Transcript extracted from the video version of the episode. Note that it has not been proof edited.

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:19:00
Emily Hanna
Often people take to the trails because it is a lot more comfortable, it's safe, and it is a little bit more convenient for them. And so we want to try to make those parts and pieces work for all of active transport patient and get our partners to see that the trail system that they're building currently. Can you pivot to that and can be used for that as well?

00:00:19:18 - 00:00:33:12
Emily Hanna
And again, it's just kind of changing mindsets, changing kind of the the the way we think about things. And that is a lot of times through conversations, through advocacy and through the volunteers and the others that have the same passion that we have a bike walk.

00:00:33:27 - 00:00:56:19
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman, and that is Emily Hannah, executive director of bike Walks. And from Florida, we're talking a little bit about the things that they are trying to do to help support the cities in that region to become safer for people walking and biking and help transform that built environment. It's a wonderful discussion, but it's a long one.

00:00:56:19 - 00:01:07:04
John Simmerman
So let's get right to it with Emily Hanna. Emily, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.

00:01:07:19 - 00:01:09:25
Emily Hanna
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:01:09:25 - 00:01:16:29
John Simmerman
So I love to have my guests just kind of take a moment to introduce themselves to the audience. So I will give you the floor. Who's Emily?

00:01:18:03 - 00:01:42:02
Emily Hanna
So my name is Emily Hanna. I am the executive director of Bike Walk Central Florida, which is a nonprofit advocacy organization in our region that promotes trails and sidewalks, pedestrian safety, bicycle safety and education. Prior to that, I was the development services manager of the city of Castleberry, Florida, where I manage their planning department, their building department, NACA.

00:01:42:11 - 00:02:09:08
Emily Hanna
The work that I did for the city of Castleberry won me a 40 under 48 award from the Orlando Business Journal in 2019, and that was really for working with developers and the community to negotiate what those needs were and to end to build it and make it happen. And we've collectively it's not just me. There's other people that were part of the city, but we've collectively changed the direction of the city positively, and I'm sure we'll talk about that later in the podcast.

00:02:09:16 - 00:02:31:02
Emily Hanna
Additionally, outside of that, I serve on five different advisory boards, two of which are professional development organizations in Central Florida related to planning. I have a master's in urban and regional planning from the University of Central Florida, where I'm also an adjunct professor teaching in their undergraduate urban planning courses. So that's me in a nutshell.

00:02:32:17 - 00:02:56:05
John Simmerman
I love it. I love it. Well, I'm going to I as I was mentioning before we hit the record button, I was fascinated by this. That is this geography in this area. I mean, obviously, we hear a lot about Orlando in the Orlando area. And of course, you know, way down here in sort of this lower left segment of of this map is where Disney World is and Epcot and all that kind of stuff.

00:02:57:00 - 00:03:09:06
John Simmerman
And we've got the, you know, the international airport, which is, you know, sort of right here. But, you know, that city that you were just talking about, Castleberry, I've got that highlighted here. So you were there for, what, four or five years.

00:03:10:01 - 00:03:12:08
Emily Hanna
Four years total.

00:03:12:08 - 00:03:19:12
John Simmerman
Fantastic. And it seems like you rose through the ranks rather quickly there. And obviously you made a little bit of a splash.

00:03:19:24 - 00:03:43:03
Emily Hanna
I did. I did. The city was really you know, I started out right out of my master's program, right out of school. They hired me as an entry level planner. And I really wanted to to flex my planning muscles, if you will. And so I came in to an opportunity to really build their planning department. It was a couple people that were leaving.

00:03:43:03 - 00:04:08:08
Emily Hanna
Their director was retiring. So I had an opportunity to bring in staff that I had worked with prior and and had graduated with me in the ECF program. So most of the planners that had worked at the city center since I had been there have been graduates of the Master's program from UCSF. So it's kind of a great pipeline, if you will, to bring in entry level planners and give them that experience.

00:04:08:08 - 00:04:38:05
Emily Hanna
But ultimately, what I was really fortunate enough to be is, is to work with public works, to work with our code enforcement department. And then I wrote a lot of the policy for the city. So I worked with a lot of different departments and really understood the functions of the city early on and realized that a lot of the policy that was written was from 1990s and early 2000s and was really policy that was dedicated and really descriptive of a suburban community.

00:04:38:05 - 00:05:02:24
Emily Hanna
And we really wanted to increase our density and intensity along some of the major thoroughfares that kind of bisected the city and that would be 1792 and State road 436. These roads have so upwards of 50,000 vehicles traveling daily down those roads. And so it's really difficult to kind of build an urban form when you have the volume that you're having through your city.

00:05:03:18 - 00:05:19:16
Emily Hanna
And so ultimately we we wrote Change Policy, We worked with developers to try to get that kind of the best of both worlds. It's really difficult to try to get, you know, a mixed use building right up against a seven lane major arterial. Developers really don't want to do that. They want to be set off a little bit.

00:05:19:16 - 00:05:39:19
Emily Hanna
So we we really worked with the development community to try to get kind of the stepping block, the stepping stones, if you will, to build kind of where we wanted to go. But obviously knew that it was very difficult to get there with just the conditions of the roadways. And some of the the other surrounding properties weren't quite as valuable.

00:05:39:19 - 00:05:59:02
Emily Hanna
They weren't they weren't often set back. It was a lot of drive thrus. That's what's really common on those major thoroughfares. But like I said, we changed a lot of the policy. We made sure that the development community saw those policies before they were adopted and were willing to work within those policies because you write them, they might not come.

00:05:59:02 - 00:06:22:27
Emily Hanna
And then now you're kind of, you know, pigeonholing yourself into having something to be said, empty for a while without any type of economic activity. So ultimately, that's why we made those those policies really flexible. Developers loved it, came in, really started building what we call a part of what we call as affordable housing, that apartments essentially in the city really didn't have a lot of multifamily until we kind of changed some of those rules.

00:06:22:27 - 00:07:01:00
Emily Hanna
And now we have a lot of multifamily. And why that is important is because the city really wanted to build up their tax base in order to bring in more businesses and specifically more restaurants. And we really didn't have the household median income to support the the where the restaurants wanted to locate where their market area was. So we had to bring in more, more people that made more money and raised the median income so that we could bring in the goods and services that the city really wanted to the north, east, south and west or other communities that have these restaurants that have these types of social and cultural and economic places.

00:07:01:00 - 00:07:20:05
Emily Hanna
But really the city of Castleberry was really kind of designed to drive through and not necessarily stay. And so that was ultimately our charge was to try to change the policy so that we could build an environment that people would want to linger in and shop in and stay in restaurants and things. So a little bit economic development, but that was really key.

00:07:20:05 - 00:07:48:00
Emily Hanna
I think in order for me to see the larger picture at play and that in order for me to really change the context of 1792 and the 436 and of other major thoroughfares and communities, I couldn't stay in Castleberry. I had to go and work for either a county or another agency that could have that impact. And ultimately that's kind of how and why I got involved with sidewalks and.

00:07:48:01 - 00:08:09:24
John Simmerman
Reporter Okay, cool. And, and you had mentioned a couple of times there about the university. So again, if we zoom in a little bit here on the map, we can see that the university is start out here and it looks like it's a it's a very interesting campus. It's all in sort of like this circular pattern. And as I understand, is this true?

00:08:10:04 - 00:08:19:19
John Simmerman
Is central Central Florida University is one of the largest excuse me, the University center Florida is one of the largest universities in the United States. Is that correct?

00:08:19:27 - 00:08:45:24
Emily Hanna
It is, I believe. I don't know if it surpassed I think it was Arizona State University was the largest, but the last I saw, we had over 53,000 students enrolled at the university, making it one of the largest in the country. So that's their main campus. That's on the east side of Orange County. They've also constructed a downtown campus with partnership of private developers and the city of Orlando.

00:08:45:24 - 00:09:05:10
Emily Hanna
And that's actually located right across the street from our office. And they have essentially moved some of the colleges and schools down there already, including the master's in urban regional planning program, architecture, and some others that are in the public administration School are interesting.

00:09:05:10 - 00:09:26:07
John Simmerman
Interesting. Okay, cool. Well, I'll we can move on from the university at this point, but that that prompts a nice question that I'll have for Natalia Barber, who is a professor who has joined the university, figure out where she's at, whether she's at the downtown campus or or out at the main campus. So that's good. Have you met Natalia yet?

00:09:26:20 - 00:09:27:29
Emily Hanna
I've not, no. Okay.

00:09:28:01 - 00:09:52:01
John Simmerman
You'll definitely want to see that she's a firecracker and she's been on the podcast before when she lived in Delft in the in the Netherlands and was a professor at at t u Delft. But I didn't want to linger just a little bit more on this map. Simply to also say that I acknowledge the fact that you're a horse person and so you live up in, in the Geneva area.

00:09:52:01 - 00:10:07:00
John Simmerman
You have some land up there and then make the the hardcore commute all the way down into central or land or into the the center of Orlando. What's that like?

00:10:07:01 - 00:10:22:19
Emily Hanna
You know, I get to work from home so I don't necessarily have to come into the office all the time. You know, our our staff and our team like walk, work, remote. But we have a central location where we do meet to meet the partners and things. So that's why we have a hub kind of in downtown Orlando.

00:10:23:04 - 00:10:41:04
Emily Hanna
But ultimately we really travel to our partners and our partners are essentially our clients, for lack of a better term. In a nonprofit world, there are partners and really we go to them. So I will go down and see of Castleberry. I will go to Kissimmee, I will go to Apopka City, Orlando. We don't normally have meetings at our office.

00:10:41:04 - 00:11:04:27
Emily Hanna
It's really just internal, but the drive can be lengthy and prior to me living in Geneva, I actually bought property in Deltona, which is closer to the Sun Rail, which is our commuter train. And that commuter train comes to downtown Orlando. And so for several years when I lived in that house, I did take the train. It was still an hour one way.

00:11:05:07 - 00:11:22:26
Emily Hanna
But the commuter train. And then I'd walk to wherever my office was, wherever I was at the time, and then I would often and commute back. And that worked out really well. I loved riding the sun rail, but unfortunately I needed more land and so I had to sell and I moved to Geneva, which doesn't have that connection.

00:11:23:07 - 00:11:43:25
Emily Hanna
I would have to drive quite a distance just to get to the trains. It just makes sense just to drive into the office. But I try not to do it as often and we do have bike storage here in the office, so when I am here I can take one of the bikes out. We also have scooters and bike share in downtown Orlando as well, along with a circulator called The Limo.

00:11:44:07 - 00:12:11:01
Emily Hanna
So it's our quick service kind of bus that takes you kind of to some of the activity centers and big points of interest in downtown. So I'll often hop on that when I'm downtown to get to wherever I need to go. So there's lots of options for multimodal transportation when you're in these hubs that host it. Where I'm at in Geneva, not so much that is going to be more your large trucks and SUVs and some of those ATVs and off road vehicles.

00:12:11:01 - 00:12:13:07
Emily Hanna
So you haven't had.

00:12:14:04 - 00:12:47:26
John Simmerman
That great bikes and feds out there. All right. So let's so you've mentioned you so you made that change. You wanted to get more engaged in in this sort of world and and start, you know, really trying to transform an environment which my impression of the Orlando general area there, including, you know, cassowary and all that is it's just kind of like you said, it was kind of developed after, you know, post-World War Two very much along the lines of the car.

00:12:48:02 - 00:12:54:03
John Simmerman
And so my impression of it is it's not a very walkable and bikeable place. Is that a correct impression?

00:12:54:28 - 00:13:22:06
Emily Hanna
Generally speaking, you're absolutely correct. It's not a very walkable, bikeable state for right now. Now, I will say that individually, our city and county partners are working on making those connections, identifying where there might be sidewalk gaps or where there might be opportunities to add additional trail segments. And we have a really robust proposed trail master plan that can be something we can look at later.

00:13:22:06 - 00:13:50:03
Emily Hanna
But ultimately the cities are working on that individually. Our job really a bike walk is to have them connect and have them talk to each other and make sure that the trails that they're planning or the sidewalk connections that they're planning or even new development that's going in a new school has connections to those communities so that it makes it simpler and easier for you to walk or ride your bike versus just going to the first thing that you know and that we're all comfortable with, which is getting into our automobile and driving where we need to go, right?

00:13:50:22 - 00:13:51:28
Emily Hanna
Yeah, Yeah.

00:13:51:28 - 00:14:15:24
John Simmerman
And I mean, I'm blown away by the scale of this. When I looked at the the Central Florida metropolitan area, it's like 4000 square miles. I mean, this is a massive, massive area. And then when you look at, you know, the built up areas, I mean, Orlando itself is not that huge. It's about a just under a million people.

00:14:15:24 - 00:14:39:03
John Simmerman
And I guess it's like a over just over a hundred square miles. So it's not massive in terms of I mean, you know, we're, you know, three times that size here in Austin. But in terms of square miles and then just over a million people, 2.5 or 2.6 million people in that metropolitan area, the is a bit you have a lot to chew off of here.

00:14:39:20 - 00:14:41:07
John Simmerman
This is massive.

00:14:41:07 - 00:14:58:21
Emily Hanna
It is we often compare it to the size of Delaware, the state. So as far as the square mileage goes, that's really the coverage that we have. And then, you know, population not quite the same. We're a little bit less than the state of Delaware, but comparable, you would mention the city of Orlando is kind of a hub.

00:14:58:27 - 00:15:23:09
Emily Hanna
We have the city of Sanford, which is the north, which is a hub as well, and then the city of Kissimmee, which is to the south. So we've got cities kind of developed in between the city of Orlando and then some of the other activity centers, points of interest, things like that. So it might seem sprawl, but really there's a lot of little incorporated cities that that make up kind of those bedroom communities, if you will, that surround downtown Orlando.

00:15:23:22 - 00:15:33:19
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. So here's the mission vision and values Walk us through this. You know who tell us all about bike walk Central Florida.

00:15:34:21 - 00:16:02:15
Emily Hanna
So Bike Walk Central Florida started in 2010 when a among other things that ultimately the dangerous by design report put out by smart growth America came out there you go right there. Thank you. And so that was in 2011. That report came out and basically identified the Orlando metro area. So everywhere from Sanford all the way down to Kissimmee and everywhere in between is one of the most dangerous places for people to walk.

00:16:03:02 - 00:16:26:24
Emily Hanna
We had the highest percentage of fatalities based on the percentage of people that did walk for commute, which is how the dangerous by design report statistics were determined at the time. And so that raised a lot of red flags for a lot of, you know, a lot of red flags for the city of Orlando, Orange County, our local transportation planning organization, Metropolitan Metro Plan, Orlando.

00:16:27:10 - 00:16:55:16
Emily Hanna
And so at that time, bike walk, Central Florida was just forming. We were formed out of a grant from the Winter Park Health Foundation, and they still exist and we still work with them today. But ultimately they kind of founded Bike Walk of the impression that we really needed to create more civility around people that walk and bike and drivers really just disrespect people that walk in like we think it's those people and we don't necessarily respect who they might be or where they might be going.

00:16:55:16 - 00:17:17:15
Emily Hanna
And we think that when we're in a vehicle that we're more important than anybody else. And so we're going to continue to drive past them or we're going to continue to do whatever dangerous behavior we're doing in our car. And we blame the pedestrian often because they just randomly cross the road. Right. But we don't necessarily design our roads to make it safer for people to cross.

00:17:17:15 - 00:17:43:23
Emily Hanna
So ultimately, that led us to to form the nonprofit and start one of our signature programs, the best foot forward pedestrian safety program, which I'll get to in a minute. But really the mission, vision and values of bike walk is to bring that civility back to central Florida, to really remind drivers and remind people, because we all are drivers, but some of us don't have driver's license like those that are under the age of 16.

00:17:43:29 - 00:18:11:05
Emily Hanna
And we have a huge senior population in Florida, specifically in in central Florida. And some of those drivers, some of those people have to drive because they don't have safe connections or places to walk or bike to do go to the doctor's office or go to the grocery store, those normal activities. So we kind of have a range of different audiences that we're trying to to tell everybody to watch out for and to be more respectful for and civil around.

00:18:11:25 - 00:18:35:22
Emily Hanna
And that we do through the series of programs doing education and really speaking and engaging with different audiences about how the driver you'll blossom, why it's a Florida law. It's for you to stop and let somebody cross the road in addition to the statistics that we have as being one of the worst in the country, it's striking people just trying to walk across the street right?

00:18:35:22 - 00:19:04:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of thoughts come to mind, you know, during your your overview of that and and one of them is, is really that we have a lot of challenges and I'll pull up your your programs and services slide here you've got the best fit for the bike five the the healthy West Orange trail connections the passing the packing district and it's this college park.

00:19:04:13 - 00:19:06:20
John Simmerman
So is this the university area?

00:19:07:19 - 00:19:09:10
Emily Hanna
It's just north of the university.

00:19:09:17 - 00:19:45:13
John Simmerman
Just north of the university. And then bike walk kids. One of the biggest challenges in advocacy, especially with Safer Streets advocacy and Vision Zero advocacy, is that challenge is in part of the challenge, of course, is and you touched upon it a little bit is there is this default that we go through in North America, which is we drive, it's the roads are built for driving and everybody drives and the world then revolves around us driving.

00:19:45:13 - 00:20:10:06
John Simmerman
And then, you know, the problem, of course, is that oftentimes that then when we look at safety programs and initiatives, it shifts the onus of safety and not being killed to the more vulnerable users, which really annoys the hell out of me. And from a public health perspective, which is my background, I know that that's not the way to go.

00:20:11:05 - 00:20:59:00
John Simmerman
We really need to like lean heavily into the engineering of our streets to slow motor vehicle drivers down and not using enforcement and initiatives in education to try to, you know, cause that because it's so powerful. You talked about it before of of that impact of, you know, these six lanes roads and is just built for speed and and we're humans I mean one of the one of my most favorite Walt Disney cartoons was from the 1950s before you know, before Walt Disney World, 1950s, where he talked about this motor mania was the name of that little goofy cartoon skit.

00:20:59:00 - 00:21:30:10
John Simmerman
And it was, you know, Mr. Walker and Mr. Driver in in. And it's that transformation that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde transformation that happens to humans when they get behind the wheel of an automobile and turn into just a murderous maniac behind the wheel. And so it's in part of that challenge that we all have in trying to make safer communities is is really kind of honing in on what needs to happen.

00:21:30:21 - 00:22:03:07
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that side of it, because there's an engineering slide that we'll go to here in just a moment. Since you know where I'm coming from, I'm in engineering. First. I'm like, We need to get our engineering. Talk a little bit about that from a partner perspective of working with the cities and the counties and the regional areas to try to get through and break through that transformation of a built landscape that's already auto dominated.

00:22:03:07 - 00:22:22:23
Emily Hanna
It's a that's a very tough, I think, question to to answer honestly. But yeah, what I would like to start with, I guess, is explaining how our best foot forward pedestrian safety program works, because I think that that is going to be my good introduction as to how I then advocate for some of the things that you spoke of.

00:22:22:23 - 00:22:45:26
Emily Hanna
John. And so first and foremost, most, I should say, all of our partners, the cities and the counties that I listed earlier, and I think there's a slide earlier that actually shows all of the partners. So all of those partners from City of Sanford and Longwood, Castleberry, all the way down to Kissimmee and Saint Cloud, all have different types of staff, all have different types of characteristics of their community.

00:22:46:04 - 00:23:04:10
Emily Hanna
They all have different goals, they all have different types of roadways, they all have different types of development, strength and strengths. And so you have to take those into consideration when you go down and you work with any individual partner. Orange County is going to be a little bit different than how Seminole County might react to what Osceola County does.

00:23:04:27 - 00:23:38:07
Emily Hanna
And so working with these individual partners and knowing kind of who those engineers are, what their background is, understanding those and having those relationships is probably the first most important thing with you advocating for anything. I'm not going to go in and say you need to eliminate a lane when I know Osceola County is goal is to grow some of their, you know, areas just south of where the attractions are and they're not of the mindset to eliminate lanes, to widen multi-modal transportation options for others.

00:23:38:15 - 00:24:00:04
Emily Hanna
But that's going to come with time. They've got a robust trail system down there that they're building. And so that's a step in the right direction. And so you have to pivot where you can and support a positive environment changes that they are making because they're already in their capital improvement plans, their slips. So that's already been determined by their commission and they've got directives to do that.

00:24:00:04 - 00:24:27:24
Emily Hanna
So one of the things that I try to do is understand what the community's goals are that we work with and then try to figure out the compromises to get to move the needle. And then I'll get the advocacy in when I can. So for example, if they're building a ten foot wide trail on the side of the four lane, 45 mile an hour road with the center divided median, I'll say, you know, your your lane with your 12 feet, is there any way that we could go down and narrow those to ten feet by ourselves?

00:24:27:24 - 00:24:48:07
Emily Hanna
Maybe stripe in the curve a little bit. So we have a two foot curved section and then maybe widen that trail section from 10 to 12 feet because the right of way exists. You have a buffer that's built in from your curb section. And now where you kind of put that stripe out, narrowing those lanes, and that gives a better buffer to those that are using that multi-use trail or that multi-use path.

00:24:48:15 - 00:25:13:08
Emily Hanna
You have wider options for that multi-use path. And now the drivers just narrowly bite by just changing the striping. I we didn't change the geography of the roadway at all or narrow it a little bit now because it's still four lanes. Yes. They're likely to continue to speed because of the width of the roadway in general. But making these small, tiny incremental improvements start to show the traffic engineers and the planners that that does make an impact.

00:25:13:16 - 00:25:39:02
Emily Hanna
And if you do a little pilot project here or there within a community and they see that in fact they are likely going to continue making those changes. And I will. This is a great example. The city of Kissimmee was a partner, has been a partner of the best foot forward pedestrian safety program for some time now. And the numbers, the percentages that you see there, the 30% and the 78% are what we call our driver, our yield rate.

00:25:39:21 - 00:26:08:20
Emily Hanna
And so what we do is we send data collectors out. We monitor over 100 crosswalks in the best fit for program. We send these data collectors out and they cross the road and they work down whether or not the driver stops and lets them cross or it stops and lets the pedestrian cross. Whether or not the driver makes a data maneuver to go around the pedestrian right or so that or they might slam on the brakes and kind of screech around or they just, you know, pass the pedestrian altogether and don't even see that they're there.

00:26:08:20 - 00:26:31:07
Emily Hanna
Right. But with that, we don't just send people out to cross the road. That's incredibly dangerous. There's something called a dilemma zone. And that dilemma zone is essentially the distance that a car needs to stop based on the speed limit. We always try to assume that no one's doing the speed limit. So a lot of times our dilemma zone is much larger, greater distance just because we assume the drivers are speeding.

00:26:31:21 - 00:26:54:16
Emily Hanna
But essentially, whatever that distance might be, let's say 250 feet. Perfect. Thank you. And once they hit, say, a cone, oftentimes our advanced pedestrian warning signs are placed right at the beginning of this dilemma zone for drivers. So oftentimes, if we do have advanced warning signs, we use those signs, but if not, we flag it market and then the data collector goes on and crosses the road.

00:26:54:20 - 00:27:18:29
Emily Hanna
We do this 60 times in one day, three different times of the day. So we make them kind of take a break in between. And we do this quarterly for all of the crosswalks that we monitor. So we do about 500 ish data collections a year just within the pedestrian safety program. And from there we take kind of those averages over over time and understand kind of what the driver behavior is.

00:27:19:00 - 00:27:37:12
Emily Hanna
We take that information and we take that back to the partner. And then what we do is we look at what signage and what's the engineering that's there, what's the context of that, that crosswalk? Is it a school crossing? Is a trail crossing. What type of activity do we see? And then from there we recommend countermeasures. Those countermeasures could be used.

00:27:37:15 - 00:28:08:17
Emily Hanna
We don't have letter striping. It could be just simple to strengthen the crosswalk, as simple as adding advanced warning signs. It might be more more specific, like adding pedestrian refuge islands to a multi lane facility. It could be reducing curb radii so that the crossing is shorter or it could be rectangular, rapid flashing beacons. Those are really popular among some of our partners here in the region because they draw attention to the drivers and our data just shows that they work with that crosswalks.

00:28:08:17 - 00:28:40:12
Emily Hanna
Going back to the city of Kissimmee, we crosswalks at 30% yield rate and there was no improvement over time. And then we've added the rectangular rapid flashing beacon and an improved a little bit. But then we added to the warning signs. We added a stop bar, shark's teeth and you start to see the drivers now pay attention. So I like to always say this to my traffic engineers, my planners and my elected officials is that if you ever know how to form a habit, right, the first the first thing for forming a habit is making it obvious.

00:28:40:22 - 00:29:01:22
Emily Hanna
And so we don't do a very good job of making the places where we want people to cross obvious for drivers from a driver's perspective. And so we really are trying to enunciate and draw out where those drivers can expect pedestrian ends to be, and that makes pedestrians feel more comfortable using the crosswalks because oftentimes we hear from community outreach that we do that.

00:29:01:27 - 00:29:30:16
Emily Hanna
I just don't feel comfortable crossing their driver's aren't paying attention. So we take all of that information back to our partners, work with them to try to improve the built environment with the pedestrian safety program. It's not just engineering that we do, it is also education. And then there's also enforcement on top of the evaluation. And the enforcement is important because oftentimes when our data collectors are out there, the driver's not going to understand why that person is crossing the road and making notes.

00:29:30:16 - 00:29:54:01
Emily Hanna
Right. And that's part of the education is going out to the community, talking to it your way, is going to events, educating on the driver shield law. And you'd be really surprised how many people don't know that's the law, and rightfully so. I had no idea when I started working for Bike Walk that that was the law. I knew common sense wise that if there was a crosswalk that four people cross and I shouldn't have lost right.

00:29:54:01 - 00:30:17:04
Emily Hanna
But not necessarily know that it's a $164 ticket or three points on your license if you violate that law. And so oftentimes we we do this four times a year with our law enforcement partners where we go out and actually enforce the driver of law. We have informed we have law enforcement officers go out and cross. Oftentimes they're giving warnings and or citations.

00:30:17:04 - 00:30:37:22
Emily Hanna
That's up to the law enforcement agency. But with that comes a educational pamphlet that really talks about the the issues in the community, why we are the worst, why we're the number one for dangerous by design. And we and we really try to educate, not necessarily, you know, we're not out there making money off this program. We don't get any of the dollars and the enforcement.

00:30:38:10 - 00:30:59:29
Emily Hanna
We are really out there to educate. But part of that is also high visibility media and getting the media out and bringing them to see the enforcement operations. Of course, they like flashy things like this, so they often participate. But we love the fact that they come out because they're sharing our educational message. It's all about education and reminding drivers that that's the law.

00:31:00:16 - 00:31:23:10
Emily Hanna
So these are some great stats on the program. Last year, over 30 coalition partners, over almost 20,000 people. And those are actual discussions. Those are actual interactions, not just people that might come by the table, that's actual conversations about the driver of law. And then over 900 warnings and citations issued, which is all of our enforcement partners combined over the year.

00:31:23:10 - 00:31:43:26
Emily Hanna
So even though we're still reminding drivers regularly, you know, we're only hitting a small percentage of the actual population of central Florida. And one of the things I would be remiss to not mention, John, is that we have about a thousand people moving to central Florida a day. And so there's lots of people that are coming here that have no idea of our rules and our laws on the road.

00:31:43:26 - 00:31:56:09
Emily Hanna
So we have to continue our education and continue our enforcement to remind even the new people that come and live in Central Florida that this is our rules, this is our law, and we want you to stop and let somebody cross the road.

00:31:56:23 - 00:32:22:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, I'm lingering on this particular image because it it brings up something that I saw earlier today, which was basically a report that looked at yielding behaviors in basically an unprotected crosswalk like this and motor vehicle speed. And there was a direct correlation between what the speed of the motor vehicle drivers, what they were traveling as they approached, you know, the crosswalk.

00:32:23:04 - 00:33:09:12
John Simmerman
And so what is the the the tolerance or the palette or the willingness of your your cities and this region for doing what they can to lower those motor vehicle speeds. May you'd mentioned that it's not likely that they're going to be taking lanes away. But you know, is there some tolerance there's there's some openness to maybe narrowing the travel lanes and creating a little bit, you know, going back to this photo, you know, narrowing that traveling, creating a little bit of a buffer and having the beginnings of a buffered bike lane, which then maybe you can start installing some, you know, protection into it to be able to have a modestly protected bike lane.

00:33:09:19 - 00:33:17:08
John Simmerman
But then more importantly, helping to tame down those motor vehicle speeds so that it's not such a dangerous crossing.

00:33:18:21 - 00:33:42:16
Emily Hanna
So you you mentioned speed correlating with the yield rate, and that is something that we see within the program over our data all the time. So higher speeds, the yield rate is much lower. And that is something that we're having conversations with our partners on. There are some partners that are more willing to reduce speeds than others, and there are some partners that make it to reduce a roadway speed.

00:33:42:16 - 00:34:05:27
Emily Hanna
It requires the community to ratify that change. Right? So it really is the onus is on the community. And every community is different, though there are some communities that don't have anything policy wise that says that they have to go through these steps to reduce the speed limit. But others have that. So knowing kind of your constraints there and then pivoting accordingly.

00:34:05:27 - 00:34:27:00
Emily Hanna
So I know, for example, Osceola County is not going to reduce the speed limit any time soon because that they have a policy that requires 60% approval from the community. But we can go narrow the lanes, we can go at advanced warning signs, we can do use some countermeasures that still warrant drivers to pay attention there without necessarily having to rewrite policy and code for these communities.

00:34:27:07 - 00:34:52:21
Emily Hanna
But they do know because most of them, including Osceola County, have adopted a Vision Zero resolution. They're still working on their action plan. And those projects that go along with moving to Vision Zero. But ultimately, they all know that that's a part of what they need to do. But it's really based on context. You know, we really can't go in and say the Florida Turnpike, for example, we're going to reduce the speed limit, right?

00:34:52:21 - 00:35:15:21
Emily Hanna
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's certain so the road that you had shown, in fact, on that slide is is by the Kissimmee Airport and happens to be a trail crossing that's there. But it's very industrial. There's large trucks moving through there pretty constantly. And so we've talked about adding a pedestrian refuge island in the middle. We've talked about reducing the speed limit.

00:35:15:21 - 00:35:36:15
Emily Hanna
It's 45 and going down to 40. But ultimately the lanes really can't get narrowed because of all the tractor trailer movement that's there. So again, it's really based on context and it's really based on working with those individual communities and making, you know, having them recommend what they want to do and then saying, why don't you do just this step above or this next thing?

00:35:36:15 - 00:35:58:18
Emily Hanna
And they're and they're normally receptive to that. They will likely say, okay, we will do this. So for this example, that crosswalk is now a rectangular, rapid flashing beacon with a stop marker, additional signage, because we went in and did some intermediate stuff, added the stop bar and added additional meter signs, but really didn't get the yield rate that the partner wanted.

00:35:59:00 - 00:36:19:29
Emily Hanna
I knew that that really needed to be an RV. I recommended that to them, but they didn't want to spend the money. That's a little bit more expensive than just basic signage and striping. But once they saw that that didn't work, they went in and did the next best thing. And so it's a learning process for the individual cities and for the individuals that are doing that work to learn what works in their community.

00:36:20:08 - 00:36:42:23
Emily Hanna
I've got another Seminole County up where I live. They it's a 45 mile an hour road. It's by a school and it's a trail crossing. And I can't put a rectangular wrap and flashing beacon in because it doesn't meet the context. It's too fast. Now, the Florida Department of Transportation, that those need to be pedestrian, hybrid beacons or mid-block pedestrian signals.

00:36:43:14 - 00:37:02:04
Emily Hanna
And I know the county is not going to go install and spend six figures on doing that. So I said, let's reduce the speed limit. It doesn't it's a different it's not a rural road anymore. It's got neighborhoods on both sides. There's the school there. And so instead of reducing the speed limit, they wanted to add yielding signs in the road.

00:37:02:04 - 00:37:20:12
Emily Hanna
And so they kind of added those pedestrian warning signs did not change the driver yield rate at all. And so we took that data back to Seminole County and we said Seminole County, look, this didn't work. I really think we go back, reduce the speed limit so that advocacy never stops. We just we go in and we say what we can do with that partner.

00:37:20:18 - 00:37:46:21
Emily Hanna
They tell us whether what their kind of capacity and what their comfortability is of doing kind of those countermeasures. And then we evaluate afterwards and give them that information. And Orlando is completely different. They're going they're going to say, you know what, let's do a hard no, the hardened center line. Let's really reduce those curb radii and they will go out and they will in-house engineer and design that work and they will go out and construct it within 3 to 5 months.

00:37:46:21 - 00:38:19:17
Emily Hanna
And now we've got change that we can show. What's great about partners that do that type of work is that I can take that to Seminole County. And they said, Look, look what the city of Orlando. Well, in Kissimmee, look what city or Seminole County, what we Kissimmee did. And now they're sharing of information, sharing of data. And that's what's great about the coalition, is that they all get to talk to each other, law enforcement from all the different regions, the traffic engineers and the planners all get to have these discussions amongst themselves to talk about these issues and share some of their problem solving and solutions.

00:38:20:03 - 00:38:31:17
Emily Hanna
And that has seemed to move the needle a little bit faster than even my advocacy work, because they're hearing it from somebody else that has done it tried and true. And we have some after data to prove that it worked.

00:38:32:03 - 00:39:06:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. One of the things that you said there really reminded me of one of the the key tenants of active towns that I try to reinforce with folks as I'm, you know, having these conversations all around the globe is that it is imperative that community members speak up. It's imperative that community members get involved, get educated and let their their leaders know, let the city leaders know, especially their elected officials, that this is something that we care about, that we want safer places to be able to walk and bike.

00:39:06:04 - 00:39:42:25
John Simmerman
And it's not well enough just to sit back and say, well, you know, we'll just wait until the government takes care of it. It's like you have to get engaged, you have to speak up, you engage. And honestly, I also say that, you know, if you're elected officials, you know, commit to to making, you know, changes and to, you know, committing to, like you said, Vision Zero, which you mentioned, it's like hold them accountable that, you know, make sure that that then down from from the elected officials to the senior staff to the administration that is, you know, charged with.

00:39:43:02 - 00:40:03:05
John Simmerman
Okay, let's start moving and hopefully moving with a sense of urgency. Maybe some of these, you know, the lighter, quicker, cheaper tactical urbanism types of quick build things to be able to demonstrate that we can have that behavior change, which you mentioned earlier. So I wanted to go to your website real quick just to to to talk about that.

00:40:03:05 - 00:40:14:15
John Simmerman
So what's what is the easiest way for your constituents, your audience, that you have in central Florida to engage with bike walk, central Florida?

00:40:15:19 - 00:40:39:04
Emily Hanna
There's a few different ways to engage with us. We are always looking for volunteers and not just volunteers for events and things, but volunteers to help speak and share the message. We often hire data collectors that are representative of the community. We hire UCF students all the way up to seniors and different shapes, colors and sizes. And so we're always looking and we only pay for that.

00:40:39:04 - 00:41:08:21
Emily Hanna
So it's not necessarily looking for volunteers, but looking for passionate people to help kind of change their community. And we've been really lucky and really successful at finding those individuals and then finding the community partners as well. Local bicycle clubs, local health organizations, other nonprofits similar to us. There's a Orlando bike coalition that we work closely with in Orlando, among others, and it's really just building those relationships.

00:41:08:21 - 00:41:32:11
Emily Hanna
And when you find those passionate, people continue to to put them in those places, to continue to be passionate, I, I serve her personally as the vice chair of the Seminole County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. So the county that I live in, I also work for, but I've been serving on that since before I was with Bike Walk.

00:41:32:16 - 00:42:02:11
Emily Hanna
And ultimately my goal there was to to help continue and build the trail system that Seminole County is is really done a fantastic job with building. But make sure that that was protected. I knew how important that was, especially working for the city of Castleberry. But in doing that, I used my voice, my personal voice, to to continue to advocate and to continue to push how to make healthy and really resilient and sustainable communities outside of transportation, connecting and building park places.

00:42:02:11 - 00:42:31:29
Emily Hanna
Where are the libraries going? And all of these different passions still feel feed into creating active and sustainable communities. So even though that passion might not be from bikes and pets, for example, it's still something that we should be celebrating and it's still something that we should support. So I would I would say that also one of the things that we're really lucky with is when we do our community engagement through the pedestrian safety program, best foot forward, we are often at community events throughout the region.

00:42:31:29 - 00:42:54:01
Emily Hanna
So we get a lot of antidotes, information from just people candidly coming up to our table and telling us things. For example, we were in Osceola County and there was a woman that came to an event in celebration. If you're not familiar, celebration is the new traditional town that Disney built, right? Yeah. So we were in celebration and not, you know, celebration of a lot of automobiles.

00:42:54:01 - 00:43:19:27
Emily Hanna
As much as that celebrated and built for the pedestrian, there's a lot of traffic that moves through there. Anyway, this woman has mass and she can not use her hands to push the push button to cross the street straight to activate the pedestrian signal. She uses her forehead and unfortunately, she's had to reroute her where she uses her electric scooter because she could not reach the push buttons with her forehead.

00:43:20:15 - 00:43:40:07
Emily Hanna
So she made this note to us woman in a candid conversation, I love what you do. Let me tell you about a little bit about me. We took her story to the county. The county called her. They figured out where she lived and where she was going. And in her route, her real route, not the one she had created because she couldn't get to the push buttons.

00:43:40:15 - 00:43:58:19
Emily Hanna
They added extenders to those push buttons, so now she could just reach her forehead and hit that button and activate that pedestrian signal without going out of her way to get to where she needs to go. So those and now we've created an advocate out of her. So now she attends some of our events. She speaks out. We have her write articles.

00:43:58:19 - 00:44:19:29
Emily Hanna
And so you have no idea who and how you impact someone's life when you go out and talk to them about anything white walking, biking and rolling. But ultimately it could go beyond that. So we always try to advocate and continue to promote an end, to positively reinforce our volunteers, to go out and be the advocates for us.

00:44:19:29 - 00:44:21:18
Emily Hanna
Because I can't be everywhere.

00:44:22:14 - 00:44:46:21
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, absolutely. And I wanted to to shift a little bit to, you know, this particular event that you guys produce. And and really my my thought of wanting to head in this direction has has a little bit to do with the description here is being able to create, you know, an experience for the community.

00:44:46:21 - 00:45:05:10
John Simmerman
It's one of the ways that you can engage with the community is get them, get them, you know, out to an event and be able to see their environment in a different way. And the thing that I love about this is being able to show central Florida residents of all ages and abilities an urban route where they can comfortably ride.

00:45:05:22 - 00:45:41:17
John Simmerman
And I suspect that there's something to do with the fact that you had mentioned it earlier up in Seminole County, the extensive trail network system. I get the sense that that's one of the sort of hidden gems of the central Florida area here, is that there is an extensive off street network of trails that perhaps just needs, you know, some additional love and maybe connectivity issues and being able to cross some of those major barriers like that, that wide high speed street that we were talking about.

00:45:42:01 - 00:45:49:26
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about this this event and and whether my assumption is is kind of heading in the right direction in terms of that off street network.

00:45:50:13 - 00:46:10:13
Emily Hanna
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll start with your assumption. You are absolutely correct. We do have a very robust network of trails throughout Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties that connect regionally as well. And I can talk about that a little bit later when we possibly look at our regional trail map, because I think that that would be a great visual for those that are watching.

00:46:10:25 - 00:46:31:27
Emily Hanna
But essentially, Bike five started out as actually it started in 2017 and it really was the and it's funny that you mentioned kind of the what the event you have read the description. So the event actually started because one of the cities that work with City of Maitland installed some wayfinding signs or a bike routes if you will.

00:46:31:27 - 00:47:00:22
Emily Hanna
So they put colors and numbers of the little bicycle on a sign and they stuck them up all over the city in residential areas. Commercial. But there was no there was no map, there was no community outreach, there was nothing that was done. There was a plan. They implemented said plan with signage, and then they were done right while the residents came to the commission and were really upset that there was these random signs placed in their yard and they didn't understand why, and they were just very agitated and upset at the fact.

00:47:00:28 - 00:47:19:11
Emily Hanna
And once the commission explained that the bike routes were aware of the maps and there wasn't anything to really show. So the city of Maitland invited the city of Castleberry, which I worked out at the time, along with the Winter Park Health Foundation, and the city went park to some neighboring cities to try to figure out how to solve this problem.

00:47:19:11 - 00:47:41:07
Emily Hanna
Right. So what do we do? They didn't want to remove the signs. They had spent a lot of money on the network and the study to identify where those bike trails might be. And so I suggested maybe you should show them where they can ride. Right. That seems logical. Let's encourage people to use it. Maybe they won't be so negative about it if they knew exactly what it was.

00:47:41:20 - 00:48:04:16
Emily Hanna
And so we devised an event at that point and then at that point we got the city of Orlando involved and we included the town of Eatonville, which is the oldest historic, incorporated African-American community in America. And so we got them involved as well and created essentially a 28 mile route through the five cities and started doing what we call Bike City.

00:48:04:16 - 00:48:29:28
Emily Hanna
So that event was born in May of 2017, and it was a large peloton ride. Essentially 250 people followed a bunch of right leaders through that whole route. So fast forward to 2020, I take over the reins and bike walk and now here comes our signature event. And that's just what I need is to hold a spreader right during COVID as my first year as executive director, not something that I wanted to do.

00:48:30:04 - 00:48:57:12
Emily Hanna
So we ultimately took a step back from the event, which had grown significantly the 2019. We had over 500 people in that Peloton group. It became a little challenging to try to keep all of them together. We had roads shut down with police support, but it just became a little bit logistically difficult to manage. And so in 2020 we ultimately decided that, you know, maybe the big group ride isn't isn't how we encourage people to get out on their bikes.

00:48:57:12 - 00:49:21:00
Emily Hanna
Yes, it's a fun day out on your bike, but I'm not if I go out on that big Peloton ride, I'm not necessarily paying attention as to where I'm turning where I'm at in my community. I'm just enjoying the event. But if we made those groups smaller, I might make pay attention to some of those points of interest and things that are along the way to kind of remember how to navigate because the route is a little twisting and turning.

00:49:21:00 - 00:49:42:28
Emily Hanna
You do go through some community and neighborhoods streets to avoid some of those major roads, as we like to call them. So so ultimately, there are, you know, you kind of need to know where you're going. So we we've reduced those groups down to smaller group rides. We had lots more ride leaders and really try to encourage more people to ride on their own.

00:49:42:28 - 00:50:06:11
Emily Hanna
We marked the course out, showed them where they could get on the trails, get off the trails and make that 30 mile or the 28 mile loop. And ultimately that was a success from. There, though, we got a lot of feedback that, you know, I want to bring my kid or I'm a senior and 30 miles is a lot, you know, I just I you know, my grocery store is only five miles away or my my work is only seven miles away.

00:50:06:11 - 00:50:32:13
Emily Hanna
I don't necessarily need to do 30 miles to get to some of those activity centers or points of interest. So we we created two smaller subsets of rides called the five, the bike five miles, and then we have like five parks. So that's why the name changed. And that all happened actually this year. In 2022, we changed it to Bike five generally, and we have five miles, three parks and then the 30 mile ride for the five cities.

00:50:32:13 - 00:50:50:16
Emily Hanna
And the feedback that we've received has been very, very positive. We've had a lot of people come out and enjoy the five and 11 miler and they are encouraged to come out for the 30 right? They're kind of inching their way to that. And then we also get a lot more children involved with the five mile ride. And it's, you know, you've got to start young.

00:50:50:16 - 00:51:10:16
Emily Hanna
We have to teach them that, teach them the proper ways to bike safety and put their helmet on. So we do helmet fittings as a part of this event as well. We do a little bike rodeo to help them kind of get started. We do a wrap dodge so they can learn how to kind of swerve and avoid things and try to just teach them basic bicycle safety skills.

00:51:10:16 - 00:51:26:11
Emily Hanna
Before we take them out on that five mile ride. The five mile ride is all trail based. We don't take them in on any neighborhood streets. The 11 miler is a little bit different. We do have a couple of areas where we have to get off, but again, it's very slow streets, 20 miles an hour, very little traffic, 30 mile one.

00:51:26:11 - 00:51:44:24
Emily Hanna
There's a few areas where you have to cross the major thoroughfares like 436 and Castleberry that's one of the places where you have to cross. But ultimately, what's great about this is we bring in the elected officials, we bring in the traffic engineers and the planners and they ride the route. We bring up D.O.T., the Florida Department of Transportation.

00:51:44:24 - 00:52:02:02
Emily Hanna
They ride the route. They've been sponsoring this event for a few years as well. So it's really great to bring them out to ride the route year after year to see the changes that we are advocating for as a part of the event as well, like leading pedestrian intervals at some of the signals, that's pretty easy to install.

00:52:02:10 - 00:52:20:20
Emily Hanna
What about some know ride on roads where there is a significant trail crossing and just reminding these people that these are the projects that we want to achieve and we need to continue to work on achieving those year after year. So we've seen some success in doing that. We've had some positive changes by by having those individuals on the route.

00:52:21:11 - 00:52:37:27
Emily Hanna
But ultimately it just starts the conversation and it helps us kind of continue those advocacy messaging and allows us to continue to build those relationships with those partners so that if they do have an issue or do need an improvement, they come to us because they know we're experts essentially fantastic.

00:52:38:07 - 00:52:48:21
John Simmerman
And speaking of partnerships and different organizations that you're you're working with. Talk a little bit about what's going on here with the Healthy West Orange Trail Connections.

00:52:48:21 - 00:53:12:14
Emily Hanna
So I'm this one I'm really excited about because I really think that this is really unique in individual to what we're doing here in central Florida and I think should be and could be replicated across the nation. But ultimately, we're working with the West Orange Health Care District and the Foundation for a Healthier West Orange to bring together, establish a coalition around activating trail system for a healthy community.

00:53:12:28 - 00:53:33:19
Emily Hanna
So obviously, the health care district has kind of health in mind. And with that kind of overarching health lens and in 2020, they realized that how we move impacts our our physical health, our health and well-being. Being in a car for several hours a week is not good for our physical health. It's not good for us socially or mentally as well.

00:53:33:19 - 00:53:54:00
Emily Hanna
We're kind of isolated in that in that vehicle. So they realize that and that's why they really wanted to grow that coalition. So we built those partners and sporting agencies over the last two years, and that includes all the partner cities in West Orange County, Ocoee, Windermere, the South Apopka, Winter Garden. And I'm sure I'm forgetting on Horizon's West, there's a few others.

00:53:54:17 - 00:54:15:25
Emily Hanna
But ultimately our goal is to take their trails and their trail. Their trail masterplans identify and look at all of those and see where they connect and try to connect them. So the foundation set aside $5 million us to then go build these connections. But it's not just connections because that's only a part of activating, you know, encouraging a healthy community.

00:54:16:08 - 00:54:37:23
Emily Hanna
That money is also going to go to bike repair stations, restrooms, water fountains, all the support infrastructure that that we need to feel comfortable getting out of our vehicle and getting onto a bike and kind of going those distances. You know, there's a little bit of I don't know if I can do this because I don't have the creature comforts that I'm used to or at least that I can get to quickly with a vehicle.

00:54:38:02 - 00:54:56:02
Emily Hanna
But if we can build those in and have those be accompanying to the signature trails that we have or even provide those where there might be trail connections or connections that we can create the park so we can create additional trailheads. That's where we are taking some of the data that we have and kind of looking at how to how to make those connections.

00:54:56:02 - 00:55:22:29
Emily Hanna
And of course, increase the connectivity. This is a great example of a partnership that came out of the work that we're doing. The central Florida Expressway Authority of CSX. They have they were a partner in this and they provided the permission and the landscaping for us to beautify part of the signature trail. And beautification is a huge part of that comfort.

00:55:22:29 - 00:55:56:18
Emily Hanna
And the and that goes towards encouragement as well. You know, we often find that people in certain interim areas don't maybe take a trail segment or don't go further because it just doesn't look nice. There's no amenities there. And so the goal here is to really improve the the environment so that it is more comfortable, so that you do say, you know what, I can't get on my bike and go there because I, I have some shade and I have a bench and I have a trash can or I have water and it's those things that we build it and they will come, but they might not change their behavior.

00:55:56:25 - 00:56:06:03
Emily Hanna
If we really want behavior change, we really want the community to just start looking at active transportation as a mode of transportation. We've got to put all those other parts and pieces together, right?

00:56:06:05 - 00:56:26:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mention that, too, because that's another one of the themes that I try to reinforce with folks is that, you know, the baseline level is safety, but we also need to make it beautiful. We need to really make it comfortable. And I'm glad you mentioned Shade. You know, there's got to be that that aspect of, you know, is is it a tree canopy area?

00:56:26:13 - 00:56:39:06
John Simmerman
Can you get some shade, you know, a little bit of a break from the relentless heat. So with that all being said, let's shift back over to the trails. Talk a little bit about the Packing District trail study.

00:56:39:23 - 00:57:16:20
Emily Hanna
Yeah, So we were really lucky with this project that the Dr. Phillips Charities and Dr. Phillips Inc are a developers of the packing district. So the packing district is essentially a 100 acre redevelopment effort that is occurring just northwest of downtown Orlando, and it's very industrial as its context currently sits. There are some rail lines, spurs that go in to feed into very industrial like businesses, building supplies, very, very much very industrial, very wide roads for all those tractor trailers to move through.

00:57:17:07 - 00:57:37:07
Emily Hanna
But Dr. Phillips was a ultimately a citrus farmer in back in the early 1900s into the mid 1900s, owned lots of citrus farm. And this was their packing area. So this is the where they made the crates. This is where they packed the crates, put them on those rail spurs on the railroad lines, and then sent them out where they needed to go.

00:57:37:20 - 00:58:01:06
Emily Hanna
But ultimately, Dr. Phillips was not in the citrus business anymore. They are more in real estate and redevelopment and philanthropy. And so they are they had a lot of these buildings and this area kind of set aside and some of these buildings are still being leased out for industrial uses, but they put a plan together, work with the city of Orlando to redevelop this 100 acres into a really vibrant, mixed use community.

00:58:01:14 - 00:58:22:08
Emily Hanna
And it has a lot of really great bones. It's really had some great connections already. But Dr. Phillips ultimately came to Bike Walk and asked us to develop an internal trail network to, the packing district, and also connecting it to the external trail network that is outside of that district. And so we came in and kind of did a two phased approach.

00:58:22:08 - 00:58:39:17
Emily Hanna
We looked outside in and inside out to try to see where those connections could be. And ultimately we used the existing right of way of those roads like I said, they were really wide. I mean, we had 100 foot right of curb to curb 100 feet, which is it? And it's a two lane road, but these are tractor trailers moving through.

00:58:39:17 - 00:58:59:13
Emily Hanna
So it was really, really wide and staking, staging and staffing that was occurring. And so we created kind of some complete street ideas and designs for them to consider. And we also looked at building massing because they're they're going to be building new buildings and there's going to be some existing buildings that they reuse. And so we had to identify where those buildings might be identified.

00:58:59:13 - 00:59:19:14
Emily Hanna
The potential footprint of the new building, so that we could really kind of align our those trails internal to the packing district could accompany those redevelopment efforts, especially do a lot of the that's coming in our apartments and multifamily on top of kind of that first floor commercial and retail. I mean so we wanted those buildings to really about the trail.

00:59:19:14 - 00:59:40:04
Emily Hanna
We wanted it to treat the trail as if it is kind of the front door where those people are kind of coming in and out. And so that was the internal design, came up with a couple Trailhead ideas and ultimately Dr. Phillips adopted that and they are moving forward with identifying and really kind of building out those trails along some of those railroad spurs currently.

00:59:40:04 - 00:59:59:18
Emily Hanna
Then from there we went in, like I said, connected that externally to different trail systems. So the city of Orlando is just to the south of where the packing district is, has a has a urban trail. And so we wanted to connect to that, which is also by UCF and create a village, as it's called, were the new downtown campuses.

00:59:59:18 - 01:00:27:03
Emily Hanna
And then to the to the east is a hospital and the hospital has a bunch of restaurants and activity nearby called Ivanhoe Village. And so we wanted to connect it to Ivanhoe Village. And then to the west is a community called Pine Hills. And Pine Hills is a historically African-American community. It was a bedroom community of downtown Orlando in the fifties and sixties and then just unfortunately kind of gentrified over time.

01:00:27:21 - 01:00:52:19
Emily Hanna
But there can be Pine Hills has a connection to the coast, to coast trail. And so ultimately we made and found an alignment to connect the packing district to the coast to coast trail. And so now we were able to have those internal connections to the external Regional Trail network. So now somebody can essentially go from Tampa and come all the way into downtown Orlando by the routes that we've identified.

01:00:53:00 - 01:01:19:16
Emily Hanna
Some of these routes exist and they just need wayfinding signage and the supportive infrastructure we talked about earlier. Some of them don't exist. And so next steps are the city of Orlando is looking at adding the trail routes into their bike pad Master Masterplan, also including some of these projects into their city, because we can't go after federal or state grant dollars without those projects being identified within those community plans within that capital improvement plan.

01:01:20:02 - 01:01:51:24
Emily Hanna
And so that's really the next step. And then we will go after building them. And Dr. Phillips is interested in continuing to be a grant maker and and build some of that infrastructure that connects to the packing district. It's obviously a benefit to them, but ultimately it's a huge benefit to the community and they see how important that is and they see how how this trail network could really help kind of transform the parking district and and make it kind of accentuate that vibrancy that they were hoping to achieve with the development in the master plan that they put together.

01:01:52:10 - 01:02:17:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know, and you mentioned Pine Hills. So I went to this slide here, which is going to highlight the region's first trail mapping system that you guys are working on. And I zeroed in on Pine Hills, which is just in the center of the screen here. They pull back out. We'll get to the full slide here, talk a little bit about this project in in really, I guess, close this out with this.

01:02:17:24 - 01:02:47:21
John Simmerman
I think real strong suit that the region has, which is this off street network of trails and how that really fits into the overall vision of bike walk central Florida in in being able to activate these make those connections you mentioned connections critical connections are so important and then maybe even some creative solutions of of getting past some of the barriers that are in place.

01:02:47:21 - 01:03:16:13
Emily Hanna
So I'll tell you the story of the region's trail map. So again, City of Castleberry Hat. I went to metropolitan Orlando with some partners and we really advocated that we need a regional trail map. The city of Castleberry was developing its individual trails. Our sister cities that are adjacent to us had their own individual trails. I knew what Seminole County was doing because I sat on their advisory board for the trail, the parks and trails, but nobody else knew that.

01:03:16:13 - 01:03:43:18
Emily Hanna
So there wasn't really anybody or any or any entity essentially, that was collecting this data from a regional standpoint. And so that was 2018 when we went into Metro Plan Orlando and had that conversation and nothing happened from there. So fast forward to 2021, beginning of 2021, I had worked with an incredibly amazing consultant. This consultant not only created this first regional trauma, we worked with this consultant to do the Dr. Phillip study.

01:03:44:00 - 01:04:07:05
Emily Hanna
We still work with this consultant to do our best foot forward data and do mapping for that. So this consultant we I had a very friendly relationship with, We worked together for a long time and ultimately I was complaining to him at dinner and drinks one night that we really still didn't have this regional trauma, but I was really just kind of disappointed and I was like, Hey, what's it what would it cost for you to do this for us?

01:04:07:05 - 01:04:15:04
Emily Hanna
Just, just, you know, throw me a number. And he gave me a number and it was $3,000. And I'm like, This is silly. We just need to pay this.

01:04:15:04 - 01:04:15:26
John Simmerman
Just do it.

01:04:16:11 - 01:04:39:24
Emily Hanna
Right. Just do it right. So I was like, Get it done. I will find the money for it. And we did. We found two amazing sponsors, the Catalyst Group. They were actually fundamental in identifying the West Orange Trail right of way and helping the city Winter Garden kind of design their downtown around the west Orange Trail. So really they were kind of like, no pun intended, trail blazers at the time.

01:04:40:09 - 01:05:04:25
Emily Hanna
So really appreciate the Catalyst group and they saw the need to have this. Obviously And then a new consultant that we work with called Hale Innovation and he does a lot of grant making. And so this was really important for him as a consultant to have this tool because he does a lot of trail grant writing. And so we I found the money and PJ, our consultant, went off to work and put this together.

01:05:04:25 - 01:05:27:02
Emily Hanna
Ultimately what we did was we went out to obviously try to pull in all the regional trail maps that we could that we had access to and then reached out to all of our partners, had them to see this, had them provide their geographic information, systems, data. And then any time this is added or like a new trail connection is changed, we modify this and edit this.

01:05:27:18 - 01:05:45:29
Emily Hanna
This is just something that our consultant does for us on a regular basis so that we don't have money reoccurring for this. And on the sponsor for that. But we just found that it was really important for the work that we do to continue updating this. So that's really the region's first trail map was bought, So it's brand new as of a couple of years ago last year, I should say are 2021.

01:05:46:16 - 01:06:11:21
Emily Hanna
And and to speak of kind of how I'm using this now from a closing those gaps and connections, how do we as bike walk kind of using this to activate it and ultimately that is we're not only identifying that these signature trails exist, but we're identifying an active transportation network. And now the advocacy comes in to where most of these signature trails are operated with park hours.

01:06:12:08 - 01:06:31:25
Emily Hanna
So they're closed dusk till dawn. And that doesn't do. Somebody that's trying to use those trails for active transportation any good, especially if there's a tunnel. Some of like Seminole County closes their tunnels. So now you have to ride in the road. Or if you walk in the road. Right, there's no safe access. So so, yes, we have this really robust trail network.

01:06:31:25 - 01:06:55:12
Emily Hanna
But now the key is, is is changing kind of how we view that robust trail network and not necessarily for recreation, but for transportation. And then with that lens in mind, where are the connections that people need to go not for recreation, but for transportation? Where are the job hubs? Where are whereas the transit hub is going to be?

01:06:55:12 - 01:07:20:06
Emily Hanna
Where are the activity centers, where is the government services, the library, things like that that we're identifying for our partners and putting on a map and then trying to figure out where is the route? How would somebody walk or bike from point A to this point and know oftentimes it's it's down the sidewalk of this major roadway, but that might not be the most that might be that that's not safe.

01:07:20:12 - 01:07:39:11
Emily Hanna
It's not essentially encouraging to walk or ride your bike down a five foot sidewalk adjacent to a brick wall and, you know, five lanes of 50 mile an hour traffic for a mile and a half. It just you know, that doesn't sound great. And it's not it's not perceived as being comfortable either. So often people take to the trails because it is a lot more comfortable.

01:07:39:11 - 01:08:02:08
Emily Hanna
It's safe and it is a little bit more convenient for them. And so we want to try to make those parts and pieces work for all of active transportation and get our partners to see that the trail system that they're building currently can you pivot to that and can be used for that as well? And again, it's just kind of changing mindsets, changing kind of the the the way we think about things.

01:08:02:08 - 01:08:09:27
Emily Hanna
And that is a lot of times through conversations, through advocacy and through the volunteers and the others that have the same passion that we have a bike walk.

01:08:10:23 - 01:08:34:17
John Simmerman
Love it and love. All right. So, hey, folks, if you're tuning in from the central Texas area of central Central Texas, Central Florida area, hey, please get engaged. Get involved. Talk to your neighbors about these types of things. Take a look at the website. There's ways that you can get involved. You can sign up for the newsletter, you can become a volunteer.

01:08:34:26 - 01:09:06:26
John Simmerman
And if you really get passionate about it, consider joining the board and really, truly making a difference. And in in again, donors and partners, nonprofit organizations, they absolutely have to have the support of the overall. And so huge shout out to to all of these names and or of organizations that are doing that it such a huge, huge help to to be able to move these initiatives forward.

01:09:06:26 - 01:09:19:17
John Simmerman
So you know thank you so much and a huge shout out and thank you Emily and I, for joining me on the Actor Towns podcast. It's been such a joy and such a pleasure and I need to come visit you.

01:09:19:22 - 01:09:25:08
Emily Hanna
You, you do you do come from like five cities. October 14th, 2023.

01:09:25:18 - 01:09:30:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's probably a good time of year to come is a little bit into the fall. Not quite as hot.

01:09:31:25 - 01:09:36:06
Emily Hanna
It's a beautiful year to go for a bike ride in Central Park and see.

01:09:36:06 - 01:09:45:04
John Simmerman
Well, there you go. Okay, I've been officially invited, so I'm going to have to figure out a way to to make that happen again. Emily, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

01:09:45:21 - 01:09:47:06
Emily Hanna
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

01:09:47:24 - 01:10:10:18
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you've enjoyed this discussion with Emily Hannah and if you have, please give it a thumbs up, share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to the Active Towns channel. I just hit that subscription button down below and ring the notifications below to customize your notification preferences and hey, I'll be back next week with another episode.

01:10:10:18 - 01:10:34:19
John Simmerman
So until then, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and again sending a huge you out to all my active towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on patron buy me a coffee YouTube super Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

01:10:34:29 - 01:10:43:28
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.