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

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:28:16
Avi Stopper
It is trying to tether this close connection between the local, the vibrancy of the local economy and people who are using active transportation to get there. And when you boil things down, it's it's and I don't mean to be reductive here, but when you boil things down, it's it's pretty simple. What can make a community incredibly vibrant is people going places and going to cool places.

00:00:28:16 - 00:00:49:21
Avi Stopper
And there are tons and tons of these types of destinations that people we think can and should be visiting. From a coffee shop to your local, you know, rock climbing gym. We've got a couple of the, you know, just all sorts of interesting places that that might be a very Denver type of thing to, to ride your bike to the Rock gym.

00:00:49:23 - 00:01:02:22
Avi Stopper
But and then go to the brewery afterwards. But that, that I think is a really important piece of the puzzle, which is connecting people with the places that they actually want to go.

00:01:02:24 - 00:01:19:20
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Town Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Avi Stopper from Denver, Colorado and the Bike Streets organization. We're going to be diving into the details of their brand new app that they have in Denver. And talk a little bit about the future plans, maybe rolling this out to other cities.

00:01:19:20 - 00:01:38:19
John Simmerman
But before we do that, I wanted to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. 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 options out there for you to choose from, and every little bit helps keep this channel rolling forward.

00:01:38:23 - 00:01:45:06
John Simmerman
Okay, let's get to it with Avi.

00:01:45:08 - 00:01:49:17
John Simmerman
Avi Stopper. So wonderful to have you back on the Active Towns Channel. Welcome.

00:01:49:20 - 00:01:52:21
Avi Stopper
Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to chat.

00:01:52:23 - 00:02:09:07
John Simmerman
Absolutely. And we're going to get, into deeper into the weeds of our previous chat and also, bike streams. But, let's just turn the tables over to you for a moment to, for a quick, 32nd introduction. Who the heck is RV stopper?

00:02:09:09 - 00:02:46:08
Avi Stopper
Well, thanks for having me again. I have, basically for the last 7 or 8 years, been working on a project called Bike Streets in Denver, Colorado. And the organizing idea behind Bike Streets is that anyone should be able to ride a bike in Denver to any destination today. So what we really try to do is find ways with the world as it is to make it possible for people to navigate between any two points in Denver, and that involves the creation of what we call the low stress Denver Bike Map, which is a cartography project.

00:02:46:08 - 00:03:20:08
Avi Stopper
And then there is also a community organizing component to it as well, where we take groups of folks out on rides to show them how possible it is to ride all over Denver today. And we've done since 2018, dozens and dozens of these group rides to every sort of destination that you could possibly imagine. And we as of last year, as of 2024, publish the bike streets, mobile apps, which are turn by turn navigation that make it really pleasant, delightful and easy to ride to any destination in Denver.

00:03:20:08 - 00:03:59:28
Avi Stopper
And our big news is that we are launching, in very short order, a new component of the mobile apps that we call destinations. And the idea is to elevate many, many bike friendly businesses and organizations in Denver, from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to, various concert venues to coffee shops, breweries, all the rec centers are participating in this project, and the idea is to expand people's understanding of the types of destinations that they can go to and motivate them through some small rewards and just the joy of bicycling to go to all these different types of places.

00:04:00:00 - 00:04:10:10
John Simmerman
Fantastic, fantastic. And as we alluded to, you've been on the channel before. So you were on, literally it was it was two years ago.

00:04:10:12 - 00:04:12:07
Avi Stopper
So I'm just this just a boy.

00:04:12:11 - 00:04:40:26
John Simmerman
Episode number 184 from season five. That was, April 4th, if I remember correctly, in 2023. So exactly two years ago, it we see that, we see that. Vamos. Was was the initiative that you were working on and really in circa 2023? We were talking a lot about that in that episode. I'll be sure to include a link to that episode in in this episode, in the show notes, below.

00:04:40:29 - 00:04:56:05
John Simmerman
Bring us up to speed. For those who didn't see that episode, what was Vamos and and then we'll we'll we'll get into the details of the app and, and the initiatives that you're working on now.

00:04:56:08 - 00:05:39:26
Avi Stopper
Vamos. Was, policy. We don't really do much policy work. We leave that to our friends at the Denver Streets Partnership and the Denver Bike lobby. That Vamos was really a policy initiative that we did, which is a little bit outside the box where we looked at a variety of tools that the city transportation department, we call a Dottie, the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure had in its toolkit, most notably, a really powerful program that was launched in the early days of the pandemic that was wildly successful by any measure, not the least of which that lots of people who had these types of of of what they called shared street facilities in their

00:05:39:26 - 00:06:15:03
Avi Stopper
communities were really eager to keep them. And they this was designed to be a temporary program, and it ended up lasting two years. It was wildly successful, and we saw it as a really powerful innovation and new tool in the city's toolkit to rapidly roll out a complete high comfort network. So the Vamos initiative was an analysis of tools that existed already in the toolkit that the city could use to create and catalyze and formalize a complete high comfort network that covered the entire city.

00:06:15:06 - 00:06:50:19
Avi Stopper
And so the elements of Vamos, most notably, were the use of this shared streets concept, where streets are simply kind of redesigned with low cost interventions to make them more conducive to bicycling and active transportation, to walking, etc. and just to reduce the sort of prioritization of cars on a very small subset of streets. And so the idea was, how could you use this incredibly powerful tool, which had been done in a variety of locations around the city to create a complete, coherent network?

00:06:50:21 - 00:07:34:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, in a lot of those, those strategies, you had mentioned the pandemic and lighter, quicker, cheaper materials. And we talked extensively about how we could deploy aspects of traffic calming, decreasing the volume of motor vehicles as well as the speed of motor vehicles. Using we were highlighting some of these pop up, modal filters and being able to, you know, lean into the fact that we you mentioned it in your, in your intro is that we already have this tremendous street grid network and lots and lots of residential streets, back streets, if you will, that are just like a hidden network that doesn't come to life.

00:07:35:01 - 00:07:52:03
John Simmerman
And so we were really highlighting in that first episode that mechanism of trying to accelerate the build out of, you know, through lighter, quicker, cheaper materials, you know, really formalizing that, that aspect of it.

00:07:52:05 - 00:08:39:18
Avi Stopper
Yeah. And I think that what is, is an incredible opportunity for, for cities is to recognize that the way in which this Shared Streets program was created, produced a level of alignment between various constituencies that we rarely see. And but while the shared streets themselves were quite successful and heavily used, you would go out onto these various, streets and see lots and lots of people walking, biking, pushing strollers, etc. but one of the most significant challenges always in the production of of quality, high comfort bike infrastructure, of course, is that you and you encounter resistance.

00:08:39:18 - 00:09:08:01
Avi Stopper
And what was incredibly from from neighbors, from residents, from business owners, etc., and what we thought was so powerful about Shared streets was that it created this alignment that I don't think that we have ever really seen. And the city's own surveys, ex post facto, suggested that 90 plus percent of people on those corridors wanted them to be made permanent, and even more people across the city wanted them.

00:09:08:01 - 00:09:28:25
Avi Stopper
And not just stands in such stark contrast to the standard narrative of bike infrastructure, which is that you've got to go tooth and nail battling for every inch of every block. And so we saw that, and that program was basically rolled out in a week or two. And of course people say, well, it was the early days of the pandemic.

00:09:28:25 - 00:09:52:23
Avi Stopper
So things were done a little bit differently, but it lasted for two years, and people were very disappointed when those things were not made, when the shared streets were not made permanent. And so, what what we found so interesting and what Vamos was really based on was this idea that alignment, is, is created in an unprecedented sort of way with these shared streets.

00:09:52:23 - 00:10:17:00
Avi Stopper
And, and that is such I think that that is the incredible opportunity that is, is staring us in the face, really, which is that there are ways to get people who want to use active transportation on the same page as people in those neighborhoods. And it's not just that those are different constituencies quite to the contrary, the people who live in those neighborhoods should indeed be activated.

00:10:17:00 - 00:10:23:09
Avi Stopper
They should be the ones who use those facilities more than anyone. And that is indeed what we saw with shared streets.

00:10:23:11 - 00:10:32:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. What's the status of that initiative? Vamos. I mean, it did it did it does it continue?

00:10:32:28 - 00:11:01:18
Avi Stopper
So Vamos was codified essentially through many, many conversations with various folks in the city's transportation department and many experts on the outside. And so it ultimately became a policy recommendation that was adopted by a number of mayoral candidates. This was during a mayoral and city council campaign here. So it was adopted by a number of mayoral candidates as their active transportation plan.

00:11:01:21 - 00:11:26:13
Avi Stopper
It was adopted by a number of city council candidates as well, many of whom, including the current mayor, are among those who made it part of their platform. But I, I think I've I've been chasing a little bit what I've learned is that there is a substantial difference, a delta between, soaring rhetoric, campaign rhetoric and actual policy actions.

00:11:26:15 - 00:11:29:21
Avi Stopper
Once, once a group of folks are running the show.

00:11:29:23 - 00:11:31:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.

00:11:31:15 - 00:11:53:28
Avi Stopper
So so we are we are no longer actively working on Vamos. Our focus has as Bike Street's has always been to make it possible for people at this moment to go to the places that they want to go using active transportation in that moment, which was this sort of what we thought was a catalytic, policy shift type of moment.

00:11:53:28 - 00:12:04:18
Avi Stopper
We thought that there was a window of opportunity to really redirect the dialog, and indeed the dialog was resurrected. I don't know that the actual implementation thereof was.

00:12:04:21 - 00:12:27:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And if we pop over to the the landing page here for, for your website, we see that you know, exactly that you want to unlock Denver by bike and the Bike Streets app, the bike streets movement, the, the organization that you guys have put together. And yeah, and I've joined you on one of your community bike rides.

00:12:27:26 - 00:12:49:17
John Simmerman
Years ago, this was, you know, some time ago, even before we, we did the, the podcast episode, I joined you, Gary Hardy, you know, had invited me to, to to meet up with you and your, your group and the whole premise of that, you know, kind of gets to the heart of the matter that you discussed in your in your introduction.

00:12:49:20 - 00:13:18:04
John Simmerman
It is, which is that there is this network of, of opportune city to be able to get on enjoyable routes, to get to various destinations. And oftentimes they're just sort of hidden. And you I remember on that, that route that we took that particular day, it was a combination of quiet city streets, integration of some pathways, a little bit of bike infrastructure for you.

00:13:18:07 - 00:13:42:14
John Simmerman
It was almost agnostic to the type of of, you know, infrastructure and really trying to emphasize the fact that you can unlock a city, by bike. But sometimes you need a little bit of help in terms of, you know, from your friends in terms of, how to piece it together. So, am I encapsulating that, you know, this community, right?

00:13:42:16 - 00:13:42:23
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:13:42:28 - 00:13:55:12
Avi Stopper
I mean, that's a great a great summary. The one colorful kind of comment that I would just add to it is that we like to think of this as a high comfort bike network hiding in plain sight. And yeah, like.

00:13:55:12 - 00:13:57:23
John Simmerman
You say here, that chill bike routes. Yeah.

00:13:57:25 - 00:14:34:20
Avi Stopper
Phil, bike wraps. Yeah, exactly. And these places exist. And increasingly we're talking with, advocates in other communities around the country, about identifying these types of networks in their communities and using the bike streets technology to help catalyze that. And the thing that I would just say is that, the way that we have built the low stress Denver bike map is that we have really thought about thought carefully about who feels comfortable in what types of environments and, and observed who is using different types of facilities.

00:14:34:22 - 00:15:15:09
Avi Stopper
And so and Denver, the city itself has this categorization of what they define as high comfort, which is basically trails, protected bike lanes, and neighborhood bikeways. What they would not consider to be high comfort is buffered bike lanes, conventional historical bike lanes, you know, the normal sort of painted doors on bike lanes and then also kind of old school share of vehicular cycling types of facilities and so what we have tried to do in the creation of the low stress Denver bike map is tie together, which which we have crowdsourced through hundreds and hundreds of of of comments from various folks in the community over the years.

00:15:15:09 - 00:15:41:17
Avi Stopper
We've done a bunch of mapping exercises, and this thing is constantly the map that you're showing right now evolving. We are on version 9.2 right now of it. So we have gone through many, many dozens of versions of this map. And as the world evolves, so too does the map at any given map, I would argue, is the cartographer the map makers best representation of the world as it exists right now?

00:15:41:23 - 00:16:07:15
Avi Stopper
And most map makers, ourselves included, would acknowledge that it's not perfect. We live in the world as it is. Which is not to say that huge, investment and infrastructure isn't merited. But the reality is, the world today is the world today. And I might want to ride somewhere, you know, and I shouldn't have to wait until 2030, 2050, whenever the theoretical high comfort network is done.

00:16:07:15 - 00:16:25:13
Avi Stopper
So the way that we do this is we connect, we try to create these connections using existing high comfort, infrastructure. So trails, protected bike lanes and neighborhood bikeways. And then we fill in the spaces in between with what we were describing before. Is this this hidden high comfort network?

00:16:25:15 - 00:16:41:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. Walk us through what we're seeing here on screen. Describe it a little bit to for the listening only audience. We are looking at an overview of a map. And we've got various, colors associated with, the, the streets.

00:16:41:17 - 00:17:08:00
Avi Stopper
Yeah, that's a good question. If what might help actually is if you zoom in on Coors Field, which is just slightly to the west center of the map there and and yeah, that's good. Let's just center it right there and maybe zoom one layer and let's see what that. Yeah. There we go. Okay. Cool. So this is a really good example of that combination of types of of of facilities.

00:17:08:02 - 00:17:34:10
Avi Stopper
So the backbones are the is the trail infrastructure. So the South Platte River is on that diagonal from southwest to northeast there. And the south part River trail is a major and critical corridor. You can see that along 20th Street. So the ballpark there kind of stands out, at least the field does along 20th Street. That is, a shared use, or a multi use path type of facility.

00:17:34:12 - 00:17:57:11
Avi Stopper
And so those are in green. In blue. We have downtown on the diagonals there. And so the blue lines are almost in all cases they're protected bike lanes. And then there are some situations where for example the red line that kind of points at Coors Field, that is a pedestrian mall, pedestrian pedestrian facility called McGregor square.

00:17:57:18 - 00:18:26:24
Avi Stopper
And so there are certain sections where we just encourage folks to get off and become a pedestrian for a block of to a block or two. And and I am the first to acknowledge that this is not the optimal end state, but we advocate for active transportation in all its forms. And if you're willing to be kind of quasi multimodal on any given bike trip, which is to say, every now and then if you encounter some in Denver, sidewalks are not rideable, by default.

00:18:26:24 - 00:18:50:01
Avi Stopper
And so if you're willing to just get off every now and then and walk a block, you can make the critical connections that would otherwise not be possible. So I don't suggest I don't mean to suggest that this is an optimal end state. Again, we are dealing with the world as it exists today, and so filling in the kind of interstitial spaces where there are not these trails or protected bike lanes.

00:18:50:01 - 00:19:13:25
Avi Stopper
We have additional types of facilities. For example, on the far east of your map there, there's a little actually a roundabout that's kind of highlighted. That's on a street, that's on 26th Street, which is actually technically a city neighborhood bikeway, but it's illustrative of the kind of street that's going to be quiet and residential with, with sort of minimal interventions.

00:19:14:01 - 00:19:38:06
Avi Stopper
Again, I'm not suggesting that the interventions are optimized by any stretch of the imagination, but this is more of that neighborhood type of street that's just quiet by by default and with minimal interventions, including that traffic circle there you have a reduction in volumes and speeds. Of course, of course. We would like to see the reductions in volumes be even greater.

00:19:38:12 - 00:19:46:08
Avi Stopper
But these are the best streets that we're aware of at this moment to to to ride right now.

00:19:46:11 - 00:19:54:19
John Simmerman
In looking at it like 26th Street, I think I've actually ridden this and I think I've actually filmed this particular street, or one that looks very much like it.

00:19:54:19 - 00:19:57:03
Avi Stopper
I wouldn't be surprised. You probably ridden the whole map.

00:19:57:06 - 00:20:12:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, possibly. With this show up on the the official city's bicycle map. As as, like a bicycle friendly street. Or would this not even show up at all?

00:20:12:27 - 00:20:35:22
Avi Stopper
No. This would be in the city's map, because this is what they consider to be a neighborhood bikeway. So that is the what you're looking at. There are 26 is basically going from southeast to northwest. An a counter-example, actually, or I shouldn't say a counter example, but an example of a street that does not show up on the city's bike map is Curtis, which is going from southwest to northeast there.

00:20:35:22 - 00:20:44:08
Avi Stopper
And if you just pan the map a little bit to the southwest, you'll see that there is a park in the northeast corner. Other direction. Sorry.

00:20:44:08 - 00:20:44:21
John Simmerman
Oh, sorry.

00:20:44:23 - 00:20:45:11
Avi Stopper

00:20:45:14 - 00:20:46:07
John Simmerman
Oh, yeah.

00:20:46:10 - 00:21:14:23
Avi Stopper
Actually. So, Curtis, this is a really. So Curtis is a quiet street, quite residential and surprisingly wide, actually. But I think that this is a really neat feature because, Curtis Park there, which is where that Green Line goes through, is a really functional filtration mechanism. It prevents or, or significantly, diminishes the, the appeal of Curtis as a through street when people are driving out of downtown.

00:21:14:27 - 00:21:27:13
Avi Stopper
Whereas by contrast you can ride Curtis which is not on the city's bike map, and you reach the park, you ride through the park and traffic is filtered out in traffic insofar as it exists, because it's low volume to begin with.

00:21:27:15 - 00:22:03:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. So one of the the constant reoccurring themes that I have on the channel when, when we have these discussions about, about the challenge of mapping out routes, within one's city, and we'll kind of just kind of scroll over and take a look at this, where we can have a broader view of a whole bunch of different streets, is that oftentimes some of the most delightful streets to ride on are completely, invisible to potential riders.

00:22:03:17 - 00:22:41:28
John Simmerman
And a great example of that would be like, you know, just is like, I could imagine that there's a whole bunch of these small little residential streets that are potentially have beautiful tree canopies and, and low volumes of traffic and low speeds of motor vehicle traffic. That would just be an absolute delight. But at the same time, there's still because we're not identifying them on any maps, either official maps by the city or even in this case, as you know, as bike routes, bike street by routes.

00:22:42:00 - 00:23:16:04
John Simmerman
They can oftentimes just go completely undiscovered. And yet they may be one of the most delightful rides for somebody who happens to live on one of these blocks. And I've been frustrated by the fact that we haven't been able to this nut of being able to just kind of do a swath of, of bluish color if you wish to use that color across an entire region and say, yeah, pretty much choose any of these streets, they're pretty much all low volume and low speed, and you'd probably have a delightful ride.

00:23:16:06 - 00:23:16:24
Avi Stopper
Yeah, push.

00:23:16:24 - 00:23:18:15
John Simmerman
Back on that if you'd like.

00:23:18:17 - 00:23:44:19
Avi Stopper
Yeah. No, I think you're I think you're exactly right with that. And that is very much in the spirit of how we've created the map. What I have come to think of these routes as is folk knowledge, folk knowledge that people in those neighborhoods create because it is how they navigate through their neighborhoods. And so the crowdsourcing effort that we have gone through over the years has really been an attempt to understand what those routes are.

00:23:44:21 - 00:23:50:20
Avi Stopper
Now, there are certain heuristics that we have created over the years that help us understand.

00:23:50:23 - 00:23:52:02
John Simmerman
Or sort of.

00:23:52:02 - 00:24:12:29
Avi Stopper
Prioritize one over the other. And there is this tendency, I will say, and there's one actually just on the sort of east side of your screen there that exemplifies this, that, that there is a tendency to choose those routes that are quote unquote, one street over. So Steel Street there, which is the north south that crosses Martin Luther King.

00:24:12:29 - 00:24:39:00
Avi Stopper
So you see that little kind of U-shaped feature there. Steel Street is is technically I don't know if it's on the current Denver bike map, to be honest, but but it is kind of the classical historic version of vehicular cycling, riding on a largely there on the on the street. It is a collector. It's quite busy and not a place for people of all ages and abilities.

00:24:39:00 - 00:25:02:26
Avi Stopper
And so Adams is one street over is quite enticing. It has that tree canopy canopy you're describing. It's delightful when it reaches Martin Luther King, which is an arterial there. It encounters not only an arterial but a parkway. And so this is one of those sections where not optimized by any stretch of the imagination. We encourage folks to use the sidewalk.

00:25:03:03 - 00:25:28:28
Avi Stopper
And whether you ultimately choose to do that, or if you're more confident out there and you choose to maybe ride over one block to steel and use that one section of steel to get across Martin Luther King, we we see this as, you know, imperfect to say the least, but a compromise that is worth making, because if you're willing to make this kind of compromise, you can go anywhere in the city today.

00:25:29:00 - 00:26:01:23
John Simmerman
You know, I mean, I guess if if I were of the mindset that I didn't want to necessarily walk, you know, for that one, like half block or whatever to get from from Adams over to steel, I can see that. I can probably just turn left on 30th Avenue and then turn right on steel. And I'm imagining that since 30th Avenue is is basically a very quiet street, it doesn't go through either way, you know, so it's got to be quiet.

00:26:01:26 - 00:26:16:03
John Simmerman
That would probably be, you know, again, that folk knowledge of being able to to be familiar, that'd be like, oh yeah, that's, that's almost like you're using a, an alleyway to pop on over and be super, super.

00:26:16:03 - 00:26:46:24
Avi Stopper
That's right. So yeah, that's a, that's a great that's a great example. So the Bike Street app has two riding modes in it. One is what we call a guided ride, which is of course turn by turn navigation. And there are any number of really significant challenges when it comes to producing good turn by turn routing. And I think that what we have come to understand is as bicyclist is that when companies try to apply a monolithic algorithm to the entire world, you end up with really weird routes.

00:26:46:27 - 00:27:04:25
Avi Stopper
And so the curation of these routes makes a huge difference. But in that example that you just showed, if someone prefers not to use the guided turn by turn ride, they can also use a mode that we call wander. And in a wander ride you basically can follow the map or not follow the map as you see fit.

00:27:04:28 - 00:27:32:06
Avi Stopper
You ride up Adams there, you cut over, you turn left on 30th, you turn right on steel, you turn right again on 33rd and then back on Adams. So you can get 90% of the delight of that quiet route. But what I will just say is that I think that that that that example that you were just showing exemplifies the opportunity to codify a network now so that people can ride wherever they want to go.

00:27:32:06 - 00:27:55:13
Avi Stopper
Today, the city, with one swift stroke of of of the dotty director's pen, they could designate those two sidewalk sections as shared use trails. And no one ever is out there walking anyhow, to be honest. I've been out there, you know, many, many times. And then in so the key thing here, the, the, perhaps the most important thing is that you're starting with a complete network.

00:27:55:16 - 00:28:15:13
Avi Stopper
And one of the great challenges we see with bike infrastructure is that the conventional way of doing it is you start with a set of archipelagos. We start with an archipelago, set of islands that don't connect. And so what we think is powerful about this, albeit imperfect, is that you can have a complete network now and incrementally.

00:28:15:17 - 00:28:44:09
Avi Stopper
They're they're techniques, for example, designating those as shared use trails and then adding a protected crossing over time through that parkway so that it's direct, that can make this really work, you know, now and improve that by bit over time. And I should say, just to loop back a lot of that was codified in the Vamos plan. It was it was lock in the high comfort network, which we've come to think of actually, this is a new term that I should mention to you.

00:28:44:15 - 00:29:11:16
Avi Stopper
We've come to think of it as the best available network. So you lock in the best available network today, and bit by bit, your investments are in identifying the point locations that need improvement over time and improving those bit by bit. But the key thing is that you're not. If you're someone who wants to use active transportation, you're not waiting for an indefinite period of time for a complete high come, high comfort network to exist.

00:29:11:18 - 00:29:30:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned the, the app. And so I've got on my iPhone here, I've got the app all loaded up. So this is the, the landing of, when I opened up this app. This is what I see. Walk us through what we're seeing here on screen.

00:29:30:04 - 00:29:53:19
Avi Stopper
So, yeah, you're seeing a bunch of, a bunch of cool stuff that's going on in Denver. So this is exclusive to Denver at the moment, so that this is the the, you know, a segment of the Denver bike community. And what you're seeing there in the latest is new members, folks who have ridden in recent hours, you're seeing the total miles.

00:29:53:19 - 00:30:16:16
Avi Stopper
So we launched the iPhone app in June of 2024 and rolled that out kind of slowly over the course of the summer and then into the fall. So the total miles there is the total community miles that have been ridden since then. We are launching the Android app imminently, so that is iPhone only. We have the total number of rides that have been ridden with the app.

00:30:16:19 - 00:30:56:07
Avi Stopper
Look, I think that one of the things that is really substantially missed in active transportation is a real dashboard that is based on outcomes. And so what we are trying to do here is fill that gap and show that this is actually a slice of what's going on in the city right now. And so this this idea of a weekly goal, which is right under the riders header, there is what we're really trying to work towards, which is to get many, many, many people, hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands of people every week to replace at least one car trip with a bike trip.

00:30:56:09 - 00:31:19:22
Avi Stopper
So we have a little algorithm that looks at and tries to deduce whether a given ride was a, was indeed a replace meant for a car trip. And that's what is shown in the total car trips replace there and then carbon dioxide saved. And then of course, who doesn't need, a more tactile way to understand what, what tons of carbon dioxide mean?

00:31:19:22 - 00:31:24:21
Avi Stopper
So that's the equivalent of, of 200 mature trees that we have planted.

00:31:24:24 - 00:31:30:14
John Simmerman
Love it. Love it. It's it's almost as if you've sort of gamified this to.

00:31:30:16 - 00:31:55:02
Avi Stopper
I mean, certainly there are some efforts to create these mechanics where people feel motivated and, you know, fundamentally active transportation is not just an infrastructure challenge. It's a behavioral challenge, a behavioral change challenge for a lot of folks. And so we are trying to apply, you know, there there there are, you know, certain psychological tools that we can use.

00:31:55:02 - 00:32:34:14
Avi Stopper
And I wouldn't say by any means that we have totally figured it out. It's hard. Behavior change is difficult. But, you know, the goal is really to find the ways to get folks to say, I'm going to replace one car trip with one bike trip this week. And and so as we advance a little bit in our conversation and talk about the new initiative, which is destinations, and that's really what that is about to, to to illuminate for folks the many different types of places that you can go on a bike today so that we've, we've unfortunately, I think to a degree kind of shot ourselves in the foot by making bike commuting be

00:32:34:14 - 00:32:55:10
Avi Stopper
tantamount to biking to work. And for lots of folks, biking to work is not really, a possibility. And so what we're trying to do with this latest initiative, bike streets, destinations and the bike streets passport that you're showing, which is a technology built into the mobile apps, is show, folks, it's not just about biking to work. Biking to work is awesome.

00:32:55:10 - 00:33:25:27
Avi Stopper
If you can do it, great. If you can't, you can ride to the bakery near you, or you can ride in the middle there to the barn. Me place where if you ride a handful of times, they're going to give you some some free fried wontons. You can ride to the Denver Art Museum. And and so the goal here is to expand the possibilities in terms of the number of destinations that people are thinking about when they're thinking like, these are the places that I might want to go in my community, and I might want to go there on a bike.

00:33:25:29 - 00:33:30:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And again, there's a few other of these.

00:33:30:23 - 00:33:50:28
Avi Stopper
One thing I'll just mention I love about this, and this is very intentional and much by design is what you're showing is designed to represent a very huge range of types of places to go. An ice cream shop. I tend to think that I'm biased towards ice cream. I think that biking and ice cream is like the ultimate life combination.

00:33:51:01 - 00:34:16:21
Avi Stopper
So, you know, so there's ice cream, there are breweries, there are spas in there. There's an Asian grocery. There's a place where you can get an awesome capacity sandwich. You know, it's designed to really show that there are tons of great places in town to go. And so these are all local businesses and organizations that we have partnered with who are offering, in many cases, not all, but in most cases, some sort of reward for folks when they're right.

00:34:16:21 - 00:34:47:09
Avi Stopper
And, and, and I think that the narrative that we in the transportation advocacy community need to really underscore is that biking is great for the local economy. And the story that we need to be able to tell through data is and I think in some cases, we're sort of there, in some cases not. But what we're really pushing towards here is to be able to show through data that the local economy does really, really well.

00:34:47:15 - 00:34:54:08
Avi Stopper
When businesses try to appeal to people on bikes and people right there. Yeah.

00:34:54:11 - 00:35:20:20
John Simmerman
And you mentioned that this is currently Denver only it is the city where you live in. And you got inspired to do something about this. I know we talked about it in the first episode, but let's go back, rewind a little bit. What was the origin? What was that that kernel of, you know, thought that that got you like inspired to do this.

00:35:20:23 - 00:35:45:22
Avi Stopper
So I'm sort of in this no surprise. But like the archetypal, urban cyclist, I was riding for years in Chicago before there was any infrastructure of consequence there. And I did the same in Denver when I moved here about, 12 or 13 years ago, and I had this daily bike commute to work from my house to an office.

00:35:45:24 - 00:36:08:29
Avi Stopper
And I'm for, I don't know, the first ten years I was, I was using the prescribed bike lane, which is a conventional bike lane, very close to parked cars and on a very narrow collector one way. And one day. I don't remember exactly what prompted this, but I just had this sense that I wanted to try something different.

00:36:09:02 - 00:36:29:24
Avi Stopper
And so I started writing. And here's that term again, one street over on the next street, which was almost empty. And as I bit by bit needed to go to various places in Denver rather than just kind of following what was prescribed, I would take a look at the map and see if I could cobble these types of routes together.

00:36:30:01 - 00:36:56:06
Avi Stopper
And as I went to my local bike shop and talked to other folks who ride bikes, when I started to understand was that everyone was doing this, or lots and lots of people were doing this. I remember I had this conversation with a very like, I would I would call sort of like the classic urban cyclist, like this guy who was a mechanic, a 25 year mechanic, probably in a bike store, and he was describing, on the map, this route that he rode.

00:36:56:06 - 00:37:27:00
Avi Stopper
It was nine miles from a neighborhood called Central Park into a neighborhood called the Golden Triangle. And and I was just astonished at, at, at the I hadn't written that route, but the similarities between what he was doing and what I was doing. And so this idea to start to put this map together started to coalesce. And as I talked to more and more people and did more and more rides myself, I was I was mapping this out at first on, on a physical map.

00:37:27:03 - 00:37:57:18
Avi Stopper
And so that's really the origin of bike streets is, is this discovery that you can turn what is kind of, I don't know, an adrenaline producing type of experience into it, a dopamine producing experience. And, and what was as delightful was the discovery that I could take my family out on those rides as well, where there's just no chance that I was going to take my my little kids on that, on that kind of conventional bike lane.

00:37:57:21 - 00:38:21:25
Avi Stopper
And we could ride together. We could ride two by two, we could have conversations, we could go places. Mostly I was bribing them with ice cream and and so that's really how it started. And, and I would say that it started with this sort of cartographic insight that then produced this observation that anyone should be able to go anywhere in their city today on a bike and probably can.

00:38:22:02 - 00:38:56:29
Avi Stopper
And so it's incumbent on us then to figure out how to create that set of conditions. Again, I just want to plant a flag that we are by no means suggesting that significant municipal investment in these types of networks should not happen. Quite to the contrary, what we're saying is, maybe there is a way for us to create a critical mass on these streets and to, to to really increase and what that dashboard page that you just showed is really pushing towards is, a clarion call, a voice for the community.

00:38:57:06 - 00:39:05:07
Avi Stopper
And hopefully this will be in communities beyond Denver before long to to make that case to their elected officials.

00:39:05:09 - 00:39:27:06
John Simmerman
I'm glad you mentioned, your family and kids, because that's kind of the other thing that developed over these years and over this time is that it wasn't just about the confident bike rider. It was like, oh, you wanted to be able to share these experiences with your family members.

00:39:27:09 - 00:39:58:05
Avi Stopper
That's exactly right. I mean, I think that that does get lost sometimes. And the kinds of decisions that we are making with with how we design the map is totally fixated on that idea that that anyone needs to be comfortable riding out here and I'm not suggesting that that ultimately is a perfect manifestation thereof, but that is very much the the, the representation of the world that we're trying to create.

00:39:58:08 - 00:40:14:20
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Now, I know that you, you have like a blog. So you've got the, you know, you've got this blog that's, backpage that's going on here. How else are you? I skating? I was watching the boom, like you said, ice cream right there.

00:40:14:22 - 00:40:36:20
Avi Stopper
By the way. Just just. Yeah. Those two little kids, this is this is the destination on a group ride that we do called surprise, adventure, Surprise Adventures, a feature on the iPhone app right now. And basically the idea is you press a button. It's kind of like spinning the wheel and Wheel of Fortune. And the idea there is that you're going to be able to go to any destination in the city.

00:40:36:20 - 00:40:54:29
Avi Stopper
And so the surprise adventure in person ride is a big group ride where people meet at a park and we have a deck of cards. So we're not using technology in this case, but we have a deck of cards. And very explicitly what we're trying to show with this deck of cards is that you can go to any of the deck of cards.

00:40:54:29 - 00:41:15:15
Avi Stopper
Sorry, I should mention each card has a destination on it and the destinations are all over the place, many of which are ice cream. But but they're all over the place. And the point of the surprise adventure ride is that we're all going to go together. We have no idea where we're going when we arrive, but we know that we can go to that place.

00:41:15:15 - 00:41:35:20
Avi Stopper
And so what you're looking at here, this is a, on the bike streets passport, this place called nugs. And so nugs was one of the cards that was pulled on a surprise adventure ride during the winter. Actually, and these little kids were on, on a family bike that their, their dad was, was riding.

00:41:35:23 - 00:41:37:18
John Simmerman
I love it. Yeah. That's fantastic.

00:41:37:18 - 00:41:38:26
Avi Stopper
It was it was awesome.

00:41:38:28 - 00:42:02:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. Other than other than coming together IRL in real life or are you communicating, with your fans, followers, whatever you call them, bike streets aficionados? Are you active on various social media platforms or how do you really communicate with your group?

00:42:02:03 - 00:42:10:12
Avi Stopper
Our communication is, with newsletter. Okay. And we're not particularly active on social media.

00:42:10:19 - 00:42:48:08
John Simmerman
Okay. Fantastic. I want to get into the routing aspect, of, of the, the app because, you know, that that's a whole nother ball game. And, you know, pull up the iPhone again here. Being able to do routing is one thing. You've been in the weeds of trying to like, and I think there's a phrase on your website that says you've ridden, like, every mile of the, the, the streets that are identified on the, the bike streets, app here or map.

00:42:48:11 - 00:43:35:22
John Simmerman
But it's one thing to be able to, like, have that and be it stagnant, but it's a whole nother thing to create the routing mechanisms. And you alluded to that niggle of, okay, well, what would be the best route to take to be able to get around a potential barrier or something like this? And it's one of the things that I've been thinking about for years is how do we create a better tool for bike route mapping that has the intuition and the ability to hone in on what would be the right route for the right conditions for the particular person, the context of the person.

00:43:35:24 - 00:44:05:26
John Simmerman
A great example your parent. It'd be a much different route that you'd feel comfortable with just writing yourself versus writing with your family. And so I'd love to see a bike route mapping system be able to take into that level of context and that level of nuance to be able to say, well, if you're just looking to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, which is kind of what Google Maps does, is it says, yeah, from A to B, boom, here's your quickest route.

00:44:05:26 - 00:44:29:13
John Simmerman
That is quote unquote a bike friendly route. Go for it. And you may get a couple of different options. It'd be totally different if you're like, no, I'm with my family. I'm toggling on with kid, with wife. And it'd be like, no, okay, I have in my, my profile that I want the safest route or the most interesting route or the most enjoyable route.

00:44:29:15 - 00:44:32:08
John Simmerman
This is my dream. Hope it's a good it's.

00:44:32:11 - 00:45:01:07
Avi Stopper
It's a good. It's a good dream. I think I think that dream is probably within reach. I, I think that what we have discovered in the creation of this is that local, on the ground knowledge is critical to producing meaningful bike routes and the monolithic algorithms where it's just like we have all the street data for the world we're going to create.

00:45:01:07 - 00:45:33:18
Avi Stopper
This monolithic algorithm misses tremendous nuance. Misses, you know, everything from park trails that can be used, as, as ways to optimize routes to curb cuts that exist or don't exist. If you have a cargo bike, that's a huge a huge barrier, obviously. And and these little nuanced features, make it really challenging to just say, here is a global routing algorithm.

00:45:33:18 - 00:46:04:07
Avi Stopper
Just splat, apply it to OpenStreetMap data, or in Google's case, to whatever their underlying data set is. And and I think that that is the result, the reason that in most routing apps, you end up having these same segments that make a lot of sense, and then segments that are really confusing or problematic. For example, Google will in Denver take you on a state highway quite frequently.

00:46:04:09 - 00:46:29:04
Avi Stopper
Colfax Avenue is, is is often found on bike routes. And and the problem with that is obvious. But it it it significantly diminishes confidence. You have to think when someone's like, I don't actually know these streets and I have no idea where it's going to take me, but I'm seeing that Colfax is on there, you know? And as a result, I'm going to, I don't think I'm going to ride this route.

00:46:29:06 - 00:47:05:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, it's, it this dream that I have, is, is is really anchored in a Ted talk from over a decade ago. The Ted talk was really about, creating an enjoyable route. It's like having that nuance, having that context of saying, you know, if if time is not the key factor, if, if, if what you really want is an enjoyable experience, it's like, oh, yeah, I mean, we're, we're, we're, we're recording this at the, you know, in mid-March.

00:47:05:29 - 00:47:39:23
John Simmerman
This episode's going out in early April. We're talking springtime. We've got wildflowers that are popping up and things are in bloom. It's like, I want to take the route. This is going to be put a smile on my face, not describing what you or not the route that you're describing. Like on Colfax, that may be the fastest route, but it's certainly not the most, happiness and joyful experience and inducing that release, that the release of the dopamine in a positive, non stressful way.

00:47:39:25 - 00:47:43:13
John Simmerman
I mean, come on algorithm makers, get this going.

00:47:43:16 - 00:48:02:29
Avi Stopper
There is I think that there are a couple ways to do that. First off, the on the ground knowledge of creating this map, I think inherently creates those kinds of characteristics with routes, because those are just the types of places that, you know. And I can think of all these neat little spots around town where like, that is a really awesome tree.

00:48:02:29 - 00:48:22:24
Avi Stopper
Wow. That is that is like very interesting. We designed Little Free Library. You know, that guy has the craziest sculptures I have seen in his yard and, you know, of of of any, you know, that there are a bunch of sculptures all over the place, but you get the point. And so I think that that can be arrived at through a couple of different ways.

00:48:22:24 - 00:48:50:26
Avi Stopper
So first off, our guided rides will will usually give you a few different options. So you can take either the most direct route that we would consider to be reasonable. Or you can take a less direct route. And sometimes that adds five minutes to the ride and you get to see a few different neighborhoods. The wander component is also, I think, really useful for this, because you can stay within as long as you sort of generally know the direction that you want to go.

00:48:51:02 - 00:48:59:21
Avi Stopper
You can stay within the constraints of a set of curated routes while also doing your own thing.

00:48:59:23 - 00:49:30:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. The earlier you mentioned that long ride from the Central Park neighborhood, into the downtown area, I've got zoomed in here on the Central Park area and, and for folks who might be like, wondering is like Central Park. Yeah, it used to be Stapleton Airport. You can see Quebec Street there, on the left of the screen and, and so, yeah, I remember flying in and out of, of the airport here, back in the day and think in the 80s.

00:49:30:19 - 00:50:05:22
John Simmerman
But now it's been redeveloped as a new community. You know, many people live there, including several friends of mine, live there. I recently recorded a couple of different, episodes here on the channel. On bike interviews, you know, out in this particular area. And I wanted to, to zoom in on this. And it is kind of an interesting mixture of what you were just talking about are different types of of facilities and different ways of being able to do this route, or create routes that are meaningful for you.

00:50:06:00 - 00:50:54:27
John Simmerman
And again, it kind of emphasizes what I was also, you know, kind of talking about of the, the sort of invisible routes that could exist literally from every single block of, of of quiet streets, residential streets that could be, again, you know, leaning in towards that, that delightful route. So my question is for you is, is there a function as part of your map routing system and your feedback or, I guess where I'm getting to, is there a feedback mechanism so that people can kind of, you know, point out to you and say, oh, by the way, you know, this little Dallas street, this, you know, right over here that, you know,

00:50:54:27 - 00:51:21:17
John Simmerman
can connect us up to, up to this park, etc., and in this other area of me and the the wonderful hangar at Stan Stanley there, which there's a really cool stuff, at that particular, hangar area now is like, hey, the flowers are just in bloom over there right now. It's absolutely amazing. You know, do you have that feedback mechanism as part of your program to where people can.

00:51:21:19 - 00:51:44:00
Avi Stopper
Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of routing feedback about routes themselves. Yes. We are increasingly moving in the direction of what I would describe as annotations, which is which is something like the flowers are really cool here, or there's a really rad little feature here, or there is, there's a spot in town where there's, there's a goat that lives in the backyard, I love it.

00:51:44:01 - 00:51:48:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. The kids are gonna love this. Go. Bye. Say hi to the goat.

00:51:48:13 - 00:52:14:22
Avi Stopper
Yeah, yeah. I would say that that has applicability. That annotation idea and crowdsourcing of that has applicability beyond oddities and towards things that are more functional, like bike rack location, like construction, etc.. So that that is very much something that we're looking at. It's it's not exactly a simple thing. But there are, there are, I think, interesting ways to do this.

00:52:14:22 - 00:52:28:28
Avi Stopper
And, and again, in the, in the sort of spirit of that crowdsourcing approach and the local on the ground knowledge and galvanizing a community around it, that is something that that we see as having a lot of potential.

00:52:29:00 - 00:52:36:02
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Are we what have we not discussed that you want to make sure we leave the audience with here today?

00:52:36:04 - 00:52:39:27
Avi Stopper
Can I, can I share a link with you real quick in the, in the, in the chat?

00:52:39:29 - 00:52:41:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, absolutely.

00:52:41:06 - 00:53:16:25
Avi Stopper
So we have this big new initiative that we're calling destinations. And destinations is a collaboration with businesses and organizations across the city to elevate those that are interested in and encouraging people to use active transportation to get there. There are lots and lots of them. And we are launching this with about 100 partners across the city. And the diversity that I described before is what we're really stoked about, which is that there is such a diverse set of businesses from, you know, from from yarn and crafting shops to ice cream parlors and the such.

00:53:16:25 - 00:53:44:20
Avi Stopper
And so what we're looking at here is one of the web versions of a page for a partner. And this is a local brewery in the Platte Park neighborhood. So what we have created for them on the left hand side is a map that shows a rotating set of great routes to get to Monolith Brewing. And what I really like about this is that the way it kind of presents is that monolith for the business.

00:53:44:20 - 00:54:09:29
Avi Stopper
On behalf of this bike friendly business, is that Monolith Brewing is the center of the world. All roads lead to Monolith Brewing, and so what you can see if you scroll down and so that those, those routes, of course, are built on the bike streets map on the low stress Denver bike map. And if you scroll down on the right hand side, you can see they have a picture of their, their bike parking up above where you just where there are some, picture of their bike parking.

00:54:09:29 - 00:54:30:13
Avi Stopper
So you can be confident when you get there. There's a good place to lock your bike and then there is a reward. So you get half off your first beer when you ride. And then each destination has a passport stamp. So in the Bike Streets app, each destination will be stamped on each. Each destination that you visit will be stamped on your passport.

00:54:30:20 - 00:54:53:04
Avi Stopper
You can see the number of times that you visited and you can get a little reward here and there. This this isn't designed to be a giant. Go get a bunch of freebies kind of thing. Rather, it is trying to tether this close connection between the local, the vibrancy of the local economy and people who are using active transportation to get there.

00:54:53:04 - 00:55:21:19
Avi Stopper
And when you boil things down, it's it's and I don't mean to be reductive here, but when you boil things down, it's it's pretty simple. What can make a community incredibly vibrant is people going places and going to cool places. And there are tons and tons of these types of destinations that people we think can and should be visiting from a coffee shop to your local, you know, rock climbing gym.

00:55:21:19 - 00:55:43:18
Avi Stopper
We've got a couple of the, you know, just all sorts of interesting places that that might be a very Denver type of thing to, to ride your bike to the Rock gym. But and then go to the brewery afterwards. But that, I think, is a really important piece of the puzzle, which is connecting people with the places that they actually want to go.

00:55:43:20 - 00:56:09:16
John Simmerman
Love it, love it. Okay, folks, if you are in Denver and you want to, give this, app a try, yeah. So you can get get it out on the Apple iOS App Store right now. You can go to bike streets and get that, walk through the, you know, how people interact with the map. I believe there's a free trial period.

00:56:09:16 - 00:56:15:02
John Simmerman
And then, and then it becomes a paid annual paid subscription. Is that correct?

00:56:15:04 - 00:56:39:05
Avi Stopper
That's right. So there's iPhone and Android. There are, of course, as people become accustomed to with with apps like Strava or all trails, there are free features and then there are paid features. And I think that what's important to recognize is that for initiatives like this, to be able to build and grow over time, it's important that they have repeatable sources of revenue.

00:56:39:09 - 00:57:17:23
Avi Stopper
And one of the things that has been really difficult for advocacy initiatives historically is the dependency on grants. And those grants can come and go. They can often be related to, to, to, to, to different things than what the kind of core focus of the organization is. So what we are trying to do is really closely align our incentives and motivation with that of the people who are actually using it, so that if we do a good job getting people to cool places that they want to go to, they'll and replace one tank of gas over the course of the year with a with a bike street subscription.

00:57:17:25 - 00:57:29:25
John Simmerman
Great. Right. And and you still are doing the fun community rides. Obviously, you know, the and the, the surprise, route and all of that. Yet.

00:57:30:00 - 00:57:52:23
Avi Stopper
That's right. So yeah. So so every month, the first Sunday is a surprise adventure. There's a park in Denver called Wash Park, Washington Park, and we meet at the boathouse at Wash Park. The youngest person, usually a kid, chooses a card at random from the Surprise Adventure deck, and we ride there. If the if the destination is not ice cream, we have a beer.

00:57:52:23 - 00:58:09:03
Avi Stopper
Not we have an ice cream. We have two ice cream shops close to Wash Park. So it's an out and back, and on the ride back it's an out sort. It's an out and back and that we come back to Wash Park, but we tend to use a different route. So it it ends up being a loop. But we always and there is always ice cream.

00:58:09:06 - 00:58:11:02
John Simmerman
Somewhere in there. There's always ice cream.

00:58:11:02 - 00:58:16:11
Avi Stopper
Don't worry kids, whether that is the destination or the ultimate point of return.

00:58:16:14 - 00:58:36:05
John Simmerman
I love it, I love it. And again this is Bike streets.com. Head on over. Check it out. I know you're perfecting this. I know you don't have a crystal ball, but what's your intuition as to where you might have the ability to roll this out to other cities?

00:58:36:08 - 00:58:57:15
Avi Stopper
We're in conversations with a bunch of other communities at the moment. And the the the, the the path is both through city planning and transportation departments and advocacy organizations. So folks who are involved in either should, should drop us a line. They can just email info, ID, bike, streetcar, and and we'll get back to you.

00:58:57:18 - 00:59:21:26
Avi Stopper
And I think the neat thing is that the, the methodology and the technology are things that can be applicable in other communities. And in fact, as we speak, we are with a group of of volunteers from Lakewood, which is basically it's metro Denver. It's the city that's adjacent Denver on the west side, basically between the mountains and Denver.

00:59:22:02 - 00:59:30:27
Avi Stopper
We are building the low stress Lakewood bike map right now, and that will soon be added to this, to the the Denver map.

00:59:30:29 - 00:59:36:09
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Well, I look forward to, doing some more rides with you, in the summer.

00:59:36:11 - 00:59:56:11
Avi Stopper
Likewise. Likewise. And in Lakewood, there will be adventures. I think one of the neat things about Lakewood, actually, is that it demonstrates the possibility to do this in a city that has very different attributes, very much a postwar non grid city that, that that has attributes that are quite different from Denver. But but the methodology works.

00:59:56:13 - 01:00:03:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And testing RV stopper. This was so much fun having you back on the active town shuttle. Thank you so much.

01:00:03:06 - 01:00:04:04
Avi Stopper
I appreciate it.

01:00:04:06 - 01:00:19:15
John Simmerman
He thank you all so much for tuning and hope you enjoyed this episode with the RV stopper. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on the subscription button down below and be sure to ring that notification bell.

01:00:19:17 - 01:00:43:25
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, once again, 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 and there's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons do get early and ad free access to all my video content, and that's a pretty good bonus.

01:00:43:25 - 01:01:07:15
John Simmerman
But you can also leave a donation to the nonprofit, as well as leave a tip right here on YouTube that should be right down below somewhere. 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 a huge shout out to all my Active Towns ambassadors supporting the channel via YouTube.

01:01:07:15 - 01:01:17:01
John Simmerman
Super! Thanks! Buy me a coffee! Patreon. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit. I could not do this without you. Thank you all so very much.