Transcript from the original video recording from the Livestream (note: this has not been proofed)

00:00:02:09 - 00:00:20:00
John Simmerman
Hi Everyone. Welcome to the Active Towns channel ad. I'm John Simmerman and this is season four finale. It's a live streaming and I am absolutely delighted to welcome Mayor John Bauters from the city of Emeryville, California. Mayor John, welcome.

00:00:21:04 - 00:00:22:01
John Bauters
Thanks, John. How you doing?

00:00:22:24 - 00:00:26:13
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this. It's going to be a lot of fun.

00:00:27:16 - 00:00:33:12
John Bauters
It is. Season four or four is my lucky number, so I'm happy to be the Christmas present under the tree at the end of the season here.

00:00:33:27 - 00:00:50:23
John Simmerman
Very good. Very good call. Well, we've got folks tuning in from all over the world. I already see some folks, you know, chiming in from the Netherlands and a few from northern California, which is where you're at. What did you do? This one? Just take a moment to introduce introduce yourself to the audience.

00:00:52:07 - 00:01:11:21
John Bauters
I'm John Powers. I'm a council member and the current mayor of the city of Emeryville in Northern California, which is on the east side of the bay. And I have been elected in office since 2016. I serve in a number of other capacities on behalf of my city, including the chair of the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the chair of the Bay Area's Air Quality Management District Board.

00:01:11:21 - 00:01:26:05
John Bauters
I'm a very fervent supporter of going outside and all of its ways and most commonly bicycle seeing and hiking and walking. So excited to join you here today to talk about people oriented cities, which is my favorite topic and active talent.

00:01:26:29 - 00:01:45:18
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great. And in fact, we all kind of know about you because you went a little viral over the last year. So once you kind of share a little bit of of that story of of, you know, really kind of what happened in particular on Twitter.

00:01:47:13 - 00:02:10:11
John Bauters
Sure. The irony of all of it to me is that I don't have any other social media. I never wanted in social media. My former employer actually required me to get some form of a social media handle because I had an invitation to meet Michelle Obama back in 2015. And I really wanted to go. And my boss was like, you know, you do all this cool stuff at work, but you never elevate any of the things you're doing.

00:02:10:11 - 00:02:24:17
John Bauters
And they've been pushing me to do a social media handle. I've never had Facebook or, you know, any of these other things that people use, I guess. And they were like, You have to have at least something so that you can document meeting Michelle Obama. And the constructor is like, Twitter is the easiest. Back then it was 140 characters.

00:02:24:17 - 00:02:42:09
John Bauters
Just a couple of pictures, A couple tweets will be fine. So I got a Twitter page. I had like 11 followers for the first few years. And so to your point, earlier this year, nothing has changed about me or what I do. But I had a tweet about eliminating parking spaces. Every time someone complains to me about a bike lane or a bicyclist in traffic.

00:02:43:13 - 00:03:03:22
John Bauters
And for whatever reason, that struck a nerve with some folks and people started tuning into what we're doing here in Emeryville. And my take on people oriented cities, everything from housing and active transportation to environmental justice, sustainability and living wages for people. So, you know, it's kind of been a ride since then. I've been invited to all sorts of things all around the world.

00:03:03:22 - 00:03:22:19
John Bauters
I'm happy to hear that some friends from the Netherlands here. I got a wonderful trip to the Netherlands earlier this year with some great, amazing people there. And yeah, I've just it's I just use Twitter essentially to share my perspective. I don't really have an agenda per se other than joy and giving people the opportunity to see what's possible.

00:03:22:21 - 00:03:23:27
John Bauters
And it's been a fun ride.

00:03:24:15 - 00:03:45:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of fun ride, you're also you have the tendency to sort of speak your mind at times. And so again, I love this article here from July where it's like outspoken Mayor John Powers, which is really you know, it was kind of fun. I mean. Well, yeah, actually, you know, it just kind of calls it like it is and, you know, it says it.

00:03:45:13 - 00:04:09:24
John Simmerman
I mean, to zoom out just a little bit and scroll down. But yeah, so you just sort of trending all over the place, especially on bike Twitter. But you are also being, you know, contacted by various newspapers and rags and podcasts and YouTube channels. Was it a little surreal to like suddenly be trending on quote unquote hashtag by Twitter?

00:04:11:18 - 00:04:35:02
John Bauters
It is unusual, especially as a person who is very mediocre technology skills and does not view himself as a technology or social media oriented person. I find it funny that I get stopped all over the place. I mean, I was on my very first trip to Houston early this year and I was bicycling in Houston. I was stopped at a light and a person next to me at the stoplight was like, You're the mayor of Emeryville, California.

00:04:35:02 - 00:04:52:29
John Bauters
And I was like, okay, this world is getting way too small for me. But yeah, it's it's a little surreal. I had a couple of people interview me recently, contacted me to ask if I would be a keynote at a conference. I got asked if I would, you know, do an interview on a National National Journal and the emails.

00:04:52:29 - 00:05:15:20
John Bauters
I yet they're like, Well, given that you're a national influencer on this, I just don't really see myself that way. Clearly, there's some people who think that and I am. I'm very blessed that people feel that way, but I, I've never really thought anything I had to say was extraordinary or unique. But what I'm learning is that there isn't an absence of apparently voices like mine in positions like mine.

00:05:15:20 - 00:05:33:23
John Bauters
And so there is a desire for more of it. And I think that's that's the thing I'm taking away from all that is that there's there's definitely an appetite for more people who are willing to just talk openly, candidly, without any particular agenda or point of view about just what people are into cities and safe streets means for us.

00:05:33:23 - 00:05:55:11
John Simmerman
Right. And you mentioned Houston. So I pulled up this particular shot from Houston. I am, of course, based out of Austin, Texas, and both Houston and Austin right now were like under freezing. I think it's like 25 degrees right now Fahrenheit, which is really, really cold for us. But it was clearly warmer on this day when you were in Houston.

00:05:57:00 - 00:06:16:08
John Bauters
Yeah, it was It was actually hot on this day. So the Bay Area is usually kind of naturally air conditioned to like 55 to 65 degrees. So I'm spoiled. I grew up in Michigan where it was really cold and I'm used to cold. But the amazing folks that buy Houston joke or Truffaut like and others put together a bike ride.

00:06:16:15 - 00:06:38:03
John Bauters
I went down to speak at the Bike Houston summit, joined a panel with a couple other a councilmember from Houston and somebody from their state transportation board, and they plan to ride. Anytime I visit a community, whether I'm speaking or they're on my regular family or business trips, I try to plan a ride with people who want to ride, and they put together a fully curated ride to show me all kinds of fun stuff in Houston.

00:06:38:03 - 00:06:45:09
John Bauters
And it was pretty hot. And they'll ride was pretty long, but it did end with ice cream and beer and that is the best way to end a bike ride. So it was a good thing.

00:06:45:21 - 00:07:14:16
John Simmerman
Absolutely. Are you kidding? Especially when it's when it's hot out there. Now, you mentioned Michigan, and so I'm going to pull up a shot here. This is one of my favorite places in North America. You might be able to predict what this might be. But for those of you who have not yet visited Mackinaw Island in in Michigan, what makes Mackinaw special?

00:07:14:16 - 00:07:14:25
John Simmerman
Oh.

00:07:15:12 - 00:07:39:08
John Bauters
There's a lot of things that make Mackinaw special. I, I mean I grew up in Michigan is already mentioned and so Mackinaw Island was something that as a kid you just really like to you'd like to go to Mackinaw Island the summer. It's a pastime for those of us who grew up in the Midwest. It's a car free island, and with the exception of Mike Pence, kind of busting the bubble back in 2016 or 17 and bringing an SUV onto the island, which is just ridiculous.

00:07:39:25 - 00:08:00:18
John Bauters
This has been a car free place. There are tons and tons of cycling opportunities, is walking scooters, horse drawn carriages. But Mackinaw Island and the town there are car free and have essentially largely been their entire existence. And it's a great place to go get fudge and see some great art and spend some time in the beautiful waters of Lake Huron.

00:08:00:18 - 00:08:10:16
John Bauters
So I finished my annual hike at Mackinaw Cross. I did the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this year and I finished at Mackinaw and spent a few days there and had a great time.

00:08:10:16 - 00:08:34:18
John Simmerman
You just glossed right over that. I mean, that was an epic hike. You did the U.P. and and and you you sort of touched base out on Twitter. Your at least you tried to every day in the U.S. out you know, because you didn't always have cell phone coverage but you would try to send out at least a pen to let us know where you were.

00:08:34:25 - 00:08:58:24
John Simmerman
And it was it was a hoot to follow. And and, of course, the grand finale to finale of actually, you know, showing up on Mackinaw, which I will emphasize once again, it is a car free island. It's a car free space, right here in North America. It has always been car free. But yeah, please share a little bit about that, that epic journey that you were on.

00:08:59:03 - 00:09:26:02
John Bauters
Sure. So I, I really prioritize going outside as a path toward physical and mental wellness. And there are, you know, you don't have to hike 400 miles like I do every summer to do that. You can do 20 minutes of outdoor time a day. It's been shown to dramatically increase people's resting heart rates. Serenity, calmness, peace of mind provides clarity and thinking.

00:09:26:03 - 00:09:44:26
John Bauters
Just spending 20 minutes in nature or outside in a park sitting on a bench is a really amazing benefit for your body and your wellbeing. And I work in a space, my full time job. I do trauma services and advocacy for victims of violent crime. I deal with a lot of secondary trauma from the stories and the experiences of the people who I work in support of.

00:09:45:07 - 00:10:09:09
John Bauters
And so I take I have a really amazing employer who gives me this amazing benefit every year to use my health, leave collectively in the month of August, and I go for a hike. My last year, I on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the year before I came from the Canadian border at Minnesota to the Wisconsin to Wisconsin on the superior trail this year, it was to the North Country Trail.

00:10:09:28 - 00:10:27:22
John Bauters
This coming summer, I will begin at the south end of the Mackinaw Bridge at the top of the Lower Peninsula, and I will hike to Manistee National Forest or State Park in the Lower Peninsula. And every year I do about 400 miles of solo backcountry hiking. I just it's me in the wilderness for about a month and I really enjoy it.

00:10:27:22 - 00:10:31:03
John Bauters
And I come back totally refreshed to put in more bike lanes.

00:10:31:25 - 00:10:50:08
John Simmerman
I love it. I love it. And, you know, and that's not a you know, it. I guess it's really important to to say that, you know, you just kind of said that nonchalantly and then it come back refreshed and be able to put in more bike lanes. So let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, we mentioned it earlier.

00:10:50:08 - 00:11:37:06
John Simmerman
You were really you sort of busted into the scenes in terms of bike, Twitter and we took notice. And you're absolutely right. One of the things that we love so much about what that has done for us is, you know, whether you wanted it or not, you know, you just started communicating. And I remember that tweet that you put out there about the parking and you know, that's what was refreshing about it, is to actually see somebody in city leadership, you know, state bluntly the facts and and the fact that we really, you know, do need to be rethinking how our public spaces, our streets are our largest public spaces within our cities.

00:11:37:13 - 00:12:05:16
John Simmerman
And we need to be rethinking about, you know, how that space is used and make it more, more safe, inviting and appealing to all ages and abilities. So, yeah, you get refreshed, you get back on the ground and you and you talk about this very, very publicly about this is the agenda. And it seems like you've got at least some of your city council, other members of your city council that are also on board.

00:12:05:21 - 00:12:21:22
John Simmerman
So talk a little bit about Emeryville, What's special about Emeryville and what about the challenges of trying to transform car centric designs of California in the Bay Area of California to a more people oriented place?

00:12:23:11 - 00:12:46:17
John Bauters
Sure. Well, I serve with the most amazing City council. For the past six years, the members of the City Council that I've served with have just been super supportive of every initiative we've undertaken related to livability and people oriented infrastructure. It's not limited. People think of us now as this place trying to reinvent streets for safe purposes and bikes, and that's true.

00:12:46:17 - 00:13:06:17
John Bauters
But we're also like a regional and state leader on affordable housing production. We have the highest minimum wage in the nation. We have a fair workweek policy that provides predictable scheduling and paid family sick leave to anybody who's an hourly employee in the city. We are one of only a handful of cities in California that has city run child care for families and employees who come to work.

00:13:06:17 - 00:13:25:25
John Bauters
In our town, we have a free transit system, so all the property owners pay into a parcel based improvement district and we run a free transit system for people so they don't have to use the car here. We we have been innovating and leading in all these spaces, you know, for one time. And it's a lot of folks go, Oh, it's a small city, it's not replicable.

00:13:25:25 - 00:13:54:29
John Bauters
But we're as you see on this map, we're like the heart of an urban core. We have as many high rises as most of the bigger cities around us where we're really trying to build dense, sustainable, livable community here. We're right across the bay there, as you can see from San Francisco. And so these are these are issues that we've been, you know, dealing with for a long time, especially smart, smart development on streets and street safety and I don't think it's it's radical.

00:13:55:07 - 00:14:11:11
John Bauters
And I think that we need to stop letting people, you know, co-opt the term radical and say, this radical bike agenda, I'm wearing my you know, I'm wearing my bike, my my radical bike lobby like, you know, here on the bike mafia to a lot of people. But the truth of the matter is, I never campaigned on bikes.

00:14:11:11 - 00:14:31:28
John Bauters
I never campaigned on bikes and ever campaigned on bike infrastructure. A lot of people say I don't remember you campaign. That's also because I didn't. I campaigned on making our cities safer, more livable, healthier for everybody. And when you look at what things deliver on that like safety bike, why can't every parent and go to work and come home alive?

00:14:31:28 - 00:14:53:20
John Bauters
Why can't children choose to go independently to school on a safe, protected bike route? Why shouldn't a senior citizens be able to access transit and live independently into, you know, in their homes deep into life? Like, why? Why are these hard things they shouldn't be? There's nothing radical about that. And so I think the thing that we've done is we've just not allowed that type of counter-narrative to stick.

00:14:53:20 - 00:15:20:01
John Bauters
We just speak really authentically and proactively about why the things we do are actually safety, their health, their community building their independence, you know, sustaining their just all the things that everybody likes to talk about, but nobody wants to commit the time to. And so committing the time to making streets safe and people oriented is actually one of the one of the most fun things that I get to do as a council member.

00:15:20:01 - 00:15:40:24
John Bauters
And I see it build community, I see it improve lives. And, you know, like when people don't want to reelect me to be on the city council or when I decide it's time to go do something else, they'll be a different voice at the table at that point. But while I'm here, this is what I'm committed to doing and I don't remotely there's people who antagonize about it and argue about it.

00:15:40:24 - 00:15:59:00
John Bauters
I get emails every few weeks about stuff. We just put in brand new bike lanes around all of our schools, remove the street parking. We put a diverter in next to one school. I got emails about you took away the parking and this isn't implemented correctly and. And I just write them. Hey, thanks for emailing about our project to make kids routes to school safe.

00:15:59:00 - 00:16:13:26
John Bauters
I'm so glad you agree with me that kids should be able to go to and from school safely. Here's why. A city approved engineer designed it this way and here's why we're keeping it. And and I'm just really friendly about it. And I don't like there's no use and throw back and ignoring people. I just engage people head on.

00:16:13:26 - 00:16:27:24
John Bauters
And I'm like, this is why we did it. And nine out of ten people don't respond to me. After I tell them why we do it for safety. Because what is the argument? You don't want kids to be safe. You don't want Mom and Dad's to come home from work alive. Like get over yourself. So that's just my style.

00:16:27:24 - 00:16:33:09
John Bauters
And it you know, it doesn't sit well with everybody, but it's true who the people here elected and how I'm going to lead.

00:16:33:28 - 00:17:01:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I lingered on this map simply because I did want to, to point out that yeah, you're the city itself is abutted right next to Oakland. We had a war in Logan on the podcast, not too long ago talking about Oakland and he gave you a nice shout out during that episode as well because, you know, as we talked about in that episode, is that, you know, there's no like real dividing line.

00:17:01:24 - 00:17:30:20
John Simmerman
I mean, there's a blending of, of the different municipalities in that area. And so you could very easily be on a bike and going, you know, from Oakland into Emeryville and then back into Oakland or somewhere else. So it's it is kind of all together. And it is wonderful to to kind of put Emeryville on the map a little bit, you know, because, you know, many people don't know where Emeryville is, but they do now.

00:17:32:09 - 00:17:33:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, it's just funny.

00:17:33:10 - 00:17:49:03
John Bauters
People, people people think it's like a huge city. People. It's funny. You you get like a following on Twitter. And I have people like I think Emeryville has 100,000 people in it and I'm not yet I'm like, not quite yet. We're working on that, but not 100,000 people. Yeah.

00:17:49:29 - 00:18:15:22
John Simmerman
So I do want to put up a comment here. And folks, if you do have any questions or comments of, you know, please am trying to monitor the the chat, the live chat that's going on. But Jayce had something very nice to say is Mayor Borders is a hero of mine. He's the equivalent of Anne Hidalgo Bravo. Or local officials give lip service to active transport in air quality action, but then do little.

00:18:15:22 - 00:18:26:00
John Simmerman
And so you know hey I think it's it it's worthy and I'm glad that you mentioned that that its actions speak louder than just words. We need to actually do things.

00:18:27:09 - 00:18:49:00
John Bauters
Yeah and that's I always you know, sometimes I get pushback from other electeds on some of the regional boards I'm on or questions you know about well you know I don't know about this or that. I'm like, wait a second, we just spent a whole year developing a plan. Is the goal of the plan to put it on a shelf to collect dust for ten years so that some other group of people in these seats can then go, Oh, it's time to redo the plan that we'll never use.

00:18:49:08 - 00:19:08:22
John Bauters
So I'm not I'm not that guy. I like what the plan says. There's going to be protected bike infrastructure, then great, That's where the money is going to go. So we put safety and bikes at the top of our county transportation plan. And I was elected chair of the board this year and we went out to put out a call for about $150 million of discretionary funds for projects.

00:19:09:04 - 00:19:32:08
John Bauters
And before we put out the call, we had a commission meeting and I said, I'd like to change the way the scoring for applications and Project X is considered. I want to add points for safety. So if the project addresses our high injury network is going to alleviate or remediate a pedestrian crossing place where we have lots of injuries or deaths or a bike area where there's lots of injuries or deaths, I want that to get points.

00:19:32:08 - 00:19:54:06
John Bauters
If it fulfills part of the County Wide Bike Plans network, I want to get extra points. The idea being that like we can just, you know, talk about safety and and pretend that that's a great thing and put it in a plan and then say, oh, we checked the box, but if you're not going to implement it and actually act upon what you're doing, like my goal is to get to a real vision Zero is to actually have the county not have pedestrian and bike does.

00:19:54:12 - 00:20:16:24
John Bauters
If you're going to do that, you have to build the things that make that possible. And when you prioritize money, you have to put your money where your plan says it belongs. And so to me, it's very logically laid up. But politics often interfere with that, and people don't want to do the protected lane because this business owner might be upset about it or don't want to prioritize this neighborhood because I you know, I need to politically address this.

00:20:16:24 - 00:20:35:06
John Bauters
Other neighborhoods concern first and dump resources in an already sometimes over resourced area so it takes a lot of times I find being the person I often find that I have to be a voice of we're going to keep doing it this way for this reason. And I don't think I'm alone. I think there's other people who join very quickly, too.

00:20:35:06 - 00:20:57:12
John Bauters
What I'm saying is that, yeah, let's, let's do this. And once you start achieving the results, as I learned in my city, people want more of it. They're like, Wow, this actually improved our community. This made it better. My kids go to the playground on their own. Now they do this and that. And once you get that ball rolling and you actually show people the outcomes, don't have the sky falling like a lot of people will come tell you, it becomes easier to do it.

00:20:57:12 - 00:21:11:17
John Bauters
It's those first few times when there's all the opposition and once you break through it, the narratives they have don't stick after that. And you have to just have people who are not afraid of of getting things done and not afraid of the political backlash, the backlash to doing things. And that's how you make progress. Oh.

00:21:12:13 - 00:21:37:26
John Simmerman
Yeah. And Jacey also, you know, pointed out not letting the false counter narrative stick or dominate. Yes. Good leadership and I think that's part of what's so refreshing about what you have brought to this space. And in in it's quite refreshing and quite frankly, I mean, it's it's like we're so excited to see this and you're not alone.

00:21:37:26 - 00:22:05:00
John Simmerman
There are some good mayors and other leaders, you know, across North America that are starting to step up and starting to have that same sort of approach and and sense of leadership that Mayor Hilldale, which was Jaycee had mentioned earlier, is moving forward with with a sense of urgency. I remember visiting Paris in 2015 for her very first car free day, and she says, look, we've got a problem.

00:22:05:00 - 00:22:30:03
John Simmerman
We can't even see the Eiffel Tower through the smog. We need to do something different. And so it's really super, super exciting and refreshing to see. I want to pull up this because you were part of a delegation, as you had mentioned, that went to the Netherlands. And so this is from the Dutch Cycling Embassy. And you had the ability to go on this trip.

00:22:30:20 - 00:22:56:01
John Simmerman
And this was a trip that was actually sponsored by the the Dutch embassy that had the real Dutch embassy, not the cycling embassy, although the cycling embassy certainly participated and helped with this. And it was what was so cool about this too, is this list of folks that you were there with your name is first on the list here and then second on the list is one of our council members right here in Austin, Texas.

00:22:56:06 - 00:23:04:05
John Simmerman
Vanessa Fuentes, you talked a little bit about this experience and this cohort of peers that you will forever be connected with.

00:23:05:20 - 00:23:25:15
John Bauters
Yeah, this is this is really a privilege of a lifetime. I this kind of in my case originated about a year ago when I, I had made a little bit of a splash, I suppose, on Twitter and the Dutch embassy here in San Francisco reached out and they asked if they could have a meeting with me. And I thought, like, why?

00:23:26:00 - 00:23:43:14
John Bauters
Like, why do you want to talk to the mayor of Emeryville? But I said, Sure. I said, Yeah. And they said, Oh, come on. I was just like, I was like, I don't did I did I win the lottery or something? So I was like, Sure, of course. And they asked if they could come. They said, We want to learn about what you're doing in your town.

00:23:43:14 - 00:23:59:23
John Bauters
We've heard a lot about your bike stuff. And so I actually took the the Consul general and staff on a bike tour of my city, and I showed them all the projects in the works. And I said, Here's what we're doing, why we're doing it. Here's these things to let them see kind of how it's integrating with housing and other other services we have.

00:24:00:05 - 00:24:21:04
John Bauters
And I've just retained a relationship with Derek and John and everybody and they they're fantastic, they're lovely people. And they reached out to me. I'm looking to actually bring the Dutch cycling Embassy to my county this coming year to do a master class for all the city engineers in the cities in my county to help give them skills about how they could improve bike infrastructure countywide.

00:24:21:11 - 00:24:53:01
John Bauters
Right. Because to your point, the border between in Emeryville and in Oakland or any other city in my county for that matter, doesn't really matter. If if if the the the infrastructure is not continuous in its safety and its delivery, that's not going to be used well. So I'm trying to like build that framework. And so we've had that conversation and then they reached out to me in May and said, well, we think that the Dutch government, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is going to actually do an urban mobility study tour for us somewhere between five and ten officials, some elected, some transportation directors in the Netherlands.

00:24:53:01 - 00:25:14:09
John Bauters
Would you like to go? We get to nominate somebody. And I was like completely flattered that they thought of me. And I, of course, was like, yes. So I got to go to the Netherlands and with this amazing group of people you see here, all of them were quite a bit of fun. We we had a daily tour of a different city in America, and we went to Rotterdam at one day.

00:25:14:09 - 00:25:34:26
John Bauters
We were in Utrecht. We got to go and kind of see different elements of design because each of the cities we were coming from, each part of the country had different needs and different, you know, layouts and infrastructure stuff. So it was interesting to learn, cross, learn from everybody. I had a blast a lot from D.C. I just did.

00:25:34:26 - 00:25:51:10
John Bauters
I just had a great time with him as well. And I'm really looking forward to some of the things that Washington, D.C. is hopefully going to do under his leadership in the coming year. But it was a lot of fun. It was is second to none. And as you probably know, I built on a family history bike tour to the end of that trip.

00:25:51:29 - 00:26:16:07
John Bauters
But I really came back with a lot of tools and I really looking forward to having some of these design folks who partner with the Dutch government come into my city and help make my community more bike friendly. And that would be and that bike is named Jackie. And it was actually loaned to me for five days by a follower on Twitter I had never met who heard that I wanted to bike.

00:26:16:17 - 00:26:39:21
John Bauters
I'm Belgian by ethnic origin and my great grandmother, both my great grandparents, but she emigrated here at the end of World War One after her village was destroyed by the Germans. And she never spoke English. She was a widow at 35 with three children, and she washed clothes in other people's homes to provide for her family. And I had never had the chance to visit the town she was from, and I wanted to do it.

00:26:39:21 - 00:26:55:06
John Bauters
I wanted to take a bike trip across the Netherlands and then down through Belgium and then in Brussels. And I was looking for a bike and a amazing Twitter follower offered me his bike. And I like to cross the Netherlands and Belgium for three days and have an amazing time.

00:26:56:10 - 00:26:57:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, and there you go.

00:26:58:25 - 00:27:18:12
John Bauters
And yeah, it was really weird to visit. That's a village just outside the village that that's in Elko and that's just outside Zimmerman, where my great grandmother was from. And it was super weird to see my family name on buildings and on storefronts because it's the area that my family's origin is from. I had never seen that in my life.

00:27:18:29 - 00:27:59:17
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had my the opportunity to to visit Belgium for the very first time a few weeks ago. I was able to jump on the train and go from Rotterdam over to to Brussels to meet with Jill Warren, the CEO of the European Cyclists Federation. And so it was wonderful to to get a little bit of a taste of of the the Belgian men via mint and get a little bit of sense of Brussels and and I know that they are working hard to try to improve the cycling infrastructure there and and traffic calm some of their streets as well because it is just like many other cities around the globe.

00:28:00:08 - 00:28:35:05
John Simmerman
They started converting their streets there downtown historic streets into auto only zones or auto prioritized zones. And so there's a lot of these places that we just sort of assume are Shangri-La and wonderful for for cycling. Not not so they're they're having to do the hard work which I think is one of the main things that you ended up learning about during that study tour and probably in preparation for it, is the history of the fact that the Netherlands had to do a heck of a lot of work to become more bicycle friendly.

00:28:36:17 - 00:28:59:22
John Bauters
Yeah, I would I would gather that most of the people who follow your podcast and what you you talk about already know some of that history. You know, it's interesting when you think of a city like Emeryville along the bay, it's very flat. That's very easy. There's, you know, very easy from a geographic perspective to make types of changes that are favorable to cycling.

00:28:59:22 - 00:29:17:26
John Bauters
But the advent of the e-bike has also diminished that those types of narratives like, Oh, this town is too hilly or this or that, like there's a lot of new technology related to cycling that gives people more equitable access in other types of communities that aren't flat. But a lot of people said, Well, this isn't the Netherlands, you know, this isn't Paris.

00:29:18:23 - 00:29:37:29
John Bauters
And I think one of the greatest juxtapositions I saw was actually in Belgium. I got to spend a day in Ghent and while I was there, the vice mayor of Ghent, who's the transportation minister, took me around the whole downtown like they've got their whole circulation plan. And it was just amazing. The city of Ghent, I would go back in a heartbeat.

00:29:37:29 - 00:29:53:07
John Bauters
Is that one of the most amazing places I've ever visited? And to just see how that community embraced it, there's they've adapted. I would say there's people who definitely don't like having to drive all the way around the city center and not go through it. But the livability of the downtown area and the vibrancy of it is amazing.

00:29:53:07 - 00:30:11:13
John Bauters
And contrast that with Brussels, where there is a lot of very strong resistance to removing the cars from the city, saying there's cars on the sidewalks, they're parked in the tree lines, the cars are everywhere. And Brussels was developed in the 1950s and sixties. It was sold as an automobile community and it's had an addiction to automobiles for a long time.

00:30:11:13 - 00:30:14:10
John Bauters
And they're really trying to change it. But it is really hard.

00:30:15:12 - 00:30:43:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, you know, and England is going to be the host city for the Velocity conference in 2024. So hopefully and and Joe Warren wanted me to emphasize that next year is going to be in Germany and, and hopefully Leipzig is going to be the host city but in 2024 against going to be there. And you're absolutely right that traffic pattern of Ghent is is one of the key features.

00:30:44:01 - 00:31:07:06
John Simmerman
And it's it's not like that that's new. I mean, grown again did that back in the 1970s into the 1980s and really and they're still perfecting that and many other cities have done it. And in fact you got to visit along with, I believe, Chris Brunt let my good friend Chris Brunt let you get to, you know, spend some time in Utrecht.

00:31:07:06 - 00:31:11:01
John Simmerman
And also, how is that correct?

00:31:11:01 - 00:31:30:10
John Bauters
That is correct, yeah. How it is how it is is like if I could just build a city from scratch, I would do it very similar to how Holland is a lot more highrises probably, But I it was just amazing to be in Utrecht and and Holland, just overwhelmed by the culture difference.

00:31:30:10 - 00:31:33:02
John Simmerman
I actually have your program here, so I'm. I'm going to pop on.

00:31:33:02 - 00:31:35:16
John Bauters
Oh, let's just play. Let's go to the clip out of the club.

00:31:35:16 - 00:31:37:25
John Simmerman
Let's go to the clip and let's turn the volume over there.

00:31:37:25 - 00:31:56:29
John Bauters
Today I am cycling through Utrecht and Hata and I'm with Chris Brunt from the Dutch Cycling Embassy. And Chris, I have a question for you, which is Americans often say, well, what the Dutch are doing is a Dutch thing. It's not replicable in the United States. What do you say to that?

00:31:57:20 - 00:32:19:15
Chris Bruntlett
Yeah, I think it's easy to dismiss the Netherlands as irrelevant. A different culture, different weather, different terrain, different built environment. But the fact of the matter is the Netherlands is built around the car like virtually any other country. And has subsequently retrofit that environment with great cycling infrastructure. Most of the psychopaths we've been riding on today are built to be built in the last 10 to 20 years.

00:32:19:15 - 00:32:29:19
Chris Bruntlett
So it's a recent development, but a transformational one that gets everybody out using their public realm and on their bicycles. And I think we can all be inspired by that.

00:32:30:11 - 00:32:46:25
John Bauters
I, I certainly am. So provided I don't find real estate here in how to to stay here and enjoy this lovely cycling environment. 24 seven I'll be coming back with some new ideas. So until then, go outside, see?

00:32:46:25 - 00:33:17:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's I first visited in, I think 2018 and then I went back this year during my, my trip and I rode from, from Utrecht over there to it because it's a, it's essentially a suburb, a suburban community. They have wonderful transit as you well know. But yeah, the way that that city was designed, that Newtown was designed was such that, you know, the automobiles in many of the residents, most of the residents actually do own vehicles.

00:33:17:28 - 00:33:46:18
John Simmerman
They may not use them on a daily basis, but they're able to reach their residents from the perimeter. And there's a ring around there, but no motor vehicles are pretty much allowed through the center. And so it's a really an amazing place to visit because it's a relatively new community, you know, sort of built around the model of de-emphasizing the motor vehicle.

00:33:46:25 - 00:33:48:28
John Simmerman
Just it's it's quite magical, actually.

00:33:49:26 - 00:33:56:15
John Bauters
It's it's the way smart, active people oriented cities should be done 100%. Yeah.

00:33:57:03 - 00:34:16:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. So we did have a couple of questions that I wanted to get to. Jake, you had another one here just kind of asking a little bit about the current Twitter chaos that's going on and asking you if you're going to stay on Twitter or and kind of get a sense as to that.

00:34:16:07 - 00:34:40:02
John Bauters
Well, that's a that's a loaded question. I famously canceled a meeting with Elon Musk's staff at Tesla, which is here in the Bay Area. And under the regulation of a board, I share mostly because I don't believe in giving my time to people who are wasting other people's time and just in disseminating disinformation. And so I like I said at the outset, I don't have another social media platform.

00:34:40:02 - 00:35:09:12
John Bauters
I'm not actually very technologically skilled and I don't envision that I will stir a new platform. I've had lots of people ask me to go to Post or Mastodon or all these other places, and I have not done any of those. I'm going to stay with Twitter for the time being, but I actually think that when whether it dies kind of a early death because of him or whether it slowly fades off of the radar at some point, I think it's probably the end of my social media existence.

00:35:10:00 - 00:35:29:01
John Bauters
I just feel like I feel like social media has offered benefits, But transfer translated. It was one social networking, which I really support, but it became media. And although I think folks like you are an example of what is really good about social media, I think a lot of people use it to just inform people and I'm just kind of tired of being in that space.

00:35:29:18 - 00:35:51:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, you know, I mean, there's there is that double edged sword of, of what it is. I mean, on the positive side, you're absolutely right. It's one way to really be able to have like this very, very big public square where you're able to to bring messages out and and amplify things. And and quite frankly, you know, meet people like you.

00:35:52:03 - 00:35:53:16
John Simmerman
So that's that's huge.

00:35:55:07 - 00:36:16:18
John Bauters
Yeah. I think I will remain part of this lie in the ways that I think are benefiting public sharing information, sharing ideas, building community. Those are the ways in which I and that's as I very publicly told Mr. Musk, why I'm not meeting with his staff. You know, that's I'm not looking to engage in in with people who are going to try to destroy community.

00:36:16:18 - 00:36:17:24
John Bauters
I don't I don't engage those folks.

00:36:18:12 - 00:36:49:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. So coming back to North America and, you know, the challenge that we have of transferring and transforming our built environment into more people oriented places, we do have some wonderful organizations that are out there that are making great strides and Natto is one of them. The National Association for City Transportation Officials. I believe you had an opportunity to make it to the the meeting, the annual meeting.

00:36:49:08 - 00:36:49:25
John Simmerman
Is that correct?

00:36:51:03 - 00:37:15:19
John Bauters
I did. I was invited to be on a panel about communicating with the public and helping people in government office, people who are staff for planning teams and also advocates. I was on a panel with a couple other amazing people to talk about how we communicate. I think if I had anything to contribute, I feel like that's the thing people want to hear from me the most is how do you communicate what you do?

00:37:15:28 - 00:37:35:23
John Bauters
And so I did go to Boston for an act to this year, and I also led at the end of there were these some I forget the term they used for them, but they're they're essentially like instead of classroom classroom plenaries, they're like walk plenaries or whatever. And I offered to do a bicycle one at the very end.

00:37:35:23 - 00:37:56:11
John Bauters
So I hosted the last active workshop work workshop. So I was a bike shop and got 15 people and took them on a bike ride of bike infrastructure in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville and treated them all to ice cream in Harvard Square. So thank you for joining some of the group there at the end of her bike ride.

00:37:56:11 - 00:37:57:24
John Bauters
Way too. Good time. Yeah.

00:37:58:13 - 00:38:42:27
John Simmerman
And thank you for doing that by the way. I unfortunately was not able to make it to NATO this year because we were hosting the Queen. The Netherlands was here in Austin and I was not going to miss that. So yeah, they're now. Fair enough. They are enough. So we did have a question here. See okay. Is is asking about any recommendations on gay bike friendly, affordable cities I think is the key here in in the U.S. that you should consider making a new home having difficulty affording coastal California, which I know affordability is also a big challenge that you and your council are working on.

00:38:44:05 - 00:39:08:11
John Bauters
Yeah, we've done a lot on affordability, too, to make a dent, build a lot of new affordable housing. We ran a ballot measure in 2018, affordable housing bond and we're currently we've approved a number of fully affordable projects which are available to people who make anywhere from 30 to 50 to 80% of the area median income. So very low income and working income households.

00:39:08:11 - 00:39:32:27
John Bauters
The question about it being affordable and it also being gay friendly, that's always a hard one because most of the Affordable I wish I wish more. I think that there's change afoot. Most of the more affordable communities in the United States are in the middle of the country in places like I'm from in the Midwest. Historically, I left those places because they were not exactly accommodating and accessible and friendly.

00:39:33:12 - 00:40:07:15
John Bauters
But I do think that there I don't think we should label communities as hostile to the LGBT community forever for how they were. I think that you have to make space to allow people to change and be better, and I feel very optimistic that while you'll never fully change all the hearts and minds of people who have a very particular point of view about what they view the LGBT community to be, I do think that there are supportive communities across the country in places that we might traditionally not think of as being supportive, where people can find affordable and bike friendly homes.

00:40:07:20 - 00:40:26:23
John Bauters
One of the most amazing places, in my opinion, is the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I think they're extremely friendly. I think they're very bike. I think there's more affordable options there than some other places. So that's one example of a larger city I can think of. But there are there are smaller communities. I think Austin is a really accepting place.

00:40:26:23 - 00:40:39:10
John Bauters
I don't know that. I think Austin's got all the bike infrastructure I would want to see in a big city just yet, but I think it's moving in the right direction. So I do think that there are more affordable places than California for sure.

00:40:40:01 - 00:41:03:24
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, you know that I have invited you to Austin. And one of the reasons why is because and quite frankly, one of the reasons why Queen Maxima I did actually visit here is because of the long standing relationship that the city of Austin has had with the Kingdom of the Netherlands. And it was celebrating the ten year anniversary of our think bike workshop here.

00:41:03:24 - 00:41:26:18
John Simmerman
And in fact, one of the reasons why I encourage you to come here is because we are in the process about 50% into the process of building out a comprehends to all ages and abilities. Dutch inspired network currently over 200 miles of cycle tracks and cycle paths on the ground, heading towards over 400. So we will get you here.

00:41:27:20 - 00:41:48:29
John Bauters
You you don't have to convince me. I also I just need to call Councilmember Fuentes and tell her I'm coming and I'll get her. Yeah, I'll get her on a bike ride and we'll go have a community bike ride in Austin. Totally not hiding from us. And I was in Houston this past year. I'm happy to find time to come to Austin and enjoy and partake in all the good work you guys are doing on the bike infrastructure.

00:41:48:29 - 00:41:49:21
John Bauters
Looking forward to it.

00:41:50:05 - 00:41:59:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And let's talk a little bit about, you know, getting on a bike and having some fun. So what's going on here?

00:41:59:24 - 00:42:27:28
John Bauters
So I have been a very big supporter publicly of car free JFK. So for those who aren't familiar, San Francisco has a beautiful park, the Golden Gate Park. And it there's it's a very large park and has several streets through it. One of them is John F Kennedy. Got you have all the pictures John F Kennedy Drive. And during COVID, it was closed for two cars.

00:42:27:28 - 00:42:49:02
John Bauters
It was during COVID, it was an active transportation space for people to safely engage in exercise without being at risk of being in a confined space with other people. And it was just well loved and used. And it was this amazing opportunity for the city and county of San Francisco to make it permanent. And there was a huge battle that was waged over making it permanent.

00:42:49:02 - 00:43:07:05
John Bauters
And the mayor and the city council did the right thing and they voted to make it permanent. And then there was these efforts by some car enthusiasts, as I'll say, who want to put it on the ballot to make it permanently car to basically enshrined in law that it had to be a car street for cars only, basically.

00:43:07:05 - 00:43:24:27
John Bauters
And so there were competing measures I and I was to get to start this the car measure J was the bike and people measure and so I just leaned in on Twitter throughout the year and showed up to some events in San Francisco. I called in to City Hall for their meeting to just, you know, and everybody laughed in the room.

00:43:24:27 - 00:43:46:22
John Bauters
And I was like, Hi, my name is John D'autres and I live in Emeryville. The room started laughing because they all know who I am and I just like your your coffee. JFK is amazing. You should do it. So this is bike prom. So, Sarah Cass Levy, she actually hosted a bike prom with some amazing friends and supporters of her, Anthony, others who are, you know, supportive of this initiative.

00:43:46:22 - 00:44:02:25
John Bauters
And she had something called prom on the prom and in the green dress there. And then the last picture is the vice mayor of Emeryville, Ali Medina, one of my best friends. And she and I are we call team transportation where the Transportation committee in our city, we vote on all the transit projects. And she is also a bike enthusiast.

00:44:03:04 - 00:44:24:20
John Bauters
She's one of my favorite people in the world. And I asked her to prom and I got a cargo, I got a back seat, and I picked her up at City Hall. The other council member showed up. We did a boot near and corsage exchange. There was formal photos at City Hall and I left and reveal City Hall bike tour all the way to the ferry in Alameda, actually in Oakland and I'm sorry, the ferry in Oakland.

00:44:24:20 - 00:44:39:20
John Bauters
And we took the ferry across and then I bike to up the hill and across San Francisco to prom. And while we were on the ferry, everyone thought we were engaged or getting married and people bought us cocktails and we just ran with it. We're like, Nobody knows that we are here anyway. And we got to San Francisco.

00:44:39:20 - 00:44:53:27
John Bauters
People saw us coming down Market Street and they recognized us and we had our photos taken. And so we got to prom and we were nominated. That last picture we had, we were put on prom court. We were named the bike route of the event. And so we had a good time. It was a fun time.

00:44:53:27 - 00:44:59:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. And here's another fun photo of of another passenger on a box seats.

00:45:01:03 - 00:45:18:00
John Bauters
That would be that would be my dog Reyna and her and Derby ears that can't stand up straight. They're so big they hang to the side. It looks like she's dabbing all the time. I am in the process of choosing a cargo bike and we are mostly because of her. She is dog also. She loves riding on the bike with me.

00:45:18:07 - 00:45:34:15
John Bauters
I have posted videos of her riding in the front basket, but this was one of her first outings and we stopped were done and she didn't want to get out. It's just like we invited her out multiple times. She's like, no, this is this is this is the best thing in the world. So yeah, I'm actually looking to get a recent Mueller load.

00:45:34:15 - 00:45:41:12
John Bauters
70. That's my that's my plan. I think in the next couple of months, that's what I'm looking at getting. But she's a big fan of the cargo bike, too.

00:45:41:26 - 00:46:09:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's great. We actually did have a comment a little bit about the affordability that we were talking about the subject and and this particular neighborhood, the Mueller neighborhood, is here in Austin, Texas. And yes, that is correct. They were able to build affordable housing intermixed into the neighborhood. You cannot tell which or market rate and which are affordable units in houses in there.

00:46:09:18 - 00:46:37:19
John Simmerman
And there's surprising density in that particular neighborhood. It used to be our airport. And so it was one of the similar to like what happened in Denver with the the old airport being transformed into a neighborhood. It's the same that happened there at Miller neighborhood. And what's also really, really unique about the Miller neighborhood is it was being developed at the time just after the Think bike workshop.

00:46:38:09 - 00:47:07:06
John Simmerman
And so the Dutch inspired infrastructure and protected intersections and protected and separated cycle paths are all integrated from the ground up from the very beginning in that Miller neighborhood. And so for for those those people who are moving in, they're not going through a street transformation. The streets were built from the get go and the neighborhoods were built from the very beginning with Dutch cycling infrastructure in place.

00:47:07:06 - 00:47:09:18
John Simmerman
So, yeah, it's it's a neat neighborhood.

00:47:10:27 - 00:47:11:07
John Bauters
Wow.

00:47:11:07 - 00:47:15:07
John Simmerman
That's cool. Yeah. And clearly, one of the places I'll be taking you up to.

00:47:15:20 - 00:47:36:00
John Bauters
Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's there's a couple of car free neighborhoods being built in the Phenix area, I think in Tempe and Phenix area. There's some, there's some other Yeah. There's some other places I've visited and I've gone and got to see kind of how the construction is underway. And I just think there's that's the way to do all of it.

00:47:36:00 - 00:47:41:12
John Bauters
It's just the way to build a smart community going for. I'm looking forward to some of these coming out like, yeah yeah.

00:47:41:13 - 00:48:07:27
John Simmerman
In fact, the, the neighborhood that you're referencing in in Tempe is called the cul de sac neighborhood, and they are actually being quite successful in building that out and getting funding. And they have a desire to try to replicate that in multiple locations around North America. So we're looking forward to seeing how that is. And I can't wait to get down there to to profile told us that as well.

00:48:08:13 - 00:48:24:09
John Simmerman
All yeah. To include a link in the show notes to this live stream so that folks can actually you know take a look at what we're talking about with cul de sac because it's really, really super cool. Yeah. Another fun thing that you did was you got to ride around with Chris.

00:48:24:28 - 00:48:48:20
John Bauters
Of course I love Chris. Oh, it was awesome. I love Chris Nulty. He's the best. He he reached out to me. Gosh, I guess it was February of this year and it was because of that initial tweet, I think. And he he was like, hey, you know, he's profiled and giving people tons of expert advice about e-bikes and all the different details and bikes and your choices with bikes.

00:48:48:21 - 00:49:07:20
John Bauters
He's just really a down to earth guy. He's a total expert on bike, bike, just everything bikes, in my opinion. He just really understands it. And he was like, We want to come out and do like a profile and just talk to you and bike with you. And I was kind of it was the first one I kind of had, and I didn't really know what to think of it.

00:49:07:20 - 00:49:31:22
John Bauters
I was like, I can't believe somebody wants to profile me. So I was like, Sure, you can come out from New York and Long Beach. And, you know, the team came out and we picked up bikes and we biked all around Emeryville and I basically just geeked out with him and gave him the nerd tour of my town and talked about how we're blowing a hole in this building for our path and we're going to put the lanes up at the curb level over here and we're going to close the street this way.

00:49:31:22 - 00:49:51:07
John Bauters
And it was a lot of fun and he was a lot of fun. And I didn't that was kind of the the I would call it the booster shot to the original tweet because he posted that and hundreds of thousands of people follow it, you know, watch two who follow him and whatnot. And I just started getting tons of emails from people all over asking to bike with me or tours with me or talk to me.

00:49:51:07 - 00:49:55:02
John Bauters
And Chris really is a really solid person.

00:49:55:21 - 00:50:16:21
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And again, that's Chris Nulty with Propel Bike. He's also a former guest here on the podcast and I'll be sure to include that link in the show notes as well. And another fun thing that you got to do is you got to hang out with one of my best friends here in the content creation world, Mr. Clarence Ackerson.

00:50:16:21 - 00:50:23:06
John Simmerman
And so he's got a film that you you are part of and you got to hang out in New York. So how cool was this?

00:50:24:15 - 00:50:41:20
John Bauters
Yeah, this was fun. I actually was in New York. I was in Boston, in New York and back to back sets of days because there was the Boston trip. I was I was out there because our county, we were doing a bond issuance. We have this voter proof sales tax measure which we use for infrastructure projects. We're ahead of schedule.

00:50:41:20 - 00:50:57:02
John Bauters
We're building stuff that we wanted to build. And so we went out and got a triple-A credit rating, went to Boston. I met with investors to sell these bonds, and I was in New York to have a day on Wall Street to do a bond issuance on this on the market. We had $140 million, something like that, of bonds to sell.

00:50:57:02 - 00:51:20:25
John Bauters
We had $680 million in attempted purchases, which tells you how much people want to invest in our county and what we're doing. And I took a took a day at the end of it to connect with the transportation advocates there in New York and went on a bike ride and I had a blast and yeah, street Toms came out and asked if they could join us, biking across the Brooklyn Bridge and all the other things I wanted to do.

00:51:20:25 - 00:51:35:10
John Bauters
And I met a lot of really cool people, had a had a totally good time and a little video out of it, and I hope it was a successful, successful promotion for the great advocates in New York who are making all kinds of great changes. There.

00:51:35:10 - 00:51:36:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah.

00:51:36:09 - 00:51:42:17
John Bauters
They need to close. They need to close. They need to close this permanently. Yes, That's the that's the takeaway.

00:51:42:22 - 00:51:48:11
John Simmerman
Didn't I see that there's some some advances on that on fifth I think I saw that.

00:51:48:11 - 00:52:05:01
John Bauters
They are they are doing it like I think it's like once a week or once a month. Right now I think it's there is some regular schedule for closing it, but it is so obvious how much people love it. Like why? Why not figure out just how to make it permanent? That's right. Yeah. You know.

00:52:05:01 - 00:52:15:00
John Simmerman
Any final thoughts that that you have? Is there something that we haven't yet covered that you want to make sure that you leave the audience with?

00:52:15:00 - 00:52:38:04
John Bauters
Well, I, I first, I want to thank you for inviting me to be on the Active Towns podcast. I really appreciate your your work, your advocacy and, your voice in helping elevate the voices of other people like myself who are just trying to make our cities safer and more habitable for everyone. But I guess my my message is to folks, there are two things.

00:52:38:04 - 00:52:55:26
John Bauters
One, go outside. As always, my message is really go outside in whatever fashion or manner that suits you and and with whom you wish and where you wish. But go outside. It's better for you. And it's better for all of us. My other my other thing is. No, I'm not going to move to your city and run to be mayor of your city.

00:52:56:05 - 00:53:12:10
John Bauters
And I get a lot of those. And I'm not looking to do I'm not looking to do that. But what I am going to say is that if you if you really care about this and you've tuned into the day and you wish your city was better run for your city government, it's there's no substitute for every day.

00:53:12:10 - 00:53:29:17
John Bauters
I'm an everyday person. People think I'm some sort of like, you can't talk to me or I have a scheduler. I love it when people call me say, Oh, I, I couldn't find your scheduler. I was like, I don't have a scheduler like you just talk to me. But you know, I'm a regular person, and regular people should be the people who lead government.

00:53:30:02 - 00:53:40:12
John Bauters
You don't have to have a political career in mind or an agenda. Just just do it because you care. And so if you're if you want to see change in your community, the best place to start is asking what you can do for it.

00:53:41:13 - 00:53:47:17
John Simmerman
Well, and actually, this is very timely because Jesse just asked, is this any tips on running for office?

00:53:48:28 - 00:54:07:07
John Bauters
Yeah, a couple of high level tips. Number one, always be authentically yourself there is that doesn't account for needing to identify what's the right, the tone and the timing and the way to project a message that make sure people understand what you're saying, but authentically be yourself. Don't be somebody that other people tell you you need to be.

00:54:07:07 - 00:54:24:27
John Bauters
If people say, Oh, voters here won't like this or that or whatever, you're going to be miserable if you get elected because never going to do the things that you really want to pay to be a little political. But like the Christians cinemas of the world, we don't need more people like that. We need people who are actually themselves and not some made up version of something other people created.

00:54:25:06 - 00:54:40:07
John Bauters
So be yourself. Number two, Don't be afraid to fail. Most people don't realize the first time I ran for office, I lost. I lost by 100 votes. I didn't have any endorsements. Nobody knew who I was. I went door to door and I came so close that a lot of people asked to meet with me after I lost.

00:54:40:07 - 00:54:58:21
John Bauters
And they were like, Well, we really liked you and your message and you were really friendly. And I was encouraged to run again and I ran again and then I won. I beat five people in my following election. So, you know, I would just say, be authentic and be positive. People don't want negative people in government. People want positive people in government.

00:54:58:21 - 00:55:14:16
John Bauters
The reason I have more three times as many followers as I have constituents is not because I'm an asshole, it's because I'm out there trying to make a difference. And I use positive framing to talk about what I believe in and why I'm doing it. And people want to be friends with leaders like that.

00:55:15:11 - 00:55:41:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And Doug points out that there is an organization out there, a run for something recruits and supports talented, passionate young people who will advocate for progressive values now and into the next 30 years. Thank you, Doug, for that. And, you know, I wanted to kind of get over to this series of photos because you made your way up into the Great White north of Toronto and hung out with the good folks there.

00:55:41:18 - 00:55:43:08
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that experience.

00:55:45:06 - 00:56:06:22
John Bauters
Sure. So Toronto was kind of that you're seeing me with different leaders of their advocacy group on our on our bike ride up there. I actually I had planned to bike and that's one of their councilmembers who joined us on the bike ride. I had a lot of really great conversations. They need to make youngster streets, bike lanes permanent.

00:56:07:02 - 00:56:22:15
John Bauters
They need to expand them and protect them as well. But they I was kind of I was on Twitter and I had said, you know, I'm coming to Portland and Houston this year and bubble. I was like, what city? You know what is missing? And one lady who had like ten followers and I really related to her because I was how I used to be.

00:56:22:29 - 00:56:37:23
John Bauters
She says, I really wish you would come to Toronto. I think Toronto would really benefit from someone like you. And I said, okay, I'll tell you what, if 100 people respond to your tweet with, Yes, come to Toronto, I'll come to Toronto. And like 300 people responded, Yes, come to Toronto. So I kept my promise and I went to Toronto and I there you see me.

00:56:37:23 - 00:57:06:00
John Bauters
I, I volunteered with a group of volunteers who delivered food. There was a food donation program for people in need and on bikes. And I teamed up with the biking lawyer. There he is right there and some other folks. And we went around the community and stocked local free food centers with food that had been donated. I got to, you know, a tour of the city on bikes, and I led a bike ride with some of the great advocates, the cycling mayor and some other folks up there in Toronto.

00:57:06:00 - 00:57:20:17
John Bauters
And shout out to Robin, who loaned me the bike that I got to use up there. We took people on a very casual ride around the city and it ended with ice cream. And I bought people ice cream, which is my my thing is you show up for a ride with me, I buy your ice cream. So.

00:57:21:05 - 00:57:40:26
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. And. And you get a chance to meet the bicycle mayor up there to. I'm also a former guest here on the podcast, Len Rika. Bennett Junior. Yeah. And that was wonderful. Yeah. Hey, a nice shout out here from from Jay-Z positive framing why I watch and I am a patron of active towns.

00:57:40:26 - 00:58:01:00
John Simmerman
Always a good reminder. And thank you so much for your support Jay-Z and no better time than a commercial of saying, Yeah, please do what you can to support the channel. Please make sure you give this video a thumbs up. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with a friend. And if you're not already a subscriber of the channel, please do so.

00:58:01:00 - 00:58:25:19
John Simmerman
And yes, I have to give a huge shout out to all my active town's ambassador that are supporting me on Patriot on making donations to the nonprofit Advocates for Healthy Communities that really helps me do pro-bono work with cities and helps with the travel as well. So again, thank you so much to all my Active Towns ambassadors and thank you all so much for tuning in today.

00:58:25:19 - 00:58:31:24
John Simmerman
This has been such a great time. I had a blast. John, I hope you had a blast.

00:58:32:04 - 00:59:00:19
John Bauters
Oh, I had. I had a blast. This is this is the last thing I am doing before I go on holiday until the New Year's time. I am ending 2022 on active towns as my last connection to the community. And so I am going to go outside. I am going to enjoy a lot of sugar cookies and some fresh air and 2023 I'm going to just tell you right now I have a lot of fun in store.

00:59:00:19 - 00:59:13:02
John Bauters
I am not able to break the news today. I wish I could do that. But in January I will have some announcements about some fun events coming. And so 2023 will be the year of the bicycle.

00:59:13:27 - 00:59:37:25
John Simmerman
Yes. Fantastic. Well, again, thank you all so much for tuning in. This has been an absolute joy, a great way for me to close out season four of the Active Towns podcast. I will have some bonus material coming out next week or the week after Christmas, and it will be back with season five in January. And again once again.

00:59:37:25 - 00:59:42:02
John Simmerman
Thank you so very much, Mayor John Borders, for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:59:43:09 - 00:59:51:12
John Bauters
Thanks so much for having me, John. And to all the supporters and fans and followers of Arctic towns, I wish you all a very happy holiday and a safe and healthy New Year.

00:59:52:04 - 01:00:25:00
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Okay, everyone, have a great holiday weekend. Take care. And again, sending a huge thank you to all my active towns, ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.