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

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:19:26
Gemma
We are tired of waiting. Waiting for something to happen and we are waiting for infrastructure. We are waiting for more people to get their bikes, but that is something that we actually can do right now. And it's as easy as just get for more families in the school who are also willing to do this. And we can just go and then it grows and grows.

00:00:19:29 - 00:00:40:00
Gemma
And I think the powerful thing of the bike bus is that it creates this bike culture, that it's a thing of a pack, of a group of people that are really excited about cycling, about cycling together. And they are. It's like an affirmation that, okay, this is what we should be doing. We should do it more often.

00:00:40:02 - 00:01:04:25
John
Aloha, everyone. Welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is from Barcelona. We are going to be talking about some of the research that she is doing in the area of bike bus globally, and this is going to be so much fun. I'm so excited to have you here. But before we get started, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an active town's ambassador.

00:01:04:25 - 00:01:22:17
John
Hey, it's super easy to do. Just click on the joined button right here on YouTube, or you can navigate over to Active Towns, or click on the support tab at the top of the page. And there's several different options, including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons duke it early and ad free access to all of this video content. Okay, let's get right to it.

00:01:22:24 - 00:01:28:01
John
Gemma.

00:01:28:03 - 00:01:33:12
John
Gemma, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:01:33:14 - 00:01:35:11
Gemma
Thanks to you.

00:01:35:13 - 00:01:40:22
John
I love giving my guests just a quick little opportunity to introduce themselves. So who the heck is Gemma?

00:01:40:24 - 00:02:19:20
Gemma
Yeah, so I am a researcher. I'm currently working in Blanca Ramon University in Barcelona, and I have been previously also an active mobility. More concretely, a bypass activist in my hometown, first in Valencia, where I was born and later in Spain, and more generally and in Barcelona. And then I started doing research and the research started to be on the bypass.

00:02:19:23 - 00:02:27:00
Gemma
And here I'm continuing to researcher about children's mobility, children's active mobility.

00:02:27:02 - 00:02:56:19
John
I love it, I love it. That is so much fun. You know, you know what the best part of my job is? Can you guess? Can you get it's it's connecting with people from all over the world. So yeah, I mean, this is fantastic. So Valencia's where you you originated and all that. Now you're down in Barcelona. That's the great thing about what I'm doing there is you can see Valencia right down in there.

00:02:56:21 - 00:03:28:03
John
Now, the only time I visited Spain, the only time I've actually been on the ground filming and interviewing folks was when I visited down in Sevilla, Sevilla. And so that was wonderful to, to to meet up with the folks down there and to, you know, profile the bike network that they tried to, to build very, very quickly back in 2009 through 2011 and really trying to work fast to, to be able to do that.

00:03:28:06 - 00:03:33:18
John
And so, yeah, I had Manu Calvo on, on the channel a couple of times.

00:03:33:19 - 00:03:34:20
Gemma
I know him, I know.

00:03:34:20 - 00:03:35:26
Gemma
Him, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:36:02 - 00:03:46:04
John
That's great. So you mentioned that your, your specific area study is bike bus y bike bus.

00:03:46:07 - 00:04:20:01
Gemma
Well that was a decision that was made by by going. So I was in my first year of the pad. So I had to decide the topic on the well it was very broad. I still had time to to choose. And we were hearing already about the bike bus that had started in a in a close by town in week, and we were excited about it, but we were not so, so enthusiastic because, I don't know, it was just there.

00:04:20:02 - 00:04:58:19
Gemma
We didn't think that Barcelona, could be a place that this could happen or it was necessary. But then, well, someone started, then another followed, and then suddenly we had a huge bypass here. And of course, me as a previous activist. And so I knew already some people are we went there just to see, just to help. And then suddenly it was clear that, okay, that's the thing I have to research, because that is just so exciting and so interesting that it is something worth knowing more.

00:04:58:21 - 00:05:21:18
John
Yeah, yeah. Now for somebody tuning in right now, somewhere around the world, which which is the great thing about doing this type of content to is people tune in from everywhere. Describe what a bike bus is. If nobody has heard that term or if they kind of know, but they don't really know what is a bike bus.

00:05:21:20 - 00:05:30:04
Gemma
Yeah, I get a lot of people that say, that when you put your bike on a bus and you.

00:05:30:07 - 00:05:57:04
Gemma
So a bike bus is just a group of children and families that decide to go together to school. And it is similar to a bike in this in, to a school bus in the sense that they chose a road and they have stops. So maybe some people meet at the beginning, but then some people may join later on on the way and it finishes in the school.

00:05:57:07 - 00:06:18:17
John
Yeah, I love it, I love it. And and we have a, you know, a little video here. And it was great about these videos and, and video plays a big part in how the bike bus movement has exploded globally. But these are just joyful. These are amazing.

00:06:18:19 - 00:06:19:23
Gemma
Yeah.

00:06:19:26 - 00:06:45:03
Gemma
Yeah, this actually it's a very special video as well, because it was the video that made by the bypass because as I as I had said previously, the bike was, was not new. Not even at all. Actually, the activists or the cycle trainers that that we have here and they're in Spain, they already knew about it, but we didn't think that was so powerful.

00:06:45:03 - 00:07:12:27
Gemma
It was somehow rediscovered. And this video made the bike bus very well known, and it actually inspired way more bypasses around here, but also internationally. So in the UK they also started in in Germany there was also a lot of bypasses and well, it looked like it all came from this then later in the US as well. And as you were showing here.

00:07:12:29 - 00:07:26:29
Gemma
This first part of the of the research that we did was to find out. Okay. Then one day, when did the bike ride start? No. And so we see that it comes really far away from.

00:07:27:02 - 00:07:59:09
John
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, the origins of course, you know, what it really is, is like you said, you know, it's like, you know, similar to like a, a bus, you know, there's a fixed route. And really the logistics of it is, you know, you, you get a handful of adults that help shepherd a whole bunch of kids on in mass, in a whole bunch of, you know, kind of taking over the space and rolling down, you know, to school, you know, to other locations if it's a, if a different location.

00:07:59:09 - 00:08:35:15
John
But, you know, the spirit of it's, it's their safety in numbers. And so and then you add other elements that make it fun, like, you know, Sam, Balto, they're in in Oregon, Portland, Oregon. He loves to crank the music up. And so it becomes like a dance party sort of thing, a rolling party, if you will. And some of the early videos, like you said, like the, the, the, the viral video of, you know, Barcelona, that was the one that caught his attention and inspired him to, you know, to do the Alameda school.

00:08:35:17 - 00:09:05:20
John
You know, bike bus there in Portland, Oregon. Sam and I literally recorded another episode yesterday and, and and he told the story about how, you know, he put that that video, he did a little video clip, put it out on Twitter. Slash now known as X, formerly known as Twitter and then also on TikTok. And it just exploded, you know, and next thing he knew, he was being interviewed by television stations, you know, from all across the United States.

00:09:05:27 - 00:09:24:18
John
And and then now he's, you know, attracting attention of superstars, pop stars and, and musicians and, and, you know, folks, you know, in Hollywood that are like, this is really cool. This is really fun. There's something special about this, isn't there?

00:09:24:21 - 00:09:52:21
Gemma
Yeah. But then I think the the curious part is that we already somehow knew about it, but it got strong and it got super excited just now. So like somehow the world was not prepared yet for, for this to to to happen so so much. And yeah, I guess it's just how cities are becoming are starting to become more friendly spaces.

00:09:52:21 - 00:10:20:15
Gemma
So it's not absolutely hostile. And you can start thinking about something like this. And of course also the bypass makes the right way more safe. No. And it's also a way to to also ask for, for even more change. One thing that one parent told me once is that where they are, well, we are all tired of waiting.

00:10:20:22 - 00:10:46:22
Gemma
Waiting for something to happen and we are waiting for infrastructure. We are waiting for more people together bikes. But that is something that we actually can do right now. And it as easy as just get four more families in school who are also willing to do this, and we can just go and then it grows and grows. And this is just a picture of that shows how much people did they gather.

00:10:46:29 - 00:11:13:11
Gemma
This is in the upper part of that. It's more hilly part. It's actually one of the longest, well, the longest road in Barcelona and quite deep in some parts. And well, sadly now those are not working anymore. But, well, it peaked and it was so much, people participating in so much fun and so much enthusiasm. That was, well, really nice.

00:11:13:13 - 00:11:14:17
Gemma
Yeah.

00:11:14:19 - 00:11:41:01
John
I love what you said there too, is that, you know, this is an indication to of there's there's a problem, there's an issue, there's this car dependency and car dominance that has taken place, which has made doing something like this necessary. I can never forget, you know, when I first interviewed Sam Balto and Megan Raimi and, and I got my videos out there on YouTube.

00:11:41:06 - 00:12:13:00
John
And at the time, I had this huge Dutch audience and the Dutch were, like, chiming, going, I don't get it. What's what's the issue? Why a bike buzz? And they had a really hard time understanding that the rest of the world isn't like the Netherlands, where, you know, in most cases, you know, not all Dutch cities are super, super bike friendly, but most are, kids just are able to ride and have the, you know, be able to get around their cities just naturally.

00:12:13:01 - 00:12:39:01
John
And whenever I'm in the Netherlands filming, it's it's so cool to, you know, quote unquote film the bike busses that that just naturally occur every single day because it's so cool. You'll be like riding down a street or whatever at at the time when the kids are starting to roll to school and they'll be rolling along, and then a friend will be waiting and and they'll, like, join up.

00:12:39:01 - 00:12:59:24
John
And then you continue on a little bit more in another Fendall join. And they just do that and it's just natural. And you know after school same thing. You know they leave after school and they go to after school activities. You know whether it's field hockey or whatever. And and they just they're all riding in packs. That's the point.

00:13:00:01 - 00:13:25:18
John
We want to get to the point where we change our streets, change our infrastructure so that it's normal for kids, again to have independence and freedom of mobility. You probably notice my coffee mug. You know, streets are for people. We need to transform our streets back into being places for people. And here's a newsflash folks are kids. Or people too.

00:13:25:25 - 00:13:27:25
John
Yeah.

00:13:27:27 - 00:13:54:24
Gemma
Yeah, definitely. And I think, like it also came now that we're talking, how of course we want and we need to to change how how streets look like. But in the end, streets are also designed by people. And we also need the whole mass of, of of culture of bike. Right. And people who understand why we really need safer and healthier cities and healthier places.

00:13:54:26 - 00:14:15:12
Gemma
And I think the powerful thing of the bike was it's that it creates this bike culture, that it's it's a thing of a pack of a group of people that are really excited about cycling, about cycling together. And they are, it's like an affirmation that, okay, this is what we should be doing. We should do it more often.

00:14:15:14 - 00:14:41:26
Gemma
And I think, yeah, probably in the Netherlands they are not so excited because they already have it. They already know how how great it is to cycle. But we need to rediscover and rediscover the group. And I don't I don't know how it is in the pleasure based. But here, if you cycle, even though we have a nice infrastructure, we're starting to have you usually cycle alone.

00:14:41:29 - 00:15:04:16
Gemma
Usually. Well, maybe you're lucky and your friends are also bike freaks and you bike with people. But even even if you have friends, most of the time, the infrastructure is so narrow that it's forgoing one by one. It's not to cycle in a group. No. So we need this group feeling this, this thing of cycling together.

00:15:04:19 - 00:15:32:22
John
I'm really glad that you mentioned that too, because essentially riding a bike is like pedestrian. Plus, okay, it's one thing if you are a a sports cyclist, if you're a racer, okay, that's that's a completely different category. You know, of type of cyclist. You know, those are like, you know, sportive and recreation. The Dutch have two words for, for for people who ride bikes.

00:15:32:22 - 00:15:57:22
John
One is a fixin. You know, if if you are a feature, then you're just you're getting on a bike to get to to meaningful destinations or via Renner or wheel runner. If you're a sports cyclist, a racer. And so there's two different kind of context context and category. Are you using for your your your bike for sport or are you using it for transport?

00:15:57:25 - 00:16:25:25
John
And if you're using it for transport, you're just a person. You're not a cyclist per se. You know, you're not a freak. You know, you're just a normal person who knows that pedestrian plus is very practical and pragmatic. I want to be able to get to my destination, regardless of my age, regardless of my ability. I want to be able to get to my destination, you know, safely and comfortably.

00:16:26:00 - 00:16:48:25
John
And I'm really glad that you mentioned the narrowness of many of our bicycle infrastructure. No cities stop doing that. Stop building bike infrastructure so narrow that you have to ride single file. You need to be able to ride with a friend. A parent needs to be able to ride side by side with a child and still have enough space for somebody to pass them.

00:16:48:27 - 00:17:24:16
John
So build your infrastructure wider. Wider is better if it's specially if it's protected infrastructure, protected bike lanes. So that because it should be a inherently social activity where you should be able to ride side by side. So that's that's a huge thing. I love the concept that you just described here too, because when you see a photo like this where you see in mass and number, and then you see like the video of everybody there, it reframes how the rest of society thinks about the streets.

00:17:24:19 - 00:17:48:04
John
It reframes how the community thinks about what streets are for. And I think that's the the seed that has to get planted before people think, oh, that looks fun. I want my little children to be able to do this too, because they're having a blast. They arrive to school happy, engaged, ready to learn. This is really fun stuff.

00:17:48:07 - 00:17:56:28
John
So what's in a name? What's in a name? So bike train bike bus BC bus. Bus.

00:17:57:01 - 00:18:27:03
Gemma
Well, this has many reasons why I wanted to show it. One well, the more practical one when I was looking for the first bike bus. It's also very challenging even to make a map because they call so many things I don't. Well, one of them is in BC. It's not even similar to bypass. But even also I think what this represents, it's that there is no only one way to do a bike path.

00:18:27:09 - 00:18:52:05
Gemma
There is not only one type or one correct way, because of course the most, colorful or well known bike busses are those that are big, like this first period that I showed of, of or the one of that they are very big, but they don't have to be that big. It can be also just five families or even three families.

00:18:52:05 - 00:19:12:22
Gemma
And that would also be even an absolute win if that makes that more and more schools that maybe they don't have enough people, or maybe it's not even necessary because here in Barcelona, for example, or in Spain in general, the people live in a very dense city, so most of the children can walk to their to their schools.

00:19:12:28 - 00:19:42:20
Gemma
But, it's just that, okay, we don't need to make huge bike busses. It can be just a couple of or families. And well, also related to this diversity is also the types of bike busses that exist because some of them are organized by families. But we also can find bike busses that are organized by municipalities, or that the schools organize them or or.

00:19:42:22 - 00:20:24:04
Gemma
Well, there are some different types. It can also be mixed and well, it's also sometimes which one is the best model. Well there's some of them have problems and have cons, but there are so many are so many types of viruses. Actually in this first graph of of when the bike busses started and how they exploded one well, the first outburst of bypasses, you can see here the 2013 that is a bike path program that it's happening in, in Bogota, in Colombia, that well, it's the whole city.

00:20:24:05 - 00:20:42:24
Gemma
It's driven, it's organized by the municipality, by the school department, and it is just a means to get to school. It's not an active transportation program. And while it's the biggest program of bypasses in the world, to my knowledge.

00:20:43:00 - 00:20:43:21
Gemma
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:43:28 - 00:21:23:29
John
And what's really interesting too is of course, Bogota is world famous for its it's open streets events that happen on Sunday. And so, you know, back when Indrek Penalosa and his brother, you know, Gilpin were were the mayor and the parks director, respectively. You know, they rolled out and really made it famous. The, you know, that whole, that whole cycle via Open Streets event and then some, you know, open Streets events were everywhere, all around the world and especially in the United States, in New York and in other locations.

00:21:23:29 - 00:21:52:27
John
And so I look at those types of activities open streets, events, masses, critical mass, bike, bus. I call these software activity assets, software activity assets because they're programing. They're types of things that bring life to our streets and bring life to the infrastructure that we build. And of course, the infrastructure or what I call hardware activity assets. It's the built environment.

00:21:52:27 - 00:22:19:24
John
We can put a pin in a map and say, hey, over here, we've got a protected bike lane, and over there we've got a feet start, we've got a bike Priority Street. And so I think it's important to understand that, you know, these types of programs, these types of initiatives, are the things that we do that bring, like we said earlier, bring awareness of the community to what our streets can be.

00:22:19:27 - 00:22:43:06
John
And I think it generates excitement, you know, and it allows the virality of things. It allows things to catch fire. The saying was always before build it and they will come build the hardware and build the infrastructure and they will come. That's partly true, because if you don't build the infrastructure, they won't be able to come. Okay.

00:22:43:10 - 00:23:09:17
John
But at the same time, it's like you, you you also have to understand the, the magic of the software activity assets of generating the momentum and interest in demand. So I think the hardware and the software will work together synergistically together. And I think that's the beauty of this. And yeah, it's interesting how things just kind of move along, move along, and all of a sudden they, they.

00:23:09:20 - 00:23:16:05
Gemma
Spike up and then they, they kind of plateau and then they spike up again on the, on the second.

00:23:16:05 - 00:23:24:24
John
Spike that we saw, that was, you know, right around 2019 or so, do we have any indication as to what caused that spike?

00:23:24:26 - 00:23:53:28
Gemma
Yes. It's the the Barcelona video that started way more other bypasses around the world. Well, first it was the one in big that I mentioned, the one that in this Catalan city. And then it came, the one in Barcelona who inspired way more. And of course, this is also a partial map, but I think it captures somehow how this has been developing.

00:23:54:00 - 00:23:54:16
Gemma
Yeah.

00:23:54:18 - 00:24:19:26
John
And I want to point out to that on here as well, is we see a bike bus for adults. And I think that that's another thing that gets lost, is that we have many adults that might want to ride to their meaningful destinations, whether it's a work or just downtown or to an event that would do so if they felt safer in a group to do so.

00:24:20:01 - 00:24:52:14
John
So I'm encouraged when I see and this taps into my background, is a public health professional who looks at behavior change and says, well, how do we support, how do we put the scaffolding in place that encourages healthy, active living? And that might be helping people understand what is possible. And one way that you can do that is even for adults, say, hey, you know what, let's get together as a group and we'll ride to this destination, whether it's work or whether it's play or etc. so that's good to see that.

00:24:52:14 - 00:24:55:23
John
You also accounted for some of the adult bike busses to.

00:24:55:25 - 00:25:33:23
Gemma
The same way that they some companies may encourage carpooling. No. So it's also a way to chain to travel together. So it could also be a way my university. They also encouraged by encouraged bike busses. At some point they make some roads and also some parents from some bike paths in this Catalan city that started first here around, they also made an adult bike path after they left the school to to work, or maybe had to go to another village and they went together.

00:25:33:25 - 00:26:04:01
Gemma
And this picture connects also with this idea of building. And they will come. And it is. Yeah, of course some people may come, especially those people that already cycle for sport or that are very, skillful on top of a bike. Or maybe they are more fearless, but there's the population learning to grow their skills, which are the children.

00:26:04:03 - 00:26:39:03
Gemma
And at the same time, there's a lot of adult population that may love to cycle, or they have not even started thinking about it because they are too scared to think about it. And the great thing about the bike was, was to give the possibility, to children or to anyone in the end, to participate, regardless their their skills on the bike, because, well, you can see here it's so safe that a kid without pedals in his bike can still attend that.

00:26:39:06 - 00:26:58:12
Gemma
That helped them bring the skills and the ability, and not only for children. Some parents also said or some other bypasses there, or those families that are not usually cycling in their daily life. They also improve. So the bike was it's also for the parts.

00:26:58:14 - 00:27:01:00
Gemma
Yeah, yeah, I love that I love that and.

00:27:01:00 - 00:27:02:01
John
This, this kind of.

00:27:02:06 - 00:27:03:06
Gemma

00:27:03:08 - 00:27:31:20
John
Illustrates the example that I was giving earlier of make our, our cycling infrastructure, our network of cycling infrastructure, make sure that it's wide enough that a parent can be side by side with a child. Boom. Right here, side by side with a child. And and you see it in the Netherlands all the time. You'll you'll see a parent riding right next to a child who's on their little bike, and they'll just give a nice, gentle, you know, hand behind.

00:27:31:20 - 00:27:53:15
John
And and as they're doing it, they're talking, they're talking about writing skills. They're talking about, you know, riding in traffic and all of that. And, and again, if we want to see more people writing more often, getting to meaningful destinations, we have to make it comfortable. We have to make it safe. We have to make it inviting.

00:27:53:20 - 00:28:16:01
John
And these are the types of elements that that help reinforce that. So and when you have people writing in numbers, it just feels safer. You don't feel like a freak. You don't feel like somebody who is a, a an activist about it. You're just a normal person who says, my destination isn't that far. It would be silly to try to drive there.

00:28:16:03 - 00:28:33:02
John
I should just walk or bike. Yeah, this is beautiful. I love this photo. I want to pop over to the report that that you had put together for a city lab, Barcelona. And I'll have you introduced this for the audience.

00:28:33:04 - 00:28:54:04
Gemma
Well, this is just a short section of my results of my PhD in in an easy way. So someone that is just interested can read through. What are the main findings that, that I got. Yeah, I can go through them if you want.

00:28:54:05 - 00:29:13:26
John
Yeah. Go for it. Yeah I think this is fantastic. And we'll, we'll obviously provide a link to this, this article in the show notes. So folks you can if you're listening to this, only if you're the listening only audience, it'll be in your show notes. If you're watching this here on YouTube or on Patreon, all include that link in the description down below.

00:29:13:28 - 00:29:16:01
John
Go ahead. Take it away.

00:29:16:03 - 00:29:53:14
Gemma
Yes. So? Well, some of them, we already mentioned them. Right. The protection of the group. How how is the bike path changing? The the culture of cycling within families. So this protection that makes it easier for children and for parents to learn how to cycle together and develop these cycling skills, but also, the visibility. So of course, if you're just walking on the street and you meet this, well, there are different kinds of reactions.

00:29:53:16 - 00:30:28:17
Gemma
Some people may hate it, but in, in general people. Well, of course, stop and see what's happening. Many smile, many laughs or, or clap. And it is, also a way to make a behavior that it's not so common. So these families, even though most of the participant families were already cyclists, there was a part who started, but even those who did not join yet, at least they know it is a option.

00:30:28:23 - 00:30:51:28
Gemma
And they have seen people do it. Because in the end, we learn to do things by watching other people. And in these countries that we don't cycle normally for for commuting purposes, we don't have a way to learn because we have not learned that from our parents. Putting a hand after our back on tell us how to do things.

00:30:52:00 - 00:31:20:14
Gemma
So the way we have to learn all these things are all these parents that are already cycling with their kids. They are self-taught. They have to trial and error, find the best way to put the bike seat. The children sit in the front in the bar where it's best. So now the this bike pass is already displaying all the ways that you can cycle with kids and all these new equipment so you can see it.

00:31:20:14 - 00:31:43:26
Gemma
And then if you want to do it in the future, you already have some examples. So that is the more visibility part. And of course, we were already talking about the social cohesion and the sense of belonging and the sense of, well, this is also part of my identity, that of course in low cycling countries it's more an identity.

00:31:43:26 - 00:32:07:12
Gemma
I'm a cyclist, but it also has to be part of of who you are or how you do. And, and many of the participants said, well, we feel like a group that this is this is us, we belong to something. So this was also a way to change the perception of cycling with kids is something very dangerous because of course the cities are very dangerous.

00:32:07:18 - 00:32:35:09
Gemma
Well, very dangerous because we made it this way. But, they are not places conducive to, to cycle or friendly. But this change is completely the, the atmosphere because it's safe, because it's fun. And, well, there is a picture that I put in the slides where you can see one of the greatest moments of the bike path was when the bike arrived to the school.

00:32:35:11 - 00:33:12:12
Gemma
If they arrive on time, you have more families waiting on the on the door and they are greeting, they're clapping. They are smiling. So other kids also meet the group and it very often when they have a friend that a ride cycling, they go to them and when they all touch the bike. And so it is, it is changing this narrative of of it is scary thing to it is something we can do and it and it's fun as well.

00:33:12:13 - 00:33:26:17
Gemma
There was a bike path that I went most because I was close to my to my house. Yeah. That day was a women's day. So they had a, purple balloon.

00:33:26:19 - 00:33:47:09
John
Yeah, I love it, I love it, I love it, and yeah, the, you know, you know, people cheering you on and and welcoming you and, and and you had mentioned it earlier, it's, you know, when you see a bike bus rolling through your neighborhood, it's like very rarely do you get somebody who's so impatient and gets angry about it.

00:33:47:10 - 00:34:36:08
John
You know, more often than not, it's Shockley. It's like, what is this until you see it multiple times and then you anticipate it, and then you cheer kids on and and it becomes, you know, something that's fun and engaging for the entire community. You mentioned something there that I think is really important. And it goes back to what we were talking about with the Dutch, is that when we start to see, you know, this being adopted and, and being done and it's not seen as being something that is extraordinary or odd or unusual, then you really start to see it taking off and you start to see it all happening.

00:34:36:14 - 00:35:05:24
John
And the Dutch, one of the great things that one of the great learnings that we can have from the Netherlands is that when you create an environment that feels safe and inviting for all ages and abilities, then we stop this concept of danger, of making the simple act of writing a bike seem like it's some sort of dangerous activity, because inherently riding a bike is not a dangerous activity.

00:35:05:26 - 00:35:34:16
John
What we have done in centric societies is we've made it more dangerous because we've introduced, you know, large, fast moving masses that are that make it a dangerous activity. Riding a bike is not dangerous unless dot dot, dot unless you're you're doing so very fast. If you're if you're a sports cyclist and you're traveling at 50km/h. Okay, okay, where are your darn helmet?

00:35:34:19 - 00:35:57:06
John
But when you're just riding a bike pedestrian plus, like the Dutch do on an upright bike, you start to understand a little bit why it's not seen as something that's othering. It's not something that other people do. It's something that everybody does because it does feel like it's a safe and inviting environment. So I just wanted to reinforce that.

00:35:57:07 - 00:35:58:05
John
Yeah.

00:35:58:07 - 00:36:25:27
Gemma
Yeah. No. And continue about this, this idea, it's also very interesting and, and it's well also taught in the, in the literature, in cycling literature, how in the end the safety perception is changing and it's embodied. No, because you may start thinking that it's so dangerous, but actually you start doing it and you feel more, skillful and you see where the problems might be.

00:36:25:27 - 00:36:38:17
Gemma
And actually, the more you cycle, the more you see that it is not so dangerous that you have to, of course, be aware of this and that. But while in the end anything can happen all the time, right?

00:36:38:21 - 00:37:04:03
John
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's take a look at some of the statistics here. So we see together these mechanisms, the three mechanisms that we talked about the protection the visibility, the social cohesion. Together these mechanisms help to explain. The bike bus expanded to nearly 431 routes and 17 different countries, moving 35,000 plus children per week. This data is obviously very, very hard to collect.

00:37:04:05 - 00:37:09:00
John
We know that there's more of them that we just don't know about. Yeah.

00:37:09:02 - 00:37:25:12
Gemma
Yes, yes, yes. We are trying to make a good hopefully annual map of the bike busses that exist, but it is so difficult. As I already said, there are so many bypasses, we don't even know their names. It's so difficult. But yeah. Yeah.

00:37:25:14 - 00:37:26:08
John
So let's.

00:37:26:11 - 00:37:27:12
John
Get to that.

00:37:27:14 - 00:37:46:27
John
Yeah, exactly. It's a big number and it's a growing number. And again, hey, more power to you folks if you're out there. If you're in the United States, you know, around the world. I know Sam Balto with Black Bus World. He has a map where he's trying to put a pin in in the map in the city where your location is.

00:37:46:27 - 00:38:08:21
John
So if you have a bike bus and you're tuning into this, you're inspired and you're you're doing a bike bus, you know, pop over to Sam's map again, it's bike. Bus dot world is his website, and there's a map in there. And if you notice that your bike bus is not accounted for, just click on the little button there and you can submit and get your bike bus counted.

00:38:08:27 - 00:38:15:22
John
Okay. Let's talk about governments. How does the governance shape sustainability when it comes to the bike bus?

00:38:15:25 - 00:38:49:20
Gemma
Well, as I said, there are different bike busses, types of bypasses and ways to organize it. And what we observed was that actually, of course, bypasses tend to grow around already existing networks of people that work around the bike busses, so already cycling communities that they know how to have a group of bike or bicycles together, or they are activists already and they are used to organize these kind of things, and that is helpful.

00:38:49:21 - 00:39:15:15
Gemma
Of course, but that is also somehow limiting in a way that they reach this certain population. But it's also more difficult to get a different one, that maybe they are more outside of their normal routes. So one of the things that well, could be a critique or an observation, maybe not even a critique, because I don't think that's also super fair.

00:39:15:15 - 00:39:51:07
Gemma
But the bike busses in Barcelona happened in schools that were, in in middle class neighborhood and where usually schools of very with high educated families that are often of course, we're very concerned about climate change. So they are not representative of the whole population of. But that makes sense, right? Because the people who start the bike busses, the people they have access to and the people they more easily can attract are people that are somehow similar and within the networks.

00:39:51:14 - 00:40:23:26
Gemma
So for that reason, even though all my passions are different, the maybe they are the things that we would we wish that would happen more often is that they are somehow supported by the municipalities or by the schools, because that is a way to bring the bike bus to even more different communities and different people and people that, yeah, they haven't even started to think about the bypass, because usually they are the parents who, even though they are in a school and somehow sometimes the school are also helpful.

00:40:24:01 - 00:41:04:23
Gemma
But when the school is the one that it's leading and, and it's sending out the invitations or, or the municipalities funding this project, it has more odds that more people will trust this and will start. For example, this is the case of Lisbon. In there, the municipality runs a growing and growing program of bypass, and they offer that when the bike path invitation is sent by the school, they get way more participants in, in their bypasses.

00:41:04:26 - 00:41:32:27
John
Yeah, yeah. And I think that you brought up a really, really good point. And if there is, again, a critique that needs to be done about bike busses is that they are a bit self-selecting in the sense and sometimes from an equity perspective, as you mentioned, you know, neighborhoods that, you know, don't have the resources and maybe the socioeconomic status of the families are such that they don't have a child's bike, and maybe the adults don't have a bike.

00:41:32:28 - 00:42:05:21
John
Maybe the adults don't even know how to ride a bike. Then, you know, those are the situations where they're kind of left out. And so I think rather than criticizing bike bus itself is like, think of ways where we can support and build some scaffolding to help support, you know, getting bikes into the hands and, you know, of these families and these children and making sure that they know how to ride a bike here in Hawaii back, you know, 15 years ago, I used to do a bike education for fourth graders.

00:42:05:21 - 00:42:23:29
John
And so we go up to each elementary school and make sure every kid has a bike, knows how to ride a bike. And we we had our own fleet of bikes that we would, you know, take to the schools so that if a child doesn't have a bike, they at least can ride one of our bikes and learn how to ride.

00:42:24:06 - 00:42:52:14
John
And I think that those are the types of Guin software activity assets programing that helps support the built environment and and getting more people writing more often. Now, you mentioned Lisbon here, and of course, Lisbon was recently the host of a international gathering of folks that were coming together. Talk a little bit about that meeting that just took place.

00:42:52:16 - 00:43:25:07
Gemma
Yes. So also, to put it maybe a bit within my research, these bike busses and the cohesion that they they built was also beyond the bike bus itself, like the right itself, because it connected people from different bypasses, usually organizers. So usually are those people that are, engaging in more new projects and doing more active. But at the same time they are also somehow alone in their fight.

00:43:25:12 - 00:43:57:19
Gemma
So this con, this network of backwards organizers, it's very reinforcing. And I think somehow helping them to feel more understood, know that there's more of them. So when these bike paths in Barcelona was very famous and made other bypasses around the world to to start, then they also became online friends and decided to meet a in Barcelona. That was the first summit.

00:43:57:22 - 00:44:28:13
Gemma
And then every year there has been a different bike summit and this is the fourth. This was this year in Lisbon. So yeah, it is an opportunity to meet to strengthen these networks and, and the, the place to other projects to, to start because. Well, I don't know if somebody to already said it but. Well now we have some maybe sponsors who may want to support the movement.

00:44:28:18 - 00:44:55:16
Gemma
Also, there's a lot of researchers that are, behind the bike paths and they are doing research on the bike paths. So, maybe we're trying to get a research study that it's a bit more ambitious and. Well, I think it's the the seed for other projects and for reinforcing this program and from learning from one another, which I think is very helpful.

00:44:55:19 - 00:45:37:22
John
Yeah. It's fantastic. And I'm realizing that I misspoke in my interview with with Sam yesterday. I thought that the the summit was actually later in the summer, like in, in late May or in June, but it was actually in the spring there in April. So that's fantastic. And what of what a fun thing to be able to pull together again, this is the fourth year that that this has happened, the fourth time that this has happened to pull together folks from different countries to meet up and network and bounce ideas off of each other and keep that momentum rolling, keeping the flywheel of momentum rolling.

00:45:37:24 - 00:45:54:26
John
As a researcher, what surprised you the most about this topic when you were going through and your your, you know, studying this, what was one of the most surprising results.

00:45:54:29 - 00:46:26:14
Gemma
Surprising results? Well, I think in general, I'm just very happy that I got this topic because, yeah, it felt very exciting to meet all these people. And yeah, in the end, you also feel part of our community. And of course, any new podcast or documentary about the bike path is very welcome and very cheered within the community. So feeling.

00:46:26:17 - 00:47:02:22
Gemma
Yeah, this, this support personally it's very it's very nice. Well, something surprising, I think, just how important it is, what I said previously, this mimicry, how how you learn to do things and how important it is to see something in order to want it. No, to the the necessity to to experience it and and to see it experience it in order to be able to want it more.

00:47:02:24 - 00:47:04:25
Gemma
And how powerful that is.

00:47:04:28 - 00:47:21:19
John
Yeah, yeah. Now we're we're on the part of the article that you have which you, you say, okay, what comes next? What do we need to be doing? What are the future research directions. And I'm assuming that you're continuing to do this research. Is that correct?

00:47:21:23 - 00:48:01:01
Gemma
Well, not specifically on bike passes. Now I'm doing a more broadly on active mobility. And hopefully we get some funding for keep researching on bike busses. But I would say that well. Ideally in research you end up giving some results of something that can be enacted or useful for policy or for activism for something. And I think a very interesting thing was also to see how each age for children's growing has its momentum.

00:48:01:03 - 00:48:41:09
Gemma
Well, I was also a cycling trainer at some time, and we used to go to children that were in fifth, sixth grade or even first of high school, and those were the moments that we thought it was best, because that's when children are more skillful and they understand more traffic. So that's the best moment. Also, they start to go to high school who may be further away, but actually they are already turning into adolescence and they are, more resisting any new thing or anything that will make them look weird or, or sweaty or whatever.

00:48:41:12 - 00:49:11:24
Gemma
So it was actually we were wrong. We had to put bikes on kids way, way younger. And so we don't have to force them to bike. They want to bike. No. And so for me, it would be necessary, would be to have a comprehensive plan to encourage bikes into children. So when they are younger you start by balanced bikes, then you start by this.

00:49:11:24 - 00:49:34:06
Gemma
Then bikeways can be important at some period, but then later. No, because one thing that we have also been witnessing is how all the kids of these bike busses that started at some point they are not going anymore because they are other lessons and of course they don't want to go with their parents. So it has an end.

00:49:34:08 - 00:49:59:00
Gemma
I don't I don't think it's an end forever, but it's a temporary moment when they won't go to the to the bike path. So we need to provide at each stage of children's development or people development what is necessary. So yeah, you have to put the training at a specific place. And the bike was in another place and and yes.

00:49:59:02 - 00:50:25:10
Gemma
And one thing also that we have also been discussing among us. And it is well, is it a failure when a bike budget was very successful stops going. Well? I don't think it is necessarily a failure. So there was a moment where there was a group of families who who do this. They learned the way to cycle. They learned that it was fun.

00:50:25:12 - 00:50:49:12
Gemma
The kids had this experience. Maybe in a later moment they changed house or the kids don't want to cycle anymore. But all this experience are all the visibility to their rest of the community that is there. And maybe another bike bus will start in another school or or the next one. And I think it all adds up.

00:50:49:14 - 00:51:16:17
John
I think the ultimate success of a bike bus is when a bike bus no longer needs to exist. Kids are just writing, writing where they need to ride to that. That's the ultimate goal. Again, that we talked about earlier. Also with future research, you emphasize here that we should be examining the different governance models that influence the effectiveness and how it affects family cycling.

00:51:16:17 - 00:51:49:07
John
So having that longitudinal study, you know, could reveal that the different community based interventions and how that influences to the point that you made earlier and and also, you know, to your point two is like looking at those dynamics of how do we influence kids writing into young adulthood and the learning that you, you had there that, that you shared with, you know, maybe we need to start a little bit earlier before they are so resistant.

00:51:49:07 - 00:52:30:03
John
And it does remind me to of the fact that we do see, especially with with girls, the dropping off of, of riding bikes when, it's not perceived as cool or it's perceived as being not, not very attractive, like, oh, I don't want to wear a helmet, I don't want to mess up my hair kind of a thing, which gets totally counteracted, especially in the Netherlands when you look at the fact that when you see the packs of girls writing and they're just, they're, they're super, super relaxed, their, their bikes have been like customized.

00:52:30:03 - 00:52:53:29
John
There's little flowers on their baskets. They clearly they, they clearly adore their bikes because that's their mobility. It's their independence. They get around and they ride around in packs. And it's very much a part of their identity as individuals as well as group. But it's not the identity that we were talking about earlier of I'm a cyclist, you know, I dress up like a cyclist.

00:52:53:29 - 00:53:14:09
John
I'm a sport, you know, cyclist. It's not anything like that. It's just I'm a kid, you know, and I'm getting around with my my buddies, my friends, my my dear friends. And this is how we get around and how we rule the city. And and that's what we want to get to. We want to get to that point of seeing childhood independence again.

00:53:14:11 - 00:53:35:02
John
I want to play this, this fabulous little video that you put together and have you narrate this. We won't turn the volume up all. I'll just let it run in the background and have you explain a little bit and sort of put a bow in to the research and the reason why you put this, this particular video together.

00:53:35:02 - 00:53:39:05
John
So I'll hit play and have you walk us through this video.

00:53:39:11 - 00:54:18:03
Gemma
Well, I think in the end, the typical product of, of research are academic papers who are only read by academics. So of course, we also have to get into our times and build this, videos. And the way to, to tell our results to people in a way that they reach. So that's why in our communication department in my previous university, they do these nice videos and I tell them, please, we have to do one of these because, well, that's what we want.

00:54:18:04 - 00:54:46:12
Gemma
Know that the results get to the people. So that's why we did. And it is a similar content of of the previous blog post that we see that of course, if people are interested, they can access to the the full manuscript on the paper. But also the best way to talk about the bypass is to see it. So of course a video is is necessary.

00:54:46:15 - 00:55:04:10
John
I love it, I love it, that's fantastic. And in folks, we will include the link to this video as well. And you can you can watch this. And I think it's just fabulous. Is there anything that we haven't discussed yet that you want to make sure to share with the audience?

00:55:04:10 - 00:55:35:18
Gemma
Well, I wanted it was just a detail on what you were saying about the the girls that are more discouraged to, to cycle in their adolescence. And I think it's also somehow related to the fact that girls are tend to be more social and they, they want to go in a group and, and luckily the infrastructure, as we were saying, doesn't allow for that.

00:55:35:18 - 00:56:13:05
Gemma
So I, I remember some girls, I used to go to the bike bus very often every week, and when they grew to the last year of school, they said, no, I started, I stopped going because now I work with my friends and of course I cannot go by bike. So yeah, this, this problem of space and of writing together would also be once we get a wider space for bikes to go, I think would also be wider a number of, of cycling.

00:56:13:07 - 00:56:14:01
John
Yeah, yeah.

00:56:14:04 - 00:56:15:13
Gemma
In cities.

00:56:15:15 - 00:56:50:19
John
And when you think of it, you can't blame those girls because that's cool too, that they're a, they're walking with their friends because they're doing things socially together with their friends. And the and we're lucky, they were lucky that their distances are close enough that they can walk, that they can do that. It's again, it gets back to what's what's so amazing about the Dutch systems is that oftentimes, you know, it's this what I call the the redundancy of mobility networks.

00:56:50:23 - 00:57:13:25
John
And so you've got the, the walking network, the cycling network, the transit network and the driving network. And there's redundancy. You can choose at any point in time to use any of those different mechanisms. Well, if you're a kid, you're not going to choose to drive because you don't drive yet. But as a child, you know, if your destination is within walking distance, that's maybe how you get together with your friends.

00:57:13:25 - 00:57:38:05
John
And you walk to the park. You walk to your your destination that you want to go to. If it's a little further than a walk again, pedestrian. Plus, you know, you get on your, your, your your your cool little upright relaxed bike with flowers on your basket and or whatever. And, and you roll with your friends. And that's the most encouraging thing that that I see.

00:57:38:05 - 00:58:03:06
John
And I love documenting when I'm on my active Towns tour and I'm in Europe, whether I'm in Germany or in the Netherlands, increasingly in, in, in Belgium and, and now even when I was in Spain, when I was in, in, in, in severe, it was wonderful to see the families and the packs of kids riding together on their own.

00:58:03:08 - 00:58:27:15
John
This is what we want to see. This is the ultimate goal. And again, we we know that we're successful with bike bus movement when we no longer need by bike bus movement when it just it it's there. It's happening. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for all your hard work and your research, and I look forward to following your career and your research.

00:58:27:15 - 00:58:44:24
John
As you continue to to research in active mobility, be sure to let me know if you have an exciting report. You know it advances and that you'd like to talk about again here on the Active Towns Channel, you have an open invitation to come back any time.

00:58:44:26 - 00:58:55:01
Gemma
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And that was a really nice conversation. Always. It's I'm happy to talk about bypasses.

00:58:55:03 - 00:59:13:17
John
Yes, yes. And the most important thing too is that this is fun. This is great. This is wonderful that we can leverage technology to be able to have these conversations. But you know what I like even better on bike interviews. I love coming together in person. So I owe you a visit. Yeah, exactly.

00:59:13:17 - 00:59:18:29
Gemma
You are invited. Definitely invited to come join, back this year.

00:59:19:01 - 00:59:19:19
John
Yeah.

00:59:19:26 - 00:59:24:25
Gemma
And to talk more in person. Have you ever visited a bike pass? Have you?

00:59:25:00 - 00:59:26:22
John
Oh, yes. Yes.

00:59:26:24 - 00:59:44:20
John
I've filmed bike busses in the past and so that that is good and and. Yeah. And look forward to connecting with you in Barcelona to also look at some of the other research that you are doing. Again Gemma. Mahalo. New. Thank you very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:59:44:23 - 00:59:47:15
Gemma
Thank you. Thank you.

00:59:47:18 - 01:00:03:14
John
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Gemma. And if you did, please say 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 channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and be sure to ring that notification bell.

01:00:03:15 - 01:00:21:14
John
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01:00:21:14 - 01:00:43:02
John
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01:00:43:03 - 01:00:58:14
John
Hey, I simply could not do this work without your financial support. Mahalo, Lois. Thank you very much. Well, that's all for this episode. Until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha.