In this episode, I connect with Alissa Walker with Curbed for a virtual stroll in Los Angeles. 

Alisa lives in Los Angeles, where she is a co-host of LA Podcast, a contributor to the KCRW show Greater LA, and a mom to the city's two most enthusiastic public transit riders.

From her bio at Curbed...

"Alissa Walker connects people with where they live through writing, speaking, and walking. As the urbanism editor at Curbed, she authors the column Word on the Street, highlighting the pioneering transit, clever civic design, and game-changing policy affecting our cities.

For her writing on design and urbanism, Alissa has been named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow and Journalist of the Year by Streetsblog Los Angeles. In 2012 her project Good Ideas for Cities was selected for inclusion in the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2015 she received the Design Advocate award from the LA chapter of the American Institute of Architects. She is also the co-founder of design east of La Brea, a nonprofit that has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants supporting its LA design events."

We cover a wide variety of topics in this episode, including walking in LA, the impacts of Covid-19 on transit and transportation, bike share, and so much more.

Additional Helpful Links

Alissa’s May 13 article about Covid-19 Impacting her family

Missing Persons “Walking in LA”

Curbed article on Bike Share 

The Pandemic Has Turned Los Angeles Into a Walker City by Geoff McFetridge, NYTimes, April 23, 2020

“I want to see people walking our streets and not feel that their presence is somehow related to the world’s falling apart.” 

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Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2020

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.