons. Yes.
00:11:01:22 - 00:11:25:21
Chris Dempsey
John, This speaks to the complementary nature of our partnership together because I went to business school and so you're sort of required to be on LinkedIn. If you went to business school, you don't get your diploma until you've got a good LinkedIn profile. And then, of course, by contrast, Jeff went to design school. Now, I have not adopted what's required to get a diploma at the GFC where Jeff went, which is you have to have a fancy pair of eyeglasses.
00:11:25:24 - 00:11:26:20
John Simmerman
Right.
00:11:26:22 - 00:11:26:29
Chris Dempsey
There.
00:11:27:00 - 00:11:29:24
Jeff Speck
Working on wear black. Also you have to wear it.
00:11:29:24 - 00:11:31:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, wear black all the time. Yeah.
00:11:32:01 - 00:11:43:04
Chris Dempsey
So we're working on that, but we're a good for a good partnership and very complementary in the ways that we think about the world and want to want to work with our clients and partners to do really special things.
00:11:43:06 - 00:12:12:02
John Simmerman
I think that's important too, with the way that we think about the world and kind of like where we come from. You know, my background is in is in behavior modification, health, behavior, public health. And so I have that sort of, you know, behavior side psychological side of that and the intersection of the built environment. But I, too, you know, spend a third of my coursework in my my graduate program in the MBA school at at the University of Michigan.
00:12:12:04 - 00:12:28:07
John Simmerman
So, yeah, I've got that marketing side of me too. That's like, okay, I got to be out here working all these different platforms. So nice of you to bring a little bit of that professionalism from a business standpoint and encourage him to get out on the professional platform of LinkedIn.
00:12:28:12 - 00:12:42:25
Jeff Speck
Well, it's it's fun also, like I didn't I didn't anticipate this, but what's really fun right now is, is the design exercise of designing a firm right. I hadn't I hadn't thought that it was another job for design.
00:12:42:25 - 00:12:54:09
John Simmerman
Well, yeah. Now that you mention that, Jeff, let's look at your your logo, because that's part of it, too. You even, I think tweeted this out about the design aspect of even logo design.
00:12:54:11 - 00:13:27:16
Jeff Speck
Yeah. And actually, John, I did an email blast that we can connect your I hope you'll connect your viewers to my most recent email blast. The fellow at Pentagram who did the design, did a wonderful kind of animated little essay on how we got to the final outcome. But the short story is that from my days in the National Endowment for the Arts, I got to know Michael Beirut, who, if you know anything about graphic design, is, you know, is legendary.
00:13:27:18 - 00:13:48:24
Jeff Speck
And when we were putting the firm together, I was like, no, no way that no way we can afford Pentagram, you know, the best graphic design, the best kind of design, overall design, product design graphic, well, I should say prior to that. But, you know, what do you call it? Branding and graphic design and conceptual design firm out there.
00:13:48:24 - 00:14:07:13
Jeff Speck
Everyone who knows this admires Pentagram and just on a lark, I reached out to to Michael, and I said, Hey, we need a logo and kind of a branding exercise. Are you? I know we can't afford you. And he said, I think I can share this. You said, Tell us what you need and tell us what you want to pay and we will do that for you.
00:14:07:15 - 00:14:12:26
Jeff Speck
And I was like, Wow, I wish. I wish everyone told me that. So we went through a lot of different.
00:14:12:27 - 00:14:17:27
John Simmerman
B.S., you know, just yeah, yeah, transparency, put it out there.
00:14:18:00 - 00:14:49:06
Jeff Speck
So we went through a lot of different permutations. We had a a a walk, don't walk. That was Spec DMC sign, if you can imagine that. We had kind of the expected striding figures and we had all sorts of, you know, they took us through a thousand fonts like we don't need to spend so much time on their font obsessed but the the intern on the job who actually happens to be in school in Boston, he hit upon the the EAS as the crosswalk and we were so delighted with it.
00:14:49:06 - 00:14:58:23
Jeff Speck
We came up with a lot of permutations of that, but we wanted something ultimately that was more subtle, clear to its intention, but not too in-your-face.
00:14:58:25 - 00:15:18:09
Chris Dempsey
Let's give that intern a shout out. His name is Ethan Pidgeon and he's graduating from Northeastern this year. So if someone listening to this is looking for a functional graphic designer and brand designer, reach out to Ethan. I've confirmed he is on LinkedIn, which we know is your favorite platform. John So people can find that feeling.
00:15:18:11 - 00:15:22:22
Jeff Speck
I have a feeling he's going straight to Pentagram, but we'll find out.
00:15:22:24 - 00:15:45:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know that it's my favorite platform. I don't like to show favorites just in case the gods are listening to social media gods. So yeah. So this is super exciting, you guys. I love the fact that, you know, this has come together and it's come together in the way that it has. It sounds like. Jeff, this was like good timing from your perspective.
00:15:45:26 - 00:16:17:17
John Simmerman
You've been like doing this hard for well over a decade. We just, as you mentioned, we'll go back over here, you know, to the actual book. You had just mentioned that, you know, the Walkable City book. We just celebrated, of course, the ten year anniversary of the original version of it. I had you on the channel here to celebrate the release of the ten year anniversary and the 100 plus pages at the end of the book because you made the decision.
00:16:17:17 - 00:16:35:12
John Simmerman
I think this was a very, very astute decision of leaving the original book intact and then adding the additional 100 pages where you were able to provide some reflections, including a chapter on bicycling and other types of things for.
00:16:35:14 - 00:16:39:17
Jeff Speck
And there's a new from Jeannette Side of Khan, which is that's right.
00:16:39:19 - 00:17:15:13
John Simmerman
A new introduction by Jess K, which is freaking awesome. For those who haven't seen that episode. Yeah, you guys, you want to pop on over and see that episode. But you know, for those that didn't see that episode, just real quickly, you know, say a few words as to why people should get the new book, because I think it is important, you know, being able to go back and if if if you have the first book already memorized, then read the preface, the introduction played by Jane that's not a guide.
00:17:15:13 - 00:17:18:23
John Simmerman
And then read the final hundred pages.
00:17:18:26 - 00:17:42:23
Jeff Speck
So, I mean, so much has happened in the last ten years. So much has evolved. I've learned a ton. I was pleased that almost nothing in the initial version was wrong, tremendously wrong enough to be cut except for one small passage on Zipcar, which turned out I think to be a little bit less of a factor than I had anticipated.
00:17:42:26 - 00:18:08:05
Jeff Speck
But there were a lot of surprises. I think particularly and this is almost a not a truism, it's a truth that it's the bicycle infrastructure as you mentioned, that is evolving the quickest in our cities. Right. We finally have a standard expected of us in the more progressive cities in the U.S. That is the equivalent of what I experienced in Berlin in the 1990s.
00:18:08:05 - 00:18:33:02
Jeff Speck
Right. We're finally catching up. But there there is a housing crisis that was not really fully understood 11 years ago. There's a you know what walkable city did that I think made it made it valuable was that I had read everything right. I had read, you know, Chris Lime Berger's work. I had read David Owen's work, I had read Donald Trump's work.
00:18:33:02 - 00:19:03:26
Jeff Speck
I had read, you know, all the great bicycling books I had read Frank and Frumkin and and who was Dick Jackson? Dick Jackson, who was, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger's health guy? I had read their book and with their blessings. And this was, you know, none of them were jerks. Right? They were all great people who wanted to get the message out and with their blessing and often their permission, I mean, often their editing.
00:19:04:02 - 00:19:24:18
Jeff Speck
Donald Shoup even reviewed the chapter on parking. I was able to consolidate all that into into one thing. But then the question is, what did what else was written that was really important, or at least what other conversations were out there in the ether that were really important, that hadn't made it in probably the biggest one was The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
00:19:24:18 - 00:19:47:02
Jeff Speck
And the lessons we all learned about, you know, how the segregated landscape was very carefully designed and implemented by the federal government that needed to be discussed as well. And then a lot more experience actually seeing the things that we had worked on get built and how they had functioned. That also lends important information to the conversation about what to do in cities.
00:19:47:04 - 00:20:16:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And what's interesting too is I consider like where you guys are based out of your base in the Boston area right there in Brooklyn, right across the river from, I think one of the most exciting places in in Cambridge, in Somerville that are really starting to, I think, just, you know, hit it out of the ballpark in terms of transforming some of the built environment.
00:20:16:07 - 00:20:56:10
John Simmerman
We're seeing continuous sidewalks and continuous side paths there in both Summer Somerville and in in Cambridge in the you know, and to your point, Jeff, it's it's all changed in terms of what our cycling infrastructure needs to be and looks like now. Talk a little bit about that experience. You know, Chris, you know, living so close to, you know, these communities that are starting to really transform and starting to put truly world class, all ages and abilities, facilities in place, I can think of like Tara, what is it, Western?
00:20:56:10 - 00:21:13:18
John Simmerman
Is it Western right there? An average. Yeah, that is, you know, physically separated cycling infrastructure, continuous pathway, continuous sidewalk. I mean, this is world class and it's in North America. We don't have to go all the way to Utrecht to see it.
00:21:13:20 - 00:21:24:13
Jeff Speck
And let me introduce Chris. Let me introduce Chris here. Yeah, we both are bike commuters, Chris, More so than me. The distinction is that Chris doesn't own a car and never has car.
00:21:24:16 - 00:21:27:12
John Simmerman
I like that. Yes. And but also.
00:21:27:14 - 00:21:32:29
Chris Dempsey
I've also lived on Western Avenue and so have used those bike lanes or bike paths.
00:21:33:00 - 00:21:36:17
John Simmerman
And you probably you probably saw that before condition then too.
00:21:36:19 - 00:21:55:07
Chris Dempsey
I was there right after it had been finished. And and so it was a big beneficiary of it. I was only there for about a year that I lived there. But, you know, tied to that discussion of having never owned a car, I grew up in a one car household and my dad was a bicycle commuter before bicycle commuting was cool.
00:21:55:07 - 00:22:16:12
Chris Dempsey
I mean, he was he was commuting on bike in the seventies and eighties. He had about a two mile commute from our home to where he was a vice principal at a local elementary school. And that's how he got around. And so that's sort of in my blood. And he was my role model in terms of getting around without needing a vehicle.
00:22:16:15 - 00:22:49:21
Chris Dempsey
But you're absolutely right, John, that Cambridge and Somerville are leading the region and leading the country in terms of their expansion and embrace of bicycle facilities. And I think what's happening there is really a virtuous cycle where you had some great political leadership, in particular from Mayor Joe Credit Tony in Somerville and a very progressive Somerville City Council as well as in Cambridge, where you had a city manager who was willing to embrace this but was pushed by a council on Cambridge.
00:22:49:24 - 00:23:18:00
Chris Dempsey
City Council is a really interesting one. Everyone's elected citywide through ranked choice voting and the politics of that are extremely complicated. Interesting. But they were able to build a approached cyclist majority. And what happened there is because they were expanding the infrastructure, they were encouraging more people, and especially more families, which means ultimately more voters to embrace cycling as a part of their daily lives.
00:23:18:02 - 00:23:35:11
Chris Dempsey
And once people were embracing that as part of their daily lives and seeing the benefits of it, then that became an important issue for them to vote on. And so they were electing even more people on the council who are willing to embrace those policies. And that's happened in both of those places. And we're benefiting as a region.
00:23:35:11 - 00:24:03:16
Chris Dempsey
And and you know, what I'm hearing from you as as a country from that virtuous cycle, because people are seeing that it's working, that the fears of congestion or the lack of parking that are often brought up to block those initiatives are not occurring, that this is good for small business, that it's good for public health, and that it just works for families, that the culture that has developed in those communities just around cargo bikes, for example, right.
00:24:03:18 - 00:24:35:02
Chris Dempsey
Cambridge we call Cambridge, Cambridge and Somerville together there's a there's a cargo bike lending nonprofit organization. A guy named Chris Smith runs that and he has the producers of these bikes basically lend them to this lending library as a way for people to test them out. So you can go you can just basically go on his web page, decide to borrow one for a couple of days, and then it's yours for a couple of days to try out the latest thing in Greater Boston.
00:24:35:02 - 00:24:54:18
Chris Dempsey
And really coming out of that Cambridge experience is appropriate. Jeff mentioned Zipcar, but we're expecting later this year that there will be a company that is going to launch cargo bike sharing on the model of of Zipcar, sharing this. And I know they're going to be in Boston and Cambridge and Somerville as their three first communities in this area.
00:24:54:25 - 00:25:10:21
Chris Dempsey
That's an exciting proposition. You heard me say earlier in this conversation that I'm a new dad and don't own a car. So I'm proud to be a future cargo bike dad. And I'm going to take advantage of the lending library in that company to figure out which one is going to be best for me and my family.
00:25:10:24 - 00:25:16:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, my prediction is it will probably be the urban arrow or something that looks like it. I love.
00:25:16:12 - 00:25:42:13
Jeff Speck
That. I should say. John, my wife and I had one of the first the only one I saw bucket bikes in Washington, D.C. when we had our first child. We finally bought a car when we had our second child. Like the day after we had our second child, we finally bought a car. I want to mention also in Somerville, Chris mentioned America to Tony, the fellow who implemented most of that was George Pro Acres, who you probably know, who's now city manager of the town of Watertown.
00:25:42:16 - 00:26:05:26
Jeff Speck
But George is a long time new urbanist old friend. She co teaches with me every year. And my my two day Harvard class. That's right. Which is an extension school class at the GSD that's available to anyone. It's May 30th through 31st. It is selling out for the first time. They've had to put a cap on the number of students and I would tell your audience to get in quickly if they want to go.
00:26:05:26 - 00:26:13:21
Jeff Speck
It's two days of the Walkable city with me and George, including touring some of these wonderful examples in Somerville.
00:26:13:24 - 00:26:47:13
John Simmerman
Fantastic press. I love the virtuous cycle. I love double entendres and puns. And it made me think of this photo that you sent along because, I mean, this is kind of to your point, Jeff, of of kind of what was happening in the zeitgeist, you know, from 11 years ago and 12 years ago when you were writing the the the book Walkable City, you know, and I've been in this this business of advocacy for active mobility for the better part of two decades now.
00:26:47:15 - 00:26:59:03
John Simmerman
And I remember when we were just fighting for like a paint as a simple painted shoulder painted bike lane and this just simply not good enough. This this is not good enough. This is, you.
00:26:59:03 - 00:27:24:09
Jeff Speck
Know, can I say, like, you know, to indict myself with everyone else? Yeah. I mean, ten years ago, I would have painted a door zone bike lane ten years ago, I and there's stuff you can find on the web where I'm recommending it. Yeah. We want you know, we want do doors on bike lanes anymore. Yeah. And, and, you know, ten years ago we knew that this was inferior to a protected facility, but it often it was all that we can get.
00:27:24:11 - 00:27:33:12
Jeff Speck
And I think what's most important is the conversation in cities now has reached a level where people understand that this is not something the cyclists should have to settle for.
00:27:33:14 - 00:27:55:00
John Simmerman
It's not good enough. Yeah. Yeah. And especially as parents, I mean, when you think of it, you know that image right there with the child, you know, in that door zone bike lane, you know, I can easily imagine, you know, that Honda element, you know, sharing the motor vehicle travel lane, you know, being right next to whatever that is.
00:27:55:02 - 00:28:12:23
John Simmerman
You know, on the other side there, the Toyota, you know, SUV. Hey, those two should be sharing space next to each other. And you know, that young lady should have all of Western Avenue a parking protected, hopefully separated, physically separated. Lane.
00:28:12:26 - 00:28:40:16
Jeff Speck
I always show that slide after I show the the the photo from the Village Voice of a young girl proudly enjoying the Prospect Park West Bike Lane in New York City, which is so well protected. And and I say, you know, nobody nobody wants their daughter in the door zone. I've sent you a bunch of images that are mostly are from my you know, my barnstorming tour lectures that that I give.
00:28:40:18 - 00:29:06:07
Jeff Speck
I think it would be useful to tell your audience that the typical way that Specht Dempsey gets involved in communities that often begins with a lecture and people often call up and say, Hey, will you will you work with us? And I say, Sure, but we we should do a lecture first to establish a certain level of conversation within the community, also to see if it's a good fit in my experience, it's always a good fit.
00:29:06:09 - 00:29:26:08
Jeff Speck
But but, you know, I do want to see how folks react. And we we gather a lot of energy around these lectures and often they're like, the mayor wants to meet with you before the lecture. And I'm like, No, I will not meet with the mayor before the lecture. I meet with the mayor after the lecture, if the mayor comes to the lecture.
00:29:26:15 - 00:29:44:04
Jeff Speck
But the most important thing is that the mayor and city manager and city council and other folks who have have the wherewithal within the community are in the room. And this is why I hated the zoom the Zoom lectures. They need to be in the room and they need to see how the public reacts to these messages. Right.
00:29:44:04 - 00:30:08:25
Jeff Speck
Because because the the the way that they see their constituents respond to the message of the walkable city is then what drives forward a positive change in those communities because people want this stuff. And actually, you know, the the the opportunity for working in communities and for making change in communities is much less unless you've had this sort of public forum where people can get together.
00:30:08:28 - 00:30:23:29
Jeff Speck
And I think Chris can elaborate, but we've even had some lectures that have been crowdfunded where, you know, the fee wasn't available, you know, from the municipality or from a foundation or anyone else, but just folks raised the money that way.
00:30:24:01 - 00:30:45:09
John Simmerman
I think that's a really good point, is let's let's empower the community to to come together and say, you know, our leadership isn't there yet or they just don't have the money. But we're passionate about this. You know, we've been following, you know, Jeff's work, etc.. And this new guy, Chris, he seems, okay, let's bring this together. Let's bring these guys in.
00:30:45:12 - 00:31:11:01
John Simmerman
And I want to make the point, too, that the cities that you've been having some of the most profound impact in over the years, Jeff, have been in like people would be like, surprised. I mean, you're you're like working with cities in Oklahoma, cities in Iowa. I think if I remember correctly, cities in Indiana.
00:31:11:02 - 00:31:15:21
Jeff Speck
Diana Boone, Indiana, a lot of we're doing it we're doing a ton of work in Indiana.
00:31:15:28 - 00:31:21:24
Chris Dempsey
Indiana office, actually, given how busy we are, we love working in Indiana.
00:31:21:27 - 00:31:30:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. And this particular shot here, this is Monahan Boulevard. This is most likely shot from the corner of a parking garage. I know.
00:31:30:18 - 00:31:43:18
Jeff Speck
This shot. I think I think Brandon, also known as American feature. So this took this picture, I believe. Yeah. Now it's at night. So you don't have the images. I have of daytime of all the people enjoying it.
00:31:43:21 - 00:31:58:19
John Simmerman
And I have plenty of video folks if you just stay right here on the channel you know pop on over. I've interviewed Brandon a couple of times and I've visited him. I actually rode my Brompton from Indianapolis on Noonan Trail all the way up to, you know.
00:31:58:25 - 00:32:00:11
Jeff Speck
For you to come.
00:32:00:13 - 00:32:15:17
John Simmerman
It's 15 miles, this piece of cake. It actually is a joyride on the moon on trail now because of what I call. Todd development trail oriented development. There's tons of it happening all along the moon on now. Congratulations.
00:32:15:19 - 00:32:26:00
Jeff Speck
But I've described this image a hundred times. So I want to let you I want to let you I want to let you describe what's there, and then I'll correct anything you get wrong. But I want to hear how you.
00:32:26:03 - 00:33:08:06
John Simmerman
The way I would describe this is just joyful. I remember kind of the before factor that that exists here. And I and I remember having a conversation. You mentioned mayors. I remember having a conversation with Mayor Brainard, probably like circa 2018, and he was encouraging me to get there and what was really impressive for me when I finally had the chance to ride in and roll into this space was it gave me the sense that this was a solid North American example of what I'm used to seeing when I'm traveling in Europe.
00:33:08:09 - 00:33:40:12
John Simmerman
And it is just a wonderful space that is at human scale and really engages people. And what was really most impressive about what this has resulted in is exactly kind of what you see here in terms of the level of density that's happening, the level of vibrancy that does happen, especially during the summer further down the moon on Boulevard and toward further down the trail, you'll see an area where they do the farmer's market.
00:33:40:15 - 00:34:13:01
John Simmerman
There's so much vibrancy, so much livelihood that's taking place. And I think it's having a ripple effect to not only on other communities throughout the Midwest, throughout the continent, but it's also, I think, having a ripple effect in the rest of this city, this suburban place where not everything is as walkable and bikeable as you'd like. They have an extensive off street network of pathways, but there's still lots of room for improvement.
00:34:13:04 - 00:34:45:22
Jeff Speck
Yeah, it's having a ripple effect extremely locally in that we're now working in fissures in Indiana next door. We're now working in Westfield, Indiana. What next door? And we have some completed work that's that's pretty built in Hammond, Indiana, in New Albany, Indiana, in Elkhart, Indiana, strangely. But the this project is an example of a kind of a successive collaboration between, you know, Mayor Brainard is kind of a serial, a serial monogamist when it comes to planners.
00:34:45:22 - 00:35:16:10
Jeff Speck
So he brings one in and then another one, another one. And I did the planning and then Gail came in and modified it, John, Gail's firm, and then our landscape actually did the details that you see right there. I can't take credit for the details, which is why the bike lanes are actually redundant. There's a bike facility in the middle of the street and there's a bike utility on the edge, the street, which we have no problem with because everyone's walking in the bike lanes, they're biking in the walking lanes, they're biking in the driving lanes, walking in the in the brick streets.
00:35:16:13 - 00:35:38:21
Jeff Speck
It's mayhem in a most in the most wonderful way. Only the cars aren't going where they're not supposed to. And the big move that I made from a planning perspective was that there was essentially just this trail, this recreational rails, two rails, two trails trail. That was the only thing that existed in kind of a post-industrial hinterland between the two parts of this community.
00:35:38:21 - 00:36:03:03
Jeff Speck
So it was a bipolar city with a main street to the north, the art and design district and a civic center to the south with David Schwartz's beautiful Palladium concert hall and the City Hall and other municipal facilities down to the south. And no one ever walked between them except for exercise. And the I was the third planner on this job after two plans were not implemented.
00:36:03:05 - 00:36:28:25
Jeff Speck
Right. And my simple proposal was that you need to embrace this trail with with a street, with a boulevard, and put the trail in the middle. And people were like, why would we besmirch a recreational trail with urbanism? You know, imagine. But of course, what the mayor understood and many others didn't was that particularly in a suburban city, if it's going to thrive as a active, mixed use neighborhood, it needs to be a front.
00:36:28:27 - 00:36:49:15
Jeff Speck
And the only way to make it a front was to have a street now. And if you design the street, right, the cars, a blight at all. In fact, this street is a ten foot driving lane next to an eight foot parking lane, single lane. Usually we give 20 feet for that, but we did it in 18 and no one's going more than five miles an hour on the street.
00:36:49:15 - 00:36:51:00
Jeff Speck
It's it's fantastic.
00:36:51:02 - 00:37:25:12
John Simmerman
Right. And if we take a look at some of the detail that we see when we see, you know, the fact that, yeah, I mean, just like in the Netherlands, you know, the travel zone, that the motor vehicles have are paved in bricks, it sends a message that this is not an area for for speed. You know, it's not like, I'm coming off of the suburban context where I've got my my typical black asphalt tarmac where I'm used to driving, you know, 30 plus miles per hour.
00:37:25:15 - 00:37:29:11
John Simmerman
It's clear that this is a different context.
00:37:29:13 - 00:37:53:11
Jeff Speck
And the absence of the absence of curbs. Right. The absence of curbs in that location. But, you know, a lot of the changes we make in cities, we are able to do with just with just paint. So it isn't important necessarily to spend a lot of money. I should say that, you know, every dollar that Kamal has spent on that that facility, it's made back in the tax revenue from the investment increment that happened around it.
00:37:53:11 - 00:38:28:01
Jeff Speck
Right. So there's there's plenty of great stories to be told. One of my slides shows a doctored Red Stripe bottle that says Red Stripe. And I say, you know, don't repave re stripe. But then at the end of my show, I give you a wonderful example of Lancaster Boulevard in Lancaster, California, by our more and Paul Israelis, where they invested, you know, I think $11.3 million in a complete rebuild of a horrible strode that was the center of their community into a wonderful new street.
00:38:28:01 - 00:38:52:26
Jeff Speck
So they invested $11 million, but they got hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in new economic energy around that investment. This is an image from Oklahoma City before you can see they had a lot of four lane one ways running through the downtown. I presume you have the after as well, John in which it's turned into a two lane two a including a tram that runs that runs down it.
00:38:52:28 - 00:39:25:12
Jeff Speck
Oklahoma City was my first walkability study and was fortunately completed around the same day that they learned they were getting a $200 million tax increment coming from a a new tower landing in the downtown folks to attend the Congress for New Urbanism experienced Oklahoma City a few years ago. You know it's it's not an amazing, you know, caramel in terms of the detail of the of the streets or the you know, the non automotive nature it's still a very automotive downtown.
00:39:25:12 - 00:39:38:19
Jeff Speck
The message we shared with with conference attendees were it was just and the mayor said this you should have seen it before because as you showed in that before image, it was just anti pedestrian death zone. It was. And now.
00:39:38:19 - 00:39:40:07
John Simmerman
A lot of this.
00:39:40:09 - 00:39:44:25
Jeff Speck
And now and now it's just it's a nice normal walkable downtown.
00:39:44:28 - 00:40:19:03
John Simmerman
And and they're working you know the neat thing about Oklahoma City and having the ability to experience that Jeff was was just that you you use there still plenty of the old stuff that still needs to be the before picture of Robinson there but yeah you should have seen it before And at the same time they're really working to improve upon where they're at because, you know, when we when we look at the reality of of this particular street, you know, I come up with like a half a dozen things that could be done better.
00:40:19:06 - 00:40:28:21
John Simmerman
But to your point, you and I talked about this in our first episode. It's like you learned a ton even from when that was coming together and when you were working on that.
00:40:28:24 - 00:40:48:11
Jeff Speck
Well, this was a this was a city that I mean, half the curbs you couldn't build on because of the repercussions from the Oklahoma City bombing. Exactly. And it made them afraid of parallel parking. Yeah. And I had to convince them that, you know, a a bomber was not going to be afraid of getting a parking ticket. And they're going to put their they want right.
00:40:48:17 - 00:41:08:08
Jeff Speck
We need to have parking to protect the curb where there's extra space in the street. And, you know, importantly, we you know, we turn driving lanes into parking lanes and we turn driving lanes into bike lanes. And often in cities, even congested cities, you find streets that have more lanes than the current volume of traffic demands.
00:41:08:11 - 00:41:16:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. So, Chris, talk through what it is you all will be doing with the firm here.
00:41:16:13 - 00:41:58:08
Chris Dempsey
Yeah, you can see some of it pulled up here as example projects, many of them pulling from just decade plus at Spec and associates. We can help communities and we can help private developers in many different ways. It's a difficult project for us. Might be a private developer that has access or ownership of a parcel that knows that they want to create a walkable place, that knows that they're more likely to get the approvals that they need from the community if the place is walkable or just that it's going to create more long term value for their project when they're creating a walkable place and they come to us because they know that anything that
00:41:58:08 - 00:42:20:10
Chris Dempsey
we're involved in and leading is going to end up as a walkable place. You could see earlier higher up on our our page there, the tagline we use on the top of our web pages, we make walkable places. And the reason that we do that is because the reason we think that's so important is that walkability is is the most essential unit of urbanism.
00:42:20:12 - 00:42:47:09
Chris Dempsey
And when you get walkability right, you're probably also getting cycling right and getting transit right. And even getting housing right. Certainly getting mixed use districts. Right. So you want to get walkability right first and the other things follow. So that would be a typical project for us. And a good example of that would be the project that we're involved in right now in ten More Square in Boston, which today is a tangle of different streets that come together.
00:42:47:15 - 00:43:08:28
Chris Dempsey
It's called Kenmore Square, but there's really no square and there's really no place at all other than a major intersection. It's about a block from Fenway Park. It should be so much more than it is. And the design that we're working on there in conjunction with the city and with our client, which is marked development, will create a transformational public space.
00:43:08:28 - 00:43:38:21
Chris Dempsey
And we're proud to be sharing more about that with the public in the months ahead as that project advances. Another typical project might be a community that comes to us because they have a downtown that they know is not functioning at the level that it should. A great example of that would be Mansfield, Texas, where we are working at their historic downtown, the crossroads of Main and Broad that for many decades were essentially just regional highways.
00:43:38:23 - 00:44:22:04
Chris Dempsey
They had, like many places, gone from a crossroads, a marketplace to just a place to drive through. And finally, after the business community asking for decades for it to be transformed more into a place to be, a place to shop, a place to walk, we're leading the effort to make that possible. In fact, we just received approval from the city council there for a design that will include a roundabout and date and a road diet that will create exceptional public space and new greenspace and a whole lot more parking actually along the lines of what Jeff mentioned earlier with more and policies, ideas, their proposal or their plan that was implemented in Lancaster, California.
00:44:22:06 - 00:44:47:12
Chris Dempsey
So we're really excited about being the people that are going to help unlock vibrancy and walkability in a place that had that 100 years ago, lost it at some point in the 20th century, is ready to to re-embrace it. But another example would be a community where they know that they've got a housing need or a need for some new economic activity more broadly than just their downtown.
00:44:47:14 - 00:45:09:29
Chris Dempsey
Maybe it's their 20 acres or 50 acres or 100 acres, and they want to make sure that they get their plan right, that they're not encouraging, just more sprawl, that they're ending up with a new neighborhood that can be one of the best neighborhoods in their city, because it's a place that supports mixed use, but also essentially importantly, supports walkability at its core.
00:45:10:01 - 00:45:29:24
Jeff Speck
You know, one trend we've seen over the past few decades is that cities aren't just going out to developers with RFP anymore, Right? we've got to you know, the city owns a parcel downtown. We have a big old parking lot or we've got, you know, two acres that that we effectively control. But cities are creating the plans beforehand.
00:45:29:26 - 00:45:57:00
Jeff Speck
This is what we've done in Carmel for the last site along that boulevard that we were discussing called Carmel Plaza, sorry, called Mona Plaza, that was a pretty dead huge tarmac at the center strip shopping center. And the city's redevelopment agency basically took control of it and commissioned us to make a plan that they then put out to the to the private, you know, development community and said, this is the plan we'd like to see.
00:45:57:00 - 00:46:13:14
Jeff Speck
Can you can you build it? And a early example of that and, a very powerful one, was the old airport in in Austin near you? John Yeah, that became it's called Mueller now right. Spelled Mueller and pronounce Mueller or vice versa.
00:46:13:16 - 00:46:28:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's it's half and half. It's, it's spelled Mueller. Yes. And half Texans being what we are here. I'm not native Texan, but half the population pronounces it Miller and half of Mueller. So yes.
00:46:28:20 - 00:46:52:24
Jeff Speck
Okay. Well, when I was at the NEA, one of the projects that came before the mayor's Institute, which I oversaw was the city's proposal done with really good designers as to what this site could be. And that proposal was completed and a general plan and overlay code was created. Only then did they go out to private market, and I believe it was cartel.
00:46:52:24 - 00:47:11:23
Jeff Speck
US developers came in. Yep. And they hired the same planners and said, okay, we need a few changes, but let's do the let's do this plan. And what's really important there is that the planners worked both for cities and for developers, so they understood when they did the plan for the city what a developer would be willing to willing to build.
00:47:11:24 - 00:47:14:15
Jeff Speck
And so you're seeing more and more cities take advantage of that.
00:47:14:22 - 00:48:00:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, if I can interject, I'm glad you brought that up. As an example, I spend a lot of my time filming there in in that community. It's about 90, 95% built out at this point. So it's really super fun to film in. I'm able to get out there on the bike. And by the way, too, when we talk about walkable, in my mind as a an active mobility scientist, somebody who's looking at behavior change in terms of encouraging people to walk bike use transit more frequently when I hear you say walkable studies and walkability studies, I'm automatically translating that into this is going to be a also a more bikeable environment.
00:48:00:17 - 00:48:24:26
John Simmerman
This is going to be an environment that is conducive for people in mobility devices like wheelchairs and assisted scooters, things of that nature. So I just wanted to put that out because sometimes it may seem like we're limiting and saying, no, this is just about walkability and it's only about 800 meters. No, no, no, no. It's much more encompassing of it is a walkable, bikeable environment.
00:48:24:26 - 00:48:34:12
John Simmerman
And that's one of the things that you do spend time in that re reboot of the 100 plus pages in the new version of the book.
00:48:34:15 - 00:48:43:08
Jeff Speck
Yeah. I mean, it's the only real floor that I'm aware of in the verbiage that we've chosen, right? So yeah, so I have to say that.
00:48:43:10 - 00:48:48:04
John Simmerman
It works and I don't have an I don't have a better solution to you, you know, from like what.
00:48:48:04 - 00:48:51:17
Jeff Speck
Do we can we own it, manage to merge with it?
00:48:51:19 - 00:49:12:24
Chris Dempsey
I mean, I think a lot of your audience probably knows this, but it's worth saying walkable places are more inclusive places, they're more equitable places. They're places that are better for public health, they're better for the environment, they're more economically vibrant. I mean, the list goes on and on, but everybody is included in that vision of walkability. Even people that are.
00:49:12:25 - 00:49:41:06
Jeff Speck
There more, they're more rollable and they're more bikeable, for sure. Yeah. You know, anything you do to make a place more rollable, or surprisingly, perhaps more bikeable, makes it safer for pedestrians. And that's a surprise. You know, it's so funny. Everyone I know in New York City now is really upset about the E by examining the wrong way down the bike lanes and they'll tell you it's never been worse in terms of the interactions between bikes and pedestrians in New York City.
00:49:41:06 - 00:49:49:24
Jeff Speck
And I was there and I had the same impression. Last year was the safest year for pedestrians in New York City in the history of recording pedestrian history and recording.
00:49:49:24 - 00:49:50:10
John Simmerman
Yeah.
00:49:50:12 - 00:50:14:20
Jeff Speck
Yeah. Which is what surprised me. But the I think it's important to communicate to your audience that for me, walkability began is just the best way to explain good planning. Exactly. It was not that I came, you know, like Mark Fenton from a walking perspective or like you, you know, from a health perspective and said, we we need to lock more.
00:50:14:22 - 00:50:39:23
Jeff Speck
No, I mean, I was raised as an architect and an urban designer who wants to make great places. And I slowly discovered that if you if you use walkability as your metric, you will find the best places. But then an interesting thing happened, which was, okay, kind of building this general theory of walkability and what it means to be do have walking, be useful, safe, comfortable and interesting.
00:50:39:26 - 00:50:58:29
Jeff Speck
If you actually instrumentalize that and make it your framework for making design decisions, you actually end up changing some things and making some some better decisions. As a planner, when every question you ask is is it going to make more it more walkable or less? Well.
00:50:59:02 - 00:51:28:01
Chris Dempsey
Yeah, this is a related concept to what many people know as the curved concept, which is with the existence of the Americans with Disabilities Act, communities across the country have been forced to create curb cuts that are accessible to people that are rolling in a mobility device and in particular in a wheelchair. But in fact, the biggest beneficiaries in many ways of that are people like me who are pushing pushing strollers now.
00:51:28:04 - 00:51:51:04
Chris Dempsey
And you can now push a stroller through a neighborhood much more easily than if those curb cuts to exist or a person who might be rolling a grocery cart to the local shop. That couldn't do that before because it was hard to get it up and off the curb. You can now do that or someone that's walking to, you know, from their transit station to their hotel to go to the airport or come back from the airport and they've got luggage with them.
00:51:51:07 - 00:52:03:11
Chris Dempsey
All of those trips are now easier. The the purpose of that curb cut was really just to serve people with disabilities. But everybody benefits. Walkability is the same way in that no matter who you are, you can benefit from a more walkable.
00:52:03:13 - 00:52:14:06
Jeff Speck
I'd like to rename that the curb the Curb ramp effect because the curb cut is usually something we're fighting in cities where they're bringing driveways across for a for drive thrus and good point.
00:52:14:06 - 00:52:23:14
John Simmerman
Good point. Again the website is spec Dempsey dot com. Chris Dempsey and Jeff Speck, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:52:23:16 - 00:52:24:14
Chris Dempsey
Jon it's been a pleasure.
00:52:24:14 - 00:52:25:14
Jeff Speck
Thank you to.
00:52:25:16 - 00:52:28:08
Chris Dempsey
See you in person in Austin sometime soon.
00:52:28:10 - 00:52:43:12
John Simmerman
He thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Jeff in person. If you did, please give a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on the subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell.
00:52:43:19 - 00:53:07:29
John Simmerman
And if you are enjoying this content here on the Active Towns channel, please consider supporting my efforts. Become an active town's ambassador. It's easy to do. Just head on over to active towns dot org. Click on the support button. There's several different options, including becoming a patron supporter. My patrons do get access to all this video content early and free, so there's a really cool bonus.
00:53:07:29 - 00:53:35:05
John Simmerman
Again, thank you all so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness, cheers. And again sending a huge thank you 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 town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.
00:53:35:07 - 00:53:36:14
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.