Welcome to Bike Talk. Streaming in Southern California at KPFK, in Western Massachusetts at Valley Free Radio, and WMBR in Cambridge. Today we have interviews with War On Cars co-host Doug Gordon, Copenhagenize founder Mikael Colville-Andersen, and first, this is Laura Friedman, assembly member of California's 43rd district of the assembly and Transportation Committee Chair. And, Laura, you've been an active transportation champion. And it continues with this new bill HB 2438, which we're going to talk about.
Yeah, thanks for having me here. It's a pleasure to join you.
So AB 2438. It puts the money where the mouth is for transportation funding, would you say?
Absolutely, if we recognize as a state that we can't keep prioritizing investments in infrastructure that only supports single occupancy vehicles, this bill aligns those values with our funding formulas. We already have a document called CAPTI, which stands for Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, adopted policies from the California Transportation Commission in line with Governor Newsom's very visionary plans for the state, policies that do require multimodal and active transportation funding and priorities. But our funding formulas don't include any of that. Our funding formulas don't recognize emissions reductions as a goal. So this bill, AB 2438, tries to align our transportation investments with our climate goals. And there's nowhere else in law where that is the case for transportation. It is with where we invest for energy procurement, for instance. If you're going to create a new power plant, you have to follow certain emissions rules, because we have very lofty climate goals in California. But transportation we haven't done that for, and transportation is still our largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. So we're never going to achieve our climate goals if we don't bring our transportation policies in line with our climate policies. This is the only vehicle right now that I know of in the legislature to do that. And I had two vehicles, being bills, to do that. And one of them didn't make it through the process, we're going to continue to work on that particular bill in a new form through the interim through the rest of the year and try to bring it back next year. But AB 2438 is the vehicle that's left right now in the legislature to try to align our transportation investments with our climate goals.
Okay, and I hear that Governor Newsom already did a similar directive?
He did a directive through what's called CAPTI, which is strategies that his administration have outlined to try to bring transportation more in line with our climate goals. And so what this bill does is it builds on that by requiring Caltrans and CalSta and the California Transportation Committee, which is CTC, to develop a transparent and publicly available project nomination process to show how those CAPTI strategies are incorporated into our project selection process. So in other words, when the various planning entities across the state groups like SCAG, you may have heard of, which is the Southern California Association of Governments, they help to choose what projects get funded within LA County. So when all of those different planning groups, like LA Metro and SCAG, decide which projects to fund, one of the things this bill would do would be for them to have to show how they are reducing emissions through these projects, why they chose the projects they chose over other projects. So that would be one thing that bill would do. We would also fiscally constrain the California Transportation Plan by requiring a realistic analysis of trade offs for what it will take to achieve our 2050 vision. So to do the analysis of what are our goals and how are our investments and transportation projects going to get us there. And lastly, it requires all of the different funding programs that are out there and transportation, to incorporate the strategies that are in that CAPTI document that CalSta adopted in July of last year. So what it really does is it tries in a lot of ways to do our best to shift funding going into the future into projects that do reduce emissions. Now that can take many different forms. And of course that will vary across the state by the different land use patterns, by the type of community it is, whether it's rural, whether it's urban, and by what the project is; because sometimes even projects that do widen the road, for instance, can reduce emissions or a project that builds a new road to link two roads could reduce emissions by shortening travel times. But in many cases, it will also force these agencies to look at projects that would encourage more cycling, for instance, that would create a bicycle highway, that would create more active transportation infrastructure or complete streets; those would rise up in the funding Nexus because they reduce more emissions. So that's our hope, is that it will require more evaluations of those kinds of projects. Transportation is the largest source of climate producing in California and in the United States. And without having this bill or something like it, then there's no way to ensure that our transportation investments support accessible, healthy, and climate-friendly communities. Without this, you continue on the same path of constantly funding projects, regardless of whether they even increase emissions. That's what we've been doing for 50 years in the state even past the time when we know better. We are still prioritizing, often, projects that we know will increase emissions and increase car travel.
And a lot of people who are at the grassroots level in transportation advocacy and active transportation are really frustrated about how the state spends billions on freeways; widening freeways, making new freeways. And then if there's anything for walking, biking or transit, it's up to local agencies.
Right? They're very worried because they believe that this bill could stop the projects they're working on; that it could somehow destroy all the roads, we keep hearing that, oh, the roads are gonna all disintegrate or take money away from localities. But in reality, the bill is based on the Newsom administration's priority transportation climate strategy, which means rethinking and reprioritizing which projects are funded and how they're funded. And CAPTI, which is the Newsom administration and the CTT strategy to do all of that was developed with the same stakeholders who created SB 1. So we know that this is not going to be counter to the goals of fixing our roads and making sure that our roads and bridges are safe. So there's a lot of misplaced fear about this, but it's not going to take money away from localities, it still provides the same amount of funding into those localities. We just want them to think more about their long term planning, to make sure that it's not so car centric, to make sure that it's also about providing those options for people.
Yeah, so you have resistance from agencies. And that makes sense that they would resist it, because: inertia. And then voters have to get behind it, right? And you have suburban car centric voters.
Yeah, these same agencies are activating their council members to oppose and then they call their legislators to oppose. And so everybody kind of freaks out and gets worried. And a lot of what we've heard is misinformation. A lot of what we heard is not what actually happens in the bill. I think that agencies are trying to alarm people because they just don't want to have to change what they've been doing. And what I say back to them is we know that what you've been doing generally has not worked. Some agencies have done a good job, those agencies aren't in opposition in the same way. We haven't had those agencies stepping up and really opposing this. And we do have some support. We have support from some of the LA council members Mike Bonin and Nithya Raman, from Congresswoman Nanette Barragan and La Mesa Vice Mayor Jack Chu. But we need a lot more local council members in California to support this. So if you're in California, and this sounds like a good idea to you, please do weigh in and say no, there are voters out there who do want these investments, at least to consider transit and at least to consider active transportation and complete streets, that we should be doing the analysis about reducing emissions. And if a road program reduces emissions, it would absolutely score high within this parameter, within this context. So it's not anti road, it's not anti car. It's just saying, Is your project increasing emissions? And is there a way to rethink that so that you can decrease emissions? Now, the bill very clearly says that safety needs to be a concern. Evacuations need to be a concern, it doesn't trump any of those other concerns. It just says, Is there a better way? And what I say to some of these newer developing areas that have raised concerns and have said, but our community is suburban, we need to just have wider highways, we need more roads, I have said to them, look at Los Angeles, do you want to repeat the same mistakes that we made? There are better ways of developing, there are better ways of moving people around your community. And you have the chance right now, while you are still developing, to incorporate those best practices. So you don't end up with all of your constituents being miserable because of the amount of congestion you have in your community, or people saying no, don't build more housing, because we're worried about traffic and congestion issues. So we know what hasn't worked in the past. And we know what has worked. And this is the opportunity to really rethink and to start thinking differently as we invest.
And so the way this works is that when agencies are funding transportation projects, they have to show how it's in step with the climate goals.
They have to show that but they still can choose other projects, but we want to make it more transparent as to how they are picking these projects. Now, the other bill was a lot stronger in terms of requiring the spending to align with our climate goals. But this bill also does make sure that these projects fit within that CAPTI strategy. I think it's very reasonable for agencies to have to show how they are considering emissions as they plan for spending transportation dollars. We require that for many, many other sectors, and now that we have CAPTI as an adopted list of priorities and an adopted outline for our transportation sector and for transportation funding, there needs to be a way to show that as projects are nominated and as projects are funded, that they're in line with those goals. And that's what this bill would help to ensure.
Well, it seems like we know who should be on board; as long as you can get everybody who should be on board, it should work right?
It should work, CalSta has already adopted CAPTI. And that details already how the state recommends investing what's now billions of dollars of discretionary transportation dollars. So everybody has recommended we spent a year working with strategic growth council, with other stakeholders through this AB 285 report that found that our transportation dollars are not in alignment with our emissions goals. So now we need to get everybody on the same page that as we spend this money, we need to make sure that we are doing so sustainably, because these projects last for decades, right? These projects can last for centuries sometimes. And so when you're building new projects, and this is about new projects going forward, we should do them in a way that also reduces emissions. And we have heard over and over again that we need more robust transit, we need more robust active transportation, and this helps push us towards spending our transportation dollars in that direction. We know that in the past, that a lot of times our transportation money is spent only on single occupancy vehicle infrastructure. And that's not what it's for. It's for mobility, right? So we need to examine if there are better ways of doing mobility in all of our areas. And that's what this would do.
Would California be the first state to do this? Are there others?
Probably. A lot of the the money in the past has gone to freeway widenings. And we know, and it's not even in dispute anymore, that when you widen the freeway, you do what's called induced demand, where you bring more and more cars in and you don't generally reduce the congestion. In many cases, you increase congestion, you increase pollution, you increase commute times, that money instead, those billions of dollars going into meaningful transit, does reduce congestion, does reduce commute times and is more equitable, is healthier and does reduce emissions. And we just can't keep making the same mistakes of the past.
Yeah, people have to put their money where their mouths are. And if you're concerned about the heat waves, and the forest fires and climate change, and just a lot of the ways in which current transportation is just unsustainable, then you have to support this.
Yeah, and if you care about cycling, and this is Bike Talk, a part of this also is to look at bike transportation as mobility, and to invest dollars in true bicycle infrastructure, like bike highways, like making sure that your bike paths are connected to each other, which is a huge issue, that you stop thinking about bike paths as just something that's recreational and start thinking about it as a way that people can commute to work can get into shopping districts, etc. And that can mean real investments. And this bill would also help prioritize those kinds of projects. So for the cycling community, particularly those who use cycling as their mode of transportation, this is something that could be tremendously impactful.
Well, you are biking the talk. And thank you, and it's good to have somebody on the inside. So when does this come up? Are there deadlines we need to know?
Yeah, the bill right now is in Senate Appropriations, it set for August 8, and it barely got out of the Senate Transportation Committee in June. So there is a chance that this bill will not make it out of Senate Appropriations. So anybody who is interested in this, I would strongly recommend that you personally and whatever groups you're involved in, who care about the environment, and care about active transportation, who care about mobility, equity, public health, that you get those groups to weigh in and ask the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee to move this bill through his committee. Because the committee can kill the bill, the chair could kill the bill by not hearing the bill. So that's a possibility here, a real possibility. And so that would be the first place, is to ask the chair of Senate appropriations to move the bill through the committee. And then after that, we will have to bring it to the floor of the Senate, where it also will struggle. This is the only bill left in the legislature that holds transportation funding and planning accountable to our state's equity, climate and health goals. The only one. So it's really imperative, from my perspective, that this bill passed. Otherwise, it's business as usual. It's pretty much all the money going to widening freeways, and for the sake of my daughter, future generations, and the planet, we can't keep making those same mistakes.
You're right. Is there like a number that we call?
There's a website, I believe, for the Senate Appropriations Committee and they have a portal where you could submit emails, which is https://sapro.senate.ca.gov./. So I don't know if Bike Talk has a way of putting that on their website, but that is a way that you can directly send letters and emails right to the committee. The chair of Senate Appropriations is Senator Anthony Portantino. And he also, of course, has an office that can be reached out to. And he, by the way, is a bike rider. So I think that he will get the importance of this.
I hope so! Do you talk?
We do. And I've certainly expressed my feelings about the importance of this bill, but it always helps to get people to contact him. And there is a phone number you can call as well. And phone calls are always good. If they choose to hold the bill, there won't even be a hearing. They do hear the bill, then there's a hearing and people can certainly call in then as well. But the bill's on suspense, and actually, if the bill comes off suspense, there won't be a hearing really; senators will vote, but they don't take public testimony at that point. So really, the most important thing is to write to the committee, write to the chair and express your opinion about the bill; before, obviously, and as soon as possible, I would say, because they're making their decisions now about what bills they're going to release from suspense.
And how do we find out what happened?
On August 8, we will be sitting and listening to Senate Appropriations, in which case they'll either move the bill through or they don't mention the bill, in which case the bill is dead.
And how does the general public know this?
The general public can listen to the committee hearing. But really the most impactful thing is as soon as possible to reach out to the Chair of Senate Appropriations individually and also on behalf of whatever groups you're involved in who are willing to take a position on the legislation.
All right, I may just do that. Thank you Laura Friedman, Assemblymember, Chair of the Transportation Committee of the California Assembly.
Well, thank you so much for your interest. I really, really appreciate being able to be on here to talk about the legislation and to talk to everybody at bike talk.
You're listening to bike talk. Next, Macao Coleville Anderson is helping displaced people in Ukraine with shipments of bicycles.
Two months ago, I was contacted by Urban Planning colleagues in the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, which has been spared the ravages of war and is a safe haven for 200,000 internally displaced people, IDPs, they call them. And they said we have trams and trolleybuses and stuff but our public transport is overrun because we have so many people, like 25% increase in the population in the course of just a few weeks, right? So, they say what about bikes, man? They have some bike lanes in Lviv, but what about that? If you get bikes because we don't have any and then I'm going okay, just like there's one email, and then my brain just exploded. Like I just saw everything right in front of me the whole project. I talked to them the next day, he had a zoom and I said, "guys!" I gave him all the stats, we can tell you about our bikes in Denmark, and I said, "we have bikes and if you're telling me Ukraine needs bikes, then let's do this." And that started a nonprofit; got a team of volunteers just rocked and rolled from the beginning. We scrap 400,000 bikes a year in Denmark, and we buy 500,000 new bikes, and we're only 6 million people. So bikes are really kind of a throwaway item, really rich consumer society. So that's like a million bikes every 10 years just lying around the streets. So every city in Denmark, particularly the big cities, this is their massive challenge. They clean up two or three times a year in public spaces, just get 1000s of bikes 30,000 bikes a year in Copenhagen end up at the police because they are the last and found people here. So they don't really know what to do with most of those bikes, they sell the best ones on auctions for charity. They've been doing that for many years. But I've been out to the place where they keep all these bikes. It's just insane to see that many bikes not being used. Just generally people like you and me would go, "That's stupid, we should do something about that." But then along came the Ukrainian equation. And I said, "Right. Bikes literally have a purpose and will be used instantly if I can get them to you brain." So that's where we all started with the Crowdfunder trying to get money- still trying to get money. I'd like to point out we're still Crowdfunding this to pay for us to take these used, unwanted bikes from Denmark to Ukraine. So yeah, I've been there now twice. And I can tell ya in Lviv they have the refugees that's their sort of luxury problem in this context, then I've been all over the place in Bucha and Boyarka and Chernihiv, all these cities that really were bombed and occupied by Russia, and they have a completely different need there: their roads are bombed. I we're talking kind of out in the countryside where they have a small town, people come from villages and small towns into the center, normally in a normal life to go shopping and do daily life things. But the roads are trashed because of shelling and military vehicles. There's a gas shortage so nobody can afford to drive. All of the public transport in these places was either destroyed by the Russians or taken by the Ukrainian army for troop transport. So there's literally no way to get around. And they still have to go into the larger towns to get humanitarian aid. And this is really where the bicycle does what it always has done. It's a lifeline. It makes mobility incredibly accessible for people who have no other options. Some of the things I've seen on this last trip in Chuhuiv, [in] which neighborhoods [are] just bombed by the Russians; now it's pretty safe, but old people can't get into town. So there's all these NGOs and they take food out to all of these people and medicine and even the posts. So my goal here in Copenhagen when I set all this up, I'm going, "How many bikes? I don't know. Two thousand sounds like a good number, just pick a number." I'm not even joking. If I landed in Ukraine tomorrow with 100,000 bikes, no exaggeration, those bikes would be put to use the next day, serving a valuable purpose and changing people's lives. It's really moving to talk to these people, when you give them the bikes, which I can talk about, I just was there handing out the first 100 bikes, but they are just: "Thank you. Thank you so much." It's not just like, oh, a bike. That's awesome. What a nice present from the west. It is like this is a game changer for me in my life, or my NGO or my family. It's really a powerful experience.
How do you get these bikes over there?
We have even from Denmark to Ukraine, and all over Europe, with humanitarian aid, probably also military aid. It's just a massive convoy all the time mostly trucks, a lot of trains as well. But here in Denmark, for example, in Copenhagen, we're like a big headquarters for the United Nations disaster relief. So we're like this hub. So we have a lot of trucks going that way. So the first shipment here we collected bikes from people in Copenhagen, I got a bunch of bikes from the Copenhagen police from another NGO that sends bikes normally to Africa. They helped me fill that first truck, which was sponsored by Carlsberg, the Danish beer at Carlsberg, Ukraine. They said, "Okay, this is awesome." This is like the most dangerous story ever, bikes from Copenhagen, we got to get a truck there for that. So they're going to help us with the next shipment as well. So yeah, we just loaded this huge 18 meter long truck, a big semi, and drove off into the sunset towards Ukraine. And then I hopped ahead of it, and met the first truck when it arrived and unloaded the bikes and started distributing them to refugee camps in Lviv, and then putting them into large van and taking them out to these other, or rural, areas and distributing the bikes, just getting them onto the streets and onto the roads where they need to be right now. So, I can see some people on my YouTube like, "Oh, yeah, big smelly trucks, man." Well, there's not really any other way to do it. If you do it by train it takes forever. If you can get a truck there, the truck is there in 48 hours. One thing I discovered was that bikes are actually classified as humanitarian aid. That is awesome! I don't know when that happened. But at some point, somebody said, "Yeah, bikes are important." So they just sail through the border and without a hassle. So trucks are hopefully the bestway to do it.
Wow, that's so great.! And only 2000 then, when you're saying that they could use so many more.
That was my goal, I had to pick a number. I'm going to crowdfund, I'm going to get money from people. And my goal is 2,000. Now, as I said, I've been there and the city of Chuhuiv, which is north of Kiev up by the Belarussian border. I talked to a politician and he said, "I need 7,000 bikes," in this city of like, I don't even know how big the city is. He said, "I need 7,000 bikes, I can literally use them now with the citizens and the NGOs." And now I've also heard from a city in the south, kind of on the front line as the Russians tried to move west towards Odessa. There's this one city called Mykolaiv, and they just contacted me. Everybody's hearing about this now in Ukraine, "hey, we need bikes here." The guy is going, "we need 200 now, but we can use 1,000s more," right? Dobropillia, another city, they also have sent in an appeal to me. So I don't even know where it ends. I have this idea in my head like 1 million bikes for Ukraine, that would be a really great song. And I have 100,000, no exaggeration, we can use them. But a million? Easy. For a country of 40 million people with all of these cities and rural areas, and you name it. And the great thing is that in all these rural areas, there are people with bikes, they just don't have very many. And they're all these old tanks of bikes from the Soviet brand, which was called Ukraina. So they have all these vintage Soviet bikes, and they're still in use. So a lot more bikes would absolutely be beneficial to them.
And parts?
Well, the thing is with the Soviet bikes, they don't interact with the modern bikes. But absolutely, there are a lot of bikes for example, out at the Copenhagen police's Lost and Found a lot where they're just trash. You can look at it, you're going yeah, that's gonna take a lot of work to fix it. But yeah, we can absolutely throw those bikes into a container as well and onto a truck. And they can be cannibalized for parts, right. So generally, the bikes I've taken on the first trip are in pretty good working order. I had volunteer bike mechanics in Ukraine, just checking them to make sure they're safe. And the brakes are working, the gears and everything. So they're all in pretty good working order. In Denmark, almost every bike just has like a hub gear, right? They're really weather resistant, and a chain guard and fenders and everything. So the bikes didn't require a lot of work, which is great, but we get bikes that are worse off. The people in Ukraine are going, "Dude, we can fix bikes, just send them. We're in a war zone, we can do anything right now." So not a care on what condition they're in, just send everything. So that's what I'm working on now is scaling up. I just got home two days ago. So scaling up and trying to get 1000s more bikes sourced here in Copenhagen and in Denmark from mostly the police who I'm going to focus on, insurance companies as well. And then just starting a bigger convoy of trucks that just keep rolling to Ukraine and to the different cities that need it.
Are you going to follow up with the people getting the bikes maybe on your TV show, The Lifesize City?
Well, I got people in all these cities and the one refugee camp in Lviv. These are people who come from the east and occupied areas now and then bombed cities. So some people are sending me photos of some of the bikes that I delivered in use in the city, there was a kid on a BMX bike far away from the refugee camp, we just expanded his mobility radius exponentially. He's just cruising around the city man, doing what we all did when we were kids just riding bikes, right? So I'm getting feedback of the bikes are being used. I've asked for feedback as well for the storytelling. I was in this rural area near Bucha, which was really bombed, and they handed like 10 bikes to these 10 women who are social workers, and they take food and medicine out to people who can't get into town. So I said, "When are you going to start using them?" They're going, "What are you talking about? Tomorrow! We need these man." So I've asked for photos of them using the bikes. Hopefully, they're going to take them but yeah, I'm still following all the progress. I'd love to have a GPS on some of the bikes just to see what crazy routes they're doing through what crazy landscape. But on all the personally donated bikes, I had a handful here in Copenhagen, people came down to me on this big square where we were gathering the bikes. And I had stickers and they wrote their name on it. So it says "Bikes for Ukraine" [with the] Danish flag, Ukrainian flag, and then a guy's name "Christian," right? And they love that over there. This bike came from a dude named Cristian and Copenhagen, it's like a personal gift. And that really moved them a lot more than just getting bikes that had no markings or whatever, right? That was really the concept, the human to human thing, man, a bike is important to some person in Copenhagen, maybe they don't need it anymore. But then if they know that it's gonna go to a Ukrainian mom with kids who need to get into the shop. So that just creates this human to human connection. It won't be possible with every bike I get in the future. But I'm going to try and continue that because I really see how it has an effect on people here, but also certainly in the Ukraine to know that it was a human. Which all the money that we've been donating all over the world to Ukraine, so it's kind of fading out now, but in the beginning of the war, it goes to a charity: Red Cross, Amnesty International or whoever. We know that they probably put it to good use, but we don't know really what happens to it, right? So if you know that your bike is going there, and that woman is now using it to do important things for her life, that's what the bicycle is, man. It's this human instrument and from one human to another just makes it all the more poetic and beautiful.
So you're taking bikes from places where it's possible to transport them to Ukraine, and you're taking donations from everywhere else.
If I had some way of literally sourcing bikes from all over the world, the logistics of that would be insane, right? I was in some, I don't know where, some British website or something. So I have all these people texting me, "I'm in Glasgow, I have two bikes," and I'm going, "okay, I'm in Copenhagen, that doesn't really work for me." So I can get the bikes. This is what I'm working on. So let's just say I get the bikes here, because we have so many in surplus in Denmark. But what I need is people to help me out with crowdfunding. People who like bikes, like bike-friendly cities, urban cyclists, spandex cycles, I don't care. If you believe in the bicycle as a tool that makes life better, which I think we all do, if we're listening to this podcast, then man, five bucks, 10 bucks, 100 bucks? That's what we need. Because I've certainly seen in a lot of other friends who have other NGOs, we see now that the support for Ukraine is waning, it's not as serious anymore. It's sort of stabilized in the East Kyiv isn't under attack anymore. So people have kind of went, yeah, and the news cycle has changed, right? So getting some crowdfunding has been a bit tricky. So yeah, man, all I need is like 40,000 people to give me like five or 10 bucks, and then we're rolling. Then we can almost get those 100,000 bikes to Ukraine, right? So crowdfunding, five [or] 10 bucks, what have you got that would help? And all the money goes to this project. We have very low administration costs. So it's literally physically transporting bikes to the people in Ukraine, right? It's just me and a couple of other people now, so we don't have to have an office rent or anything. Literally all the money goes to the good cause.
Okay, great. And so they go to bikes4Ukraine, bikes number four ukraine.org is one site.
The crowdfunding, also called bikes number four Ukraine, bikes4Ukraine is on the GoFundMe. But yeah, you can check out the main website, which is bikes4ukraine.org and read about the project and what we're doing and stuff. And we've been so busy in Ukraine, so we got to update it a bit. But I'm on my Instagram and bikes number four Ukraine on Twitter and on Instagram and on Facebook. So we're trying to get some more content on there from the journey that I just returned from and I'll be going back hopefully, in about a month with the next shipment. We want to get a whole bunch of bikes there before the winter and get people using them. Like I said, 100,000 bikes tomorrow would be amazing, not feasible. So let's just work hard to get as many bikes there as we can.
Thanks, Mikael. And keep in touch and keep doing the good work that you're doing, all of it.
Thanks very much. Thanks for taking the time man bikes for Ukraine, bicycle freedom.
Ride on. You're listening to Bike Talk. Next, Doug Gordon: Brooklyn spoke-blogger and cohost of The War on Cars. So you do War on Cars with Aaron Knepperstack and Sarah Goodyear.
Aaron is the founding editor of Streetsblog, which now has versions in lots of different cities, including Los Angeles. And Sarah is a journalist and she used to write for Streetsblog. She's written for City Lab and other publications as well.
Now do you have roles within War on Cars?
Like all things Brooklyn, we are like a little artisanal podcast. We kind of wear many hats. We're the cohosts. We are the coproducers. We have some advertising and Aaron handles a lot of our relationships with our sponsors. I joke that I'm like the Amazon warehouse merchandise fulfillment center. I have a closet downstairs in our building that's filled with stickers and other merchandise.
You do the merch?
I do a lot of merch. Yeah, Sarah sends out a lot of our Patreon rewards and has produced some fantastic episodes as well. So we all wear many hats.
And we've had Sarah on a few times. We've never had Aaron, but we should.
You should! He's brilliant. He's a very smart guy. Yeah.
Yeah. Started Streetsblog.
Oh, yeah. And I've learned a lot from reading him and from working with him. So yeah, you absolutely should have him on.
And War on Cars occupies [an] interesting place on bike Twitter, people are welcomed to the War on Cars.
Yeah, it's funny. Every podcast probably says to its guests, you know, "Welcome to the XYZ Podcast." And we just say, "Welcome to the War on Cars," like you would to welcome any guest on any show. And it has become a little bit of this viral thing where maybe a reporter, an actor, someone who you wouldn't peg normally as an advocate, or a bike person posts something about how terrible traffic is or why they hate driving, or how they love riding a bike instead of driving. And we'll just post, "So-and-So, welcome to the War on Cars!" And so it's become this thing that people post and I love it.
When would a person typically be welcomed to the War on Cars?
Well, let's say that, I don't know, my daughter is a big Taylor Swift fan. Taylor Swift posted something like, "Wow, traffic is terrible! I wish there was a bus that could take me to the beach." We might then retweet that or quote-tweet it with, "Taylor Swift, welcome to the War on Cars."
Is that coming from a real example?
No. But there are plenty of celebrities I think, who have posted stuff about traffic or about how much they love riding their bike. Beyonce will post pictures every now and then of riding a bicycle and stuff like that.
Oh, cool!
Yeah.
So you're not a bike podcast. You're everything but the car podcast? Do you have different jurisdictions like Sarah's walking and your biking or anything like that?
No, there aren't clear delineations. Sarah did produce a really fantastic episode on walking, called The Pedestrian, based on the Ray Bradbury science fiction story from the 1950s. But we've kind of do everything. And I'm about to release an episode on distracted driving and the dangers of that. Erin did a really fantastic episode on e-biking in Vermont in sort of, you know, a rural setting as opposed to cities, and is working on another one on street racing culture, like drag racing. So yeah, I think the beautiful thing about podcasting and that the lovely thing about our podcast is we sort of just share ideas. And if there's something really interesting that we want to nerd out on or that we're fascinated by, we can just do it. I did an episode on Legos and bike lanes and why there are no bike lanes in LEGO City. And there was a campaign by a Dutch activist who wanted to...
Marcel Stamens.
Yeah, Marcel Stamens. Yep. If there's something that we find interesting, and we can devote the time to it, we will. Sometimes it'll just be a great guest who happens to align with something that we want to talk about, we had Jessica Valenti on who's the feminist writer. She was fantastic. She had purchased an E bike and had tweeted something about how it changed her experience of getting around Brooklyn. And that was a good example of a "welcome to the War on Cars" exchange that led then to her being on the podcast. So she talked about the experience of being a woman moving through public space and how bicycling affects that experience.
Do you think that War on Cars is preaching to the choir? Or do you try to reach across the divide and try to get drivers?
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say probably the majority of our listeners are if not ideologically aligned, then at least predisposed to agree. And maybe they don't agree with everything that we talk about. And that's sort of my favorite episodes are [sic] the ones where Aaron, Sarah and I disagree on the topic and have very different perspectives. And we love getting feedback from listeners who say, "You know, Doug said this, and I don't really agree with his take on transit," or something like that, 'cause I think it makes us sharper podcast hosts. It makes us sharper advocates and sharper writers. But what I always say is that when we are talking about something, I want the person who knows nothing about this subject, who's listening to us for the first time, who probably drives- who probably drives everywhere, I want them to be open to what we're saying. And sometimes I joke that my ideal listener would be my 77 year-old mother-in-law who lives in suburban Chicago, and has a red convertible and loves it. And if I can kind of get through to her and not tell her, "Oh, you're a bad person for driving," but to tell her "Well, the system in which you're operating could be improved and here's how," and she can be open to that then I think that's a success.
And I shouldn't say drivers because that's a ridiculous term because I mean, I drive I have to...
Yeah, mean, if you live in Los Angeles, if you live in 99% of the country, then you have no choice but to own and operate a car.
And everybody's a pedestrian.
Right. We're never just one thing and we don't approach our lives in other areas by reducing ourselves to just like the one thing that we do a lot of the time. I'm a LEGO fan, like I said, but my politics are not filtered through me being a LEGO fan. So we're many things that many times.
So I remember one episode, somebody admitted they had a car. You're always pretending to ostracize somebody because they drove.
We joke about it. Aaron has a car, and Sara does not, I do not. But I think the idea of car ownership and what we're trying to say is that it's not that owning a car is bad if you need to own a car, if you want to own a car, fine. But we want people to imagine a world where you don't have to own a car; where if you just want something as simple as a gallon of milk, or to go see a friend or for your kid to go to school, that you don't have to have a car for every last trip. And that's sort of where we start I think as a podcast. There are situations where we would say, "Nope, get all the cars out of here." But those are rare.
Just the title of your show is so strong and charged and useful.
Yeah, I think sometimes it can get misinterpreted. And that's fine, 'cause it opens up a forum for discussion. You know, the idea of a quote unquote, "war on cars" comes from a lot of places. One of which is the former mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, now deceased...
Oh, the Crack-Pac.
Yes, famous video of him smoking crack. When he was elected, he said that, quote, unquote, "the war on cars was over." And Toronto, like a lot of North American cities, has a kind of urban core surrounded by more suburban-style neighborhoods. And so he was really representing those like outer ring drivers. And anytime you take a lane of traffic and turn it into a bus lane, or a row of parking, and turn it into a protected bike lane, or even just one parking spot and turn it into outdoor dining, you are accused of waging a war on cars. So when we were discussing what we would title the podcast, when we launched in 2018, we brainstormed a lot of titles and Sarah said, "How about the war on cars?" And it was like, oh, boom, done! So it's meant kind of tongue in cheek because obviously, we are a long way off from any sort of war on cars (being one). And I sometimes say, if we could get to like 10% bicycle mode share in New York City, that would be a pretty significant victory, but it certainly wouldn't be a "war on cars."
Well, from the perspective that I know you must be coming from, it's understood that war on (blank) is a fallacy.
Right. Well, the thing is also, though, that some people say, "Oh, but the war on drugs or the war on poverty, those are failures." But those are terms that come usually from the government, right? Like we're going to wage a war on drugs in the 80s. And we're going to appoint a drug czar who's going to head this up. And then of course, they fail. They're not addressing the underlying factors that lead to drug addiction and crime and all the rest. But the war on cars doesn't come from government. There's no government agency, there's no transportation department that is making it its mission to end car dependency. There are, and have been, plenty of government agencies that have made it its mission to end poverty and drug use. So it can get confusing in that sense, I think. But like I said, I think it's a fun way to open up a conversation with people. It's provocative. And we generally find that it does not alienate people, even though some people will say, "Oh, you're just turning people away." I don't think so. I think it really actually opens up a great discussion.
Do you ever talk to people who would vote for a Rob Ford or who would be in a Trump caravan?
I don't know if I talked to people who would be in the Trump caravan. But I certainly talked to a lot of conservative people. And I think most activists who are working to change stuff generally do understand the other perspective, because it is the dominant perspective. I think there's a lot of stereotyping about bike advocates that they're like this urban elite who have no sense of how most people live. And look, I grew up in a really car dependent suburb of Boston. I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years, right after college, maybe one of the most car dependent places outside of Los Angeles. Los Angeles actually probably has more walkability than a lot of Atlanta. And I have great understanding and perspective for people who live in these places. I have tons of relatives who still live in them. And I think a lot of advocates are the same in that sense. And I think anybody who's working to change in any advocacy circles, housing, poverty, I think people do really have a sense of what they're up against. You have to otherwise this would be very easy. I don't talk to a lot of people who have traditional conservative values, as they're understood today, that might be a little, let's say, bigoted against trans people or gay people. But I don't need those people in my life. But there are plenty of people have conservative ideas of transportation for sure. [Be]cause even the most liberal person in America probably has a conservative perspective on transportation.
Yeah, that's surprising sometimes that people who are otherwise progressive will talk about scofflaw cyclists.
Yeah, it's just the dominant culture. We did an episode way back about the liberal blind spot for cars. And Aaron, my co host, makes this point frequently that it's often in the most liberal places, like Berkeley, California, or Park Slope, Brooklyn, or Cambridge, Massachusetts, where you will find the most vehement organized opposition to bike lanes, to bus lanes to affordable housing, things like that. So yeah, that's not that surprising. Like I said, it's the dominant culture, it's hard for people to imagine a different way.
I remember when you went to a car show. And...
Yes...
I got the impression, I don't know if you would agree with, but it was like after spending your life being about the war on cars, you walk into the enemy camp like that. And you were sort of, it seemed like, almost at a loss at one point. You're like, "But don't you understand?" You just felt that they should know what they didn't.
Yeah, we went to the New York International Auto Show, Sarah and I, and I was a bit overwhelmed. I mean, it's just like two little pipsqueaks up against the massive car industry. And mostly, my strategy in that episode was to just let them talk, "them" being like auto industry reps. If I heard something that sounded a bit...off is not the right word because this is the dominant culture, but that sort of just needed to be kind of explored a little bit like someone saying, "Oh, this car! Its really menacing," "Look at this bad boy, you really own the road," which the Dodge rep that I spoke to said, that was the point where I wanted to say, "Okay, hold on just a second. What do you mean by 'own the road?' Because that is a really specific phrase. So let's explore it. What do you mean, by 'own the road?' You're sharing the road with other people, including other drivers." And that was where I found the most interesting parts of the conversation. It wasn't so much that I couldn't believe what they were saying, because all I ever hear and see in car ads is exactly that language. It was more you never get the chance when you're watching a car [advertisement] to stop and say, "Hey, car company, what do you mean by this marketing that you're putting out there?"
Have you thought about parallels between cars and guns?
We did an episode about that sort of asking what's worse. It's not a great question: like what's worse? They're both terrible. And they're different in many ways. One has an express purpose of harming other people, whether you believe that's for self defense, or murder. The other is, so you can like I said, get a gallon of milk. Those are not the same things. And I think the bigger question is more like, what do these things and how we use them, say about us as Americans, and how we view our responsibility to other people? And if you look at guns, there's a large faction in this country that basically says, "I have a right to carry, and sometimes use my gun, however I want to do it. Other people's feelings, safety, and quality of life be damned." And I think that's very similar to how we think about cars. That cars keep getting bigger, we put them in every possible place that we can imagine. And if you start to just say, "Hey, you know, people should feel safer crossing the street," it's like, "Whoa! why do you want to take away my freedom?" And obviously, the difference is cars are not enshrined as a right in the Constitution. God help us if they were.
And so I don't know if you think it's what you do but how do you begin to talk to somebody who feels strongly about their freedom to drive?
I try to flip the discussion of freedom. I think there's a lot of discussion in the United States that we have a freedom to do things. You have a freedom to drive your car, wherever you want. You have a freedom to carry your gun, wherever you want, into a Target, into a McDonald's, wherever. But we should really think of the notion of "freedom from." If you think of FDR and the Four Freedoms, and the freedom from fear is a really important one. You should be free to go to a movie theater, to go to school, to go to church, to go to a grocery store, and not think to yourself, "What if someone came in here and started shooting?" We shouldn't have to live like that. And so the "freedom to" applies to how we think about cars as well. I should be free to cross the street without thinking someone's going to come around that corner at 25-30 miles an hour in a flat front Ford F150 and crush me. My kids should be free to bike to school, they should be free to walk to the playground. And so I think if someone talks about their freedoms, your freedoms really do depend on everybody else. We live in a society and if individuals are constantly asserting their rights to do stuff, oftentimes that comes at the expense of other people's rights.
There's some quote about an elephant talking about freedom as he dances among chickens.
That's a good analogy for SUV, right? Everybody has equal and free access to the street. Well, if I'm armored up in a tank that's six feet wide and 12 feet long, or whatever it is, I have more of a right to the street than someone who is just five foot eight, 175 pound me. So we don't all have equal access to all things at all times. Some people assert their rights in different ways. But yeah, that's a perfect analogy.
So do you think of yourself as being on the right side of history?
I really don't like the whole idea of the right side of history. You hear a lot these days, especially with the rise of fascism in our country, "History will not judge them kindly." I don't really care what history is gonna say, I'm living now and I have a responsibility to my friends, my neighbors, people in my community, people, I don't know, my fellow Americans, my fellow citizens of the globe. And I just think I'm on the right side of people not dying, of people being free to live their lives unafraid that their children are gonna get killed. So I don't like to think of it in terms of history. Look, we're headed towards some bad stuff with climate change. And we know that we will get to a point if we don't act now that a lot of the stuff that we're doing will be completely irreversible, and that'll cause a whole lot of trouble. So there is that long sense of time. But I wouldn't say that I have a sense of history in that sense.
I think there's one or two reasons for the War on Cars. One is environment and one is livability.
Yeah, and those are connected. I think a lot of our political discussions get really siloed and segmented off housing is a separate issue, from education is a separate issue, from transportation is a separate issue, from parks and then the environment. These things are all connected. If you don't have a safe street to cross, who cares if there's a great park down the street, you're never going to go there. At least not unless you drive or you're confident. If you can't afford a place to live in a good neighborhood with good schools well, doesn't matter that there are good schools in that neighborhood for you, you have to go somewhere else. And I think part of what I've really enjoyed with the War on Cars is we're trying to figure out lots of ways to connect the problems of automobiles with all of the other things that we're all trying to solve in this world. I mentioned Jessica Valenti and feminism, women's health and safety, the health and safety of pregnant people is a really big issue right now. How we move through this world, especially if you're a vulnerable person in society, is really important. And some of that has to do with the physical way in which we travel. It also has to do with a lot of bad laws being passed right now or laws being overturned. But I think the more we can really see how these things overlap, we can build coalitions between sometimes unlikely allies and build a better world.
The War on Cars is on the rise. What do you look at in terms of your success as a podcast?
Lots of things our listenership keeps going up ever since we started, the number of people who are supporting us on Patreon keeps going up. I define success as "How much are our issues getting into the mainstream?" And there's so many different people working on these issues who've been doing it for longer than I have. People who are just starting out and look, the pandemic I think is a really good example of how a lot of cities, New York among them, pushed outdoor dining as a way to help businesses survive and make people feel comfortable going out and eating out. And ebike sales went through the roof during the pandemic and there was the bicycle boom of the last few years and for a while, if you needed a new brake or a new derailleur, good luck. It was like a six week or five month wait for a new bicycle. It's great to see our issues become more a part of the mainstream political discourse, cultural discourse. I think people are connecting obviously transportation to climate in a bigger way than they have before. I define success in no one particular way. I'm happy for all of it. A real rising tide lifts all boats.
War on Cars, Doug Gordon, keep fighting.
Yeah!
Next, Galen Mook, bike talk co host and executive director of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition. Joined by Elena Huisman, an American Rescue Plan committee member for Northampton and founder and founding member of Safe Streets Northampton, as well as Main Street for everyone.
It's been a very busy week here, 'cause mainly its the end of the formal session of the State House here in Massachusetts, which means all the bills that we have filed and have been fighting for for two years, are finally coming to a deadline. And they have to get either thumbs up or thumbs down by both the Senate and the House by Sunday, in order to make their way to the governor. Two that we've been tracking, and specifically, they moved today. Um, one of them would be called an act to reduce traffic fatalities, which would change some of the regulations um around a few things on the roads. It's designed to be a safety bill for all road users, particularly for bicyclists. It's important because it defines a three foot passing. So if you're in a vehicle and you're passing somebody on a bike, you have to at least give three feet if you're going 30 miles an hour or four feet at 40 miles an hour, five feet at 50 miles an hour and so forth. And before we haven't had that in Massachusetts, so this is a game changer to designate exactly what they mean by safe passing distance. And I think that's going to be the biggest thing that will impact all of us road riders out there.
When anything happens, when there is an incident, if you're the person on the bike you can point to the law about safe passing.
Exactly. You know, my goal isn't necessarily that we get more enforcement or tickets out there, it's that we can educate drivers and message people out there on the roads of what it actually means when you're passing a bicyclist and give them like a defined concrete thing to point to.
Good. And thanks. And so there's also something about it's not necessarily an ebike rebate, but defining ebikes and that could lead to more?
Yeah, we have an ebike rebate bill, but that's stalled right now. And we'll see where that goes. But the first step is actually to designate electric bicycles as their own device; separate them out from motorized bicycles, which in Massachusetts law really means gas powered mopeds. So this would allow jurisdiction to have pathways or programs that do ebike delivery or something along those lines, they would be able to particularly have incentives and regulations around ebikes themselves. And it's also important because we know that ebike I mean, it's booming out there. I don't know if you've been riding but ebikes have exploded in usage in the past couple [of] years. So this helps clarify for all the shops that are out there, who are selling ebikes, that they're not necessarily selling something that's considered to be a motor conveyance, which is important. And also all the users there's no ambiguity, like, should I ride this on this pathway? Well, you know what type of ebike you're on, and that is either allowed or not allowed. And you can actually have clarity, as to you know, where you're going to be riding,
You're doing some important groundwork here.
Interesting on the state level, I will say Nick that, like, you know, Mass like is a statewide organization. And we support the locals who are fighting for their local bike lane and their local ordinances, which are incredibly important that make real changes. But what Mass Bikes' goal is to kind of lay the foundation that then the local advocates can really sink into something and make changes for their community.
Speaking of local advocates, we have Elena. Elena is a bike activist/advocate in Northampton.
Galen, I actually had a question for you, as you mentioned, education pieces on both pieces of legislation. So I'd be curious if Mass Bike plays a role in education of drivers, or where does that responsibility fall once that legislation is passed, both on the ebike front and the new law for three foot passing?
Yeah, great, great question. Mass Bikes' philosophy, overall, is to focus on education, as the best way to get a lot of the safe riding habits out there and we don't want to necessarily rely on things like enforcement. However, the ultimate responsibility falls to the states to do the education and there's an organization within the state called EOPS, which is the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. And they kind of oversee a lot of the mechanisms with which the messaging will go out. So they're the ones who can help like, you imagine when you're driving on a highway, you see the lightboard, that you'll see sometimes they say, like use your blinker. Or if there's a message out there about, you know, riding on the holidays, they'll say, you know, don't drink and drive. This will afford us the ability to use those messages, similarly, to say, you know, three foot passing bicyclists, things along those lines, so we can get kind of in the moment messaging to drivers. Secondly, Mass Bike does participate in what the RMV, the Registry of Motor Vehicles, does for its training, and it's manual. So this will be able to get into the drivers manual. And we'll be able to train at least new drivers of this. And Mass Bike does participate twice a year, we get to go back to the RMV manual and help make suggestions for changes, which is a good relationship that we have, I would say the Mass Bike doesn't have the responsibility. But we have a seat at the table to help influence what you know those with the power, ultimately decide to do.
You're on the Advisory Commission for the American Rescue Plan Act in Northampton? Is state legislation and the kind of things that Mass Bike supports? Do you see that being important?
I think on the ARPA side of things, the way this could really dovetail nicely is thinking about some of the infrastructure improvements that we can make as a community to jumpstart bicycle infrastructure in the city as they saw during the pandemic. I can go back and explain a little bit more about ARP as well. But during the pandemic, what we saw is people biking more. I know bike shops around the country couldn't keep inventory on hand and you saw people not riding the T or riding Mass transit and they were starting to bike. The pandemic didn't really change my commuting habits because I was already biking before but I had a lot of friends and my husband also did start biking more during the pandemic. And so, as we recover from this pandemic, and use the ARPA funding from the federal government, how can we sure up infrastructure so that people continue to bike? I think it also dovetails really importantly to areas of work that are near and dear to folks out here in Northampton, particularly on the climate change front, particularly on economic justice and social justice fronts. I think what's really neat about bicycle and bicycle advocacy is that it touches all of those areas. And I see the American Rescue Plan Act and its funds that have been allocated to Northampton as a springboard to be able to implement some of those projects that we've seen stagnate over the last couple of years, and really get some energy behind them. Fingers crossed, at least.
You said, you might circle back and talk about ARPA?
I can give kind of the lay of the land of ARPA funding. The American Rescue Plan Act was a piece of legislation that Biden moved through, which essentially gives a lump sum of money to every single community in the country. Northampton received a little over $21 million, you have a population of around 30,000 people. And Newton, Massachusetts received a little over $62 million. There's a lot more money going towards communities that have more people. But with our $21 million, the mayor of Northampton has set aside around 18%, or $4 million, for this Advisory Commission, which I'm a member of. We did a series of listening sessions over the summer, where we went out to the community and said, "Hey, how have you been impacted by COVID? And how would you want to see this, these dollars be spent in your community?" The city did a survey at the end of 2021, where they had somewhere around 1500 people complete the survey asking, you know "How have you been impacted by COVID?," and "How would you want to see these funds spent?" And so we have a lot of data. The commission is tasked with developing a request for proposals, we'll be reviewing them. And then we'll be making recommendations to the mayor on how that those dollars can be spent. And again, it's it's a small portion of our ARPA funding, but I applaud the mayor and the city of Northampton to set aside a portion so that this bottom up approach can really take place. Other cities have done other things. So I mentioned Newton earlier, they spent $80,000, to develop a master plan for bicycles and pedestrians in their city. And so I think that's really exciting to see that some of these funds are being used for transportation, infrastructure and planning of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. And then I think on the other side of things, I mean, we see Mayor Wu and the city of Boston used a portion of their funding for some free bus routes in the city, through that transportation lens and providing affordable or sometimes free transportation opportunities for those who have been most affected by COVID.
Where does the citizen versus municipal decision making breakdown with ARPA funds?
It's a case by case basis in terms of what city you're in, or municipality you're in. But here in Northampton, this advisory commission is made up of all citizens. There's two folks on the commission who are city council people, and then the rest of us are representing various different, I guess you could call them issue areas. So I represent the transportation, you know contingency or cohort of folks in Northampton. There's other people on the commission that are representing affordable housing, the arts, public health, things of that nature. And so it's the idea that we have a diversity of expertise on this commission where we can review these proposals. But ultimately, the Commission's role is to make recommendations to the mayor, and it's in the mayor's hands to be the ultimate decider.
Like not a lot of limitations as to what these funds can be spent on. Is that right? Like that's really up to the mayor's discretion?
Yeah. And that's what's really exciting about this funding. It's, it's essentially no strings attached. I mean, it's one it's one time funding, which we're making sure that we communicate to all the organizations that are going to be applying for this funding. But essentially, I mean, I, during my day job, I work in climate philanthropy and something that's challenging for philanthropy oftentimes, is to come in and invest in a new program area because it's not a proof of concept. There's no, there's no there-there. And so, I've been having conversations with community members here in Northampton to really say, "This is an opportunity. There's no strings attached to this money, pilot something innovative, pilot something that you've been thinking about for really long time that you haven't had the opportunity to fundraise for, because then that proof of concept is there and you can go out for larger funds down the line." And so you're exactly right in that it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to have this No Strings Attached funding coming down through the federal government.
Actually, we do have a lot of stuff going on Northampton. So I'm excited to see who who applies from that end and you know, where the the energy goes.
Yeah, and I'll just say one more thing about the ARPA funding, that we are also encouraging organizations to collaborate on proposals. So I think, you know, we have this lump sum of money. And I don't know how many applications we'll receive, let's say, we get 100. And, you know, it's going to be unfortunate that we're not going to likely be able to fund all of them. But we think stronger applications will be the ones that come in from multiple organizations that say, "Hey, we're going to collaborate on this initiative or this project." I think there's a lot of power in that. And so I encourage everyone to really think about what organizations they could partner with and build a stronger application for the funding here in Northampton.
If you're gonna apply for anything, we can get some multi-year funds for Bike Talk, maybe?
Does that really seem like the type of thing they would fund?
You'd have to prove the direct impact COVID has had on Bike Talk. But if you can tell a compelling story, you know, we're welcoming all applications.
If I want to practice storytelling, I can do that. Great idea, Galen.
So it's a small caveat that if we do apply Nick, we have to add an asterisk saying that Elena was a frequent guest and sometimes co host, so she may have to abstain from the decision making.
All right.
That's right, we're already having those types of conversations. And lots of people have raised their hand around certain organizations applying for funding so that that wouldn't be an issue, but appreciate that.
You are gonna put some street safety stuff, some bike stuff up, you're gonna propose it?
I can't propose anything, unfortunately. But I, I'm trying to get the word out to folks. My selfish agenda is such that we get some sort of bicycle infrastructure, whether it's a plan, whether it's a pilot project, you know, something comes out of it from the ARPA funds. But again, it's it's going to be a very democratic process. And it has been up until this point. And so, just asking folks to submit some really impactful applications hopefully we can get something that the rest of commission agrees on.
When should we check back in?
Oh, great question. Um, we haven't, we're just now finishing and finalizing the RFP. And I imagine that's going to be sent out sometime in the fall. And I would imagine having three-ish months or so to reply to that RFP. And you know again, this is a very rough timeline, but I would say quarter one of 2023 we could see some decisions being made by the mayor. Don't hold me to it because I'm sure things at the city can always um, be up-ended. But I think that's their aspirational timeline.
So before we go, I do like to always have your bike joy. Is that something that we could take like a couple seconds and just, you know, think about a recent moment in your life when you were riding a bike and kind of had you know, unadulterated bliss?
We got a Weehoo! It's that seat in the back of the wheel that the kid pedals.
Yeah, we, Weehoo?
That's joy every time we use it.
Well, the whole family can get out.
Yeah.
Elena, bike joy?
Summertime, and I've been biking a lot. I guess I'll pull a piece of joy from a conversation I was having with my husband the other day who turned to me while we were making dinner and just, you know, "Riding bikes, it's just so great! Like, I just smile the whole time, I'm riding my bike." And it was kind of like, I've been saying this for years, and he just had this "aha moment" of how great riding a bicycle was. So that was my bike joy. I feel like I've fully converted him.
Awesome. Another angel gets its wings. I got, well, I guess mine is from this morning. I'm out in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, which most of your audience probably has no idea where that is. It's like Central Mass, but kind of North, um, kind of a hilly area. It's like a post industrial city. Anyway, they have an awesome rail trail that goes between two cities that they just did the ribbon cutting for this morning. And so we got to come out and celebrate all the good work going into building a new rail trail system up here. So my bike joy was riding on the rail trail today, which was like brand new and fresh pavement and over two new bridges. And it was just like one of those like, "Ah, you know, this will be here for generations, and I get to be on it like early." See the change happening in real life. So that was pretty cool.
I can hear the geese I think.
Yeah, I'm also by a pond right now so I can get reception in the hilltowns and a reservoir. Very juicy.
You're bringing us a [sic] amazing future of bike lanes that go from Northampton to Boston, right?
Oh, yeah, that is in motion actually tomorrow, which will be yesterday for most of your audience. There is the Golden Spike Rail Trailailtrail Conference, where all of the different groups that are supporting what's called the Mass Central Rail Trail, which is that 110 miles from Boston to Northampton, we're all going to come together and kind of celebrate and collaborate and scheme and strategize. And that's going to be very inspiring.
Yeah. Wow. I mean, the idea of being able to, because there's not even a train right now, from Northampton, to Boston.
Well, that's the thing there used to be. So we're trying to take the old rail bed, and the old right away, that used to be a train and now we'll make it a bike path.
That's so cool. But we have to wait 10 years?
Eh, maybe twenty. I'm thinking of your daughter.
All right. Well, thanks, um for that.
You can be the one on the back of the Wee Hoo and she can be the one pedaling you around.
Which is gonna actually happen. Well, thank you, Galen and Mass Bike.
Yeah, pleasure to be here and happy to talk a little bit more about our work and I'm sure we'll be in touch as everything keeps moving forward.
And thank you, Elena.
Always fun to be here. Thanks, guys.
Keep up the good work in Northampton.
Well, chugging along and keep it up in Boston.
Doing what we can!
This was Bike Talk. Thanks to Kevin Burton for editing. Check out our archives at biketalk.org and have a good week.