Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:29
Kyle Wagenschutz
I think it's really important to sort of think about that. The situation is not who has the bike plan, who has the biggest bank account to fund the work, who's building the most innovative types of infrastructure? Who has the best engagement strategy like all of that? At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. We found it's really about how well do these groups know what's going on?

00:00:22:04 - 00:00:27:09
Kyle Wagenschutz
How well are they able to support each other and are they working together towards that common goal?

00:00:27:10 - 00:00:50:28
Zoe Kirkos
I would just add like an example is one city where we had a pretty supportive staff and we had community engagement. And the the mayor was kind of. You know, like she wasn't against it but wasn't really for it. And we were able to really get her on board because the other two where, you know, the city staff were able to kind of, bolster them.

00:00:50:28 - 00:01:17:01
Zoe Kirkos
And then we were able to really get those community organizations, individuals out and support to give her 100% props every time she came out for an activation event. And it became in two years, a difference from her being kind of like, yeah, it's fine to actively running a reelection campaign as this is part of it. Her support for their accelerated goal.

00:01:17:03 - 00:01:41:22
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Zoe Kirkos and Kyle Wagenschitz from City Thread. We're going to be getting an update from the City Thread organization and announcing their three new cities. In the new cohort, of folks that they have been helping out, with technical assistance to try to accelerate their mobility plans and get things out on the ground.

00:01:41:22 - 00:01:57:11
John Simmerman
But before we do that, just want to say, if you are enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Super easy to do. Just navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page. There's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter.

00:01:57:15 - 00:02:08:15
John Simmerman
Patrons do get early and ad free access to all the video content. Okay, let's get right to it with Zoe and Kyle.

00:02:08:18 - 00:02:12:23
John Simmerman
Hey guys, welcome to the Active Towns channel.

00:02:12:26 - 00:02:14:13
Zoe Kirkos
Hey, John. Nice to be here.

00:02:14:15 - 00:02:18:08
Kyle Wagenschutz
John, are we the. Are we the guests that have been on this show the most?

00:02:18:10 - 00:02:21:03
John Simmerman
No, you are not. You are not.

00:02:21:04 - 00:02:25:20
Kyle Wagenschutz
What place are we? I feel like we have a. I need to know what the number is so we can.

00:02:25:23 - 00:02:44:11
John Simmerman
You know, I think you're you're probably tied with, Professor Peter Norton with the University of Virginia and the Author of the book Fighting Traffic. I think you're tied there, but I think Ryan Van Duzer has probably been on the channel the most number of times.

00:02:44:11 - 00:02:45:16
Kyle Wagenschutz
Oh, that was pretty.

00:02:45:18 - 00:02:46:15
Zoe Kirkos
It was Doozer.

00:02:46:17 - 00:02:52:27
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah, that shout out to Doozer.

00:02:52:29 - 00:03:07:10
John Simmerman
Folks. Yes. You have been on welcome once again. It's such a joy having you. But I'm sure there's people out in the audience who don't know the heck you are, so, So why don't you start us out? Who the heck is Zoe?

00:03:07:13 - 00:03:37:04
Zoe Kirkos
Thanks, John. I'm Zoe Curtis. I'm one of three partners at City Thread. It's an organization. We're headquartered in Denver, Colorado. But I am coming to you from Boulder and, I have a background in working, delivering money for bicycle infrastructure projects, managing youth, cycling programs, helping increase equity and shared micromobility. And, you know, just working with folks in the bicycling pedestrian world across the US.

00:03:37:04 - 00:03:41:11
Zoe Kirkos
So really happy to be here. As a partner at City Thread.

00:03:41:13 - 00:03:52:22
John Simmerman
Yeah. Cool. And yeah, from from my adopted hometown of Boulder, Colorado, where I used to live. But I want to visit as much as I can. Kyle, how about you?

00:03:52:24 - 00:04:15:09
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah. Hey, everybody, I'm Kyle. Wagon shoots. Join, Zoe and our other partner, Sarah Studdard at City Thread. You know, I'm a recovering bureaucrat, spent a lot of time working in local and regional government, worked for national nonprofit after that. And just, you know, just trying to make the world a better place with a little less red tape.

00:04:15:11 - 00:04:24:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned your recovering bureaucrat. You spent some time working for the city in Memphis, if I remember correctly.

00:04:24:12 - 00:04:37:05
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah, I spent seven years there in what feels like a long a really long time ago. But, while I was there, my job was to launch the city's first bicycle and pedestrian program.

00:04:37:07 - 00:04:45:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And, of course, Memphis is the common denominator with, your other partner, Sarah, as she was there in Memphis as well. So.

00:04:46:06 - 00:04:51:04
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah. Best place, best city in the whole country. I would I put the roots down there.

00:04:51:06 - 00:04:53:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic.

00:04:53:26 - 00:05:09:08
Zoe Kirkos
And I hear it. Yeah. I just want to say I met Kyle and we he helped me organize a bike, day a mobility workshop in Memphis, many years ago. How long ago? That was a long time ago, Kyle. Like 14 years ago.

00:05:09:14 - 00:05:12:12
Kyle Wagenschutz
Before I had children. Yeah, yeah.

00:05:12:15 - 00:05:19:17
Zoe Kirkos
A lot more free time. And we showed off, the great infrastructure that that Kyle helped build there.

00:05:19:19 - 00:05:42:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and, well, Memphis is a tremendous city. It's, it's no surprise that you all did migrate to the Boulder Denver area. You, Kyle and Sarah. And so you've been in Boulder forever and ever and ever. So, Yeah, there's an attraction that brings people in. We're here to talk about and get an update on City thread.

00:05:42:05 - 00:05:48:03
John Simmerman
So let's pull up your website here and, chat a little bit about this. So for.

00:05:48:03 - 00:05:49:12
Zoe Kirkos
Folks who.

00:05:49:15 - 00:05:57:01
John Simmerman
Are tuning in for the very first time, to hear from you, who the heck is City Thread? What is it that you all do?

00:05:57:03 - 00:06:26:02
Zoe Kirkos
So City Thread is a, nonprofit organization. We work with cities and their community partners to help them deliver public infrastructure projects faster and better. So we're really building our a built our approach around the idea that cities can move faster and that the, bureaucracy has a role to play in terms of making sure that all voices are heard and making sure that we're attending to the needs of the many and not, just serving the interests of a few.

00:06:26:09 - 00:06:58:14
Zoe Kirkos
But sometimes that bureaucracy and red tape can really get in the way of a city being able to effectively deliver, the projects and the programs that residents want and need. So City Threads approach is designed to kind of cut through that through a, an approach that we've developed over a number of years. And working with, 17 plus cities across the US and, we're excited to be working with, a number of cities to help them do just that, you know, deliver projects better, faster, with more community input.

00:06:58:16 - 00:07:10:27
Zoe Kirkos
Being more responsive to community needs and especially in this day and age, kind of rebuilding trust between residents and their city government that that is can work for them and help them, you know, thrive.

00:07:11:00 - 00:07:14:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. What would you add, Kyle?

00:07:14:21 - 00:07:44:28
Kyle Wagenschutz
I'd say, you know, we were talking about sort of our history of working in Memphis and delivering infrastructure projects there. And so our approach is really born out of personal experience of of going through the motions, of attempting to get great infrastructure projects on the ground and just feeling like the morass and the, you know, the slog that it can sometimes take that we have a funny story that our other partner, Sarah, and I first met, in 2010.

00:07:45:00 - 00:08:05:07
Kyle Wagenschutz
I was working for the city. She was working for a community group. We were partnering on an infrastructure project, and that infrastructure project was heralded by the community. The community raised nearly $100,000 to help do the some of the initial design and planning work. We were it was all this sort of we'd got a federal grant to fund the construction of it.

00:08:05:10 - 00:08:29:02
Kyle Wagenschutz
It was one of the most, I think, you know, positive working relationships I ever had as a city official of working with a community group to see this thing happen, that that the community wanted, that business owners wanted. And I had two kids. A full career at the city of Memphis moved to Colorado. Sarah then moved to Colorado, and then it was finally built almost ten years later.

00:08:29:04 - 00:08:57:03
Kyle Wagenschutz
Right. And you just sort of like think to yourself like, why in the world did this project that seemingly like on paper, checked all of the boxes? No vocal opposition. The funding was in place. Everyone wanted to see it happen, enthusiastic people and working every single day. And that for us was really the impetus for the work that we do at City Thread to say, like, what are the real challenges that communities have at delivering infrastructure projects?

00:08:57:06 - 00:09:17:05
Kyle Wagenschutz
If in the best scenario, it takes us ten years to change the way our road works, you know, we're always just going to be losing to the battle of time. And for us, we asked ourselves and asked city partners to say, like, does it have to take this long? Like, what are the real things that are really slowing us down?

00:09:17:07 - 00:09:39:22
Kyle Wagenschutz
And our playbook, the city, through an accelerated mobility playbook is really sort of, you know, the lessons that we've learned of working in communities, helping them accelerate transportation projects and identifying some of the key factors that are that are really slowing things down but are also really manageable, easily fixable. If we're just sort of take the time and attention, to do it.

00:09:39:25 - 00:10:02:12
John Simmerman
Fascinating. Yeah. I just had, Greg Spotts, the former, director of transportation for the city of Seattle, on and we were talking about, you know, really why he was hired. He was brought in to try to accelerate programs and get some of these active mobility programs off of the docket. They've been, you know, sort of stymied and stuck in there.

00:10:02:12 - 00:10:25:16
John Simmerman
And we talked a little bit about, you know, you can only move as fast as the speed of trust. That's an oversimplification of it, but I get the sense, having worked with you, both over the years with, you know, this type of implementation of this program that that's a big cornerstone of, of what you're working on is is it an oversimplification of it?

00:10:25:18 - 00:10:44:12
Zoe Kirkos
I'd say it's, it's 100% true. It's easy to say, and I don't say it's hard to do, but you have to be willing to invest the time and energy and, you know, resources enable in order to make it happen. You build trust. And it sounds like very direct and easy of like, oh, you build trust. Let's go out and build trust.

00:10:44:12 - 00:11:21:07
Zoe Kirkos
And that's a lot of actual activities, right? It's a lot of, talking to each other. It's, you know, continually reaching out and engaging new, and diverse organizations. It's also telling people, I'm not just going to come in and deliver something and listen to you while I'm delivering it, but I'm actually going to engage you in the whole process of deciding what's going to be delivered and how it's going to be delivered, and how we're going to keep you engaged along the way, how we're going to share information and being really clear and consistent around how we are participating with you in delivering projects that are going to be affecting your community.

00:11:21:08 - 00:12:01:04
Zoe Kirkos
So it's 100% true, easy to say, but take some time. I don't think it's hard so much, but when we are feeling under the gun to deliver in a certain way and to be responsive to you know, elected leaders and, other, you know, powerful partners, we also need to just really, you know, keep focused on being consistent and predictable and ongoing and our engagement with others, local community based organizations, anchor institutions, faith based organizations, neighborhood groups that are the ones that are actually living with the results of what you're building on the ground and want to have a say in what that looks like.

00:12:01:04 - 00:12:20:26
Zoe Kirkos
And so I think the mistake a lot of folks make is thinking that it can happen quickly, and that once you do it, then you're all set to go, whereas it's an ongoing partnership. I always compare it to, like I have friends across the country. I don't just say, well, we became friends 20 years ago and now we're good, right?

00:12:20:26 - 00:12:31:10
Zoe Kirkos
I mean, I have, you know, we have to steward that relationship. It's the same in a community. You have to steward it. You have to take care of it, and you have to continually, reinvest in it.

00:12:31:13 - 00:12:53:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Well said. And it it occurs to me too. Oh, you're saying there's a way that, every year moving at the speed of trust is, is sort of different with every different city, you know, and maybe even every community and neighborhood, because there could be something that they need that's a little different than, say, the neighborhood, you know, across town.

00:12:53:12 - 00:13:17:04
John Simmerman
And so it may be a different mix of integration. Interventions, engagement that needs to take place to really make sure that you're, you know, sort of hitting the key factors that you need to hit from, you know, from the standpoint of being able to move quickly. You need to make sure that you, you know, are really listening to the audience.

00:13:17:06 - 00:13:27:22
John Simmerman
What would you add to that? You know, Kyle, in terms of, you know, that that challenge of of being able to to move and accelerate, move a little bit quicker?

00:13:27:25 - 00:14:01:27
Kyle Wagenschutz
I would add that even if you aren't proactively engaged in sort of like trust building work in communities, cities are building trust in expectations every single day. And so it's not that trust doesn't exist. And so that trust might exist in something that is negative. Like I might trust the city to never follow through on, you know, the feedback that I provided at this public meeting, I might trust the city to never mow this vacant lot that I've been complaining about for the last 12 months.

00:14:02:00 - 00:14:26:15
Kyle Wagenschutz
Like, you know, trust, trust. We oftentimes talk about trust as a, as a, like a with a positive sentiment like trust is a good thing. But to recognize that people do trust their government and they do trust their city. But it's oftentimes in the opposite direction of where we want it to be. They're they're trusting in the failure, the incompetency, the slowness, the inability to meet their needs.

00:14:26:18 - 00:14:47:14
Kyle Wagenschutz
And that's that's really the situation that we're trying to reverse. And so when Zoe's talking about sort of like the work that goes into when the nurturing of building trust is, we are we're actually not starting from sort of like a zero point. There's no there's no neutrality here. We're oftentimes starting behind the eight ball. And John, to your point about how that's different community to community.

00:14:47:20 - 00:15:13:15
Kyle Wagenschutz
Some neighborhoods, some cities, some groups of people who are so far in the negative side of this, sort of like this trust is so tainted by past six horrible experiences, maybe past, you know, generationally, we might we might still be thinking about the ways in which the city didn't do this thing 30 or 40 years ago. That's the starting point that that we're sort of talking about nurturing cities, nurturing those relationships and trust.

00:15:13:17 - 00:15:31:04
Kyle Wagenschutz
The only way you do that, and I think, you know, what we sort of like try to help cities, sort of understand, is that you don't go from that negative position and trust to you, don't you don't flip the, the paddles in the other direction because you have like, one big project or one sort of a monumental moonshot.

00:15:31:06 - 00:15:48:02
Kyle Wagenschutz
You build trust like one step at a time. Right. And and it's, it's simply by the repetition of saying, I'm going to do this and then actually doing it, and then you and you say, well, after I did that one, I'm now here's the next thing I'm going to do. And then then you actually follow through on that.

00:15:48:02 - 00:16:13:07
Kyle Wagenschutz
You do, you just you have to do that over and over and over again in hopes that. Right, you just get back to a neutral place like, let's not let's that promise anything big. Let's just say, you know, trust building could be as simple as, I'm going to commit to fixing this broken sidewalk in front of the school that you all have been complaining about for the last 12 months, and then going and actually fixing the broken sidewalk.

00:16:13:09 - 00:16:29:14
Kyle Wagenschutz
And the results will speak for themselves, will think, oh wow, this person who told me they were going to fix it did fix it. So when that when that person comes back and says, you know, okay, I, you know, I hear you, we're going to fix, you know, the missing stop signs or we're going to do these other kinds of interventions.

00:16:29:14 - 00:16:53:14
Kyle Wagenschutz
You just you just have to continually do that over and over and over again. The the reason that's so hard is that the systems, the funding streams, the, the policies and the paperwork that sort of get get sort of blurred into transportation projects, make that repetition really, really hard. It can you can draw the timelines way out.

00:16:53:16 - 00:17:14:08
Kyle Wagenschutz
So you might be doing a great job, but then if you disappear for six months or 12 months, you know, you might you might have done a great public meeting to get some design feedback. But if your design takes 3 to 12 months to actually produce, and then you're back in front of the people almost a year later, no, no one's like, well, who's who's this person?

00:17:14:11 - 00:17:33:21
Kyle Wagenschutz
It's like I barely I barely remember they were here a year ago talking about something. And so it's about sort of like, you know, building sort of, you know, the kinds of feedback and communication loops that are sort of constantly sort of feeding to Zoe's metaphor, nurturing those relationships, calling people, letting them know what's going on, being transparent, where we are.

00:17:33:28 - 00:18:00:23
Kyle Wagenschutz
Maybe it does take 12 months to do a design, but at the end of the day, you know, how are we going to communicate to people while that's actually happening in a way that continues to involve them? What can I do to build trust during that period of time? You know, how can we sort of, you know, begin to sort of think about this work not just being a procedure of paperwork, but, but a procedure of building relationships and communication strings with people.

00:18:00:26 - 00:18:23:06
John Simmerman
And I clicked on the, our approach, button that you guys have on your website here. And, and it activates this page, and it really gets to the heart of of what you're talking about is that the people in the communities, in the neighborhoods, in the city, they know best, you know, what they need, you know, for their neighborhood, their community, their their area.

00:18:23:09 - 00:18:34:16
John Simmerman
And so talk a little bit about, you know, how you approach that in terms of engaging these representatives, these partnerships, these communities?

00:18:34:18 - 00:19:11:25
Zoe Kirkos
Well, we start from the position of building a broad and diverse coalition of support for, the work that the city is wants to do and, and, and supporting the city first and foremost, and being bold and ambitious and setting a clear and measurable goal that's within the time frame that people can actually understand and see. So, you know, a goal that says, and this is frequent in a bicycle pedestrian plan in 20 years, we'll have this, you know, and I would in my community be like 20 years, I don't even know if I'm going to be alive and 20.

00:19:11:25 - 00:19:27:01
Zoe Kirkos
I don't know if I'm going to live here. My kids will be grown. They will have their own children. Like 20 years is a really long timeline, and you're going to lose a lot of people if you say, this is what I'm going to build in two years or in three years, then people are like, oh, I'm actually going to see movement about that.

00:19:27:01 - 00:19:55:26
Zoe Kirkos
That's actually going to measurably improve my life. If I got this underpass, you know, in two years that would connect to me from where I live to my job that that I can wait for, you know, so, it's setting that goal that is ambitious but also measurable and being really clear about what it is. And for us, when we work with cities, we're also often like identifying it as a mileage goal, like we're going to build 30 miles, we're going to build 50 miles by this point.

00:19:55:28 - 00:20:14:01
Zoe Kirkos
And then building a broad, coalition of support around it. And I think this is a really key piece that Kyle kind of gestured to earlier. But I think it's important to reinforce is that when we're bringing new groups in, we're not asking them to give up whatever it is that they work on or that they prioritize or think it's important.

00:20:14:01 - 00:20:44:07
Zoe Kirkos
I was actually just on a call with a city that we're working in with a new coalition members, like, yeah, I'm excited to be part of this coalition or 100% on board. What what am I going to what are you going to need? You know, from me, because I have all this other stuff and I'm like that I work on every day and I and I was like, you know, you do the things you do, and then we're going to let you know how you can come out in support of the city working towards this goal that they are stating, and see what makes sense within the context of your work and your priorities.

00:20:44:07 - 00:21:01:16
Zoe Kirkos
You know, are you telling are you trying to help people get to their jobs? Okay, then you can connect this goal to helping people get to their jobs. Are you trying to improve air quality in your community? Well, then you can connect this to that work. Are you trying to get, you know, kids to be able to ride and bike to school?

00:21:01:16 - 00:21:22:25
Zoe Kirkos
Okay, you can connect this to your work. We're not asking you to give up what you do. Like, you do your day job, you go and 100% work on that and then recognize that mobility affects your ability to do your job and to, you know, we all move. So it affects how people can get to work or get to the things that, you know, get to products and services, feel safe and comfortable on the street.

00:21:23:02 - 00:21:48:15
Zoe Kirkos
And so we're saying this is an opportunity for you to come together around the city achieving those things. And you don't have to give up what you do every day. You just have to say, you know, this goal is important to me, so I'm going to sign my name to that and then hopefully we can bring you out for when the city is celebrating the grand opening of a new stretch of trail or, a new protected intersection, you'll come out and say, yeah, I'll come celebrate that, because that's important to me, too.

00:21:48:18 - 00:21:52:28
Zoe Kirkos
In addition to all those things I work on every day. Yeah.

00:21:53:01 - 00:22:15:17
John Simmerman
And we see on page here on screen, you know, the, the beliefs that drive our work and also the outcomes that make it all worthwhile, that you're working on. You mentioned there's a, you know, quite a few things in terms of like acknowledging that, you know, these are the types of mobility features that, you know, everybody can benefit from.

00:22:15:24 - 00:22:41:23
John Simmerman
And we're looking here now the outcomes of, of what you're trying to achieve from all of this. One of the, the, the, the things that has, you know, sort of bubbled up within the last few weeks is, you know, all the turmoil that's coming down from the federal government and, and all of that. And how do we deliver, you know, these types of services without this being some sort of a cultural war, you know, type of hot button issue?

00:22:41:25 - 00:23:04:04
John Simmerman
Because I know that you're working with a variety of different cities, and we'll get to the whole list of of who you've worked with in the past and a little bit to talk a little bit about the fact that, a big part of the framing and the acceleration, you know, have you addressed this, Kyle? Because it dates back to even the final mile.

00:23:04:06 - 00:23:17:18
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about the framing of how you deliver some of these outcomes that, you know, stretch across political realms and is not a right versus a left issue.

00:23:17:21 - 00:23:39:02
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah, I there's probably an opportunity here, John, to link back to some of the older Active Towns podcast where we really dive into this. But, you know, we don't work in communities that don't already want this kind of infrastructure and these kinds of projects to actually occur. And we've never walked into a community where we found that they didn't want them.

00:23:39:04 - 00:23:53:27
Kyle Wagenschutz
It it's like we always keep this like this little, this little piece in the back of our mind of like, well, maybe this is that maybe this is the city where the public doesn't want safe infrastructure and they don't want slower streets, and they don't want bicycle lanes, and they don't want trails to parks. We haven't found that city yet.

00:23:53:27 - 00:24:16:15
Kyle Wagenschutz
And we've we've been doing this a long time in a lot of places. In fact, I'm continually shocked by how supportive people actually are of this kind of infrastructure. It's it shocked because it's not consistent with the public narrative around for these kinds of projects. It's not consistent with what we the perceptions that we hear from elected officials.

00:24:16:15 - 00:24:47:02
Kyle Wagenschutz
It's not consistent with sort of like the general, you know, ethos that people just like would love to protest bicycle lanes and that, you know, that, you know, that the kind of sort of like stories that we've built around this work doesn't actually match with when we do voter polling for like, do you want to live on a street that has speed humps or bicycle lanes or sidewalks or however, however we word the question, we're finding massive support in every kind of city that we're in.

00:24:47:02 - 00:25:11:09
Kyle Wagenschutz
Big cities, small cities, rural towns like that. Support is really intense and and really concentrated in a lot of ways. And, you know, as you sort of like mentioned, this is like it cuts across political ideology, it cuts across socioeconomic, racial and ethnic identities. It cuts across all of the demographics in a way that actually makes our job easy in some sense.

00:25:11:10 - 00:25:35:13
Kyle Wagenschutz
We don't have to try to sort of carve out a message or a tactic that is unique to a group, and then sort of link a different group with these. We actually have the ability here in this country to sort of, you know, approach this work through, through a slightly different lens than we traditionally have and build support for building this work from a constituency that we don't even know exists in a lot of ways.

00:25:35:13 - 00:25:59:03
Kyle Wagenschutz
And so, oftentimes, you know, the example here is like in cities, you know, who loves this stuff, right? The who supports this infrastructure. It's people who ride bicycles. It's a local mobility advocacy group. It's it's sort of transit advocates. Like there's there's a whole cast of characters that we know are going to show up and say, we want this infrastructure because we understand its value.

00:25:59:07 - 00:26:19:14
Kyle Wagenschutz
There's a whole other cast of characters who we know are always going to show up and oppose it. Right. And that's different in different cities. It's motivated by different things, but guaranteed. If you walked into any city hall today and you said, hey, who's showing up to the public meeting to oppose whatever it is on tonight's agenda, they will give you a couple names of people who are there every single time.

00:26:19:16 - 00:26:39:21
Kyle Wagenschutz
In the middle of that is a huge swath of people who don't wake up every day and say, you know what? I really want to thank the mayor for, supporting fixing sidewalks today. Or there's a huge swath of people who don't wake up every day and say, you know what the city did do a good job with that construction project there.

00:26:39:21 - 00:27:08:12
Kyle Wagenschutz
There's a group of people for whom that is not a thought that crosses their mind. They generally, in huge numbers, support this kind of active, infrastructure, active transportation infrastructure, recreation projects going in, in their community. But they are they have no motivation, no way in to sort of, you know, for voicing that support, and frankly, aren't really motivated or interested in actually doing that.

00:27:08:15 - 00:27:29:06
Kyle Wagenschutz
So for us, that's the real opportunity that we have in American cities is that we have this untapped group of supporters, and all we have to do is create a pathway for their support to be the loudest voice in the room for that support that already exists. I don't have to convince somebody, you know, that walking to school is great for kids.

00:27:29:06 - 00:27:50:28
Kyle Wagenschutz
I don't have to convince people that bicycling is good for your health and for your neighborhood. What we have to do is create pathways and mechanisms that are really, really easy for their support to make it to the ears of decision makers, to make their support stand in contrast to the people who are going to be opposing that.

00:27:51:00 - 00:28:17:20
John Simmerman
Kyle, on this next question, I'll I'll stick with you. We'll sort of wrap up this concept of accelerating the implementation of these programs. Does it get easier? Does it get faster within a city? Or since we just it we acknowledge at the forefront that every neighborhood is is its own unique little challenge. Do you still have to go through the steps?

00:28:17:22 - 00:28:38:11
Kyle Wagenschutz
It's a snowball chime, right? And you don't. You get sat at the top of the hill, and you pack your snow into a tight little ball, and you start rolling it down the hill. Acceleration begins as soon as that snowball is rolling down the hill. But if you were to stop it just a couple of feet, then you you would have just a slightly bigger snowball.

00:28:38:13 - 00:28:59:18
Kyle Wagenschutz
The trick here is to sustain that kind of momentum over a period of time, until that snowball is so big that you can't stop the acceleration, right? You want the limit you eventually wind up with is do we have enough people to actually deliver all of the projects that we have queued up in our, you know, that people actually support?

00:28:59:21 - 00:29:23:05
Kyle Wagenschutz
That's a that's a whole different concept and sort of, you know, you know, problem for cities to actually challenge. But by thinking about acceleration, not as I'm going from 0 to 60 in 20s it's like I'm going from 0 to 60 in the course of like the next 12 months. Right. And so for me to get to 60 in the next couple of months, I first have to get to ten, ten miles per hour in the first three months.

00:29:23:07 - 00:29:47:28
Kyle Wagenschutz
And then after that I get to, you know, I, you sort of like exponentially build on itself. And so in all of the cities that we've ever worked in and, you know, we'll we'll talk about sort of, you know, cities sort of thinking about, you know, how many miles they can build in a certain period of time. Not a single one of them had just just went from what their current pace of development or project delivery was to their accelerated pace overnight.

00:29:47:28 - 00:30:08:28
Kyle Wagenschutz
It it is it is a process that you slowly have to ramp up and you slowly build. But once you once you get to sort of like that next level, the next one becomes a little bit easier, becomes a little bit easier, a little bit easier after that. And it builds on itself. The reason this has failed historically in cities in the past, because we we can we can find pockets of time.

00:30:08:28 - 00:30:40:23
Kyle Wagenschutz
We could probably do a whole podcast of episodes of places that had the right mix of things at the right time, and they did like a sprint, right? And you're like, cool, look. Look what they did in this really short period of time. And then, you know, the mayor left or the funding ended or the advocacy group changed leadership or this happened or that happened in any one of those sort of like charismatic leadership models that sort of can drive progress in a short period of time.

00:30:40:25 - 00:31:05:15
Kyle Wagenschutz
They don't sustain themselves because they haven't built sort of the repetition, but coming back to sort of like building trust and build repetition does the same for acceleration. And so the opportunity and like the where sort of city thread is really planted a flag in terms of understanding how to build acceleration is on the nurturing and the sustaining of this momentum so that you do reach those in goals way faster than you thought you would.

00:31:05:18 - 00:31:27:07
John Simmerman
So Zoe, it seems like, you know, based on this, this analogy of like the small snowball of, of momentum and acceleration that's starting to happen, that a critical point to this is that the communities themselves start sending the message out that, oh, that's cool that they got over there. We want that too. Is that a big part of it?

00:31:27:09 - 00:31:53:16
Zoe Kirkos
I would say that, you know, for sure the messaging, like how you're talking about it and who the messenger is is super important. And also for the city to, you know, create goals and, project lists that actually benefit everybody in the community, you know, that are not just reaching a certain neighborhood or part of the city that has maybe been, you know, overinvested in over time, but is really, you know, trying to reach everybody throughout the city.

00:31:53:22 - 00:32:18:24
Zoe Kirkos
And, yeah, you know, ensuring that you're talking consistently to folks, you're engaging new ones. And as I said, making sure that that messenger is, engaged, that you're, you know, engaging a whole bunch of messengers who are speaking differently about the work to different folks, is super important because, like, I can go in and talk to folks in the city all I want and they're going to be like, well, who's that lady, you know?

00:32:18:24 - 00:32:41:29
Zoe Kirkos
And how does she know what I need or what my life is like? If I am able to bring her neighborhood walking group into the mix and I'm able to engage like her neighbor who, you know, maybe, rides her bike to school with her kids every day, and that person talks to, you know, the lady down the street, then you're starting to get some momentum, and then you're starting to engage people.

00:32:41:29 - 00:32:58:06
Zoe Kirkos
So, you know, the biggest joy of my life is to go to meetings in a city like I was at a kind of basically a chamber meeting, and I was sitting at this round table. Right. And somebody at around, you know, we were having kind of table this on. And so somebody said, what is the city doing about this?

00:32:58:06 - 00:33:11:29
Zoe Kirkos
And I felt like I had to answer. But then another person answered and said, no, it's not that. It's actually the city is trying to do this. And it was like they took my talking points and it came out of this other guy's mouth and I was like, okay, my work is done here. You know, like, I don't have to say anything.

00:33:11:29 - 00:33:33:21
Zoe Kirkos
I can just eat my salad and listen nicely to everything else that was happening. So that's a really key piece. But I also think to Kyle's point, as you build momentum, when people see what's happening, you know, people are kind of like, well, I want that too. I think that is true, that people start to say, well, that school, neighborhood, you know, kids are walking and biking there and they seem to be having a really good time.

00:33:33:21 - 00:33:54:21
Zoe Kirkos
And, you know, the kids are active and that word spreads in a community. And so other people, you know, start to go, well, I thought I didn't want this because it meant a certain thing for me. But now I'm seeing the effect. And and that's the best message, that you can have in support of infrastructure. And Kyle says this a lot is when you build something really great.

00:33:54:21 - 00:34:12:18
Zoe Kirkos
It's a billboard for the city doing something really good. And it's there, you know, for a long time of the city doing something really good that other people want. If you do it badly, then it's a billboard for the city doing something not very good that people don't want. So that's going to be your message.

00:34:12:20 - 00:34:38:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, we teased out a little bit that we have a new core cohort, coming up. So let's pop on over to the visual here. The drum roll. Bam bam bam boom. There we go. It's Burlingame, California, hood River, Oregon and Columbus, Ohio. So this is the new cohort of cities Kyle, walk us through. What will this new cohort of cities get as part of the city thread?

00:34:38:22 - 00:34:40:01
John Simmerman
You know, our package.

00:34:40:04 - 00:35:05:00
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah. So this is our cohort for our Accelerated Mobility Playbook technical assistance grant. It's, it's an annual competitive grant process that cities and a community partner join in collaboration to write an application to City Thread. And they basically describe like, hey, here's the momentum that we're actually building. We have support in these areas, have this great new bicycle plan or a mobility plan.

00:35:05:03 - 00:35:23:19
Kyle Wagenschutz
We want to accomplish these things. We think we have all of the right pieces together, but we're not quite sure what the first step actually take is to come back to the snowball metaphor. We're not we're not sure what the first ten feet of our snowball actually sort of look like. And and so we select cities, every year to join our growing list of cities.

00:35:23:21 - 00:35:49:04
Kyle Wagenschutz
And as a part of that technical assistance, we perform an assessment of the current momentum, like where's the momentum building? How can you capitalize on the successes that you're already having? But also how can we take a sort of a forecast of the future and look at the challenges that we know you're going to experience, and we know you're going to experience them because almost every city experiences some form of the same challenge.

00:35:49:04 - 00:36:13:18
Kyle Wagenschutz
And so we do a deep dive with people there locally and through tons of interviews by visiting with the city and looking through all of their planning documents. Zoe and I have even been known to watch recorded City Council meetings for hours at a time, to sort of get a gist of how public discourse is actually happening. Sarah gets on social media and doom scrolls all of the comment sections to find out what's happening in the community.

00:36:13:21 - 00:36:38:11
Kyle Wagenschutz
Those are the least glamorous parts of the job, but that really helps us understand, wow, you've got you do have all this really great momentum. Here's where we can predict with some level of accuracy, because we've been in your shoes before, where the pitfalls are going to exist, and what we help them actually do is identify the severity of those potential pitfalls and then create an action plan for them to avoid them.

00:36:38:14 - 00:37:02:14
Kyle Wagenschutz
It's like you don't have to fall into this trap if you don't want to. And we'd have three, ten, 20 different strategies for you to totally avoid that. And it doesn't matter if you are a small city like hood River, Oregon, which is a delightful, you know, small town outside of Portland that has lots of wonderful recreational, you know, assets and amenities there.

00:37:02:16 - 00:37:20:23
Kyle Wagenschutz
But, you know, it's a it's a small it's a small rural town in America. Or if you're Columbus, Ohio, on the other end of the spectrum, right. A growing urban area that is, that is growing in population every single day and is it is dealing with the stresses of having more people move to their city than their infrastructure can actually handle.

00:37:20:25 - 00:37:55:00
Kyle Wagenschutz
And so that for us, at the end of this process, we hope that the cities are able to walk away with a really clear step for how they can begin to sort of take the first steps towards avoiding the pitfalls, how they can sustain that momentum for, you know, 2 to 3 years, after that process, and then at the end of it, we bring all of our cohort together, our city partners, our community partners, we bring them together in a room, and we help provide some training for some of the real tactical sort of elements of that action plan.

00:37:55:02 - 00:38:21:14
Kyle Wagenschutz
Because some of the things that we recommend, things like coalition building communication, we sort of have have hinted at those, those are not necessarily the kinds of actions that cities know how to take or they have. Maybe you have had some limited experience and they're not quite sure how to be successful with those kinds of actions. And so we incentivize sort of, you know, to not just by by providing sort of like, you know, the action plan, say, hey, you need to do better messaging.

00:38:21:14 - 00:38:31:24
Kyle Wagenschutz
We then sort of say like, hey, come join us, for a couple of days and we're gonna teach you why better messaging is important, how to do it. Had to think about your own work in different ways.

00:38:31:26 - 00:38:36:04
John Simmerman
So what has you excited about this new cohort?

00:38:36:07 - 00:38:56:13
Zoe Kirkos
I think it's a really nice variety of cities. As Kyle said, we have Burlingame, which is a suburb of Tampa. Cisco, although someone from the Bay area told me I shouldn't call it that. But I know that's how I identify it. Hood River, which is a smaller community, but that gets huge in, huge influx of tourists, you know, during their high season.

00:38:56:13 - 00:39:26:06
Zoe Kirkos
So, you know, triples, quadruples in size, you know, population wise during their high season. But it's a rural small community. And then, as Kyle said, Columbus, which is a growing urban area, I didn't actually realize how big Columbus's. That's about a million people, in, in their city. So, you know, having that range so that, you know, we can see that some of the issues that we identify and the recommendations that we make, you know, well, they might vary somewhat.

00:39:26:09 - 00:39:45:06
Zoe Kirkos
Cities are pretty much dealing with similar issues. You know, we we joke that, not enough money is the free, square on the bingo card. You know, every city will tell us that they don't have enough money. And we're like, yes, welcome to the club. It's a very large one. And, that's not the excuse anymore. So, you can still move quickly.

00:39:45:06 - 00:40:04:21
Zoe Kirkos
And we've seen cities that even have plenty of money not move because they don't have the strategy that actually helps them do that. So, we're excited to see, you know, because people are always asking, well, have you worked rural? You know, have you worked in any rural communities? So and we have but here's a nice cohort that kind of demonstrates three different, city types.

00:40:04:24 - 00:40:09:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. Is hood River the smallest city you've ever worked with?

00:40:09:23 - 00:40:12:24
Zoe Kirkos
It will be. Yeah. The small city that we've worked with.

00:40:12:27 - 00:40:29:11
John Simmerman
Okay. And with that in mind let's pull up the list of the, the other cities. So this is from the press release that just went out announcing the new cohort. And we see that, you know, we've got you know, a wide variety old Bainbridge Island, Washington, that's pretty small too.

00:40:29:13 - 00:40:33:10
Zoe Kirkos
That's about 25,000 people. So they were our smallest, before hood River.

00:40:33:12 - 00:40:48:03
John Simmerman
Before hood River. Yeah. Okay. And we've got Austin, Texas. Obviously. I believe we're now the 11th, largest city in the nation. I think, Jacksonville knocked us off of the number ten spot. So we we still.

00:40:48:05 - 00:40:50:27
Zoe Kirkos
On that list be hard.

00:40:51:00 - 00:41:31:18
John Simmerman
That's all right. It it all works. But there's a good variety of different types of cities geographically. We've got Providence, Rhode Island all the way out to Tucson, Arizona. When you look at this list and you reflect about this experience, what are some of the things that come to mind? Kyle? Of, of these years, the years of experience of working with these cities dating back all the way to, you know, the time when you first started working with with Austin back in 2016, 2017, what are some of the things that bubble up and are most salient in your mind in terms of reflections?

00:41:31:21 - 00:42:04:13
Kyle Wagenschutz
You know, my first entry point into mobility advocacy was working in a community bike shop in Memphis, Tennessee, where we took in donated bicycles and helped people fix them back up like a recycle a bike program exists in a lot of cities. I was always shocked. You know, it always sort of a stunned. It was astonishing. After years of being in the recycle a bike business of, just how many bicycles are actually out there.

00:42:04:15 - 00:42:28:25
Kyle Wagenschutz
Right. Well, I never I never got to a point where I was like, well, I'm not sure if there's any more bicycles to be donated to this shop. And I find that same correlation to sort of the level of interest and need and community is about thinking about how to develop their cities in different ways. There has never been a period of time where we have sort of thought to ourselves like, well, the job's done.

00:42:28:25 - 00:43:05:13
Kyle Wagenschutz
There's no more cities interested in building this infrastructure. I think in some ways it's just the opposite. Right? The, the interest in in sort of safe streets for people and whatever form that actually takes is, is only is it's higher than it's ever actually been. And the need for communities, for our leaders, I think, I think there's a whole generation of young leaders moving in to working as elected officials and as city staff members, new generations of advocates and community members coming together that the interest is an all time high.

00:43:05:13 - 00:43:23:15
Kyle Wagenschutz
I think I think the diversity of cities in our, you know, our list that we're sort of working with, if we look at other partner organizations about where their interest is, is bubbling up. It's not just in New York, it's not just in San Francisco. It's not just sort of like the places that we have always talked about and always sort of built these case studies on.

00:43:23:15 - 00:43:55:09
Kyle Wagenschutz
It's actually nationwide, and there's a big need for cities out there. And so that's the first thing. The second thing that I think about is that city threads work is only possible because we have a shared set of challenges and opportunities in American cities, like if we were attempting to do this on a case by case basis, under the guise that every city is different and needs its own custom plan, like there's no there's no way that what works in one city works in another city.

00:43:55:12 - 00:44:16:18
Kyle Wagenschutz
If that was the case, we we would not be we would not be in existence. It would just be too hard to actually do. And so there's this there's this recognition that we can work, you know, hood River, Oregon, with a similar set of tactics, a similar set of strategies, a similar playbook. In the same way that we might go to Columbus, Ohio, and offer the same kinds of things.

00:44:16:18 - 00:44:45:08
Kyle Wagenschutz
Now the circumstances are radically different. The context is radically different. Why things happen, who move them, all of those things are different. But underlying this is, is this this, sort of like this baseline, this foundational approach that actually is built on the sense that we're actually way more alike than we are actually different. And it doesn't matter, you know, if you are a red city or a blue city or if you're rural or if you're urban, there's there's a core set of values that we share.

00:44:45:10 - 00:45:09:02
Kyle Wagenschutz
And I think that that's important for the success of our mobility program. It's important for us to sort of think about holistically as a country in terms of the turmoil that's happening, the uncertainty around sort of the, you know, funding and programs in government. And what does it all mean? I think it's fundamental to listen and to sort of like sit with an understanding that there's actually way more in common that than separates us.

00:45:09:04 - 00:45:20:24
Kyle Wagenschutz
And that's what actually makes all of this possible. It's what makes it. Well, it's what is what is going to make progress actually possible, not just for mobility, but for all of the other issues that our communities face.

00:45:20:27 - 00:45:40:15
Zoe Kirkos
And I just want to jump in and say, because you just were showing, you showing a few stills from our leadership gathering, a year, almost two years ago in Denver. And then the video that you had playing was for our leadership gathering in Milwaukee. And those are events where we actually bring together the city and community leaders from the cohort of cities that we're working with.

00:45:40:17 - 00:46:07:10
Zoe Kirkos
And I think to Kyle's point, like, that's why people love these gatherings, because they're talking with peers and they can actually share, their own challenges and issues. And oh, but I have this guy that's always, you know, complaining. And everybody else is like, oh, we have that guy here too, you know? And they can kind of connect around how they have this shared experience of whether it's a person, an elected leadership or a person on staff somewhere or it's a person in the community.

00:46:07:13 - 00:46:23:28
Zoe Kirkos
And also, you know, we're struggling with this kind of communications challenge and then others can kind of come in with their shared experience around that, and we can talk about that as a group. So I think everybody is a special snowflake. And I don't want to say that every city is alike, but we all are facing kind of similar challenges.

00:46:23:28 - 00:46:30:14
Zoe Kirkos
And the beauty of that is not only that we can help with that, but city and community leaders can help each other with that.

00:46:30:17 - 00:47:01:00
John Simmerman
And I think that one of the most important aspects of of your approach and how you engage the community groups that are out there, is that that's part of the customization that does end up taking place, is because you're taking the time to make sure that you're engaging with those, those different groups. And so there actually is a lot of customization that takes place, because that's part of the DNA of what you guys do is making sure that, you know, we need to make sure that, you know, we're engaging all of these different parties.

00:47:01:00 - 00:47:23:05
John Simmerman
And they, because it's right on your website, you know, the people know best what they need in their neighborhood. And so it is, you know, there's commonality to it. But because of the one of the core, features to what you do is, is making sure that you are able to do that. We're looking at the national reach and all the different dots of the cities that you've worked in.

00:47:23:07 - 00:47:47:08
John Simmerman
Kyle, when when you look back at this experience over these many years, you don't have to give any names of any cities here. But when, when they fail to, to launch, when they fail to, to, you know, to to be as successful as they had the aspirations in the very, very beginning. What's a key feature, you know, that that just wasn't there wasn't in the mix.

00:47:47:11 - 00:48:07:21
John Simmerman
So that, you know, hopefully other cities who are wanting to accelerate their their mobility programs and initiatives and, and maybe future, you know, cohorts that you guys work with, what's something they need to keep in the back of their mind that they don't do that. And I'm sure that's part of the learning teachings that you now implement to the new cities.

00:48:07:21 - 00:48:10:20
John Simmerman
But what are some of the learnings that you've seen?

00:48:10:23 - 00:48:43:00
Kyle Wagenschutz
Yeah, and I think that's a great recognition, John, that there are cities as, as as much as we talk about the opportunity that exists there are cities who aren't quite ready for a discussion around acceleration. And what we typically find is there's sort of like two key red flags that we look for in cities that are considering acceleration to understand whether or not they, you know, it's a big spectrum, but there are two there are two sort of things that are a warning sign for us.

00:48:43:03 - 00:49:02:01
Kyle Wagenschutz
One is where is the support of your highest elected official? That's that could be a mayor. It could be. It could be like a city council to be on in your form of government. I would say I say mayor, but I sort of mean like whoever is in charge has been elected to be in charge and is making decisions about what's happening in your community, their support.

00:49:02:02 - 00:49:23:00
Kyle Wagenschutz
If we think about all the different people in the community, we want to have supportive. If I'm weighing sort of like where their support fits on the scale of like influence, theirs is just a little bit heavier than everyone else. And it's not that it's a prerequisite that you have a passionate, elected official leading this work. There are plenty of examples.

00:49:23:00 - 00:49:58:19
Kyle Wagenschutz
We know this from our experience of cities, where that kind of support is a little apathetic or missing or even antagonistic, and you can still make progress. It's not. It's just but but as but as it's a really nice thing to have your mayor be really outspoken about their support for this work. And, because they set the tone for everyone else around them, whether or not they're going to be hands on, engaged in drawing bicycle lanes on the map at the community meeting, or whether or not they're just going to internally tell city staff to go do this thing.

00:49:58:22 - 00:50:31:27
Kyle Wagenschutz
They don't have to be sort of, you know, gung ho bicycling advocates where, you know, or they're leading a bicycle ride once a month, but their level of interest can really tip the scales on whether or not a city will be successful. So we're always looking for evidence that your highest elected official is supportive, is outspoken. If they're if they're not outspoken, if we can't find record of that support, you know, in a newspaper article or an interview or in a plan, then we then we dig around a little bit to try to find out whether or not it's purposeful, like, you know, do they do they just hate bicycle lanes?

00:50:32:00 - 00:50:52:18
Kyle Wagenschutz
Or whether it's just, it's because it's they have other priorities. And this is not the thing that sort of takes their time and attention. So that's that's number one. The second thing that we look for, and this is actually the bigger the bigger of the two is we, we tend to sort of we try to model sort of like community based support into sort of three types of stakeholders.

00:50:52:21 - 00:51:15:21
Kyle Wagenschutz
One of those that I just mentioned was elected officials. The second is like your city staff, right? Your department of Public Works and the Department of Transportation. It's the people tasked with actually delivering projects. And the third group are community supporters, and that's everybody from, you know, your local chamber of commerce to your bicycling advocates, to your housing advocates.

00:51:15:21 - 00:51:36:15
Kyle Wagenschutz
It's it's your residents. It's your neighborhood groups. It's a it's a really big umbrella. And so if you think about the metaphor here is like three legs of a stool, right? You need three legs of a stool for a stool to sit up and support your, in this instance, an acceleration goal, you have to have at least two legs of the stool standing in tandem with each other.

00:51:36:18 - 00:51:53:03
Kyle Wagenschutz
So I need my elected officials to be on the same page as the city staff. And if my community groups aren't quite there, if they're not quite sort of, you know, in the place where you want them to be, that's okay. We can still we can still make progress. Because we've got two legs of the stool holding each other up.

00:51:53:05 - 00:52:14:18
Kyle Wagenschutz
We might have a great city staff and really amazing community partners. Right? Those two, they might be the two legs of the stool. Maybe your mayor and city council are not really talking about this. Again. That's okay, because we've got two legs of the stool. The red flag for us is when you only have one leg of the stool that's showing up to support this work, and that is an opportunity.

00:52:14:21 - 00:52:30:29
Kyle Wagenschutz
That's that's the situation in which we say this is not a acceleration in progress. This is like a how do we build support amongst and how do we get another leg of the stool to be on board. And so I know that that is it's like a there's a metaphor there. But I think it's really important to sort of think about that.

00:52:31:03 - 00:52:58:00
Kyle Wagenschutz
The situation is not who has the best bike plan, who has the biggest bank account to fund the work, who's building the most innovative types of infrastructure? Who has the best engagement strategy like all of that? At the end of the day, doesn't really matter. We found it's really about how well do these groups know what's going on, how well are they able to support each other, and are they working together towards that common goal in lockstep with one another?

00:52:58:00 - 00:53:07:22
Kyle Wagenschutz
And you really need to, at a minimum, to sort of make acceleration happen. The sweet spot you get all three men, you're really cooking with gas at that point.

00:53:07:23 - 00:53:31:12
Zoe Kirkos
I would just add like an example is one city where we had pretty supportive staff and we had, community engagement. And the the mayor was kind of mayor, you know, like she wasn't against it but wasn't really for it. And we were able to really get her on board because the other to where, you know, the city staff were able to kind of, bolster them.

00:53:31:12 - 00:53:57:16
Zoe Kirkos
And then we were able to really get those community organizations, individuals out and support to give her 100% props every time she came out for an activation event. You know, she was in so many photos, like with the big scissors, you know, cutting the ribbon on a new project. She was there with puppies and small children, you know, at, community events, you know, showing her support.

00:53:57:18 - 00:54:24:16
Zoe Kirkos
And it became, in two years, a difference from her being kind of like, yeah, it's fine to actively running a reelection campaign as this is part of it. Her support for their accelerated goal. And so to those who say our mayor isn't on board, you know, if they are actively if they are running on ripping out bike lanes, while you probably have a problem, but if they are just just not really engaged, there's opportunity there.

00:54:24:18 - 00:54:31:09
John Simmerman
So what's new? What's what's in the future? What's going to happen in the future for, for city Thread?

00:54:31:11 - 00:54:53:00
Zoe Kirkos
So I'd say two things. Number one is that we're really thinking about how to use our approach for public infrastructure projects that are not based on mobility. You know, we really believe in this approach. You know, everything that Kyle and I have described, you could think about how that might be applied to building more housing that's affordable and available for all people.

00:54:53:00 - 00:55:12:25
Zoe Kirkos
You could think about how to, increase access to health care, how to, you know, have better schools. So we've been thinking about this a while. And and harking back to the beginning of this conversation, we were talking about, how do you make sure that bureaucracy and red tape doesn't get in the way of cities delivering the things that people want and need?

00:55:13:00 - 00:55:48:12
Zoe Kirkos
You know, there's a lot of things that people want and need. And so we're starting to dip our toe into, how can we use this approach, this playbook, not just for mobility projects, but for other kinds of projects and communities? And so we're working with, some partners in public health and, funding organizations and a particular part of the country, to kind of go and see, you know, go back a step from what are the barriers to you and accelerating on a mobility goal, but what are the issues that are most affecting the people in your community?

00:55:48:12 - 00:56:07:07
Zoe Kirkos
What do they want if we're going to inject, an ambitious goal, if we're going to inject some money and some really key partnership into achieving something, what should that look like? And asking the community members, you know, through polling, through focus groups, through conversations, what do you want that to be? What's the number one issue affecting you?

00:56:07:07 - 00:56:33:23
Zoe Kirkos
And then, hopefully, you know, using our playbook to help deliver on those. So number one is, you know, let's use the playbook for more than just mobility. And I'd say the second thing is that, you know, we have a city where they are wrapping up their achievement of their three year implementation goal. They were on pace when we started with them, a building maybe a mile to a mile and a half of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure every year.

00:56:33:24 - 00:56:51:20
Zoe Kirkos
And we, at the end of this year will have helped using the playbook for them to have built 30 miles in three years. So we're really excited about that. And so that's the story that we're going to be telling at the end of the year is how did that happen? And how could, it happen for you?

00:56:51:22 - 00:56:56:00
John Simmerman
Is that the special announcement that's supposed to be coming up in November? Yeah, I.

00:56:56:00 - 00:57:18:17
Zoe Kirkos
Know that wasn't very I wasn't really, you know, I didn't I probably didn't like give you enough hints there on where that is. But yeah, that is like just kind of, you know, sharing that this actually happens in a place that people don't think of as, like the mobility. It's not Portland, Oregon, it's not Davis, California or someplace that you don't expect there to be a lot of investment and support for this kind of infrastructure.

00:57:18:17 - 00:57:28:02
Zoe Kirkos
And yet the city made, you know, set the goal and the city will meet it. And we'll be telling this story. I don't know, Kyle, or are we supposed to say any more than that, or is that enough?

00:57:28:05 - 00:57:37:10
Kyle Wagenschutz
We'd have to ask Sarah for sure, but you can. You can look. You can look at that map, John, and you can. You can dream about which dot on the map it actually is right there.

00:57:37:11 - 00:57:46:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. Kyle, what would you add, you know, to, to this, you know, sort of looking forward what's, what's next, with the, you know, for city thread.

00:57:46:21 - 00:58:09:19
Kyle Wagenschutz
I mean, I, I think, I think Zoe hit it where we're really excited about taking what we have learned from mobility based projects and applying them to other kinds of projects that people are trying to get across the finish line in their city. Because there's this sentiment around that. It's taking too long to get the things that people want delivered in cities exist.

00:58:09:19 - 00:58:42:03
Kyle Wagenschutz
If you're passionate about community gardens or parks or streets or, you know, whatever it actually is, that sentiment, it exists. And I you know, I think if you turn on any kind of political podcast today where we're talking about sort of, you know, like where we're at, they're having this discourse already. And what I'm really excited about is that city thread, we've kind of known this for a number of years that actually have tactical, you know, solutions for communities to, to sort of not just identify what the problems are, but also to take action on them.

00:58:42:05 - 00:59:04:06
Kyle Wagenschutz
And I feel really excited about, you know, this opportunity to broaden our coalitions that we know eventually will. They're all they're also supportive of mobility projects. But to broaden our reach into communities and help sort of you know, think about the bigger problems that exist in communities every day. Like there's not there's not a city that we work in, John, where housing is not the number one issue.

00:59:04:08 - 00:59:25:10
Kyle Wagenschutz
Like it's almost it's almost silly at this point to continue surveying people and doing focus groups because housing is number one. We don't have. It's like a it's like it's like it's like the the other free bingo space on the bingo card. Transportation is always number 2 or 3. You know, there are again, these similar challenges that exist in communities.

00:59:25:10 - 00:59:54:07
Kyle Wagenschutz
And what I'm really excited about is that where City Fred fits into all of this is that we've got the playbook, we've got a strategy, and we don't have to sort of continue to. So first sort of wonder, you know, how we're going to get out of these situations or how we're going to address them. And, you know, I think for the after a long career of asking those kinds of questions, coming all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, why did it take ten years for this great project to get built?

00:59:54:10 - 01:00:14:07
Kyle Wagenschutz
I should really, you know, really proud and also, you know, really grateful that we can now walk into communities and say, hey, I think we've got a solution that will actually get you across the finish line, and we can do that for us. It's also about accelerating our own work, right? It's like helping communities accelerate and helping us accelerate that into communities.

01:00:14:09 - 01:00:42:19
John Simmerman
Fantastic. We're looking once again at the website here. This, gives folks the ability to contact, the organization. So, folks, head on over to City thread.org. For more information and to reach out, and see if there might be an opportunity to work together. Zoe, did we miss anything, any final, things that you want to hit as we, scroll down the website here.

01:00:42:21 - 01:01:09:00
Zoe Kirkos
I think we hit just about everything. I just say that we are excited to be working in a number of cities. I'll make a little plug for Cleveland because I'm going to Cleveland next week. And, really excited to see, their mayor, Mayor Bibb, make a commitment to building 50 miles of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure by the end of 2027, launching the Cleveland Streets Coalition in support of that work.

01:01:09:00 - 01:01:14:00
Zoe Kirkos
And so I'm just going to give a little plug to my friends in Cleveland, super excited to be working there with them.

01:01:14:03 - 01:01:15:22
John Simmerman
Final thoughts from you, Kyle?

01:01:15:25 - 01:01:36:26
Kyle Wagenschutz
I would just say, you know, no matter, I think I'm talking to sort of like the Kyle of 20 years ago. Right. Who was sitting in a bicycle shop wondering why we can't have nice things in Memphis. And I would just say, we've been there. We know what you're going through, and it doesn't have to be that way.

01:01:36:26 - 01:02:00:20
Kyle Wagenschutz
And we can do all of this. We don't have to become experts at building bicycle lanes. We don't have to be experts at planning. Really what we have to do is have a commitment to people, have a commitment to building relationships with people. And that will take us much, much further than, you know, getting, getting an engineering license and trying to sort of figure out a better way to manage the implementation.

01:02:00:20 - 01:02:13:16
Kyle Wagenschutz
And so for anyone who is sitting in their own proverbial basement wondering why we can't have nice things, I would say reach out to Zoe or I or to Sarah on the website and let us know how we can help.

01:02:13:18 - 01:02:19:07
John Simmerman
It tastic! Zoe. Kyle, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

01:02:19:09 - 01:02:22:18
Zoe Kirkos
Thanks, John. Always a pleasure.

01:02:22:20 - 01:02:25:11
Kyle Wagenschutz
We're going to we're going to catch up and do there at some point.

01:02:25:12 - 01:02:41:21
John Simmerman
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01:02:41:21 - 01:02:58:25
John Simmerman
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01:02:59:03 - 01:03:23:01
John Simmerman
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01:03:23:04 - 01:03:32:04
John Simmerman
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