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

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:02:29
John Simmerman
Luke. Roger, welcome to the Active Towns podcast.

00:00:03:01 - 00:00:03:29
Roger Rudick
Glad to be here.

00:00:04:02 - 00:00:05:12
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, thanks for having us.

00:00:05:14 - 00:00:12:24
John Simmerman
So what I love to have my guest do is just say a few words about yourself. So look, why don't you introduce yourself? Who is Luke?

00:00:12:26 - 00:00:43:27
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, my name is Luke Bornheimer, and I am a sustainable transportation advocate here in San Francisco, California. I have been doing this work for about three years now, and it started my work started largely around car free JFK Promenade and League in leading, organizing and advocacy for making that permanent. And then that, you know, kind of did my toes in it and then led to many other things, including advocacy around Great Oak Park and Slow streets and protect bike lanes throughout the city.

00:00:44:00 - 00:01:03:21
Luke Bornheimer
And you know, some context for me, but my reason for doing this is largely about, you know, the environment, sustainability and making our cities more livable places to live. And so that's what kind of motivates me to help create this positive change in San Francisco and beyond.

00:01:03:24 - 00:01:05:26
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Roger, how about you?

00:01:05:28 - 00:01:31:05
Roger Rudick
I'm I'm the editor of Streetsblog, San Francisco, which as you both know and I'd imagine most of the viewers know, is a publication with branches in New York and National and Chicago in Los Angeles that covers the Safe and Livable Streets movement. I've been I guess if you include the time I was freelancing, I've been with Streetsblog for about ten years and I was with the National Public Radio affiliate before that in Los Angeles.

00:01:31:07 - 00:02:00:08
Roger Rudick
And I've been a journalist who specializes in transportation for well, and to date myself too much here. But about 30 years at one time or another, I've done pieces for television, radio, print about transit, about bike lanes. And I was a transportation commentator as well for a while on radio. And I think the thing that first got me started down this path was growing up in suburban New York and seeing the contrast between a car dominated suburbs and this wonderful city that I had access to.

00:02:00:10 - 00:02:23:10
Roger Rudick
If I could drive to the train station to get there. And then, you know, I bought into the whole cars of the path of freedom. The thing that we all kind of grew up with in the U.S.A. And then I saw a kid get hit in a terrible crash on the big highway near where I grew up. And it really changed me and I found a lot of people get into the the Safe and Livable Streets movement because of seeing something or experiencing something like that.

00:02:23:10 - 00:02:25:25
Roger Rudick
So. Right. That's my background in a nutshell.

00:02:25:28 - 00:02:31:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and apparently you're also a movie star, too. And you look at this.

00:02:31:29 - 00:02:35:20
Roger Rudick
And occasionally when I run into Clarence the street films. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:35:22 - 00:02:58:25
John Simmerman
Well, I'll put this on in the background and yeah, this is Clarence had the opportunity to, to head over to the Bay Area and shoot a whole bunch of videos. And here you are. This the superstar that you are so and so talk a little bit about this, Roger and Luke, both of you is you know in the Bay Area, we're seeing some progress being made.

00:02:58:25 - 00:03:03:08
John Simmerman
And I think that's really what was being highlighted here at the point.

00:03:03:11 - 00:03:24:23
Roger Rudick
Yeah, there's a tremendous amount of progress in the Bay Area. It's very uneven. But one of the things that's done really well is, you know, and for people who don't know the Bay Area, Alameda is kind of in your in suburb to the city and I wrote a piece a few months ago that Clarence really liked. And so we met out there and shot the video that you're looking at in the background there.

00:03:24:25 - 00:03:41:05
Roger Rudick
But basically it's an all new housing development that was built on a former Navy base. And Star Trek fans will recognize it. It's I think there's a shot of it somewhere in here of the nuclear vessels from from one of the Star Trek movies. And there's an airplane you know, in sort of alluding to the past of the area.

00:03:41:05 - 00:04:03:15
Roger Rudick
But the city manager is in Alameda, just incredibly progressive. And they insisted that this new housing development have raised sidewalk level protected bike lanes that you see right here. And they have succeeded in. And the dream of the 15 minute city. Basically, you've got all your housing right there. You know, it's still there. So filling it up because it is absolutely brand new.

00:04:03:15 - 00:04:29:05
Roger Rudick
But there's ground level shopping. These bike lanes actually lead all the way to the ferry terminal that they just built with a 20 minute ride to downtown San Francisco from here from all this housing. So it's really an example of what the Bay Area and cities throughout the country can accomplish if they put their mind to it and really do the work, the advanced planning and everything and and not just kind of relapse into, oh, yeah, we need, you know, huge parking lots for how else will people get anywhere?

00:04:29:05 - 00:04:38:16
Roger Rudick
And, you know, there is some parking in this community, no doubt about it. But as you can see from these pictures, you know, you can let your kids ride around. I mean, it's it's safe.

00:04:38:18 - 00:05:08:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it, too, that, you know, a we're able to kind of really highlight some infrastructure that when you have a situation like this where you can build a community from the ground up, you can put in truly authentic all ages and abilities facilities. And you look at this, you know, protected bike lane here and you saw that they in that particular section of it, you know, you had some rain garden facilities.

00:05:08:10 - 00:05:39:27
John Simmerman
So you you have that ability to to you know, really help, you know, with groundwater and stormwater runoff and things of that nature. I it's just it makes me so happy to see, you know, that level of infrastructure being put in and it it really helps too when you can do it right from the from the get go, when you can, you know, really have authentic, beautiful and functional facilities and really getting that authentic protection in.

00:05:40:04 - 00:06:02:02
John Simmerman
And look, I'm in a channel, something that you posted yesterday for the NEC, you know for a carry on to that of of that and this was the post that you guys that you're like advocacy organizations I'm begging you to stop referring to you plastic post separated bike lanes as protected. Thank you so much for saying that and speaking up.

00:06:02:04 - 00:06:34:26
John Simmerman
I get it. I'm not overly negative of cities using lighter, quicker, cheaper materials to reserve the real estate and make it, you know, put it in. But what we just saw from Alameda that's protected infrastructure. This is not talk a little bit about why you felt you know so you know move to have to you know you know basically call out are other advocacy organizations national include and also NAC doh about this particular subject.

00:06:34:28 - 00:07:01:16
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah you know I it's it's something that I've been seeing over the past three years and slowly noticing the, you know, the tendency, you know, both for advocacy organizations but definitely for transportation agencies and dots around the country to more and more almost universally refer to post separated bike lanes as protected. And I and I get it from their perspective, right.

00:07:01:16 - 00:07:19:01
Luke Bornheimer
Like they want to say that we created X number of miles and protected bike lanes. And so if you can put a post, you know, plastic post in the ground and call it protected, that's great. You just like your rely on a post on a $40 post is really high.

00:07:19:04 - 00:07:19:27
Roger Rudick
Right.

00:07:20:00 - 00:07:42:24
Luke Bornheimer
But as we all know, plastic posts aren't protection. And so, you know, it's a very dangerous precedent for transportation agencies to that. And really, I'm most disappointed in Nocco, who's kind of seen as this gold standard that everyone looks up to, who multiple places on their website and the materials show photos of post separated bike lanes as protected bike lanes.

00:07:42:27 - 00:08:07:02
Luke Bornheimer
And I think that sets a very dangerous precedent. And, you know, as far as advocacy organizations go, you know, I as a you know, I'm a community organizer first and an advocate close second. And I see the job as an advocate, as like setting the ideal, like what we need to strive for. And so an advocacy organization starts saying that a post separated bike lane is a protected bike lane.

00:08:07:02 - 00:08:41:11
Luke Bornheimer
They are giving permission to transportation agencies, to local legislators, to mayors, to governors to say, Great, we've checked that box. People want it protected bike lanes. They said. A plastic post separated bike lane is a protected bike lane. We achieved our mission. And so it puts advocates and, you know, in a very vulnerable position and more tangibly in vote and viscerally, people in a vulnerable position to be injured or killed because plastic posts aren't protection.

00:08:41:14 - 00:08:55:16
Luke Bornheimer
And so I would like to see advocacy organizations make that shift to specifically defining what a protected bike lane is, notably, you know, protected by parked cars, by by.

00:08:55:19 - 00:09:19:11
Roger Rudick
Well, I guess I'll pick that up then. Yeah. I mean, so one of the problems with the soft post, as you know, we saw in Sorry Luke when we finished the site and we'll throw it back to you. But you know those, those posts, if you watch the advertisements from the manufacturers to those posts, they highlight the fact that they won't damage an automobile and won't stop an automobile.

00:09:19:15 - 00:09:22:19
Roger Rudick
They'll swing back up to the right. So that's.

00:09:22:21 - 00:09:30:29
John Simmerman
Roger. The whole point is, is is yes, the manufacturers literally call them flex posts.

00:09:31:01 - 00:09:34:01
Roger Rudick
Mm hmm. Yeah. And soft or something.

00:09:34:09 - 00:09:36:21
Luke Bornheimer
They also call them, but they call them safety posts.

00:09:36:21 - 00:09:37:21
Roger Rudick
Right. Because they're safe.

00:09:37:21 - 00:09:38:20
Luke Bornheimer
For the other term they use.

00:09:38:20 - 00:09:39:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, they're safer.

00:09:39:08 - 00:09:57:26
Roger Rudick
You're just turned on its head like, that's What are we doing here right? You know, so we are our priority is to make sure that the moron who, you know, had six martinis before he got behind the wheel or, you know, or is looking at his or her cell phone and swerves into the bike lane. Our priority should not be to protect that person's car.

00:09:57:29 - 00:10:22:12
Roger Rudick
Right. And we have too many cases in the Bay Area. There are a few that come to mind of of drunk drivers or distracted drivers actually killing people right on lanes that had that kind of protection and they just drove right over it. Yeah. So, you know, it's to Luke's point, you know, for advocates to to jump on that bandwagon and start calling them protected lanes, you know, I don't think it's intentional, but, you know, they just need to think about it a little bit more.

00:10:22:14 - 00:10:25:00
Roger Rudick
We need we need different words and we know what we're talking about.

00:10:25:02 - 00:10:55:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. And Luke, you channeled the exact phrase that I used when I, you know, highlighted a brand new facility, you know, close to the house here in Austin. And I said, you know, I'm hesitant to call these protected bike lanes because it's just, you know, some armadillos and some and some, you know, flex posts. I like to call them enhanced separation in the sense that it's better than just a buffer and it's better than just a painted bike lane.

00:10:55:14 - 00:11:11:21
John Simmerman
And so it's it's a it's a step in the right direction. It's this incremental step. But yeah, don't call it protection when it's not really protection. You know, if we're going to have concrete barriers or parked cars. Yes.

00:11:11:23 - 00:11:34:08
Luke Bornheimer
How I, how I think about it is, you know, it's kind of like a grading system. Right. And again, this is this is a lot of why, you know, my strongest disappointment is in ACTO is like they are seen as this gold standard that should create side of a grading system. And I see it as a gold standard like you've got fully protected or or frankly, fully separated off street paths like you see throughout the Netherlands.

00:11:34:10 - 00:12:00:05
Luke Bornheimer
That's the gold standard. And then there's this like intermediary step, which I think it should be called that it's an intermediary step, that there's separation done by paying posts. That is a step towards that gold standard. And, you know, I want to be clear that, you know, I understand the value and I support quick build projects to get us to more separated and protected bike lanes.

00:12:00:08 - 00:12:36:22
Luke Bornheimer
And they should be very explicitly a step towards that. And so speaking, you know, within San Francisco, over the past ten years, largely quick build projects using painted posts have been installed and never updated the concrete. And even worse, the plastic posts are run over and damaged or completely destroyed. And so there are bike lanes separated by previously separated bike lanes that as of MTA calls protected that have zero plastic posts, separate them.

00:12:36:25 - 00:13:02:18
Luke Bornheimer
So they're actually just painted bike lanes. But, you know, you know, according to official city documents and numbers, those are protected bike lanes. And so that is that is a very dangerous precedent to set. It also, frankly, messes with data. You know, if we're reporting on crash data and injury data on protected bike lane segments that that aren't actually protected, our data is wrong.

00:13:02:20 - 00:13:27:12
Roger Rudick
Right? Yeah. Because then you're you're listing collisions and protected bike lanes which aren't actually protected and the image you have in New York here is kind of an example of how soft power should be used, which is you're you're giving the motorist a warning. Hey, there's a concrete planter behind here. And as far as getting quick build in there, I mean, there's no problem with doing quick build with plastic posts and I think and doing it quickly and inexpensively.

00:13:27:12 - 00:13:45:21
Roger Rudick
And I think Emeryville does it very, very well. They have a project on Doyle Street. I wish we had a picture of it, but they use plastic posts, but they're gray, so they look like concrete and interspersed with those gray posts are actual surplus garbage cans that Emeryville had in a warehouse that they decided not to use anymore.

00:13:45:24 - 00:14:04:05
Roger Rudick
And they just put these like plywood disk over the top so it can't use as a garbage can anymore. But it actually looks really pretty. It was it was really smart. It cost them no more than any other of these, you know, plastic installations. But you don't see the post knocked down. You do see some chips out of the garbage cans occasionally from one of motors, tried to wander into it.

00:14:04:05 - 00:14:25:16
Roger Rudick
But, you know, when someone's driving past, if they see something that looks like concrete, they generally don't run into it unless they really are distracted. And in Doyle Street, they learn really fast when they get their bill from the body shop. Not to do that anymore, but if we advertise the fact that, hey, this is a plastic straw, it's just it's not going to work with the subset of drivers who are truly irresponsible.

00:14:25:19 - 00:14:26:05
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:14:26:08 - 00:14:51:17
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, yeah. And we've, you know, we've, we've unfortunately seen the degradation of these efforts and these, you know, materials for infrastructure in that when quick build programs were initially created, the whole thought was you install something within 1 to 3 months, you evaluate it, you make tweaks, you study it for like a year and then you move to concrete or more.

00:14:51:17 - 00:15:37:13
Luke Bornheimer
Permanent materials in San Francisco are quick builds. Take 12 to 36 months to actually be approved and installed with quick biomaterials. They're almost never upgraded to permanent materials and they degrade over time. And so it checks the box everyone celebrates. It's as we add new protected bike lanes and then they degrade over time. And so so yeah, I think, you know, my my effort and my hope here is that advocacy organizations and organizations like Mercado kind of make a course correction and really publish definitions around like what is a protected bike lane, what is a separated bike lane, and are there other definitions we want to define?

00:15:37:16 - 00:16:06:24
Luke Bornheimer
And when you know what is the gold standard and what are we when should a separated bike lane be used and for how long? And probably the best example I've seen of this process is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they passed the Cambridge Cycling Safety Ordinance to implement connected network of protected bike lanes around town. And they said, hey, you know, we're going to install these protected bike lanes or sidewalk level bike lanes as we rebuild the streets.

00:16:06:27 - 00:16:29:18
Luke Bornheimer
And if we're not going to repave our street within the next five years will install a quick build design. And then when the street is being repaved, will then actually come back and use concrete and install permanent. And it's it's just working incredibly well and is a is a true model. I think for for the world, not even just the United States that other cities should be replicating.

00:16:29:20 - 00:16:48:16
Roger Rudick
Yeah yeah. Luke is absolutely right. I mean I think Cambridge has the correct idea but you know, I mentioned that in the Bay Area things are very uneven. And one of the things that frustrates the hell out of me is I live in Oakland and there you have you know, the streets in Oakland are infamous for potholes. They finally got a measure passed and they have money to do repaving.

00:16:48:19 - 00:17:04:03
Roger Rudick
And they've been they have some great projects going on that are absolutely stellar. But you know, your average street, when they go through and repave it, they just repave it and they put the doors on bike lane right back where it was. And it's frustrating as hell, you know, to to have that happen over and over and over again.

00:17:04:03 - 00:17:25:07
Roger Rudick
And then the DOT directors will say, well, we don't have money for protected bike lanes and like, yeah, you do, You just spent it. You, you just threw it away. And we also to contrast that development in Alameda, we have a development in Brooklyn base and they just went in and they, they basically built a new street from scratch and a new sidewalk and rain gardens and everything.

00:17:25:09 - 00:17:42:05
Roger Rudick
And then our advocates had to go back in after they as the asphalt was drying and say, Wait a minute, there's no bike lane here. And they had to go back in and retrofit it with plastic straws again. And it's like, you know, it's so frustrating because then we hear repeatedly we don't have the money to do it.

00:17:42:08 - 00:17:59:26
Roger Rudick
And that particular development, Brooklyn Basement, just drives me nuts. They actually did build a sidewalk level protected bike lane, but they treated it as a recreational path. It doesn't go anywhere. It's on the interior of the housing complex. And even though they're only a mile from it, from the BART station, it doesn't help you get there at all.

00:17:59:26 - 00:18:19:22
Roger Rudick
And even to get to that bike lane is pretty treacherous. So, you know, this is what we're up against as advocates. And I think Luke is absolutely right in stressing that, first of all, we need systemic fixes to this, that, you know, there have to be very strict guidelines or we have to legislate. We have to have laws that say when you put a new street in, you've got to do it this way.

00:18:19:24 - 00:18:31:18
Roger Rudick
And I think also key to that to get us on track is, yeah, we need the advocacy groups to just to understand that what we're looking at here. Well, I mean, this is the right way again, to use plastic post, you know, with at least.

00:18:31:20 - 00:18:55:14
John Simmerman
At least on an interim temporary basis. I mean, you've got these in. And thank you very much, Luke, for for sending these over. And these are some some photos that you snapped in New York City and and since we were talking about these footpaths. So I'm like, yeah, let's let's throw a few of these up. I know you were there for Vision Zero and I know you were there connecting with some of my buddies in the bike bus world.

00:18:55:14 - 00:19:39:21
John Simmerman
And we'll talk a little bit about bike Bus in just a little bit. I do want to mention, though, that one of the things that we need to kind of keep in mind, too, is that this concept of of protection is a little bit of a false sense of security in the sense that, like, for instance, when we look at some of the quote unquote protection or separated bike lanes in the Netherlands, oftentimes it's just simply a little bit of an elevation of like maybe three inches, you know, from the motorway, the real true, quote unquote, protection of the whole whole system in that sort of scenario is the fact that they're also driving much

00:19:39:21 - 00:20:08:11
John Simmerman
slower. That street is much more likely to be a 30 kilometers per hour street and then true physical separation with a protected facility or or a parking protected lane might come about on or literally, like you said, like a completely physically separated pathway away from the street, you know, shows up when it's a street that is 50 kilometers per hour.

00:20:08:13 - 00:20:35:21
John Simmerman
And that's really their dividing line is anything above 30 kilometers per hour. You need, you know, protection and separation. And increasingly in the Netherlands, at least, they're starting to come to the realization, looking at the serious injuries and fatality rates on those 50 kilometers per hour streets, that pretty much anything within the cities within the urban core area needs to be 30 kilometers per hour.

00:20:35:27 - 00:20:55:07
John Simmerman
So really, it's speed. That is the key thing that we need to do in terms of the key factor we need to deal with in terms of bringing motor vehicle speeds down. And then that really sort of opens up a whole bunch more opportunities. You know, because we're not dealing with that that lethal speed.

00:20:55:12 - 00:21:15:19
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. Yeah. And John, on that note, I you know, I like to think of this as kind of thinking about, like, what problems do we face and like, what what are the solutions or what's the solution to those problems. And so when I look at the problems that we face as a country, as a planet, you know, we've got a roadway safety crisis that is getting worse in the United States.

00:21:15:22 - 00:21:40:08
Luke Bornheimer
We've got a climate crisis which is getting worse in the United States and around the world. And we've got a public health crisis throughout the United States, both mental and physical. And so what I come back to often is mode shift. So, you know, absolutely speeds matter. And when conflicts happen, when crashes happen, speed matters a lot, especially if it's if it's a car or truck.

00:21:40:10 - 00:22:05:22
Luke Bornheimer
And, you know, the countries and the cities around the world that have really made progress on Vision Zero, on climate action and on public health have gotten people to shift trips from cars to active transportation and public transportation. And so that's that's what a lot of my focus is now is for San Francisco, for the United States is really having people focus more on mode shift.

00:22:05:25 - 00:22:41:15
Luke Bornheimer
And that includes and is very notably related to infrastructure and policy. So installing protected bike lanes, protected intersections, and notably making them connected in a network will get many more people shifting modes, which reduces the number of cars on our roads and also increases the percentage of our of our cities that use a bike for transportation at some time in their life, which we know from the Netherlands, is a really critical part because basically everyone rides a bike at some point and so everyone's aware of people riding bikes and being careful around them.

00:22:41:17 - 00:23:02:08
Luke Bornheimer
And so, yeah, I mean, I would love to see a day where we where in the United States we can have kind of, you know, separated bike lanes that don't really have substantial protection. But right now we need to get more people to shift trips from cars to active transportation. Those people need to feel safe and actually be safe.

00:23:02:10 - 00:23:09:17
Luke Bornheimer
And the the proven way to do that is is installing a connected network of protected bike lanes, you know, in every city around the country.

00:23:09:20 - 00:23:28:26
Roger Rudick
Yeah. And I wanted to add to that, you know, the streets in the Netherlands that are lower speed are either they're already narrow because just the houses are close together or they've narrowed them with planters and and parklets and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, we absolutely, you know, protected bike lanes are the right solution for every single street.

00:23:28:26 - 00:23:50:04
Roger Rudick
If we're dealing with a low volume residential street. But, you know, if you're going to do that, you have to design the street to force slow automobile speeds. You can't just put a sign up that says, you know, speed limit is 25 K or or a 15 MPH or I'm trying to convert my head there. But, you know, you need to have you know, I wish we had some pictures of the street I just mentioned in Emeryville.

00:23:50:04 - 00:24:08:25
Roger Rudick
But yeah, there's concrete blocks. There's a lot of similar things to what you just saw in New York City where, yeah, I mean, you can't drive fast. If you drive fast, you're going to crash into something right away. So, I mean, that's how you get those lower speeds. And then yeah, you don't you don't technically need, you know, a thoroughly protected bike lane because the speeds are low enough that you should be okay most of the time.

00:24:08:28 - 00:24:10:04
Roger Rudick
But you need to do both those things.

00:24:10:08 - 00:24:46:12
John Simmerman
I like to emphasize too, that especially in the Netherlands and also in Copenhagen, Denmark as well, is that about 70% of their entire cycling network is actually considered shared space. It's not protected and separated cycle network infrastructure. It's actually low speed, slow speed residential community. And it's really you know, if it's if there's actually no facilities for pedestrians and it's true, sort of one type of space is typically a 15 kilometers per hour zone.

00:24:46:12 - 00:25:12:05
John Simmerman
But if it's just shared between people on bikes and people in cars, then it's a 30 kilometers per hour zone. And the materials on those streets, the seat struts and whatnot, are, you know, typically in brick, red or red paved road, asphalt, really sending the message that this is not a space for drivers to drive fast. It's it's really people prioritize space.

00:25:12:05 - 00:25:14:14
John Simmerman
And so it sends a different message.

00:25:14:17 - 00:25:32:08
Roger Rudick
Mm hmm. Yeah. We have an example of that here in Oakland and Jacqueline Square along the waterfront. It's you know, it's all pavers. It is really bumpy. If you tried to go fast even on a bicycle and there's still bollards that sort of, you know, make it impossible to drive through so that, you know, you have to kind of remove them to make deliveries.

00:25:32:08 - 00:25:49:17
Roger Rudick
So it's kind of access only in those other sections you can drive through. The posted speed limit is five miles per hour. But you you couldn't go much faster than five miles per hour. There's just too much stuff. There's a lot of trees and fountains and and as I mentioned, bollards and grassy areas and yeah, I mean, it's funny that it's been here for so long.

00:25:49:17 - 00:25:53:19
Roger Rudick
I don't really think of it as an example of how to build a street anymore because it's just kind of there.

00:25:53:19 - 00:25:54:21
John Simmerman
It's just Yeah.

00:25:54:21 - 00:25:57:25
Roger Rudick
But it's actually very similar to the funeral too.

00:25:57:25 - 00:26:10:21
John Simmerman
Now we're looking at Valencia and let's, let's just dive into this because this is a rather complicated and and difficult one. So this is a protected section of it. Luke, walk us through the challenge that is.

00:26:10:21 - 00:26:36:09
Luke Bornheimer
VALENCIA Yeah, yeah. So, you know, just as you described this. So what we're seeing here is Valencia Street and this is what the actually protected bike lane looks like between market and 15th Streets. So the very northern end of Valencia Street, it's a four block stretch, has parking protected bike lanes that are, you know, actually protected and along the curb.

00:26:36:09 - 00:26:56:03
Luke Bornheimer
So easy for people to stop, go to a business and then turn on and off the street south of 15th Street. So starting at 15th Street and going down to 23rd Street, there was just a pain only unprotected bike lane for many years, for decades. And there had been a lot of desire. It's a main bike corridor in the city.

00:26:56:03 - 00:27:30:08
Luke Bornheimer
It also happens to be a vibrant merchant corridor. Heavy amount of a large number of people walking the sidewalks, crossing streets, going to businesses and, you know, commercial activity for for merchants getting deliveries or having deliveries picked up. And so there had been a lot of desire to improve the bike facilities on bloodshed, notably install, you know, protected bike lanes so that people were safe and that, you know, help businesses because we know that protected bike lanes lead to more business for merchants and lower commercial vacancies.

00:27:30:10 - 00:27:49:06
John Simmerman
Can I ask one quick question here? So so this is a four block section of this sort of treatment. Are there any any sort of bollards or any sort of flex posts trying to discourage drivers from parking in the bike lane or driving down the bike lane?

00:27:49:09 - 00:28:12:19
Roger Rudick
No, And it it does happen from time to time. And also, I just want to say the intersections are not particularly well down on this section. The intersections are not protected. But in, you know, sort of after a lot of advocacy work, we finally got a plan on the books in 2020, just before the pandemic started to get this kind of treatment extended, you know, much farther down.

00:28:12:19 - 00:28:39:28
Roger Rudick
VALENCIA So we would have protected bike lanes and protected intersections moving forward. And that project got canceled for kind of inexplicable reasons shortly as the COVID pandemic hit. And then basically nothing happened for many years. And then just a few months ago, they installed a section of center running bike lane, which is kind of new. And yeah, and here was almost the immediate result in this next picture here.

00:28:40:00 - 00:28:52:12
Roger Rudick
So this has been an incredibly contentious issue because when they did the outreach about installing a center running bike lane, the vast majority I mean, look at it. What was it like 80% of the respondents?

00:28:52:15 - 00:29:03:00
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, in a three month long outreach process, 13% of respondents supported the center bikeway design that I said MTA proposed.

00:29:03:03 - 00:29:06:13
Roger Rudick
So nobody wants it. This is what we're going to do is basically what happened.

00:29:06:15 - 00:29:10:27
John Simmerman
Who really wanted it, that direction or that design.

00:29:10:29 - 00:29:34:05
Luke Bornheimer
But I mean, the short the short answer is that policymakers were essentially playing politics. They were trying to thread the needle and pick the least controversial thing possible. We see this over and over again in San Francisco, a bunch of half measure infrastructure projects where someone is trying to not piss off anybody or pissed them all off equally.

00:29:34:08 - 00:29:49:20
Luke Bornheimer
And so they design and implement a project that doesn't satisfy any of the objectives, kind of pisses everyone off and doesn't make progress at all for the city or for the planet. And so that's exactly what happened here. You know.

00:29:49:23 - 00:29:53:10
Roger Rudick
Ostensibly it was about car loading. You know, it was supposed to be.

00:29:53:10 - 00:29:56:20
Luke Bornheimer
It was it was car game. It was I mean, it was it was car parking.

00:29:56:20 - 00:30:01:03
John Simmerman
So you just led with that? It's all about parking. It's all about. Okay, got it.

00:30:01:08 - 00:30:07:13
Roger Rudick
There's no way to know that at this point. And this video here illustrates that perfectly. Yeah.

00:30:07:16 - 00:30:29:19
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. So, I mean, so I you know, I emailed with you know, I was in communications with some MTA staff prior to the Center Bikeway design being formally proposed and approved and asked, you know why? Because I was advocating for curbside protected bike lanes with protected intersections. And I essentially was asking why haven't you created the design for curbside protected bike lanes?

00:30:29:22 - 00:30:54:20
Luke Bornheimer
And point blank, the answer was if we installed curbside protected bike lanes between 15th the 19th streets where the roadway is narrower, we could not have parking on both sides of the street. So just point blank, it was about parking. And ultimately what that comes down to is, you know very well, Jon, from throughout the United States, that's a political decision because it's like short term, people will be angry about parking.

00:30:54:22 - 00:31:17:14
Luke Bornheimer
Let's try and minimize anger and controversy. And so we'll just not do the thing that we know is actually best. And then, you know, once that decision was made, there's a bunch of justifications around like why this is actually better. And, you know, we could you know, it was it was said with no with no proof that if we didn't install the center bike way, we wouldn't do anything for two or three years.

00:31:17:17 - 00:31:40:29
Luke Bornheimer
No one showed their work on that. It was just said. And then everyone just kind of adopted it. They're like, Oh, we can't have anything if we don't do this terrible design. And so, yeah, essentially it was parking and it was it was people playing politics rather than prioritizing people's safety. The planet, and, you know, notably business, because the center bike way has been bad for business, too.

00:31:41:02 - 00:31:49:17
John Simmerman
I want to play this little video clip again. So whoever wants to like narrate over what we're going to about to see.

00:31:49:19 - 00:31:55:06
Roger Rudick
I mean, keep in mind, left turns are banned. That's supposed to be the solution to some of the dangerous movements you're about to see.

00:31:55:06 - 00:32:07:10
Luke Bornheimer
But yeah, well, also, I mean, I you know, I took this video while riding my bike to go pick up my daughter from school. And you'll also note that these people are driving in the center bike way. So that's what I wanted.

00:32:07:10 - 00:32:08:02
John Simmerman
Somebody from.

00:32:08:09 - 00:32:08:19
Roger Rudick
The place.

00:32:08:27 - 00:32:28:01
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, so, you know, people and. And I see this every day. I write on Valencia almost every single day, and, and I see all the time drivers who are just genuinely confused, understandably, because this design is a one of a kind design that makes no sense. And, and it's dangerous and it makes it's bad.

00:32:28:01 - 00:32:50:27
Luke Bornheimer
It's just it's unintuitive. And so yeah, people do all sorts of strange and dangerous behavior all day long, and none of them are doing it out of malice. They're just genuinely confused and don't know how to use the road because they've never seen something like this before. And notably, it's a terrible idea. So it's not like, Oh, the owner seen this before and it's a great idea and we'll all figure it out and then it will be great.

00:32:50:27 - 00:33:01:27
Luke Bornheimer
Well, I'm everywhere. It's like, Oh no, this is a terrible idea. Everyone's confused. Please, Someone with the authority and power to do something. Stop it. Like, please stop it before someone gets killed.

00:33:02:00 - 00:33:20:28
Roger Rudick
Yeah, and I don't. I don't live anywhere near it. I've seen two people get hurt already. One that required an ambulance. Yeah, you know, that's without visiting it that frequently. But, you know, you can see with all these crazy movements going on how that can happen. And, you know, we we also have heard accounts of a colleague of ours who actually lives on Valencia the 18th.

00:33:21:00 - 00:33:41:11
Roger Rudick
Watch somebody end up on the hood of a car, fortunately wasn't hurt too badly and sort of brushed himself off and got it and walked away from it. But we've had a pedestrian killed actually since this went in. Now, there were a couple of pedestrian deaths in the years prior, but it's a little strange that what has happened already and, you know, I know Luke and I both believe it's because of all this confusion.

00:33:41:14 - 00:34:11:03
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. You know, I think I think what I like to point out that that 80 year old man who was killed while crossing the street, unfortunately, the MTA has taken the official position that the center bikeway had nothing to do with his death. And besides that just being ridiculous, It's a dangerous precedent to set that when you install something in a roadway specifically in the middle of a roadway, it has no contribution to crashes, deaths and injuries that happen on that roadway.

00:34:11:03 - 00:34:55:27
Luke Bornheimer
That's that's an insane proposition. If you put a garbage truck in the middle of the street, you would say, yeah, that probably contributed to that crash. But because the agency wants to support this center bikeway, they are doing everything they can to defend it as if it's not actually a bad thing. And so, you know, we're not only seeing a disservice to the public, but frankly, dangerous behavior from, you know, government employees and policymakers who are both either essentially this up or not taking action so that the amount of people who wanted curbside protected bike lanes or pedestrianization of the street before the vote and the approval and even still greatly outnumbers, we're talking 6

00:34:55:27 - 00:35:30:26
Luke Bornheimer
to 8 times as many people, you know, which coincidentally lines up with the 13% support. So another note of maybe the same 13% of people like this thing. And unfortunately, despite all of that organizing, that advocacy, people pointing out crashes and injuries, the only people with the power and authority to do something about it, notably Jeffrey Tumlin, who is the executive director of S.F. MTA, his board of directors and Mayor London Breed are doing nothing, literally not taking action at all, not even commenting on it.

00:35:31:02 - 00:35:54:24
Luke Bornheimer
And so that inaction is quite literally leading to people crashing, being killed and being injured. So, I mean, I don't want any individual will to face negative consequences from this. I just want people to be safe. I want us to have good bike infrastructure. I want businesses to recover. I'm Valencia Street and I want us to take action on climate change.

00:35:54:27 - 00:36:12:13
Roger Rudick
And this center running bike lane does none of those things. What you're looking at here is there's a local artist who's also a cyclist and lives right off of Valencia, and she was just super frustrated with it. And during construction she made these fake stickers and stuck them on top of I'm sorry, we don't have more pictures of this, but it's funny.

00:36:12:13 - 00:36:22:09
Roger Rudick
But it's it's almost there's nothing left to do but laugh at this, as horrible as that is. But we're kind of stuck with it for the time being. Yeah. Good luck, indeed.

00:36:22:11 - 00:36:46:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. It seems as if and we're now we're back to this this final shot here. It seems as if, you know, when you mention, you know, London breed, you know, the mayor and Jeffrey Tumlin, the executive director as the MTA, it's like, okay, at some point in time, you you're a journalist, Roger, and luthier, you're a community organizer.

00:36:46:17 - 00:37:07:18
John Simmerman
It sounds like the community has to really speak up and come together so that they understand in massive numbers that, you know, no, this, this isn't the direction that we need to go. You mentioned it just in passing pedestrianization of the entire street. Tell me more.

00:37:07:21 - 00:37:17:20
Roger Rudick
I mean, that would be great. That's complicated. And there is driveways. There's residences on the street. So, you know, obviously, we can't tell someone. They can't drive to their driveway anymore.

00:37:17:22 - 00:37:38:14
John Simmerman
Well, and when we say pedestrian ization, you know, when we think of a street that is pedestrian priority, like in the Netherlands. Yeah. It basically means this is not a through street. You know, if somebody needs to take a delivery, they need to get to a driveway. It's what we were talking about before. It becomes like a, you know, a 15 kilometers per hour zone type of thing.

00:37:38:14 - 00:37:40:09
John Simmerman
An ultra low speed zone.

00:37:40:14 - 00:38:00:20
Roger Rudick
So I think everyone is more or less on the same page about that. So there are there's a subset of exceptions. But, you know, either we have to get truly protected bike lanes and intersections in here or we have to make entire blocks of the street access only where, you know, you can drive onto it, let's say in one direction.

00:38:00:22 - 00:38:17:06
Roger Rudick
There'll be a lot of obstacles and barriers. You can, you know, there's a lot of burrito shops in Valencia. So just as an example, you can stop off and get your burrito and then drive on and then you have to turn off Valencia again. You know, that seems appropriate for many blocks of Valencia and we can do some sort of mix perhaps, and protected bike lanes for a lot of it.

00:38:17:06 - 00:38:35:28
Roger Rudick
And then pedestrian ization slash access only. You know, for the other blocks. This is something that I think the vast majority probably of the merchants, I mean, certainly the merchants that we've talked to, I think a lot of drivers would actually like that too, because we've got major thoroughfares, you know, very close in parallel, such as Guerrero and basically any other street in the mission.

00:38:36:00 - 00:38:54:26
Roger Rudick
So it's not like we need this as an automobile thoroughfare. We kind of need it as a bicycle thoroughfare because of the topography of San Francisco. It's just if you're if you're trying to get between downtown and the rest of the city, this is this is your preferred route. So, yeah, I mean, why that isn't happening, you know, I find it kind of inexplicable.

00:38:55:00 - 00:39:16:04
Roger Rudick
We've recently had a few resignations at MTA and at one of the major advocacy groups, I don't know for sure yet, but it seems hard to believe it doesn't have something to do with this mess. You know, because this is kind of the marquee project of the MTA right now. Yeah. And it's obviously not going very well as these videos illustrate pretty clearly.

00:39:16:06 - 00:39:34:24
Roger Rudick
So I don't know what to say. I mean, I've reported on this exhaustively, as have other journalists in the Bay Area. I mean, I'm hardly alone on this. I mean, the crashes have been reported on and kind of our hyper local publication, Mission Local, which, you know, that's their territory. And the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on it.

00:39:34:27 - 00:39:56:07
Roger Rudick
I don't know why this continues, but it seems as if MTA invested in something that I think a lot of us, you know, knew from president of the Netherlands and other countries was going to fail. The few examples we have of this in other cities and other countries that had similar problems. And, you know, I want to point out there are edge cases where a center running bike lane kind of makes sense.

00:39:56:07 - 00:40:10:26
Roger Rudick
There are some of them in New York City on bridge approaches, for example. We're kind of if you're looking at the Williamsburg Bridge, you've got, you know, the bike lane or the bike space on the bridge is kind of towards the center. So as the roads approach the bridge, you've got a build center running approaches. Same with the Brooklyn Bridge.

00:40:10:29 - 00:40:38:01
Roger Rudick
But they put really robust Jersey barriers up and the streets on the approaches. They're not really commercial corridors like Valencia is. So this was a bad idea. A lot of people thought it was a good idea. As we see from the videos. It turned out the people thought it was a bad idea. We're right. But at this point, we've kind of got this bureaucratic inertia that they're they're invested in this design and they're just going to keep denying and denying and denying like the, you know, the poor guy who got killed.

00:40:38:01 - 00:40:57:22
Roger Rudick
But, you know, I mean, how absurd is that to claim that had nothing to do with the street? I mean, sure you can. You can't definitively say in most cases that any crash or any tragedy has to do with the design of the street. But it's it's a little strange that, you know what, two months after it officially opens, somebody is already dead and we have at least three other injuries that required an ambulance to be called.

00:40:57:24 - 00:41:08:00
Roger Rudick
It's probably more than that. So, yeah, I haven't got a great answer for you. I mean, we know what should be done. The thing we can't answer is why isn't it being done right?

00:41:08:02 - 00:41:45:12
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. No, I think to your question about Pedestrianization, you know, I think ultimately what this boils down to, as you noted and as I've advocated and pointed out, Pedestrianization could still allow for commercial deliveries. It can allow for local residents to access their garages. And so that's abundantly clear. What we are lacking besides, you know, political will and leadership is vision from the MTA and from the city to do something that is new but is also proven to and has proven to be really great.

00:41:45:16 - 00:42:02:06
Luke Bornheimer
And so, I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, surely there will be some merchants who would oppose Pedestrianization because they're not transportation. They're not you know, they haven't studied these things from around the world. They're local business owners who are just trying to survive and keep their business alive.

00:42:02:06 - 00:42:09:17
Roger Rudick
And a lot of them are drivers. So they just see everything as an obstacle, you know? And that's not unique to NCR. I mean, that's.

00:42:09:20 - 00:42:36:14
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, no. And the great thing is, is that we have examples from around the world and notably New York City and Times Square and Broadway where, you know, elected officials and policy makers were visionary and courageous and we're data oriented and said, hey, we're going to do this thing because it's proven to work and we're going to we're going to really do a good job to make sure it's successful and by and large, those things have been wildly successful.

00:42:36:15 - 00:43:05:13
Luke Bornheimer
You know, the pedestrianize parts of Broadway, Times Square, pedestrian plaza, and ultimately what all of those things boil down to, and this includes Emeryville and other cities that have done progressive things all around Transportation and active transportation is an elected officials, policymakers. And in our case, you know, we live in a strong mayor city. The mayor saying, you know, having a mayor who says, hey, we're going to do something that's visionary, but it's going to move us forward in the right direction.

00:43:05:15 - 00:43:31:18
Luke Bornheimer
And right now we lack that. We have a reactionary mayor and a reactionary city government that basically reacts to catastrophes. There's very little vision and foresight to move the city forward in a progressive way. And so ultimately that's, you know, that's part of the reason why Pedestrianization isn't happening, because the city is essentially scared to do anything new or different.

00:43:31:20 - 00:43:33:29
Luke Bornheimer
I mean, except for the center, like.

00:43:34:02 - 00:43:38:06
Roger Rudick
Except for this would be fairly new and very different. Yeah, I mean.

00:43:38:08 - 00:43:39:13
John Simmerman
You have to.

00:43:39:13 - 00:43:41:11
Roger Rudick
Use different isn't always good. Yeah, well.

00:43:41:11 - 00:44:22:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, I Mean at some at some level you know I, I can appreciate the fact that they, they got creative and did something but at the same time you know, having the, you know awareness especially in looking at some of the other center bike lane notable examples around the country that have you know have been installed and the challenges that they they present be like yeah, okay, you know some of the things that probably should have been thought about or some of these dangerous movements that are happening, you know, across the lanes, etc., the challenges that are associated with that.

00:44:22:03 - 00:44:50:21
John Simmerman
And getting back to what we were talking about before, about what's true protection versus, you know, you know, want to be protection, is like, yeah, if these were the sort of the low format jersey barriers instead of these mountable plastic things, you know, we might be looking at a different scenario where we're not seeing these movements of motor vehicles across them and in really and using them as the left turn lanes and things of that nature.

00:44:50:23 - 00:44:57:02
John Simmerman
But the other thing that really kind of jumps out and the reason I freeze frame this is just how wide the street really is.

00:44:57:05 - 00:45:13:09
Roger Rudick
Yeah, there's plenty of room to do everything that needs to be done on the street. It's absurd for people. And I hear that actually from time to time people say, Valencia's a narrow street. No, it isn't. You know, maybe by California standards it's a little narrow. But yeah, by international standards, it's enormous.

00:45:13:12 - 00:45:38:03
Luke Bornheimer
Something else I just want to note is, you know, I am I'm a former designer and I understand the design process and an approach to design. And what I understand here is that 78 took a very narrow look at the project. It was supposed to be about, say, three people on bikes and they they clearly created a list of the problems and the problem list was double parked cars in the bike lane.

00:45:38:05 - 00:46:20:20
Luke Bornheimer
So that was it. And it was just like, that's the problem. How do we solve that? Therefore, a center bike way you're like, That solves the problem. People won't double park in the bike lane anymore. Unfortunately, it creates a whole ton of unintended consequences and doesn't move us forward and isn't proven. You know, it's a new thing, but it's backed up by no data versus curbside protected lanes, which I'll just briefly note, if you actually go back quickly to the photo of the curbside protected bike lanes on Valencia, I will note that we know because S.F. MTA did two different evaluations of that section of Valencia Street that those curbs had protected bike lanes, reduced

00:46:20:20 - 00:46:27:08
Luke Bornheimer
double parking in the bike lane by 99%. They reduced close calls by 100%.

00:46:27:10 - 00:46:30:05
Roger Rudick
This section worked. So let's not do more.

00:46:30:07 - 00:46:50:25
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, this works. And they and they increased correct. So you know reduce double parking in the bike lane by 99%. It reduced close calls by 100%. And the number of people biking on that stretch of Valencia increased 49%. So like phenomenally successful it's like data that you you just want to celebrate and you want to put it out there every year like this works.

00:46:50:25 - 00:46:54:08
Luke Bornheimer
Here we go. We're going to do it elsewhere because look at this data. We back it up.

00:46:54:11 - 00:47:01:14
Roger Rudick
What a shock that the orientation that worked everywhere else in the world worked in San Francisco to remarkable how that happens.

00:47:01:17 - 00:47:20:13
Luke Bornheimer
It is dumbfounding and infuriating that the agency and the mayor is essentially ignoring that data and proven best practices around the world, essentially to try and solve a political problem at the cost of people's lives and the planet like that is inexcusable.

00:47:20:19 - 00:47:45:00
Roger Rudick
John, if you want to switch over, there's actually a merchant corridor just across the bay in Oakland on Telegraph where they actually put really robust curbside protected bike lanes. And they started out with plastic posts and, you know, parking protected. And it was similarly contentious. But I think more rational minds prevailed in that case. And we got you know, we have a really great project which is being finished up as we speak.

00:47:45:00 - 00:47:51:03
Roger Rudick
There's crews out there putting kind of last touches of paint on there. So I don't know if you want to keep that up, but it's.

00:47:51:05 - 00:48:01:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, so, so so this is this is telegraph. So this is this is kind of another one of the videos that Clarence put together. Yeah. So walk us through this.

00:48:01:10 - 00:48:22:07
Roger Rudick
So this is, as I mentioned, it's under construction. You can see some of the paint is still not completed, but basically they put these large islands down to make sure that you have daylighting at the intersections. So this is actually an improvement over the parking protected section of Valencia. But this is just across the bay in Oakland. So, you know, we don't even have to go to New York City.

00:48:22:07 - 00:48:56:25
Roger Rudick
We don't have to go to the Netherlands. You can just take BART for 15, 20 minutes and ride on this. And, you know, we have similar numbers that show that this works and it's safe. And actually, some of the people who are currently at MTA help design this. So it's just utterly bizarre that they would turn away from global best practices and build a center running bike lane in Valencia when, you know, again, I mean, to me, it would be inexcusable if the planners at MTA were not familiar with with global best practices, but even if they weren't, they can just go, you know, visit Oakland for a couple of hours and see this an

00:48:56:25 - 00:48:57:11
Roger Rudick
operation.

00:48:57:12 - 00:49:16:11
John Simmerman
I think it's I think it's rather clear from what you have both said, that it's not that the planners don't get it. They would probably love to do this. It's what you were saying earlier. It's this is a political thing and we don't know who and we don't know exactly, I would assume or maybe we do, but we're not going to say.

00:49:16:14 - 00:49:27:16
John Simmerman
But, you know, but yeah, I mean, this is obviously this is politics. And, you know, and this is once again about parking.

00:49:27:18 - 00:49:29:12
Roger Rudick
Yeah. Over life.

00:49:29:15 - 00:49:51:13
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. Yeah. And I will you know, I think I think to that point, Jon, I think it's it's really important for me and for other advocates and organizers to know is that oftentimes people will be like, we don't want to make this stuff political. We just want to make streets safer. We want to help people shift trips. And I think especially in San Francisco, a fiercely political city.

00:49:51:16 - 00:50:11:08
Luke Bornheimer
But that is just not the reality of things. You know, politics are a massive lever, if not the only lever in many of these things. And we see that in the negative way, like in San Francisco, where the blunts the street Center bikeway was approved and installed. But we also see it in a positive way. You know, notably I mentioned Cambridge earlier, Cambridge cycling safety.

00:50:11:11 - 00:50:19:13
Roger Rudick
Or what we just saw in Oakland, like the doc had at the time, didn't want to do that and got overruled by the city council.

00:50:19:15 - 00:50:49:04
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. And you know, in in Cambridge Cambridge cycling safety organize people found candidates got them to pledge to support the cycling safety ordinance and got seven of nine city councilors elected who supported the ordinance. And so therefore, months after being elected, they passed the ordinance. And so it was really easy, you know, and then elsewhere, you look at Emeryville, California, John Borders selected, became mayor and he believes in that stuff.

00:50:49:04 - 00:51:11:24
Luke Bornheimer
And he he sees the vision. He has the vision, and he's willing to be empathetic and compassionate and communicate the data. But he's also like, we're going to do this. And so ultimately this stuff is politics. And I think the sooner organizers and advocates realize that they need to play politics, and sometimes that politics is not like rah rah and patting everyone on the back so that it's it's like a blood sport.

00:51:11:27 - 00:51:13:08
Roger Rudick
Yeah. Yeah, it really is.

00:51:13:11 - 00:51:35:06
John Simmerman
Well, and yes, to to to your point that, you know, all of this is about politics because ultimately, you know, a budget is a reflection of, you know, the policies and the politics that are involved. And so politics are it's not a it's not a dirty word in a nasty word. It's like we do need to get engaged and we do need to get involved.

00:51:35:09 - 00:51:56:22
John Simmerman
I'm going to shift gears to two Vision Zero Conference. Roger, you couldn't make it to the conference. You were supposed to be there. You had you were laid up with an injury. You couldn't go, but Luke was able to make it. And if I zoom in on this photo, I see not one, not but three three past guests on the Active Towns podcast.

00:51:56:25 - 00:52:08:01
John Simmerman
Luke, talk about this man. This is this is the Vision Zero conference, but this is also like a little bike bus meet up. Oh, there's and there and yeah, there's clearance too.

00:52:08:03 - 00:52:34:05
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know I first want to acknowledge and appreciate transportation alternatives Danica Harris, Elizabeth Adams and the whole team that that set up the Vision Zero Cities conference really well put on conference lots of great activities and sessions and networking that happen there and this this was part of that conference So there was a kind of a field tour that was about how to start a bike bus.

00:52:34:05 - 00:52:49:09
Luke Bornheimer
And so it was like going out. We did a bike bus route in Brooklyn with Emily Stutz, who leads the Bergen Bike path there, and also had samples. Our coach also from Portland, Oregon, and Megan Ramey from Fort Hood.

00:52:49:11 - 00:52:49:28
John Simmerman
Hood River.

00:52:49:28 - 00:53:18:04
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, Hood River, sorry. And yeah, so we you know, we rode around, we talked about bike busses, how to start them, the impact that they have answered questions and really just like harness the joy and positivity and transformational power of bike bus that that exists throughout the country and throughout the world. And there's just a lot of energy, a lot of positive energy around bike, bus, and we just really want to harness that and help grow that.

00:53:18:06 - 00:53:47:13
Luke Bornheimer
And just in case anyone's curious, a bike bus is essentially children and families riding their bikes to school together. So it essentially provides safety and numbers but more and more importantly, it provides a healthy start to the day. It provides a social opportunity for kids to hang out with their their friends, and it provides families a really easy, safe and joyful way to shift some trips from cars to active transportation.

00:53:47:15 - 00:53:53:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, and you all have been doing bike bus stuff in San Francisco for a while, right?

00:53:53:26 - 00:54:17:27
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, I helped to kind of start S.F. Bike Bus and get some of the bike busses going here alongside Peter Belden and Molly Hayden to really help people shift trips and have a great time getting to school and introduce kids and families to to bike busses and biking to school. And so, you know, we we have a we've had a few bike busses here in San Francisco.

00:54:18:00 - 00:54:51:11
Luke Bornheimer
Notably, we had a bike bus that started on car free. JFK Promenade went on to Page Slow Street and then went to kind of like the center of San Francisco and that started during the pandemic and before Free JFK became permanent. And so, you know, to the discussion earlier about politics, for me, there was a there's absolutely a strategic decision made around having the bike start on car free JFK, which at the time was only temporary and there was a vote coming up and having it start there and go on solo streets, which were only temporary and had a vote coming up.

00:54:51:13 - 00:55:14:18
Luke Bornheimer
And to not only have it start there and have a take place on those spaces and take photos and videos and, you know, obviously that becomes viral and spreads joy and inspires other people, but also got elected officials, you know, notably two kind of swing vote supervisors to come on a bike bus on JFK and on peaceful street, who then later voted in support of car free JFK.

00:55:14:18 - 00:55:40:25
Luke Bornheimer
And for what it's worth, they represent more conservative, more car intensive neighborhoods and districts in the city. And they both supported car free JFK and helped pass it. You know, it passed 7 to 4. And without those two votes, it wouldn't have passed. And, you know, they came out, they spoke to the bike bus group. They rode with us, and it was clear they understood the value of the car free space, the slow street and of bike bus.

00:55:40:25 - 00:56:05:15
Luke Bornheimer
And so I think going back to the politics side, bike bus represents not only a transformer tive tool to get families biking to school and addressing our roadway safety crisis like climate crisis and our public health crisis, but also represents a very great political tool to help get elected officials and policy makers on board as well.

00:56:05:18 - 00:56:09:25
John Simmerman
Now, is this a is this a new thing? Bike bus world?

00:56:09:27 - 00:56:53:27
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, Yeah. So alongside Sam Balter, Coach Barreto and Jess and Andy from the from the Montclair bike bus we're putting together by bus world. And this is an initiative to help more families and teachers and children start running to school through bike busses and help spread bike bus throughout the country and grow that movement. Because, you know, we're also seeing the the other great thing about bike busses is that people who organized bike busses and take part in bike busses pretty quickly become advocates and organizers themselves because they see the value of biking, they see the value of active transportation infrastructure.

00:56:53:29 - 00:57:23:07
Luke Bornheimer
And so they want to get more involved. Sam is a great example of that. He just started a bike bus for Earth Day, got a bunch of kids and families to ride, and then all of a sudden he has just fully dove down the rabbit hole of active transportation infrastructure and policy. And so we see an amazing opportunity there to capture that organic grassroots movement and grow it throughout the country and really scale that impact to many more cities around the country.

00:57:23:10 - 00:57:25:11
Luke Bornheimer
And, you know, at the federal level as well.

00:57:25:13 - 00:57:41:16
John Simmerman
Yeah, So I've got some of the footage here from Clarence's car free JFK. Let's let's close this out, this discussion out, talking about another positive win that this represents. Roger, start us off.

00:57:41:18 - 00:58:03:24
Roger Rudick
Sure. So one of the main previously thoroughfares through Golden Gate Park was JFK Drive, previously JFK Drive. And believe it or not, for the better part of four decades, advocates had been making the point that, you know, maybe we shouldn't have an automobile thoroughfare through our main park.

00:58:03:25 - 00:58:09:29
John Simmerman
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Roger. What do you mean? There should be deal. There shouldn't be an auto sewer through your park.

00:58:10:02 - 00:58:38:23
Roger Rudick
You we we've we feel like and, you know, I'm not a you know, an objective journalist. I'm an advocacy journalist. So I can say upfront, I do not think there should be a traffic sewer in Golden Gate Park or any other park that's not what parks are for. And finally, after a battle that I thought was going to kill us all, we finally got half of JFK and this actually for details I won't get into it gives us a more or less car free route through the entire park.

00:58:38:26 - 00:59:00:25
Roger Rudick
And we turned this part of JFK into the JFK Promenade and, A local arts advocacy group came in and and installed all these art installations that you see in these pictures. And, you know, this was a celebratory ride that we went with and Clarence documented. And it's just, you know, I hope everyone who lives in San Francisco obviously has been there.

00:59:00:25 - 00:59:08:14
Roger Rudick
But anybody who comes to visit, I just make sure it's on your itinerary. You know, don't even come to San Francisco if you're not going to come to see the JFK Promenade, because.

00:59:08:16 - 00:59:12:08
John Simmerman
It is you have to use it's like a passport. You got to it has to be checked.

00:59:12:08 - 00:59:30:08
Roger Rudick
You have to have it on your stamp or they'll turn you back at SFO and send you back to the park. But you know the difference between just the feel of the park now, you know, whether you're on foot or whether you're riding a bike. And this is I guess I could get into the details of this. I love this photograph.

00:59:30:11 - 00:59:50:27
Roger Rudick
That's a Didi. Well, see who's kind of a an inherit is she inherited the fortune of the DuPont Chemical family. We can get it all that later. But she is basically the benefactor of the young museum, the big art museum, and in Golden Gate Park. And they were kind of the the our arch enemies in this whole battle.

00:59:50:27 - 01:00:16:12
Roger Rudick
They fighting like hell to keep cars like we see in these old pictures of flying back and forth to JFK because it was how the I guess the directors of the museum got know their limousines to the museum when they had their meetings. We screwed them up a little bit. They couldn't do it anymore. And the irony of all that is there's an 800 space parking garage constructed under the park with access to all the adjacent roads so you can still drive to the museum.

01:00:16:12 - 01:00:39:08
Roger Rudick
It's not a problem that parking garage never fills up. So anyway, there was this picture of her for I think it was architectural magazine. I forgot. Oh, sorry. It was the Chronicle for, I think, an architectural article, but just that picture of her with a little dog. I thought it went so perfectly because she. Oh, sorry, I've never met the woman, but, you know, she looks kind of cartoonish and there are, like, kind of a Disney villain.

01:00:39:08 - 01:01:05:07
Roger Rudick
So I use that picture with an article about it, sort of an investigative piece getting into how the De Young was funding the so-called grassroots effort to keep cars and on JFK drive to ensure that everyone can get to the park. Because, you know, if you can't drive to the park specifically on JFK, there's no way to get to the museum, which, of course, you know, is absurd because you've got the underground parking garage with access from both sides of the park to local street.

01:01:05:08 - 01:01:23:11
Roger Rudick
So it's it was always silly, but but anyway, yeah, it began it almost killed us because we are not, you know, Luke certainly is not a professional advocate in the sense that nobody's writing him big checks to do all this work. And he worked his butt off, as did a lot of other people. And ultimately we were successful.

01:01:23:13 - 01:01:34:24
Roger Rudick
And we have pictures here of the Great Highway as well, which that was a victory of sorts. Luke, do you want to talk a little bit about where we stand now with the Great Highway Park?

01:01:34:26 - 01:01:56:20
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, Yeah. And I think just to put a, put a pin in the you know, your point, Roger, about the people involved, you know, this was inherently a grassroots organizing effort. You know, that the part of JFK drive that was made car free during the pandemic was made purely temporary, was just can be for the pandemic is going to be just for the pandemic.

01:01:56:26 - 01:02:21:20
Luke Bornheimer
And and you know, I got out there and started organizing people, you know, at first as an email to city policymakers and then a petition. And that grew to over 5000 people and then other advocacy organizations, you know, formal advocacy organizations, got involved and started rallying people as well. And that kind of grassroots organizing absolutely made this happen.

01:02:21:24 - 01:02:29:06
Luke Bornheimer
And, you know, and there was direct advocacy that I was doing with supervisors. So, you know, it all goes into but.

01:02:29:09 - 01:03:00:17
Roger Rudick
It was grassroots versus Astroturf versus a well-funded Astroturf campaign. And for once, the grassroots side won. Yeah. And actually, it's the reason we won ultimately. And Luke, you can you can disagree with me. I'm not sure I think you agree with me on this. But the Astroturf side that the DeYoung, they basically backed a petition drive to get a ballot measure to let cars go and JFK again and they lost badly, so they pushed to get it on the ballot instead of going with what the Board of Supervisors had decided.

01:03:00:19 - 01:03:09:06
Roger Rudick
And then they lost, which locked it in forever and ever. The only way to undo it now is to have another ballot initiative. So they they really shot themselves in the foot, which.

01:03:09:08 - 01:03:33:29
John Simmerman
Well, I think that that's a really important thing to to know is that oftentimes these difficult challenges that we fight hard to to you know, to to get put in place, people are very, very hesitant at first. And people many are skeptical about it. But then, you know, you get it done and it's like then then the public is like, oh, this is really cool.

01:03:34:02 - 01:03:46:10
John Simmerman
And oh, those things that I was really afraid of, those those fears didn't materialize. And you put it to the voters for a vote and they're like, No, no, no, we don't want to go back.

01:03:46:13 - 01:04:02:04
Roger Rudick
Yep. Yeah. And they were surprised. When you talk to the average person on the street around Golden Gate Park and explained to them that there was going to be a ballot initiative to put cars back on JFK, I was like, Who would do that? Why would you want to do that? So it was an easy sell.

01:04:02:10 - 01:04:33:21
Luke Bornheimer
I will you know, I will just I will add that, you know, the grass roots element of this is really critical and and specifically something that I would love to pass on to other organizers and advocates out there. Is that a common a common PWA? I see that people take and I've been guilty of this many times, is to focus on people who disagree with you or who are moderately disagreeing with you and you want to win them over.

01:04:33:24 - 01:04:59:02
Luke Bornheimer
And what I focused on with JFK, what I would encourage the other organizers and advocates to do is focus on the massive part of the population that is completely unengaged on a topic. So they have no idea that there's a vote on this. They have no idea how to even contact an elected official. They have no idea how to influence something and you want to give them that tool in as easy a way possible to engage civically.

01:04:59:04 - 01:05:25:22
Luke Bornheimer
And doing that essentially grows the pie of how people are engaged in the civic process and dramatically shifts the dynamics around politics. And so, you know, that's bike bus helped with that grassroots organizing and canvasing help with that. And so that's, you know, I would impart that on other people to encourage them to do that in their city with their project, you know, start early and often get as many unengaged people engaged and on your side of the issue.

01:05:25:25 - 01:05:53:24
Luke Bornheimer
But, you know, here you can see a video of one of our one of our bike busses on coffee, JFK Promenade. And you know, this was before it was voted to be made permanent. And so it's impossible to like watch this and say that this is not feel incredible joy inside and say like, we want to encourage more of this and so the connection is so easy for our elected officials and policy makers to be like, oh, this is a really positive thing, and this space enables that positive thing.

01:05:53:26 - 01:06:00:19
Luke Bornheimer
How do I support this? You're like, I'm so glad you asked. You just vote for this thing and it just changes that dynamic in the discussion.

01:06:00:21 - 01:06:02:16
Roger Rudick
Yeah, it's good stuff.

01:06:02:18 - 01:06:17:27
John Simmerman
And Roger, just a shout out to Streetsblog and all the great work that you all do. And then Luke, the last word that you will have is to say one last thing about the Great Highway park.

01:06:18:00 - 01:06:53:28
Roger Rudick
Yeah, I mean, Streetsblog has been, you know, as I mentioned at the start of this, you know, it's been around for about 17 years in New York City, and now we've got street blogs and, you know, in National we got Chicago, L.A. and we had Denver a while. They might come back some time, but and I wish we had a Streetsblog Austin But yeah, our job is to, you know, when when advocates say when cities are following best practices and doing really great things like the example is on telegraph to shine a nice bright light on that and celebrate it and let interested people know what's going on and what they can support.

01:06:54:01 - 01:07:10:08
Roger Rudick
You know, to shine a light on people like Luke, advocates who are working their butts off to try and make a better city and also to, you know, highlight when dots do, you know, for lack of a better term, brain farts like this center running bike lane on Valencia, you know.

01:07:10:08 - 01:07:17:20
John Simmerman
Or even or even worse, it's, you know, is not really a brain fart. It's like it's being done intentionally.

01:07:17:23 - 01:07:39:01
Roger Rudick
Yeah. Yeah, it's not You're right. The MTA didn't you know, walk into a tree and suddenly say, Oh yeah, let's do a center running? No, it was actually discussed for months. It's really incredible. But anyway, yeah, that's, you know, that's our job. And, you know, you and I met for the first time in lights of Germany this year at the Valley Cities Conference.

01:07:39:01 - 01:08:02:01
Roger Rudick
And so, you know, it's also my job to stay educated on what's going on in the Netherlands and elsewhere and in places where they've actually accomplished what we say we want to do, which is, you know, Vision Zero, to have essentially no fatal or serious injury collisions every year. And we're you know, as Luke pointed out earlier, we're actually going in the wrong direction pretty much almost everywhere in the US, but not everywhere.

01:08:02:01 - 01:08:27:09
Roger Rudick
I mean, Hoboken is a notable exception. And so, you know, our job is to kind of cheerlead all this and influence the the regular press as well, to get stuff out to, you know, that body of people that Luke was highlighting that, you know, are not necessarily engaged in in street safety issues and, you know, and don't know what a moonroof is and we don't know how to pronounce it, but they know that they like it.

01:08:27:11 - 01:08:46:07
Roger Rudick
And that's something that I see over and over and over again, that, you know, someone comes back from the Netherlands and yeah, I mean, you know, they haven't dedicated their lives to transportation or transit, but they're like that. That was so nice. Why can't we have that here? Or they go to JFK and they you know, they walk down the promenade and say, wow, why don't we do this in our park?

01:08:46:07 - 01:09:02:14
Roger Rudick
Why don't we, you know, do this with our street like, you know, I'm getting we you know, we just got past Halloween, right? The the day with the highest number of children getting run over. And, you know, like, our job at Streetsblog is to make them.

01:09:02:14 - 01:09:15:26
John Simmerman
Think, thank you for doing what you do there at Streetsblog. Luke closes out here with just a quick word, sort of answering Roger's suggestion or question about the Great Highway Park.

01:09:15:28 - 01:09:42:06
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. And first and foremost, very appreciative of Roger and the entire Streetsblog Network's work to elevate this work call out. You know, when agencies or cities are not doing a job and really help us move forward to this this future that we need to go to. So very appreciative of that. Yeah. I mean, as far as Great Highway Park goes, for those who don't know, Great Highway Park is also known as Upper Great Highway.

01:09:42:06 - 01:10:08:07
Luke Bornheimer
It runs along the Pacific Ocean. It's a two mile stretch along the Pacific Ocean that also during the pandemic was closed to cars open to people 24 seven. And when that happened, people's eyes were open to, wow, we can have this great public space to recreate, to gather, to connect, to transport ourselves, using active transportation right along the Pacific Ocean.

01:10:08:07 - 01:10:41:10
Luke Bornheimer
And so it really opened people's eyes and people started saying, hey, we should have this permanently after the pandemic. And so similarly to to JFK, I helped kind of lead organizing around great Ivy Park to get people to support making that a permanent park and so unfortunately, we've had a step backwards in that, you know, Mayor Breed reopened or opened closed, you know, closed great highway park to people and it to cars Monday at 6 a.m. to Friday at 12 p.m..

01:10:41:12 - 01:11:08:17
Luke Bornheimer
So that was a setback. We did fortunately rally people organized people and advocate for keeping that configuration until December of 2025. So that is now codified until the summer of 2025. But we're actively in I am actively working to organize people and advocate for making that a permanent park. 24 seven as soon as possible. We have to wait until December 2025 to do it.

01:11:08:17 - 01:11:15:15
Luke Bornheimer
It only takes a vote of our Board of Supervisors and we can do it just, you know, just as quickly as we want to.

01:11:15:17 - 01:11:21:18
John Simmerman
Push, push hard, push hard and make it happen. And this is this is part of the footage of the Great Highway, right?

01:11:21:21 - 01:11:53:15
Luke Bornheimer
Yeah. Yeah. This was from that same ride that started in on JFK Promenade. And, you know, you can see here, it's it's it's a four lane, four lane road along Pacific Ocean. And, you know, unfortunately, because cars are allowed on it during the week, you can't the city can install permanent infrastructure like tables and chairs and bathrooms. And so it's it's a opportunity for our city, for a visionary leader or leaders who actually want to move our city forward and do some really positive stuff in the city.

01:11:53:17 - 01:12:15:18
Luke Bornheimer
It's just sitting there waiting, waiting for someone to just pick it up. And so, you know, we have a mayoral election coming up in November 2024, and it would be great to see some mayoral candidates saying, hey, let's make that happen immediately. Like this is a no brainer. Let's do it will be celebrated around the world. Great Highway Park was recognized by the New York Times as one of the 50 places from the pandemic to visit.

01:12:15:21 - 01:12:27:06
Luke Bornheimer
I mean, this is it's a it's a slam dunk winner for an elected official or policymaker who just has the courage to pick the pick the football up and run with it. It's it's right there for soccer ball.

01:12:27:06 - 01:12:45:02
John Simmerman
I know that both of you are going to work hard to to mobilize the community to to try to get to that in. Roger Loop, thank you both so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. This has been an absolute joy and pleasure.

01:12:45:04 - 01:12:45:13
Roger Rudick
Thanks.

01:12:45:13 - 01:12:46:27
Luke Bornheimer
John. Thanks for having me, John.

01:12:46:29 - 01:13:04:02
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Roger and Luke, and if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on this subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell Again, thank you so much for tuning in.

01:13:04:02 - 01:13:29:14
John Simmerman
It really means a lot to me. Until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, Health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active tones. Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super. Thanks. As well as making contributions, the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

01:13:29:16 - 01:13:30:24
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.