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

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:05:06
John Simmerman
Gregory and Kelsey, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:00:05:09 - 00:00:07:22
Kelsey Huse
Thank you, John. Excited to be here.

00:00:07:24 - 00:00:09:12
Gregory Bertrand
Glad to be here. Thank you.

00:00:09:15 - 00:00:29:20
John Simmerman
In and in, I have to apologize. A great career ahead of time because Kelsey and I kind of know each other. She's been on the podcast a couple times, her on the channel, a couple of times. So guess what? You get to have the floor first in terms of introducing yourself. So please share with the audience who's Gregory?

00:00:29:22 - 00:00:56:24
Gregory Bertrand
Hi, I'm Gregory Bertrand. I am in Austin and I've been living here since 2021. I'm a writer and cyclist. Those are being my two main hobbies. I go on pretty lengthy rides on Saturdays and Sundays. I just didn't want to Maynor today, which was like about 50 miles or so.

00:00:56:27 - 00:01:09:16
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Fantastic. Now, are you are you excited about the the the shared use path, the cycle path that's going to be built all the way out to minor? That's going to be great. When that's complete, right?

00:01:09:18 - 00:01:28:10
Gregory Bertrand
I am. Yeah. It would make getting out there a lot easier. I'd use old highway to 90, which is no shoulder to speak of on there. So I'm just kind of pretty much almost writing in the grass trying to not get hit by a car. It was a lot busier than I thought it would be on a Sunday morning.

00:01:28:13 - 00:01:28:28
Gregory Bertrand
Yeah.

00:01:29:01 - 00:01:45:19
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's that's I'm really looking forward to seeing more of those facilities in place, making it safer for all ages and abilities to be able to get around. Okay, Kelsey, your turn. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience for those who do not know you.

00:01:45:22 - 00:02:20:04
Kelsey Huse
I'm Kelsey Huse. I recently got an E-bike, so I'm an e-bike enthusiast. But my longest ride, it's probably 12 miles. I'm not on Gregory's level at all, but I've been an organizer with the Rethink 35 since 2021, I believe. And I even remember when Gregory signed the petition and said he wanted to be a volunteer. I hopped on a video call with him, got him involved, and here we are, what, two years later?

00:02:20:07 - 00:02:21:19
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, we've come a long way.

00:02:21:20 - 00:02:23:04
Gregory Bertrand
Yeah.

00:02:23:06 - 00:02:55:09
John Simmerman
For those people who are not, you know, familiar with everything, 35. I'm going to pull up the website here real quick and in you can have you just kind of relate a little bit about it and then we're going to relate a pretty fun sort of story that you get. It kind of popped up over the last couple of weeks, but me pop over here to the actual website who would like to just give a little bit of, of background to to rethink 35 and then we'll dive into our little fun story.

00:02:55:12 - 00:03:19:15
Kelsey Huse
Rethink 35 is what's called a Highway to Boulevard campaign. So we started out with a plan to reroute I-35 instead of going directly through downtown Austin. And if you scroll down a little bit, John, there's an image we can look at that shows this. Yes. So the red line is currently I-35 and it goes directly through off said.

00:03:19:18 - 00:03:46:28
Kelsey Huse
And Gregory is going to talk a little bit a little bit about why that's a problem here in a bit. So our plan is why don't you instead go around the city? So S.H. 130 is a nice new highway that exists and it's currently a toll road. So our plan is why don't you designate that as the interstate highway so that people who are traveling through don't have to go directly through downtown?

00:03:47:00 - 00:04:03:19
Kelsey Huse
We've kind of shifted our approach from that is exactly what we want to Let's stop this project however we can and let's work with the community to figure out the plan that we really want. But this is a plan that we want studied as we think 35.

00:04:03:22 - 00:04:25:09
John Simmerman
Fantastic, Great. Yeah, we'll use that as just a quick little overview to to what Rethink 35 is really all about. But we do have a really fun thing to kind of start this off because we can bring in just a little reflection of something fun that, that that took place. So Trevor Noah was, was you know, presenting here.

00:04:25:11 - 00:04:28:09
John Simmerman
Who wants to talk a little bit about how this all came about.

00:04:28:16 - 00:04:59:26
Gregory Bertrand
Yeah. So I'll go and tackle that one about yeah, about a month ago, you know, before this a little bit before this tweet was posted, we were doing what we call canvasing, which is what we do about we try to do once a month or so, just get out in the community, knock on doors, hand out fliers. And that's what we were doing, was handing out fliers down by the what we call here in Austin the hike and bike trail, which goes along the Colorado River and around Lady Bird Lake.

00:04:59:27 - 00:05:34:08
Gregory Bertrand
It's a really beautiful area, nice, relaxing. You know, people are running, walking their dog cycling. And so we thought it would be a good place to hand out fliers and raise awareness of its expansion directly to the people who use this trail, probably, you know, daily or for their training or their recreation. And I was kind of wandering up and down a little bit looking for people to hand out fliers to people who weren't running and didn't have headphones in, who look, but they would be, you know, they would want a fly or be open to talk.

00:05:34:10 - 00:05:57:19
Gregory Bertrand
And I just happened to lock eyes with this lady while she was walking by. And then I kind of glanced at the man she was walking with, and he had these sunglasses on and I think he had his hood up. But something about his face is it's like, I know him. Do I know him from a job I was at or something?

00:05:57:19 - 00:06:16:00
Gregory Bertrand
And I just I couldn't place his face. And then, I don't know, half a minute later. So I was like, I think that was Trevor Noah. You know, I was shocked. Then I just kind of started wondering to myself, and I walked up to a few of the other volunteers we had. I was like, Think that yourself, Trevor Noah, guys.

00:06:16:02 - 00:06:45:10
Gregory Bertrand
And they're like, no, yeah, we saw him too. And apparently he was in town for a comedy show and I don't think he mentioned us by name exactly, But he did talk about highway expansion during his show. And as cool as opposed and who is for and from from what I heard it was like 95% people were opposed to it and there's a bunch of rapturous applause of No, no, don't expand this highway.

00:06:45:13 - 00:07:00:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. And of course, this tweet went out, you know, after the show. They're at Bass Concert Hall, and Chanukah is just like, Yes. Even more of a fan of Trevor Noah.

00:07:00:14 - 00:07:28:16
Kelsey Huse
And it's I think it just shows how much, number one, the community doesn't want this expansion. Our elected officials don't want this expansion and how much the education regarding highway expansion and induced demand has succeeded. People know that more lanes means more traffic in the area of highway expansion. I believe it's coming to an end.

00:07:28:18 - 00:07:36:29
John Simmerman
Yeah, and why don't we address the ribbon? What does this ribbon signify?

00:07:37:01 - 00:08:01:21
Gregory Bertrand
Right. So along with handing out fliers, we had other members wrapping ribbons around the trees. And I believe you can see that tag on there on the front of it. I think that's a name. A member of Orange County, Santiago, came up with the idea of putting names on the trees to give him more of a personality. But these were it to signify that these are old.

00:08:01:21 - 00:08:11:01
Gregory Bertrand
I believe bacon trees are going to be removed for the construction, destroying the beautiful environment that we have out there.

00:08:11:04 - 00:08:30:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, fantastic. That's the that I wanted to make sure we caught that aspect of it. And I'm not sure if if, if Trevor Trevor also, you know, caught that aspect of it, the fact that you know what you all were out there were not just, you know, talking about the expansion but also talking about the fact that some of those trees were going to be lost.

00:08:30:22 - 00:08:36:25
John Simmerman
So, yeah, yeah, that's great. I see we have our our visitor, our guest star on here as well.

00:08:36:26 - 00:08:39:01
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, Yeah. Busses here.

00:08:39:03 - 00:08:57:01
John Simmerman
Fantastic. All right, so, Gregory, you're going to kind of lead us through a conversation, talking a little bit more deeply about the history of it. But I know that we have a sort of a setup video from council member Natasha Harper, Madison.

00:08:57:03 - 00:09:30:14
Natasha Harper Madison
This highway that stands right behind us was built to exclude black and brown Austinites from opportunities, access and resources. And here we are 60 years later. I want you to tell me what has changed. I hear dead silence because nothing has changed. It's 2023 and the same people with power want to expand this highway to a staggering 22 lanes.

00:09:30:17 - 00:09:44:06
Natasha Harper Madison
We must tear down this divisive, environmentally damaging and racist highway and tastic.

00:09:44:08 - 00:09:47:24
John Simmerman
Remind me which rally this was.

00:09:47:26 - 00:09:56:15
Kelsey Huse
It was the press conference to announce the wider won't work rally. So this was probably in October of 2023.

00:09:56:17 - 00:10:20:12
John Simmerman
Okay. Okay so wider won't work. And then I for two years ago I recorded the Heal the Scar press conference that was also at Stars. And so that that's also there. So I'll make sure to include a link to this video as well because that was a wonderful rally. And, and of course I have our other video here.

00:10:20:14 - 00:10:45:18
John Simmerman
Kelsey, the where where you and Adam and I were out on bikes, riding around and really trying to get a feel in the field for what was going to be happening with the I-35 expansion if it goes through. So I wanted to make sure that we gave that a plug and also include the links to these two videos in our show notes, in our in our description for the video here, too.

00:10:45:20 - 00:11:14:12
John Simmerman
Okay. So fantastic. Let's get back over to the the materials that we have. And really, when we take a look at this, you know, there's a great deal of history here. Gregory going all the way back to the 1928, you know, Popkin in Fowler City Plan creates the quote unquote, Negro district. Talk a little bit about the context of what I-35 signifies.

00:11:14:14 - 00:12:07:08
Gregory Bertrand
So a scar is a perfect way to describe I-35. And what it was really built to do is to segregate and divide east and west Austin East often now and at the time, in 1928, being a predominantly black and brown area. And as you can see on the visual there, all those pink little dots, those are the clusters of the black to me that the black community that was forced over into East Austin in 1928 and what this plan did was to establish a quote unquote Negro district that had all the facilities and conveniences, so to speak, and jobs for all these African-Americans.

00:12:07:08 - 00:12:11:07
Gregory Bertrand
So they didn't have to cross over into West Austin.

00:12:11:10 - 00:12:31:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. Part of the very disturbing legacy that is, you know, that line that our I-35 line and it really, you know, signified the fact that, you know, prior to I-35 going in, this is what we had. This is East Avenue.

00:12:31:14 - 00:13:05:18
Gregory Bertrand
Correct? That's East Avenue, I believe, at 12th Street. I'm not sure if that's north looking north for looking south. But what I want to highlight within this image is just how much easier it is to cross an avenue rather than a a highway. Whenever I'm cycling and have to go from east and West Austin, there isn't really any good options other than the trail that's near the convention center that goes under the highway.

00:13:05:18 - 00:13:34:19
Gregory Bertrand
And even that isn't really perfect because you've got to cross under the highway by the feeder, just no beg button to get traffic to, you know, to you. There's no stop sign. And so it just makes it makes it hard to kind of enjoy your ride. And, you know, that's just me cycling for leisurely, easy exercise. You know, we have people over in East Austin who don't have a car, public transportation going east to west.

00:13:34:19 - 00:14:01:25
Gregory Bertrand
Bus lines are perfect. Really. You have to take maybe one or two different connections. And so it's already hard enough to cross over the highway. So now making it or potentially making it 22 lanes, it's going to make it even worse. It's just going to exacerbate the problem and segregate people more from opportunities that they could have in downtown or West Austin.

00:14:01:28 - 00:14:31:08
John Simmerman
Whenever I see this image in other images of East Avenue, the way that it was before, you just have to marvel at how much green space was there. And I know that, you know, oftentimes there would be picnics in these areas and people would have celebrations in this grassy median area. You know, it it really wasn't, you know, a the barrier that you're talking about, Gregory, is now it's literally a physical barrier.

00:14:31:08 - 00:14:50:05
John Simmerman
And it was intentionally done that way. And then you see this and you're like, my gosh, yeah, you're totally right. The community was was that much more stitched together and you could easily cross through that. But it also was a much more humane space. I mean, it's almost like parkland.

00:14:50:08 - 00:15:21:18
Gregory Bertrand
Definitely. Yes. Right. And so this is from the 1960s, 1960s. I don't believe it's the same exact area. But as you can see, there's already the skeleton of I-35 being built here. And you see those underpasses, which even then don't look so pedestrian friendly. I don't really see a sidewalk. They're just some, you know, grass or sand. And it doesn't even look like they're planning to build a sidewalk.

00:15:21:20 - 00:15:49:08
John Simmerman
You know? Yeah, it's it's just really astounding, you know, the fact that it's it was done in the manner that it was done and the intention that it was done. And then at the same time adding, you know, salt to the wound, the injury that is the scar is the fact that, and by the way, we have no intentions of of you know, accommodating anybody who's not in an automobile.

00:15:49:11 - 00:15:51:21
Gregory Bertrand
Yeah. Which is Yeah. Quite striking.

00:15:51:24 - 00:15:58:00
John Simmerman
Very, very, very striking and unfortunate. Who would like to set up this video for us?

00:15:58:03 - 00:16:20:04
Gregory Bertrand
It's a bell bunch at our wider Won't work rally, which we held in December I believe. November November I'm sorry, November of last year. And he is talking about the kind of civil nature of our 25 mile trip. See?

00:16:20:07 - 00:16:26:12
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, I think he's calling out to the federal government about. Yeah.

00:16:26:15 - 00:16:29:11
John Simmerman
Okay. Yeah, let's work. Let's hear from Bill.

00:16:29:13 - 00:17:06:09
Bill Bunch
The US Department of Transportation could step in and tell Texas that they did it wrong. They can stop this project and demand that we have honest study and the Biden administration and Secretary Booth address specific only have told us that climate is important. They told us they know that when these interstates were built through central cities, that communities of color were literally destroyed and that they need to set that right.

00:17:06:12 - 00:17:21:19
Bill Bunch
And if they sit on the sideline, they're letting it become insults, injury for greater injury. It's time for them to walk the talk.

00:17:21:22 - 00:17:52:04
John Simmerman
And of course, Bill Bunch, for for those who are not familiar with him, he's associated with the Save Our Springs organization. And I'm going to pull up the the actual website for the recent strong Towns episode that just took place and where Adam was was actually being interviewed. Adam Greenfield of course, with the Rethink 35, one of the co-founders of Rethink 35.

00:17:52:06 - 00:18:20:04
John Simmerman
And I want to pull this up because Bobby Levinsky is the attorney and the attorney who also is associated with the Save Our Springs organization. And so I do want to call this out and encourage people. Please be sure to tap into that and take a listen to it. It's great because since Bobby is an attorney, he can talk a little bit more from the attorneys perspective about the cases that are being brought forward.

00:18:20:07 - 00:18:30:22
John Simmerman
We're going to talk it talk about it. You know, from from our perspective, I just want to make sure I'm not assuming neither of you are attorneys, correct?

00:18:30:24 - 00:18:32:14
Kelsey Huse
I am not. Okay.

00:18:32:16 - 00:18:56:08
John Simmerman
Just making sure I didn't want to make any you know, I didn't want to make a bold assumption. So you never know. You might be hiding it for now. You just never know. There's plenty of people who are attorneys who they don't broadcast, that they're attorneys. But yeah, so I do encourage folks to make sure to go and tune in to that.

00:18:56:10 - 00:19:20:09
John Simmerman
The next up in our in our suite of visuals is, of course, of a letter that went out to Secretary Booth, ATJ, which was one of the things that, you know, was being mentioned by Bill is, you know, basically saying, hey, calling out and saying, hey, we really would like the U.S., D.O.T. to take a stand. So who wants to cover what this is all about?

00:19:20:12 - 00:19:53:13
Gregory Bertrand
Said in off of what Bill Bunch said, You know, there's a long history in America of using highways to divide and segregate communities of color from opportunities. And it's pretty much I don't even know if you would call an open seat here right now. It should. It's just history, right. And that being said, you know, to continue this legacy by expanding the highway, it's going to exasperate the problem.

00:19:53:15 - 00:20:13:08
Gregory Bertrand
And on that basis is why we bowed out. There are civil rights complaint and people to judge being the US D.O.T. or the you know, secretary of transportation. We want to make them aware that, hey, you know, this can't go forward.

00:20:13:10 - 00:20:15:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:15:05 - 00:20:31:27
Kelsey Huse
So we filed a civil rights complaint. We are going to refile it on February 28th, and individuals and groups can still sign on to the letter before that date. So if you go to rethink 35 dot org.

00:20:31:29 - 00:20:44:23
John Simmerman
And let's let's actually pull that up right now let's go to rethink 35 dot org though which by the way everybody you can obviously see that we have that URL on screen right now but here we are. Okay Kelsey continue.

00:20:45:01 - 00:21:05:26
Kelsey Huse
But these are two action alerts in the yellow. So if you click sign the complaint, you can sign this complaint and add your name to it. You don't have to live in Austin or the Austin area. Anyone can sign this complaint. And the most powerful thing that can happen is for more groups to sign on to the complaint.

00:21:05:28 - 00:21:25:21
Kelsey Huse
So you can see on the right hand side, you can enter your name and on behalf of name of group, this is where you would enter your group name. And we're still collecting signatures until February 28th. The shows a few of the groups who have signed on.

00:21:25:24 - 00:21:36:08
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Excellent. Well, I know a YouTube channel that's going to sign it.

00:21:36:11 - 00:21:42:29
Bill Bunch
So that way, that one.

00:21:43:01 - 00:21:59:01
Kelsey Huse
Yeah. A lot of a lot of the water. What I find really interesting is the idea of the lack of affirmative action. If something has been created to divide a community and to cause harm, there is an obligation to repair it.

00:21:59:04 - 00:22:22:09
Gregory Bertrand
Exactly. So our complaint is to say that there is an obligation to right the wrongs of the past and not continuing to make the same mistakes and hurt the same people over and over and over again. We want to move forward, not backwards.

00:22:22:11 - 00:22:40:23
Kelsey Huse
And this has happened throughout the whole country, right. Like interstates were built through downtowns for this reason. And so I think that this is something that freeway fighters across the entire country, across the world, even perhaps should be paying attention to.

00:22:40:25 - 00:23:09:19
John Simmerman
Yeah, well said. So I I'm lingering on this particular place here on the website as well, just because I also want to to to mention, again, you know, the the other action item which is there which is donate to the lawsuit. We're going to talk a little bit more in detail about that at the very, very end. But I did want to just mention that since we're right here, I think we've got another video cued up in this next spot.

00:23:09:21 - 00:23:12:21
John Simmerman
Who would like to set this up? What is this all about?

00:23:12:24 - 00:23:43:16
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, so this is Bobulinski, who you mentioned earlier, John. So Bobulinski is Save our Springs and he was on the Strong Towns podcast last week. I learned so much from listening to that episode. I thought it was incredible. And Bobby has been such a huge ally to us in this fight. And so now we're going to talk a little bit about the lawsuit and we'll let Bobby kind of lead that introduction into the lawsuit.

00:23:43:18 - 00:23:45:12
John Simmerman
And first, it was hit play.

00:23:45:14 - 00:24:17:20
Natasha Harper Madison
We're trying to raise attention to the US Department of Transportation through the administrative complaint specifically about the environmental justice concerns, as well as taking our actions to protect Austin's environment, including the Colorado River parkland that was largely unaddressed by tech stocks. The valuations, the water quality of the Colorado River, where the storm water will be taken from downtown and dumped.

00:24:17:20 - 00:24:54:09
Natasha Harper Madison
Yet again into East Austin, Texas, has not permitted to actually treat that water quality to any sufficient measure that would protect the environment. Air quality concerns are also largely unaddressed. The Environmental Protection Agency has issued guidance saying, Hey, this particular little matter that these cars, these emissions are generating and being blown into our neighborhoods is impacting the health of people, especially those with high incidence of asthma.

00:24:54:11 - 00:25:10:18
Natasha Harper Madison
And that's what we have all along the I-35 stretch. And that should be no surprise to anybody who has looked at the data for the last 60 years. Texas, we've had enough. We're suing it. Thank you.

00:25:10:21 - 00:25:38:01
Kelsey Huse
That end line text, we've had enough part. Yeah. So Bobby talks a lot about some of the key points in the lawsuit. And I wanted to touch on three of them in particular. The first one being particulate matter, which is also known as PM 2.5. So this is a screenshot from the Travis County resolution that was passed, I believe, in September.

00:25:38:03 - 00:26:06:13
Kelsey Huse
So Travis County is backing the community and opposing the I-35 expansion on the basis of the environmental impacts. And so with this expansion in Texas, don't have to abide by the EPA guidelines in their reports that they do. And so they have these thousand page reports about the impacts of highway expansion. And Texas did not study pmta point five or particulate matter.

00:26:06:13 - 00:26:33:23
Kelsey Huse
And for my understanding, particulate matter are these really small molecules that come off of tires, Other things we breathe them in and it's not good for us. And Texas has an obligation to study all environmental impacts of expanding the highway. And they failed to study this after our study in our county have asked them to do so. So that is key point number one in the lawsuit.

00:26:33:25 - 00:27:07:09
John Simmerman
I'll I'll say one more thing about particulate matter. PM 2.5 as well, is that, yes, this is the particulate matter that comes off of from tire wear and brake wear. And and you'll notice we're not talking about pollution from tailpipes. And so even if we go to an all electric vehicle fleet, which is going to be decades and decades and decades away, we would still have this problem with, you know, PM 2.5.

00:27:07:12 - 00:27:33:00
John Simmerman
And many are saying that the problem might even be worse because the vehicles might even be much heavier because of the heavy batteries that are in many of our EVs. And so that's one of the things that I always like to sort of emphasize, is that this is we're not talking about tailpipe emissions necessarily, although there may be some emissions associated with PM 2.5.

00:27:33:02 - 00:27:59:04
Kelsey Huse
Or things from I mean, I think this was a fantastic resolution that Travis County passed. And you know what? They only were able to do the I believe, because the community has their support and this was years in the making of gaining signatures, speaking out. Every action matters and leads to something. Yeah.

00:27:59:07 - 00:28:43:19
John Simmerman
And I think one of the most important aspects of this part of the the lawsuit and Bobby said it, you know, talked about it and addressed it quite well in in that interview on strong towns is that the it was very clear that text did not in good faith actually go through truly the process of looking at what the damages would be in this kind of for us to decide and say, yeah, no, no, no additional concerns from an environmental perspective, even with expanding, you know, the lanes to the level that they are and, you know, and, and you know that that's just not true.

00:28:43:19 - 00:28:59:11
John Simmerman
And, you know, you and I know Kelsey because we saw it when we were riding bikes in that one video. We've got an elementary school literally right there. And with the expansion and with the expansion, it's going to be even closer to that school.

00:28:59:13 - 00:29:01:02
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, exactly.

00:29:01:04 - 00:29:21:29
John Simmerman
Okay. Who'd like to address what we're looking at here? We do see that image that we were talking about earlier with, you know, the bypass potential with I say, 130, which could become the new I-35. But we've got a couple of other images on screen here who'd like to talk about this?

00:29:22:02 - 00:29:49:14
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, this is the second key point of the lawsuit that I wanted to talk about, which is that Texas did not sufficiently study the community alternatives. And the two community alternatives are rethink 35, which we explained is a Highway two Boulevard campaign. So switching the interstate highway to a different road, and then that frees up the space for the current I-35 downtown to be imagined into something else.

00:29:49:17 - 00:30:12:27
Kelsey Huse
So the bottom image is a rendering that we had done several years ago. This doesn't mean this is exactly what we want. This is just to spark imagination for what it could be. And the second community alternative that Texas that did not study is the Reconnect Austin plan. Reconnect. Austin has been around for over ten years and they are that image in the top right.

00:30:12:27 - 00:30:32:11
Kelsey Huse
And their plan is to put the interstate underground and put a cap on top of it and then essentially you could have a boulevard on top with bus lanes, bike lanes, park area, etc.. But it's just also a way to connect or reconnect us to.

00:30:32:14 - 00:31:11:08
John Simmerman
Hence the name. And, you know, I'll say something to just you know that that plan of of reconnect Austin too is when we look at that image in the top right here too is one of the things that they looked at and studied was the fact that we see some of the the buildings that are there is the study and talked about the fact that we can actually bring a bunch of land back into productive use and bring those lands back into, you know, basically productive from the standpoint of tax revenue, too.

00:31:11:10 - 00:31:34:17
John Simmerman
In other words, as this is as it's sitting now and as it could sit in the future, if it gets expanded, that's all going to be land that is essentially a liability to the city and to the county and to the state versus being productive land that is actually helping, you know, increase the vitality of the community itself.

00:31:34:19 - 00:31:37:13
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, that would be incredible. Yeah.

00:31:37:16 - 00:31:45:27
John Simmerman
All right. So earlier y'all mentioned the water issue and that's what this is all about.

00:31:46:00 - 00:32:13:27
Kelsey Huse
Yes. Okay. So what these big projects, the DOD has to release a draft environmental impact statement. And so this has three alternatives. One is a no build. So what happens if we just don't change anything about the highway and evaluate the environmental impacts of the alternatives? The final environmental impact statement is where they choose one of those, and then they give all the details about that one.

00:32:14:03 - 00:32:41:17
Kelsey Huse
Well, they chose a final plan for the final environmental impact statement, but they included a new drainage tunnel that they didn't include in the draft plan, and they had no public input on that plan. And so we are alleging that they should have gone through the correct process, gained public input through the community, but they did not. And so this is a major change and a lot of people do not know that this is going to happen.

00:32:41:19 - 00:33:09:20
Kelsey Huse
So they are building a drainage tunnel underneath Cesar Chavez, which is a pretty main road here in Austin that goes in east Austin. And so all of the stormwater that comes off of the highway will go into this tunnel and it'll go all the way east and then the outfall site for that water is on the east side of Highway 183 at the end here.

00:33:09:22 - 00:33:33:13
Kelsey Huse
And so they are going to filter out all of the trash. So imagine like a mesh barrier in a tunnel, they'll get like plastic bags and water bottles and big things, but then the water is going to be dumped into the river at that point. So all of the oil that is on the road, anything that is on the road is basically going directly into the river.

00:33:33:15 - 00:34:18:26
Kelsey Huse
And this is the site of a nature preserve. So the next image is a sign from that nature preserve a wetland habitat of the Colorado River. So there's bird, there's fish. This is supposed to be a place where animals can thrive, and we're just going to dump water from the highway there without treating it. And not only that, we're dumping it in East Austin and there's a history in Austin of dumping things on the east side to protect the West side, which is kind of what Gregory was talking about, about what West Austin was, the white Austin East Austin was the black and brown Austin, which didn't have as much power and say to stop

00:34:18:26 - 00:34:45:01
Kelsey Huse
these kind of things from happening and one of our volunteers, Miriam, was at this nature preserve last week and she said she saw so much wildlife there, birds and animals, they were thriving. And so the third main point that I wanted to talk about is that Texas is dumping untreated water into our natural habitat just really flat.

00:34:45:08 - 00:35:23:04
John Simmerman
Now, that's their plan. And this obviously is not cheap to be able to create an entire system to be able to deal with the stormwater runoff and then obviously not cheap to create a drainage tunnel. And we've got some history in the city of Austin of dealing with tunnels and drainage and stormwater and flood protection because, you know, we had to do a very similar type of situation in in downtown in the Waller Creek situation that we had there.

00:35:23:06 - 00:35:58:28
John Simmerman
But so this is you're absolutely right, this seems like it was a bait and switch and a little bit of a slam dunk in the sense that, yeah, if you're planning on dumping it, you know, towards the wetland area in a sensitive area, not to mention the communities that are down the river, you know, from this because it's not too, too much further and then you're, you know, into a whole series of communities where the vitality and the vibrancy and water quality are essential to the, you know, those communities.

00:35:59:01 - 00:36:02:11
Kelsey Huse
Absolutely. And I don't know if they know about this.

00:36:02:13 - 00:36:04:24
John Simmerman
Now or they do now or they will.

00:36:04:25 - 00:36:08:05
Kelsey Huse
I should say they should.

00:36:08:07 - 00:36:31:17
John Simmerman
If they watch this, they will. I know we have one one more video from our council member or excuse me, our former council member and our current representative to the House of Representatives, Greg Cassar, to closes out any set up to this particular conversation. I kind of.

00:36:31:17 - 00:36:57:17
Kelsey Huse
Wanted to tie back to what I said in the beginning, which is that the era of highway expansion really is coming to an end and all of the movements across the country feed off of each other, learn from each other, inspire each other. And Gregory and I are here representing Rethink 35, but we are really representing the entire movement right now.

00:36:57:19 - 00:37:13:10
Kelsey Huse
And we are really begging you, begging all the people watching to support us, because this is our one chance to get this right. And I know you pulled up the donation page earlier. Yeah.

00:37:13:13 - 00:37:14:12
John Simmerman
You want to go back to there?

00:37:14:13 - 00:37:42:04
Kelsey Huse
Let's let's go back. This is really the way it is for us right now. And it's so awkward asking for money, but we are a grassroots or the community donated $10,000 to us, I think within three days, which was huge. Unfortunately, this lawsuit is going to be extremely expensive. We need a lot more money. And so I am just begging the community to pitch in.

00:37:42:07 - 00:37:50:01
Kelsey Huse
And even if you don't live in Austin, this is going to help your campaign in your city to see what happened.

00:37:50:01 - 00:38:17:10
Gregory Bertrand
Here is to add on to what Kelsey is saying. It just takes one success for people to be inspired. You know, this could help. I know Houston is dealing with I-45, allowing us to be a win for them. It could be a win for, you know, what's going on in Portland or Seattle or anywhere that is dealing with highway expansion.

00:38:17:12 - 00:38:39:06
Gregory Bertrand
These issues don't exist in a vacuum. It's all connected. And MacDuffie said it affects all of us. So even if you you're living in Florida or California and you don't, you want to see your city be more beautiful and walkable, you can donate to our lawsuit because it's going to help you potentially down the road.

00:38:39:08 - 00:39:00:12
John Simmerman
You know, And, you know, we're standing on the shoulders of, you know, other places that have fought, you know, freeway expansions and also have fought to have, you know, freeways torn down. And I think that that's a great point. And for those of you who are tuning in and you're not from Austin, thank you for watching this and listening to this.

00:39:00:15 - 00:39:21:24
John Simmerman
And yeah, to your point is that if we're able to be successful with this, we will be successful with this. And when we are successful with this, then obviously it is going to make it easier for other communities to heal from similar types of, you know, situations as well as hopefully prevent bad things from happening in other communities.

00:39:22:00 - 00:39:27:20
John Simmerman
Let's listen to our Congressman Gregory Casar.

00:39:27:23 - 00:39:53:15
Congressman Greg Casar
And I walked into this rally just with this incredible new surge of hope and energy, because I thought back to over eight years ago when I became an Austin City councilmember and there wasn't a majority of us standing up against I-35 expansion. There wasn't a rally of hundreds of people ready to stand up against tech. But this movement has grown so much, it's brought so many people together.

00:39:53:15 - 00:40:02:08
Congressman Greg Casar
And I know that together we can win. What do you guys think?

00:40:02:10 - 00:40:17:29
John Simmerman
I love it. It is. And I have to I have to give you a shout out there, Kelsey, because you really helped pull that rally together. And it was a tremendous success and it was so inspiring to see.

00:40:18:01 - 00:40:34:07
Kelsey Huse
Thank you. Gregory helped as well. It was so much hard work from me. GREGORY So many volunteers on the campaign. I mean, it was the hardest thing I've ever done, I think, but so incredibly worth it. So incredibly.

00:40:34:10 - 00:40:53:22
John Simmerman
It was really neat to see so many members of the community, you know, coming together like that. I did the filming and so that was one of my two cameras that I had set up. And my other cameraman that was there, Preston Tyree, was right. We're running one of my two big cameras, and that was from another one of my cameras.

00:40:53:25 - 00:41:11:17
John Simmerman
And then I just turned over all the footage because I didn't have time to to edit everything. And then you all, you know, as a team pulled together and did a bunch of edits on all of that and put it together. There's a whole series of short little clips of all the speakers that were part of that rally.

00:41:11:17 - 00:41:21:20
John Simmerman
I'll make sure that I include links to those videos as well. Gregory Final thoughts from you before we wrap everything up.

00:41:21:23 - 00:41:42:03
Gregory Bertrand
I would just like to always reiterate that it's not too late. You know, even even when it looks like here, you know, you use a sports metaphor, even though it looks like you're down 20 points, it just takes a little bit of momentum to start a comeback. You know, we're going to be fighting this and fighting this in 5 minutes.

00:41:42:05 - 00:41:43:02
Gregory Bertrand
Yeah.

00:41:43:04 - 00:41:53:07
John Simmerman
Well, and since we're just, you know, a couple of weeks out, four or week out from the Super Bowl, which literally went into overtime, know it's a great sport for is it's never too.

00:41:53:07 - 00:41:57:23
John Simmerman
Late to do that. Yeah.

00:41:57:25 - 00:42:01:25
Kelsey Huse
Kelsey just please donate. That's all I got.

00:42:01:27 - 00:42:03:10
Gregory Bertrand
Done doing.

00:42:03:12 - 00:42:18:07
Kelsey Huse
That and feel free to reach out. I'm on Twitter. Gregory is on Twitter. You can email rethink 35 if you feel inspired or you want help on your campaign. We are always here to help because we are in this together.

00:42:18:09 - 00:42:43:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's a really good point. We didn't mention at all the social media campaigns that are going on. And of course, when I had you on the channel for an interview before Kelsey, we talked a little bit about what we talked extensively about the social media campaigns that were part of this movement and literally literally leveraging different social media platforms.

00:42:43:17 - 00:42:54:03
John Simmerman
So let me just turn this over to you for a real quick little plug about, you know, the fact that you all are quite active on a variety of different platforms.

00:42:54:05 - 00:43:07:19
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, we have Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok. I believe that it yeah, I'm I'm still running the Twitter account right now, so I'm having a lot of fun.

00:43:07:21 - 00:43:30:19
John Simmerman
And I've got the Twitter account pulled up here. So folks, if you're not already if you are out on Twitter slash X, make sure you do you know follow along with the activities there. And and again, I had mentioned earlier the short videos that are out on the YouTube channel that rethink 35 has will make sure that we have all those links as well.

00:43:30:21 - 00:43:39:10
John Simmerman
But to to your point you know that we were also making is that some of that video content migrates over to Tik Tok, too.

00:43:39:12 - 00:44:09:10
Kelsey Huse
Yes. I try to post videos of those clips on Tik Tok and on Twitter, but they're super powerful, They're super inspiring. And I think a share goes a long way. I think about how much content had to be shared so that eventually Trevor Noah understands India's demand and talks about it in his comedy show. Right? May seem like retweeting or reposting something isn't doing anything, but I think it is changing the conversation.

00:44:09:12 - 00:44:17:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, I think you are absolutely right. Gregory and Kelsey, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Talents podcast.

00:44:17:03 - 00:44:18:24
Kelsey Huse
Thank you, John.

00:44:18:27 - 00:44:20:20
Gregory Bertrand
It was a pleasure being here. Thank you.

00:44:20:23 - 00:44:41:14
John Simmerman
He thank you so much for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this special episode on Rethink 35. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and most importantly, share within your network. We need to get this out there. Every single community around the globe that is dealing with these types of situations will benefit from this particular fight.

00:44:41:15 - 00:45:06:11
John Simmerman
Again, thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you lots 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 town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

00:45:06:13 - 00:45:07:19
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.