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

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:26:24
Steve Spindler
So we were doing a family trip this summer to Vegas, and I didn't have I actually didn't know where we were going. It's basically between Utrecht and Amsterdam, and I was just curious as to like, I figured if I made a map, does this map shows more transit? And I figured if I made a map, it would just give me more of a sense of where we were going before we went there.

00:00:26:26 - 00:00:54:18
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the active 10th show. My name is John Simmerman, and that is Steve Spindler from Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, in fact a recently elected borough Council member of Jenkintown. And Steve is also a cartographer and a passionate bike rider. We're going to be talking about all things maps and bikes and all that kind of good stuff. Let's get right to it with Steve.

00:00:54:20 - 00:00:58:25
John Simmerman
Well, hey, Steve Spindler, welcome to the Active Towns podcast.

00:00:58:27 - 00:01:04:24
Steve Spindler
Hey, thanks, John. It's good to see you. I just have to show you my answer for people.

00:01:04:25 - 00:01:07:27
John Simmerman
Yeah, hold it. Hold it. Just below your chin there.

00:01:08:00 - 00:01:08:14
Steve Spindler
okay.

00:01:08:16 - 00:01:27:14
John Simmerman
There you go. Now, it's interesting. Thank you very much for doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And. And hopefully you've given you enough of them so you can plaster them all over the place. There. Steve, I love having my guest. Just give a quick little introduction. So, who is Steve Spindler?

00:01:27:17 - 00:02:07:03
Steve Spindler
I am a bicycle bicyclist and cartographer. I've been making bicycle maps for around the country. I also help planners with public engagement for active transportation, safe routes to school, basically finding out where people have problems as pedestrians and bicyclists and or transit users, that kind of thing. So yeah. And I live in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, so hopefully we can talk a little bit about Jenkintown because we have 100% coverage for sidewalks in our town and we still have, you know, plenty of traffic, but it's a walkable railroad suburb just north of Philadelphia.

00:02:07:06 - 00:02:29:23
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great. And I've never been I really need to to come and visit you and pay you a visit. I did get to meet you and see you again recently. And that was in Pennsylvania before the Greenways and Trails Summit, which was really super fun. That was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in September.

00:02:29:25 - 00:02:39:07
Steve Spindler
Yeah. And I gave a couple of talks that I don't think were as good as yours, but but I wasn't the keynote.

00:02:39:07 - 00:03:03:23
John Simmerman
So yeah, I think it's an honor of of having the main floor and being able to deliver the keynote, which is always a great deal of fun and, and got to nerd out about creating a culture of activity and talking about behavior change and all the good stuff that when we actually get our infrastructure right and build cities so that they are walkable and bikeable, it's amazing things happen.

00:03:03:23 - 00:03:08:16
John Simmerman
People actually get out and move and it's much healthier.

00:03:08:19 - 00:03:13:19
Steve Spindler
We actually, you know, ran into each other at the coffee shop.

00:03:13:22 - 00:03:14:16
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's right.

00:03:14:16 - 00:03:48:26
Steve Spindler
And, you know, like the first day before the conference and I think coffee shops are just hugely important for, you know, meeting places. And I was talking with somebody the other day who was saying, you know, I have my friends, I don't need to meet people. And and I find that like, like I meet really interesting people that are writing books that are, you know, you know, illustrating movies or TV shows, those kinds of like doing animation.

00:03:48:26 - 00:04:08:23
Steve Spindler
And I meet them at Starbucks or at Whitehorse Coffee Company where where my daughter works. And we also see, like I just got elected to Borough Council. So, ah, you know, I see people on Borough council, you know, that are doing the borough Council work at the coffee shop and it just it's a great place to meet up with people.

00:04:08:25 - 00:04:36:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's funny you mentioned the coffee shop. Yeah. It's coffee shops are super, super magical and it was really cool that there was this really neat little hole in the wall coffee shop there in Scranton, down an alleyway across from across the street from the hotel where we were at. And it was neat because, you know, we ran into each other there and then there was a whole bunch of other people from the conference that were popping in.

00:04:36:17 - 00:04:59:12
John Simmerman
And so, you know, we got to meet a whole bunch of other people. And so I really appreciate the fact that you brought that up, because that's part of like the sociability of communities. And I think that's a huge part of what active towns are all about. Yes, it is about creating an infrastructure where it's walkable, bikeable. You have the access to parks and all of this.

00:04:59:14 - 00:05:13:28
John Simmerman
But a big part of just getting out of the door and getting into society is having these third places. And it's interesting, you mentioned that you're you're now on the council right?

00:05:14:01 - 00:05:14:23
Steve Spindler
In January.

00:05:14:23 - 00:05:26:22
John Simmerman
Yes, in January. And so you just sent an email out to your groups. And the very first thing that I notice on that is it's like Starbucks. So what's this all about?

00:05:26:24 - 00:05:48:22
Steve Spindler
So, you know, Starbucks used to be what you were saying. They used to be that third space in between home and work. And now, like the business model seems to really be oriented towards, you know, for many coffee shops, oriented towards drive thrus. And you just kind of wonder why people want to sit in their car even more.

00:05:48:25 - 00:06:17:09
Steve Spindler
So we have a Starbucks at the north end of town. It's actually in the next town over. I'm right on the border and it's on a road that has like 35 to 40000 cars a day that runs right through our walkable town, right through the center. It's called Old York Road. And they they're looking at moving kitty corner to the other side of the intersection so that they can put a drive through and and have a drive through.

00:06:17:15 - 00:06:47:04
Steve Spindler
And really right now, people are waiting on that main road to turn into the current parking lot of the current Starbucks. So it's it's like a traffic challenge for people already. So what's been proposed is we have what was one of the first department stores in the country. It was Strawbridge and Clothier, and that's in our town. And that's a big property that had a lot of extra parking and so I really think that putting the Starbucks in the middle of that parking lot is not a bad thing.

00:06:47:06 - 00:07:10:29
Steve Spindler
And I think that's something that they'll invest more into than their current location. That that when you put in a drive thru or any business, you're always looking at traffic flow to get into and out of that space and this new it would have to entrances and exits if they get kind of what's proposed. And this week actually it's going before the borough council.

00:07:11:02 - 00:07:36:23
John Simmerman
Okay the borough council now so let's talk about, you know how one would get there walking and biking. Is it you know, because the sense that I get is that and I think you mentioned it already is that, you know, it's a very walkable community village. Is is it also, you know, getting to these third places, are they very easy to walk and bike to?

00:07:36:26 - 00:07:51:17
Steve Spindler
It's really not a hard walk. You still have to push a button to cross the street, you know, But but it's right now basically, you know, it's it's like a seven or eight minute walk from my house.

00:07:51:19 - 00:08:05:15
John Simmerman
Right. So the distances, the proximity is are fine. It's it's very walkable in that sense. Yeah. What's the environment like in terms of is it a hostile environment, in terms of motor vehicle traffic.

00:08:05:18 - 00:08:42:01
Steve Spindler
The traffic our, our town just put in the radar speed signs and also like 25 mile an hour and rumble strips. So really our town's trying to slow down traffic and then there's also like a $25 million train station project coming up in the future. And there's a train station right there that goes in. You can take the train from it's called Noble Train Station and you can take it from there into Philadelphia.

00:08:42:03 - 00:09:08:26
John Simmerman
Got it. Got it. So in addition to joining the borough council, you are, as you mentioned, a cartographer. And so this is your website at Steve Spindler dot com. And walk us through what it means to be a cartographer. You know they're me. This is an international audience and I'm assuming everybody kind of knows what a cartographer is, but what does a cartographer do?

00:09:08:29 - 00:09:36:01
Steve Spindler
Cartography is not necessarily GIS. You know, GIS is about data analysis. And there's a lot of guys in cartography, but cartography is making that information, communicate with people and tell a story. Okay. So that's what I see cartography as. And really I, I started by making bike maps to help people. I had what was called a Cmac project, which is congestion mitigation at air quality in the early nineties.

00:09:36:01 - 00:09:55:27
Steve Spindler
And I was helping people bicycle, you know, figure out how to bike to work. And this was before Google Maps and I wanted to make bike maps and put put them on the web and so I create bike NBC.com and, and I use that but not the main page at this point so there's a lot on bike map dot com it's just not accessible to people.

00:09:56:00 - 00:10:22:08
Steve Spindler
My business model really became working with engineering firms like Tool Design Group and the RBA group and which is now and V, V5 and and others. So we would do like the Philadelphia bike map or the Washington DC bike map or City of Alexandria or Fairfax or and I ended up doing some in for San Mateo County in California and Memphis and a lot in North Carolina.

00:10:22:10 - 00:10:40:26
Steve Spindler
The thing about being a cartographer is that and it's gotten faster to make maps. However, there's a lot you know, a lot of that goes into making a map and it takes a lot of time. And I kind of wanted to change have my approach. And one of the things was I would say I was doing the New Jersey State bike map.

00:10:40:28 - 00:11:02:12
Steve Spindler
You have a statewide area and you have three public meetings and you have, you know, how do you get people to give public input? So in that whole process, I was thinking there's got to be I need to not only just be giving people information, I need to be getting information and better reflect the perspective of the cyclists.

00:11:02:14 - 00:11:26:24
Steve Spindler
I wanted to create something that would like let people put information on the map for me to share as a public engagement process as opposed to just sharing a map with people. It's the cyclists, you know, nobody knows their community really better than the people who live there, right? Right. Like they know the shortcuts. They know the nuances.

00:11:26:26 - 00:11:56:14
Steve Spindler
You know, how things trip, you know, change during the day. And the thing about planners can really benefit from knowing what, you know, planners have. They understand systems and how things work in a big picture. And they can they understand what's going going on around the country and different solutions. But the planners really need buy in. They need to understand the local perspectives and what people want locally.

00:11:56:16 - 00:12:15:06
Steve Spindler
So so I switched from making bike maps to actually getting information. We did a project in Columbia, Maryland, that area, and then there was so much good response for that project that I just kind of focused on building, building out a solution that would help planners set up projects for themselves.

00:12:15:09 - 00:12:21:23
John Simmerman
Okay. And when you say a solution, what type of solution are you referring to there?

00:12:21:26 - 00:12:36:21
Steve Spindler
So planners can ask whatever questions they want and then the public can put a point or draw a line on the map and say, you know, this is my route from home to school. So it's used for safe routes to school projects, and then they can say, This is where I have a problem.

00:12:36:24 - 00:12:39:06
John Simmerman
Got it. So it's very deep and.

00:12:39:08 - 00:12:39:19
Steve Spindler
Yeah.

00:12:39:19 - 00:12:51:10
John Simmerman
It's very interactive. You're starting to more intelligently engage with people so that you are fine tuning and bringing the map to life a little bit more.

00:12:51:12 - 00:12:57:15
Steve Spindler
Yes. And it's not even for the map. It's it's really for the planning process so they can figure out how how to best allocate.

00:12:57:18 - 00:13:14:18
John Simmerman
In other words. Yeah, that's part of the solution. It's like it's not for the map. It's actually here. We're going to leverage the map and get interaction with people so that the solution for the planners is a little bit better targeted to the needs of the people.

00:13:14:21 - 00:13:15:19
Steve Spindler
Yeah, got it.

00:13:15:26 - 00:13:40:15
John Simmerman
Perfect. Now I know this about you. And soon the audience is going to know about this about you as well is that maps in these there are also pieces of art. There works of art in many ways. And I look at this, this map here that you have and I look at some of these others and this is a great example right here.

00:13:40:15 - 00:14:06:18
John Simmerman
You use showed me this on your your phone when we were at that coffee shop that we were talking about. So talk about that passion that you have. I mean, you've been knee deep in maps and bike maps for years, decades, perhaps, but you're still passionate about the art side of it. So let's talk a little bit about what's inspired you recently to do these types of works of art.

00:14:06:20 - 00:14:30:09
Steve Spindler
You know, I really a few years ago I was teaching at Temple University Cartography and their Genius program. And what I found is there's no better way to learn than to teach. I use mapping programs for making maps like it's called Map Publisher. It's a plug in for Adobe Illustrator, and these are very expensive. Like for somebody is just casually mapping.

00:14:30:09 - 00:15:02:23
Steve Spindler
It's very expensive and I wanted to figure out ways that I could make maps that were accessible so that I could teach other people how to make their maps. And this map here was made using ArcGIS, which is open source software, and that in a combination of a program called Affinity Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, it's affinity is kind of like Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, but it's it's different, but it kind of gives you the same result.

00:15:02:23 - 00:15:39:17
Steve Spindler
And I really got into Affinity not because I didn't like Illustrator and the Adobe Creative Suite, but using a different program caused me to think differently about making maps so I could think less in terms of lines. This this map uses OpenStreetMap data and satellite imagery, and then I work with it to make it, you know, I was my goal is to really create a motif, a watercolor motif that would blend blend both the windmill and and the town, that type of thing.

00:15:39:19 - 00:15:59:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. I was going to say this. This to me looks like this work of art with watercolors and all of that. I could almost imagine like, yeah, he, he printed this out and then he took out his watercolor paint brushes and, and did this, you know, in a coffee shop and all that. But that's, that's not how it was done right now.

00:15:59:14 - 00:16:12:12
Steve Spindler
No, it was done going back and forth between this. Ultimately the map is in gas even though it doesn't look like it. So if I wanted to import data, I could import data right onto the map.

00:16:12:15 - 00:16:20:10
John Simmerman
Which could be important, like for the exact gas location of that windmill. Yes. Because this is a real windmill.

00:16:20:12 - 00:16:31:10
Steve Spindler
Right. Right. Yeah. So that's actually a vacation rental vibe. I think who really.

00:16:31:13 - 00:16:59:13
John Simmerman
That's fantastic. The other thing that's. That's neat about this and you and I were talking about this in the coffee shop is it's a way to for for people to be like inspired to like remember the the location I mean it's one thing to do what I do which is shoot a lot of video and take a lot of still photography and then go back and remember that bike ride that I did through this area and all of this.

00:16:59:15 - 00:17:21:23
John Simmerman
This is like a whole nother level of like really bringing that location and that experience to life for somebody. Because now that you've done this, I'm sure implanted in your mind is like really a fine tuned, fine grained memory of this. The space in this place.

00:17:21:26 - 00:17:44:22
Steve Spindler
You know, when I look at this map, it's that, yes, spending time making the map vacation for me, it's I'm traveling for vacation. That's not there's no other purpose for it. But like, I can see the walk from the windmill to the train is little less than a mile. And I can think about, like, the roads that we took.

00:17:44:22 - 00:18:09:25
Steve Spindler
It's amazing how they've changed, you know, taking a two way road and kept it two way. But put it's a two lane road and they've used one lane for parking and but there's like, you know, you can pull over every now and then, but cars are going basically in the same lane in both directions. And so I just remember those kinds of things where the raised intersections are, where the canals are.

00:18:09:25 - 00:18:17:23
Steve Spindler
And yeah, it really helps me create a mental map. The mental maps more important to me than than the image ultimately.

00:18:17:25 - 00:18:28:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And you mentioned you're, you're typically, you know, you're on vacation during these times and so you're traveling I'm assuming you're traveling with your family or are you on solo vacation?

00:18:28:09 - 00:18:33:12
Steve Spindler
Either my family or my wife, my wife, or maybe like to get an extended family?

00:18:33:15 - 00:18:48:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. But I have to give a shout out to the fact that Yeah, your, your, your, your kids are, are into this stuff too. So they, they enjoy getting out of the bike. This is, this is from a little while ago though.

00:18:48:28 - 00:19:02:16
Steve Spindler
Right. So my daughter Jessica she's at GW now so she's in college and she uses bikeshare in D.C. and she loves the Metro. Yeah, she uses the Metro almost all the time.

00:19:02:18 - 00:19:13:18
John Simmerman
I love I love the title that you had for that that photo that that photos was Girl Power. And it was like she was girl power. And this one is titled Thumbs Up. So.

00:19:13:20 - 00:19:26:24
Steve Spindler
So this is this is I'm glad you brought this up. That's my daughter, Kate, and she's a senior in high school, but she did her college essay on, you know, her love of bicycling.

00:19:26:27 - 00:19:27:05
John Simmerman
wow.

00:19:27:06 - 00:19:49:03
Steve Spindler
Really? There's there's this program called Apogee Adventures. And my kids have done lots of travel all over the world. So there's this program called CIC Children's International Summer Village, where kids, when they're when they're 11, they start traveling around like they'll go in a group delegation of four people. Sorry, this is getting off topic, but I think it's really perfect.

00:19:49:03 - 00:20:12:29
Steve Spindler
That's really important because so when just basically they go and they meet kids from a dozen other countries and spend a month with them learning about each other's cultures, and that's really important today, I think. But so when Jessica was 11, she went to Quito, Ecuador, and when Kate was 11, she went to Vancouver and then Kate went to Brazil and Jessica went to Paris and and Norway.

00:20:12:29 - 00:20:23:03
Steve Spindler
And I can't say enough good things about Cassie. There are these chapters all over the country and they work. It's so I guess that's that's going off in a whole different direction. But, you.

00:20:23:10 - 00:20:24:09
John Simmerman
Know, I did.

00:20:24:10 - 00:20:45:23
Steve Spindler
Travel by themselves. And so apogee Apogee has a lot of the same assets as as CIC. And and so Kate went on this bicycle trip. But I want to get to is is telling you like the joys of keeping your kids on bikes through through high school. So so when she was 11 she did this trip to Vancouver.

00:20:45:26 - 00:21:01:10
Steve Spindler
And when she was 12, my friend PJ asked me if I wanted to buy from our house, which is just north of Philadelphia, to Cape May in New Jersey with his family. So when she was 12, she was like, Yeah, let's do it. So we're about 200 miles.

00:21:01:13 - 00:21:12:06
John Simmerman
Nice, nice. And I'm going to pull up the map here of, of of Jenkintown, where you guys live and how, how large is the the borough itself.

00:21:12:09 - 00:21:14:19
Steve Spindler
It's like three quarters of a square mile.

00:21:14:21 - 00:21:18:12
John Simmerman
Okay. So it's a pretty compact little, little area.

00:21:18:14 - 00:21:20:10
Steve Spindler
We have no school busses.

00:21:20:12 - 00:21:22:11
John Simmerman
You have no school busses.

00:21:22:14 - 00:21:24:21
Steve Spindler
At the smallest school district in the state.

00:21:24:23 - 00:21:44:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. And so I'm going to assume in this me may be inappropriate for me to assume this, but I mean to assume that you're your girls grew up having the run of the place is fairly walkable and they get around on by bike. Were they pretty much free range kids.

00:21:44:18 - 00:21:50:05
Steve Spindler
Yes, but I'm not going to I'm not going to lie that a car helps with that.

00:21:50:07 - 00:21:52:21
John Simmerman
sure, Sure. I mean, I think.

00:21:52:24 - 00:21:53:04
Steve Spindler
This is.

00:21:53:06 - 00:22:24:15
John Simmerman
North America. I mean, after all, this is a car centric world, but I think it gives inspiration to the fact that, you know, hey, when we do what we can to to make a place more walkable and bikeable and traffic calm, when traffic calm, you know, when when we need to and we have to. And suddenly when especially I think for for girls that are, you know, after elementary school because I think you and I may have had this conversation.

00:22:24:18 - 00:23:08:03
John Simmerman
Is it especially for girls, you know, maybe they're riding, you know, walking and riding their bikes to school quite a bit in elementary school and maybe into middle school. But then when they get into high school, oftentimes, it's not cool anymore to be riding your bike. And so you get some pressures, societal pressures. But I think that you can change that from a cultural perspective where a strong active town's culture of activity and the empowerment that takes place and we see this in the Netherlands a lot where, you know, you'll see entire packs of of the tweens and the teenagers, both boys and girls, you know, all over town.

00:23:08:03 - 00:23:16:08
John Simmerman
And it's just so incredibly heartwarming to me to be able to see the free range kids.

00:23:16:10 - 00:23:38:18
Steve Spindler
Yeah, that I my daughters do not like my younger daughter, Kate Bikes. And so she so I told you like she when she was 12 she, we, she also biked from Central Vermont up to Montreal but she doesn't have friends who bike. We tried we tried doing like a Jenkintown bike group. Right. And what sort of like.

00:23:38:18 - 00:23:40:06
John Simmerman
A bike bus or.

00:23:40:06 - 00:23:43:26
Steve Spindler
No, this was like on Saturdays from family bike ride.

00:23:43:28 - 00:23:54:00
John Simmerman
Okay. So more and more recreational in nature, trying to get something like that started. Was there any kind of a culture of other other kids walking and biking to school?

00:23:54:01 - 00:24:00:15
Steve Spindler
There are there are a few a few kids who bike to school and lots of kids walk to school. Okay.

00:24:00:18 - 00:24:03:05
John Simmerman
And that makes sense because there's no busses.

00:24:03:05 - 00:24:12:01
Steve Spindler
Parents don't really want their kids to bike that much because they don't feel safe with their kids biking, even even on a neighborhood street.

00:24:12:03 - 00:24:42:20
John Simmerman
Interesting. So it's still and and what's interesting about that, too, is that I would suspect if if we took this Jenkintown borough and we looked at this place two generations ago, I would think that the kids, you know, in other words, you know, two generations ago, you know, the parent that the parents of the parents of these kids, they probably walked and biked all over the neighborhood in the in the borough.

00:24:42:22 - 00:25:02:24
Steve Spindler
Yeah, They're definitely kids who do bike. I think biking outside of the town becomes hard. And in particular because the the roads are very car centric surrounding the town as well. And then people use people use the town as a cut through sometimes.

00:25:02:26 - 00:25:18:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. So in other words, you're saying it's anywhere USA, North America in terms of yeah, you've got a nice little Hamlet, you know, it's very walkable and bikeable and then then you get you run into the roads and you run into the fast traffic.

00:25:18:26 - 00:25:51:27
Steve Spindler
Yeah. That you can still outside to the right of the, of that map is is a nice park so my daughter often bikes to that park. But what I wanted to say is is like kids biking with other kids is the best thing for like their enthusiasm for bicycling. Right. Like it's not kids biking with their parents. My daughter bikes with me because I'm the last resort, but she's made great friends, like biking, you know, from Oregon down to San Francisco and those kinds of things with other kids her age.

00:25:51:29 - 00:26:16:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's interesting. You know, and that's a rather unique perspective in the sense that that is very much a form of recreational cycling, but it's also has a purpose to it because you're getting from point A to point B and point eight and point B happened to be quite a quite far apart. So I'm not going to say that it's just purely recreation.

00:26:16:24 - 00:26:33:24
John Simmerman
It's not like just going out for a loop ride on any particular day. I mean, it's it's bike tourism, It's, it's actually adventure cycling. And there is an entire genre of cycling around, you know, getting from one place to the next, and you're going to do it under your own power.

00:26:33:27 - 00:27:01:28
Steve Spindler
Well, that and there's also adventure cycling came up with this bike overnights. Yeah, they had they had bike overnights that work for quite a while. So my daughter and I love to do long distance bicycling like bike touring, biking from our house, like leaving after school on a Friday and biking halfway to New York near Princeton and then camping overnight and then biking the rest of the way in the we can take the train back from New York on Saturday.

00:27:02:01 - 00:27:09:00
John Simmerman
Now, earlier you earlier you mentioned Kate's trip. So let's pull up her her her map here. Yeah.

00:27:09:02 - 00:27:17:02
Steve Spindler
This was a this this was her birthday present to me. She was like, dad, for your birthday. Do you want to bike to New York?

00:27:17:04 - 00:27:17:18
John Simmerman
Nice.

00:27:17:24 - 00:27:37:13
Steve Spindler
So. So this is the route from my house. You know, a lot of that. There's that East Coast Greenway. So a lot of this is on the East Coast Greenway and then there's the Staten Island has a great bridge to bike over to Staten Island on that's and then you can take the ferry for free from Staten Island over to Manhattan.

00:27:37:15 - 00:27:45:12
Steve Spindler
Yeah. And then just bring your bike on New Jersey Transit or Amtrak back to Trenton, that kind of thing.

00:27:45:15 - 00:27:52:15
John Simmerman
Very cool. What was this like? I mean, this experience being able to do this with your daughter.

00:27:52:17 - 00:28:18:12
Steve Spindler
You know, the first time, the first long trip we did together was from Ithaca to Niagara Falls, and that was during COVID. And we we had never done any long trips together before. And so I let her really dictate how far we would go. And we started off like with 20 miles and got to 40 miles, and we did a 60 mile day over nine days and did a loop.

00:28:18:19 - 00:28:40:02
Steve Spindler
But there's no better way to spend time with your kids than spend like nine days alone with your daughter. Like exploring together because because when you're both on a bike, you're both responsible. And there were times when, like, you know, my back wheel broke and she went ahead and, you know, checked out a restaurant for us and that kind of thing.

00:28:40:05 - 00:29:06:01
Steve Spindler
So then that was like bicycle touring and that I did that. I think a bicycle map. So the a Tompkins County bike map. So we left our car at my client's house to do that trip. But for this trip we experimented with like ultralight, you know, the gravel bike set up. Okay, So right, so we had, we didn't take panniers, We took, you know, handlebar bags and seat bags.

00:29:06:03 - 00:29:07:06
John Simmerman
nice.

00:29:07:08 - 00:29:09:28
Steve Spindler
And, and that was a lot of fun.

00:29:10:00 - 00:29:16:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. I don't know that you and I have had this conversation. Do you, do you follow my friend Ryan Van Duzer?

00:29:16:06 - 00:29:25:29
Steve Spindler
So, yeah, actually, before we did our trip to Niagara Falls, Ryan had done his bike ride, his love cycle's bike ride right?

00:29:25:29 - 00:29:26:23
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:29:26:25 - 00:29:53:04
Steve Spindler
And going on the Erie Canal. And I actually mapped the Erie Canal for parks and trails New York for their guidebook. And then the Hudson River, the Empire State Trail as well. So nice. It was nice. I think Ryan brings this you know ever since his like Central America videos that like that experience, he just brings great enthusiasm to, you know, regardless of whether it's bicycling or not.

00:29:53:04 - 00:29:55:18
Steve Spindler
I think, you know, Ryan does a great job.

00:29:55:21 - 00:30:16:28
John Simmerman
Well, I mean, just and his his whole thing is inspiring people to get outside and explore and really enjoy the outdoors. And and obviously, bike packing is one thing, you know, that he's been doing with a lot of doing that light set up, you know, on mountain bikes and getting off the road and all of that. You mentioned the love cycles.

00:30:16:28 - 00:31:00:18
John Simmerman
That's when he did the trip with his girlfriend at the time from coast to coast, and they tried to do as much of the off road, you know, off, you know, what am I trying to say? The off road trails, like the canals, like here we've got the DNR canal here. And so that was a big part of that was to try to loop together and link together and get off of the busy highway sort of experience, which sometimes that's one of the challenges with bike touring, is you end up on some really nasty car sewers and then you're just dying to be able to get on to a quiet country road or one of

00:31:00:18 - 00:31:01:29
John Simmerman
these canal paths.

00:31:02:02 - 00:31:26:01
Steve Spindler
You know, you bring up a good point, but I must say so the DNR canal, we based on the DNR, came, then we got off of it and we biked next to it. Great roads next to it. And and a lot of times and same with the Erie Canal. We we bait West on the Erie Canal. But we came back around Lake Ontario and I think you missed out on a lot if you just stick to the trails.

00:31:26:03 - 00:32:10:14
John Simmerman
Right Yeah especially if those trails aren't well connected to the villages and all of that. And that's one of the things that I try to emphasize with any of these off road, you know, types of pathways off street network of pathways is ensuring that there is that connectivity and that really the sort of a melding with the villages that they're going through in the case of many of the rail trail conversions, that it's quite natural because those were previous rail stops, you know, into the towns, in the villages and sometimes with the canals too.

00:32:10:16 - 00:32:32:10
John Simmerman
But yeah, it's if you're not really in, in intentional about it and this gets back to the planning side of things is working with the community members to say, you know, hey, you know, what would be the like the intelligent places for you to connect with these trails and these pathways so that they can be functional and much more.

00:32:32:10 - 00:32:37:29
John Simmerman
You're much more apt to use them and In Hope helps serve some utilitarian trips.

00:32:37:29 - 00:33:09:00
Steve Spindler
To Yet another aspect of that is not just the connectivity, but the connectivity to camping, the overnight camping. So yes, we have we have the penny pack trail that's right by your house. It's just east and back channel in Philadelphia. And now there's a trail that goes up through Montgomery County. And and along that trail, there's actually a campground that people don't really know about, but it's a youth use campground for a group camping, but it doesn't show up on this map.

00:33:09:00 - 00:33:35:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, I notice I know it doesn't show up on this one, but I wanted to I don't think we had a map of that. But I love the fact that I glanced over and I'm like, with camping options. So this is to your point is, is, you know, kind of identifying some routes and, you know, and I think this is really important for when you're thinking out these routes of you know for bike touring is the fact that yeah.

00:33:35:28 - 00:33:39:06
John Simmerman
What are the camping options that are along these routes.

00:33:39:09 - 00:34:03:25
Steve Spindler
Yes. And sometimes you're not going to make it to your campsite, right. Like, even if, if even if there is when I saw people camping along the the Hudson River Greenway for the Empire State Trail and also sometimes you need to just get off get off the trail. Still, the another aspect of it is there might be campsites Hickory Run State Park which is on this map near the plant.

00:34:03:27 - 00:34:28:24
Steve Spindler
It's kind of between Jim Thorpe and the black diamond trailhead in the center that's about 100 miles from my house. So I biked up there for a meeting and it was March. And that camps, it said, you know, camp ground open year round. But There wasn't it wasn't opened in the state park. So I ended up like just camping along a creek, you know, road camping.

00:34:29:01 - 00:34:47:26
Steve Spindler
And you don't really want to have to feel like like you have to do that. There are warm showers, you know, warm showers that work and things like that. But people I found are really like, if you just stop and ask them, they're they're often more than happy to let you put your tent up or just stay on their living room floor.

00:34:47:26 - 00:35:06:18
Steve Spindler
Yeah. Or a couple of years ago we were biking from Penn Yan in New York to Buffalo, and we didn't make it to the campsite that we wanted to. And we stopped at a fire station. And then, you know, all these volunteer firemen were outside and they said, Sure, you can put your tent up behind the fire station.

00:35:06:18 - 00:35:31:16
Steve Spindler
And they left the door open. Yeah. And for so we could use the bathroom and that kind of thing. And people are really when you're biking, it's a great way to see it's a great way to see the good human nature of people. Yeah, when I was back in 93, I in Philadelphia to Victoria, British Columbia, and when I was leaving town I was at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and there was a homeless guy there.

00:35:31:16 - 00:36:04:13
Steve Spindler
He was like, Are you scared? There are no people there around her. And I found, you know, as I was biking people in rural areas were often scared of people in urban areas like but but they're all nice, you know. Yeah. Anyway, the camping getting back to like the hiker biker campsites are something that we really need in Pennsylvania and the East Coast, kind of like you have in Oregon, where you're biking down the west, you know, the Oregon coast and you see people from all over the world at hiker biker sites.

00:36:04:19 - 00:36:06:14
Steve Spindler
It's a very international experience.

00:36:06:21 - 00:36:35:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And I'll echo kind of what you were saying, too, you know, from the perspective of watching, you know, Ryan's content and, you know, it's seems like every other video, he's like, you know, meeting up with somebody on the trail. He calls them trail angels. And, you know, he'll be in a tight spot. And then the next thing he knows, he's able to connect with somebody, especially like in Sweden.

00:36:35:09 - 00:37:03:27
John Simmerman
He did that the whole length of Sweden and, you know, was able to connect multiple times when he wasn't able to get to the desired stopping place or the weather was terrible. And yeah, the just the the level of of welcoming folks you know, out there on the road and you know, he would just, you know, knock and say, you know, where's a good place for me to stay And there be like, you can stay here.

00:37:03:29 - 00:37:32:19
John Simmerman
And so you just I think that's part of is we just have to be less fearful of others and in people that we don't, you know, really know I mean strangers it's like the fearfulness of of strangers. And I think that if we have it in our heart and I think Ryan says this beautifully, he's just like he his default mode is always to think good about other people.

00:37:32:21 - 00:37:44:15
Steve Spindler
You know, the other thing that scares people, I'm doing long distance rides is failure of your bike or or traffic. Both of those things. And or your body.

00:37:44:17 - 00:38:03:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. Or your body. Yeah. Yeah. Well we'll talk about the talk about that a little bit is you know especially like from the standpoint of your daughters, I mean I get the sense that there's a sense of self efficacy and self-confidence that has built up over time with them that, yeah, I can handle this, I can do this.

00:38:03:04 - 00:38:10:03
John Simmerman
I'm sure there were were times early on where they didn't necessarily think that they could do it.

00:38:10:06 - 00:38:35:14
Steve Spindler
Well, we started off biking together and I don't know, I think they when my older daughter, you know, would revolt against bicycling as a family and my younger daughter, I always made sure my younger daughter had the best bike possible. And it helped that my yeah, Fuji is located you know, is located in Philadelphia. And so she grew up on all these different foods.

00:38:35:14 - 00:39:05:01
Steve Spindler
And then that was just kind of nice. But like I think having a really nice bike helps helps people, helps girls to you want to bike and if you're on a nice bike, it's just it just helps. You're just reducing the barrier. So I don't think my kids ever when my kids are like three and five or something like that, we moved from one part of taking down to the other and we we pulled, you know, I had my older daughter pulling a trailer behind her little bike.

00:39:05:01 - 00:39:21:05
Steve Spindler
Then we would we got one of these bikes that work trailers. I don't know if you've seen those. They're like nine feet long. And so we would my friend Mike Dennis, mother from northern New Jersey, came down and he was pulling this trailer. And, you know, people were coming to help us move by bike.

00:39:21:08 - 00:39:21:22
John Simmerman
Our knee.

00:39:21:25 - 00:39:42:14
Steve Spindler
From one house to the other. As a parent, you know, I had Congressman Blumenauer from Oregon, Earl Blumenauer, he he came to our town. And so I made sure my daughter met with him. And she asked him like, why do you like bikes? And yeah, so I was I was very proactive as a parent to to get my kids engaged with bikes.

00:39:42:18 - 00:39:43:28
John Simmerman
But engagement bikes.

00:39:44:00 - 00:39:50:21
Steve Spindler
Know you can't you can't teach you can't force your kids to do anything when they like to bike. And one did.

00:39:50:23 - 00:40:10:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, no problem. I pulled this map up simply because it it, it basically has the Appalachian Trail identified. This is the Lehigh Gap and just an and a half away from from where you're at now is that an hour and a half away, Bike riding or bike ride.

00:40:10:06 - 00:40:32:20
Steve Spindler
Yeah, that's that's my car. Okay. But you could you could it would be a good day trip. You bike up there and camp. Okay. And then there's a campsite where the bridge crosses the river there. Yeah. For, for canoeing. So you could make up their camp and then back home the next day would be a good trip. And it's on the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Trail.

00:40:32:22 - 00:40:36:19
Steve Spindler
Yeah. So that's a lot of it's is on trail.

00:40:36:21 - 00:40:41:21
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Yeah. And I noticed that this is clearly one of your maps.

00:40:41:23 - 00:40:49:20
Steve Spindler
No, this was just for fun, you know, like this. This wasn't for any client or anything. I just. I like to just. Yeah.

00:40:49:23 - 00:40:57:27
John Simmerman
Well, that's exactly what I meant by one of your maps You did. It looks like you did this just for fun. Yeah, that's fantastic.

00:40:57:27 - 00:41:22:00
Steve Spindler
And that this one used that used, like, land use. You know, we had been looking at that. This map from the Netherlands. And different, you know, when you have land use patterns that are, like, so separate from like the town and then then that the agricultural areas, their natural areas, it gives you much more to work with for mapping.

00:41:22:03 - 00:41:32:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's just absolutely beautiful, the work that you're doing. And talk us through what you were looking at doing here.

00:41:32:22 - 00:41:59:13
Steve Spindler
So we were doing a family trip this summer to base and I didn't have I actually didn't know where we were going. It's basically between Utrecht and Amsterdam. And I was just curious as to like, I figured if I made a map, this this map shows more transit, okay? And I figured if I made a map, it would just give me more of a sense of where we were going before we went there.

00:41:59:15 - 00:42:08:15
Steve Spindler
Like, I can't. It's hard for me to visualize. Like, I could put, like, points where we might want to go, but I, I needed to spatially make the map so I could visualize it.

00:42:08:17 - 00:42:16:13
John Simmerman
Nice. Yeah. You're I think, Steve, your brain thinks in maps.

00:42:16:15 - 00:42:39:11
Steve Spindler
It's not very linear. I go, I get distracted and go all over the place. But so using maps, like for me, I was an English major in college and like my final semester in college, I took a class, a cartography class, and I was like, it was this is by hand. This is like 1990. And and I thought, I can spend a lot of time and make something that I like.

00:42:39:11 - 00:42:43:18
Steve Spindler
So yeah, I just kind of stuck with it. Yeah.

00:42:43:21 - 00:42:56:18
John Simmerman
Okay. As a scroll on your, your, your web page a little bit here, what final thoughts do you have anything that we haven't already covered that you'd like to share with the audience?

00:42:56:21 - 00:43:24:11
Steve Spindler
You know, a lot of what I've been doing is public engagement and I think, you know, a lot of times we have public engagement around. I like that way. And if you click on that, this is in Illinois this summer. If you if you I don't think public engagement begins with like a long, long range plan. Like right now there might be like a 20, 35 or 2050 or whatever plan that a community is doing.

00:43:24:11 - 00:43:51:05
Steve Spindler
But as like elected leaders and representatives, I think we need to be communicating with people on a regular basis because once like so I started an email list on Election Day. I was running for our borough council and I thought, you know, when I had no people signed up for my email list, I thought, this isn't going to go anywhere.

00:43:51:05 - 00:44:20:19
Steve Spindler
I was ready to give up. And then by the end of day we had like with help from others, I had like 87 people and you know, that's doubled like in the last month. I think that public engagement starts with letting people know how they can connect with you and being in concept, you know, talking about not just problems, but talking about systems, you know, how this, you know, road with 40,000 cars is affected in different areas, not just our town.

00:44:20:21 - 00:44:46:02
Steve Spindler
Then you find out, you know, what concerns are. So for me, I just in the last week, you know, I've connected with, you know, government leaders from nearby communities and I'm learning about what they're doing. And even if, you know, our jurisdictions are right next to each other, but it's so easy to not pay attention to what's going on next to you.

00:44:46:05 - 00:45:02:08
Steve Spindler
So I just think that, you know, we can do things as communities or we can do things as more Council of governments and collaboratively. But that ongoing communication with people I think is is key. Yeah.

00:45:02:11 - 00:45:07:13
John Simmerman
What would you say is the main reason you were inspired to run and serve?

00:45:07:15 - 00:45:11:02
Steve Spindler
I avoided it for a long time.

00:45:11:04 - 00:45:15:21
John Simmerman
And then you just suddenly said, Well, it's time for me to step up and serve. You know.

00:45:15:24 - 00:45:42:06
Steve Spindler
I was president of our Business improvement district. So like economic development can kind of take neighbors and residents, residents and businesses and this and that was several years ago and really got burned out. Yeah. And but before that, like, I think I've had so many experiences I've served on cept a citizen advisory committee and been a board member of the Bicycle Coalition and Neighborhood bike works in the past.

00:45:42:06 - 00:46:19:05
Steve Spindler
And I have the experience and I just figure I can use this by being on Borough council. I can use as a platform to get other people to step up. Does that make sense? Yeah, You know, it's yeah, it people can't people aren't going to step up unless they understand how things work. So I can talk about, you know, in my email, I can talk about the transportation improvement plan and how that relates to the state plan and you know, how that relates to the fact that another municipality got $16 million and we did those kinds of things.

00:46:19:07 - 00:46:48:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for doing that, because I think that that is is something that I say to every single person who is an elected official as well as city staff. I thank them because it oftentimes is a thankless endeavor. And and we absolutely do need people to step up and do that. And so it's vitally important that good people do that.

00:46:48:26 - 00:47:06:12
Steve Spindler
Thanks. And people do like like our borough council has 12 people on it and they all work really hard. And but as we always to be letting other people know what's going on and and how hard people are working on their behalf. Right. So yeah, yeah.

00:47:06:14 - 00:47:13:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Steve, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been such a joy and pleasure catching up once again.

00:47:13:27 - 00:47:15:06
Steve Spindler
It's my pleasure. Thanks, John.

00:47:15:09 - 00:47:30:26
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Steve Spindler 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, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the Active Tales Channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell.

00:47:31:02 - 00:47:51:10
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content that I'm producing here on the Active Towns channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming a patron on member Hit Buy Me a Coffee or YouTube Super Thanks right down below. Buying things from the active tell store helps out a great deal as well, as well as making donations to the nonprofit and special announcement.

00:47:51:10 - 00:48:13:24
John Simmerman
Here I am going to be reconnecting with my good friend Ryan Van Duzer, who I mentioned in this episode. We are going to be doing a Livestream holiday celebration. It's an annual thing that Ryan I like to do, and that will be on Friday, the 22nd, and that will be 2 p.m. Eastern. So please join in. It's always wonderful to have you along for the ride.

00:48:13:26 - 00:48:37:18
John Simmerman
And until then, this is John signing off by wishing you which activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you 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 towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

00:48:37:21 - 00:48:38:28
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.