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

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:17
Phil Burns
I got much more sort of inquiries and conversations about biking than I have public transit. So that does seem to be a little bit more sort of socially acceptable or interesting. Does it say, yeah, you you may never believe it, but Glendora is slated as a, as a part of this project to actually build the first sidewalk level protected bike lane in Los Angeles County and to have the first Dutch intersection.

00:00:33:19 - 00:00:35:25
Phil Burns
So it has to endure.

00:00:35:28 - 00:00:59:15
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns channel. My name is John Simmerman, and that is Phil Burns with the Arroyo Group in Pasadena, California. I've invited, Phil on to talk a little bit about his experience of going car free for six weeks this past summer. It's a fun one, and it's an exciting one. And, hopefully it's educational and informative, for you all as well.

00:00:59:21 - 00:01:17:08
John Simmerman
But before we dive right into that, I did want to say, hey, thank you so much for tuning in. It really does mean so much to me. And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. It's super easy to do. Just navigate over to active towns, dawg.

00:01:17:12 - 00:01:44:01
John Simmerman
Click on the support tab at the top of the page. And there's several different options, including making donations to the nonprofit, as well as becoming a Patreon supporter. Patreon members do get early and ad free access to all my video content, and every little bit helps and is so very much appreciated. So without further ado, let's get right to it with Phil.

00:01:44:03 - 00:01:48:26
John Simmerman
Philip Burns, such a pleasure having you on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.

00:01:48:28 - 00:01:52:00
Phil Burns
Thank you so much. Pleasure to be with you, John.

00:01:52:02 - 00:01:59:28
John Simmerman
Phil, I love giving my guest, an opportunity to just to give their 32nd pitch as to who they are. So who the heck is Phil Burns?

00:02:00:00 - 00:02:25:19
Phil Burns
Yeah. So I'm an urban planner. I'm born and raised here in Pasadena, California, where I live. I've, lived in, a couple of different places. I lived in Providence, Rhode Island during college, and I also, lived in rural Guatemala for four years as I served in the Peace Corps. And then, met my wife there and decided to stay in, in rural Guatemala for a couple more years.

00:02:25:20 - 00:02:56:24
Phil Burns
So, I've lived in, in a number of locations, but, a lot here in Southern California. And, as an urban planner, I'm principal at the Arroyo Group, which is a planning and urban design firm. It's been around for about 50 years. The right group really is, is a firm that got its start with three gentlemen who wanted to save, Old Pasadena, which is a National landmark, National Historic Register district.

00:02:56:26 - 00:03:43:28
Phil Burns
From demolition at the time, the city wanted to urban renewal, demolish it, and, the broker partners got together and put together a plan to, save the area and, you know, show how it could become, a vibrant city center. And, over the following decades, it actually became that. And and as a result of that, we've, worked in a lot of different, local cities around, Southern California and outside, doing, planning for revitalization for active communities, for vibrant, downtowns and city centers and many other places, as, as an individual as well.

00:03:43:28 - 00:03:59:09
Phil Burns
I, I'm involved in a lot of different, urban planning advocacy kind of things in, in the Pasadena area and, excited to, to speak with you and talk about some of those experiences.

00:03:59:11 - 00:04:20:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And, and the fact that you're with the Arroyo group is just like, a coincidence and a happy accident, because the real reason I reached out to you, to have you on the on the channel was because of a post that you made on LinkedIn, and I can't remember who shared it or whatever. I don't know that we were necessarily connected at that time.

00:04:20:11 - 00:04:22:14
John Simmerman
It might have actually been recalled.

00:04:22:16 - 00:04:24:06
Phil Burns
The I think it was. Yes.

00:04:24:07 - 00:04:45:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and this is the post this is the post in question here. And, why don't you give the setup for, what this post on LinkedIn was, was all about? And, what prompted you to post it, as well as what prompted you to go car free for six months?

00:04:45:09 - 00:05:12:15
Phil Burns
Yeah. Yes. So, you know, not a normal thing for people in Los Angeles area, to go car free. Although, you know, many people have, lived in Los Angeles for a period of time without, without owning a vehicle. I guess I'll start with the the immediate reason. I had always wanted to practice what I preach.

00:05:12:18 - 00:05:32:22
Phil Burns
And as I mentioned, I'm an urban planner. I'm not a transportation planner. I'm not. I'm not an expert in active transportation or anything like this. But I do know that, you know, vibrant and great communities are ones that are not focused around the car and is something that is something that I confront all the time in my work.

00:05:32:24 - 00:06:04:13
Phil Burns
Maybe because of my own personal kind of bent or, you know, I come from a faith background that we place a lot of emphasis on kind of. So it's not just about systemic issues. Systemic issues are important, but you also kind of you have to practice what you preach to. Yeah. So I've always had this strong desire to really live myself as much in accordance with my values as possible.

00:06:04:13 - 00:06:37:15
Phil Burns
And in this particular case, it means living in a way that is that minimizes my car use. So my wife and I, we have three kids. My wife is an immigrant from Guatemala. As as I was sharing before, she's not an urban planner or particularly interested in any of these kinds of things, but we do. We share one car for the family and just in general, always try to kind of keep my VMT as low as possible.

00:06:37:15 - 00:06:58:04
Phil Burns
And so for those of you who might not be familiar with the term VMT, that's vehicle miles traveled. I do an okay job with, probably here, maybe six, maybe 8000 miles a year on the car, which is, you know, I think that's okay for, you know, below.

00:06:58:04 - 00:06:59:25
John Simmerman
The average for sure. Yeah.

00:06:59:28 - 00:07:23:18
Phil Burns
Below the average. Yeah, yeah. Given that we're family five, I think the the per capita number probably comes out, you know, fairly good. And, I've gotten my kids really interested in and, public transit as well, in particular by my son. He wants to he's wanted to, go on every single metro bus line in Los Angeles County.

00:07:23:21 - 00:07:25:19
John Simmerman
Now, how old are your children?

00:07:25:22 - 00:07:27:19
Phil Burns
Yeah, seven, five and two.

00:07:27:21 - 00:07:28:13
John Simmerman
Perfect.

00:07:28:15 - 00:08:02:14
Phil Burns
So the oldest one, he's probably been on about 30 busses and, I think all the rail lines except for one. So we do have that as a family. Anyway, last summer, my, So, I guess we'd always done public transit as a way to get around, but, bicycling was kind of always off the it was it was it was prohibited for me by my wife who thought of cycling in Pasadena, and in LA in general is not safe.

00:08:02:16 - 00:08:31:29
Phil Burns
And, I shouldn't do it. Well, I was kind of a bad husband, and and so, the moment I got the opportunity, my, my, my wife took the kids to Guatemala for this summer. Right? And I said, you know what? This is my chance. And so I got a rented e-bike from activist GV, which is a local, active transportation advocacy organization.

00:08:31:29 - 00:08:33:25
John Simmerman
I see that right there. Yeah.

00:08:33:27 - 00:08:56:26
Phil Burns
Yep. That's right. It's got a program called go SGD where they will, they basically rent you this brand new e-bike for, I think it's like $60 a month or something like that. The idea is just for you to test it out and, you know, then hopefully you move on and purchase one of your own. But but I did that.

00:08:56:29 - 00:09:18:06
Phil Burns
And, once I had that, it became clear to me, like, okay, I'm here by myself. I don't have kids to take around. I am not going to touch my car. Once during this time, I actually rented it out on Turo, during the time that I was, living car free. So it was.

00:09:18:09 - 00:09:40:16
John Simmerman
Can I can I pause you for just a second there? So that's that's a fascinating little factoid there that you actually rented your car out on Turo. And so that almost, you know, depending on the rental terms and how long it was gone, but it kind of like, you know, said, okay, I'm really committed to this, so I'm going to rent that car out.

00:09:40:18 - 00:09:50:18
John Simmerman
And so it really, you know, caused you to really walk the talk and continue doing, you know, stay committed to that goal that.

00:09:50:22 - 00:09:54:26
Phil Burns
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I made money to, you know over the time.

00:09:54:26 - 00:10:00:10
John Simmerman
So that's not bad. You know obviously it's not the key thing but but what the heck. That's nice.

00:10:00:12 - 00:10:24:12
Phil Burns
Yeah yeah yeah absolutely. So then you know I love being at being a planner. I wanted to document how I traveled over that time and I wanted to use it. I also wanted to use it as an experiment for me to, you know, for me to understand what it's like, using a bike as transportation. I again, I walk all the time.

00:10:24:12 - 00:10:46:25
Phil Burns
Anyway, I use public transit all the time anyway. But but the bike was new, and, I really wanted to see what's it like, right. To to completely abandon the vehicle. So in the post, I then kind of categorized all my different trips based on distance and where I was going and, what mode I would choose. Right?

00:10:46:27 - 00:10:51:00
Phil Burns
Walking, biking or taking public transit.

00:10:51:02 - 00:11:12:04
John Simmerman
Right. Wow. Okay. So let's let's break this down. We see 70 trips, to and from work, and that's a two mile journey. You did the bus. The majority of the time, 43 times, and then 24 walks. Yeah, because this is a walkable distance of two miles. I mean, it's it's a little more than what we would typically, in a planning perspective, say your typical walk should.

00:11:12:07 - 00:11:30:16
John Simmerman
But at the same time, if it's a beautiful day, yeah, a two mile walk is very doable. I mean, when I walk in in my neighborhood, I usually do between the two and a three mile walk. So yeah, I mean, that's that's it. That probably took you, you know what, 40 minutes to do a two mile walk.

00:11:30:16 - 00:11:31:02
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:11:31:04 - 00:11:32:23
Phil Burns
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that.

00:11:32:27 - 00:12:02:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. Not 19 to 2018, 19, 20 minutes per mile. Very doable. And then you did, ride your bike five times, you know, roundtrip to and from work. That's pretty cool. So let's talk about that, that trip for a moment. That's your typical commute trip. And of course, in the United States, most of our data that we collect is, is oriented towards the commute, the work commute.

00:12:02:11 - 00:12:24:00
John Simmerman
And that's where the, the data that's collected in the census, the, the X and all that really focuses in and hones in on on that, that work commute. What was that work commute like for you by bike. Because you you made the point that, you know, the perception from your wife's perspective is that it's not safe for you to, to, to ride a bike to work.

00:12:24:06 - 00:12:29:24
John Simmerman
What was that bike light ride like for you? That that two miles?

00:12:29:27 - 00:12:48:10
Phil Burns
Yeah. It was, I mean, there's a reason that I only did it five times out of the 70, right? So, you know, it was manageable. It didn't feel extremely, extremely stressful. I was able to be on bike lanes for most of that.

00:12:48:12 - 00:13:12:23
John Simmerman
Well, let's pause for just a second and define what you mean by bike lane. Is that sort of a traditional just painted bike lane, or is it a, a protected or separated, grade separated or, or maybe parking protected or other materials protecting it, or would it be like a separated pathway, away from motor vehicle traffic?

00:13:12:23 - 00:13:17:18
John Simmerman
So, continue. Yeah. What's that like? I guess, to.

00:13:17:18 - 00:13:50:11
Phil Burns
Give a little bit of context. So I live, so for for folks who haven't don't know about Pasadena, Pasadena is, you know, by Southern California standards, it's a historic city. It was it was built out in the late 19th century. The downtown is very walkable. You know, some of that is a result of, you know, people like my predecessors who plan for the residential areas are mostly suburban and low density.

00:13:50:13 - 00:14:28:01
Phil Burns
There's they're older. So there's a kind of complete street grid and that kind of thing. It's not like, you know, an xserve with gated communities or anything like that. But where I live is, on a major arterial major street, as I mentioned, two miles away from kind of the downtown. And, on my street, there's constant speeding, two lanes in each direction, no center lane, you know, cars going 35 to 45 miles an hour all the time.

00:14:28:04 - 00:14:57:17
Phil Burns
One street over. We do have, yeah. Perfect. There you see it? So I'm. I'm sort of in the northern, central northwest part of the city, Fair Oaks Avenue. And then the next street, east of us is is Raymond Avenue. And that street is, it's slower. It's a 30 mile an hour speed limit. A lot less traffic.

00:14:57:19 - 00:15:14:09
Phil Burns
I wouldn't say exactly low traffic, but definitely less. And that street has a standard bike lane between the, you know, the driving lane and the parking. So you are in the door zone?

00:15:14:12 - 00:15:18:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, you're in the door zone and you're protected by paint.

00:15:18:19 - 00:15:20:28
Phil Burns
That's right. Yeah.

00:15:21:00 - 00:15:25:06
John Simmerman
With my coffee mug. Of of paint is not protection.

00:15:25:08 - 00:16:02:12
Phil Burns
Absolutely, absolutely. And then, you know, so you make it, you head south along there. And this is just so typical of, American bike planning, right? So you head south, you make it to the freeway, right? There's things you have to cross over the freeway. Yeah. Raymond doesn't cross the freeway. And so then you got to merge into traffic coming off of the freeway, and you got, so to hop, skip and jump back on Fair Oaks in mixed traffic, you know, and then once you're on the other side of freeway, then you can get off of Oaks again.

00:16:02:12 - 00:16:05:24
Phil Burns
You can go back to Raymond and Raymond. Yeah. So.

00:16:05:26 - 00:16:23:09
John Simmerman
What's the what is that? It looks like Marengo Avenue is identified as having a bike lane. Is that would you consider that a safe bike lane to be able to get to the, you know, cross over, the 210 freeway?

00:16:23:12 - 00:16:51:20
Phil Burns
Marengo. Unfortunately, it's another street that it's, it's a nice bike boulevard for those who would understand that term, north of Orange Grove. So about two blocks north of the freeway and then going further. Right. It's a nice other. Right. But then. Yeah. Yeah. But then, you know, this kind of traffic engineers, like, once the traffic volumes get high, then they just decide, hey, we're just going to drop the bike facilities.

00:16:51:20 - 00:16:59:02
Phil Burns
We'll just pump paint a Cheryl on there and, you know, good luck. So. Yeah.

00:16:59:04 - 00:17:20:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's one of our biggest challenges, right. So it sounds like your your bike ride to the office. It's only two miles. He walked it more frequently than you did biking it. And the primary reason you didn't bike it more frequently is because it just didn't feel like it was a comfortable ride.

00:17:20:17 - 00:17:42:21
Phil Burns
That's right, that's right. Yeah. So I ended up finding out, you know, and as he looked through some of those other, trips that I made over the course of, of the six weeks, you know, there were certain trips where I did a lot of bus and there were other trips that I did a lot of bike. Right.

00:17:42:22 - 00:18:16:19
Phil Burns
And it's kind of a shame that, you know, you couldn't use the bus for the trips that I want to make by bike, and you couldn't use by as much for the trips that you wanted to make by bus. But together, they actually formed a really good combination. So whenever it was a trip into, the, into the, basically the downtown of Pasadena, you know, and then definitely into downtown Los Angeles or further, any place that had a lot of congestion, used arterials like it was going to be public transit.

00:18:16:22 - 00:18:34:08
Phil Burns
Right. And then when it was like a neighborhood to neighborhood kind of trip where, as I mentioned, there is a pretty decent street grid. And you can you can kind of snake through on, just neighborhood streets. Yeah. And then that became an ideal trip for biking.

00:18:34:10 - 00:19:10:17
John Simmerman
What's really, really interesting too, is that, you know, when we look at your 25 trips, to the church and other places in the downtown Pasadena area, and you're looking at, you know, a mix between a half mile trip and a in a three mile trip, you had 15 bike rides, there. And and I think that this is one of the things that I try to emphasize on the Active Towns channel is that when we look at the total number of trips that we have and again, I mentioned earlier, our data collection really emphasizes the commute to.

00:19:10:19 - 00:19:37:00
John Simmerman
And yet many of the trips that we have in our households are these other trips. They're not the commute trip. They're these other trips that we do. And so the vast, I shouldn't say the vast majority, but anywhere between 30 and 50% of trips are somewhere in the bikeable range. In other words, it's somewhere south of, you know, 5 to 6 miles.

00:19:37:03 - 00:20:10:09
John Simmerman
And and this is certainly represented here when in most of your trips. But it's the 25 trips to church and other places in downtown. You know, the majority of the trips you did were by bike, which is so freaking cool for somebody who was previously not doing those at all. So by bike, talk a little bit about arriving by bike and any response wants that you know, others had and what you kind of felt and learned from that experience.

00:20:10:16 - 00:20:13:28
John Simmerman
You know, for instance, showing up to church on bike.

00:20:14:01 - 00:20:41:17
Phil Burns
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think this is this is something that actually happens with any kind of alternative, any kind of non car mode of transportation. Right? You arrive at a place and, and I and I have to say in Los Angeles like we are, we are not in a place where the culture is hospitable to going places anywhere other than car.

00:20:41:20 - 00:21:02:18
Phil Burns
Right. Where, you know, you always get the questions, you always get the quizzical looks. And when you arrive by public transit, people will say, oh my God, I'll drive you home. Oh, you know, it doesn't matter if it's like 20 miles out of my way. Like, I can't believe that you did that. Like, no.

00:21:02:21 - 00:21:28:12
John Simmerman
Expand upon that a little bit, that reaction. Do you feel that people have that reaction because of the the Pita factor, the pain in the ass factor? They're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you did. That is such a pain in the ass to to be using public transit. Or do you think they have that reaction because of a perceived lack of safety, or is it a combination of both or something else?

00:21:28:15 - 00:21:58:17
Phil Burns
I would say both. I mean, certainly, there's been a lot of press over the last couple of years about security incidents, on the Metro and in LA. And that's heightened, you know, kind of people's knowledge that, you know, in, in is a real issue. But it's also one that those of us who take the system regularly, like, we kind of understand it, we understand what the risks are, we understand how to mitigate those risks.

00:21:58:19 - 00:22:18:02
Phil Burns
And, you know, L.A. Metro has ridership that continues to grow and grow and serves, a tremendous number of people every year. But they're not people that are in, you know, certain social circles that kind of determine what the culture. But the culture is in.

00:22:18:02 - 00:22:20:10
John Simmerman
You grew up right there in Pasadena.

00:22:20:12 - 00:22:21:11
Phil Burns
Yes.

00:22:21:13 - 00:22:44:00
John Simmerman
Okay. When you grew up in Pasadena, did you have like an ethic of walking and biking to places and using public transit, or was it, you know, catching rides, drive everywhere, right? Rides from your parents, rides from your friends and then eventually being a driver? Or was it a mix of of all that?

00:22:44:03 - 00:22:51:28
Phil Burns
You know, growing up, I would say it was, oh, 100% car. Got it. Car oriented. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:51:28 - 00:23:28:18
John Simmerman
So and that's why this is even more impressive in my mind is that, you know, as an adult, as somebody who has now studied in, you know, urban design and planning and you're doing the work and you mentioned it earlier, you wanted to be able to practice what you're preaching, you know, in the sense and so, and you didn't necessarily have the ethic of, oh, I can remember when I was a kid and this is how I would get around, you know, which is kind of like for me, but I'm a few generations, you know, ahead of you in the sense that, you know, I was a kid from the 1960s and, you know,

00:23:28:18 - 00:23:53:26
John Simmerman
into the 70s. And so, yeah, walking and biking places was very much a part of how I got around as a kid. But I could totally see as somebody who's, you know, growing up, you know, in later in the 80s and 90s and into the, into the early 2000. It's a completely different world in that sense and can be very car oriented and car dependent.

00:23:53:29 - 00:24:13:19
Phil Burns
Right? Right. And of course, there are folks who, you know, have grew up in, you know, maybe very low income households, transit dependent households that, yeah, that's been their entire life. And that's definitely true in Pasadena as well. But again, you know, those are the people that kind of dictate the culture. And so.

00:24:13:22 - 00:24:33:24
John Simmerman
So sticking with what we were talking about earlier in terms of the other responses that people had, you talked about the response that people had with you writing transit, where some people pretty, you know, interested in, in and fascinated by your your bike trips to church and other locations.

00:24:33:27 - 00:25:07:25
Phil Burns
Yeah, yeah. Some people were definitely I mean, I think people that have an environmental bent to them, let's say, you know, they they were they were excited about it. They were they wanted to ask me about it. They got much more sort of inquiries and conversations about biking than I have public transit. So that does seem to be a little bit more sort of socially acceptable or interesting.

00:25:07:27 - 00:25:30:25
Phil Burns
You know, in a it reminds me of what, you know, in one of your recent episodes, the bike mayor of Winnipeg was, recommending, right, where she said, you know, just get on a bike. You're like, talk to the person that pulls up next to you at a signal light. You'll immediately have community. And and I felt that, even though I was taking all of these rides by myself.

00:25:30:27 - 00:26:02:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, it's it also brings up, since many of your trips were to church, too, it brings up an episode I had with, with, a pastor in, the Minneapolis area and, his whole approach to his congregation in his church is, is wanting to be out, you know, in the community and walking and biking and really emphasizing that because then you have a a deeper, richer connection to your community.

00:26:02:23 - 00:26:30:14
John Simmerman
And he's really trying to build his, his congregation and his church along the lines of, I'm here for the community. And literally, you know, when I look around my community, I want that to be my congregation, to be, you know, the neighborhood that I'm serving. And so he talked a lot about how the making the commitment to go car free and, and be, you know, representing the church, you know, by walking and biking and using transit and connecting with people.

00:26:30:14 - 00:26:43:27
John Simmerman
He felt like he understood his his neighborhood and his community much better in that way. So that kind of I can see that sociability aspect of it being very, very powerful for many people.

00:26:44:00 - 00:27:16:21
Phil Burns
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I will say, you know, to speak to the to the church aspect a little bit. We work, constantly with churches that want to build affordable housing on their properties. That's, that's part of, of the work that we do with the right group. And, our congregational and committee. And, you know, you see, there are some churches and religious organizations, not not just churches that have a real kind of neighborhood based ethic.

00:27:16:24 - 00:27:28:22
Phil Burns
Right. But, you know, overwhelmingly kind of the dominant the dominant mode is kind of, hey, we need to prioritize parking.

00:27:28:24 - 00:27:30:06
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.

00:27:30:09 - 00:27:32:03
Phil Burns
I'm glad you are glad.

00:27:32:03 - 00:28:01:13
John Simmerman
You went in that direction because I was like, I hope he he talks about parking because that's one of our biggest challenges, right, is parking minimums. And and it's and it's really unfortunate not just for churches but other, public institutions such as churches, that we then have this overlay of expectation that you're going to create a sea of asphalt, a sea of surface surface parking for that.

00:28:01:15 - 00:28:39:18
John Simmerman
And, you know, it's absolutely devastating, especially for some, you know, historic neighborhoods where, you know, an institution, whether it's a church or other other type of institution, has previously served a community where people could walk or bike or used public transit to getting them. And now, because of parking minimums, if they need to do any kind of upgrade of their facility or they want to do any kind of add on or whatever, or they just want to change and not have a sea of asphalt, you know, if they currently have one or if they want to do something else, they have to, you know, many have like gotten into the situation where they have

00:28:39:18 - 00:28:53:13
John Simmerman
to acquire land around them and then tear those, you know, houses down, oftentimes housing, to create a surface parking lot. And it's just so frustrating and mind boggling.

00:28:53:15 - 00:29:27:00
Phil Burns
Well, and I'll tell you that the interesting thing working in California at this stage, like I completely agree with you about parking minimums and that was the issue that we would always face in the past. Yeah. You know, we've had it's so interesting that the legislature in California around housing has changed so much in a few years. And obviously we're not like, we haven't yet built all the housing that we need to build or even started, really.

00:29:27:00 - 00:30:15:06
Phil Burns
And we still have terrible affordability crisis. But from a legal perspective, things have changed so much to the point that basically, I would say the vast majority of the churches that I work with that want to build affordable housing. There's no parking requirement, either for the housing or for that or for the church. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe there's a reduced, you know, parking requirement, but now, you know, the, the issues that come forth when you think about those kinds of projects and working with a congregation is not what does the local jurisdiction mandate, but what does the church itself mandate?

00:30:15:09 - 00:30:18:20
John Simmerman
Right. And, and the perception that either.

00:30:18:21 - 00:30:19:23
Phil Burns
Perception.

00:30:19:25 - 00:30:41:20
John Simmerman
Of the church leaders or even if we even if we, you know, not talking about a church or other institutions, just in general, the perception of what is needed from a parking perspective, which oftentimes is a complete disconnect with understanding. A little bit of the pie chart that we have here is that how do your customers get to your establishment?

00:30:41:20 - 00:31:17:02
John Simmerman
Whatever the your establishment is, there is a perceived bias that, well, everybody drives here. Therefore we need parking for everybody. And, you know, one of the organizations that I love so much that you and I had mentioned before was strong towns, strong towns. Every year for Thanksgiving, they always have the day after the black Friday, parking analysis of, you know, pointing out that on theoretically, the busiest shopping day of the year, oftentimes those massive seas of parking are maybe half full, maybe three quarters full, almost never.

00:31:17:02 - 00:31:30:27
John Simmerman
Are they completely full? But this is this pie chart here is representing the numbers that we were looking at earlier, which is how you got around during that six week period. This is pretty cool.

00:31:30:29 - 00:31:37:00
Phil Burns
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And, I mean, I'm obviously not representative of everyone, you know.

00:31:37:03 - 00:31:54:17
John Simmerman
But you're definitely representative of of this, of this, little test that you did, which is fantastic. And there's, you know, there's a snapshot of the, the bus, the metro bus here. And then here is a snapshot of that, awesome bike that you rode.

00:31:54:19 - 00:32:17:17
Phil Burns
Yeah. I think it goes to show that there's, you know, like, there's a right tool for every kind of trip. And the more options that you have that, don't involve car that much easier, it's going to be to go car free. And I and I think even for folks who don't go car free, like back into my, my normal life, you know, now that my kids are back and my wife's back and I am driving again.

00:32:17:17 - 00:32:35:00
Phil Burns
But the more options that I have to avoid that, the less I'm going to use the car, the less I'm going to cause traffic, you know, the less I'm going to suffer from not having enough exercise and in my life, etc. etc..

00:32:35:03 - 00:33:03:25
John Simmerman
Let me ask you this. You will pull the picture of the, the e-bike, back up again. Again, that was from active as GPV and SGB, stands for the San Gabriel Valley. Is the the acronym that we have there on that. One of the things that I talk about a lot is that the electric assist bicycle is really a tool that is perfect for it, for your situation.

00:33:03:27 - 00:33:34:04
John Simmerman
It's the perfect tool for giving people a little bit of an assist so that they don't show up to their destination as sweaty as tired. And it it increases the amount of distance that they can comfortably ride. Speak to that. I mean, speak to the fact that you did choose to rent, an electric assist bike versus just, you know, a standard, you know, bike, bicycle, bike, acoustical bike or whatever you want to call it.

00:33:34:06 - 00:33:43:25
John Simmerman
How much did that make that trip? Those rides, those bicycle rides that you did that much more pleasant, enjoyable and feasible for you?

00:33:43:27 - 00:34:17:12
Phil Burns
Yeah. That's a great point. My house is is located up a hill from from the center of Pasadena. It's probably, I don't know, I'll guess a hundred and 200ft elevation gain or something like that. And I'm also a person who, for whatever reason, I sweat profusely. So, yeah, you know, I think, thinking back to the times many years ago when I did bike around to other places, I would definitely arrive very, very sweaty.

00:34:17:14 - 00:34:18:20
Phil Burns
Now, what?

00:34:18:22 - 00:34:29:09
John Simmerman
This was a six week. This was a six week period. Yeah. I'm assuming based on the timing of this post, which was three months ago. Was this during the summer?

00:34:29:12 - 00:34:35:08
Phil Burns
It was during the summer? Yeah, in the summer. And in the San Gabriel Valley is is hot. We would get.

00:34:35:09 - 00:34:36:05
John Simmerman
Hot. Yeah.

00:34:36:07 - 00:34:39:07
Phil Burns
Yeah, we had days over 100°F, and.

00:34:39:14 - 00:34:45:15
John Simmerman
I love it, I love it. That's great. Before we put a bow on this experience, any.

00:34:45:15 - 00:34:46:16
Phil Burns
Final.

00:34:46:18 - 00:35:00:13
John Simmerman
Observations that you have from the six week period and anything that you'd like to pass on to, you know, to folks who are tuning in to this or, like, I want to do that too. I want to take that challenge.

00:35:00:16 - 00:35:30:13
Phil Burns
Yeah, yeah, I definitely want to inspire other people to take that challenge. And, I like the kind of game, you know, or the gamified or like, challenge aspect of it. And, and honestly, it's something that I would like to do even when I do have to sometimes use a card like I would, I would love to, you know, compete with other folks about like, how, how little can you drive over, you know, six month period or whatever it was.

00:35:30:13 - 00:35:54:14
Phil Burns
It was fun, you know, and it it did become something that I could talk to people about. You know, there were times when that was kind of, you know, socially awkward, but there are other times when it was exciting to be able to, you know, and some people definitely, they have more of an outgoing personality where they love to say, you know, like, yeah, I guess what I'm doing, you know, and yeah, what's cool.

00:35:54:17 - 00:36:18:10
John Simmerman
What's interesting too, and I'm glad you brought up the gamification side of it. And and it also, you know, brought this memory into mind here. And that is the Week Without Driving challenge. And this is a challenge that's held, each year. This year it was, Mondays, September 29th through Sunday, October 5th. Or. No, that's that's this coming year.

00:36:18:12 - 00:36:48:21
John Simmerman
But, I don't remember the exact dates of, of, 2024, but this upcoming year's going to be, the 29th through the fifth. And it's a wonderful opportunity to do just what you said, you know, kind of gamify it and make it a challenge and, and encourage people to do this and specifically encouraging leaders and, and, and, and community members, you know, in thought movers within the community to give it a go.

00:36:48:23 - 00:37:08:16
John Simmerman
I love it because and we, I've had this conversation with, and as I've arts who wrote the book, she's a non driver. And so she wrote the book, when driving is not an option. And we talked about the fact that, you know, some 30 to 40% of our population are technically non drivers. They do not drive a car.

00:37:08:17 - 00:37:31:00
John Simmerman
They cannot drive a car. They choose not to drive a car or whatever the case may be, 30 to 40% of any given population are non drivers. And that opportunity to test what it's like for a week to see what it's like to being a non driver, did you know about a week without driving, before you started your six week venture?

00:37:31:03 - 00:37:56:06
Phil Burns
I don't think I did, though. I've, I've. Yeah, just heard about it recently. So, I did read that there was, there was some kind of competition done in, in the UK just before the pandemic, where they also kind of challenged people to walk as much as they could, maybe walk or bike as much as they could.

00:37:56:08 - 00:38:03:10
Phil Burns
And, there were some prizes given out. So I'm, I'm very curious about what that could do in the future.

00:38:03:12 - 00:38:16:04
John Simmerman
Well, let's shift gears and talk a little bit about the Arroyo group. So you, of course, as you mentioned, are the, managing, principal of the Arroyo group here. And, how long have you been with the Arroyo group?

00:38:16:06 - 00:38:19:15
Phil Burns
So I've been in here for ten years. Yeah.

00:38:19:17 - 00:38:43:18
John Simmerman
Fantastic. And as you mentioned, it was, formed by three gentlemen, back in the day, back in the 1970s. And, I, I know why it's called the Arroyo Group, because, again, I'm a fourth generation, Los Angelino. I was born in the Glendale Memorial Hospital. I have family all throughout, that San Gabriel Valley area there.

00:38:43:20 - 00:38:50:15
John Simmerman
And so I know what the arroyo is referring to, but you want to share with, the audience, what Arroyo means?

00:38:50:18 - 00:39:15:07
Phil Burns
Yeah. There's actually two, two things it refers to. So, you know, the the site refers to the Arroyo Seco, which is a, you know, supposed to be a dry creek. It's actually not dry. It does have water in it, but, it's a little stream that kind of runs through, Pasadena at the bottom of, a sort of canyon, I guess you might say.

00:39:15:09 - 00:39:54:22
Phil Burns
And, Yeah, in particular, it actually the road group refers back to the Arroyo Guild, which was a group of, professionals of various disciplines who lived along the Arroyo Seco. And they they built a lot of the, the beautiful heritage that, Pasadena, continues to have. So architects, you know, landscape architects, artists, sort of proto urban planners and, and they really made Pasadena a beautiful city.

00:39:54:22 - 00:40:25:10
Phil Burns
So, you know, in harkening back to that, we think about the interdisciplinarity of, of everything that's related to city building. I really feel like I'm not an expert in any one thing. But, you know, I know a little bit about all of these different kinds of things. And that's actually what's needed to have, you know, to have a good city and then and then also our aspirations for, for beauty and livability and, you know, expand that now to include, affordability and inclusivity and equity as well.

00:40:25:10 - 00:40:42:22
John Simmerman
So and the image this on screen here is, of course, the historic old historic bridge that, spans that the, the, the Arroyo Seco that's down below there. And so, is this a historic monument to this particular bridge?

00:40:42:22 - 00:40:45:01
Phil Burns
It is. Yes. It is.

00:40:45:03 - 00:41:05:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Fantastic. Van tastic. And so one of the things that we, we want to talk about here is, is that type of work that you guys are doing and some of the projects that you are working on, there in the Southern California area, are you mostly doing work? Just in the Southern California area for the most part.

00:41:05:17 - 00:41:33:17
Phil Burns
Yeah, yeah, mostly in, in Southern California, although we do branch out a little bit. Okay. Yeah. To, to kind of related, you know, to related to our conversations and to the, to the, you know, to the topic of, of active towns, it's it's interesting. We do a lot of planning for, you know, sort of specific districts within a city.

00:41:33:19 - 00:41:56:21
Phil Burns
And a lot of times that is a downtown or a commercial area, or, something, something like that there, you see, you see an example of what old Pasadena used to look like back in the 70s, early 80s, when the plan for Old Pasadena was done. And you see why they wanted to, completely demolish it.

00:41:56:23 - 00:42:24:22
John Simmerman
And, and I what I and I want to point out, too, that, truly old Pasadena, what it looked like at the turn of the century, was much different than what we're looking at here. We're looking at the low point of what Pasadena was like. And you and I had had spoken earlier, before we hit the recording button that, you know, I used to work on Colorado Boulevard, so I worked right in Old Town, downtown Pasadena.

00:42:24:25 - 00:42:50:15
John Simmerman
But that was at the end of the 1980s, in the beginning of the 1990s, really, before things started to turn around. And, and so these images were pretty familiar to me, even though I realized that's probably a, a snapshot from a decade earlier, what's really fascinating and tremendously powerful about the types of work that you all are doing is what's possible.

00:42:50:15 - 00:42:52:26
John Simmerman
And and so that's what this looks like now.

00:42:52:28 - 00:43:45:25
Phil Burns
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And you know, you'll see some I think there's some other photos as well as some of the environments that were created there. One of the really, unique things about Old Pasadena is that it's not just a walkable street, but the main street is Colorado Boulevard. And and many communities have walkable main streets. But actually Old Pasadena, it has a very fine grain of pedestrian pathways, penetrating blocks, and kind of one of the key ideas of the, of the plan for Old Pasadena back in 1978 was to pedestrianize all of the, alleys and what we call mid-block pass routes, which are, you know, passing sort of between

00:43:45:25 - 00:44:10:16
Phil Burns
in the middle of a block between a street and the alley that is behind it. And all of those, alleys have created, you know, sort of a sense of discovery. So when somebody has come to old past, comes to Old Pasadena once, they might just walk up and down the main street, but then the next time they come, they might, you know, wander down some of these alleys, right?

00:44:10:16 - 00:44:33:08
Phil Burns
And down some of these alleys, you'll find retail spaces that are much cheaper than the retail space on Colorado Boulevard. They might have local independent businesses or, you know, nice places to sit and have a cup of coffee that's away from from the noise of the street in those kinds of things. And, and the, the alleys in the middle past.

00:44:33:08 - 00:44:54:11
Phil Burns
There is also connect to the, the public parking structures, which are, you know, which are the important aspects of, of the district and definitely historically were very important in, you know, kind of working with the revitalization of Old Pasadena to make it happen. Yeah.

00:44:54:13 - 00:45:24:27
John Simmerman
And and it really is a fascinating, fascinating story. And, you, you, you know, that I've already, spoken with, Professor Shoop and, of course, we have a couple of different episodes, on the podcast, with, with Donald Shoup, the, the sheepdog and, and, we've, we've talked about, that transformation of Pasadena and the impact, the relationship of some of the early work that he had done in terms of, you know, the high cost of free parking.

00:45:24:27 - 00:46:09:11
John Simmerman
It was written about it in that particular book and really helping pave the way, if you'll pardon the pun, for some of the transformations of Pasadena in this district, is, is really, you know, getting away from this concept of being addicted to free parking everywhere for everyone, to, you know, setting the right price for parking and then utilizing that money, those revenues in the district where you're collecting them so that, you know, there's a virtuous cycle of bringing the community back up and, and, and gaining support from the business owners as well as the community members, when they can see that having a profound, profound impact on the vitality and the vibrancy of

00:46:09:11 - 00:46:09:29
John Simmerman
the district.

00:46:10:06 - 00:46:44:26
Phil Burns
That's right, that's right. And, so Pasadena is a famous kind of case study that, you know, that Donald Shoup popularized. Because the the city wanted to, meteor parking and the, you know, the businesses said absolutely no, you know, over our dead bodies and, and then there was finally, you know, kind of brought forth, well, let's meter the parking, but we'll put the money back to you, you know, into the district.

00:46:44:26 - 00:47:13:08
Phil Burns
And and so today in all Pasadena, you know, the power wash the sidewalks twice a week, which makes it, you know, very clean compared to comparable old business districts in LA or, the cities that are, that are nearby us. We have constant, you know, guys who perform kind of a light security function as well as the wayfinding function all around the district.

00:47:13:10 - 00:47:46:27
Phil Burns
You know, and constant activities that the, the business improvement District, which Scott, all Pasadena Management District does to bring bring folks in and and, you know, interestingly, it's interesting that even, despite that positive case study that is kind of famous, at least in, you know, among wonks, I guess, like us every time they do try to raise the price of parking, it is still a very controversial, thing.

00:47:46:29 - 00:48:09:27
John Simmerman
So. Well, it's there's a there's a level of psychology that, that Don gets to, of that. I mean, there is this expectation as drivers of, as humans that we expect that we can park for free. I want to, close out the conversation, with Pasadena and Colorado Boulevard by pointing out something that's rather obvious.

00:48:09:27 - 00:48:35:22
John Simmerman
I think when we look at this photo is that it's still a rather large, oversize boulevard. It's also a very, very famous boulevard. Most people who are tuning in, listening to this and watching this probably know Colorado Boulevard, probably know Pasadena, because they know the Rose parade that, you know, happens every single January 1st. You know, typically it's January 1st.

00:48:35:24 - 00:48:58:27
John Simmerman
And and it is Wide Boulevard. It is still in my mind when I look at this. It's much better than it used to be. It's much more attractive than it used to be. But in many ways, it's still kind of an auto sewer with a massive number of lanes that encourage fast driving way too frequently.

00:48:59:00 - 00:49:27:09
Phil Burns
Yeah, I, you know, and there is some movement to try to change that. And I agree that Pasadena could do could do a lot more. We actually have we found in our work and I'm kind of going beyond Pasadena now, but into other communities, other suburbs of Los Angeles and and things. Yeah. There's a picture of Glendora, which is a community that I know, you know.

00:49:27:09 - 00:49:28:00
Phil Burns
Well.

00:49:28:02 - 00:49:54:13
John Simmerman
I do, I know, I know these lollipop, trees very well. Yeah, that you know this, but I'll, I'll share this with the audience as well. Glendora is, where my family was since the 1950s, I think is when the family, made their migration, you know, away from sort of the Highland Park area and the Pasadena area, out to Glendora.

00:49:54:13 - 00:50:11:15
John Simmerman
And so Glendora is, a little further east along the 210 corridor. And so, yeah, many of my relatives grew up right here in this environment. And if I remember correctly, this is probably caller. This is probably Glendora Avenue, correct?

00:50:11:22 - 00:50:13:00
Phil Burns
Yes, yes, it is.

00:50:13:00 - 00:50:18:03
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Okay. So this is the current conditions, in on Glendora Avenue.

00:50:18:08 - 00:50:58:13
Phil Burns
Yeah. And I think you have a photo there as well of, of the proposed condition. Yeah. There with the roundabout and, and you can see there's another one actually on the home page of our website, one of the, one of those before and afters is that, that but, you know, we find that when that it is possible to create consensus for complete streets and in our experience, we're working in pretty car dominated kind of communities where, you know, as I mentioned, that culture is very much ingrained.

00:50:58:15 - 00:51:31:24
Phil Burns
Oh my God, you came here through something that was not a car. I can't believe that you there's still a lot of common ground for folks when we talk about complete streets. Not necessarily because of the different modes of transportation, but because of the co-benefits, because, we we want a walkable place where they have cafes and restaurants and, you know, we want to bring in better quality restaurants to our town.

00:51:31:24 - 00:52:16:04
Phil Burns
We want to have a place that we can go out on Friday night. We want to have a more beautiful town. We want drivers to slow down close to our neighborhood. Those kinds of things have really enabled us to work with communities to build in complete streets. And although that, you know, that doesn't work in necessarily every single case, we find that often when we when we talk to folks about kind of the trade off, say, you have, you know, there's a trade off of like you can drive fast versus you can have businesses in places that you want to go that are closer to your house.

00:52:16:06 - 00:52:33:01
Phil Burns
Right. When people actually begin to have a little bit of education and information about how cities work, we find that often they do make choices that are in favor of, of active towns, you know? Yeah, yeah.

00:52:33:06 - 00:52:57:00
John Simmerman
And what's great about this particular photo to this image, this diagram of what could be here, there's a couple of things that pop into my mind. One is that if we continue down this, this road here, this street here, you get into the historic, downtown area where there are a plethora of of businesses and shops, some very historic shops, as well as some new.

00:52:57:02 - 00:53:17:21
John Simmerman
There's a wonderful little brew pub that's, you know, there in that area that I can remember walking to frequently. And then behind us is where the new Gold Line, transit stop will eventually be. If they've been working on it for some time. I don't think it's opened yet. I think it's it is terminates, in a zoo.

00:53:17:21 - 00:53:19:01
John Simmerman
So right now. Correct?

00:53:19:04 - 00:53:21:29
Phil Burns
Yeah. It should be open this, 20, 25.

00:53:22:01 - 00:54:01:27
John Simmerman
Perfect. 2025. And that's going to be envisioned as a Tod. I believe that there's some more denser housing already going in. And to your so to your point is creating a a much more attractive environment that's less car dominated and less car oriented and make it more people oriented, lower speeds and, and really welcome the new residents that will be moving into this district, into this area and drawing them from, you know, that that Tod development that's going to be right near the train station to, and the light rail station, the metro station, a Gold Line again.

00:54:01:29 - 00:54:25:01
John Simmerman
I have to give a huge thumbs up to Metro because it is one of the fastest moving, transit rail transit networks in all of North America. It's absolutely amazing to be able to fly into LAX, be able to get onto a train, get to downtown. I can pay a visit to our old, our alma mater of USC.

00:54:25:04 - 00:54:47:20
John Simmerman
You know, pop around there a little bit. I always have my my folding bike with me so I can ride my bike, you know, around campus to downtown. I can jump on the Gold Line in in the downtown area, write it into Pasadena, get off, ride around on my Brompton a little bit more, get back on the goal line, make my way to Glendora later this year, which is huge.

00:54:47:22 - 00:55:09:27
Phil Burns
As I say. Yeah, you. You may never believe it, but Glendora, is slated as a as a part of this project to actually build the first sidewalk level protected bike lane in Los Angeles County. Nice. And to have the first Dutch intersection. So it has to endure, this community that had zero biking.

00:55:09:28 - 00:55:26:01
John Simmerman
You need to get me in touch with. You need to get me in touch with the, the city staff that are making that happen. I would love to profile that. So let's, let's make sure that we follow up on that. I'd love to do that. Let's pop on over to Norwalk, because I think that this is a powerful, image as well.

00:55:26:07 - 00:55:26:13
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:55:26:13 - 00:56:05:02
Phil Burns
I mean, this is just an example of what I was just describing. This this in particular, this is in the, actual historic, the most historic street in the sort of suburban, largely Latino community of Norwalk in this sort of between LA and, Anaheim and, the, you know, interesting story there. It's one where the community leaders, the city council, sort of had this idea of, hey, we're a community of working class, middle class homeowners here.

00:56:05:04 - 00:56:34:12
Phil Burns
Everybody's pretty satisfied with the way things are. Nobody wants any change. You know, there's a lot of immigrants there. But, you know, people that are, you know, they're excited to have moved up and out of, you know, the inner city areas where maybe they lived when they had recently arrived in the United States. And then during the pandemic, we, of course, switched to, online community engagement.

00:56:34:15 - 00:57:11:24
Phil Burns
And so we did a heavy community engagement and based on Instagram and, and then some zoom meetings that we had. And in those, of course, we started to have a lot, a lot of input from younger folks in the community. And they were saying, we don't like the way it is here. We need change. And they were they're crying out for, you know, pedestrianization of streets, bike lanes, multifamily housing, all of these things which were kind of like third rails in the community before.

00:57:11:26 - 00:57:40:29
Phil Burns
And, luckily we had some of the council members participate in some of those workshops, and they heard directly from their constituents, you know, these constituents who would never, you know, they never waited like two hours to speak at a public hearing at a city council meeting on Thursday night, you know, but when it came to a zoom, you know, or like making a comment on an Instagram post, like, there they were and they're expressing their opinion.

00:57:40:29 - 00:58:19:26
Phil Burns
So, you know, this is part of a plan called The Heart of Norwalk, which will significantly change, this street, as you can see, into, you know, a kind of entertainment district with, expanded sidewalks and, diagonal parking and, you know, outdoor dining and all of that. But also this, this whole larger area of the city around this area where, you know, about 3000 new housing units are anticipated over, you know, over the course of the plan.

00:58:19:28 - 00:58:25:03
Phil Burns
And, some really significant changes for the city. Yeah.

00:58:25:06 - 00:58:29:11
John Simmerman
That's fantastic. And I'm glad you mentioned that. To the power of.

00:58:29:13 - 00:58:30:12
Phil Burns
The.

00:58:30:14 - 00:58:53:08
John Simmerman
The elected officials here from their constituents that this is what they want. Because oftentimes what ends up happening, as you well know, is that something changes in the built environment. You know, there's a change to, to the parking, there's a change to, you know, there's an addition of a bike lane and and changing, of the travel lanes.

00:58:53:11 - 00:59:15:27
John Simmerman
And so what the, the what is typically happening is the, you know, election officials are hearing, you know, from from those who are un unhappy with and upset with the changes. And so it's wonderful when the the leaders can actually hear from the constituents really saying, no, we, we want something that's more beautiful. We, you know, we reject that.

00:59:15:27 - 00:59:20:18
John Simmerman
This is what we should have to, to live with. So I think that's incredibly important.

00:59:20:21 - 00:59:51:02
Phil Burns
Yeah. It's one of the strengths of these community visioning processes. And you know, in particular when you look at when you look at land use and transportation together, when you look at the public right away. And also what happens when and private property together, it really unlocks a lot of, you know, a lot of potentials, a lot of dreaming and hopes for communities that they can, that they can take advantage of.

00:59:51:02 - 00:59:51:27
Phil Burns
So.

00:59:51:29 - 01:00:07:04
John Simmerman
Phil, to close this out, I want to I want to focus on this particular before and and future visioning set this up for the for the audience. What are we looking at here other than a nasty road?

01:00:07:07 - 01:00:36:04
Phil Burns
Yeah. This one is a very interesting story and, one that I'm not sure has a happy ending, but. Yeah, but very interesting. The this is located in the city of Vernon, which is it is a city that is considered it's considered exclusively industrial. It's close to downtown Los Angeles. It is the home of of many, many heavy industries.

01:00:36:06 - 01:01:10:24
Phil Burns
When it was founded in the early 20th century, there was kind of a single family that controlled this city. And the family, you know, they, they ended up, you know, facing corruption charges and the whole very colorful history, which you can read about if you're so inclined. And I would I would encourage you to do so. But in response to that, the state of California said in 2009 ten that they were going to dis incorporate.

01:01:10:24 - 01:02:12:22
Phil Burns
That's it. And, the city basically was they were able to salvage their independence by committing to increasing the residential population of the city. And so they're faced then with the interesting challenge of how to incorporate residences in an area where you generally would not encourage residential living. You know, that is highly industrial. And, and so we were able to work with the city to, kind of put together a plan that looked at this section of the community, which is where they had a lot of historic industrial buildings, like the one that you see on the right, which is, you know, sort of your typical multi-story factory high ceilings, beautiful natural light, the

01:02:12:22 - 01:02:13:18
Phil Burns
kind of thing that.

01:02:13:18 - 01:02:47:25
John Simmerman
Is, I was going to say, let me jump in here real quickly and say that that building reminds me a lot of a a plethora of buildings. There's a big inventory of buildings that look just like that and some even taller, in the lower downtown area of Los Angeles. And there's a similar type of transformation that they actually did go through, many of those old factories and multi-story, you know, industrial buildings have been converted into housing in, in the downtown area.

01:02:47:28 - 01:03:12:01
Phil Burns
That's right, that's right. And so, you know, the the plan and the, the zoning amendments that were were done allowed for these, these kinds of transformations to take place into lofts and to live work into residential with ground floor, you know, coffee roaster. I'm, I'm here to, to do that.

01:03:12:01 - 01:03:15:13
John Simmerman
I'm itching to do the reveal. Can I do it now.

01:03:15:15 - 01:03:50:29
Phil Burns
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So there so there you go. But you know that to look at the street here is a so you can say we can bring in housing. We, we want to allow housing here and maybe it'll get built, you know. But will it actually, you know, will people really want to move there. And will it be a hospitable environment for people?

01:03:51:01 - 01:04:26:26
Phil Burns
Not necessarily. You have to you have to then come up of just building these buildings into the street and make some changes where it can be a walkable community, right, where, you know, if you do want to have some, our studios that are also open for people to do art walk or a coffee roaster or, you know, custom furniture or manufacturer or, you know, with with residential, like, you've got to create an environment that's, that's hospitable to people that want to want to shop and live and be there.

01:04:26:26 - 01:04:53:17
Phil Burns
And so that's why we proposed, a big change to the way that the street operates. And, you know, basically our road diet here from five lanes to to three lanes with a protected, bike lane along it and trees, etc. the community has not yet supported that part of the vision. And, not surprised, you know.

01:04:53:20 - 01:05:18:09
Phil Burns
Yeah, it is, you know, it involves, moving the, the, you know, 18 wheelers on to a different street and accessing the street through a different access in the district through a different way. And so that's, that's the complication there. But but yeah, you know, we're excited for, for the time to come for the vision. You know, it's a reminder that you you give these things your, your best shot.

01:05:18:14 - 01:05:27:00
Phil Burns
And sometimes it takes multiple multiple cracks at it before, before the vision to really be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

01:05:27:02 - 01:05:48:16
John Simmerman
Well, I wish you the best of luck on all of that. And, I'm absolutely delighted to have had this opportunity to chat with you. Thank you so much, Phil, for for coming on the channel and talking about your experience, your six week experience of going car free and also sharing, some of the good work that you are doing there at the Arroyo Group.

01:05:48:22 - 01:05:52:17
John Simmerman
I really appreciate you joining me on the Active Talents podcast.

01:05:52:19 - 01:05:56:25
Phil Burns
Thank you so much, John. It's been a real pleasure. And, all the best to you. And I thank.

01:05:56:25 - 01:06:12:21
John Simmerman
You all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Phil Burns. 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, it'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on the subscription button down below and remember to ring that notification bell.

01:06:12:23 - 01:06:33:11
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, once again, I'd love to have your support. Just navigate over to Active Town Storage. Click on the support tab at the top of the page. There's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. And again, patrons do get early and ad free access to all this video content, which is a huge bonus I think.

01:06:33:13 - 01:06:54:22
John Simmerman
Anyways, again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and again sending a huge thank you out all my active towns ambassador supporting the channel on Patreon. Buy me a coffee YouTube super! Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit.

01:06:54:26 - 01:06:59:07
John Simmerman
Every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.