Podcasts about safe routes

It's being argued that Ennis has failed to deal with parking deficits. Following a motion he raised in November 2023 which found that Ennis had lost 159 car parking spaces in fifteen years, Clarecastle Fianna Fáil Councillor Tom O'Callaghan has this week requested an update on any further losses. Ennis MD has said in a response that while some spaces have been lost to public realm works, Active Travel measures and Safe Routes to School projects, the new Cloister Car Park and Lidl store on the Clare Road will soon bring almost 350 spaces on stream. Councillor O'Callaghan claims no efforts have been made to fix the previously identified parking space shortfall.

This week on KentNow, we're covering it all—from the Super Bowl showdown (sorry, Tay Tay's boyfriend) to last week's snow and ice, where Kent's road crews worked hard to keep streets safe. Plus, Grammy winners, upcoming movie releases, and the latest city news!

Ontario greenlights ‘Safe-Routes-to-School’ grant application: https://www.richlandsource.com/2024/12/09/ontario-greenlights-safe-routes-to-school-grant-application/ Today - we’re talking about community, safety, and connectivity in Ontario.Support the show: https://richlandsource.com/membersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's show:  9am-10am Songwriter Johnny Duhan dies while swimming Anger in Barna over exclusion from “Safe Routes to School” funding We speak to a Galway-based Consultant Respiratory Physician ahead of COPD Day 'Galway Talks with John Morley' broadcasts every weekday morning from 9am on Galway Bay FM.

It's hoped new safety measures in the vicinity of an Ennis primary school will give parents the confidence to allow their children to walk or cycle. As part of the Safe Routes to School Programme, which has been developed by the National Transport Authority and Green Schools, works worth €175,000 will be carried out on the Kilrush Road near Ennis National School. The project includes new ramped controlled and uncontrolled crossings as well as drainage kerbs, bollards and signage. Principal of Ennis Natinal School Ray McInerney says once it's clear that walking or cycling along the route is safe for a child, parents will feel more comfortable letting them do so.

Taylor and Anne Marie saw their neighborhoods at human speed in Sunday's CicLAvia in Los Angeles. “Meet the Hollywoods” opened 7 miles to people, not cars, from East to West Hollywood. Anne Marie discovers Fan Girl, a women musicians themed café. 1:13 Taylor nervously rides Luke's Penny Farthing far. 1:52 Vanessa, Ryan, and Victor share their favorite things about CicLAvia with Anne Marie. 5:38 The Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts reopens its bankrupt bikeshare with a new operator. A report from Carolyn Misch, Northampton's Director of Planning & Sustainability. 9:09 Taylor reports back from West Hollywood's Mobility Forum. 11:28 Taylor rides Hollywood Boulevard's brand new protected bike lane with Damien Kevitt, Founder and ED of Streets Are For Everyone, and Mehmet Berker, Transportation Deputy for LA Council District 4. 12:12 Kendra Ramsey, Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coalition, on last week's Association of Pedestrian and Biking Professionals in Detroit. 16:45 When Driving is Not An Option: Detroit car-free bike mom Christina Dubose interviews Anna Zivarts, Director of Disability Rights Washington's Disability Mobility Initiative Program and author of When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency. 23:19 Bike Rodeos are for everyone: Christina interviews Safe Routes to School Coordinator for the City of Palo Alto Rose Mesterhazy. 30:01 More on the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals with Kendra Ramsey, APBP Board President. 34:51 Vehicular cycling, protected intersections, sensible driving, and the politics of active transportation in the UK with Carlton Reid, journalist and The Spokesmen podcaster. 38:57 Stacey's Bike Thought 56:50

Oregon DOT workers talk about making walking and biking to school safer for kids

It's back to school week and Safe Routes to School, a major movement to create ways to get students back on foot/bikes, reports that American families drove 30 billion miles to take their children and from schools. This results in clogged neighborhoods with parent taxi's and long car lines wrapped down side streets. Can we 'park' parent taxis and train kids how to stay safe walking or riding to school? Dave and Debbie discuss and take listeners calls.

Fluent Fiction - Norwegian: From Safe Routes to Hidden Paths: A Journey in Unity Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/from-safe-routes-to-hidden-paths-a-journey-in-unity Story Transcript:Nb: Sola skinte gjennom trærne som omringet de velstelte hagene i den rolige gatede community.En: The sun shone through the trees surrounding the well-maintained gardens in the quiet gated community.Nb: Lars, Ingrid og Sigrid sto ved bilen, klare til å dra til sommerhytta i fjellene.En: Lars, Ingrid, and Sigrid were standing by the car, ready to head to the summer cabin in the mountains.Nb: Lars sjekket kartet en siste gang.En: Lars checked the map one last time.Nb: "Vi må følge denne ruten.En: "We must follow this route.Nb: Den er tryggest," sa han bestemt.En: It's the safest," he said firmly.Nb: Ingrid hoppet opp og ned, utålmodig.En: Ingrid was hopping up and down, impatient.Nb: "Men Lars, det er sommer!En: "But Lars, it's summer!Nb: La oss ta en mer eventyrlig rute.En: Let's take a more adventurous route.Nb: Vi kan oppdage nye steder."En: We might discover new places."Nb: Sigrid, den pragmatiske av dem, så fra Lars til Ingrid og visste at hun måtte finne en balanse.En: Sigrid, the pragmatic one, looked from Lars to Ingrid and knew she had to find a balance.Nb: "Ingrid, det er viktig å følge en plan.En: "Ingrid, it's important to follow a plan.Nb: Men kanskje vi kan finne en mellomting?"En: But maybe we can find a middle ground?"Nb: foreslo Sigrid og smilte forsiktig.En: suggested Sigrid, smiling gently.Nb: De startet turen, og alt gikk etter planen.En: They started their journey, and everything went according to plan.Nb: Trærne svaiet mykt i vinden, og fuglene sang.En: The trees swayed softly in the wind, and the birds sang.Nb: Men så, etter en time, så de et stort skilt: "VEIEN STENGT."En: But then, after an hour, they saw a large sign: "ROAD CLOSED."Nb: Lars rynket pannen.En: Lars frowned.Nb: "Hva gjør vi nå?En: "What do we do now?Nb: Vi må snu."En: We have to turn back."Nb: Ingrid så en liten sti ved siden av veien.En: Ingrid saw a small path next to the road.Nb: "Hva med denne?En: "What about this?Nb: Det kan bli spennende!"En: It might be exciting!"Nb: Lars var bekymret.En: Lars was concerned.Nb: "Den stien ser farlig ut."En: "That path looks dangerous."Nb: Sigrid tok et dypt pust.En: Sigrid took a deep breath.Nb: "Hva om vi prøver stien, og hvis det blir for utrygt, snur vi?En: "What if we try the path, and if it becomes too unsafe, we turn back?Nb: Da får vi både sikkerhet og eventyr."En: That way, we get both safety and adventure."Nb: De valgte å følge stien.En: They decided to follow the path.Nb: Den var smal og kronglete, men utsikten var fantastisk.En: It was narrow and winding, but the view was fantastic.Nb: Fjellene reiste seg majestetisk i horisonten.En: The mountains rose majestically on the horizon.Nb: Lars følte seg mer avslappet, og Ingrid strålte av lykke.En: Lars felt more relaxed, and Ingrid beamed with happiness.Nb: Plutselig kom de til en stor, fallen trestamme som blokkerte veien.En: Suddenly, they came across a large fallen tree blocking the way.Nb: "Hva nå?"En: "What now?"Nb: spurte Ingrid, litt nervøs.En: asked Ingrid, a bit nervous.Nb: Lars studerte trestammen.En: Lars studied the tree trunk.Nb: "Vi kan ikke kjøre over den.En: "We can't drive over it.Nb: Men vi kan gå rundt den til fots og hente hjelp."En: But we can walk around it on foot and get help."Nb: Sigrid nikket.En: Sigrid nodded.Nb: "God idé.En: "Good idea.Nb: La oss samarbeide og komme oss videre."En: Let's work together and move forward."Nb: De tok sekkene sine og begynte å gå.En: They grabbed their backpacks and started walking.Nb: Stien ble smalere, men de holdt sammen.En: The path became narrower, but they stuck together.Nb: Med felles innsats klarte de å finne en liten landsby ved foten av fjellet der de fikk hjelp.En: With a joint effort, they managed to find a small village at the foot of the mountain where they got help.Nb: Tilbake ved bilen føltes stemningen lettere.En: Back at the car, the mood felt lighter.Nb: "Jeg må innrømme, det var morsomt," sa Lars og smilte til Ingrid.En: "I must admit, it was fun," said Lars, smiling at Ingrid.Nb: Ingrid lo.En: Ingrid laughed.Nb: "Og jeg har lært at det er fint å ha en plan."En: "And I've learned that it's nice to have a plan."Nb: Sigrid la en arm rundt dem begge.En: Sigrid put an arm around both of them.Nb: "Og jeg ser at vi klarer alt sammen som et lag."En: "And I see that we can handle anything together as a team."Nb: Sola begynte å gå ned da de endelig kom fram til sommerhytta.En: The sun began to set as they finally arrived at the summer cabin.Nb: Fjellene badet i et gyllent skjær, og vennegruppen var nærmere enn noensinne.En: The mountains were bathed in a golden glow, and the group of friends was closer than ever.Nb: "Vi klarte det," sa Sigrid fornøyd.En: "We made it," said Sigrid contentedly.Nb: Og slik endte turen med en ny forståelse mellom vennene, klare for mange flere eventyr sammen.En: And so the trip ended with a new understanding between the friends, ready for many more adventures together. Vocabulary Words:shone: skintemaintained: velsteltehopping: hoppetimpatient: utålmodigadventurous: eventyrligpragmatic: pragmatiskeswayed: svaierfirmly: bestemtgently: forsiktigfrowned: rynte pannenconcerned: bekymretwinding: krongletemajestic: majestetiskrelaxed: avslappettrunk: trestammenarrower: smalerejoint effort: felles innsatsvillage: landsbyfoot of the mountain: foten av fjelletmood: stemningensmiling: smilendebeam: strålepath: stiroute: ruteblocked: blokkertesafety: sikkerhethappiness: lykkeunderstanding: forståelseadventure: eventyrcontentedly: fornøyd

CTL Script/ Top Stories of June 18th             Publish Date: June 18th          From the Ingles Studio Welcome to the Award-Winning Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast    Today is Tuesday, June 18th and Happy 81st Birthday to Beatles member Paul McCartney. ***06.18.24 – BIRTHDAY – PAUL MCCARTNEY*** I'm Keith Ippolito and here are the stories Cherokee is talking about, presented by Credit Union of Georgia.  Bascomb Elementary School Earns Top Award from Safety Organization Man Charged with Stealing $4,500 From Disabled Cherokee County Woman Seven Arrows in Woodstock Closing Doors After Nearly 24 Years   Plus, Bruce Jenkins sits down with Leah McGrath from Ingles Markets to discuss brown eggs.   We'll have all this and more coming up on the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger Podcast, and if you're looking for Community news, we encourage you to listen and subscribe!    Commercial: CU of GA STORY 1: Bascomb Elementary School Earns Top Award from Safety Organization Bascomb Elementary School has been awarded the Partner of the Year Award for the West Georgia region by Safe Routes to School, as announced by the Cherokee County School District. This recognition celebrates Bascomb's efforts in promoting safe walking and biking among students while fostering healthy and active lifestyles. Safe Routes to School, a statewide nonprofit, awarded only four regional honors across Georgia, highlighting Bascomb's exceptional commitment to community safety, reducing traffic, and encouraging sustainable transportation. This accolade adds to Bascomb's previous achievements, including multiple Gold Awards from the organization, under the leadership of Principal Carolyn Daugherty. STORY 2: Man Charged With Stealing $4,500 From Disabled Cherokee County Woman Flint Witt, a 58-year-old man from Dallas, Georgia, has been indicted by a Cherokee County grand jury for allegedly stealing approximately $4,500 from a disabled woman. The charges include robbery by sudden snatching, exploitation and intimidation of a disabled adult, and theft by taking. Witt, who was hired as a handyman, purportedly entered the woman's home under false pretenses and took the money from her kitchen countertop. The incident occurred on April 11, 2023, in southwest Cherokee County, and Witt reportedly fled the scene without attempting to return the money or contact the woman. He was arrested on January 17 and released on a $4,875 bond the same day, according to authorities. STORY 3: Seven Arrows in Woodstock Closing Doors After Nearly 24 Years After nearly 24 years, Cheryl West is reluctantly closing Seven Arrows, her beloved Native American art gallery and shop on Woodstock's Main Street. Citing a significant rent increase, West, driven by her lifelong passion for Native American cultures, decided to shut down the store. Despite not having Native American heritage herself, she opened Seven Arrows in 2000, inspired by the book "Seven Arrows" by Hyemeyohsts Storm. The shop, known for its artifacts and jewelry from across the United States but not specifically Georgia tribes, will close alongside Diversified Mortgage Services, operated by her husband. Iconic items like large concrete cactuses displayed outside the shop are now for sale at discounted prices until the final closure, after which remaining items may be sold online or donated. West, reflecting on her unexpected retirement, expressed gratitude for her loyal customers and the memorable journey with Seven Arrows. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info.    Back in a moment. Break:  DRAKE STORY 4: Woodstock Woman Found Guilty of Stabbing Brother Taeja Janae Williams, 21, was convicted by a Cherokee County jury on June 14 for stabbing her 17-year-old brother in a 2022 incident. Williams faced charges including aggravated assault, aggravated battery, cruelty to children in the first degree, and possession of a knife during a felony. The altercation occurred after a verbal dispute at their home in Woodstock, leading Williams to stab her brother multiple times in the chest, abdomen, and shoulder. Emergency services treated him for critical injuries, including a collapsed lung and other serious wounds. The trial spanned four days with testimonies from multiple witnesses, including the victim, law enforcement, and medical professionals. The jury deliberated for about four hours before reaching a verdict. Sentencing will take place at a later date in Superior Court. STORY 5: Cherokee Schools Students Honored for Technology Skills Nine Cherokee County School District students were honored for their proficiency in technology skills at the Adobe Express Challenge, announced by the district. Sponsored by CCSD's Technology and Information Services, the challenge tasks students across all grades with demonstrating creativity using Adobe programs. In the fourth quarter, participants created thank you cards, notes, or videos for their favorite educators. A total of 231 entries were judged by grade levels, with winners receiving certificates and ribbons. Among the winners were students from Boston Elementary School and Dean Rusk Middle School, recognized for their outstanding entries in various grade level bands. Commercial:  INGLES 3 And now here is Leah McGrath from Ingles Markets on brown eggs. LEAH INTERVIEW We'll have closing comments after this.    COMMERCIAL: JM HELLER 3   SIGN OFF –   Thanks again for hanging out with us on today's Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast. If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast, the Marietta Daily Journal, or the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties. Read more about all our stories and get other great content at www.tribuneledgernews.com/ Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Giving you important news about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 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Megan Ramey is doing so many cool things to make bicycling better in Hood River it was hard to decide on just one way to introduce her when we connected for an online interview this past Thursday.The main hat she wears is Safe Routes to School program manager for Hood River County. But if you've followed her on X or Instagram, you'll know she's up to all sorts of cool stuff — from lobbying for e-bike legislation and donating free used bikes, to leading afterschool bike clubs and getting grants for demonstration projects.During our conversation, Megan shared:how she first got involved in transportation reform advocacy,how raising a daughter sharpened her appetite for safe streets work,what a typical week is like for her,how some folks have the wrong impression about the type of families who call Hood River County home,what she'll do with a recent $25,000 federal safety grant,why she started afterschool bike clubs for elementary school kids and the impact it has had on them,what music is most often requested for the ride playlists these days,and more!

Christina Erickson, Executive Director with Local Motion, joins us to talk about the 25-year history of the organization, the Bike Ferry and the bridge over the Winooski River, their state-wide advocacy work, advocating for Safe Routes to School Program including a call for more crossing guards, and more.

21st April 2024 The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast EPISODE 352: Laura Laker SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles HOST: Carlton Reid GUEST: Laura Laker LINKS: https://www.the-spokesmen.com/ https://www.ternbicycles.com https://twitter.com/CarltonReid https://twitter.com/laura_laker https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/potholes-and-pavements-9781399406468/ Carlton Reid 0:11 Welcome to Episode 352 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Sunday, April 21 2024. David Bernstein 0:28 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e-bikes for every type of rider. Whether you're commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That's t e r n bicycles.com to learn more. Carlton Reid 1:04 I'm Carlton Reid and today's show is a chat with like journalist Laura Laker, author of an excellent new book, Potholes and Pavements. This is a travelogue featuring Laura's travels around the UK, writing on some of the best and worst bits of Britain's National Cycle network. From jaw droppingly gorgeous looking ancient military roads in the Highlands of Scotland to dark and dingy urban back streets blocked with barriers. As the books subhead warns, it's a bumpy ride. Um, so you've written a book. Is this your first? Laura Laker 1:46 Yeah, my first my first book, believe it or not, Carlton Reid 1:49 well done. Congratulations. It's a brilliant first book. One of many. I'm sure it'll be one of many. I noticed you've got a an agent. Yeah, you say in the back and thank him. So I'm guessing you're going to be doing more books? Laura Laker 2:00 Yeah, I guess so. I'm not trying to think about it too much. This one was very long in the gestation. I had an idea back in 2017 to do a basically ring around talking to people. I'd listened to the audiobook of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie, in which he travels across the US with his big poodle, and talking to people and he says he's most wonderful conversations, which were later question for their veracity, but it's just, it's just a wonderful format. And I love I'd kind of in that trip to America, I rediscovered my love of talking to strangers, which I had as a kid, and I'm kind of lost over the years, I guess, being British, but spending time in the US where everyone is just willing to talk to you and tell you their life story. I rediscovered this just love of cycling, is brilliant for that, you know, just talking to people you're travelling around, you might stop at some lights, or you might pass someone on a path and just get chatting to them. And it's wonderful people have the most amazing stories, I think Carlton Reid 2:59 Well, there's two teachers that you met, hopefully they will read the book. You weren't avoiding them. Laura Laker 3:07 I know Greg and Norton, they were so brilliant. And the most unexpected encounters and I was up in the Cairngorms and travelling alone and feeling a bit like oh, you know, such a beautiful, it's ridiculously beautiful up there. I'm always just astounded by Scotland, and how how it's possible for somewhere to be so beautiful. And the NCN [National Cycle Network] across the Cairngorms is something else, it's really quite remarkable. A lot of its off road, it's this dedicated path. It was an old military road. And the rest is on fairly quiet country roads. And I was pootling along on my big pink ebike, which I did some of my adventures on and I saw these roadies coming up behind me and I thought well that they're going to overtake me in a bit. And sure enough, they did. We said hello. And then I saw them stopped at this bridge and they were looking over and they just had this wonderful kind of whimsy about them this they weren't they were going a long way actually they're going from kind of Aviemore back to Preston where they were at least one of them lived and doing it over a couple of days in sort of training one of them's an Ironman enthusiastic participants, but on the way they were stopping looking over bridges, that sort of waterfalls over rocks and like looking across the landscape and just enjoying the scenery. And that for me is what cycling is about. It's about appreciating the world around us and the people around us and so they said we'll ride with us for a while and as you know ebike your Aberdeen bought a bike mine included, maxes out at 15 and a half miles an hour which these guys were obviously capable of exceeding quite easily. So but they they rode with me for quite some time and we chatted and they were just fantastic. And then yeah, they they stopped for a week and I had to run inside for a week. And then I came out and they'd gone Carlton Reid 4:51 but it's quite a nice way to say goodbye. Are you are you are you taking notes as you're going along? So you wrote their names and what they did. And or you coding stuff. How are you physically? Laura Laker 5:02 Yeah, so I get back at the end of a ride and write stuff down. And I do think it's best that way, especially with travel writing, because you forget so much so quickly. And the big three Cornwall, I think is, you know, in the early parts of the book, when I first started the exploration, further afield, you know, writing stuff down as you experience it, or very soon after is really important because you lose a lot of the detail and the texture of what you're experiencing. And I think it just makes for much richer story that way, but also difficult to do because you're having to memorise and maybe that's why Steinbeck was getting criticised because he wasn't writing No, no. As he was going along, he's remembering it. Well, memories can do. Memory is really interesting, actually. Because we we probably most of us think that our memories are fairly good, or the way that remember things is correct. But actually, it's very, very subjective. And the longer time goes on, the more we forget, or the memory gets warped, or things get introduced that didn't exist, maybe and it's really very, very subjective. I've got I don't know for some things, I've got quite a good short term memory so I can remember to a certain extent, but obviously, as Homer Simpson once said, you know, one thing comes into your brain another thing has to leave it so. Carlton Reid 6:23 That's 100% me though. So this book Potholes and Pavements, a bumpy ride on Britain's National Cycle network, it comes out May the ninth published by Bloomsbur. £16.99. Excellent, excellent book. I read it yesterday and got up early this morning to make sure I finished it before I spoke with you. Now normally when when I talk to people for this podcast, I always get them to send me a photograph so I can do the you know, the socials and the thing that goes on the show notes. What have you with you, oh, an hour and a half to do that. Because I have ridden with you ridden with you on bits of the ride that you are right that you mentioned in your book. So when you mentioned that, you know the cycle superhighway. You make an item was like, I've got that photograph because I was holding my camera photographing you behind me? Laura Laker 7:20 Yeah, with Brian Deegan. Carlton Reid 7:21 There's knowing smiles when I'm reading your books like I was on that ride. Like I know, Laura. Oh, my word. It's also like me on that ride. And when you describe windmills, yes. But the windmills and it's a cute book for me. Also cute because I know lots of these people who you're describing. And I know in the book, it says he didn't want to be described as a hero. But he is a hero. And because it's about the National Cycle network, then clearly that's got to be the guy who not single handedly founded it, but certainly pushed it through with those with those early innovators. So that's John Grimshaw. So he comes in, he's, he's in at least three or four parts of the book, you've clearly gone to speak to him a number of times wonderful. And it's fantastic that he's in there, because he really doesn't get the recognition he deserves. Laura Laker 8:16 Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, he I obviously have to speak to John Grimshaw. Because a lot of people as he points out, and as I tried to convey in the book, a lot of people and probably, you know, uncountable numbers of people were involved in the foundation of and development of the National Cycle network. And then it's maintenance ever since many of whom are working for very little, in fact, nothing, because they loved it. But John really seemed like, talking to people and talking to him, was the driving this real driving force behind it and his kind of self belief and single minded determination, I think was a major driver and he is such a character. I mean, a bit of a Marmite character, I think, but, you know, it seems like you need people to kind of drive things forward. Carlton Reid 9:05 Cos you need somebody like that. He's a visionary. Yeah, you know. I love Malcolm Shepherd. I love Zavier Brice, the people who are in charge now and Malcolm was the guy who came in after after John. But Malcolm wasn't a visionary. Malcolm was an accountant. And when when the organisation any organisation any business gets big, then you very often need somebody else to take over. And there's lots of faction there at the time. You don't go into it in a great detail. That was enormous friction there and there's still enormous amount of bad blood between people. Laura Laker 9:46 Yeah, and it's interesting because Caroline Lovatt. Here's another key figure from fairly early on and still works with John today. On there, they're still building cycle routes under a different organisation, cycle routes and greenways and Um, she says that, you know, for for years, according to her, John kept disappearing from the kind of record of that of the history of the NCN on Wikipedia, she kept putting him back in. And um, yeah, I mean, the story was, and that was a difficult part of it to tell. But it was one that had to be mentioned, I didn't want to go too into it. But obviously, you know, John, leaving Sustrans under fairly strange circumstances, and really against his will, was was part of the story that needed to be told. And it was a different and I spoke to a number of people and nobody really, I think, you know, there were potentially nondisclosure agreements. And so nobody really talks about what exactly happened, which is why I call I mentioned the omerta. Because it really seems like everyone has a slightly different story, or, and I and again, I, you know, it's memory and it was a painful time. And it was a long time ago. And it's quite common, as you say, with new organisations, you've got this big driving force, but then sometimes they're not the person to carry on leading an organisation once the first major thing is done, and, you know, they might not be great with people is, you know, having a skill to start and drive something is not the same as being a sort of manager of people and diplomats. And it's, yeah, it's quite often it's a painful process, certainly not unique, I think. Carlton Reid 11:16 No, it's very common for that kind of thing to happen. However, saying that it's very important to recognise who was that visionary? And I think he lost an awful lot of that. So, so wonderful to see John. central to that. So that's really nice part of the book because I, you know, John, John is a wonderful, wonderful guy, and absolutely, this would not have happened without him. I know, there's lots of other people you know, David Sproxton, all these kind of people were there at the same time, George Ferguson. So So Sproxton was Aardman Animation. So people who know admire animation, George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, at one point, all these individuals were there at the time, but it needed that guiding force that needed that. Just somebody who woulda just said no, and just went ahead and did it. That was that was the ethos of Sustrans in the early days. So that Laura Laker 12:12 Yeah, yeah, because the status quo then as it is, today, is very much stacked against cycling routes happening. And so you kind of need a rebel who's not willing, who's you know, not willing to take no for an answer? Who's going to be able to make things happen? And I think in a way that kind of, I guess, you know, being from a fairly well off upper middle class background, you have the confidence really the education that kind of gives you that confidence and and then the character and self belief to just to drive that forward. Carlton Reid 12:47 Mmm. That you didn't mention not even once Cycling, Touring Club CTC cycling UK. Because the book isn't in all cycling, you are you are laser focused on the National Cycle network. But there was also friction between those two organisations, you know, stranden effect was an upstart organisation, then it got for £42.5 million with Meatloaf handing that over on TV or that kind of stuff. And there was there was an awful lot of friction between still is between strands and and what is today cycling UK. So you haven't got into that at all. What Why didn't you go into that? Is that just because you wanted to just stay laser focused on the cycle network? Laura Laker 13:36 I mean, I mentioned that not everyone felt that Sustrans was being helpful because they felt that cycle route should be delivered by government and charities stepping in. And taking that role almost allows the government to say, well, you know, someone's doing it. Now. We don't need to get involved. But I mentioned the kind of tension between certain types of cyclists. I think I might quote to you, I think I've got you in the references on that. But I mean, I don't know if I just don't know how. I don't know. It's yeah, it's a tricky one. It's how much to include, and you always have to make these decisions, what to include and what not to include, and I guess I just didn't feel like that was a key part of the story at all. There was some thinking at the time around that but and I'm aware that there was tension and I know that Mark Strong for one who gets quite a mention in the book, talked about Sustrans being too successful and not successful enough in that, you know, they were doing this job notionally? No, they were doing a great job for with what they had and who they were and ie not the government and with not very much money but they were doing enough just to allow the government to just say, You know what, well Sustrans is delivering the National Cycle network, tick, job done. Let's get back to the serious business of roads. Carlton Reid 15:01 because there is there is you meant we will get on to the very positive points, you've got like a bunch of what what do you call it in the book where you've got a whole bunch of asks basically? Oh, yeah, the manifesto, the manifesto. There you go. Number one, we'll go through these points. 10 point manifesto. So there's some positive stuff to talk about that. But you don't really mention that there's this that, you know, you're talking about, you know, this should be funded nationally, and there is that struggle, bear with you know, this is a charity, etc, etc. But then you've also got the weakness of you have actually got to at least have British Cycling as well, three competing organisations, going to government and asking for money for various things. And wouldn't it be nicer and more practical and may even get more stuff? If there's only one organisation so there is that there is the absolute fault line running through cycling? That is one of the reasons why it's very easy for the government to not do stuff because they're getting told different things by different organisations and one organisation saying don't back them back us. So there's that kind of friction there. Laura Laker 16:22 I don't know if that's if I see it that way. I mean, Sustrans cycling UK, and British Cycling, and things like livable streets are all part of the walking and cycling Alliance. And I think what that what that's trying to do is to unify the voice, because ultimately they want the same thing. I mean, British cycling's coming at it from a sports point of view. But recognising that its members also need safe roads to cycle on. And that means a whole host of other things, safe protected routes in cities. And that's popular with members. And then cycling UK, originally a touring group, now a charity that lobbies for Safe Routes, safe conditions, and also delivers stuff for government, such as what to fix your ride, and a bunch of other things. And then Sustrans is a National Cycle network and behaviour change programmes. So there are overlaps, but I do think they are distinct. And I don't see I don't see it as I mean, they probably have internal, you know, perspectives on things and perhaps don't always agree with what the other one was doing. But I think I think they tend to present a fairly unified front these days. Carlton Reid 17:30 They're not as bad nowadays. I mean, it's when you get rid of it certainly did not get rid. That's the That's the wrong phrase. When individuals leave organisations, it can change because a new people come in, and you know, those alliances are, that's what you're just used to. But you know, before that alliance was put in place, they were cats and dogs, they were really hating on each other and slagging each other off to government as well. So that's why government was able to go up. This cycling is just mad look, these these, you know, what they, these three cats in a sack just fighting each other. Laura Laker 18:03 And then you saw, I mean, I think I talked about, you know, Malcolm Shepherd, who was the CEO after John Grimshaw. He went to ministers, and he was saying, why aren't we getting the funding we asked for? Or why are we getting taken seriously, I think was the question. And he was told, Well, you don't ask for enough money, basically. So they were thinking and perhaps this kind of historic infighting is also a function of the fact that these were kind of fledgling organisations to an extent for some time, not very much funding. They were run by enthusiasts probably, who all had their own ideas. And of course, let's not forget that there were also the vehicular ISTS who didn't even believe that we needed cycling's of which I think cycling UK early on was one and that might explain why they disagree with Sustrans who were trying to yes, no, there was a whole cohort who stands for that reason, absolutely. 100%. So maybe that, you know, it perhaps is a function of just the whole movement being in its infancy. I mean, it's been going for a good 40 or so years, but I don't know, maybe it was maybe it was just run by enthusiasts for a very long time. And that's why it's taken a while to kind of mature but also I think it was going I mean, our cycling lobby, organisations were kind of leading the way for much longer than a lot of European countries in a nice talk about this in the book in countries like France and in the Netherlands and in Denmark, they all started their calls for National Cycle networks or at least safe routes, thanks to charities and voluntary organisations. And then fairly quickly, were all taken on by the government who saw this as a piece of infrastructure firstly, quite often for leisure, but then they realised people were using these routes for commuting trips, and it was it needed to be part of the infrastructure and was taken up with great enthusiasm and in Sweden as well. By the various local departments and regional governments and delivered quite quickly and at quite a kind of scale. And that hasn't really happened here. And so perhaps those kinds of just the longevity of those cycling groups being so crucial to anything that happens for cycling, has kind of made this whole, I don't know, split more important than it would have otherwise been. Carlton Reid 20:24 Yeah. And like in the Netherlands, the the organization's tried to fight against this, but the government tax cyclists, and cyclists actually paid for the roads. Laura Laker 20:34 They did, that's right. Carlton Reid 20:37 But it's the very fact and this was a cyclist at the time were fighting against, they didn't want to be taxed. In the UK, and the Netherlands, they were taxed. And then cyclists became national infrastructure. And that became critical, as you say, and the fact that you know, there wasn't, there was some national infrastructure, obviously, I've done this the 1930 cycleways project. But the CTC is the British Cycling as of the time fought against all of this, they fought against taxation, they fought against cycle routes. And so there is there is some argument to be made that cyclists have been their own worst enemy. So I know in the book, you're saying, you know, it's just such a no brainer. And it is to back, you know, for want of a better word or phrase active travel. Now, in the book, you've got various people are saying we should call it something different. Laura Laker 21:27 Yeah, Lee Craigie. Carlton Reid 21:27 yeah. Yeah. But, you know, cycling has been difficult, at the same time. And it's like, what's happening in Wales, and in Scotland, is inspiring, possibly, because it's actually coming from above. A lot of it, you know, there's obviously enthusiastic people working on the ground, etc. But a lot of this is coming from government ministers. So that helps. Yeah. And, Laura Laker 21:54 I mean, we have this idea, and I'm sure we're not alone. And this point you just made and the example of the taxing of the cyclists in the Netherlands, which is something I learned during doing the research for the book, I didn't actually know about this, but I, you know, the reason we lost the railways that then became a lot of these greenways was because, you know, we see transport as needing to wash its own face needing to fund itself. And the railways at the time, were losing money for most of the routes. And so that was the reasoning. And, you know, with roads, obviously, drivers are taxed it's not sort of ring fence funding. It's not a road tax, it's, but you know, it is making the Treasury money and cycling has never really done that. And I, I think fundamentally, the way that way of thinking about transport is wrong, because of the benefits, the much wider benefits that transport gives us in terms of, you know, being able to access education and health and social opportunities and for our physical and mental health. And it's, its benefits span far beyond its own kind of silo. But we don't really see it that way. And I'm not really sure actually, if anywhere managers to think of it this way, but I think post pandemic, things like free bus services and in different countries has maybe illustrated that people are starting to think about it differently. But ultimately, I think it's it's a very tricky one. Because like you say, we in a way we weren't, we were own worst enemy in terms of our predecessors in the cycling world. But we were working within philosophy that's that dictated that actually, if you're going to build something, you know, who's making money from it, or, you know, how is the Treasury getting that investment back and not really seeing it as this makes people healthier? Or this gives them opportunities or promotes businesses, local tourism? And all of this? So yeah, I mean, if we'd done it differently, who who knows of cyclists in the UK? So fine, we'll pay a tax. Who knows? We might have an NCN now, but, and even today, it's a little bit of an uncomfortable conversation, isn't it? Because, you know, nobody wants to be taxed. Carlton Reid 24:02 So the book is, it's a polemic in many ways, not not all the way through. But there are definitely bits in there that are strident. And I cannot argue with at all I'm reading it nodding along. And certainly the bits about like the national infrastructure, right, and it's all being spent on roads. And it's it's the so many reasons why that is crazy. Yeah, and why spending even just a fraction of the roads budget on on a national cycle network, you know, genuinely joined up one high quality would bring many more, many more benefits. And then you've got and the irony is, and I did a new story on this is, you have a government minister, who has written the foreword to your book, and he said This is not government minister, a former government minister, a former Transport Minister, Jesse Norman, and then it's like, why don't you do this when you're in power? It's great. You've said it. It's wonderful that you're saying all these things. But you could have done this, you could have pushed for this. And he was also the Financial Secretary of the Treasury. Yeah, he could have released money. Yeah, let me see what he says. But Laura Laker 25:26 it's so difficult, isn't it? And it's, again, it's kind of facing it's the status quo. I mean, it's, I think, maybe important to remember, and I'm not making excuses for anyone. But, you know, he was a junior minister, certainly in his first round is cycling minister. And so he would have had to tow the party line. So I don't know how easy it is for. I mean, he's a very intelligent guy. He cares about cycling. But then he's part of a system, which ultimately, I guess, maintains the status quo doesn't want to upset the applecart. And that's why, in the manifesto, I, you know, I think it's so important that people speak up for these things, because I think until there's an outcry for it, it's very difficult for any one minister, unless we have a cycling Prime Minister, to change all of this. There's a lot of vested interests in maintaining, you know, roads for cars, keeping car manufacturing, going and, you know, taxation on cars is going to be very problematic, because obviously EVs electric vehicles don't pay, you know, drivers with EVs don't pay cortex. So what's gonna happen there? But yeah, I mean, it's difficult, but I think people need to speak up for this kind of thing. We get a lot of kickback pushback from people when there's cycle routes coming. But those are the minority. And one thing I tried to highlight in the book is that most people want this once cycling routes, they they want other options and to drive. And, you know, between two thirds and four fifths of people in representative polls say that they'd support this and many of them, even if it meant taking road space away from motor vehicles. But that's not what politicians listen to. And I think increasingly, politicians are listening to angry people on Twitter. And you know, if Mark Harper's comments about LTNs and 15 minute neighbourhoods is anything to go by, which was straight out of the kind of conspiracy theorists, Twitter playbook, you know, they're listening to the loudest voices. And I think until people say, you know, we actually want choice. We don't want to have to breathe polluted air, we don't want to have our neighbourhoods dominated by motor vehicles. We want our kids to be able to go to school safely. I think it's gonna be difficult for things to change. Carlton Reid 27:45 Hmm. So you have mentioned a variety of routes that are actually pretty good. So yeah, Keswick one is one of them. Laura Laker 27:55 Threlkeld, yes. Carlton Reid 27:58 And that's why I know, I know the route well, as good as now, you know, a cycleway there because that was that was long in gestation. But basically, it's it's it's, it's popular. You know, people say, oh, like, but that's a popular route now, isn't it? Laura Laker 28:15 Yeah, yeah, people drive there. And I mean, that was that was interesting for a number of reasons. I mean, incredibly beautiful. It sort of weaves through Greta gorge, which is just this kind of just this amazing landscape, this sort of rocky river which meanders through this very deep wooded valley. And it's on a former rail line. And it was, which storm was it was it 2015, there was a big storm, which basically crumbled a couple of the bridges with the sheer volume of water that ended up going through this narrow gorge. And then it was out of action for a couple of years. And that was an important, crucial route and a tourist attraction for local businesses. One pub owner apparently offered the local council, I think it was the national parks something like 30 grand out of his own pocket, reopened the route, but it was actually a sort of 2 million pound job. So that wasn't going to go all the way. But you know, this was a really important tourist attraction for people and people drive there because there aren't safe routes to get to and from the ends, so people drive and park and then cycle along it and cycle back. But yeah, it's popular, it's really popular. And they when they put the bridges, the new bridges in Sustrans with various parts of funding, they resurfaced it and there was a big hoo ha about putting tarmac on instead of the gravel that had been there before. But that actually opened up it up to far more people, including people who use wheelchairs and mobility scooters, because any sort of rough surface or uneven ground can tip someone in a wheelchair and it effectively makes these routes unusable. And this is something that I really learned in the book and feel very strongly about now. And there was a big outcry nationally about tarmacking this path because it's in the Lake District and everyone's He has an opinion about the Lake District even if they've just been there once and we all feel like we own it because it's such a beautiful place and I guess rightly so. We all care about it. Carlton Reid 30:07 The Lakers. Laura Laker 30:09 Lakers, my people. Yeah. The people who holidayed in the lakes were known as the Lakers. Yeah, which is brilliant. So yeah, they, you know, they held their ground and they tarmac it and you know, the numbers increased drastically. And this story plays out all over the country, wherever there's a improve surface on a path. Suddenly, it's open to everyone. And this is what this is what cycle rich should be in, in my opinion, it should be open to everyone. Carlton Reid 30:37 Yeah, it's like the cinder path. That's the Sustrans route national cycling group from from Whitby to Scarborough. That was the one that had a load of of people complaining because Cinder path you know, they were going to be tarmacking just parts of it. And lots of people are saying you know but this this this will you know, destroy it or whenever lots of yobs in and it just never got done. And then it's it's impossible for a lot of the year because it's just it gets just too rutted into mud into too horrible. And this is, you know, we discard it would just be so easy. You know, between these two conurbations and small conurbations, if you could ride there on an all year round an all weather path? Laura Laker 31:21 So yeah, I do. I do worry about this, because it's, you know, they say it's an effect gentrification. And you're you're bringing, you know, urban into the countryside yet. There's roads everywhere, and they got tarmac on, and nobody seems to be kicking up a fuss there. What's What's your problem? Yeah, I know. And I think it's just we have this idea about what the cycle routes should be or could be, and we see them as leisure routes quite a lot of the time, we have this kind of set idea about cycling, that it's not, you know, it's not a commuter option, or, but you know, it is, but it goes beyond that. And it is about who can access these parts. And quite often, having an uneven surface will lock a lot of people out. And you know, we're an ageing population in this country. And as we get older, we will all have disabilities, and mobility issues. And it shouldn't be that you know, these paths are any open to a few people. But yeah, it's a difficult one. And we would like to say we've never think twice about it for roads, we've never think about having a road as a dirt path. And I can you know, visually tarmac is not a beautiful thing, but I think if people understood that actually, it's it's not just about the visuals. This is about people and this is what these parts are for they're for people. Carlton Reid 32:34 Well you can make if you want it to be just that colour, you can make the the asphalt you can you can you can dye the asphalt. So it's it's more expensive. But you can you can do all sorts of treatments you can do to make it all weather doesn't have to look, you know, black. Yeah. So anyway, so let's go to another assessment. That's some negative ones. Where they tried to be certain, but then you point out the Polgate one, between Polgate and Glynde, which is almost happened to you by by mistake. Not mistake, but it's certainly a by accident. Yeah. And you're talking about it being just brilliant. So describe that one. Laura Laker 33:11 That's amazing. Yeah. So I was told about this. And then I know someone who lives in Lewis, which is at one end of it. And so we we we met at the station and cycled along this path. And so it's beside the A27, which is a national highways road. And it's right by the sales downs, which is hugely popular with cyclists. And basically, there were so many people cycling on this incredibly terrifying road. It's one of those narrow and winding A roads with huge volumes of traffic. I mean, I went on a walking trip near Louis the other day, and I had to cross it with no crossing and it was it was genuinely terrifying. I can't imagine people cycling on it, because it's, you know, six months. So yeah, anyway, people were being held up in their cars because of people cycling. And so national highways decided it was going to build a path alongside and it's this this was a real eye opener for me because they had done what needs to happen around the country. They had built a path behind the hedge row, which is wide and tarmac and smooze with lots of planting and culverts and bridges over rivers and and they just laid it you know, very little problem. I don't know if they owned the land or perhaps compulsory purchase probably a mixture of I think it was a mixture of both. And so they built this amazing kind of 10 kilometre joyful route, which is just you know, it's just like a road. It's like no stress. You just carry on. There was someone on the mobility scooter the day I was there, a couple of people on bikes, but it was basically hadn't opened yet. And yeah, it was just there. But it's quite funny because at either end, it just stopped because then that's the local councils job to kind of deliver it beyond. But you know, it shows what's possible if you have a national body with the power and the funding, and they have, you know, multi year funding pots which helps plan and deliver this stuff and they just did it, they just sort of swept aside all of the normal problems that I talked about in the book that usually dog these cycle routes. And yeah, it's quite, it was quite marvellous, quite Carlton Reid 35:11 I found it fascinating because one of the things you say is, as we just mentioned there, it, it was an effective bill to get the cyclists off the road. We made enough nuisance of ourselves, that is 1930s to a tee, you know, the transport, you know, built those 500 miles of cycle tracks in the 1930s to Dutch standards laced around the country. Some of them weren't brilliant, but some of them were amazing, you know, 12 foot wide Dutch Dutch level, concrete curbs, you know, perfectly brilliant bits of cycling infrastructure that are now just some of them are white elephants, because they didn't link up to anywhere. But, you know, the government at the time said, Oh, we're doing this for the safety. No, they weren't they were doing it to you know, get cyclists on the road because we're slowing down motorists, but you kind of almost don't care if if if you get a really superlative route behind the hedgerows. Yeah. Okay. It's such a difference. Yeah. That's the difference. It's got to be good. You can't just fob you off with shared route pavement, which is what yeah, the criticism of Sustrans has been is like there's so many shared route pavement. And that's why Sustrans got a bad rap, even though it wasn't their fault. And they were just trying to fill in the gaps. Laura Laker 36:28 That yeah, yeah. And yeah, they just have to use whatever was there, which was quite often a pavement along what would have been a not too busy road in the 70s or 80s. But it's now a sort of thundering highway and being on a pavement with no barrier between you and or no, no sort of space between you and the 60 mile an hour traffic is far from pleasant, and no, no, no parent is going to choose to cycle on that. If they have any other choice, you know, they're going to avoid that like the plague because you know, one little wobble or mistake and then you know, it's horrific there, you know, possible outcomes. But yeah, it's you know, it's, it's fantastic. Because you don't even barely know the roads there. It's just cool. It's just gorgeous. I'd like to go back actually, because it's been a good year, I think since I saw it. At least actually. Maybe Yeah, I think it's at least a year and yeah, let's see how the trees are bedding in and because it was brand new at the time it just been done. But yeah, it is. Ultimately it is possible. And regardless of the motivations it just goes to show what's possible. I liked recently because Andy Streets and his Walking and Cycling Commissioner Adam Tranter he's on my podcast. They announced they're going to deliver the HS2 cycleway alongside in and around HS2 between Coventry and Birmingham. And when they get to Kenilworth, they're basically connecting up to one of their 1930 cycleways into Coventry. So I quite like that, you know, it's sort of linking something that's already there. And Carlton Reid 38:01 yeah, and that's also a John Grimshaw project, wasn't it? That was that was a John Grimshaw. Laura Laker 38:05 Yeah. He cycled the whole thing. Yes. Yes, he's been he's been trying to get that one, you know, for a lot for a long time. And yeah, it does stand alone. No, you need really, you need the HS2, of course, just stand alone without it. Carlton Reid 38:21 It does. Yeah, saying that, it would have absolutely been put in at the same time, that would not have been the difference. So that is point three. So in your 10 Point manifesto, that's basically work together a behind the hedgeroq Act, compulsory purchase orders, all these kinds of things that only government can do. Yeah. needs to be brought in into play. Yeah. And then you you've said and it's very ambitious. But when you think about it's like, yeah, you could do this easily. And that is you know, if if this was done and if money was provided, and compulsory purchase orders were put in like you would do for roads, you can have an unbelievably fantastic truly superlative national cycling in four years. Laura Laker 39:02 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Brian Deegan active travel England reckoned reckoned on this, because, you know, they have such a huge amount of power and to take go to build a cycle, which basically takes three years generally you do you have a year to kind of plan it a year to consult and tweak and then a year to build it. And for that you need multi year funding, because without that, you can't plan anything, basically. And that's why we've ended up bits and bobs of improvements, because it's like, you get the money, you have to spend it pretty much immediately. But yeah, I mean, the amount of funding a body like national highways has would be enough to you know, link these existing routes. Sometimes there are quiet roads, you know, I guess, in the Netherlands, you have through roads and access roads, things like low traffic neighbourhoods, in the countryside. That is a that is a kind of measure that you can do. And some of it it doesn't all have to be Are these sort of high quality pieces of massive engineering cycle routes, either behind the hedge row or on main roads? Some of it can just be tweaking kind of existing infrastructure so that it's not not every road as a through road. But yes, it's some it's amazing. And I kind of did a double take when I heard this. But when we put our mind to something, it's amazing what's possible. Carlton Reid 40:24 And potentially, we will see the fruits of this in Scotland, and Wales, Scotland, Wales are putting in some really ambitious stuff. And Mark Drakeford going, you know, will they backtrack on the 20 mile limit? And will they, you know, reverse a lot of stuff that Lee Waters that all this kind of stuff is potentially up in the air? We don't know yet. Yeah. But Scotland does seem to be, you know, putting their money where their mouth is, you know, that the amount of money that's going in there, per head, dwarfs what we see here in England. So the potentially you've got, you've got like, in five years, you could have something incredible. In Scottish cities in Glasgow. Yeah. You're talking about Glasgow? Laura Laker 41:09 Yeah. And yeah, Glasgow was amazing. I mean, that was the first time I'd been to Glasgow, on that trip. And I was blown away, actually. So they're developing a city wide network of routes, they're lowering in bridges across, they've got this very kind of, I guess, I guess they had this, at the time, they were building roads, they had a very ambitious programme of building like highways. And maybe that's about the culture of the city that when something comes along, when an idea comes along, they kind of embrace it. Whereas Edinburgh has historically been much more conservative. And so when, when highways when sort of urban highways came along the bond level load of those, and now cycling is seen as this big sort of saviour of health and climates and all of these important things, they're going all out on cycle routes, which is fantastic. And yeah, I was really blown away by what they're doing really high quality protected routes with planting alongside, you know, for extreme weather, it's really important to have permeable and green planting on tarmac. And, yeah, and these beautiful bridges and this massive bridge that I saw, and you know, they're really, really ambitious, I think, I've got a piece coming out about Edinburgh in the next week or so. And it talks about the difficulties that Edinburgh has faced very, very different than the city very conservative. But similarly, it's had a huge amount of funding. And I think they're finally getting to the tipping point there where they're starting to deliver real change, you know, hopefully. But yeah, it's, you know, the money's there, I think there's still difficulties with politics. So they've got these active freeways, which would be a kind of National Cycle network for Scotland, these rural routes, you know, the plan is there, or at least the idea is there, but it's not being rolled out yet. So who knows what's going to happen with that, but definitely, the funding and having that long term funding does make it much easier. I'd really love to see Scotland, you know, doing big things. And I think Scotland and Wales have been very, very forward thinking and a lot of things got maybe Scotland particularly, and more consistently than Wales, because as you say, there's a bit of a question mark. Now over Wales, they've, you know, they had the active travel act, they arguably took term coined the phrase active travel with the active travel act about a decade ago. And yeah, but stuff, you know, they have the policy, they had the money, but again, it's very, very slow to change. And I don't know, maybe they maybe if Westminster were a bit more proactive and supportive, it will be easier, who knows, but you're always going to come up against these kinds of difficulties, local politics and stuff, but I think money talks, you know, the money's there for it local investment, which Council isn't going to want public realm improvements, and you know, health. Carlton Reid 43:49 Money is number one, in your manifesto, so it's funded, and okay, we get the money from it. Here's what you say, stop expanding road capacity, and we have delivered a comprehensive network of cycling and walking routes. Hallelujah. Yeah, exactly. It's just like, you know, we've got so many roads, why can't we have more and more and more and more, as we know, it just fills up with traffic if we're gonna have build it and they will come Okay, let's do it for bikes. Now. You know, roads have had eighty years of this, let's have 10 years for for bikes, but walking and . It's just, it's a no brainer. And the LTNs thing kind of like it's so frustrating. Because we're only talking like a few streets. We're not we're not talking. That's when you hear you know, the the shock jocks you'd think is every single road in the country is going to be catered and you're going to hand it to cyclists. That's, that's how it's portrayed. And we're actually you know, maybe maybe a fraction of 1% of roads. really, genuinely is all too Talking about is currently got anyway. Yeah, having safe cycle routes, you know, don't get it get blown up by us people like us journalists, Laura, we're to blame for misrepresenting this. That's that's, that doesn't say good things about our profession, does it? Laura Laker 45:22 No. And I think I think I mean, it speaks to the kind of economics of journalism that, you know, people want eyeballs on stories nowadays because it's that's what makes advertising revenue funding for journalism is fallen off a cliff. And I think this is sort of desperation about the industry at the moment. But, you know, I think it's important to remember that the people shouting against this stuff are a minority, and most people want this stuff or are willing to try it and see, and most of us want quiet, safe streets, we want our kids to be able to play out in safety, we want clean air, we want, you know, peace and quiet. And I think because we haven't seen it, a lot of cases, it's difficult to imagine. But you know, ultimately, these things happen. There's, there's a pushback from a handful of people who are noisy, but I think if we have conversations about, you know, what we could, what we could get from these improvements from these schemes, then it's much positive way of talking about it. Of course, that's not how news works. And I think that's why we need leaders who are willing to sort of look beyond that short period in which a lot of journalists are shouting, and a few people, some of whom have genuine concerns and need to be listened to a shouting and listen to them. But you know, this is something that people want actually, and, you know, the benefits so enormous. Once it's happened, I don't think people would want to go back. Carlton Reid 46:46 Yeah, this is the thing. It's like, a good example is Northumberland Street and Newcastle, which is a pedestrianised street used to be the A1, you know, really the central state through the centre of Newcastle. It's I think, outside of central London, Mayfair on Oxford Street. It's the highest grossing per square foot retail zone in the country, because it was pedestrianised. And it just made it easier. And nobody in their right mind would say, we need to make that the a one again, guys, you know, let's get the cars and buses soaring and you just wouldn't do it. But Newcastle spent the best part of 20 years doing this, it wasn't an overnight thing. We had to spend a long time, a lot of angst getting it done, but nobody would wish it away now. And that's what when we're not getting with all these LTNs and all these cycles, if only if we put them in, nobody would complain about them. Not really not once they see it, it's just if people don't like change. Laura Laker 47:47 yeah, none of us like change just a thing. And it's hard to picture. And I think it's easy to dismiss people's concerns. Because you know, it's normal for us not to want change, it's normal to be concerned about something if you can't picture it. And you're, you know, many of these are genuine worries about businesses, and how will I get from A to B and, and all of this, but yeah, I think what's been lacking in this conversation is just some sort of grown up honesty about, you know, this is going to be a change. But ultimately, it's going to be one that's positive for these reasons. We, you know, we are going to listen, but ultimately, this is a an agenda that most of us support. And we know it's beneficial for these reasons. And I think we've I don't know, I think there's too much government in this country, and in many English speaking countries, kind of almost government by fear of what the Daily Mail might say, in response to this policy. And even the the recent announcement by governments about you know, stopping anti motorist measures was all caps. You know, it was like almost a Daily Mail headline. Carlton Reid 48:52 Yeah, it's quite scary and sad. Yeah. But then, you know, like you say, if you know, for the ones that hold their ground, you know, stuff dies down, people say actually, that actually is much better. So you know, where I'm coming from, I know where you're coming from. And you're saying people want this, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say, Well, no, they don't people want to drive around. And if you're a woman at night, and you describe a lot of the routes, the Sustrans routes, the Nationals, you wouldn't want to go there at night, and probably no matter how much lighting security whatever you put in, you probably would still feel that way. In. Yeah, yeah. On a bicycle, you're not protected. Whereas a car, a woman, a single woman can get into a car can lock the door, can maybe have, you know, dark windscreen even so nobody knows who's in there. You then become this powerful individual who can get around in safety at the end of the day. But bicycles aren't like that, Laura. So you're you're basically making it more insecure for women to go about as independent beings. Laura Laker 50:11 Well, so as a as a woman who cycles on her own at nights that that route from Arnhem to Nijmergen in the in the Netherlands, so I ended up leaving that event and it was dark and cycling home on my own however far it was, it's a good hours ride along these routes, but because you don't have to stop, you actually feel safe. It's only when you have to stop that you start to feel unsafe in my experience. I mean, there's certain routes like along the canal, I live in East London, along the Li River that I have cycled at night, but wouldn't do now. Because you know, that is very isolated. And people have been known to jump out with bushes. But I think for the large part, if they're well designed, and other people are using them, then cycling at night for me isn't a problem. You know, you're moving you're Yeah, I don't Yeah, I very rarely felt in danger of cycling through London at night, for example. I mean, it's been the odd park where I felt a bit sketchy, but I think if you design them, well, not every path is going to feel that way safe at night. But I think in urban places where a lot of people will be cycling to and from at night, it will probably be fine. I mean, you probably feel quite safe. It's about kind of eyes on the streets in a way having people they're with you. Yeah, and I think if a route were well used enough, and don't forget, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, you're not going to necessarily, you're not going to drive home after a night out if you've had a drink. And so you will have to sort of walk a section of your journey. Most likely, if you're in a place like London, you hate taking public transport, maybe you take a taxi, but I feel I don't feel like if I'm on a busy road, walking alone at night that I am safe with those other people around me because I don't feel like people who are driving through again to necessarily stop and help me if something did happen. So I think kind of busy streets can feel unsafe, even though they're very highly populated. And, you know, theoretically, and this kind of, there's been research on this, you know, people who live on quiet streets, no more of their neighbours, this sort of social safety element, and people start looking out for each other. Whereas if you have a traffic dominated environment, it's people tend to turn away from the street. Carlton Reid 52:28 Yeah, I don't disagree. But if it is looking at the motivation of many, many people, I mean, humans are generally lazy. Yeah. They generally want comfort. They want their own things, and they want security, all of those things you have in spades in cars. The downside is, because everybody wants that. And everybody's in a car, it means you don't get anywhere. Unknown Speaker 52:57 Yeah, I don't think that's a whole story. I mean, I think a lot of the time people drive because the alternative is either aren't there don't feel possible, or they don't feel safe. So cycling on the road wouldn't feel safe, you wouldn't even most people wouldn't even consider it. But we've seen I grew up in rural West Somerset, and you had to learn to drive as soon as you turn 17, you would take your test, you buy a car, and you drive everywhere, because the buses mean the buses are even worse. Now. They were okay at the time, but not great. But they just took longer, and you couldn't get everywhere you needed to go my friends as a teenager lived in variable kind of communities. And so you had to drive there was just no other option I would have loved to cycle. And you've seen in London, where we've got a growing network of roots, suddenly, all these people from all walks of life, all kinds of demographics. Laura Laker 53:48 genders, you see a much better one gender split, but also all types of people cycling. And that kind of speaks to the fact that actually, people do want to do this and they may want to convenience but they also want to enjoy their journey. They also want to save money. Cycling can be incredibly convenient, no parking worries, it's so much cheaper you know you don't have to stress of finding a parking space or you know, paying vast amounts of money. I think something like I forget the number who in transport poverty in this country because of cars basically. They spend something like 19% of their income on their car with finance lorry, using facts to convince me that's Carlton Reid 54:36 Anybody can convince with facts, come on. At that juncture, I'd like to go across to my colleague David in America. Take it away, David. David Bernstein 54:45 This podcast is brought to you by Tern Bicycles. Like you, the folks at Tern are always up for a good outdoor adventure by bike—whether that's fishing, camping, or taking a quick detour to hit the trails before picking Unknown Speaker 55:00 up the kids from school. And if you're looking to explore new ground by taking your adventures further into the wild, they've got you covered. The brand new Orox by Tern is an all-season, all-terrain adventure cargo bike that's built around the Bosch Smart System to help you cross even the most ambitious itinerary off your bucket list. It combines the fun of off-road riding in any season with some serious cargo capacity, so you can bring everything you need—wherever you go, whenever you go. Plus, it's certified tough and tested for safety so your adventures are worry-free. With two frame sizes to choose from and a cockpit that's tested to support riders of different sizes, finding an adventure bike that fits you and your everyday needs has never been easier with the Orox. Visit www.ternbicycles.com/orox (that's O-R-O-X) to learn more. Carlton Reid 56:04 Thanks, David. And we are back with Laura Laker the Laker people. And she's the author of potholes and pavements a bumpy ride on Britain's National Cycle network. It's not actually out yet, isn't Laura. It's actually middle middle of the next month, middle of night. Hmm. Yeah. So you having a launch day what you're doing? Laura Laker 56:28 Yeah, I've got some. You've got like, You got speaker a bank and tell us tell us what you're doing? Yeah, so I've got I'm having like a bit of a party for some friends and family. And then I've got a talk in Stanford's in Covent Garden. I'm speaking in Parliament. But I think that's more of a parliamentary event. And I have got an event at Stanfords in Bristol with Xavier Bryce, we're going to discuss the future of the NCN. I've got one I'm speaking in Oxford, at a bookshop. I'm going to be interviewed by Emily Kerr, who's a green Councillor there. I have got a there's a literary festival in Wantage in November. And we're looking at other events as we speak. Carlton Reid 57:16 Excellent. And this is two hundred and .... All right, I'm going to deliver the end of the book. We're talking 264 pages, and then you've got references back. I mean, one of them. Thank you very much. Laura Laker 57:32 Yeah. Carlton Reid 57:34 Thanks. as well. Yes, at the back there, but there's, there's lots in this. So who's gonna be? Who's your audience? Who's gonna be reading this? Who do you think will be reading this? And what might actually could it start something big with with in politics? Can we could we get this like your manifesto? Can it get out there? What do you hope to happen with your book? Laura Laker 58:00 Yeah, well, obviously, I want everyone to read it. I mean, my editor at Bloomsbury was saying, you know, it's probably going to be cycling enthusiasts, people who I guess already, maybe listen to your podcast, my podcast, read our articles about cycling. But I would like to think that you know, these people, these two thirds to four fifths of people who want more cycling people who think, you know, why do I have to drive everywhere? Why aren't there safe cycle routes? Why can't my kids cycle to school, and see that might see this book and think, Oh, this is going to tell that story, this is going to explain it to me. And so I hope that it's going to give people a sense of kind of why we are where we're at, with the history of the NCN and the stories, but also, you know, how wonderful it could be if we had this thing, this network of connected routes, if it were possible for all of these people who say they want to cycle and more who maybe don't even know they want to cycle could do so. And I hope that, you know, my perhaps naive hope is that people will read it and think, you know, this could be such a wonderful thing, why aren't we doing it? And how can we get it to happen and I hope policymakers you know, we've got an election coming up I think this speaks to you know, forget the culture wars. I think this speaks to all sides, you know, of politics, I think, you know, individual freedom and choice is a conservative value, right? Cycling, cycling delivers on that. Carlton Reid 59:26 Cycling is so libertarian is a form of transport I've had many conversations This is freedom. Why is this left wing? Why do people always assume it's just this thing? Laura Laker 59:42 Yeah, it's become a cultural thing. And it's only for I think, you know, certain factions of the right perhaps see this as a wedge issue. And a way of you know, rallying people around them on based on kind of outrage like false outrage really, untruthes. and you You know, in terms of the left, this is, you know, great value for money, the Labour Party is very, very keen on showing they're working and proving to people that they can be trusted with the economy. It delivers on the green agenda, it's so beneficial in terms of cutting carbon emissions, it delivers on health, pretty much every department that we can think of this offers people access to work, you know, so many people who are out of work, especially in rural communities can't even afford to go and find work or stay in a job because the transport is too expensive, or it's too patchy doesn't go in and they needed to go. So there's like barely a thing that this doesn't touch. And I really hope that you know, along with kind of griping, which is, I hope not too much of the book, and the polemic side that this shows actually, you know, this is great for tourism, this is great for our mental health. This can bring us together, you know, it's about in Scotland, I saw that a cycle route can be a linear park, it can be about artwork and community. It can bring people together from different walks of life around a space. And, you know, cycling delivers on these things. And, you know, if we kind of dropped the culture was narrative, which is nonsense. You know, we could see all of these benefits fairly quickly and for very little money, and have a far better country for it. Carlton Reid 1:01:18 Many people would baulk at having Boris Johnson back. And you do mention this in the book of what he and Andrew Gilligan were able to do. Hopefully, it doesn't seem like I want him back. But will it that that is what you need. I mean, you do talk about having a cycling Prime Minister, we had a cycling Prime Minister, we had a Prime Minister who said it was me a golden age for cycling. So we need we need him back. Laura, that we just we need we need Boris back. No, we don't like that back there. Are there other other politicians are available? We just need people to believe in it. And you know, I hope that people read the book and think, actually, this is something we can believe in, but don't need one of the good things about Boris Johnson. Not only did he you know, talk, the talk, walk the talk, all that kind of stuff. But he was right wing. So he could he just instantly takes away that that part of this oversight is a left wing things like well, here's this right wing politician who's pushing for this Andrew Gilligan, Telegraph writer. These are not left wing people in any way, shape, or form. So is that what we need we actually need and then we'd like all politicians to do this, but by the same thing, you need somebody almost on the opposite side to be doing this, they've got more chance of pushing this through. So that's why Boris Johnson did so well, because he was right wing and the Mail isn't gonna, you know, rail against what Boris Johnson was doing. They never did. Laura Laker 1:02:46 They did though. They did. They totally did. I don't think they discriminated against him because he was towards their political leanings. I mean, it's unlikely we're going to have another conservative government, right, when we've got the election coming up, it's going to be Labour by all likelihood. And so they're going to be the ones in power delivering. So I don't know, Carlton Reid 1:03:09 But they backtracked over their green policies. I mean, what hope do we have? Laura Laker 1:03:12 I know I know. I know it's incredibly disappointing. And the thing is this this stuff like the green agenda, more broadly investment in insulating homes, for example, is such great return on investment and if they're thinking about finances and showing they're working insulating homes is just a total no brainer. You know, we all pay far too much for our energy bills. We live in draughty leaky homes. So many houses are mouldy because of the cold walls are damp Yeah, I just think you know, and green technology, huge growth industry. Solar and wind where you know, we're windy little island, but a lot of coastline. Offshore wind is fantastic. Carlton Reid 1:03:55 But in your in the book, you show how national highways basically is an organisation set up to build roads. And once you've done something like that, and that's their raison d'etre. Guess what they're going to build roads. Yeah. So yeah, it's that oil tanker you know having to put the brakes on and change a whole culture so we're not talking about you know, Cuz your manifesto is saying you know, stop funding this and yeah. Laura Laker 1:04:28 Wales did this basically with their no more roads or no more roads and less they increased active travel and public transport policy. They basically have kind of repurpose their national highways body around this agenda, you know, fill in the potholes. We've got a road in a dreadful state and, you know, develop use all their skills and power and funding for active travel. You know, public transport in this country is drastically underfunded. Buses are so important, especially in rural areas, especially people on low incomes, especially for women and Do you know buses are so important? We're really, really not kind of reaping the power the massive power of the bus.? Carlton Reid 1:05:08 Yeah, that's in your book as well, because you're talking about how buses, you know, need to be able to carry bikes. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a small part of what they could do but the broader transport perspective that's that's so impor

Metropolitan Planning Organizations are an important partner in the transportation planning world. But, not everyone is familiar with they responsibilities and overall roll. Ellen Zavisca is the Transportation Planning Manager for AMPO, where she coordinates their interest group webinars and administers the ActivitySim model. Prior to taking that position, she served as staff at the MPO in Knoxville, TN, for 18 years where her focus as an MPO planner was on safety for all modes of transportation, multimodal planning, Safe Routes to School, and the health impacts of transportation. Her projects have included creating multiple pedestrian and bicycle plans; building databases and maps of traffic crashes in the Knoxville region; and rejuvenating the Great Smoky Mountains Regional Greenway Council. She is certified by the League of American Bicyclists as a bicycle safety instructor and is a member of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. She has a master's degree in urban planning from University of Illinois-Chicago. Take a listen and you will learn all aboout the world of MPOs. Support the showOur Website: https://theplanningcommissionpodcast.com/YouTube: The Planning Commission Podcast channelInstagram: @theplanningcommissionpodcastFacebook: The Planning Commission Podcast pageTwitter: @planningcommish Subscribe, like, help us make a difference in the profession we all love. Have an episode idea, tell us about it. Email us at: info@theplanningcommissionpodcast.com

What are the UK Government's ‘safe and legal routes'? How do these relate to ‘stop the boats', the Rwanda Plan, and the curtailment of asylum as laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention? What can we learn from listening to the Hong Kongers and Ukrainians beneficiaries of these humanitarian visas? And what if these routes are not so safe after all?    In this episode we explore the UK's safe and legal (humanitarian routes). Elena Zambelli explains what ‘asylum' is, looking its history, scope and challenges to these international protections since 2015 ‘refugee crisis.' Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the Migrants' Rights Network, board member of Migrants at Work and of the honorary advisory committee for the Black Europeans, joins us to offer a critical overview of the UK's immigration and asylum reforms over the past decade. Asking what this tells us about migrants' rights, she highlights how these reforms impact disproportionately on brown and black migrants who try to make the UK their homes. And co-hosts Nando Sigona and Michaela Benson consider the ongoing contestations surrounding the figure of the ‘refugee' as well as the asylum system as a whole. They reflect on how beneficiaries of the Hong Kong BN(O) and Ukraine visa schemes experience these humanitarian visas, and what we can learn from them about the limits of these.   You can access the full transcripts for the episode, further resources and active listening questions over on our website: Who do we think we are? 

Jeanie Ward-Waller is not a household name in California, but until recently she may have had the most important job in the state as far as Streetsblog readers are concerned. Ward-Waller served as the Deputy Director of Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans, where she not only oversaw many of the great programs that we regularly highlighted at Streetsblog; but also served as the internal whistleblower to make certain the agency was working to meet its own climate and equity goals.   While we were all surprised when Politico announced earlier this fall that she was fired/demoted, in retrospect maybe the surprise was that she lasted as long and accomplished as much as she did.   Below you can find the audio of a twenty minute chat we had last week, and then a stack of links about her time at Caltrans and Calbike before that and then a lightly edited transcript of the podcast.   Jeanie Ward-Waller Streetsblog Highlights, going from most recent backwards:   Analysis of her reassignment I Lost My Job at Caltrans for Speaking Out Against Highway Widening 2021 Interview About Her Work at CaltransOn a panel about speeding up busesOn the challenges of incorporating equity: JWW created new Walk and Bike Technical Advisory Committee at Caltrans, with wider representationHired at CaltransAt CalBike advocating to get Caltrans to adopt a Complete Streets policy:SBCA gave out very few "Streetsies" and this was the best oneStanding up to California Transportation Commission   Interview Transcript:   Damien Newton So as mentioned in the intro, I'm here with Jeanne Ward-Waller, who recently was the Deputy Director of Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans. We're talking today about some of the changes that have happened at Caltrans recently, including that she is no longer the Deputy Director of Planning and Multimodal Programs at Caltrans.    For those of you that don't know, Jeanne has been a frequent guest on Streetsblog, California, or I shouldn't say guest frequent source person quoted in stories. Not just with Caltrans...but before that she was with Calbike. When she was first put in this position, we were all very excited. And I'll actually put some links to some of our old Streetsblog California stories in the text that accompanies this podcast if people are interested. But having said all that, welcome to our podcast, Jeannie.   Jeanie Ward-Waller Thank you. Thank you, man. That's great to see you. Great to be with you.   Damien Newton Thank you. So I did mention that you have a much longer history than just working at Caltrans recently. So why don't we do a little bit of your biography to give some people that might not be as familiar with you an idea as to why there were so many people across the state really excited when you were originally tapped for this position to Caltrans.   Jeanie Ward-Waller Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate all those nice things. I am originally I don't know how far back you want me to go. But I'm a trained engineer. I did start my career as an engineer working in Boston. I transitioned into advocacy via a bike trip across the country, which was where I kind of cut my teeth on advocacy and fundraised for the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. And just like very serendipitously, at the end of that trip, I met the founder of that organization, Deb Hubsmith, who hired me to move to California and start working in advocacy here in Sacramento.    I consider myself so lucky, because I just absolutely...it was the career shift that I needed. I loved being in advocacy so much, and certainly have found my passion in the world of sustainable transportation. But I spent a couple of years working for Safe Routes to School, as you said, I then moved to the California Bicycle Coalition as a policy director there. And then found my way to Caltrans, about six years ago. I started at Caltrans as the Sustainability Program Manager, helping to build that program, which was really pretty new at the time, and had grown out of that Caltrans reform effort from about 10 years ago.    And so I was really excited...I felt like if I was ever going to try to make change inside of government, that that was the place to do it. And that program was new, growing and really came out of the idea of how do we change. The Department of Transportation and make it more modern, more oriented towards schools of climate inequity and community quality of life, the things that we want to see in our transportation system today. After a few years in that program, I was  appreciated and recognized for my brand of change.    I was promoted into the Deputy Director role over the planning and modal program, which is a pretty large portion of Caltrans, kind of the part of Caltrans is responsible for looking into the future and deciding how the policies and the work of the department need to shift. And that was my job. I took it very seriously because both as an advocate, and then as a civil servant, public servant, I felt like that work is really, really important.   Damien Newton When people describe what these positions were, the shorthand is, "It's Jeanie's job to make sure that Caltrans is actually trying to meet the climate goals that the governor and the legislature have put out." But sometimes shorthand is inaccurate. Sometimes it doesn't go far enough. Sometimes it glosses over. Is that  accurate? Were you the internal person who was trying to make sure that Caltrans was helping them meet climate goals?   Jeanie Ward-Waller It is accurate, but I wasn't the only one. There is also a deputy director of sustainability, who is a governor appointee. That person's job is also oriented around our climate goals. But because I oversaw the planning program, and also the modal programs, multimodal programs, which included our rail and transit programs; I was more on the implementation side of how we get future projects to be better aligned with our climate goals. And thus reach the goals that we have set out in our statewide plans like the California Transportation Plan, which the  legislature requires  that document show the path to our 2050 Climate goal; which is an 80% reduction in GHG, which is massive. So that's a very ambitious plan.  And somehow what we do today, and the projects that we're initiating, that are coming in the future; need to kind of put us on the path to those goals. So that was the work of the Planning Program, which was in my purview.   Damien Newton What are some of the things that you were able to work on at Caltrans that were exciting to you, or particularly things that you can point out and be," Wow, the six years that we've spent there up to now we're really worthwhile looking at these great things."   Jeanie Ward-Waller Oh, my gosh...so many things. And I'm incredibly proud of the time that I spent in Caltrans.    And I also want to say, it's not just me. I don't want to take credit for all of the great things that were happening. I was in a leadership position, which is important to help set the course. But there are just so many good people at Caltrans, so many people that I worked with that were on my team. Some work in different parts of the department that are really responsible for making change happen. And so, it was really fun work, a lot of things that I'm really proud of.    We were working on something called CSIS or the Caltrans System Investment Strategy. And that is a set of metrics that help us determine whether the projects that we're doing in the future are aligned with the goals that we have, not just climate, equity, safety; but multiple different policy priorities. And that, I think, is really fundamental to trying to make good decisions in the future. That's something that's still ongoing. It's not complete, it will be something that iterates over many years and gets better with time. But we've spent a huge amount of time on that.    Now, the thing I take a lot of pride in is helping to really create the equity program. I founded a Caltrans office of race and equity and brought people together from different parts of the department that were working on Native American liaison issues and  community engagement issues, and we created a kind of cohesive unit in headquarters that was responsible for leading that work. And there have been policy policies that have grown out of that work, also something that we call the equity index, which is also telling us about where and what are the characteristics of communities where we're doing projects? And how do we make them better, from an equity perspective, reduce harm, improve benefits.    So those are a couple of things.    There were other things that were actively underway, like we were working on transit priority policies and projects, which I think Caltrans has a huge amount of opportunity to improve how transit flows, especially, not just on the state highway system that Caltrans owns, but also across the system, often on local streets. That's also still underway. It's to be seen, what comes of some of those efforts. Without me there, I think all those things need a really strong champion to to really be implemented and live up to the goals that we have.   Damien Newton A lot of the headlines have used the word "fired," that you were fired, or let go from your position. But you were really internally reassigned, but the reassignment was done in such a way that it's just basically the same thing. Because you haven't left Caltrans, you're still there, but you're currently on family leave. Let's just untangle all of that at first so people can understand exactly what's going on.    Jeanie Ward-Waller Because I was in an executive role, it's a little bit of a unique state government position, where you can be terminated in an executive role. Because as I mentioned, before, I had come into Caltrans in a civil service classification as the sustainability program manager, I had return rights...legal rights to return to that classification. And based on the longevity I have at Caltrans actually one level above that level. The details are not that important, but functionally it is kind of a demotion, if I accept my rights of return, which I have I've done and at this point. I've been on family leave for the last month and a half, but I am still an employee of Caltrans.    But I will not return to Caltrans in the role I was in before and it's not clear what my role will be when I return   Damien Newton In the meantime your old position still exists. And hopefully, it's still working on some of these issues. It's been reported in a lot of the press, including Melanie and Streetsblog, California that the impetus for them making a change was really the opposition you were giving internally to a freeway project in the Sacramento region. I think a lot of us were sort of caught off guard when all this happened. I remember when we all read the Politico story,  at Streetsblog we're like, "wait, what's happening? Really? That doesn't make sense." Can you sort of explain what you think happened as best you can, without tripping on the legal case that you have against Caltrans? I mean, was this a surprise, or was it something you saw coming as you were expressing opposition to some programs, or some projects, that Caltrans was pushing that really weren't living up to the goals that the agency was publicly expressing?   Jeanie Ward-Waller Short answer is that it was a total surprise to me.    And I'll tell you, the reason that I was surprised by the change by the termination is that the questions that I was asking about this specific project in Sacramento are the kinds of questions I asked every day in my job at Caltrans: is this project aligned with our goals? Are we living up to the public benefits that we're claiming we will get from these projects? Those were the kinds of questions I asked every day as an employee of Caltrans.    And frankly, I felt like that was my job. I was put in a job where I'm a change agent. It's part of my job description, to sort of look into the future and figure out how the department needs to change. And so it would be me not living up to my duties in that job, if I wasn't asking questions, like I was asking. Frankly, as a public servant, I take really seriously that we need to be telling the truth to the public, and we need to create the required opportunities to have public engagement and public input to our work. So that requires being transparent, and also requires being honest in our analysis. And I was concerned that wasn't happening on those two projects that are the exact same location.    So it kind of functionally seemed like one project, but this location on I-80. I was very surprised by the termination. And the timing of it was right on the heels of me saying I was concerned about accountability. And not really seeing any response to those questions prompted me to say, "I really think this warrants an external audit, this is the kind of thing whistleblower opportunities exist for when you're asking questions, and they're not being answered, and nobody's taking it seriously. I just felt like I had an obligation to appeal to other forms of accountability and government. So again, none of that was different from what I had always done in my time at Caltrans. And so it was a big surprise. when the next thing to happen was that I was terminated in my role.   Damien Newton I'm  down here in Greater Los Angeles. Caltrans has been getting beat up a lot recently in the past week...I mean by Streetsblog, always...but in the past week in the mainstream press because of what went on with the I-10 fire in East LA. When we were doing our pre interview you were talking about how the role of Caltrans keeps changing and expanding. And to be fair to people working at the agency, it's really hard to keep up with all of the "extra things." 20 years ago, it was "build the freeways" and maybe be a landlord for some random houses along the 710 corridor.    But now there's all these different things they have to take into account. So I guess what I'm trying to ask is, how fair is it to just level  some of these larger accusations at the agency? How difficult is it to sort of be at Caltrans these day. You're someone who is got a few things to say about the agency, but you also bring a different perspective than I think your average person that just exists in California or even your Streetsblog editor.   Jeanie Ward-Waller I think it's incredibly hard, especially at the leadership level trying to make decisions about priorities. I think the job of Caltrans today is so much more complicated than it was, as you said, even 20 years ago. The crises of the past that Caltrans has dealt with and responded  incredibly well to are things like earthquakes and  damage to the system...mudslides. We see a lot of these emergencies, crises, where the system gets impacted severely, and Caltrans can respond in an incredible fashion, and usually does and I think will to this fire and the damage that was done to the 10 freeway. That is really the bread and butter and what Caltrans does really well.    And building and maintaining the highway system is what this agency was established to do and has done through its whole history. The "new stuff" is complete streets, and how do we deal with these other users that aren't in a car that maybe want to be in a bus or train or have options, or, maybe don't want to travel want to have like, options to not have to travel as much or as far. Those are like way more complicated problems that interact with air quality land use, community opinions, and all of this other complicated stuff.    Certainly being landlords of folks who are unhoused in particular is just such an intractable difficult issue and to think about engineers who are trying to build highways, suddenly having to figure out how to, like, take care of people. It's just...it's not what people came to Caltrans thinking that they would be doing. And so I do think that the agency's job has become incredibly complicated, and I'm very sympathetic to that. I think we need to appreciate what Caltrans does well, and keeping the roads open and keeping them working pretty well  is impressive. The other things are very hard. And there, it's gonna take a lot of time and a really strong push.    You need people like me, right? You need people to push for change to actually change an organization like that. And sometimes it takes a generation. You need to bring in all new people with all new ideas, trying to think about problems differently, before you really get true change in an agency.   Damien Newton All right, well, we are hitting our artificially created time limit of 20 minutes, but you know, it's the internet. So it's not like it's a hard and fast rule. I always like to close with the assumption that maybe there's something I missed or a question I didn't ask. So if there's a question I didn't ask that you really want to answer; feel free to ask it now. If not, I think maybe just take a short look into the future and tell us what should advocates who are interested in working on issues with Caltrans...what should we be looking for in 2024 and beyond. You can just answer your own question or mine or do both in either order.   Jeanie Ward-Waller That's a really good question. Maybe I'll at least partly answer it, because I don't have a magic looking glass. So I don't know exactly what's going to come in the future. But I do think that there's so much more work to do with Caltrans and with all of Caltrans partners. Down in your neck of the woods, obviously, LA Metro is working hand in glove with Caltrans. So there's a lot of kind of accountability and influence and engagement to do with all of the folks that are making these decisions. But it's so important...I would just say there's more money in transportation now than there ever has been.    Caltrans' budget is bigger than it's ever been. And that's because there's both more state money as well as more federal money flowing into transportation right now. And so the decisions that get made in the next five to 10 years are going to create the system and the communities of the future. And so I just think  it's such an important time to be engaged and to be doing this work, and to be paying close attention to asking the hard questions for what Caltrans and other agencies are doing. So I really appreciate the work of advocates. I talk to advocates all the time. A lot of them are my good friends.    I think it's important that we all be honest with each other both about what we're doing well, and what we need to improve. So I just want to leave with maybe some appreciation.    Damien Newton All right, well, hey, thank you so much for your time. Again, there's some links and some of Jeanie's story that go back to... I don't know if we have  one's back to your Safe Routes days. I'm sure if I look hard enough, we can find some quotes or two.I often say the the people that do open streets and the people that do Safe Routes to School don't know how lucky they have it, because the opposition to taking kids to school safely or to doing an open street event is so much less than the opposition to so many of the other issues we work on.    Jeanie Ward-Waller It's like mom and apple pie! And biking across the country....that was part of why I picked it as an organization to focus on biking across the country. We were biking through the south and all across the country everybody cares about their communities being safe for kids to be able to walk and bike to school. So I agree with you. It's an issue that goes to my heart, and always will be.   Damien Newton Thank you so much for your time today. And again, there's some links to some old Jeanie Ward-Waller stories on Streetsblog, California that are included with the text that accompanies this podcast and we will keep in touch and keep an eye on what's going on.   Jeanie Ward-Waller Thank you so much, Damien. This is fun.      

In January 2021, Zahra Shaheer had to get out of Afghanistan… fast. So when she had the rare opportunity to secure safe passage for herself and her two children, she made the heartbreaking decision to flee, even though it meant leaving her mother behind. Now, Zahra and her mother remain separated by thousands of miles, and insurmountable policies that are designed to prevent her mother from reuniting with her family in the new home in the UK.  David Miliband from the International Rescue Committee joins us to look at the history of global refugee policy, and the importance of safe routes as more displaced people seek safety around the globe than ever before. To learn more and take action, click here, and join Ben & Jerry's in calling for safe routes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Safe Routes to School funding will facilitate the construction of a new shared-use path and a HAWK pedestrian signal on State Route 500, enhancing safety for families walking, biking, or rolling to Pioneer Elementary School and Frontier Middle School in Vancouver's Orchards neighborhood. https://bit.ly/43lJ6jT #WashingtonStateDepartmentOfTransportation #WSDOT #SafeRoutesToSchoolProject #SharedUsePath #PioneerElementarySchool #FrontierMiddleSchool #SR500 #HAWKSignal #VancouverWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday

SHIFT: The RAGBRAI Documentary hit the big screen and Murph and AP were there to witness the magic and spirit of those who ride bikes across Iowa. On this episode they offer you a recap of the world premiere event, a bit about the film, and hopefully some motivation to see it when you can! A big congratulations go out to Directors Courtney Crowder and Kelsey Kremer for this epic film. Also we get an important recap from Mark Wyatt on what is going on at the Iowa Bicycle Coalition. He updates us on happenings with legislation, Safe Routes to School, and upcoming cycling events! https://soundcloud.com/justgobike/episode-247-shift-the-ragbrai-documentary-hits-the-big-screen https://soundcloud.com/justgobike/episode-200-a-preview-of-the-upcoming-ragbrai-documentary www.iowabicyclecoalition.org Registration for RAGBRAI L closes May 15!! If you would like to bicycle across Iowa the last week of July, you can secure your spot by registering online at venturesendurance.enmotive.com/events/re…ragbrai-l. www.ragbrai.com www.murphologypodcast.com

"Minute with Mayor Mike Wilson" News Director Greg Taylor talks with Red Wing Mayor Mike Wilson with a recap of the City Council meeting on Monday, Child Abuse Prevention Month Proclamation, Kay Kuhlman wrap-up on her visit to Washington D.C. for National League of Cities Conference, presentation by David Anderson about Earth Week and Earth Day activities in Red Wing, public comment included representatives from Blue Water Farms about proposed Walleye farm in Red Wing, consent agenda passed with no controversy, including the interim moratorium on permits for semi-transient accommodations in the city, approved lower speed limits around Twin Bluff & Sunnyside schools, paid for with Safe Routes to School Infrastructure grant.

Today is Tuesday, April 11, 2023.   The Brainerd Dispatch Minute is a product of Forum Communications Co. and is brought to you by reporters at the Brainerd Dispatch. Find more news throughout the day at BrainerdDispatch.com. The Brainerd Dispatch is proud to be a part of the Trust Project. Learn more at thetrustproject.org.

1:19.70 https://on.soundcloud.com/o9tF3 Alleycats: The 23rd National Bike Summit, which wrapped up at the end of March, had an "adjacent" Alleycat ride: the Intro to Alleycat ride, or Alleycat for Dummies. Galen Mook, MassBike Executive Director, interviews Joel Gwadz, organizer of the ride, along with John Yeast of New Belgium Brewery, one of the ride's sponsors. 16:01 https://on.soundcloud.com/VdXYe Check it: at an Alleycat checkpoint in Washington, DC, the "Love" mural in Blagden Alley, volunteers Nick Richert, Marina Smith, and Lisa Brady give away Dr. Bronner's magic chocolate bars to riders who took selfies. Volunteer Lisa Brady's day job happens to involve Safe Routes to Schools, as well as being Board President of the Treasure Valley cycling Alliance in Boise, Idaho. 22:41 https://on.soundcloud.com/rUJCD Growing fast: An Alleycat rider's perspective on the ride resonates with history. Keshia Roberson, founder of Major Knox Adventures and presenter of They Were Seeds: The Buried Legacy of Black Wheelwomen at the National Bike Summit, interviews with Galen Mook. 26:47 https://on.soundcloud.com/ufUoV Tour de Bike Lanes: commuters and tourists in a DC lane are treated as Tour de France racers by Cate Cohen, in honor of her husband, DC rider David Confer, who died of liver cancer. 29:26 https://on.soundcloud.com/8bNMG After 'cat: Galen Mook sums up the Alleycat and interviews Josh from Grand Rapids at the Alleycat afterparty. 33:16 https://on.soundcloud.com/9Ny9Q Bike Troupe: The Agile Rascal Touring Theater's performers and, sometimes, their audiences, incorporate bikes and riding in their shows. Dara Silverman, Artistic Director, unpacks at the Summit closing reception. 36:32 https://on.soundcloud.com/DYyg4 Representing: At the Summit's closing reception Earl Blumenauer, Congressional Representative of Portland, Oregon and founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, focused on this moment in bike advocacy. 39:29 https://on.soundcloud.com/ydjpk Joining the Club: Northampton, Massachusetts bike champions Adele Paquin and Ruthy Woodring reflect on their new afterschool bike club at JFK Middle School as the semester comes to an end. 43:41 https://on.soundcloud.com/Wx9Dx Book Soweto: Bicycle Entrepreneur Mpumi Mtintso organizes Tour de Libraries and historical bike tours in the township of Soweto, South Africa.

The Safe School Zone was launched at Gaelscoil Sáirséal on Shelbourne Road, on the North Circular Road yesterday, as part of the Safe Routes to School Programme. Minister of State for Transport Jack Chambers was at the school to launch the new route and spoke to Live 95's Sarah Coleman about how school children will be able to benefit. Sarah also spoke to principal Ian Madigan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Walking and biking to school should be a common event for America's kids. But, since 1969, participation rates have plummeted. The National Safe Routes to School Partnership has been working for two decades to reverse the course. Marisa Jones joins us from the Partnership to talk about the organizations ongoing efforts to bring a little more walking and bike riding back into our children's lives.Our Website: https://theplanningcommissionpodcast.com/YouTube: The Planning Commission Podcast channelInstagram: @theplanningcommissionpodcastFacebook: The Planning Commission Podcast pageTwitter: @planningcommish Subscribe, like, help us make a difference in the profession we all love. Have an episode idea, tell us about it. Email us at: info@theplanningcommissionpodcast.com

Today is Thursday, March 2, 2023. The Brainerd Dispatch Minute is a product of Forum Communications Co. and is brought to you by reporters at the Brainerd Dispatch. Find more news throughout the day at BrainerdDispatch.com.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE with Host & Transformational Success Coach Lori Anne Casdia chats with Guest Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio about WBE and NYS. As always, putting herself out to assist the residents of NY she is having a FREE WBE seminar.For some, starting a new job can be difficult, but for long-time Riverhead Councilwoman Jodi Giglio the transition to the state Assembly has been seamless. Jodi committed herself to serving her community years ago and has earned a reputation as a hard worker and tireless advocate for eastern Long Island. It is a work ethic that serves her well in Albany, as the change in landscape does not change the local issues she pledged to address.With a resume of success in the business world, Jodi knows what it takes for her constituents to both survive and thrive in the COVID era. She has been a tireless advocate for getting children back to school and re-opening the economy.She fights the heavy burden of wasteful government spending, taxes, fees, and mandates that have put an enormous strain on local businesses and taxpayers. She can be counted on as a loud and persistent voice for the rural East End in a state dominated by urban interests. Jodi is at the forefront of the effort to repeal the new bail laws that made a mockery of the criminal justice system. She supports law enforcement and law and order. Public safety is an ongoing concern of her constituents and they know she will make sure “Defund the Police” and other criminal-friendly schemes don't take hold. She is pro-Second Amendment and does not stand for tearing down historical statues and the defacing of public and private property.As a town official for 10 years, Jodi's initiatives saved the taxpayers millions by reinventing government services and eliminating wasteful spending.She was behind the implementation of special code enforcement software to manage permits, inspections, and violations to create greater efficiency and communication between town departments. Effortlessly connecting town operations, the system allows for swift enforcement and prosecution of violations. Her insistence on bidding out residential garbage pickup has saved residents $148 per year since 2012 and she helped win $47,500 in federal monies for the Safe Routes to School sidewalk project, to name just a few of her achievements.As a member of the Assembly, Jodi has expanded her role to target the state's crumbling infrastructure, better training for the workforce, and more critical care funding for our most vulnerable residents and veterans. She is a persistent voice against wasteful government spending and high taxes and fees, especially those that burden local businesses and homeowners. She is part of a coalition of legislators to ensure that Long Island gets its fair share of school funding and will make sure that the mental health needs of students are fully addressed. She wants sports and all other extracurricular activities to start up in full and believes that girl's teams should be limited to girls.As an East Ender,Jodi knows full well the importance of protecting the environment as the lifeblood of our local economy. Agriculture, tourism and the beautiful parks and waterways residents enjoy will always be her priority. She spearheaded the preservation of 2,000 acres of local farmland and more than 200 acres of open space, as well as the completion of the 10-mile recreation trail and birder stand in Calverton, which became the foundation for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Trail. She put forth legislation to prevent water pollution through upgraded sanitary systems and created a recycling fund and material tracking program. She spoke out against the disposal of dredge spoils and other dumping in the Long Island Sound, supported geothermal systems for manufactured homes through NYSERDA, and participated in the Peconic Estuary Program Climate Vulnerability Assessment and Action Plan.Getting down to the nuts and bolts of what makes a municipality thrive,Jodi supported the upgrade to Riverhead's sewage treatment plant, the most innovative in the country, and led the charge to reuse biosolids from the system. She put forth a capital plan for improvements to the Riverhead Water District to make sure residents have a clean and steady supply of drinking water.Jodi holds Suffolk's seniors in high regard and serving them has been a benchmark of her career. She created the Mobile and Manufactured Home Task Force to protect the mostly elderly residents who live in the local parks and has not let up in her effort to return visitation rights to families and friends with loved ones in care facilities. She will not rest until the truth comes out about the decision to send virus patients into nursing homes and will make sure the tragic losses and heartache never happen again.Jodi is a proud union member of Local 138 of the International Union of Operating Engineers and successfully ran a state-certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise. She has been honored by Minority Millennials Inc. as a Woman of Distinction and her positive impact on minorities and youth continues into her legislative service.The Assemblywoman has been a resident of Baiting Hollow for the last 20 years and is a mother of three. Her experience in the private and public sectors equip her with a unique perspective on how to tackle the state's toughest challenges, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She looks forward to promoting common-sense solutions that will restore the power back to the people of New York State and put our economy back on track.Her district includes the North Fork of Long Island, portions of the town of Brookhaven, and the towns of Riverhead and Southold.To Contact Assemblywoman Jodi GiglioShe can be reached at Jodi-GiglioLori Anne Quotes:"Play a Higher Role, Serve a Higher Purpose Show Up for You And Show Up Big!" ~ Lori Anne"All of our Success Codes are already within us when we are born. We need to tap into ourselves and that success code to achieve our fullest potential. Let's work together so you can Soar to Success!" ~Lori Anne Please email us at HealthyLifestylewithLA@gmail.com Follow us on social media @healthylifestylewithLALinkswww.LDCStrategies.com@LDCStrategies (FB/IG))@Healthylifestylewithla (FB/IG)Our Goal at Healthy Lifestyle is to inspire, educate and empower you to fulfilling a healthy, emotional, spiritual and physical life, so you can feel empowered to live the life you have always wanted and dreamed. We are here to lift each other up with encouragement and positivity. To serve one another.ABOUT OUR HOST:Lori Anne De Iulio CasdiaLife & Business Transformational Success Coach & StrategistPersonal Development Coach#1 International Best Selling AuthorBusiness & Marketing Strategist & PositionerMotivational Speaker/Inspirational Speaker Founder of LDC StrategiesFounder of Monarch LuminariesFounder of Soar to Success ProgramMotivational Speaker/Inspirational SpeakerEmcee/ModeratorMaster Mindset MentorLaw of Attraction PractitionerCertified Herbalist Certified Aromatherapist Certified Life CoachCertified Kundalini Meditation Yoga CoachCertified H'oponopono PractitionerCertified Canfield Train the TrainerYoung Living Brand PartnerAwarded the 50 Top Most Influential Women in 2018Awarded Mentor of the Year 2020 Awarded Power Women of the East End 2022Nominated Bethpage Best of LI Best Business Coach 2021 & 2022Nominated Bethpage Best of LI Best Business Coach 2021, 2022 & 2023Who's Who of Professionals & Executives 2022Awarded Ones to Watch 2021 & 20222022 Women in Professional ServicesLet's talk! Book your appointment here: Chat with Lori AnneYou can also Listen to Healthy Lifestyle with Lori Anne on your favorite app: I Heart Media | iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Spreaker | Sound Cloud | TuneIn | YouTube

You can tell a lot about a person by what they think about the noise that emanates from the bagpipe, a woodwind instrument perhaps best associated with Scotland but with origins that might date back to the Hittite people from three thousand years ago. Even if are not a fan of the combination of melody and drone, July 27 is the day to appreciate this unique musical instrument. Perhaps this is the day you buy one for the enjoyment of your friends, family, and co-workers? I’m Sean Tubbs, and not a cent or shilling is being paid to Charlottesville Community Engagement by Big Bagpipe. Sign up to make sure each email finds its way to your inbox. Payment isn’t necessary but does tend to help keep the electrons flowing to make the work possible. On this version of the show:Charlottesville continues to prepare for a school year in which more students will not be able to catch a yellow school busTwo new members will soon join the Charlottesville Planning CommissionA former member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has diedCharlottesville City Council hears from the interim City Manager on how $14.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding could be spent First shout-out is for LEAP’s new Thermalize Virginia program In today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out: Have you been thinking of converting your fossil-fuel appliances and furnaces into something that will help the community reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? Your local energy nonprofit, LEAP,  has launched a new program to guide you through the steps toward electrifying your home. Thermalize Virginia will help you understand electrification and connect you with vetted contractors to get the work done and help you find any rebates or discounts. Visit thermalizeva.org to learn more and to sign up!  Preparations continue in Charlottesville for more to walk to school Classes begin for Charlottesville City Schools in four weeks and work continues to prepare for a year in which more students will not be eligible to get a ride on a school bus. A driver shortage has led the school system to expand walk zones that are still being finalized. “We are hoping to let families know this week about their current bus eligibility and whether they have a bus request on files,” reads an email update sent to parents interested parties on Monday. “This status update will tell families if their child is in a walk zone or eligible for the bus.”The notice also states that priority will be given to families living further away from schools. The actual bus assignments will be released in August. Last week, the city administration told City Council that staff is recommending using $500,000 from the city’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act to help pay for safety improvements. “We’ve added $500,000,” said interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers. “Higher amounts were suggested. In talking with staff we believe that we have other funds in the budget that can actually exceed the amount that has been suggested in the past by some of the communications from people but this is a high priority area and we are offering that up for your consideration.” More on ARPA later in the newsletter. In their update, city schools say they are in conversations with the city, parents, and community members about sidewalks and intersections that need to be improved. Last week, Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders said the city government will follow the school system’s lead.“What we’re doing is working directly with schools and trying our best to make sure that their priorities are what we prioritize and what we do to help them through this process because we’re seeing this as everyone’s issue,” Sanders said. Sanders said the work to address safety concerns will continue past the first day of school. “And then to go beyond that and basically reboot our Safe Routes to School program,” Sanders said. “That’s what this is really synergized at this time by allowing all this focus on what we’ve been doing and what we’ve been talking about doing.” Sanders said there are also conversations with Albemarle about how to collaborate on pupil transportation for special needs students. The school system is also encouraging people to report problem locations using the MyCville app or by phoning 434-970-3333, option #2. Two other ways people can become involved are: Take a walk along a school route and make your observations known in a Google Doc created by the school systemApply to be a regular or substitute crossing guard or walking school bus leader - paid positionsThe school system will hold a final “walk and talk” this Friday at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church from noon to 2 p.m. There will also be an online Q&A session on August 10 at 5 p.m. (register)Council make two new appointments to Planning CommissionWhen the Charlottesville Planning Commission meets on September 13, two veterans of other advisory bodies will take their place at the makeshift dais in CitySpace. Carl Schwarz served two terms on the Board of Architectural Review from 2014 to the end of last year. He’s an architect in private practice who lives in the 10th and Page neighborhood. Phil d’Oronzio has been the chair of the Housing Advisory Council Committee since August 2014. He’s the CEO of Pilot Mortgage who lives in the Belmont neighborhood. The pair join three Planning Commissioner who were reappointed by Council at their meeting on July 18.“By some accident of history we wound up with five different Planning Commissioners whose terms expire on August 31, 2022,” said Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook. By Virginia law, the seats have to be staggered so that terms don’t expire all at once. To make that work, they had to technically reconstitute the body and reappoint everyone, even those who terms were not yet.Commissioner Hosea Mitchell was appointed to Seat One for a term expiring on August 31, 2023. Mitchell served a partial term in the late 2000’s before rejoining the Commission in June 2018 to fill an unexpired term. He is retired from a career in the medical business. Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg was appointed to Seat Two also for a term expiring on August 31, 2023. Stolzenberg first joined the Commission in October 2018.  He’s a software engineer with Lumin. Seat Three will continue the appointment of Lyle Solla-Yates whose term expires at the end of August 2024. Solla-Yates has been on the Commission since March 2018 and is the current chair. He works for the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Commissioner Liz Russell will continue in Seat 4 with a term that also expires at the end of 2024. Russell has been on the Commission since September 2020. She’s the director of planning, sustainability, and project management at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Seat 5 will continue to be occupied by Commissioner Karim Habbab until August 31, 2025. Habbab was appointed in June 2021 and is an architect with BRW Architects. The terms of Schwarz (Seat 6) and d’Oronzio  (Seat 7) and Schwarz will expire on August 31, 2026. The reconstitution of the Planning Commission comes at a time when the city is rewriting the Charlottesville zoning code to increase density. That’s a major objective of both of the Affordable Housing Plan adopted in March 2021 and the Comprehensive Plan updated in November 2021. Former Albemarle Supervisor Cooke dies at 90 A woman who served two terms on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has died. Patricia Cooke was elected in 1981 to what used to be called the Charlottesville District and was re-elected in 1985. According to her obituary in the Daily Progress, Cooke graduated from Lane High School in 1950 and opened a laundry business with her husband in 1956. She also had a bridal and formal wear company. A funeral service will be held on Friday.The Charlottesville District became the Rio District at some point during the tenure of Cooke’s successor, David Bowerman. Bowerman served four terms until retiring the Board at the end of 2004. He passed away in March 2020 while he was a sitting member of the Albemarle County Board of Zoning Appeals. In today’s other two shout-outs Code for Charlottesville is seeking volunteers with tech, data, design, and research skills to work on community service projects. Founded in September 2019, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department, and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. Visit codeforcville.org to learn about those projects. The final comes from another Patreon supporter who wants you to go out and read a local news story written by a local journalist. Whether it be the Daily Progress, Charlottesville Tomorrow, C-Ville Weekly, NBC29, CBS19, WINA, or some other place I’ve not mentioned - the community depends on a network of people writing about the community. Go learn about this place today!Council briefed on potential usage of ARPA funds Charlottesville has now received all of the $19.6 million in funding it will receive from the federal government as part of the American Rescue Plan Act fund. Interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers gave Council an update at their meeting on July 18.“It’s been a big help for local government in terms of recovery from the impact of the pandemic,” Rogers said. Council has already appropriated $4.81 million of the funding and has an unallocated balance of $14.8 million. Money spent so far went to four different categories recognized by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Of that $14.8 million, $2.28 million was already designated for various uses during the development of the budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1. For the balance, Rogers suggested the following uses:For economic development:$750,000 to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau to make up for revenue loss from decline in meals tax revenue. Albemarle County is also being asked to make the same contribution. $300,000 for improvements to the Downtown Mall coordinated with Friends of Downtown Cville. The Mall turns 50 in 2026 and Rogers said a task force may be formed to help mark that occasion and prepare for the next fifty years$100,000 for updates to wayfinding One million for a strategic investment fund for economic development$500,000 for the Meadow Creek Trail to close a gap for a VDOT-funded projectInternal uses:$829,000 for equipment replacement$200,000 for facilities repair$270,000 to augment the Human Resources including hiring a deputy director and a recruiter$200,000 to fund Council’s development of a new strategic planPublic safety: $1.4 million for additional COVID spending should future surges have a greater community health impact$1.1 million to help Charlottesville Fire Department with its accreditation, including hiring three more battalion chiefs for two years$450,000 to help retain personnel in the Charlottesville Fire Department$50,000 to help retain personnel for the Sheriff’s Office$500,000 for the “Safe Routes to School Fund” Human service support:$700,000 for the Emergency Assistance - Pathways program which would include additional rental assistance$1.63 million for affordable housing and homeless services$500,000 for the Community Health Initiative $1 million for the Agency Investment Fund $580,000 for Community Arts Investment$176,000 for the Office of Human Rights to hire an investigator to look into claims under the Fair Housing Act $40,000 for an emergency generator for a city shelter that would be used in major catastrophes The combined $2.63 million for affordable housing and the agency investment fund would be disbursed through a competitive process separate from the “Vibrant Community” process the city has used since 2019 to allocate funding for nonprofits. The Community Health Initiative would support public health projects.“Think of this funding as being available for a previously floated idea of the Community Care Team or something of that nature in order to do a really needed and wonderful pilot to see what would be the best support for our community,” said Deputy City Manager Ashley Marshall.Council was to have discussed a proposal for a Community Care Team at its meeting on February 7 but the item was pulled. The topic did come up as part of a Council work session on May 2. Councilor Brian Pinkston noted that additional on-going positions were being proposed to be created with the one-time ARPA money.“Hiring people with one-off type of funding is something we’re trying to be careful of,” Pinkston said. Rogers said those positions would be proposed to continue into the future and the city would have to find other funds to cover them. Councilor Michael Payne questioned the use of $750,000 to go to the CACVB. The city’s economic development director said the money would help the destination marketing organization with a current cash flow situation caused by the way it is funded. “There’s a two year lag in the funding cycles so the money wasn’t needed two years ago,” said Chris Engel. “It’s needed now because that cycle is playing through.”Council got a briefing on the CACVB in June and learned that the agency received $680,000 from ARPA that flowed through the Virginia Tourism Council. (read the story)“Given that state support I’m a little skeptical about how much is really needed for the CACVB as well as whatever specific measurable deliverables we will get for that investment,” Payne said.  Council will be asked to take action on the appropriations at its August 1 meeting. There’s also an additional $2.52 million for which Rogers has not made any suggestions for how it should be spent. “We look forward to our dialogue on this,” Rogers said. “This is meant to be a first start to set us on a direction to address some things we really need to address in the coming months and thought that these funds would be a good way to do it.” Thoughts? Leave a comment below. Housekeeping items for episode #412That’s another program in the archives, and in a few days you’ll be able to read these stories on the Information Charlottesville website I created to help me keep track of what I’m reporting. Want to read articles on land use in Charlottesville? Click here!What about infrastructure updates? Click here!How about climate action? Elections in Virginia? The archive grows each week!All of this is supported by readers and listeners under the Town Crier Productions company I formed two years ago and am still learning how to operate. I’m breaking even, but I’d very much like to find a way to grow. There are ways to do that!For one, if you sign up for a paid subscription through Substack, Ting will match your initial payment! And, if you sign up for their services through this link you’ll get a free standard install, your 2nd month free, and a $75 downtown mall gift card! Enter the promo code COMMUNITY for full effect. Music on the podcast version of the show comes from the D.C. sensation Wraki, and you can support their work by paying whatever you want for the album regret everything on BandCamp.My sincere hope today, though, is that someone will go and buy a bagpipe. If you do, please let me know. If you have one already, record yourself and send me the audio! Or any exotic instrument, really. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

If this were a Leap Year, July 18 would be the 200th day of 2022. However, this Monday is in fact the 199th day of the year and we are 532 days away from 2024. Are these numbers compelling or a distraction from the beginning of this 409th installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement? Let’s ask the Magic 8-ball! I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. Sign up for a paid subscription to ensure this work continues long into the future! Ting will match your first payment! See below for more. In today’s installment:An update on the COVID-19 pandemic as local experts anticipate a future surgeThe Virginia Department of Health is cautioning swimming in the western tributaries of Lake AnnaThe latest campaign finance numbers are in for Virginia’s Fifth District Storefront vacancies are up in the six commercial areas tracked by the city of CharlottesvilleAnd some updates on infrastructure projects in Albemarle CountyFirst shout-out: Piedmont Master Gardeners want to help you rethink your lawnIn today’s first subscriber supported public service announcement: Have you thought about changing up your lawn to something more sustainable for pollinators and other creatures? The Piedmont Master Gardeners wants you to know about a program called Healthy Virginia Lawns which can assist you in your transition. The program is a joint venture of Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. If interested, the first step will be for a Piedmont Master Gardener to come for a visit for an assessment and soil tests. Healthy Virginia Lawns will give you a customized, science-based roadmap to a greener landscape that protects water quality, wildlife and other resources along the way. Visit piedmontmastergardeners.org to learn more!Youngkin’s health department makes COVID quarantines optional in education and childcare settingOn Friday, Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that the Virginia Department of Health has updated its guidance for children, teachers and staff in educational and camp settings. “This revised guidance outlines that quarantine is no longer routinely recommended for asymptomatic individuals after exposure to COVID-19 infected individuals,” reads the updated guidance “In general masks are not routinely recommended in these settings, indoors or outdoors, except during isolation.”The guidance continues a shift away to individual decisions related to the pandemic rather than mandates. The federal Centers for Disease Control has a much more broad system of quarantine protocols, which can be reviewed here.Dr. Costi Sifri, director of hospital epidemiology at the UVA Health System, said schools and day care facilities should do what they can to improve spaces to reduce transmission, especially before the school year begins. “Those include things like just understanding whether there are more opportunities to improve ventilation and those other engineering type approaches to reducing risk of transmission within schools,” Dr. Sifri said. “We know the virus is not going to go away.” Today the Virginia Department of Health reports a seven-day average of 2,930 new cases a day and the seven-day percent positivity ratings for PCR tests is at 23 percent. This continues an upward trend that dates back to the spring as newer strains became more prevalent. Dr. Sifri said the Omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to spread and he expects an additional surge in cases at some point in the near future. “We’ve had new variants that have replaced previous variants and for most of 2022 what we’ve seen is that these variants are descendants or are related to the Omicron variant that was called BA.1,” Dr. Sifri said. Dr. Sifri said reinfection is becoming more likely due to the new strains. “That really helps us think about perhaps whom we should be trying to protect by revaccinating,” Dr. Sifri said. “The challenge is that the COVID vaccines are based on the original strain of COVID and the protection from that or from previous infection is unfortunately not as robust for general infection due to BA.5 or some of these newer variants.” Dr. Sifri said vaccination and previous infections do protect against serious outcomes, except for those who are immunocompromised. “So the CDC guidance and our recommendations are that if you are in a high-risk group, then you should make sure you are up to date with your COVID vaccine,” Dr. Sifri said. Dr. Sifri noted that nearly half of the country is currently considered by the CDC as an area of high transmission. He recommends people wear masks, but acknowledged the political reality of America in the third year of the pandemic. “We know that’s not being done in many places around the country,” Dr. Sifri said. “I just flew in from the west coast earlier this week and masking is really the exception to the rule on airplanes and in more airports right now. If you are in those situations and you’re not wearing a mask, you should anticipate that you could be exposed to COVID.”To find out if you are eligible for another vaccine dose or to get vaccinated for the first time, visit vaccinate.virginia.gov to learn more. Harmful algae bloom at Lake AnnaThe Virginia Department of Health is asking people to avoid swimming in or contact with waters on the western side of Lake Anna and its tributaries due to the presence of a harmful algae bloom. “Samples collected at six sites on the Upper and Middle Pamunkey Branch, including Terry’s Run, and the Upper and Middle North Anna Branches indicated a cyanobacteria bloom with cell concentrations at unsafe levels,” reads a VDH update posted on Friday.The next update from VDH will be given some time in the second week of August. Until then, VDH cautions people to not fish, swim, or let pets in bodies of water that smell bad, look discolored, or have visible foam or scum on the surface. For more on the topic across Virginia, visit www.swimhealthyva.com. Good leads Throneburg in fundraising for 5th District RaceThere are 113 days until election day and 59 days until the next time that candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives will have to file campaign finance reports. The most recent deadline was this past Friday for activity through June 30.In the Fifth District, Republican Incumbent Bob Good of Evington has raised $848,271 in his reelection campaign for a second term, including $149,017 in transfers. Of the $679,372 in contributions, nearly 75 percent comes from individuals or entities who contributed $200 or more. About eleven percent came from political action committees. Good has spent $570,585 and had an ending cash balance of $328,023 on June 30.Democratic challenger Joshua Throneburg of Charlottesville has raised $446,579 so far, including $50,000 in loans. Just under 77 percent of the $396,379 in contributions came from individuals  or entities who gave $200 or more. So far, Throneburg has spent $320,531 and had $126,048 in cash on hand at the midway point of the year.  For all of the details, read the quarterly reports on the Federal Elections Commission’s website. Here’s the one for Throneburg and here’s the one for Good. Second shout-out is for LEAP’s new Thermalize Virginia program In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: Have you been thinking of converting your fossil-fuel appliances and furnaces into something that will help the community reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? Your local energy nonprofit, LEAP,  has launched a new program to guide you through the steps toward electrifying your home. Thermalize Virginia will help you understand electrification and connect you with vetted contractors to get the work done and help you find any rebates or discounts. Visit thermalizeva.org to learn more and to sign up!  Storefront vacancies up slightly in Charlottesville Storefront vacancies are up in the six commercial areas tracked by the City of Charlottesville. That’s according to the latest twice a year report put together by the Office of Economic Development (read the report).“This study examines only the ground-level retail storefronts at the six major shopping centers, so vacancies on the second floor and higher are not included,” reads the report. “Not all vacant buildings are included in the vacancy rate provided .”Those six commercial areas include Barracks Road, the Downtown Mall, McIntire Plaza, Preston Plaza, Seminole Square, and the Corner. There were 22 vacancies in January and that has risen to 33 in July. That does not include storefronts that are under renovation. When factored in percentage, the vacancy rate increased from 5.01 percent to 7.21 percent. The study also does not cover West Main Street, which has some buildings that have storefronts that have never been filled. The Flats at West Village used to have a restaurant that closed before the pandemic, and one retail space required to be built due to the zoning has never been occupied. The Lark has seen two breweries come and go but the second closed during the pandemic. A retail space on Roosevelt Brown Boulevard has never been occupied.The Standard has several retail spaces, and only one has been occupied. Another appears to be a storefront, but is actually an advertisement for a ghost kitchen. Urban sidewalks are among several infrastructure projects under construction in AlbemarleEvery quarter, Albemarle County’s Facilities and Environmental Services Department puts out an update of its activities. The latest is on the consent agenda for Wednesday’s meeting of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors. (read the report)Here are some of the highlights:Construction got underway in June on over 2,000 feet of sidewalk to connect Albemarle High School to Greer Elementary School. Funding comes from a one-time Neighborhood Improvements Funding Initiative as well as the Safe Routes to School program. Replacement of 376 exterior windows at the county’s office building on McIntire Road is also underway. The windows all date back to the late 70’s when Albemarle bought the former Lane High School from the city of Charlottesville. This will reduce energy costs and the report notes that electricity consumption in June was down 13 percent over the same month in 2021. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently awarded Albemarle a $96,261 grant to study the potential for flooding in the 770-acre Branchlands watershed. This may take some years to complete. Design for an entrance road for the first phase of Biscuit Run is still ongoing with negotiations continuing between county staff and the Virginia Department of Transportation. The first phase will consist of that road, restrooms, and a parking area. According to the report, completion of the first phase is now expected in September 2023. Albemarle is considering using land proffered to the county as part of the Brookhill development for many uses, including a relocation of the vehicle maintenance facility used by Albemarle Public Schools. Other uses might include a solid waste convenience center, such as the one that will soon get under construction in Keene. A feasibility study for the Brookhill land should be ready in mid-August. The Southern Convenience Center is expected to be completed in December on a nearly $1.1 million budget. Completion of several sidewalk projects is expected in the coming weeks. Albemarle was successful in getting revenue-sharing funds from the Virginia Department of Transportation for sidewalks and improvements on Rio Road, Avon Street, and U.S. 250 West in Crozet.“The Rio Road Sidewalk Improvement project will connect the Stonehenge residential neighborhood to the John Warner Parkway and Rio Road sidewalk system. The Avon Street Walkway/Crosswalks Improvement project will provide sidewalks on the east side from Swan Lake Drive to Mill Creek Drive and then to Cale Elementary School [sic] and on the west side from Stoney Creek Drive to Arden Drive. The US 250 West-Crozet project will consist of the construction of sidewalk and crosswalks from Cory Farms to the Cloverlawn commercial area and Blue Ridge Shopping Center.”Cale Elementary was renamed Mountain View in 2020. Secure this work’s future with financial supportThis is episode 409 of this program and I’ll be getting to work on 410 and beyond. I really want to get to 818, 820, and so on. This is the work I want to do and I believe the community benefits when I’m able to spend my time as a reporter. Town Crier Productions is not a nonprofit organization, but around a third of the audience has opted to contribute something financially. It’s similar to the old days when you would subscribe to a newspaper. I subscribe to several, myself, and would greatly appreciate your subscription. Supporting the program through a Substack contribution or through Patreon makes it very easy for me to get paid and every single dollar that I get makes me want to work that much harder to serve the community. In just under two years, I’ve produced hundreds of stories that seek to give you information about how decisions are made in our community and in the Commonwealth of Virginia.For more information on all of this, please visit the archive site Information Charlottesville to learn more, including how you too can get a shout-out! Thank you for reading, and please share with those you think might want to learn a few thing or two about what’s happening.Also, Ting will match your initial payment! Visit them today to see if they can help you speed your Internet up. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Saturday’s all right for writing! That is, writing information about land use, transportation, economic development, elections, and more! This is Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter and podcast intended to let you know about a few things you didn’t know before, and intended to keep an eye on a great deal of things. I’m your host Sean Tubbs, exploring and exploiting my curiosity hopefully for your benefit. But please: No fighting! In today’s newsletter:The first campaign finance report is in for the race of the 55th House District, even if it’s still unclear when the election will be held Charlottesville Planning Commissioners seek action on safer streets in advance of the school A former Charlottesville school superintendent becomes Governor Youngkin’s permanent chief diversity officerThere’s one day left to fill out the latest questionnaire on Albemarle County’s growth management policy The head of the area’s aging services agency is elected to lead a statewide group First shout-out: Join me for a Cvillepedia training session - Brand styleIn today’s house-fueled public service announcement, the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society wants you to know about an upcoming exhibit at the Center at Belvedere featuring portraits of several historical figures active in the Charlottesville area in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Frances Brand was a folk artist who painted nearly 150 portraits of what she considered “firsts” including first Black Charlottesville Mayor Charles Barbour and Nancy O’Brien, the first woman to be Charlottesville Mayor. Brand’s work will be on display from July 5 to August 31 in the first public exhibit since 2004. And, if you’d like to help conduct community research into who some of the portraits are, cvillepedia is looking for volunteers! I will be leading three more Cvillepedia 101 training sessions at the Center July 18 at 2 p.m. Sign up at the Center’s website.Laufer outraises fellow Democrats in 55th District There is still a possibility that Virginia will have an election this year for the 100 seat House of Delegates. A second federal lawsuit arguing that legislators elected last November are in unconstitutional seats still awaits a final ruling and November 8 is 115 days away from today. That makes yesterday’s deadline for active candidates for the House of Delegates that much more compelling. There are currently three people seeking the Democratic nomination in the new 55th District, which includes most of Albemarle’s geography, as well as northeast Nelson County and western Louisa County. The Virginia Public Access Project has pulled together all of the filings, and former Charlottesville School Board member Amy Laufer outraised her opponents with a total of $61,731 raised in June. Fifty-seven donors contributed more than $100, requiring their identification. That includes a transfer of $7,327 from Laufer’s previous campaign for the Virginia Senate in 2019. There is one $10,000 gift from Hunter Bourne, and a pair of $5,000 gifts from Clean VA and the Morrill Family Investment. There were 68 contributions below the $100 limit. Emergency room nurse Kellen Squire raised $41,531 from March 8 to June 30. Thirty-four contributions were in excess of $100 with 406 below that threshold. There is one $20,000 contribution from Kay Ferguson.Albemarle County Supervisor Donna Price raised $11,798 with ten contributions above the $100 threshold and thirty below. Republican Rob Bell is the presumptive incumbent, currently representing the former 58th District. Bell began the year with a balance of $76,253 and has raised $5,250 so far this year. More on the status of the lawsuit in the next installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement. One days left to fill out Albemarle’s growth management surveyAs mentioned in the last program, a survey is about to close for Albemarle County’s growth management survey. The county is in the midst of updating their Comprehensive Plan, and this is the second questionnaire. Here’s more from a video produced by the office of Communications and Public Engagement (CAPE). “New development proposals that require a change in zoning or a rezoning are evaluated by recommendations in the Comprehensive Plan, including the growth management policy,” states the narrator. “As part of growth management, the Albemarle County Service Authority establishes a jurisdictional area where public water and sewer will be provided. This jurisdictional area mainly corresponds with the development area.” If  you’re interested in hearing more, the Albemarle CAPE has posted the latest episode of their Let’s Talk Albemarle podcast. The guest is Rachel Falkenstein, a manager in the Community Development department who oversees long-range planning.“Usually we look out 20 years and that number comes from the state of Virginia,” Falkenstein said. “They require localities to have a Comprehensive Plan that plans for 20 years out into the future so we use that for most of our planning documents.” As of Friday afternoon, 270 people had taken the survey, according to CAPE director Emily Kilroy. The Albemarle Planning Commission will have a work session on the Comprehensive Plan on July 26. To catch up on previous stories on land use issues in Albemarle, check out Information Charlottesville through this link. And if you’re in the mood to fill in another survey, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission wants your input on the Regional Transit Vision Plan.. To catch up on all kinds of transit related stories, check out Information Charlottesville through this link. Youngkin appoints Atkins as chief diversity officerGovernor Glenn Youngkin has appointed former Charlottesville Superintendent Rosa Atkins to serve as Virginia’s Chief Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion Officer. Atkins has been serving in the position on an interim basis following the departure of his first appointee, Angela Sailor. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sailor left in April for a family matter. Atkins served as Charlottesville’s superintendent for 15 years before retiring. Earlier this year, former Governor Ralph Northam appointed her to serve as the acting superintendent of public instruction for the Virginia Department of Education. In the Northam administration, Atkins’ position was known as the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, but Youngkin changed the name in Executive Order #10 when he appointed Sailor. “We must strengthen and focus the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) by including in its mission the promotion of entrepreneurship and economic opportunity for all Virginians — including Virginians with disabilities — as well as the promotion of free speech and civil discourse,” reads that order.Sailor’s name is still on the website for the office. In other appointments of note, a University of Virginia official has been named to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Pace Lochte is the assistant vice president for economic development. Youngkin also appointed Rob Rutherford of Nelson County to the Virginia Manufactured Housing Board. Rutherford is a manager with Pro Tech Builder, a maker of modular homes.JABA leader elected to Virginia aging services associationThe chief executive officer of the area’s aging services association has been elected as president of the state entity that represents all 24 such agencies across the Commonwealth. Marta Keane of JABA will begin a two-year term as president of the Virginia Association of Area Agencies on Aging (V4A).Keane has been CEO of JABA since 2013. According to a release, during that time she helped form the Charlottesville Area Alliance as an umbrella organization for various entities that work with senior services in the community. “With this comes challenges to meet their increasing and changing needs, and opportunities to identify and maximize the strengths that seniors bring to our communities,” Keane is quoted in the release. “During the next two years, I hope to continue our efforts with demographic services to better identify areas that have unmet needs, work with networks to identify new ways to meet the needs, and identify new funding sources to allow us to grow and sustain critical services."JABA was formed in 1975 as the Jefferson Area Board for Aging. In today’s other two shout-outs: Local media and Code for CvilleCode for Charlottesville is seeking volunteers with tech, data, design, and research skills to work on community service projects. Founded in September 2019, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department, and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. Visit codeforcville.org to learn about those projects. The final comes from another Patreon supporter who wants you to go out and read a local news story written by a local journalist. Whether it be the Daily Progress, Charlottesville Tomorrow, C-Ville Weekly, NBC29, CBS19, WINA, or some other place I’ve not mentioned - the community depends on a network of people writing about the community. Go learn about this place today!Charlottesville Planning Commissioners seek Council action on safer streets on school routesAs of today, there are 39 days left until the first day of school in the City of Charlottesville. Yesterday, the school system held a Transportation Talk and Walk Session to discuss a recent alert from Superintendent Royal Gurley that the bus driver shortage has worsened and walk zones will be expanded. This past Tuesday, the city Planning Commission was briefed on a request from one of its members that city government take steps to make routes to school. They got an update from Missy Creasy, Charlottesville’s assistant director of the Neighborhood Development Services office (NDS). “The city has a pretty robust program that they’re putting together to address how they are addressing the shortage at this point in time and some pretty innovative things on there,” Creasy said. These include encouraging older students to take Charlottesville Area Transit routes, hiring more crossing guards or finding more volunteers, and buying smaller buses that don’t require drivers to have commercial licenses. NDS director James Freas said the shortage provides an opportunity to apply goals of the recently adopted Comprehensive Plan to a real life problem. “Wrapped up in this challenge is an opportunity to explore those options,” Freas said. “The flip side of that is that it’s a little early for us right now in that we are in the process of building out a transportation planning program.” In May, Council was briefed by Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders on a series of problems with how the city has run its transportation planning program. For instance, transportation planners have had too high of a workload, and the city has been unable to move some projects forward. There’s also a vacancy in the position of bike pedestrian coordinator after the last person left the job at the end of 2021 to work for a consultant. “We expect that position to post very soon and see that position as really being able to take a lead role in doing exactly this type of work and that is coming up with innovative, innovative, and low-cost ways of improving pedestrians, particularly children’s safety, in the neighborhoods around our schools,” Freas said. Creasy said that the traffic engineer and the Safe Routes to School coordinator no longer work in NDS. Instead they work for the Public Works department, a decision made by former City Manager Tarron Richardson. Creasy said NDS does coordinate with public works, but more people are needed to implement what’s in the Comprehensive Plan. “We do have really good support for continuing to move forward in this direction,” Creasy said. “We have tools in place but we just need to fill them with humans so that we can keep the work going.” Creasy said she is aware of grassroots efforts to make things better, but coordination with the city is needed. Freas said that one remedy would be to paint bump-outs at curbs to provide more space for people. “It’s a significant safety improvement and you can do that with paint and potentially flex-posts, but even to do just that, you do have to do some engineering design, you do need to coordinate with public works street folks,” Freas said. Freas said that there’s a possibility of maybe having something done within six weeks, but he cautioned that it will be hard to do in that time frame. “I think, A, the school department’s plans are really good, I think they have some good solutions in place, and B, I think we can build towards that and start contributing the safety improvements we need to make as we go forward,” Freas said. Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg said he supported the idea of an official letter to City Council, but also said funding needed to be in place to implement the solutions.  “Is it safe to assume there is not within the currently allocated budget enough money to really address the things that staff would potentially want to address?” Stolzenberg asked. “Or potentially to hire outside traffic engineers to take some of the load of our in-house resources?” Freas said he would need to have a scope of work before answering that question. “We don’t have an identified line item for that right now so we would be cobbling together money from other sources,” Freas said. Stolzenberg said he would like the Planning Commission to recommend identifying money in the current fiscal year so incremental improvements can be made throughout the school year. He pointed out that Council voted in late June to purchase property for parking.“Council just spent $1.65 million on a parking lot with 40 spaces,” Stolzenberg said. “It seems to me that we can find money within the currently allocated [Capital Improvement Program] that could be reallocated to make sure that kids don’t get run over by cars on their way to school.” Stolzenberg also asked if the city has explored the ability to install cameras in school zones to capture people who speed. Freas and Creasy said they did not know if the city has done that research. The Commission agreed to send a letter to Council seeking support for the work. Stolzenberg said he would draft that document. The discussion took place just before the Commission’s joint public hearing with City Council. Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade said he heard the message.“It doesn’t have to be a war and peace type of document,” Wade said. “We understand the issues and we’re hearing a lot of from the citizens now.” Two more Talk and Walk sessions are scheduled this month. Do you have a specific concern? Drop me a line and I’d like to hear about it. Housekeeping notes for the conclusion of today’s newsletter:Thanks for reading! Today’s show is a rare Saturday show. Coming up next is the Week Ahead for July 18, as well as the Government Glance at the Fifth Congressional District. That’s a separate Substack. Music in the podcast version is composed by an entity currently going by the name Wraki. You can purchase the latest tracks on Bandcamp in an album called regret everything.  I certainly hope you will check it out! Finally, I can’t say enough positive things about Ting’s generous sponsorship. If you sign-up for Ting service, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here!Charlottesville Community Engagement is free to receive, but supported by paid subscriptions. If you subscribe, Ting will match your initial contribution! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Jim Field visits with Dylan Lyons of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition about the Safe Routes to School Program.

The recently signed infrastructure law continues the United States' over-reliance on the most dangerous way to travel: driving a vehicle. Did Congress make sufficient safety improvements to decrease the dangers posed by driving in the United States? This episode will examine all vehicle-related safety provisions to help you weigh your own transportation options. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! View the Show Notes on our Website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd251-bif-driving-dangers-sustained/ Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD246: BIF: Appalachian Chemical Storage CD247: BIF: The Growth of US Railroads CD240: BIF: The Infrastructure BILL CD021: Trailblazer vs. ThinThread Why You Should Be Afraid of Cars “Number of worldwide air traffic fatalities from 2006 to 2021.” Apr 12, 2022. Statista. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Mar 2022. “Overview of Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2020.” U.S. Department of Transportation. “Number of deaths / injuries directly linked to boating accidents in the U.S. from 2002 to 2020.” Jun 2021. Statista. Injury Facts. “Railroad Deaths and Injuries.” National Safety Council. Jon Ziomek. Sept 28, 2020. “Disaster on Tenerife: History's Worst Airline Accident.” Historynet. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “Distracted Driving.” U.S. Department of Transportation. Problems the Law Does (and Does Not) Address Jake Blumgart. Nov 15, 2021. “The Infrastructure Bill May Not Be So Historic After All.” Governing. Self Driving Cars Neal E. Boudette. May 3, 2022. “Paying customers could hail driverless taxis in San Francisco later this year.” San Francisco Examiner. Natasha Yee. Apr 1, 2022. “Waymo Bringing Driverless Vehicles to Downtown Phoenix ... Soon.” Phoenix New Times. “24 Self-Driving Car Statistics & Facts.” Feb 20, 2022. Carsurance. Neal E. Boudette. Jul 5, 2021. “Tesla Says Autopilot Makes Its Cars Safer. Crash Victims Say It Kills.” The New York Times. Clifford Law Offices PC. May 5, 2021. “The Dangers of Driverless Cars.” The National Law Review. Katie Shepherd and Faiz Siddiqui. Apr. 19, 2021. “A driverless Tesla crashed and burned for four hours, police said, killing two passengers in Texas.” The Washington Post. Riley Beggin. Jan 15, 2021. “Self-Driving Vehicles Allowed to Skip Some Crash Safety Rules.” Government Technology. Faiz Siddiqui. Oct 22, 2020. “Tesla is putting ‘self-driving' in the hands of drivers amid criticism the tech is not ready.” The Washington Post. Niraj Chokshi. Feb 25, 2020. “Tesla Autopilot System Found Probably at Fault in 2018 Crash.” The New York Times. Michael Laris. Feb 11, 2020. “Tesla running on ‘Autopilot' repeatedly veered toward the spot where Apple engineer later crashed and died, federal investigators say.” The Washington Post. Alex Davies. May 16, 2019. “Tesla's Latest Autopilot Death Looks Just Like a Prior Crash.” Wired. Neal E. Boudette and Bill Vlasic. Sept 12, 2017. “Tesla Self-Driving System Faulted by Safety Agency in Crash.” The New York Times. Rachel Abrams and Annalyn Kurtz. Jul 1, 2016. “Joshua Brown, Who Died in Self-Driving Accident, Tested Limits of His Tesla.” The New York Times. Alcohol Detection Systems Isaac Serna-Diez. Nov 23, 2021. “Alcohol Detection Systems Will Now Be Mandatory In All New Cars To Prevent Drunk Driving. YourTango. Keyless Entry Carbon Monoxide Deaths “Toyota Introduces Automatic Engine Shut Off to Prevent Carbon Monoxide Deaths.” Jun 20, 2019. Kelley Uustal Trial Attorneys. “Toyota Has the Most Keyless Ignition Related Deaths, But Takes no Action.” Jun 7, 2019. KidsAndCars.org. Kids Left in Cars Morgan Hines. Aug 2, 2019. “There's science behind why parents leave kids in hot cars.” USA Today. Scottie Andrew and AJ Willingham. July 30, 2019. “More than 38 kids die in hot cars every year, and July is the deadliest month.” CNN. John Bacon. Jul 28, 2019. “'He will never forgive himself': Wife defends husband in devastating hot car deaths of twins.” USA Today. Eric Stafford. May 6, 2019. [“Children Can Die When Left in the Back Seat on a Warm Day—and 800 Already Have. “Children Can Die When Left in the Back Seat on a Warm Day—and 800 Already Have.” Car and Driver. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “Child Heatstroke Prevention: Prevent Hot Car Deaths.” U.S. Department of Transportation. Motorcycle Helmets “Motorcycle helmet use laws by state.” May 2022. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Facts + Statistics: Motorcycle crashes.” Insurance Information Institute. Adam E. M. Eltorai et. al. March 16, 2016. “Federally mandating motorcycle helmets in the United States.” BMC Public Health. Truck Safety “How Many Miles Do Semi Trucks Last?” Rechtien. Non-motorist Safety “Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2020 Preliminary Data.” Governors Highway Safety Association. “Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2020 Preliminary Data.” [Full Report] March 2021. Governors Highway Safety Association. John Wenzel. Jan 6, 2020. “Bollard Installation Cost.” Saint Paul Sign & Bollard. Richard Peace. Feb 20, 2019. “Why You Don't Want a Superfast Electric Bicycle.” Electric Bike Report. 911 System Upgrades Mark L. Goldstein. January 2018. “Next Generation 911: National 911 Program Could Strengthen Efforts to Assist States” [GAO-18-252]. Government Accountability Office. National 911 Program. December 2016. “2016 National 911 Progress Report.” U.S. Department of Transportation. CD021: Trailblazer vs. ThinThread Followup “Michael Hayden, Principal, Strategic Advisory Services.” The Chertoff Group. “Board of Directors.” Atlantic Council. Tim Shorrock. Apr 15 2013. “Obama's Crackdown on Whistleblowers.” The Nation. The Law H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Senate Version Law Outline DIVISION A: SURFACE TRANSPORTATION TITLE I - FEDERAL-AID HIGHWAYS Subtitle A - Authorizations and Programs Sec. 11101: Authorization of Appropriations Authorizes appropriations for Federal-Aid for highways at between $52 billion and $56 billion per year through fiscal year 2026 (over $273 billion total). Authorizes $300 million for "charging and fueling infrastructure grants" for 2022, which increases by $100 million per year (maxing out at $700 million in 2026) Authorizes between $25 million and $30 million per year for "community resilience and evacuation route grants" on top of equal amounts for "at risk coastal infrastructure grants" Authorizes a total of $6.53 billion (from two funds) for the bridge investment program Sec. 11102: Obligation Ceiling Caps the annual total funding from all laws (with many exceptions) that can be spent on Federal highway programs. Total through 2026: $300.3 billion Sec. 11111: Highway Safety Improvement Program Adds protected bike lanes to the list of projects allowed to be funded by the highway safety improvement project Adds "vulnerable road users" (non-motorists) to the list of people who must be protected by highway safety improvement projects If 15% or more of a state's annual crash fatalities are made up of non-motorists, that state will be required to spend at least 15% of its highway safety improvement project money on projects designed to improve safety for non-motorists. Each state, by the end of 2023, will have to complete a vulnerable road user safety assessment that includes specific information about each non-motorist fatality and serious injury in the last five years, identifies high-risk locations, and identifies possible projects and strategies for improving safety for non-motorists in those locations. Sec. 11119: Safe Routes to School Creates a new program to improve the ability of children to walk and ride their bikes to school by funding projects including sidewalk improvements, speed reduction improvements, crosswalk improvements, bike parking, and traffic diversions away from schools. Up to 30% of the money can be used for public awareness campaigns, media relations, education, and staffing. No additional funding is provided. It will be funded with existing funds for "administrative expenses". Each state will get a minimum of $1 million. Non-profit organizations are eligible, along with local governments, to receive and spend the funding. Non-profits are the only entities eligible to receive money for educational programs about safe routes to school. Sec. 11130: Public Transportation Allows the Transportation Secretary to allocate funds for dedicated bus lanes Sec. 11133: Bicycle Transportation and Pedestrian Walkways Adds "shared micromobility" projects (like bike shares) to the list of projects that can be funded as a highway project Electric bike-share bikes must stop assisting the rider at a maximum of 28 mph to be classified as an "electric bicycle" Subtitle B - Planning and Performance Sec. 11206: Increasing Safe and Accessible Transportation Options. Requires each state, in return for funding, to carry out 1 or more project to increase accessible for multiple travel modes. The projects can be... The enactment of "complete streets standards" (which ensure the safe and adequate accommodation of all users of the transportation system) Connections of bikeways, pedestrian walkways, and public transportation to community centers and neighborhoods Increasing public transportation ridership Improving safety of bike riders and pedestrians Intercity passenger rail There's a way for State's to get this requirement waived if they already have Complete Streets standards in place Subtitle D - Climate Change Sec. 11404: Congestion Relief Program Creates a grant program, funded at a minimum of $10 million per grant, for projects aimed at reducing highway congestion. Eligible projects include congestion management systems, fees for entering cities, deployment of toll lanes, parking fees, and congestion pricing, operating commuter buses and vans, and carpool encouragement programs. Buses, transit, and paratransit vehicles "shall" be allowed to use toll lanes "at a discount rate or without charge" Subtitle E - Miscellaneous Sec. 11502: Stopping Threats on Pedestrians By the end of 2022, the Secretary of Transportation needs to create a competitive grant pilot program to fund "bollard installation projects", which are projects that raise concrete or metal posts on a sidewalk next to a road that are designed to slow or stop a motor vehicle. The grants will pay for 100% of the project costs Appropriates only $5 million per year through 2026 Sec. 11504: Study of Impacts on Roads from Self-driving Vehicles By early 2023, the Transportation Department has to conduct a study on the existing and future effects of self-driving cars on infrastructure, mobility, the environment, and safety. Sec. 11529: Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program Creates a grant program authorized for $1 billion total that will fund walking and biking infrastructure projects that each cost $15 million or more and connect communities to each other, including communities in different states, and to connect to public transportation. The Federal government will pay for 80% of the project costs, except in communities with a poverty rate over 40% (the Federal government will pay 100% of the project costs in impoverished communities). TITLE III - MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY Sec. 23010: Automatic Emergency Braking: Automatic Emergency Braking A Federal regulation will be created by November 2023 which will require new commercial vehicles to be equipped with automatic braking systems and there will be performance standards for those braking systems. Sec. 23022: Apprenticeship Pilot Program Creates a three year pilot program, capped at 3,000 participants at a time, for people under 21 to be trained by people over the age of 26 to become commercial truck drivers. Drivers under the age of 21 are not allowed to transport any passengers or hazardous cargo Sec. 23023: Limousine Compliance With Federal Safety Standards A Federal regulation will be created by November 2023 requiring that limousines have a seat belts at every seating position, including side facing seats. TITLE IV - HIGHWAY AND MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY Subtitle A - Highway Traffic Safety Sec. 24102: Highway Safety Programs Prohibit the Federal Government from withholding highway safety money to the states that refuse to require helmets for motorcycle drivers or passengers who are over the age of 18. Sec. 24103: Highway Safety Research and Development Creates a grant program (by November 2023) that will fund states that want to create a process for notifying vehicle owners about any open recalls on their cars when they register their cars with the DMV. The state receiving the money is only required to provide the notifications for two years and participation in general is voluntary. Creates financial incentives for states to create laws that prohibit drivers from holding "a personal wireless communications device" while driving, has fines for breaking that law, and has no exemptions for texting when stopped in traffic. There are exceptions for using a cell phone for navigation in a "hands-free manner" Creates financial incentives for states to create laws that require curriculum in driver's education courses to include information about law enforcement procedures during traffic stops and the rights and responsibilities of the drivers when being stopped. The states would also have to have training programs for the officers for implementing the procedures that would be explained to drivers. Sec. 24113: Implementation of GAO Recommendations Requires the Secretary of Transportation to implement all of the national-level recommendations outlined in a 2018 GAO report by the end of November 2022. Subtitle B - Vehicle Safety Sec. 24201: Authorization of Appropriations Authorizes a little over $1 billion total for vehicle safety programs from 2022 through 2026 Sec. 24205: Automatic Shutoff By November 2023, the Transportation Department will have to issue a regulation requiring fossil fuel powered vehicles with keyless ignitions to have an automatic shutoff system to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. The amount of time that must trigger the shut off will be determined by the regulators. If the regulation is issued on time, this would go into effect most likely on September 1, 2024. Sec. 24208: Crash Avoidance Technology The Secretary of Transportation must issue a regulation establishing minimum standards for crash avoidance technology that must be included in all vehicles sold in the United States starting on a date that will be chosen by the Secretary of Transportation. The technology must alert the driver of an imminent crash and apply the breaks automatically if the driver doesn't do so. The technology must include a land departure system that warns the driver that they are not in their lane and correct the course of travel if the driver doesn't do so. Sec. 24215: Emergency Medical Services and 9-1-1 Repeals the part of the law that required the Transportation Department to publish criteria that established timelines and performance requirements for anyone who got a grant to implement the Next Generation 9-1-1 project. Sec. 24220: Advanced Impaired Driving Technology By November 2024, the Secretary of Transportation will have to finish a regulation that requires passenger motor vehicles to be standard equipped with "advanced and impaired driving prevention technology" The technology must be able to monitor the performance of a driver and/or their blood alcohol level and be able to prevent or limit the car's operation if impairment is detected or if the blood alcohol is above the legal limit. This will apply to new cars sold after November 2030 at the latest. Sec. 24222: Child Safety By November 2023, the Secretary of Transportation must finish a regulation requiring all new passenger vehicles to have a system alerting the driver visually and audibly to check the back seat when the car is turned off. Says it will be activated "when the vehicle motor is deactivated by the operator" Hearings The Road Ahead for Automated Vehicles House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Highways and Transit February 2, 2022 Overview: The purpose of this hearing is for Members of the Subcommittee to explore the impact of automated vehicle deployment, including automated trucks and buses, on mobility, infrastructure, safety, workforce, and other economic and societal implications or benefits. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

Welcome to the Visional-Led Leadership Podcast! I'm your host Arin Fugate. I am the creator of the Moon Magic Method and co-founder of the Visionary Leaders Collective. I am on a mission to remind you that your intuition is always guiding you to your divine purpose. You were born for a very important reason and the time is now to shine in your truth! On the show, we talk about listening to your intuition, cultivating a successful mindset, next-level leadership, and conscious capitalism. If you are new here, welcome! You are in the right place if you are a Visionary Leader ready to uplevel your life and live in line with your true calling. Welcome to Season 2! Today on the show we are talking with Emma Newman. Emma is often described as a mover and a shaker. She grew up as a homeschooler until 8th grade and learned to question things with a goal of figuring out how she could contribute to improving the world. She is passionate about sustainable urban design and self directed growth. She started her high school's “Green Team,” launched a Safe Routes to Schools program, and has been working as a Senior Transportation Planner for the last seven years. She currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Governor appointed Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Emma is now passionately pursuing life coaching training with the Academy for Coaching Excellence and continues to work with money adventuring clients to help people shift their relationships with money to align with their goals. Emma loves supporting changemakers to build equitable and thriving communities to live the life they love! FREE Gift from Emma Life Blueprint Workshop June 11, 10:30AM - noon PST Learn more and register: emmacoaching.com/LifeBlueprint $50 value, FREE to your listeners with promo code: VISION  Book a FREE Discovery Session with Emma via her website:  www.emmacoaching.com Arin's Offerings: Moon Manifesting Circles on Zoom Essential Oils - jasmineandjuniper.com Moon Magic FB Group Contact Email: mailto:arin@jasmineandjuniper.com Get Social with Arin! IG: https://www.instagram.com/jasmineandjuniperliving TIKTOK:https://www.tiktok.com/@arinspeaks FB Personal Page: (follow): https://www.facebook.com/ariningraham77 FB Brand Page Jasmine & Juniper - https://www.facebook.com/jasmineandjuniper YOUTUBE  - https://www.youtube.com/arinfugate  

Top headlines for April 8, 2022: Slayton farmer must pay $435,517, program helps people earn teaching credentials locally, Safe Routes to School grants to 2 local communities, animal mistreatment, and a signing ceremony for a soccer player. Intro: By Maria from Ms. Poppe's class! The Globe Minute is a product of Forum Communications, brought to you by reporters at The Globe. For more news from throughout the day, check out dglobe.com.

On this midweek show, Ryan Packer, senior reporter at The Urbanist, stops by to cover the ins and outs of the $16 billion Move Ahead Washington transportation package currently moving through the State Legislature. Ryan and Crystal talk about revenue for the transportation budget, including interstate drama over a proposed fuel export tax. They then jump into details of what the package funds over the next 16 years in terms of public transit, pedestrian safety, free transit for youth, and highway expansion. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal on Twitter at @finchfrii, and find Ryan at @typewriteralley   Resources “Democrats Unveil Transformative ‘Move Ahead Washington' Transportation Package” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/02/09/democrats-unveil-transformative-move-ahead-washington-transportation-package/   “Proposed tax on WA fuel exports scorned by neighboring states” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/proposed-tax-on-wa-fuel-exports-scorned-by-neighboring-states/   “Top House democrat proposes removing fuel export tax from transportation package” by KING5 Staff from KING5: https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/state-politics/fuel-export-tax-washington-house-jake-fey/281-592bd977-3174-428d-8b67-d2626de361d8   “Washington House jettisons exported fuel tax proposal that angered neighboring states” by Tom Banse from Northwest News Network: https://www.opb.org/article/2022/03/02/washington-state-house-exported-fuel-tax-proposal-neighboring-states/   Interstate Bridge Replacement Program: https://www.interstatebridge.org/   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I'd like to welcome Ryan Packer to the program, who's a senior reporter at The Urbanist focused on transportation through the lens of safety and climate. Their work also appears in Seattle Bike Blog and Bike Portland. And so, we're going to be talking about the transportation package today. There's a lot in it, and we all need to get around at some point or another, and whether we're in cars and mad about traffic, or how inconvenient it may be sometimes to get from Point A to Point B, or we're riding the bus or the train or walking or biking or in a wheelchair or using an assisted device; the design of our transportation system, from our sidewalks to our roads, to bike facilities, impact how we all get around and the quality of our communities and how our communities look. So, we definitely are excited to have this conversation today. I just want to go over, before we get to this conversation, what is in this package, and we'll be talking about it in more detail. So, the transportation package that is currently being worked on and finalized is the Move Ahead Washington transportation package. It's a $16 billion proposal funding a suite of transportation projects intended to be completed over the next 16 years through 2038. It significantly increases the amount of state funding allocated toward transit, walking, and biking investments. It funds fare-free transit for people under 18 years old, invests a $150 million in advancing high speed rail investments, and active transportation investments total nearly $1.3 billion - and active transportation being walking or rolling. There's $146 million in grants for cities to remake existing streets to create space for people to walk and roll via the Complete Streets investments - that's if we're talking about things like Aurora Avenue or in the Kent Valley, connectivity for bikes and walking throughout the corridors - things like that are what those are funding. $50 million would go to Connecting Communities grants, those right there. Highway expansion projects received $4 billion, the largest expenditure being a $1 billion allocation to the Interstate Bridge Replacement project, which will expand I-5 and replace an aging bridge, but also expand it along a five-mile stretch on either side of the Oregon and Washington border. Transit investments include $30 million for three Community Transit Swift line expansions: the Silver Line, Gold Line, and an extension of the existing Green Line. $8 million for the King County Metro RapidRide I Line project, specifically for the segment in Auburn. $7 million for upgrades to King County Metro's RapidRide H Line project in Burien along Ambaum Boulevard, and $5 million for electrification at King County Metro's South Base. Ferries receive $1.5 billion, that's sorely needed. Highway maintenance and preservation receives $3 billion, and fish barrier removal gets a $2.4 billion allocation. That's a lot. We'll be talking about the details, but just wanted to tee that up to let you know what's in this package, and now we'll proceed with Ryan. Welcome. [00:04:03] Ryan Packer: So great to be here. [00:04:05] Crystal Fincher: If people are trying to inform themselves about transportation in the State of Washington, it is hard to do that without reading your work. You have some of the most comprehensive reporting and coverage in the state - consistently following meetings, whether it's Sound Transit, things happening in the legislature, locally. I have certainly been informed by your coverage for quite some time. It's an essential read, encourage everyone to make sure they're on it. What was your path to covering transportation? [00:04:38] Ryan Packer: Well, I think ultimately it was trying to get around Seattle and realizing the barriers that are invisible and very visible when you're trying to do that. It was the path of starting with, why is a bike lane design like this? Why can't our streets look differently? And that just took me on a path to going down the rabbit hole as I usually - it took me down a path of going down the rabbit hole of figuring out all of the aspects of the transportation ecosystem in Washington, the commissions and boards, and all the levels of government that play a small part in how everyone gets around every single day. [00:05:26] Crystal Fincher: It makes sense. There's a lot to it. And I read somewhere, I think it was a tweet sometime. They were like, "Nothing will radicalize you quicker than riding a bike as a form of transit." This is not an exaggeration - almost all of the people I know who bike regularly, especially those who are commuting, have been hit by a car before. Some extremely seriously injured, and some moderately injured. Really unsafe for people to be getting around in modes that are outside of cars, and a lot of work needing to be done in many areas to make our streets safe - for people who are walking, or rolling, or on their bikes, or getting to the bus stop in a safe way - is a challenging thing. And so, I appreciate your coverage on what has gone into the outcomes that we currently see, and what is going into the effort to hopefully change it, and what's holding those efforts back. There's a lot of that being talked about right now at the state level. As we're talking about this, this is Wednesday, March 2nd - probably be hearing this a little later. But the transportation package is really taking shape, leading up to the end of the legislative session on March 10th. So, what is in this package? I guess, an overview of it, and then we can talk about, in more detail, the different sections of it. [00:06:54] Ryan Packer: I think it helps to take a step back and think about what a transportation package is. It's a thing that I think exists in a lot of states, but in Washington it seems to get a lot of attention. But it's really a promise to build certain projects over a period of time. And what we always do in Washington is usually pair that with a raise in revenue. And so, you're passing a bill that raises revenue for the next 16 years in this case, which is the expected lifespan of this Move Ahead Washington package. And it's paired with a commitment by the legislature that, "This is what we're going to do with that money." And so, this package is pretty different than a lot of the packages that have been passed by the legislature in the past, namely that a big component of it is the Climate Commitment Act, which the legislature passed in 2021. And so, that is expected to raise around a little bit more than $5 billion through the middle of 2037, basically. So, over the next 16 years. And the requirement in that law was actually that that money had to be spent on things that decarbonize transportation, reduce transportation emissions. And so, they can't actually build new roads or use that money for preservation and maintenance of existing highways. It's already been set aside for things like active transportation, electrifying the ferry fleet, transit. And so, they already had that money coming. It was set to come in whether they passed a package or not, but this solidifies what they're going to actually spend that on. And then they come in and they add additional aspects to it. They have diverted $2 billion from the state's operating fund, which is a thing that hasn't really been done very much in the past. It's a pretty unprecedented diversion of money that could be spent on many other things in the budget. Traditionally, transportation projects have been paid for with transportation dollars, i.e., gas tax money, license fees, user fees as they're called. But this is an unprecedented diversion. Unlike when they usually do a transportation package and raise the gas tax - per the Washington State Constitution, all gas tax money has to be spent on highway purposes. But in this case, there's no such strings attached to the money. And so, that's a brief intro to sort of the revenue side. Because the legislature decided, and I say the legislature - I should say, Senate Democrats and House Democrats decided that they were not going to raise gas prices, given all that's happening in the country right now, via a increase in our gas tax, our 49 cent gas tax. They instead developed a plan to modify our export credit system, which would essentially amount to a 6 cent per gallon export tax on all fuel that leaves the state. About 40% of the fuel that's refined at the five refineries in Washington State leaves and it's not, as they say, captured by the transportation system in a way that in-state gas taxes are. And so, this was framed as a way to capture that revenue. It was also framed as a way to mitigate the impacts from those five refineries: Anacortes, Tacoma, which have really real impacts. [00:11:06] Crystal Fincher: And those are massive impacts. Certainly any conversation about addressing climate change in the long term, about reducing our carbon usage, has to involve those refineries, and at a minimum doing a better job of mitigating and fully accounting for the impact that they're all having, and mitigating that impact and hopefully working towards lessening that impact directly. [00:11:36] Ryan Packer: And so, that's a compelling argument in favor of charging exports on fuel more since most of it leaves the state. The problem is that there wasn't really a compelling nexus shown between the expected $2 billion that we raise by that fuel export tax over 16 years, and what is being done to actually mitigate those impacts. And so, I feel like that was one obvious gap in the logic for the fuel export tax. 90% of the fuel used in Oregon comes from Washington. And so, that became a huge point of contention. The Governor of Oregon, Oregon legislature is very upset about this - essentially describing it as a defacto increase in their gas tax. I just want to note that any state with a gas tax that's at Washington's level or higher wouldn't have paid any fuel tax. So, Oregon could have actually raised their gas tax to the same level and kept all of the money from the export tax, but that wasn't very much discussed either. And so, that was a lot of political pressure. Alaska, Idaho joined in on trying to pressure the House and Senate Democrats to remove that export tax. Last night, during their hours-long debate on the House floor, they ended up doing so. So, the House version of the bill which passed close to midnight last night didn't include it. It was replaced with a diversion from the Public Works Trust Fund, which does not really make a lot of people any more happy since that money is used to fund things like sewer and water projects and rural areas all around the state as a rotating loan program. And a lot of people, especially leaders in small cities and towns, are pretty unhappy about that swap and maybe would've preferred to keep the export tax. [00:13:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, a really interesting conversation there. I think sometimes a lot of people think, "Oh, it's a rural area. There are small towns. Totally, they're going to be against that tax." But I think people underestimate how far behind a number of those smaller cities and towns are in that infrastructure maintenance and improvement needs. Some of them, like critical water infrastructure that they're dealing with, other items, and that's long been a point of discussion with cities to the legislature and rural areas and towns with the legislature. So, I certainly hope that that is addressed because we do need a solution that works for the entire state. How has the conversation about gas taxes evolved to this point? I know previously the gas tax has been heavily relied on and thinking, "Well, this is the most appropriate method to fund all of our transportation needs. We're directly taxing a transportation item." But one of the things that's happening is as we are increasing reliance on electric vehicles, as more people continue to take transit around, there is less revenue coming from the gas tax because less gas is being used. So, that's a declining revenue stream in the long-term, not something that can be counted on to sustainably fund what we have. Has that been part of what's created the motivation to find alternative revenue structures like these other taxes? [00:15:30] Ryan Packer: I think in part, it definitely has, but just last session, both the House and the Senate were poised to raise the gas tax - the House version by quite a lot. So, I really think that primarily the move away from the gas tax has been driven by the national conversation, in addition to, like I said, that revenue that's becoming available through the Climate Commitment Act. There's also money from the federal infrastructure bill that's in this as well, and some COVID relief dollars as well. And so, I think ultimately it's just a question of the fact that we don't have to raise gas taxes in an election year when we have this revenue available, particularly again from the general fund, which is seeing a big turnaround in revenue projections. The transportation sector is, and the gas tax projections, are actually not rebounding anywhere near as quickly as the revenue sources that feed the general fund. [00:16:40] Crystal Fincher: In this negotiation, what do you see coming next? Does it look like this is in trouble? Does it look like the House version is going to prevail? Any ideas on what lies ahead? [00:16:52] Ryan Packer: I think the export tax is likely dead. The Public Works Trust Fund being its replacement seems fairly certain at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Senate Democrats try and find another source for that back filling. It's already going to leave a hole of around $500 million over that 16 years. And so with the House version having passed last night, they do have to go into conference and hash things out. But ultimately, I don't think there's going to be too many surprises before the end of the session next week, and most of the plan is now baked solid. [00:17:38] Crystal Fincher: In terms of what this is actually funding, what does it fund? What are people getting out of this package? [00:17:45] Ryan Packer: So, let's start with the Climate Commitment Act dollars I mentioned that have to go toward decarbonizing transportation. So, this is going to be the single largest infusion of dollars from the state level toward public transit in at least three decades. And so, that's pretty big for public transit advocates, people who like to get people onto transit, which I would put myself in that category. And so, the lion's share of that money is coming in the form of a new program called Transit Support Grants. Traditionally, the federal government and the state government haven't really funded the dollars to keep buses running. They often will give grants to bus companies, transit agencies to buy new buses or do a capital improvement that gives you a new transit corridor or that sort of thing; but they haven't really invested in the actual dollars to keep buses on the roads. And now we're at a point where the level of frequency of local bus service in Seattle is incredibly different than it is in Tacoma right now, with very few bus routes even running 15 minutes or better. So, that has been the legacy of Tim Eyman. I know you talked a little bit about this in your interview with Derek Young, it was very enlightening in terms of the history of disinvestment in public transit - relying on these local dollars that not every community is able to raise. And so, this is going to balance that a little bit. Like I said, the state really hasn't done this at all. And so, the level of state support that Washington currently gives to transit agencies around the entire state is around $100 million a year - fluctuates a little bit, but that's all that they get from the state. And this represents, if you divide the number of years for the $1.4 billion in the Transit Support Grants by the 16 years it's expected to be, you're going to get around $90. So, essentially it's a doubling of state support for transit, which is pretty huge. And it's especially going to be impactful for the smaller transit agencies. There's a stipulation in the bill that no agency can get over 35% of the grants. That's in order to prevent something like King County Metro - in 2019, King County Metro saw two out of every three bus rides in the entire state. And so, if you were going to divide it by ridership, King County would suck up all the money. And so, there's a lever that lets them only get 35% at max of the grants. Terry White, the GM of Metro, has said that they expect to get around $640 million over 16 years - that's about their operating budget for one year. But it's going to be a lot more for the smaller agencies. So, they're expecting to spend around $1.2 billion on things like pedestrian safety programs, Safe Routes to Schools, Complete Streets programs, and some specific projects that the legislature actually called out - notably a $50 million expenditure, just the single largest earmark in the whole program to remake Aurora Avenue in Seattle, one of the most deadly streets in the entire City. And so, that's great to see. But like I said, most of that money is coming in the form of grants. So since 2005, Washington has had a program where cities and towns can apply for either Safe Routes to School program projects, or bike and pedestrian focused safety projects, usually in the $500,000-$1,000,000 range of cost, maybe a little bit more sometimes. Since 2005, the state has had about $250 million available for that. And this essentially should around double that over the next 16 years, depending on how much the legislature decides to actually allocate. So, around 55% of all the cities and towns in Washington State have never received one of these grants. So, only 45% of the cities in the entire state, and only around half of the counties have ever actually either been able to apply or actually received an award. So, this will essentially allow a lot more cities to be able to access that money. [00:23:26] Crystal Fincher: What does this do for high speed rail? [00:23:30] Ryan Packer: So, the high speed rail money in the package includes some money right up front to keep the project alive, and then it also includes $150 million set-aside to be able to access any federal grants that might come our way. That's obviously a long way from construction of any projects, but it would be a big step if we were able to access that and unlock any federal dollars that could be able to be used for the project. But we're still a long way from really seeing what that money is actually going to be used for. [00:24:20] Crystal Fincher: Okay. And did I see that there is free transit for youth included in this bill? [00:24:27] Ryan Packer: Yes. Good question. So, the free transit is tied to those transit service grants that I mentioned. And so, that's one condition of receiving any state operating subsidy for transit is you have to make your fares free for riders under 18. If you're already providing free transit through a school district, or I know Seattle currently pays for high schoolers and middle schoolers to get free ORCA cards, and it's going to be a trade off because that money's actually going to be going away because there's no fares to be paid that way. But in Seattle, for example, that could actually free up those dollars to be spent on transit anyway, because it's the City spending that money. And it's going to be including ferries, Amtrak Cascades, basically any public transit in the entire state is going to be fare-free to riders under 18. We don't quite know exactly how that's going to work yet - assuming free passes for specific groups. [00:25:50] Crystal Fincher: So, now let's talk about highway expansion. What is going on in this project? How much is being invested in expanding highways, where's that going to be, and what is the conversation around it? [00:26:03] Ryan Packer: So, the package is proposing to backfill a bunch of highway projects that had been passed in 2015, essentially because costs are going up and things are more expensive now - labor's more expensive, and also delays from COVID just made costs go up. And so, it's backfilling the Puget Sound Gateway projects, which are the extension of SR-167 and 509 down by Port of Tacoma and South King County. So, that's about $430 million that's getting added to that project. It depends how you feel about that project - I know a lot of business groups love that project, it's going to make getting to the ports a lot easier. The Port of Seattle, Port of Tacoma have been fully on board with that project, but it is creating a brand new highway. The last, I would say, highway that's going to bust through a urban area in central Puget Sound. So, it's not an insignificant impact. It's going to backfill the 520 project, because that project also ran out of money, on the west end in Seattle. The problem with calling that a highway expansion is there's a lot of really great aspects to the project that include bike access. There's a new transit lane that's going to get you from South Lake Union straight to the 520 bridge. Those are all add-ons. So, it's how a highway project should be - is oriented also toward different modes. But the problem is that if you cut that, it's going to leave a highway project. And so, has been hard to describe how that money has gone to be used. But ultimately, those elements are going to be great. It's just a matter of, should this be our priority? I mentioned that the bike and pedestrian and Safe Routes to School program had spent $250 million since 2005, when we're going to give 520 $406 million right now. So, it's this trade-off in terms of realizing how expensive these mega projects are. But then there's the new projects. And so, there's about $2.5 billion identified for brand new highway projects in the entire package. $1 billion of that is the "Interstate Bridge Replacement" program. And I'll put "bridge" in quotes because it does include, as planned, a replacement for the two bridges that currently go over the Columbia as I-5 between Portland and Vancouver, but it's also a 5-mile, 7-interchange highway expansion project. [00:29:26] Crystal Fincher: A huge highway expansion project that also is impacting housing and schools in the area, taking over a lot of land and property in that area, and is a behemoth project. [00:29:43] Ryan Packer: And so, environmental groups on both sides of the border have basically been pushing for what they call a right-sized IBR. I would say they really haven't been successful so far. There's only three designs that are actually on the table. All of them expand the highway to 10 lanes over the river and are going to include a lot of interchanges. There's been some renderings that show basically a brand new elevated highway right through downtown Vancouver. I think a lot of people agree that we need to have a replacement for that 100-year old bridge, but - one of the spans is 100 years old - but the question is, this is actually expected to be a $4-5 billion project. We're now putting in $1 billion just from Washington. There's going to be some Oregon match, federal money. It's being framed as a replacement project, but it's also going to massively expand the highway. So, there's that element. [00:30:53] Crystal Fincher: And this has been a long-standing fraught conversation. When I first learned about this project and went through it, toward it was 10 - gosh, I'm old - 12 years ago now. This has been a long-standing conversation between Washington and Oregon about what to replace it with, how much each state is going to be putting in, where those funds are coming from. And so, even with the other tax conversation about Oregon, some of that has implications for this bridge also. And there was some tense moments this past week in rhetoric - some heated words that in this conversation about the tax and some red lines drawn from the Oregon people and a harsh reaction from folks in our state, including Senator Liias, who I think said some words that ultimately he agreed were in haste and crossed the line, which he then apologized for. But this has been a contentious conversation for years, and we're getting close to the finish line, but a lot of these fissures are certainly showing at this point. [00:32:09] Ryan Packer: Correct, yeah. Last week, Oregon Republicans on the Bridge Committee basically threatened to leave the committee. I think a lot of environmental advocates were daring them to actually make good on that promise, since they're the ones that are pushing for the capacity constraints. But yeah, you mentioned this has been going on for a very long time. So yeah, in 2011 they were able to actually get a federal approval for that previous project. And that's part of the problem with this, is they're actually attempting to reuse that decision. So basically, get a rubber stamp to make some minor changes to that design, but ultimately keep it very similar. They considered adding climate directly to the project's purpose and need. Climate and equity considerations were considered to actually go right to the heart of the project. And they said, "No." They said they didn't want to do that because it would screw up the timeline and not allow them to start construction in 2025 like they want. But I don't know how you can spend a $4 or 5 billion project and not fully center climate and equity between our two supposed climate warrior states. [00:33:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. A lot of rhetoric there. Don't seem to be lining up, although this has been a chronic problem for the years leading up to now. And so, I hope there are more voices who are pushing on that in our legislature. We'll see if that trickles up to leadership, and as they're in conference about this package and see how that turns out, and if some of that gets carried through. As we're just looking at this package as a whole and where things are going now, what do you think we need to be looking out for? And I guess, what else is at the top of your mind as you consider the effect of this package? [00:34:17] Ryan Packer: I think this is a very important step, which is centering a transportation package not entirely around the needs of our highway system. But given the incredibly unique nature of this package, with those revenues that are urgently needing to be spent on carbon reduction programs, and the federal matches, and very unique infusion of cash from the general fund - I think we have to make sure that this isn't a one-off, and we don't quite go back to having a highway package that's focused on highways and "local projects." A lot of legislators and local leaders have been noting that the package doesn't include money for local projects, when it has all those grants I just mentioned - what they're talking about is money that they can get to rebuild roads. Obviously maintenance and preservation is really important. There's $3 billion for preservation and maintenance of the highway system in the package, which is more than we have really spent in the past two decades or so, but it's not the entire purpose of the package. It's to move us toward a different transportation future where it's not as focused around single occupancy vehicles. And so, I think there's a potential for us to sort of slip back, say we already did the climate transportation package in 2022, and then just move on to another package. But we need to fight for these investments to be in every single budget essentially, because traditionally decarbonizing transportation through investing in transit, biking, and walking has been a thing that's been really ignored, even by our governor who focuses a lot on climate action. So, I think we just can't let it slip off. [00:36:37] Crystal Fincher: Makes sense. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and we will keep our eye out and make sure everyone stays updated on what winds up in the package at the end of the day after the legislature adjourns. Thank you so much for joining us, Ryan. [00:36:53] Ryan Packer: Thanks so much for having me. [00:36:54] Crystal Fincher: I thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler with assistance from Shannon Cheng. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast - just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

This weeks amazing guest is 2 time US National Mountain Bike Champion, Gravel Racer, Adventure Cyclist and Co-Founder of The Impossible Route - Jeremiah Bishop!!Jeremiah and I talk about his fantastic yearly event - The Alpine Loop Gran Fondo organized by both Jeremiah and his wife Erin with a host of volunteers .  This event has raised over $100,000 for Cancer Journeys, which is the parent organization for Prostate Cancer Awareness and also for Safe Routes to School and Bicycle and Pedestrian advocacy.We discuss his mountain biking accomplishments and his entrance into the gravel racing world!  We then dive into The Impossible Route Film Series where he and The Vegan Cyclist Tyler Pearce take us on an amazing ride of determination, strength, grit and humor!I hope you enjoy my talk with JB !https://www.jeremiahbishop.comhttp://www.theimpossibleroute.com**Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/mojo/rebelLicense code: HNJQZQMQRQX5GTHX

Host: Sarah Brooks Guest: Aime Zortman Air date: Oct 13, 2021

Jen has been all over the internet lately telling the world that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework is a dumpster fire of a bill. In this episode, she backs that up by comparing the levels of investment for different kinds of infrastructure and examining the society changing effects the bill would have if it were to become law. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD218: Minerals Are the New Oil CD205: Nuclear Waste Storage Oil CD073: Amtrak Recommended Articles and Documents Benjamin J. Hulac and Joseph Morton. October 7, 2021. “With GOP sidelined, Manchin steps up to defend fossil fuels.” Roll Call. Connor Sheets, Robert J. Lopez, Rosanna Xia, and Adam Elmahrek. October 4, 2021. “Before O.C. oil spill, platform owner faced bankruptcy, history of regulatory problems.” The Los Angeles Times. Donald Shaw. October 4, 2021. “Criticizing Joe Manchin's Coal Conflicts is ‘Outrageous,' Says Heitkamp.” Sludge. Michael Gold. October 1, 2021. “Congestion Pricing Is Coming to New York. Everyone Has an Opinion.” The New York Times. Utilities Middle East Staff. September 13, 2021. “World's largest carbon capture and storage plant launched.” Utilities. Adele Peters. September 8, 2021. “The first commercial carbon removal plant just opened in Iceland.” Fast Company. Hiroko Tabuchi. August 16, 2021. “For Many, Hydrogen Is the Fuel of the Future. New Research Raises Doubts.” The New York Times. Robert W. Haworth and Mark Z. Jacobson. August 12, 2021. “How green is blue hydrogen?.” Energy Science & Engineering. Emily Cochrane. August 10, 2021. “Senate Passes $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill, Handing Biden a Bipartisan Win.” The New York Times. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. June 3, 2021. “2020 Fatality Data Show Increased Traffic Fatalities During Pandemic.” U.S. Department of Transportation. Nation Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). May 19, 2021. “What We Know—and Do Not Know—About Achieving a National-Scale 100% Renewable Electric Grid .” Michael Barnard. May 3, 2021. “Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Are Mostly Bad Policy.” CleanTechnica. Hiroko Tabuchi. April 24, 2021. “Halting the Vast Release of Methane Is Critical for Climate, U.N. Says.” The New York Times. Grist Creative. April 15, 2021. “How direct air capture works (and why it's important)” Grist. American Society of Civil Engineers. 2021. “Bridges.” 2021 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. Open Secrets. “Sen. Joe Manchin - West Virginia - Top Industries Contributing 2015-2020.” Savannah Keaton. December 30, 2020. “Can Fuel Cell Vehicles Explode Like ‘Hydrogen Bombs on Wheels'?” Motor Biscuit. Dale K. DuPont. August 6, 2020. “First all-electric ferry in U.S. reaches milestone.” WorkBoat. Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser. 2020. “CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Our World in Data. Jeff Butler. January 27, 2019. “Norway leads an electric ferry revolution.” plugboats.com Our World in Data. Annual CO2 Emissions, 2019. Hydrogen Council. 2019. Frequently Asked Questions. Mark Z. Jacobson et al. September 6, 2017. “100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World.” Joule. Kendra Pierre-Louis. August 25, 2017. “Almost every country in the world can power itself with renewable energy.” Popular Science. Chuck Squatriglia. May 12, 2008. “Hydrogen Cars Won't Make a Difference for 40 Years.” Wired. Renewable Energy World. April 22, 2004. “Schwarzenegger Unveils ‘Hydrogen Highways' Plan.” United States Department of Energy. February 2002. A National Vision of America's Transition to a Hydrogen Economy -- to 2030 and Beyond. The Bill H.R. 3684: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act August 10, 2021 Senate Vote Breakdown July 1, 2021 House Vote Breakdown Jen's Highlighted Version Bill Outline DIVISION A: SURFACE TRANSPORTATION TITLE I - FEDERAL-AID HIGHWAYS Subtitle A - Authorizations and Programs Sec. 11101: Authorization of Appropriations Authorizes appropriations for Federal-Aid for highways at between $52 billion and $56 billion per year through fiscal year 2026. Sec. 11117: Toll Roads, Bridges, Tunnels, and Ferries Authorizes the government to pay up to 85% of the costs of replacing or retrofitting a diesel fuel ferry vessel until the end of fiscal year 2025. Sec. 11118: Bridge Investment Program Authorizes between $600 million and $700 million per year through 2026 (from the Highway Trust Fund) for repairs to bridges If a Federal agency wants grant money to repair a Federally owned bridge, it "shall" consider selling off that asset to the State or local government. Sec. 11119: Safe Routes to School Creates a new program to improve the ability of children to walk and ride their bikes to school by funding projects including sidewalk improvements, speed reduction improvements, crosswalk improvements, bike parking, and traffic diversions away from schools. Up to 30% of the money can be used for public awareness campaigns, media relations, education, and staffing. No additional funding is provided. It will be funded with existing funds for "administrative expenses." Sec. 11121: Construction of Ferry Boats and Ferry Terminal Facilities Authorizes between $110 million and $118 million per year through 2026 (from the Highway Trust Fund) to construct ferry boats and ferry terminals. Subtitle D - Climate Change Sec. 11401: Grants for Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Creates a new grant program with $15 million maximum per grant for governments to build public charging infrastructure for vehicles fueled with electricity, hydrogen, propane, and "natural" gas. The construction of the projects can be contracted out to private companies. Sec. 11402: Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities Establishes a program to study and test projects that would reduce emissions. Sec. 11403: Carbon Reduction Program Allows, but does not require, the Transportation Secretary to use money for projects related to traffic monitoring, public transportation, trails for pedestrians and bicyclists, congestion management technologies, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications technologies, energy efficient street lighting, congestion pricing to shift transportation demand to non-peak hours, electronic toll collection, installing public chargers for electric, hydrogen, propane, and gas powered vehicles. Sec. 11404: Congestion Relief Program Creates a grant program, funded at a minimum of $10 million per grant, for projects aimed at reducing highway congestion. Eligible projects include congestion management systems, fees for entering cities, deployment of toll lanes, parking fees, and congestion pricing, operating commuter buses and vans, and carpool encouragement programs. Buses, transit, and paratransit vehicles "shall" be allowed to use toll lanes "at a discount rate or without charge." Sec. 11405: Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) Program Establishes the "PROTECT program", which provides grants for projects to protect some current infrastructure from extreme weather events and climate related changes. Types of grants include grants for "at-risk coastal infrastructure" which specifies that only "non-rail infrastructure is eligible" (such as highways, roads, pedestrian walkways, bike lanes, etc.) Sec. 11406: Healthy Streets Program Establishes a grant program to install reflective pavement and to expand tree cover in order to mitigate urban heat islands, improve air quality, and reduce stormwater run-off and flood risks. Caps each grant at $15 million TITLE III: RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY, AND EDUCATION Sec. 13001: Strategic Innovation for Revenue Collection Provides grants for pilot projects to test our acceptance of user-based fee collections and their effects on different income groups and people from urban and rural areas. They will test the use of private companies to collect the data and fees. Sec. 13002: National Motor Vehicle Per-mile User Fee Pilot Creates a pilot program to test a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee. DIVISION B - SURFACE TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT ACT OF 2021 TITLE I - MULTIMODAL AND FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION Sec. 21201: National Infrastructure Project Assistance Authorizes $2 billion total per year until 2026 on projects that cost at least $100 million that include highway, bridge, freight rail, passenger rail, and public transportation projects. Authorizes $1.5 billion total per year until 2026 (which will expire after 3 years) for grants in amount between $1 million and $25 million for projects that include highway, bridge, public transportation, passenger and freight rail, port infrastructure, surface transportation at airports, and more. TITLE II - RAIL Subtitle A - Authorization of Appropriations Sec. 22101: Grants to Amtrak Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor at between $1.1 billion and $1.57 billion per year through 2026. Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak in the National Network at between $2.2 billion and $3 billion per year through 2026. Subtitle B - Amtrak Reforms Sec. 22201: Amtrak Findings, Mission, and Goals Changes the goal of cooperation between Amtrak, governments, & other rail carriers from "to achieve a performance level sufficient to justify expending public money" to "in order to meet the intercity passenger rail needs of the United States" and expands the service areas beyond "urban" locations. Changes the goals of Amtrak to include "improving its contracts with rail carriers over whose tracks Amtrak operates." Sec. 22208: Passenger Experience Enhancement Food and beverage service: Amtrak will establish a working group... Sec. 22212: Enhancing Cross Border Service Amtrak must submit a report... Sec. 22213: Creating Quality Jobs Amtrak will not be allowed to privatize the jobs previously performed by laid off union workers. Sec. 22214: Amtrak Daily Long Distance Study Amtrak would study bringing back long distance rail routes that were discontinued. Subtitle C - Intercity Passenger Rail Policy Sec. 22304: Restoration and Enhancement Grants Extends the amount of time the government will pay the operating costs of Amtrak or "any rail carrier" that provides passenger rail service from 3 years to 6 years, and pays higher percentages of the the costs. Sec. 22305: Railroad Crossing Elimination Program Creates a program to eliminate highway-rail crossings where vehicles are frequently stopped by trains. Authorizes the construction on tunnels and bridges. Sec. 22306: Interstate Rail Compacts Authorizes up to 10 grants per year valued at a maximum of $ million each to plan and promote new Amtrak routes Sec. 22308: Corridor Identification and Development Program The Secretary of Transportation will create a program for public entities to plan for expanded intercity passenger rail corridors, operated by Amtrak or private companies. When developing plans for corridors, the Secretary has to "consult" with "host railroads for the proposed corridor" Subtitle D - Rail Safety Sec. 22404: Blocked Crossing Portal The Administration of the Federal Railroad Administration would establish a "3 year blocked crossing portal" which would collect information about blocked crossing by trains from the public and first responders and provide every person submitting the complaint the contact information of the "relevant railroad" and would "encourage" them to complain to them too. Information collected would NOT be allowed to be used for any regulatory or enforcement purposes. Sec. 22406: Emergency Lighting The Secretary of Transportation will have to issue a rule requiring that all carriers that transport human passengers have an emergency lighting system that turns on when there is a power failure. Sec. 22409: Positive Train Control Study The Comptroller General will conduct a study to determine the annual operation and maintenance costs for positive train control. Sec. 22423: High-Speed Train Noise Emissions Allows, but does not require, the Secretary of Transportation to create regulations governing the noise levels of trains that exceed 160 mph. Sec. 22425: Requirements for Railroad Freight Cars Placed into Service in the United States Effective 3 years after the regulations are complete (maximum 5 years after this becomes law), freight cars will be prohibited from operating within the United States if more than 15% of it is manufactured in "a country of concern" or state-owned facilities. The Secretary of Transportation can assess fines between $100,000 and $250,000 per freight car. A company that has been found in violation 3 times can be kicked out of the United State's transportation system until they are in compliance and have paid all their fines in full. Sec. 22427: Controlled Substances Testing for Mechanical Employees 180 days after this becomes law, all railroad mechanics will be subject to drug testing, which can be conducted at random. DIVISION C - TRANSIT Sec. 30017: Authorizations Authorizes between $13.3 billion and $14.7 billion per year to be appropriated for transit grants. DIVISION D - ENERGY TITLE I - GRID INFRASTRUCTURE AND RESILIENCY Sec. 40101: Preventing Outages and Enhancing The Resilience of the Electric Grid Creates a $5 billion grant distribution program to electric grid operators, electricity storage operations, electricity generators, transmission owners and operators, distribution suppliers, fuels suppliers, and other entities chosen by the Secretary of Energy. The grants need to be used to reduce the risk that power lines will cause wildfires. States have to match 15%. The company receiving the grant has to match it by 100% (small utilities only have to match 1/3 of the grant.) Grant money be used for micro-grids and battery-storage in addition to obvious power line protection measures. Grant money can not be used to construct a new electricity generating facility, a large-scale battery facility that is not used to prevent "disruptive events", or cybersecurity. The companies are allowed to charge customers for parts of their projects that are not paid for with grant money (so they have to match the grant with their customer's money). Sec. 40112: Demonstration of Electric Vehicle Battery Second-Life Applications for Grid Services Creates a demonstration project to show utility companies that electric car batteries can be used to stabilize the grid and reduce peak loads of homes and businesses. The demonstration project must include a facility that "could particularly benefit" such as a multi-family housing building, a senior care facility, or community health center. TITLE II - SUPPLY CHAINS FOR CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES Sec. 40201: Earth Mapping Resources Initiative The US Geological Survey will get $320 million and ten years to map "all of the recoverable critical minerals." Sec. 40204: USGS Energy and Minerals Research Facility Authorizes $167 million to construct a new facility for energy and minerals research. The facility can be on land leased to the government for 99 years by "an academic partner." Requires the USGS to retain ownership of the facility. Sec. 40205: Rare Earth Elements Demonstration Facility Authorizes $140 million to build a rare earth element extractions and separation facility and refinery. Does NOT require the government to retain ownership of the facility. TITLE III - FUELS AND TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS Subtitle A - Carbon Capture, Utilization, Storage, and Transportation Infrastructure Sec. 40304: Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Authorizes $600 million for 2022 and 2023 and $300 million for each year between 2024 and 2026 for grants and loan guarantees for projects for transporting captured carbon dioxide. Each project has to cost more than $100 million and the government can pay up to 80% of the costs. If the project is financed with a loan, the company will have 35 years to pay it back, with fees and interest. Loans can be issued via private banks with guarantees provided by the government. Sec. 40305: Carbon Storage Validation and Testing Creates a new program for funding new or expanded large-scale carbon sequestration projects. Authorizes $2.5 billion through 2026. Sec. 40308: Carbon Removal Creates a new program for grants or contracts for projects to that will form "4 regional direct air capture hubs" that will each be able to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Authorizes $3.5 billion per year through 2026. Subtitle B - Hydrogen Research and Development Sec. 40313: Clean Hydrogen Research and Development Program Changes a goal of an existing research and development plan for hydrogen fuels (created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005) from enhancing sources of renewable fuels and biofuels for hydrogen production to enhancing those sources and fossil fuels with carbon capture and nuclear energy. Expands the activities of this program to include using hydrogen for power generation, industrial processes including steelmaking, cement, chemical feestocks, and heat production. They intend to transition natural gas pipelines to hydrogen pipelines. They intend for hydrogen to be used for all kinds of vehicles, rail transport, aviation, and maritime transportation. Sec. 40314: Additional Clean Hydrogen Programs Creates a new program to create "4 regional clean hydrogen hubs" for production, processing, delivery, storage, and end-use of "clean hydrogen." At least one regional hub is required to demonstrate the production of "clean hydrogen from fossil fuels." At least one regional hub is required to demonstrate the production of "clean hydrogen from renewable energy." At least one regional hub is required to demonstrate the production of "clean hydrogen from nuclear energy." The four hubs will each demonstrate a different use: Electric power generation, industrial sector uses, residential and commercial heating, and transportation. Requires the development of a strategy "to facilitate widespread production, processing, storage, and use of clean hydrogen", which will include a focus on production using coal. The hydrogen hubs should "leverage natural gas to the maximum extent practicable." Creates a new program to commercialize the production of hydrogen by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The overall goal is to identify barriers, pathways, and policy needs to "transition to a clean hydrogen economy." Authorizes $9.5 billion through 2026. Sec. 40315: Clean Hydrogen Production Qualifications Develops a standard for the term "clean hydrogen" which has a carbon intensity equal to or less than 2 kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent produced at the site of production per kilogram of hydrogen produced." Subtitle C - Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Sec. 40323: Civil Nuclear Credit Program Creates a program, authorized to be funded with $6 billion per year through 2026, that will provide credit from the government to nuclear reactors that are projected to shut down because they are economically failing. Subtitle D - Hydropower Sec. 40331: Hydroelectric Production Incentives Authorizes a one-time appropriation of $125 million for fiscal year 2022. Sec. 40332: Hydroelectric Efficiency Improvement Incentives Authorizes a one-time appropriation of $75 million for fiscal year 2022. Sec. 40333: Maintaining and Enhancing Hydroelectricity Incentives Authorizes a one-time appropriations of $553 million for repairs and improvements to dams constructed before 1920. The government will pay a maximum of 30% of the project costs, capped at $5 million each. Sec. 40334: Pumped Storage Hydropower Wind and Solar Integration and System Reliability Initiative Authorizes $2 million per year through 2026 to pay 50% or less of the costs of a demonstration project to test the ability of a pumped storage hydropower project to facilitate the long duration storage of at least 1,000 megawatts of intermittent renewable electricity. Subtitle E - Miscellaneous Sec. 40342: Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land Creates a new program, authorized to be funded with $500 million through 2026, to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of putting clean energy projects on former mine land. There will be a maximum of 5 projects and 2 of them have to be solar. Defines a "clean energy project" to include "fossil-fueled electricity generation with carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration." TITLE X - AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR ENERGY ACT OF 2020 Sec. 41001: Energy Storage Demonstration Projects Authorizes $505 million through2025 for energy storage demonstration projects. Sec. 41002: Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program Authorizes between $281 million and $824 million per year through 2027 for advanced nuclear reactor demonstration projects. Sec. 41004: Carbon Capture Demonstration and Pilot Programs Authorizes between $700 million and $1.3 billion through2025 for advanced nuclear reactor demonstration projects. Sec. 41007: Renewable Energy Projects Authorizes $84 million through 2025 for geothermal energy projects. Authorizes $100 million through 2025 for wind energy projects. There is a clarification that this is definitely NOT in addition to amounts wind gets from another fund. Authorizes $80 million through 2025 for solar energy projects. DIVISION E - DRINKING WATER AND WASTEWATER INFRASTRUCTURE DIVISION F - BROADBAND DIVISION G - OTHER AUTHORIZATIONS DIVISION H - REVENUE PROVISIONS DIVISION I - OTHER MATTERS DIVISION J - APPROPRIATIONS DIVISION K - MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

HSD is finally ready to launch a COVID-19 dashboard, showing the number and location of active COVID cases and quarantines for students and staff. This data is collected by our contact tracing team and school nurses with help from the Washington County Public Health Department. To protect the privacy of those involved, no names or grade level information will be displayed. Please note that this data may differ from data reported by the Oregon Health Authority because isolations and quarantines will no longer show up in our active data set once the person has returned to school/work and/or the classroom quarantine has ended. Our featured event was International Walk and Roll to School Day on Wednesday, October 6th, when McKinney Elementary celebrated by hosting a walking school bus from McKinney Park to the school. Several students participated in the event and received a raffle ticket and a sticker; four lucky students won a reflective prize kit. Oregon's Safe Routes to School program encourages all schools to select a day in October where they will promote using alternate modes of transportation. Mooberry will celebrate on Thursday, October 21st. If your school is interested, please contact our local Safe Routes to School coordinator Bernadette Le by email or at 503-681-5294. www.hsd.k12.or.us

Kids Bike Rodeo: Kids PMC and "Safe Routes to School" joined forces to teach kids how to ride safely with a parking lot skills and practice. The event took place in the CHS parking lot during the Sunday Farmer's Market Aug. 22, 2021. Story captured by Canton Community Tv's, Tim O'Connor. 

In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is looking for a few good volunteers to help out on Clean Stream Tuesdays, a mile and a half paddle and clean-up to remove trash and debris from popular stretches of the Rivanna River. Trash bags, trash pickers, gloves, and hand sanitizer/wipes will be provided, though volunteers will need to transport themselves to and from the end points. Kayaks for the purpose can be rented from the Rivanna River Company. Visit the Rivanna Conservation Alliance's volunteer page to learn more about upcoming dates.On today’s show:The Pantops CAC hears about development projects and an extension of the Old Mills TrailThe Metropolitan Planning Organization endorses planning projects Virginia’s Constitution turns 50 tomorrowAlbemarle and Charlottesville launch a Buy Local campaign We begin today with some transportation news. U.S. 250 in Nelson County between Route 6 and I-64. has reopened to traffic two months after being closed after a rock slide. According to a release, that’s two weeks ahead of schedule. Lou Hatter is a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Culpeper District. “We had two contractors who were really focused on getting this work done as quickly as possible,” Hatter said. “The fact that U.S. 250 was not open created real issues particularly for people lived on Route 6, Afton Mountain Road.”The contractors worked six days a week and removed over 700 dump trucks of material removed from the failed slope. “It was a steep slope so the work had to be done in stages because they had to go in with equipment and level out an area called a bench that the equipment could work from and then they would reach up above that to remove the loose material.”Hatter said a series of something called a “soil nail” have been drilled into the rock.“They’re secured in place with a cement grout and then over top of that is overlaid a chain link material like chain link fencing, a mesh material and that’s secured to the rods,” Hatter said. Over top of the soil nails is a layer of straw and grass seed intended to grow vegetation quickly. Hatter said the contractors also identified another area where a slope might have failed, and this same process has been applied at that location. Credit: Virginia Department of TransportationIn addition to being the first day of Fiscal Year 2021, July 1 is also the 50th anniversary of Virginia’s current constitution. The 1971 Constitution replaced a version from 1902 which historic records show was created to make it harder for Black Virginians to vote and to enshrine segregation as the law of the land. That constitution imposed a poll tax and literacy requirements to vote. The 1971 Constitution was an attempt to remove those restrictions following federal bans as well as passage of the Civil Rights Act. Copies of all four of Virginia’s Constitutions are on view at the Library of Virginia through Thursday. Learn more about the 1971 Constitution in a press release sent out by the office of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.Governor Northam inspects previous Constitutions with legal scholar A. E. Dick Howard. Howard led the process to write the 1971 document. Albemarle County and Charlottesville have launched a joint Buy Local campaign to promote small businesses in the area. The economic development offices in both jurisdictions will run the campaign and are looking for businesses that might want to participate in what’s being described “as a multi-channel, multimedia promotional and educational campaign.” From the release:“Locally-owned, independent businesses with a brick-and-mortar facility in the City of Charlottesville or Albemarle County interested in being featured in the campaign should contact Jennifer Schmack at jschmack@albemarle.org (for Albemarle-based businesses) and Jason Ness at nessj@charlottesville.gov (for Charlottesville based-businesses).” Today is the official last day for Rebecca Carter as administrator of Buckingham County, according to the Farmville Herald. Carter moved to the county south of Albemarle in 1986 when her husband was transferred to a job with CSX. Soon after she went to work for Buckingham County as an administrative assistant. In 1994, she became administrator. Carter announced her resignation last December due to her husband’s failing health. Wayne Carter died in April, and Rebecca Carter told the Farmville Herald she plans to spend her retirement helping with the family farm. There’s an effort underway in Albemarle County to extend the Old Mills Trail along the Rivanna south of Pantops. That was one piece of information told to the Pantops Community Advisory Committee during their briefing on the Urban Rivanna River Corridor Plan, a joint planning effort intended to encourage greater collaboration between Albemarle and Charlottesville along a common border. Tim Padalino is a planner in Albemarle’s parks and recreation department.“There is an existing section of the Old Mills Trail as I think most viewers and attendees know,” Padalino said. “It’s approximately two and a half miles in length between Darden Towe Park on the upstream section and the I-64 bridges downstream, the current ending of the trail.”Padalino said the proposed extension would go further downstream to Milton through an area that is currently overgrown and wild. If turned into a trail, people might be able to walk to a spot that is also being planned for a better place to end a journey on the river itself. “So for example the vision for the Rivanna Greenway and Blueway includes future development of an expanded improved public landing and river access sport at Milton as well as some type of a new trailhead facility at Milton,” Padalino said. The extension will pass over land owned by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Padalino said a primitive pathway does exist, but it’s not sanctioned. The idea would be to use crushed stone as a trail bed rather than paving the four mile long, six foot wide trail. There’s also no funding yet for the extension. “It’s not officially maintained and it’s not permanently authorized for public use,” Padalino said. “Some easement acquisitions are still necessary before beginning final project design and funding request and grant applications and everything else that will come in the weeks and months ahead.” The extension to Milton will pass in some section close to the railroad, which will be owned soon by the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority. It will also pass by the Luckstone quarry. “And part of the arrangement and agreement between Luckstone and Albemarle County is to make sure that trail users can remain safe while passing through an active quarry,” Padalino said. Prepared by Albemarle County Parks & Recreation with support from Albemarle County Community Development – Geographic Data Services Division.Padalino made his comments at the Pantops Community Advisory Committee. That group also got updates on development projects under construction or under review. Senior planner Cameron Langille said contractors hired by the Virginia Department of Transportation continue to work on converting the junction of U.S. 250 and Interstate 64 into a “diverging diamond.”“As it stands that project is still on track to be completed at the original date of March 2023,” Langille said.Planners are reviewing a new 1,000 square foot building at the Pantops Shopping Center.“There’s a flat green grassed area there that they’re going to install some new parking into and then the new building is going to be a drive through car wash,” Langille said. Across U.S. 250, the façade of the former Battlefield/Malloy Ford has been demolished. Malloy moved to U.S. 29.“What they’re doing is to try to build the façade back because they’re looking to get some new auto dealerships to go back to that site,” Langille said. A site plan is nearing approval for The Hampton Inn to be built on State Farm Boulevard. A second hotel The Overlook is still in the review process for a rezoning application. “The applicant has told us that they want to continue going through reviews with staff until our comments have gotten to a point where the applicant feels comfortable moving forward to a public hearing with the Planning Commission,” Langille said. Langille said a proposal to build 130 apartment units on South Pantops Drive next to the Overlook Condominiums has been withdrawn. In its place is a new development for 40 townhomes. Two former fast food franchise buildings in the Pantops Shopping Center have closed in the past year. A Burger King remains vacant while the Hardees has a new tenant. “Tobey’s Pawn Shop has gone on in and occupied that space,” Langille said. “They just did some work inside of the building but really didn’t change anything else on site.”The Pantops Community Advisory Committee will next meet in August and will take off the month of July. Time for another subscriber-supported public service announcement! The Friends of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library are having a Warehouse Sale at Albemarle Square Shopping Center (300 Albemarle Square) Friday, July 9 through Sunday, July 11 from 10-6 each day. There will be Fiction, Mysteries, SciFi and Fantasy, Cookbooks, Military, Biographies and YA and Children’s Books There will be a capacity limit of 80 shoppers. Proceeds benefit our regional public library system, JMRL, serving Charlottesville, Albemarle, Greene, Louisa and Nelson.*Finally today, time to go through some of the June 23 meeting of the Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board. To recap, that’s the federally-mandated body that approves transportation funding. It’s made up of two Charlottesville City Councilors, two Albemarle Supervisors, and the head of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Culpeper District. The MPO adopted a resolution supporting an effort by the city of Charlottesville to seek additional funding to support the Meadow Creek Trail. Chris Gensic with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department said the city received a Transportation Alternatives grant of $300,000 two years ago for the project, which according to the staff report was for “the design and construction of a bike and pedestrian bridge across Meadow Creek as part of the U.S. 250 Commuter Trail from Hydraulic Road to Brandywine Drive.” That amount included $75,000 in local funding. However, that amount will not be enough to cover the project.“After doing some discussions with VDOT and thinking it through, we came up with a plan where A, you can’t just build a bridge that isn’t connected by a full multi-use path,” Genesis said. “There’s paths in that area but they are recreational dirt surface paths. In order to construct the entire project, to get all the funding in at once and hire one contractor and just get it all done, we’ve decided to apply for a second round of funding.” The request this year is for $500,000 and will require $135,000 in local funding as a match. A second city department is also making a Transportations Alternative Project grant request to fund the existing Safe Routes to School program for the next two fiscal years. More specifically, the funding would cover the cost of a full-time coordinator.“That coordinator helps to implement programs in the city schools, things like Bike and Walk to School day events, helmut giveaways, neighborhood bike repair,” said Amanda Poncy, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. “Working with the city school division to better understand how kids are getting to school, and also building a website and social media presence.”The MPO approved resolutions of support for both, and a third for a planning grant for future of the Amtrak station on West Main Street. Jessica Hersh-Ballering is a transportation planner with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. “This is a small station but it serves a lot of riders,” Hersh-Ballering said. “The size of the station doesn’t currently meet the needs of our numbers of boardings and alightings and with continued investment by the state into rail and passenger rail, it will continue to not meet those needs.”If funded, the TJPDC would create a master plan for the site. More on all three of those projects as 2021 continues. We’ll also hear more the rest of the year about the candidates for projects for consideration in the next round of VDOT’s Smart Scale process. The deadline isn’t until next year, but pre-selection work is underway. Potential projects for the MPO to consider are:A roundabout at the intersection of District Avenue and Hydraulic RoadAn extension of Hillsdale Avenue to the U.S. 250 bypassA bike and pedestrian crossing of the Rivanna River Multi-modal improvements for Avon Street between Mill Creek and Belmont Bridge Multi-modal improvements for 5th Street between Southwood and Harris RoadA grade-separated interchange, or “flyover” at U.S 250 and U.S. 29 Interested in more information in any of these stories? Take a look at the video. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll try to help. That’s what I am here to do! A “flyover” interchange was suggested as a candidate by a member of the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

D'fhógair an Roinn Iompair inné go bhfuil Scoil an Bhaile Nua i Maigh Cuilinn ar cheann den 170 scoil a d'éirigh leo maoiniú a fháil i gclár de chuid na Roinne agus an tÚdarás Náisiúnta Iompair…. clár dar teideal ‘Safe Routes to School'.

Hendrik Broekelschen, a program coordinator for the City of Tigard, talks about the return of Streets for People, the debut of Move4May, and the continuation of Safe Routes to School. You'll also learn about pizza toppings, naps, and bike adventures. For Your Playlist: The Long and Winding Road by The Beatles Host: Kent Wyatt, Communications Manager  

A couple months ago, we came across an article—probably the result of a Google alert—in which a woman running for city council in Menlo Park, CA mentioned Strong Towns in a discussion about the need for incremental housing development. We followed her story and were excited to learn that she won her election. Now we’re pleased to feature her on our latest episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. Jen Wolosin, like so many Strong Towns advocates, is someone who humbly observed where people in her city were struggling and then stepped up to try and change the situation. In her case, it was seeing how dangerous a nearby street was for kids trying to bike or walk to school.  It was a problem for her own children, but she also recognized how many other children were being impacted too—especially children who couldn’t get a ride from a parent instead. So Jen investigated. She contacted people, she showed up at meetings, she built a network of fellow advocates, and eventually she founded a group called “Parents for Safe Routes” to make local streets safer.  She went on to sit on several local committees and eventually, took that next step to run for city council, and won. We know you’ll learn a lot from Jen’s story of transforming from someone who saw a problem, to someone who was taking action, and eventually, to someone who would get to make city decisions as an elected official. She’s got tons of advice for you at the end, too, about how you can embark on a journey like hers. Additional Show Notes Jen Wolosin’s website Parents for Safe Routes website Chattanooga Civics podcast Strong Towns Action Lab 2021 Local-Motive Tour Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.

Leslie Phemister is the Transportation Liaison with South Suburban Mayors & Managers Association (SSMMA) in East Hazel Crest, Illinois. Among the many services SSMMA provides to its 35 member municipalities is awarding and administering $7 million in annual federal transportation dollars, and Leslie manages that as well as helps communities win millions more in county, state and federal transportation grants. Leslie has leveraged her 13 years of experience developing Safe Routes to School plans, community active transportation plans, and Complete Streets policies to transform how all those dollars turn into streets and trails that work for and benefit everybody - drivers, walkers and cyclists. She shares her insight and tips on how your town can do more for cycling and walking, PLUS...we have breaking news with Leslie on the GINORMOUS Chicago Southland trail projects and connections in store for 2021.Acronyms in this podcast:CMAP - Chicago Metropolitan Agency for PlanningIDOT - Illinois Department of TransportationNIRPC - Northwest Indiana Regional Planning CommissionSSMMA - South Suburban Mayors and Managers AssociationSTP - Surface Transportation ProjectWOW - not an acronym, just our reaction to all that Leslie & SSMMA do for walking and cycling.

Keith Benjamin serves as the Director of the Department of Traffic and Transportation for the city of Charleston, South Carolina. In his position he oversees all transportation maintenance, planning and partnerships at the local, county and state level. He is also the city's representative on the CARTA Transit Board, Charleston Aviation Authority and the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments' Policy Committee. Previously he served in the Office of Policy Development, Strategic Planning and Performance as well as led the Office of Public Liaison at the US Department of Transportation.   Prior to his Federal service, Keith was Community Partnership Manager for the Voices for Healthy Kids Community Consortium with the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. In this role, he was responsible for the recruiting and developing of public and private partners that were dedicated to creating healthy accessible and safe communities across the nation. At the national, regional and local level, Keith provided technical assistance to policy campaigns in underserved communities, built coalitions, increased leadership capacity, engaged elected officials, created advocacy resources and led The Nation Active Transportation Diversity Task Force.   Keith has also previously represented the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO advocating on behalf of 200,000 members and retirees and also served on Capitol Hill with Senator Carl Levin, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, the Committee on House Administration, Representative Kendrick Meek, and the late Representative Donald Payne.   A 2019 NACTO Leadership Fellow, and delegate to Kenya and Ethiopia with the American Council of Young Political Leaders, he has served as 2018 Next City Vanguard Fellow, a member of the National League of Cities Advisory Panel on Health Disparities, the Better Bike Share Partnership Equity Panel, the National Working Group on Healthy Food access and the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, Citizens Advisory Committee.   Keith Benjamin is a graduate and Deans awardee of Swarthmore College, and comes to Charleston with his wife Tiffany Nicole and son Kingsley Randall.

With almost half of Eagle Mountain City's population under the age of 18, schools and accessible routes to schools are a major area of focus in our rapidly growing community. Rex Brimhall, Director of Transportation for Alpine School District and Assistant City Administrator Paul Jerome join Mayor Westmoreland to discuss efforts to increase communication between the city and school district and planning for future growth.

On this Podcast, your host Jill Hutson, welcomes LeeAnne Fergason from the Oregon Department of Transportation to talk about the Safe Routes to Schools Program! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/upstreamph/support

In this episode, we take a look at Pete's recent climate proposal and touch on the climate town hall that happened last night (9/4/19). We also take a deep dive into Pete's history in South Bend and how his message and actions towards that of climate change have been a guiding force for his mayorship. Pete's climate crisis proposalhttps://peteforamerica.com/climate South Bend PoliciesIn 2015, Established Annual Lamppost Lighting Program, Providing Homeowners With Self-Install, Solar-Powered Lampposts For Their Front Yards. “The City of South Bend Department of Public Works is now accepting applications for the 2019 Lamppost Lighting Program, which assists homeowners with lighting enhancements in their neighborhoods. The program offers easy self-install, solar-powered lampposts for residential front yards. […] Since 2015, the Division of Engineering has conducted a residential Lamppost Lighting Program as a part of its Light Up South Bend initiative. The purpose of Light Up South Bend is to improve residential neighborhood safety through the installation of additional street lighting, including both street lights and residential lampposts.” [City of South Bend, 7/11/19] For The 2019 Program, Lamps Were Discounted Based On Target Factors Including Income. “The cost-share program is available to homeowners in the city. For 2019, the City has selected two target areas based on income, number of vacant lots and need for lighting in the neighborhood. Homeowners who live within the target areas will pay a lower share of the total cost: Within target areas, homeowners pay 10% of total lamppost cost: $50.00. Outside target areas, homeowners pay 50% of total lamppost cost: $250.00.” [City of South Bend, 7/11/19] In 2016, South Bend Used A Grant To Install 90 Solar Panels To The Century Center, A Move That Would Offset Over 19 Thousand Pounds Of Coal Annually And ‘Significantly Reduce’ Operating Costs Over The Next 15 Years. “The city has installed 90 solar panels atop Century Center as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city and save taxpayer money. The photovoltaic panels are expected to offset emissions by the equivalent of 2,015 gallons of gasoline or 19,104 pounds of coal annually, according to a news release. The panels were installed with a matching grant from the Solar Uniting Neighbors program and are part of a larger project that includes new heating and cooling systems and light fixtures. Consisting of $5 million in energy improvements, the project is expected to reduce operating costs at the center by a significant amount over the next 15 years. The new panels are part of an initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions citywide, and save taxpayer money, with more energy-efficient buildings and a clean-fuel vehicle program.” [South Bend Tribune, 6/23/16] Buttigieg: “I’m Proud That We’re Setting An Example In Reducing Emissions And We Will Continue To Explore Solar And Other Renewable Energy Sources To Ensure A Greener, Cleaner And More Sustainable City.” [South Bend Tribune, 6/23/16] In June 2017, Buttigieg Announced That South Bend Would Be Joining The Mayor’s National Climate Action Agenda, A Coalition Of Cities “That Embrace The Principles Laid Out In The Paris Agreement.” “Mayor Pete Buttigieg today announced today he intends for the City of South Bend join with cities and states that embrace the principles laid out in the Paris Agreement. ‘South Bend has already been directly affected by climate change. Meanwhile, renewable energy and green infrastructure industries are already creating jobs here. Withdrawing from Paris would hurt our community and our economy. Since President Trump has decided that America will no longer lead on this issue, South Bend will join cities and states around the country to continue addressing climate change, even if it means leaving Washington behind.” [City of South Bend, 6/02/17] Buttigieg: “We Will No Longer Wait On Washington For Leadership.” “South Bend has already pursued sustainable practices such as investment in energy efficient buildings, renewable energy, LED lighting, alternative fuels for our vehicle fleet, and keeping yard waste out of landfills. Moving forward, we will engage with local partners and with national efforts like the Mayors’ National Climate Action Agenda. I call on our leaders in Washington to courageously outline a path to a stable climate. But we will no longer wait on Washington for leadership. Cities can lead on climate change, and South Bend will be among them.” [City of South Bend, 6/02/17] Publicly Supported Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, One Of The First Mayors To Speak Out Against Trump’s Decision To Withdraw America From The Paris Agreement. “One of the first mayors to speak out after Trump’s Thursday announcement was Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto, who was appalled that the president used his city to justify his decision. […] ‘If you are a mayor and not addressing shifts in changing weather patterns or preparing for the impacts of climate change you aren't doing your job,’ Peduto, a Democrat, said in a statement. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted his support of Peduto of Thursday. ‘All climate change is local,’ Buttigieg said. As evidence, he said one of South Bend’s worst problems last year was ‘a climate disaster,’ referring to extensive flooding caused by an historic rainfall. By contrast, one of the area's best job creators is a solar company, which has brought 50 full-time jobs to the city, he said.” [Indianapolis Star, 6/02/17] During 2018 State Of The City, Announced That South Bend Would Also Be Joining The Global Covenant Of Mayors For Climate And Energy, Commit To “Measuring Greenhouse Gases, Setting Ambitious Reduction Goals, And Creating A Community-Wide Plan To Cut Emissions.” “When it comes to climate change, federal inaction compels cities to lead instead. South Bend will do our part. Last summer we joined the U.S. Climate Mayors in pledging to support the climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement. Tonight I am announcing that South Bend will join the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. Joining this international coalition means we commit to measuring greenhouse gases, setting ambitious reduction goals, and creating a community-wide plan to cut emissions.” [City of South Bend, 3/14/18] In Effort To Meet Greenhouse Gas Benchmarks, Converted The City’s 218-Vehicle Fleet To Hybrid, Natural Gas, Or Electric Consumption. “We are already underway toward some of these goals. The City’s clean fleet of 218 hybrid, natural gas, or electric vehicles has already saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our [compressed natural gas] solid waste trucks alone have already saved 1,600 tons of greenhouse gases and over $200,000.” [City of South Bend, 3/14/18] By 2019, Announced That 95 Percent Of The City’s Solid Waste Fleet Runs On Compressed Natural Gas Converted From The Human Waste It Transports. “We have converted 95 percent of our Solid Waste fleet to run on compressed natural gas, and most of that now comes from converting human waste to biogas—fueling our City trash trucks in a closed-loop system our team has called “poop-to-power” to make our services more efficient.” [City of South Bend, 3/13/19] In 2018, South Bend Unveiled Its First Electric Vehicle Charging Station, Covering Two Dedicated On-Street Parking Spots. “Mayor Pete Buttigieg and the City’s Office of Sustainability will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for its first electric vehicle (EV) charging station on Wednesday, April 11 at noon. The ribbon cutting celebrates the installation of the station at the southeast corner of Jefferson and Lafayette Boulevards in downtown South Bend. […] ‘As a mid-sized urban community, South Bend is ideal for electric vehicles,’ said Mayor Buttigieg. ‘More and more people are switching to these cleaner and more efficient cars, and the City is planning its infrastructure for a greener future.’ […] The dual-port Level 2 EV charger serves two dedicated on-street parking spots across from the County-City building. Parking and charging are free for a two-hour maximum. Electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles must be plugged in during the two-hour parking period or risk getting a parking violation. Non-electric vehicles parked in the EV spaces will also be ticketed.” [City of South Bend, 4/09/18] South Bend Green Corps: One Of Three Programs In The City’s 2019 $1 Million Investment To Alleviate Repair Costs For Homeowners, Focusing On Energy And Weatherization Improvements. “‘The city and community are investing more than $1 million in our neighborhoods,’ Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Monday. ‘We’re doing everything we can to help homeowners like Lisa improve conditions in their houses.’ The announcement fits with the 2019 priorities Buttigieg laid out last year, with a focus on improving quality of life for residents and a stronger emphasis on working with neighborhoods. […] the South Bend Green Corps, will help both renters and homeowners make basic energy and weatherization improvements, provide home assessments and lead tests, and provide education on reducing power bill costs.” [South Bend Tribune, 1/15/19] During 2019 State Of The City Address, Buttigieg Detailed The Ways South Bend Was Made More Walkable For Residents And Visitors. “Walking down Main Street just a few years ago, shoulders squared a little bit against the rush of four lanes of one-way traffic evacuating the downtown at rush hour, you might have wondered aloud about whether we could ever get the Hall of Fame off the city’s books and back on the tax rolls…Now you can make out the new facade of that building as you walk or bike along that same street, past the statue of Dr. King and Father Ted and the street trees and flowers maintained by DTSB, and cross paths with guests from one of three hotels, see diners headed to or from dozens of restaurants, or—the most striking change—run across hundreds of people who don’t just work or recreate downtown, but live here. Put simply: downtown South Bend is back. […] We’ve paved over 140 lane miles of street and replaced nearly half a million feet of curbs and sidewalks since 2012, most recently including new sidewalks and curbs near Monroe and Studebaker schools as part of the Safe Routes to Schools program.” [City of South Bend, 3/13/19] Announced That As Part Of The 10-Minute Walk Initiative, South Bend Was On Track To Ensure 80 Percent Of Residents Would Be Within 10 Minutes’ Walk To “Quality Green Space” By 2020. “Maintaining a first-rate parks system isn’t just about enjoyment—it’s about equity, value, and health. That’s why we’ve joined the 10-Minute Walk initiative, which challenges cities to ensure that all residents are within ten minutes on foot of quality green space. We’re on track to reach 80 percent access by the end of 2020, unlocking benefits for thousands more South Bend residents.” [City of South Bend, 3/13/19] Additionally, Noted That South Bend Was Only One Of Two Indiana Cities To Be Classified As A Silver Lever Bicycle Friendly Community. “Thanks to our infrastructure investment and the enthusiasm of partners like the Bike Michiana Coalition, we’re now one of two Indiana cities to be designated a Silver Level Bicycle Friendly Community.” [City of South Bend, 3/13/19] Follow On TwitterLety - https://twitter.com/GoodGuyPete2020 Michael - https://twitter.com/michaelyoder81Ryan - https://twitter.com/ryanyazelSponsorIf you are interested in starting your own podcast, check out www.truthworkmedia.com. We will coach you from conception to iTunes! 

Kathryn Garvey takes us to school and tells us about bringing Safe Routes to School to Chagrin Falls, and what it’s like being the Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools Board President for the past 4 years. We talk about initiatives in the area, the joy of being a crossing guard, and issues facing today's students in this week’s Best.Podcast.Ever. Connect with Kathryn through LinkedIn or Facebook. Learn more about Safe Routes Chagrin at saferouteschagrin.com, where you can also sign up to be a volunteer crossing guard. The Grand Opening of Chagrin Falls Intermediate School will be on August 17th. Check on its progress at chagrinschools.org/Construction.aspx Visit apieceofmollysmind.com to buy Molly’s new book Blossom. Find Molly at the Blossomtime Glow on May 23rd to get your copy signed. The New Yorker Radio Hour featured our own Molly Gebler last month, and you can listen at www.wnycstudios.org/story/new-approach-dementia-care. In the program, she talks about The Lantern’s memory care program. The CEO of Lantern, Jean Makesh, was our guest on episode 78. You’ll notice Alex’s microphone sounds a bit distant a few times in this episode. You’ll still hear him, and we hope you still enjoy the listening experience. Just a heads up. SHOW NOTES Grandma Molly gets a scare and races to the Kennedy Center; Molly adds Blossom to her achievements; Culture in Cleveland; Introducing Kathryn Garvey The problem of jaywalking and bringing Safe Routes to School in Chagrin; Bringing parents on the team and strategic planning; measuring success and creating good citizens; Changing infrastructure and mapping solutions; The joy of guarding crosswalks The life of a School Board President; Pressing issues; Addressing mental health and new stressors for current students Kathryn’s magic wand; Reviewing school board progress and accessibility Stop worrying if your company is vulnerable to lawsuits or liability and schedule a confidential, no-cost CM6 Vulnerability Check with Gertsburg Law Firm. Alex will walk you through the minefields in your documents and key processes and tell you how to fix them yourself. Call 440-571-7774 or e-mail mc@gertsburglaw.com to schedule your CM6 Vulnerability Check today. Explore the full CoverMySix legal audit suite at covermysix.com.

Find your voice - Episode 11 - My Little Spartan - Michael V Kalisperas #11Tagline: "Unleash your inner spartan..."Apologies in advance for the sound quality on my end. Technical issues certainly played their role. But in true spartan fashion we kept going.Michael Kalisperas life turned upside when his son was hit with a number of health conditions due to the neglect of a midwife. Sadly his beautiful son's life had changed which would have a knock on effect to Michael and his family.However determined to not let this get him down, Michael continued to take action and let his excuses be a thing of the past. Realising his own excuses and rationales to avoid doing the hard stuff are so insignificant compared to the battles his son, and daughter face on a daily basis he ensured he crushed his goals.A successful property investor, an author, a father and loving husband Michael story is one which touched my heart.I reached out personally when I first heard his story because he genuinely changed my whole perception on the way I view my life or sometimes feel about my own situation.I urge you all to ignore the sound defects, which I take full responsibility for and listen to this incredible man's story.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikekalispera (Personal)Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EffusiveMarketing/ (Facebook group)Michaels book: https://amzn.to/2RUZ7MS#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so it's very rare thatI will stop a podcast especially at theend of it just to kind of find out whothe individual is now I'm not saying Idon't get inspired or motivated bypeople but generally speaking I'm justkind of excited for the next podcasthowever on this particular occasion afew years ago I actually pause thepodcast towards the end of the show nowthe only problem was I still had therest of my car journey to go so I waskind of sitting in silence but it wasworth it because I really wanted to senda message to this individual who I'm nowvery grateful to have on my podcast andI sent a message out to Michael to kindof say thank you for the inspiration forthe motivation and more importantly Ihope things really do progress a littlebit easy for him I suppose in life andspeaking to him in this interview it'sdifficult to say how things got easierbut one thing I can say is that he'sattitude is still the same he'swillingness to just go out there andtake action and not be a victim of hiscircumstances is fantastic and that'skind of what this podcast is about it'sabout eliminating your excuses it'sabout pay with the cards that you'redealt with it's about literally thinkingokay this is what's happened now how doI change this how do I go out into theworld and really find my voice and kindof write my own story so I think I'mgoing to leave it thereI just want to say before it starts Idid have some teething issues with theWi-Fi so we actually have to do a zoomcore wherewhich was fine for videos butunfortunately some of the Sam when I wasediting it back wasn't quite as clear asI had hoped because I was using mylaptop speaker as opposed to my mic thatI'm now recording this intro with sohopefully you can bear with this becauseI think more important than the soundquality is the message and the storybehind Michael's life so without furtherado let's get this interview on the wayokay so I am here today with my courseobviously I want to say thank youMichael for taking time out of your dayand there how are you doing today youngI'm very well thank yougood stuff good stuff so I think it'simportant for the listeners to reallystart to understand your story fromyourself so if you could please explainhow you progress through life yeah sureprogress through life as it seems like aI'm 42 in them in literally a couple ofweeks time so it's February you know sonot long I'm gonna be 42 so other knowwhere to begin to go through the wholelife scenario but I've done quite a lotof things I guess I could go back toeven school where I would say I wasprobably not the best at school and notreally someone that was a you know inthese special sets as they call himbecause I wasn't really interested inschool I didn't feel the vibe at schoolI just didn't you know bond with theteachers if I'm being honest but my lifecompletely changed where when I went tocollege and you meet a different type ofteacher and different environment and itwas a bit more more creative more myfeeling you know what cuz I've alwayscome from a creative background I'vealways been like an artist as such andthen I ended up pretty much ending upgoing to to university ended up at deMontford University and doing them so wecall multimedia design and marketingbasically which was basically it wasmultimedia and I left there and a lot ofmy friends ended up in the 3d world fromfrom from those sort of forces and endedup her kind of like playing games forSony Playstation so I'm got a real whileyeah got really good friends I'm quitewell in that and then and I ended upbasically showcasing my work they theyasked for a few people to earnto showcase their work at an exhibitionin London I think it was the Olympia Ican't remember the actual name of thevenue from being asked me so many yearsago and it was a big place and and theyhad about I don't know six of us theshowcase our stuff so they picked peoplethat they wanted to showcase at thisshow and it was just like a sort of likegreatest show and Khaitan story short Igot a head hunted by my boss back thenCharla Crais for the BBC ended upworking at the BBC basically doingdesigns and websites for them and yeahwe touched on many many areas it waswithin a group of people as a lot ofthese companies are and so I was in thedesigner group and basically designwebsites ranging from Teletubbies tocrime watch Top Gear yeah yeah very veryvery very very varied set of you knoweven like you know History Channel maybewe've seen so it was really it was adepartment called fracture and learningback at the time I think they've got ridof the actual Department have somethingelse it's called a different name nowyeah and I was in and I didn't staythere as long as I could of I decided toleave I don't know what it was I comefrom originally London actuallyironically but most of my life wasbrought up in a small village calledMulford where they've got the movinhills and more than spring water and allthis kind of thing and it is a bit likehouse on the prairie kind of thing andas when I lived there I can't wait toget out and you know escape and get intoUniversity and all that sorcerer and andmeet people and but when you go to thelike concrete jungle and kind of thinkon what god what is this AZ yeah yeahit's kind of like we start realizing youknow my dad says it is well he lived inthem the most of his life I actuallycame over here with nothing I mean heliterally had no money for shoes heliterally came with nothing from fromCyprus and he started up and he's donewell for himself through hard graft andhe he said to me I will I won't go backto London even if someone pays me youknow younot because he doesn't like Londondidn't love it you just just just founda different vibe somewhere else simpleas that and I think for me it's the samefind different vibe I still go to Londonoften I'm going for five days literallyin the next day date in half I'm goingthere for five days you're going in outof business and meet people and you knowso yeah it's a it's I love it a littlebit but to live there it's a differentworld he's in itdifferent world I lived there bought ahouse on the outskirts of it was a waswell II did the Olympics actually nowreally wish I didn't sell it I ended upselling it because I got squatter's youbelieve that I so that's my first trueinvestment and actually that propertynow is worth about seven hundredthousand I bought it about 115 I thinkit was i sold actually actually i onlyhad it for a year and I sold it but Imade 40k profit in that point that's loque ya I can't complain and it was a butstill I can't complain absolutely mypoint of doing it in keeping up was Ialways I always thought back there Iused to watch location occasionally allthose programs and I always wanted tobuild my own house I just wanted mightget buy land above my house and you knowobviously working in London you knowyou've got to be pretty sorted you knowsign up and bloody you know 23 years oldor whatever was coming about what andyou know the reality is that to buy landin Londonabsolutely from some guy in Morphin youknowand yeah just bought that property nothe plan was to keep it butunfortunately got screwed over yeah yeahand I was kind of like I just lost thewill to live my eyes I have to get ridso yeah ventually got rid of them andthey trashed it as well because althoughI Franky refurbished it and they trashedit which was really nice of thembut hey and it's one of those and it I'mback in it now yeah back into propertywell I wanted to do it quicker if I'mbeing honest with you I bought my ownhouse back in Melbourne after I sold mymy house therebought my own house back in well whenthat was brick building you knowsomething come up whilst we're comingout of the recession a boy at therecession period which was the worstthing can do I look because I'm soparanoid I was stuck on a highfixed-rate back of n so back then whenrates were going down to ridiculousamounts I was on a 6% or something crazyand it was but it was high right at thewrong time but there was there's off atthis something there's nothing betterthan having a peaceful kind of like youknow as long as you can work bloody harddid all the hours of possibly do tocover it and literally you like workingand everything was going straight intothat pretty much but I truly believe youknow if you can get through the hardtimes that you know the green the greensgrowing you know absolutely is notgrowing yeah so no it was a it was worthit it was worth it and there's my myfirst house and I say proper house 5bedroomed detached properties in it yeahlots of people of them you know donethings with you know the great thingsbut at the time that was the right thingabsolutely how so some wonderful thingisn't it yeah absolutelyso that's took you back into property Iused still actively a property investorknows that where you kind of callyourself or ya know it's a bit weirdbecause I mean I think digress in thatlast question I'm I got back intoproperty after my son was made severelydisabled basically we basically had mybeautiful son bornVasili born completely healthy came homewith him completely normal and then amistake by the Midwifenot following certain procedurebasically ended up with a catalogue ofmistakes not just the Midwife we forgavethem publicly in the newspapers which ispretty damn hard to do because you knowthere was blatant mistakes I mean whenyou go to the report that they did itwas like there was several mistakes andit basically you know from having abeautiful child born healthy coming homeyou know healthy we've got a child nowthat's severely disabled trapped in hishot and wheelchair pretty much trappedin his body and declared blind deaf withspastic cerebral Z so I mean he's realcontrol is his tasteyou know and that was hard we were toldhe was blind to completely weave andsort of like therapy and all sorts ofstuff we research in America and and youknow not too long ago we had somereports saying that he's they put someprobes on his head and the reckon hecould see now and that really just aboutthat he was completely deaf but wepainful taking a decision while they'reyoung to put them through horribleoperations but but we put him through anoperation that has given him like therobotic sound if you know I mean so okhe's got something called Cochlear'swhere they kind of drill into the headthey put a magnet processor goes on thatand then they put some probes orwhatever goes straight down into thecochlea and now that goes back to aprocessor and so he can hear like andthe best way I describe it to people iswhy we've been described we've been toldit is Americans used to talk yeah that'show he can hear pretty much so he'llpick some things up certain spectrumsome sounds he might not be able to pickup but um generally you know but hereacts to me he knows me his mom heknows that's the love it definitelyresponses without that just give me anexample but the amount of light therapythey put on him is basically that youput it had he his blood was poisonedpretty much had to do platoons but theythe way they can sort of negate thatthat the increase of bilirubin whichhelped cause brain damage was put himunder the lights and they did that for alot of premature children actually butbut they put him under the lights and hewas that much under the lights that heactually looked like a black child andhe was you know you know at work witholivey skin but generally kind of whiteyou know but he look like a black childand you know I will never forget andI've got him on my phone I meanliterally I've just got him on my phoneand it's a reason to have a picture ofhim on my phone like this the reason whypeople think it's probably weird why doI have him as a screen saver as my childwith all these tubes in him you know uphis nose on his arms everywhere probeseverywhere and looking it's likecompletely you knowokay but the reality is I'm really proudof him that's why that's his that's hisdefining moment you know they survivedthat and no matter how much crap hashappened since in the last almost sevenyears literally I look at that photo andwhen I'm feeling it and I've had a lotof crap come on trust me within a lot oflocals when I'm really feeling thatthinking how dare I even complain youknow I complain this kid has gonethrough everything you know and hesteals your perception and killseverything that is your lifee absolutelyyeah yeah I'm even using that now on mydiet I'm on I want to call it alifestyle change a lifestyle yeah I lovethat change but I've lost like almost Iwas it I was 17 pound 17 stone - alrightand I put on weight free depression 17pounds - - and with just over threeweeks on and I'm I'm 1510 now so babyit's a big drop for a short period timeand that's because of him you knowbecause I just think I thought screwthis I can't I can't keep killing myselfabsolutely but it's a property yeah I'dsay I'd say that was my defining momentI needed to do something to help my sonand to have my family well we're inhospital whilst all that stuff was goingon with transit bills coming in neededto pay and what people don't show you isyou know obviously you don't have thesupport you know the supports maybe lateIran after a while a little bit ofsupport here in there so it's charitablesupport you know if you get a casethrough negligence then you get supportlater on down the linebut even then you've got support wherepeople assume or you know you thoughtyou got proper support your support soit's actually like that last night youknow I had about four hours sleep whichis standard now most people don't getthat they think that's weird but that'sstandard for us and like we've got withthree carry Shaw so you know my wife andI cover in that you knowI got full-time care 24/7 well he'ssupposed to Apple we've never hadfull-time 24 not for seven years it'sjust impossible it's just we struggle toget people you know what you get it it'slike it's like yeah unfortunately ourhome has become a business in terms oflike it's a care home you know but youknow what in the last year he's beenreally stable so you know it's taking alot more there's less hospital visitsand stuff like that so you know he'sbeen really really stable and you knowhe sees making massive massive strides Imean he was declared blind he wasdeclared deathwe know he can see now he's using on Iguess how much he can see we don't knowI truly believe it's with the therapy wedid with that research we did withChristine Ramon which basically involvedputting a torch in the eyes andswitching on and off watch the peopleopen and grow he'd never met a flinch totalk through the light and he couldflinch and then so at night me and mywife throughout the night with takingturns and just through four hoursyou know switched it has to be tungstennot a blue like they can screw throughthe eyes er it has to be like thoseold-fashioned boulders you know yellowones and yeah and you just watch hisbody so he's like my sergeant is I Irecite which open and grow grew andclosing and and yeah off and theneventually after months of doing thatonce I think is my wife in the in thebathroom she was he wasn't sleep andseals up with him and she was just doingit bless her persevering on and she'sjust called me and I'm not military wentin there and the lights were all off Iput the lights on and I put the lightson because you had a torch and hechanged the hell Wowand she goes let's see he did it to youas well I'm like wow that's crazyso ya know it's mine it's mine so isthat and then again he was fed throughthe tube and we retrained him through alike a milk bottle he couldn't move hismouth off he couldn't in his braindamage basically he's brain damaged butand we used to squeeze the teat you knowand then move his bottom of his chinwith our finger just dissolved so gethim into a sort of like you know any nowhe takes it takes food from the weekendfrom Holly is itit's it's been hard it's been hard manbut you know perseverance what can I sayand that's what it is and I think it'sdifficult because obviously I can'trelate to anything that you've gonethrough in that situation but using thatas an example so my foster siblingssay pastor Simmons there were initiallyfoster siblings we went through specialguardianship so three of my siblingshave had similar what's gonna call itdisabilities growing up as well so forinstance the older one he's got a mentalage which is less than half his agewe've got one who's on the autisticspectrum yeah and when they came into mylife a little bit which is why Iresonate with your story a bit is itchange my whole perception of life andeverything that I used to mourn aboutthe silliest things now I'm grateful forand I know you know we all sending outquotes every single day and we're alltrying this positive beacon of light butI genuinely had them within my followersas well similar to yourself and it'snear when I'm there feeling crappy orfeeling sorry for myself because I don'tknow the car tires flat or somethingsomething daft perspective but thesekids are finding them much harder battlethem then I'm having to fight and yesit's commendable because I don't want tomake this about property because anyonethat wants to know my calling propertiesnew fantastic and you've got podcastsout for that and you can reach out tohim afterwards but this is more aboutyou as a person who's taken this use youchange the perception you've dealt withthe cars that you are handed it's notfair I can't explain only thing anyonecan explain why weird out certain cardsbut all we can do is play with them thebest way that you can a new kind of Iknow you very quickly scaled up afterthat and maybe that's because your backwas against the wall I suppose and yeahyou spy on me I mean there's a myfavorite quote and I promote it in oneof my groups could effusive entrepreneurit's called it's from Jack London andit's a it's basically about you knowplaying a bad hand well basically yeahand there's an ace of cards you know aceof hearts on the card you can you canalways play a bad hand well and sobasically don't even if you you can dofeels like on them on the outside of ityou might feel like you're losing it'show you play or how you react to thatthat counts so example is in propertyis I mean add a commercial toresidential big oneI'm Birmingham it's 15 rooms in the endand it was my my first commercial and mysecond project in property and I prettymuch jumped the gun a bit but we haveeverything complying at us literally andit was really stressful and at the sametime as going through moments or likeI've been for my own health careproblems I was going through cancerscare myself and there's a lot going onobviously my son and you know dealingwith deal certain builders oh my godnightmare and getting things wrong andit was just you know massive learning wehad contamination issues we had we hadall sorts of problems just cracking onbut you know again look at my my son onmy photo on my on my phone and I talkabout my son but I actually used my sonas a metaphor for my family yeah becausemy kids that my children Ellie Maria twogirls they're just as amazing Maria forinstance she's actually disabled as wellbut people don't know it and she's gotsome good Zubaz syndrome where middlepart of her head the brains not fullyformed and really rare and it can happenby being sheared and my bum or I've beenshitty stressed at birth and it can beit can happen from genes and allsomething that it's not our genesbecause we checked them and you know itbasically she's got autistic issues shecould go blind that she grows olderbecause the protein doesn't protect hereyes and all this kind of stuff but shecould have been worse I mean apparentlythey're not supposed to have balance andcan't walk but she she fires us all Imean she was she was born and had wasshaken her lace and Eliza liked she hadnystagmus and head wouldn't stop shakingso she's trained a brain to you know toplanets her eyes and and she's learnedyou know to keep straight and she she'stalking to normal school she's doingeverything she's you know she's onlyfour or five now and she's doing reallyreally well and I she's got littletantrum tantrums but not doesn't quiteunderstand certain stuff but I mean I'dsay but now she's still more behavedsome children I know that haven't gotnearly so I classI think I don't sort of put out therejust because she's not disabled reallyyou know he is on paper but she's not sofor me you know it's almost like my sonwas brought there to sort of like helpus deal with the shit that's to come ifthat makes sense my thought was likethat and we didn't have no problemsbefore and all the stuff for theproperty stuff I don't I think whatwould have hit was hard but goingthrough sheer hell you know when my sonreally sort of prepared us a lot for alot of stuff oh it came I understandthat but I think sometimes it's funnybecause I don't wish anyone to really gothrough pain it's not yeah yeah but thatmakes me feel sad when I know people aregoing through pain but sometimes I feelpeople need to experience some level ofadversity you know not to really findfocus and change their life as well andas much as I'm trying to tell peopledon't wait for that wake-up call forexample don't wait for to find out thatyour child may need extra care forexample or you've been hit with theillness get out there and do it now andI suppose it's easier said than donebecause if nobody's having to live thelife Safe Routes that you've lived forexample yeah well like my siblings theydon't really have that agency my it'sfrustrating I get frustrated because I'mlike we are so blessed like beyond meanseven what we're doing now being able tocommunicate how we eyes Isis anythingyeah absolutely I mean there's so muchhorrible stuff out there in the worldand it's just you know it's crazy to youknow to to not be grateful for whatwe've got and and and you know when yousee people that are grateful whenthey've got little and we've all beenthere we've all been them in some way inour minds we've been at the greatest oflows and it could be from spitting outwith your boyfriend or girlfriendit could be splitting up with you knowyou know a JV partner I don't know thepoint a point is you know at that pointit could be serious the most absolutelow you know you could have healthissues cancer issues family there's allsorts we've had that as well in thisperiod and that n is it's not great it'snot great but at the same time you knowI've always said one of my sayings islike you know we will never you knowwe'll neverI don't get my words up today well we'renever given a Golden Pathit was never we never no one promised usanything you know and so and so like ifyou want something you've got to go andget it you either fail or you successfall you know and if you're successfulgreat if you fail get up and do it againand keep trying that and even if you'vegot no money or anything there's alwaysaway you know and you know what worstcomes to the worst I'm dying fromsomething it's if you've got your mindin the right mind and you think you knowwhat I was conceived that's amazing Ilived a few years that's amazing if youget your mind in the right mind youstill be grateful even when you're dyingyou know I mean and we've seen otherwitness people like that you know yeah Ilove that mindset you just touched onsomething and make sure we add it at theend of the show you've got a group youjust say yeah I've got I've got a groupit's called the effusive entrepreneurokay so anything about stuff like theseentrepreneurs is in the name but aboutyour mindset as well well it's actuallyI do marketing I do it mine only amarketing training and that's like alittle group I actually put more effortin my closed group which is people in myarm in a number the thing for me is likeI literally had a VA that was helping meout on that side of thingsand she literally went AWOL live justrandomly went AWOL and I don't know whathappened I really don't know but she'sfrom Philippinesit just went AWOL so yeah looking at adecent VA at the moment I think I foundonewe'll see how it goes but yeah now Ineed to push push put more engagement inthat group from being honest with youokay yeah I know it's a great group I'vegot loads of people about I think about300 people in the group yeah I doengagement but not as much as I likeI've got a couple of other groups havegot one called it's magnetic marketingsystem is another group it's justbasically a really secret one groupwhere it's just the people that I trainarm property marketing getting leadsabout business and all that kind ofstuff an investment it's a small verysmall group at the moment I've got a fewpeople that you guys know some reallygreat people successful people right inthere and yeahso that's going really well gonna beopen that up again soon um yeah justI've got my event in London that'scausing a lot of bloody Wow yeah my sonright that's marketing again it's goingto be we've got we've got a Khadija theapprentice star she's gonna be therewe've got a YouTube expert you know he'shelped Samuel Leeds get from 50,000 to150,000 something a lot you know he'stalking it's all about marketing it'sgonna be it's gonna be awesome and canfit about 480 people at the MarriottHotel in London it's my event bigpressure on me it's only 16th and 17thof March this year prices start at 97pounds but you get actually what we'redoing now we get got this programactually that I'm affiliated to andwe're going to be offering people freeaccess to this program which is you knowpretty amazing yeah any other ticketprices which basically covers theircosts on the bottom ticket easily andbasically they could create landingpages you know can forgive the emailsystem within it so if you want to buildyour own website that's the andtemplates in there so they get that forfreeI haven't launched it yet but you'veheard it here first on our I'm justgonna say you were saying your nervouslyI'm sure you don't need any moremotivation than just to look at yourphone before that exactly exactly thatmay be right yeah okay absolutely that Isee it I mean I guess that thenervousness is the fact that you knowit's a it's a big thing you'd love tofill it out you know you care about itcare about I've got 15 speakers and manycome from abroad there's people like youknow top and marketers making 40 50grand a month you know it's crazy but afigure of guy theretheir partnership guys and and and youknow it's yeah it's it's this pressureyou know but it's great it's great nowI'm like you know I'm one of these likeyou know it's easy for me to go easycoming to go you know what you've got totry these things what does Rob Moore saydon't the risk you know basicallyabsolutely yeah yeah I'm surewell yeah I'm so it's all quite a fewtickets not enough but we've only justlaunched so you know it's a it'ssomething we pushing out there lookforward to it make sure you mediainformation isafter this and I'll send you a signaturenotes it's automated I said it put a lotof people it's good for you know coachesanyone wanting to launch an event anyonethat's in marketing wants to do a bitmore marketing on their property and getsome really great bubbly gonna get sometools for itfantastic okay brilliant so you actuallydoing like more stuff than I knew aboutyou I know I know of course he's afull-time dad and I thought that wouldbe taking up all your time but here youare making your own events andeverything so another question then soyou're successful in what you've done interms of the property you're doing agreat job with your children and yourfamily so what's the day like from themoment you wake up tell you got like 17or yeah I bet I amI wake up about four or five in themorning right sometimes going to bedlate unfortunately but it's not mychoice no that's not by choice that'sactually by habit now that's initiallyit wasn't by choice now if I'm beinghonest with you the reality is I couldsleep a little bit longer but I've justit's just become me now if I can getsleep and I accidently sleep throughthat because all exhausted or whateverand and actually doing this diet it'sreally helping me so if my son doesn'tdisturb me and doesn't wake up and thatyou know I could easily go into 7:00you know easy yeah well it's it's justum it's just nice you know I actuallyget a good rest when I go to like eventsyou know you know so but my schedule isbasically get about four or five I Ialways turn ask me why it's reallystrange but I always always comedownstairs I eat a bananarandal cake I'm not banana manmy first thing I do a banana I go to myson I give him a really big kiss becausehe's exhaust get ready has his dinnerand he's get ready for his he's likespecialist school a given big kiss thegirls are still in bed and my son's lotobviously awake and then I start lookingat my schedule for the day I neverfollow it just to meokay he's organized work just look at ityes I'm aware of it because what happenswhen I start creating a website orlanding page for someoneor final for someone to help convert youknow get people to event or throughFacebook ads or whatever I'm doing forpeople I end up like getting engrossedin the computer and some way it's gonnabe supposed to be an hour it ends upbeing longer so so setting time becausefor me doesn't and and what I do is Ijust make sure I do the stuff and and Imake sure I do it at whatever cost andso I do I literally do that and I tryand mix it with the children like I havethe computer here in the living room momore often on by my bed upstairs on mybed believe in our it's not the bestcomfortable thing to do here because ofthe reception's better there you know abillion you get piece if the kids arekind of well-behaved watching TV I liketo kind of come here in that but if it'stoo noisy I just can't I just can't overthis I've got like a an outbuilding aswell that I converted for a trainingsuite and I've got an office there thatneeds a little bit more finishing offbut it's pretty much burn so I'm gonnastart and can start utilizing that morejust gets a bit cold I've got the heatis on there in that but it's like you gowarm it up for like an hour or so beforeand today I can't be asked you know justa lot stay upstairs on my bed and justdo my work you know not a great thing todo but now I've got a proper PT involvedwith my exercise we're gonna make itthat part of my schedule something to dothis year try and get you know not justuse the lose the the fat actually getsphysically more stronger and you knowgetting care scheduling for that atleast I think for me there's anything onschedule that I want to do I'm pushingmy marketing efforts because a lotpeople while so I've been my propertyjourney you know I've had a few podcastsand interviews and so on I've not reallypromote it'll push what I what I trainedin you know design and marketing and andI've had a few people approached me overthe years from property world and it'slike I've helped them massively I'vehelped people like were there you knowthey might have a 399 ebook and I makethem 15k within a couple of months injust Facebook ads butby promoting a book you know and it'sit's I know I'm good at what I do but Idon'tand III this is my biggest flaw I don'tlike selling I don't like selling andI'm one of rob mores mentors and I'vesigned up to his thing cuz I got reallygood at helping people value theirselves helping them realize their worthand he said something recently he saidhe said something about when people sayoh I don't need to sell myself I don'tneed yeah I don't need to sell myselfpeople come to me that's me that's meman I hate to admit it it's like I get Iget work it just comes to me right butactually imagine what I'd do if I shouldstart promoting myself you know leave itso much on the table yeah I'm leaving somuch on the table almost I almost don'tgive a crap because I'm designing my ownlife you know I mean yeah at the sametime if I really want to get to my goalmy goal is actually to eventually beable to afford to buy an Ironman suitfor my son some sort of give him theindependence thought we know that'sgonna cost millions and if I want to getto that goal at that you know at thatpoint then I'm gonna have to do betterthan this sort of like you know just youknow happy happy that enough workscoming my way and people using me thatway I think I should be you knowprofessionalizing myself a little bitmore and and valuing myself more to thepoint that I should promote myself it'sjust that there's a nervousness ofpromoting yourself I mean I think you'veprobably seen it amongst the the theforums and that people kind of thinkyour guru rising yourself or you knowlike oh god who's another personthinking a minute I had a businessbefore hello you know these peoplebusiness before and what you do inbusiness is you promote a market that'swhat you're supposed to do you knowthey're almost I allow myself to beaffected by other people's judgmentswhich you can't do even myself I mean Ipromote myself a lot more recentlyespecially in the last 12 months interms of like my own brand and me as aperson that initially was the hardestthing I've ever had to do and the wholepoint of like you need to know yourWorth and stuffwe were spoken to me I thinking one ofmy first jobs when I was young as aproject manager and my manager at thetime because I came out of meyou know when they ask you what'sspecial about you give three things asan icebreaker I was like nothing I'mjust I'm just me yeah he told meafterwards because he he listed like afew things that he found special aboutme and long story short he was that ifyou don't blow your own trumpet nobodyelse is gonna in this world because ofthe way the moment is and I don't knowyou always resonated with me and itstill took me the best part of seveneight years later on to real stuff I'mthinking if I can just do this and notreally worry about the engagement andkind of just be like look I've got amessage here I want to share it it comesfrom the heart it's honest if youresonate with it fantastic if you don'tnot a problem so it was difficult for usbecause they used to send it off andyou're kind of looking at your phonethinking what's gonna happen and nowit's kind of like I just Lars a andpeople ask me that how did you writecontent and I say I don't like reallywrite contact a kind of document like mylife kind of things like you've donesomething a property I'll speak about itif it's health and fitness I'll speakabout it if it's like an interestingmeeting I'll just speak about it andhopefully I always try and give peoplesome sort of tangible yeah informationthat they can take away I think youshould be that because I didn't know youwere doing all these amazing crazywonderful things yeah a bit here inthere I do you know I mean I'll get myflap out on flipping social media justto really put myself available to theworld you know that I'm gonna loseweight and I say I wrote i put a visionI put watch this miraculous journey ofthis of me this is anyway and I've doneit in three weeks already there's noultimate accountabilityyou know ridicules you that you're gonnabe it's embarrassinga whole lot the source stuff but at thesame time you know for the first time inmy life we have tried different dietssince what happened to my son I put alot of weight on the first time in mylife I'm facing it head-on so yeah ohyou and look at my fat mass yeah I'mhereabsolutely even my addictions and I callthem addictions because that's all I'veever eat and then it's like I literallyget urges for this stuff isn't my portmy secrets of this diet is I'm facing itand I call it the no BS lifestyle dietokay basically I put Pringles fizzydrinks and I've got a packet of Haribooutside of my bedoh no Quinn okay right and I sleep withthem by the side of my bed and I wakethat with the word webecause I had to face my addictions yeahyeah and it's a bit like that inproperty when people would like go totraining training training trainingtraining training training trainingtraining training the good mentors weresaying you got to do you've got to justyou know and and I you know I'm a coursedrinking I'm proud of it I'm proud of itI'm a course drunk eating for two mainreasons number one it's always good evenif you already know the stuff to go overagain it's good to get reminders rightbut number two and this is the biggestonementors need Mentors even if you'rewhatever level you are and all mymentors have got mentors themselves youknow I mean Nick James is mentorshipI've been under song azuki's mentorshipI mean Rob Moore's mentorship you knowthe reality is and I I mentor otherpeople myself yeah and I truly believethat you you've got to really be what'sthe word humble enough to want to keeplearning absolutely and there's a lot ofpeople that are arrogant and feel likethe only courses well good for you happyyou do not everyone wants to work thatway I actually love people right I lovenetworking I love people but I lovegenuine people that I've got integritythey're true to them certainly I reallycan't stand people that fake I hate itand I can sense them a mile away and andI always when I talk about marketing'sbe true to yourself just be yourself andpeople attract to you and a good friendof ours Camilla does the sa stuff Iwould say so namecan we look oh yeah she's exactly greatand I mentor mentoring in marketing aswell but it's usually just started to befair and and you know she's a reallygreat she's doing massive should bereally successful and she's doing it byjust being herself she's been brilliantyou know and you know we all learn offeach other I've learned a lot of Simon'suchi I've learned a lot of Rob more I'velearned a lot of Nick James you knowI've got another mentor that is you knowdefinitely need him because he's likehe's like a sales machine he reallyknows he's you know he's good he's got aproduct called open with a closingdoesn't do its Leslie it's just like youknow you want my product is I'm worththis much and you know so this is whatit is and he's named my Elwell reallygreat guy amazing guy getting hired bysome really top guys at the momentbecause he's easy really is you knowlegend or what he does and so yeah Iwant to constantly improve I want to beI want to be my ultimate self before Idie and I know more than a lot of peopleknow life it's bloody short manit really is severely because of yourexperiences yeah absolutely yeahyeah I think you touch on quite a fewthings with your whole I'm lookingforward to it but I actually lose 42pounds in seven and a half weeks myselfso what I want to do boxing never go tothe gym and I was a think was about 24at the time and there was like sevenyear-olds two ten-year-olds very cheekylittle kids and I'd to go for a roomwith him so I told the kids because thenI was all the way and I could I couldn'trun more than like 200 meters and all Icould hear him was saying come on oldman come on Batman and all these kind oflike really literally me facing it but Itook I took it personally I was likeI'll get you back and then with a loveworking working my ass off basically forthe next two months it really reallyhelped and there is no magic formula toanything whether it's property whetherit's health and fitness whatever it isliterally you just got to go and do itand then if you you learn a little bityou pivot I hope that's called it on myuncle my own podcast called Mike dropsget okay I guess my drop is call mineyet close and I've interviewed a coupleof a top level you know we're talkingreally high level guys in America mycalls another guy called les Evans and11 there's Evan said a thing to me hesaid he said um he said people thinkthere's an easy route to success butit's all hard work even when it doesn'tlook that way and he said even if you'repeople just speak in the thing they'rejust speaking they're successful fromspeaking andand he's brilliant at that is amazingamazing me he's gonna you know he's he'sadvised people in the White House he'sdone all sorts he's just bum a lot theguys absolutely legend and he's hadbecome a really good friend of mine andand he was saying to me you know Iremember it was on the lines of like Iremember when you said pedal stallpeople like that look big and famous andhe became himself but in the end they'rejust flipping normal people and whatpeople don't understand is that you knowthey want to laugh you know they want toget on you know they don't to be usedand and and there's a lot of truth inthat and there and there's a lot ofpeople do assume they also die theyconnected that way back I used to givehim a lot of my time for free and in theend I ended up blocking him and this iswhere you learn about time for money andit wasn't yeah it was like you everyevery conversation about a heart I'vetough your love to have your lives loveto out Matt me yeah I'd live in aflipping shed and have my son healthyyou won't want my life trust me it's notgreat but you know it's not as great asyou think it is you know and and it wasjust constant constant constant constantlike you know like MV and it wasn't thenice he wasn't moving forward is that Iwant to get 200 houses within two yearsand he was like really unrealistic yeahall right 10x it I you know go for ityou know I hate that comment that wordclinics it got you know I love whatGrant Cardone is about I just hate the10x it that side of it not because Idon't believe in it I believe in itit's just that I see if thrown aroundtoo freely now and and like by peoplethat could potentially really screwtheir lives over if they do try to 10xit you know and where they feel that youknow they've been inspired and they canjust rush ahead you've got to get theeducation in I don't care what you knowyou got to build the foundations he'sgot to build the foundations and andthen and then to exit first you know andthen check out what you know check out aflavor for it and then check out what Xmight be you know I don't like the 2xyou know I'm not doing us a great pointI think we're in thesociety obviously with the wholeInstagram highlight reels and nobody'sreally posting stuff that is like theirbad days of supposed and I supposedindirectly I don't know how but when Iwas getting a bit of traction in likethe property groups it was because I wasjust Oakley admit all my mistakes upsomething I was just documenting againlike listen I am probably the worst guya property talking three years ago I wasa look I made this mistake I've madethis and people resonated with that soindirectly actually helped 9% of thetime it is lychee everyone showing theirbest date on a highlight reel and Ithink we get that thing and then peopleread the secret and it's all thiswishful thinking and it's like listen itis goes back to what you said earlier doit do it you've just got to face it anddo it just exactly I mean madness you'respot on and the crazy thing is is thatI've been exactly the same I've donepodcasts and I've been honest juststraight on you know I'll straight upwith out loud you didn't want to hear itwe didn't want to hear it I'm like youknow and and cut long story short thethe realities that they won't value inmy time but I wasn't violent valuing itI can't blame them it's actuallysomething that I get a trouble from frommy wife so I'm always trying to help asmany people as I can so I'm alwayshaving these one-hour coffees that goingto like one and a half hours orconversation 15 minutes or less yeah andthen at the end of its like I've got notime to spend with my wife for exampleyeah because I'm just trying to help butthen most of those people they'll comeback with pretty much the same kind ofquestions or concerns two months laterhaving done nothingyou're almost yourself and I think I'msimilar to you in that respect which isthere's some great points that you madedays that I need to start my new my timea little bit there yeah not so much Iknow I need to charge for example it'son the faith basis that is this personreally going to do it and what I'vestarted doing as of the last two days istaking calls on the way to the gym soI'm like you've got ten minutes with mefar away I'll kind of give youeverything I've got I know it's workingokay because it kills that time to thegym so yeah absolutely yeah it's noteating a weigh-in time that you which isvaluable time is valuable time time I'vesaid entire book emergency we have youknow in the lane if if if people don'tvalue your timemmm bug you you spell as I and why workwith people that don't value you they'rejust picking and sponging your brainbecause they can't be asked again spendthe money on the courses and theeducation and or go through the grit inthe action that you've gone through inthe pain that you've gone through theyjust want to just you know squeeze yoursponge brain and get all the bloody Evoout you know those people it doesn'tmake us a you know this is not a youknow I'm holy than now I'm perfect I Iknow my share you know this has justjust been honest with the situation youknow so I absolutely love helping peopleI really do it's just some people justdon't value your time enough so okaywe're gonna change gears a little bitwe've spoken about adversity which isone of the main drivers like in yourlife and I don't wish it on anyone to gothrough the same kind of stuff but weall go through something what I wouldask you though is a different questionis about fear so it's probably a commonquestion but I want to know what is yourbiggest fear but I want to stop and takeaway what I think he's gonna be yourfirst answer from doing some Daryl Browntactics here so you can't mention youryour children or your wife in thisscenario but what is your biggest fearas as yourself my biggest fear formyself is not accomplishing my dreamsokay and my dreams are actually yes theyare to be able to get enough money toafford certain things from my family andI'm not supposed to mention them but myactual my dreams are to actually besuccessful and proud enough to know thatyou know that boy in school that was atloss was crap had to have extraeducation was themedyou know classes dyslexic really smashedit regardless he's not I mean and and soyou know for me to start that wouldreally be probably my biggest fear stophim from for me I really I really wantto get aspire to inspire is what I wantto do right and the way you inspire isby doing great things and and thosegreat things could be I give a lot tocharity myself I donated just over fourthousandpounds Christmas do recently you knowand and before that I've donated loadsand even my book my little spot and thatI've written for my son all the all themoney from that including the cost ofmaking it which most people don't dothey has gone to different charities youknow everything wasn't a lot you knowbecause these costs of these profitscarry yeah yeah and even before thateven you know I've just constantly youknow every year given in some form tocharity and the point is this like it'snot because I'm you know I want to beseen as you know are what passive and uhand people that know with me will knowthis is true so I could be a propertymeet in and we're walking up the roadfor me laughter and I'll just givetwenty pounds of baby homeless man Idon't record it I don't you know butpeople that would mean no it yeah Idon't do it for you know I know inLondon wherever I am if I see someoneI'll donate and you know and I don'tcare if they're they look like they'redruggies well it's not at the end of theday I because I'm not gonna judge youknow they can do what the hell they wantwith ityou know I want to give if I've got ityou know and if it helps them it helpsthem I just get I don't need to promoteit or anything that but the reality isalthough ironically there's a promote inthis podcast estrangement but honest islike where we're and it's just merelyanswering your question you know my goalis to aspire to inspire to inspire andif I can do that for my kids and otherpeople and great you know and and if itmeans like you know giving when youhaven't even got it and I've done thatand and you know it's like then you knowyou do you leaving some sort of trail oflegacy wait wait people might notremember me you know but you knowsomeone might you know yeah I don't knowbut at the end of the day it's strange Ihaven't made haven't made it in in mymind a successful property developer ormarketing agency in my mind I've got along way to go but I'll also at the sametime I don't want to have a lot you knowI want to be comfortable I don't want tohave like the two hundred thousandliving rooms and whatacquiring to do well you know I reallydon't I don't envy people like that whenI see people doing well I'm like good onyou I'm yeah I really I never had thejealous I never I just truly think goodon you the ones I don't like are theones that do it and they're they'rehorrible assholes you know I mean thesepeople win don't they yeah yeah okayfantastic no I know that that makessense I think I'm very similar as wellin relation to what you saying there andjust on that analogy song I've had goingoff on a bit of a tangent here peoplewho are quite charitable but they'llnever give to somebody who maybe theyassume is gonna have alcohol and drugsor something and my philosophy hasalways been I mean growing up and theway my mom's always talking is just givewhatever you can give but and the baseis that maybe maybe your donation thatthey will just change that person'sperspective or life and providing you'renot just throwing it at home and maybeyou can just give it a try contact willhave a good day or something so I justgive him that lift that they need alljust to keep him going for another dayso I'd always urge people whatever youcan give this absolutely give but yeah Ican't imagine you being somebody's gonnabe taking a selfie while you're doingthat I mean and the truth is I should beyou know utilizing it for you know butat the same time it's it's not itdoesn't sit rightyou know it doesn't sit right so you'veheard the buzzer it's going off so whatI'm gonna do now is but Mike with threespaces for the next 60 seconds and he'sall I do basically whatever the firstanswer comes into your head please giveme that one and you ready mate I'm coolI'm ready okay we're gonna start inthree two oneokay the ability to fly or be invisiblefly money or fame fame singing ordancing singing Netflix our YouTubeYouTube Marvel or DC are Marvel easilywould you rather know how you were dyingor when you would i how love or moneylove books or movies i love booksactually if you could sit with oneperson in the world for an hour whowould it be I would love to sit withDonald Trump to figure out why the helllooking weird andgo ahead going on I just I'm justperplexed and also kind of yeah it's aweird onethat we interested yeah you're worse bea growing up fighters actually okay andfinally what is your biggest addictionmy biggest might what was my biggestaddiction was slight wrinkles and yeahwrinkles my biggest addiction at themoment is learning junkie for learningand just some Pringles because I'm aPringles fun as well what's yourfavorite cocktail sorry I don't get methinking the next one's on reflectionyeah we've spoken about this earlierwe've spoken about hindsight being awonderful thing how you can teach you toget to where you are quicker easier orwith less heartache for example butknowing what you know now and with yourlife experiences and obviously yourmindset now if you could go back to atime maybe when you were younger maybegoing through college or school and youcan just whisper something in your earknowing how life would pan out for youand just to kind of maybe motivate orinspire that young Michael what wouldyou say I would say you're able to doanything you put your mind to because Ireally believe growing up because I wastold it you know my teacher I didn'thave a good attention span and myteacher must teacher said to me ohyou're gonna end up as a glassblower shewas old fashioned herself and mostpeople didn't really kind of connectwith her if I'm being honest with youbut that really thought I thought whatthe hell you know kind of thing to saythat just because I you know and Iwasn't interested in her lessons I justwould and again it goes down to what weread in property marketing people couldbe connected you know whatever you do init's about attention and connectionright you've got to get the attention tobe noticed and you've got to connect soif you're going to get an investor tocome to you you've got to get theattention you've got to do that one wayor another and then you've got toconnect and you can only connect bybeing you because long term wise youknow it's a marriage you know it'ssimply that absolutely and it's theeasiest thing to do be yourself ratherthan trying be someone else off man donot have some music but I see people mygod and I just cringe and I know that itmakes me cringeI see people they've been II won't even touch into it too much butthere's people that mean there's aparticular person that's training thesame people when they're like they'refollowing the same moves and everythingin their acting the same as this personexactly in every way and it's a it'ssquiggly it's creepy and windy it is andthe problem with it is as well if you'recopying somebody else you're almostrelying on them to do something you knowthe few to follow see as a policy if youjust make your own journey and writeyour own story I've got one thing whereI've got respect for these people that'sall for helping them is they've alreadytaken a step at least they're gettingthemselves out of the shell and they dosomething but but seeing exact copiesit's just yourself yourself it's likehave you ever seen those live videoswhen they're sat there quietly for likeflipping five minutes I'm like I don'tlike it I just it's just great I'm likeI just talk shit for a bit I say topeople okay just talk shit wait topeople come on[Music]and that's not always like to ask myguess is if in 150 years time and youare no longer here but all that existsis a book and it's about your life andsomebody's walking past and they pick upthis book what would the blurb say andalso what would be the title of the bookwell already written it it's called mylittle spot on the globeit says embrace your struggle to findyour strength and pretty much what wetalked about today and and I it has asub heading saying unleash your lip in aspa and because we've all gotten in thispart and and what I mean by that it'snot a judgment thing on Spartans andwhile it's just the fact that you knowagainst the odds it's a metaphorit's against the odds they know they'regonna die but they're fighting all theycan yeah and that's the point at the endof the day we're all gonna freakin diebut let's just see what we can do youknow that's all we can do but you knowyou know the end of a that's why I don'tmind helping people as much as I canbecause that you know any bit of helpyou get out there is whatnice absolutely Granta our future looksalready out yes my little spy Amazonyeah best seller internationalbestseller there you go is it oh wowyeah i 100% put that in the bottom ofand the show notes as well alright it'sactually the first time somebody'salready answered my question and done myquestion but what I always like to askpeople is there is somewhere they cancontact you now I know you're doingamazing things all over the world innetworking marketing property you're anauthor as well there's one place and I'mjust gonna limit it to one but I willobviously add everything else afterwardswhat is the number one place that you'dprefer base for Facebook Facebook I'm 5mI'm maxed out sorry guys so just listenI've got another group page good MichaelV Calais Paris just a baby bear I'd bethere and start using it more nowbecause I'm that's my that's my ownthat's my professional page so just wantthem on to Michael V or try and messageme on on on my one at least and I'm nottry and connect and brilliantly it'sbeen a absolute pleasure like I said atthe beginning I reached out to you longtime we don't know yeah I love yourstory you know that this is fascinatingpromise there's live calls on them youall get busy I haven't managed toreconnect there so and thank you foryour time today you've been doingawesome things as well okay it's good tosee and again like you know we reach outto people that we connect with and likeand so on and you know obviouslyresponded back to you because I knowlike and trust okay you know it worksthe same way you know yeah that's how Isee it and and that's how that's howrelationships grow that's how investorsget involved that's how all this stuffhappens you know it's it's all aboutthat you know so absolutely absolutelyspinning it's been an absolute pleasureand well as well thanks for listeningand remember this podcast is absolutelyfree so all we ask in return is for youto share this with a friend and drop usa 5 star review over on iTunes have anawesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jude Gerace, owner of Sugar Wheel Works, joins us in Episode 46. We talk wheel building, running a small business, being one of the few women in the cycling industry, mentors, getting involved in the community, bike riding, sustainability, Safe Routes to Schools, and a bit about puppies. Hear Her Sports Female where athletes share secrets to speak up, live with power & confidence, and do amazing things.

www.commsolutionsmn.com- We're closing in on the big 2018 election, and for us, it's been intriguing to speak to so many candidates that are running for local office. They have had great insight, and helped us all (I hope they've helped you anyways) to understand what issues our cities, counties, schools, soil and water conservation districts, and sheriffs face. Today, we talk to Nadine Heinrich, who is running for Ward 1 in Ramsey (city, not county). She has decided to rise to the challenge of running for city council after noticing that some things in her city didn't add up. For example, they want to build a bridge over Highway 10 that would be paid for by a Safe Routes to School grant, and the bridge is nowhere near a school. How does that work? Nadine discusses these issues with us that so many of these medium-sized cities face. Sorry for the difference in sound quality on this one, but we weren't in our studio. The conversation is still well worth a listen. In the Local Lowdown, we discuss how certain city council candidates feel the need to declare their party in nonpartisan races. Like in Crystal, where one party has decided to be loud and proud about who is running on their ticket, and then the candidates run on a platform that sounds a lot like the list of items that has already been achieved or is being worked on by their opponents. It's very curious, but they are counting on fealty to a party to win. It hasn't seemed to work (outside of the big cities) yet, but hey, be our guest. Have you checked out our Spotify playlist? At the beginning of each episode Jason quotes some song lyrics that have to do with the subject matter of the podcast. Andrew never knows what they are, but now he can… and so can you! We’ve launched the Spotify playlist: “Community Solutions Music From the Podcast“! You can listen to Roundabout from Yes after listing to Episode 30 on Roundabouts… or kick back and enjoy a rocking playlist just for the thrill of it. We add a new song every week. Subscribe and enjoy! Don’t forget that you can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify, or go out to the PodBabble Podcast Network!

00:00 - Hi it's Brett, I'm back from vacation. Yay. In this first segment, we set up the show, particularly our chat at 2 o'clock about cyclists. Global News has learned cycling fatalities often end with a fine, rather than jail time, for drivers who are deemed at fault. 9:48 - On Friday we are off to a Kindergarten graduation. Seems adorable and a little silly all at once. We will talk about this and engineered achievements as we get closer to Friday. As your kids pass into a new grade, the rumours will abound about "how much homework does this teacher give?" And on the subject of homework, studies are increasingly showing that assigned homework is not necessarily a benefit to students in early and middle years. 17:27 - What should we do with The Bay building downtown? What COULD we do with it? There was a great article from Dan Lett in the Winnipeg Free Press over the weekend, and one of the architects featured and tasked with finding alternate uses is Aaron Pollock, who is our guest. Aaron is a Design Intern with number TEN architectural group. 35:39 - More on the Global News investigation into cycling fatalities, which often don't lead to jail time for drivers who are found at fault. Our guest is Jamie Hilland, manager of the Active and Safe Routes to School Program with Green Action Centre. 53:18 - "U2 on the Inside" - Get all you need to know about the band from the man who promoted them, Tony Michaelides. He tells us about his book "Insights from the Engine Room". 73:30 - Winnipeg Thunder follow-up -- I went to Oak + Oar on Saturday morning to pick up a Thunder hat & t-shirt, and my mind was appropriately blown. The owner & founder of Oak + Oar, Chris Watchorn, joins us again to tell us how they did with sales. Are the Winnipeg FURY next? ALSO, Greg tells a great story about his run-in with a Winnipeg mascot. 85:52 - The trip down Memory Lane continues... remember the Winnipeg Whips? How about the Cyclone? Then, Snake Oil Gets Twisted giveaway. 92:40 - Julie Buckingham tees up THE NEWS

Monday, March 6th, 2017 00:00 - Do you feel safe on the bus? Are you comfortable with your kids taking the bus? 10:48 - Calls 18:18 - cont'd 24:49 - More calls 36:24 - CYCLING STUFF -- Jamie Hilland, Program Manager, Active and Safe Routes to School Program, Green Action Centre. -- Should cyclists here be allowed to do the "Idaho Stop"?-- Delay in report on snow clearing for Active Transportation, won't begin until September-- New report at City Hall is looking at whether to make it the law for adults to wear a helmet when cycling 50:55 - Your thoughts on cycling infrastructure 53:44 - UPDATE on The Neighbourhood Bookstore & Cafe in Wolseley. The shop's owner, Bill Fugler, tells us a good samaritan has given him and installed a grease trap. The city told him last year he needed a grease trap. He says he doesn't cook any food that would need it, and it would cost him thousands to renovate to make the trap fit. City recently told him he can use paper plates and cutlery. Tom Beggs of Tom Beggs Agencies heard this, and donated a grease trap, and had it installed by Mike Love. We speak with Bill, and Tom. 65:59 - Ever put anything in the oven that you shouldn't have? Over the weekend, Greg and his wife were cooking some stuff in the oven, and a plastic cutting board got stuck to the bottom of a cookie sheet. It went into the oven, and melted. 71:10 - Your texts on doing dumb things like putting things in the oven that shouldn't be there.

Fred is an inveterate traveler. He has bicycled, walked, hiked or run in all 50 US states, all 10 Canadian provinces, and on every continent but Antartica. Along the way, he spent time backpacking on some of the world's most renown trails and so far has hiked (some are drive-ups) to the summit of 38 state high points. This year he has biked over 5000 miles and is on course to run/walk/hike 1000 miles. Traveling around the world, he pays close attention to the accommodations offered to active road users. He notes, “It becomes clear how much a country, state or local municipality values and encourages walkers or bikers as I attempt to walk or bike their roadways." Knowing the importance and benefits of safe walking and biking, Fred serves as an advocate on the local, regional and state levels. He has been awarded a Safe Routes to School grant for his local school district, helped design a more walkable streetscape in his town, and continues to promote the 3Es of enforcement, engineering and education to hopefully ensure the roads are safe for all users. Fred earned a doctorate from Penn State. 00:00 The benefits of walking. 03:00 “The risk of obesity increases 6% for every hour we spend in the car driving.” 03:45 “The more you drive, the fatter you are.” 04:50 How infrastructure aids obesity. 05:20 “Creep” on roads. 06:00 Why speed is a problem, not a solution. 08:30 What a community can do to encourage pedestrian safety. 10:00 The two criteria for people to walk. 14:00 Why a parking lot can be the most dangerous place to walk. 16:00 Why people will walk in malls but not parking lots. 17:40 Why rail trails are great, but need connectivity to encourage more walkers. 19:15 The community benefits of walking versus driving. 23:00 Why walkable communities have better economies.

Greg & Brett are joined by Jamie Hilland, program director for Active and Safe Routes to School with the Green Action Centre. A new cycling education and skills training program has been launched at four schools in the Seven Oaks School Division, through a partnership with Manitoba Public Insurance, Bike Winnipeg, the WRENCH and the Green Action Centre. The program will provide 20 hours of safety training over five years of training from Grades 4 to 8 to teach kids how to ride on the road properly, and encourage bicycling as a mode of transporation.

Vision Zero is a street safety campaign that seeks to reduce the number of traffic fatalities in a local jurisdiction to zero by a set time period. The idea that people shouldn't die when occupying the right of way isn't a new one - in fact, it is nearly as old in the United States as cars themselves. Because gun violence, drug overdoses, and traffic fatalities remain the top-three preventable public health scourges of modern American society, transportation advocates understandably feel a sense of urgency in making our streets safer for everyone. But does street safety only refer to traffic safety? Thanks to the work of #BlackLivesMatter activists, there is an increasing awareness to death, discrimination, and disproportionate enforcement experienced by Black people, as well as other marginalized populations, at the hands of police forces throughout our country on our streets every day. How does Vision Zero intersect with a broader call to street safety? Where can we go together? Naomi Doerner is an transportation planner and mobility advocate. Over the last decade, she has developed and implemented effective community participation strategies that have led to more equitable transportation planning outcomes in the public and private sectors. Drawing upon her experience of being from and working in and with traditionally underrepresented groups--youth, women, low-income communities, and multi-cultural and communities of color, Naomi has worked with bike and walk advocates across the country helping them develop equity-based advocacy campaigns in their communities and the movement at-large. She does this work because she believes safe, accessible, and affordable transportation are essential to economic mobility and social equity. Tamika Butler joined the LACBC staff as the Executive Director in December 2014. Prior to leading LACBC Tamika was the Director of Social Change Strategies at Liberty Hill Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation's boys and men of color program and the foundation's LGBTQ grant strategy. Before Liberty Hill, Tamika worked at Young Invincibles as the California Director. As the CA Director, she was responsible for the development of all of Young Invincibles' programs in California. Tamika was responsible for building out Young Invincibles' operations on the West Coast and grew the office to the largest regional office outside of their DC headquarters. She transitioned to policy work after litigating for three years as an employment lawyer at Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center. Keith Benjamin is a focused, action-oriented leader who has dedicated much of his time towards the creation and cultivation of communities that politically, socially, and economically thrive in the most equitable manner. He has traveled the world identifying the keys to increasing livability, accesses, mobility and health of populations most disproportionately affected. He currently serves as the Community Partnership Manager for the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and has worked in 8 states and 40 cities on offering placemaking as a solution to better physical activity, safety, mobility and opportunity. Roll Credits: Today's show was produced by Mychal Tetteh; and edited by Eric Klein. You can find us on our Facebook page and on Twitter @whyisntanyone. Subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, or your feed of choice. If you liked this show, help us keep it going by donating via our website, whyisntanyone.com, where you can also leave us comments, questions, and ideas for future topics.  We are a project of Umbrella, a Portland-based nonprofit that encourages community-based street culture. We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. In the meantime, keep asking, “Why isn't anyone talking about this?” Because they should, and we are.

 Today we look at Affordable Housing and Coalitions for Building Safe and Healthy Communities in the San Francisco Bay area.  We will address how reactionary forces including the Tea Party  and Nimby groups seek to block equitable housing and livable communities . Our guests include Wendi Kallins with Livable Marin and Safe Routes to Schools, Samuel P. Tepperman-Gelfanis a Senior Staff Attorney with Public Advocates which supports equitable development and affordable housing, and Chris McManus community housing advocate and researcher in Fairfax California. The post Project Censored Show – September 26, 2014 appeared first on KPFA.

Presentations, Adopted FY2015 Budget, EDA, Safe Routes, Route 7 Bridge, Consolidated Community Funding Pool, Police Week, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

Presentations, Adopted FY2015 Budget, EDA, Safe Routes, Route 7 Bridge, Consolidated Community Funding Pool, Police Week, Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

Presentations, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Inclusion Month, Tuberculosis Awareness Month, General Assembly, FY 2014 Proposed Budget, MAC with Volunteer Fire Departments, Safe Routes, Sign Removal.

Presentations, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Inclusion Month, Tuberculosis Awareness Month, General Assembly, FY 2014 Proposed Budget, MAC with Volunteer Fire Departments, Safe Routes, Sign Removal.

This week we talk about urban biking with Asian Pacific American leaders in the bike community. We also hear from Alleluia Panis and Cherríe Moraga about Moraga's new play, New Fire: To Put Things Right Again. See below for more information. Fixing a flat at the Bikery Riders from Longfellow Elementary P.O.K.E.R. Familia riders We kick off the show with an interview RJ Lozada conducted with Alleluia Panis, long-time dancer and arts administrator; and award–winning writer and director, Cherríe Moraga, to talk about healing and coming of age at 52 for Moraga's own return to the stage with New Fire: To Put Things Right Again.   Also, This Thursday (19th), 8PM Brava Theatre will will have 100 student rush tickets on a  first-come basis.  They only have to show their student I.D.'s and they can get their tickets for $10.  This Thursday will also be our second talk-back entitled:  “Coyotismo” and the Role of Two-Spirit (Queer) in New Fire Play.” Featuring: Adelina Anthony, Celia Herrera Rodriguez, and Charlene O'Rourke.   Our expert panel of bikers include Neal Patel, a community planner with the San Francisco Bike Coalition; Susan Yee, board member of Cycles of Change; Phil Segura, owner of RideSFO, a bike shop in San Francisco and organizer of the huge Bike Expo; and Liza Gesuden, co-founder of P.O.K.E.R. Familia, a people of color group ride   We'll also hear segments about SFBC's Safe Routes to Schools with Jason Serafino-Agar; The Bikery's night for women, trans, and gender queer folks to work on their bikes called Sugar Belly; and a vox pop from folks who attended last year's SF Bike Expo. Roll with us! The post APEX Express – January 19, 2012 appeared first on KPFA.

Presentations, Volunteer Fire Commission, Norman M. Cole Jr. Pollution Control Plant, Safe Routes to School, Election Year Policies.

Presentations, Volunteer Fire Commission, Norman M. Cole Jr. Pollution Control Plant, Safe Routes to School, Election Year Policies.

Interim City Manager Steve Cox, Fountain Creek Restoration, Safe Routes to School, City garden, homeless update

Deb Hubsmith, director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, advocates for and promotes the practice of safe bicycling and walking to and from schools throughout the United States. So what are the benefits of walking and biking? Deb cites a new report that the Rails to Trails Conservancy released to Congress entitled Active Transportation [...]

In Portland, Oregon and around the world kids walked and bicycled to school today. Even with a little rain it's surely the best way to go. Here is a little video documentation of our little trip across the highway over the tracks to school.