TOPICS: “The kids were just riding and riding and riding and riding, and I had tears in my eyes.” A chat about Pump for Peace with downhill mountain biker and trail builder Claudio Caluori of Velosolutions, the world’s foremost pump track construction company
Carlton Reid 0:13 Welcome to episode 275 of the Spokesmen cycling Podcast. This show was uploaded on Monday 17th May 2021.
David Bernstein 0:24 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the- spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.
Carlton Reid 1:08 I’m Carlton Reid and today’s guest may sound very familiar to you, that is if you’ve watched any downhill mountain bike videos in the last few years. Claudio Caluori’s course preview videos for Red Bull and others tend to go viral and not just because they showcase his great bike handling skills but because he keeps talking into his GoPro helmetcam even on the craziest of descents. Claudio is also an asphalt artist, known to many as Mr Pump Track. Since 2004, his Velosolutions business has built more than 300 pump tracks around the world. On today’s show Claudio talks about how he got into mountain biking and how his Pump for Peace project fosters community cohesion. He was talking to me from Israel where he’s constructing the first two of four pump tracks for the Bartali Youth in Movement project. The pump tracks are located in diverse communities where Jewish, Druze and Arab kids bond through bicycling. With air raid sirens blaring Claudio is carrying on …
Carlton Reid 2:20 Lots of people …. I know you your your voice, your infectious laugh from mountain bike commentary and my my background was originally in in mountain biking. So tell me about how you got into mountain biking to begin with? Because I heard you were a hockey player originally.
Claudio Caluori 2:42 Yeah, in fact, I was a hockey player in Switzerland as a kid. And my parents bought me a mountain bike. So I could actually go to hockey training everyday by myself, so they wouldn’t have to drive me every day. And well, that was really cool. But it was so cool that it became more interesting than the hockey playing itself. So I soon after switched to mountain bike racing, which at first for me was cross country racing. And only a couple years later, I got into downhill racing.
Carlton Reid 3:15 So it’s a good background to have, you know, if you’re if you’re if you can do both disciplines really well.
Claudio Caluori 3:20 Yeah, yeah, it helped in many ways.
Carlton Reid 3:22 And then I mean, you’re like a multiple Swiss champion. And so yeah, you’re pretty good at this, weren’t you? Yeah. Was that the Swiss champion in XC or
Carlton Reid 3:31 in downhill
Claudio Caluori 3:32 That was in downhill and dual slalom.
Carlton Reid 3:34 What, what, what kind of time period we’re talking here, Claudio? When, when were you at the top of your game?
Claudio Caluori 3:40 Well, that was somewhere between 1999 and 2005 or so. And then I I quit racing at 2008 when I started my own racing team.
Carlton Reid 3:52 And what happened there?
Claudio Caluori 3:54 Well, I ran the Scott Velosolutions World Cup team for 10 years, up until two years ago.
Carlton Reid 4:02 And then you went at the same time, or before this in fact, you’d already started the pump track building business — was that 2004?
Claudio Caluori 4:12 2004 is when we founded Velosolutions but back then, pump trucks were not really a topic around the world yet. So we were just basically a normal trail building company that did bike parks, like any other trail building company. So the whole pump track thing only came up in 2009.
Carlton Reid 4:34 How long does it take for you to build a pump track does this did obviously depend on on location, the size all these kind of things? Or is there an average where you can say well, an average one is takes this amount amount of time?
Claudio Caluori 4:49 Yeah, obviously it does, it does depend on the size. But we usually as as an average of 1000 square metres, it would take us around three weeks. Now, if we do projects like here in Israel, we try to accelerate it. And, you know, like, just get the maximum efficiency out of it. Also to make it more affordable. But we couldn’t hold that pace throughout the year because I would burn all of my people if we went at that pace all year long.
Carlton Reid 5:29 So when you say your people, how many people does it take, in those three weeks to
Carlton Reid 5:34 build a pump track?
Claudio Caluori 5:36 During the rough shaping of the track we are usually five and then during the asphalt phase we’re between 10 and 12, depending on how big the track is. And obviously, everything is very different in the current situation here in Israel.
Carlton Reid 5:57 Yes, we’ll get onto that in a moment. Now, you mentioned asphalt, because asphalt is your signature material, isn’t it? Whereas most people, well my experience of pump tracks has been they’re dirt. So what why did you go for asphalt? What, what does it have over ever? So why do you prefer asphalt basically?
Claudio Caluori 6:16 Yeah, so up until 2009, all the pump trucks around the world were built in dirt. And I also appreciate that, appreciate it that very much, I loved it. And I was riding pump tracks, and was one of my favourite things. But this is not really something you could do for cities. Because if they buy a pumptrack from you, they might as well just hire two people to keep it in shape, because it’s obviously constantly falling apart. So a friend of mine came up with the idea of mixing cement in it into the dirt. And I then said, well, if we do that, we might as well do it right and build it in concrete, which was the first step towards the asphalt then, which was already a pretty good success; from 2009 to 2012. And then in 2012, a city nearby from where I live, asked me, Hey, we want the pumptrack from you. But we have a suggestion. We give you a road construction company to help you. But we want you to try out asphalt. And so I went to the headquarters of that road construction company. And I’ve built a berm for them in their backyard. And they tried to lay asphalt on it, and it worked. And so we then built the first asphalt pump track in 2012. And it was such a big success that that basically started the whole hype for pump tracks around the world. And by now we’re building pump tracks in every country.
Carlton Reid 8:08 Now, Velosolutions is the name of your company, but then you’ve got pump tracks for peace. And the first one for that was in Lesotho?
Claudio Caluori 8:18 Yeah, so Pump for Peace was basically an idea that we had after seeing what our pump tracks do, what an effect they have around the world, no matter where you are, whether that’s in a rich country, or in a poor country, they always have the very same effect, where people of all ages of all backgrounds of all beliefs, whatever poor and rich, whatever skin colour, they get go, they get together on those pump tracks, and they have fun on it. And we thought, you know what, we really need to make this possible in places where they could not afford it. Or where no one would go because it’s too too sketchy because it’s some war zone or whatever. And that’s where the kids need it even more. So that that’s the idea behind Pump for Peace. And that is also the reason why we’re now in Israel.
Carlton Reid 9:23 Now again, we will we will get there in the end, don’t worry, and I’m gonna I’m gonna like I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna pump you, you could say for for Israel right at the end. But go back to Lesotho because that’s the first one, so that was that was 157 metres long. Is that about the average what’s what’s the shortest and what’s the longest pumptrack that you’ve done?
Claudio Caluori 9:46 Well, the shortest is probably around 20 metres in someone’s backyard. The longest one is around 420 metres in China because that this guy specifically wanted the longest pump track in the world. And that’s probably until we talk to the next Chinese client, because this one will also want to have the longest in the world.
Carlton Reid 10:12 That’d be quite tiring. And that’s really like going out for a mountain bike ride on a pump track that long.
Claudio Caluori 10:16 Yes, actually, that’s why we don’t recommend really to build that long pump tracks because it is really tiring. And it’s gonna be super hard to make it around the full lap. And yeah, so Lesotho was actually our first peace project that was connected to a video project that they really wanted me to be part of. And I said, I really have no time I need to be, I need to build pump tracks in India and in Chile, and I am really booked, I cannot come for a video project in Lesotho unless you can combine it for us with our first ever Pump for Peace project. And there was actually a guy waiting just for that. So while we while I went down there for this video project, we built that first Pump for Peace pump track and yeah, that’s how we got it all going. And by now, we even had qualifiers for the Red Bull pump track World Championships on that track in Lesotho. And we actually have kids from Lesotho taking part of the world championships finals.
Carlton Reid 11:35 Yeah, I’ve I’ve watched that video. It’s fascinating and wonderful. And it’s I guess the thing that that comes across, are the kids smiling. So is that what keeps you fired up the fact, that wherever you build these pump tracks, wherever in the world you do these whether it’s a huge one in China, or a small one in somebody’s backyard, it’s just the kids. Smile. They just love these things.
Claudio Caluori 11:57 Yes, yes. And you can imagine, if you go to a country like Lesotho that effect, when you see hundreds of kids just storming the pumptrack, once you’ve laid down the last tonne of asphalt. I have to tell you a little story about how this whole idea with Pump for Peace came up. It was actually when we were building a track in Thailand, at the Cambodian border right in front of a little village, almost a little slum you could say. And it was for a very rich client. And I kind of felt bad to build the thing in front of the slum, not knowing if these kids living in this slum will even be able to use it, if they even have bikes. And so it was kind of mixed feelings there. You know, we were kind of happy to have this job in Thailand. But at the same time, we were not sure if this was just something super exclusive to the rich, or if the kids that live next door if they would have access to it. But the answer was given right in the moment where we poured out the last wheelbarrow of asphalt, because all of these kids from that slum ran to the pumptrack with what ever they had, you know, like if it was an old broken skateboard or a rusty bike, or even just a wheel to run around on the track with it. And they would not leave. They were just riding and riding and riding and riding. And I had tears in my eyes. And I knew we have to make this possible all around the world.
Carlton Reid 13:54 Let’s define pumptrack as you mentioned a skate park there. So what’s the difference between a concrete skatepark and an asphalt pump tracks? What is it, the flow? The fact that you use … Yeah, tell me what what’s the difference?
Claudio Caluori 14:10 A pump track usually not always, but usually is a track and not a park, which means people are going in the same direction. Obviously you can also ride it in the other direction. But it’s it’s a loop. It’s a track that loops and you can you can go around it as many times as you want and you don’t actually have to pedal your bike on it. And that’s why it’s called a pump track because you use the shapes of the pump track to accelerate so meaning all of the rollers and all of the steep turns. If you pump your bike correctly, you will accelerate with every roller and the better you get, the faster you get and you’ll be able to to jump some of those rollers, or even several of them, and combine the track, in several ways, because we decided in a way where you can jump out of a corner and land on another straight. So in that way, it’s similar to skate park because it allows you to, to be creative with your line choice. But when there’s many people using it at the same time, then people just stick to the same direction. And so it’s not like in a skate park where you have to wait for one guy to finish his ride, and then you can drop in on a pumptrack there’s actually many kids who can ride at the same time.
Carlton Reid 15:50 Mmm. And when you get bare plots of land, you get this blank canvas, does something about that blank canvas say, well, I think we should have, you know, a certain number of berms, a certain number of platforms here. Are they kind of like standardised? Or is every single one going to be be different? What what are the design parameters that you’re you’re considering when you’re when you’re putting in a pumptrack?
Claudio Caluori 16:21 Well, we are around that 270 tracks around the world so far, and I have not designed two of the same ones yet. So literally, every single contract is designed from scratch. And, obviously, we want it well, the biggest parameter of all the solutions contracts is that it must be suitable for both beginners and pros. So we want a beginner to have fun on it. And we want a pro athlete to have fun on it, meaning that all rollers must actually be rollable. And so there’s no gap jumps where a beginner would, would hurt himself if he doesn’t make it over the gap. Yet, the pro athlete must find enough challenges for him for the track to be interesting for him. And so over the last, what is it since 2009, so that’s 12 years, we have constantly developed the designs further that the turns have gone steeper and higher, the distances have gone bigger, the height of the rollers and the combinations. So we’re constantly pushing, pushing it a little further.
Carlton Reid 17:45 You’ve mentioned where you are you’re in you’re in Israel at the moment. Are you in northern Israel? Whereabouts in Israel are you?
Claudio Caluori 17:51 Well, right now I’m sitting in northern Israel. But the two tracks that we’re building are around Tel Aviv. So right where it happens.
Carlton Reid 18:04 Yes, so Israel is in the news at the moment. So how can — everybody’s gonna ask this — how can a pump track have any chance of breaking down the many, many long and intractable problems that that, well, not just Israel, but that part of the world has what kind of pump track do that, say, diplomatic missions and all sorts of different things that have been tried over the years, what can the pumptrack bring to the table?
Claudio Caluori 18:37 Our pump tracks
Claudio Caluori 18:38 are used by any by everyone, no matter age, no matter where he comes from, or comes from, no matter the skill level, no matter how poor or rich you are. And the people just mix on these pump tracks and have fun together. And my belief is that even here in the Middle East, these kids will learn. I mean, in reality, they already do live together. It’s not like it’s not like they’re completely separated, despite what’s going on with all the missiles and everything. But we are working together here with the Bartali Youth Movement foundation, which wants to educate the kids through sports. It wants to show the kids that there’s something else that than just the army. They can do different things in life than a career in the military. And yeah, this is this is why we’re here. This is what we believe in. And this is also why I’m not running home. If even if it gets a little loud here.
Carlton Reid 19:56 So you’re building these in they’re called Youth Villages Yes. So that these are multi faith basicall people for many, many communities, kids from many, many communities are in these these villages. So you’ve got the Jewish kids obviously you’ve got Druze kids you’ve got Christian Arabs, you’ve got Muslim Arabs and some of them so these are kind of like petri dishes these are communities of multi multi community things so is that gonna help with the pump tracks it’s just that there’s lots of different people from all sorts of different backgrounds basically mixing with bicycles or with whatever they using for to get around the pumptrack?
Claudio Caluori 20:44 Yeah, and that’s also why we call it a Pump for Peace project because if it was exclusive to just one one community then we would not call it a Pump for Peace track then then it would just be a normal client but since we had it confirmed that this will be accessible to anyone we put it under the organisation of of contracts and sorry Pump for peace, and the Bartali foundation will also provide bikes to the kids and they will have an educational programme on it and even come up with with a race series on those five or six tracks that it’s gonna be
Carlton Reid 21:37 Okay, if I wanted to have a pump track in my back garden, I had the suitable space How much would I be looking at that to get you to do and not a Pump for Peace one but just a standard pump track?
Claudio Caluori 21:54 Well, how about how big is your backyard?
Carlton Reid 22:00 Let’s just say it say I’ve got a tennis court I’ve got a tennis court that’s not being used — I haven’t by the way — but if I’ve got a tennis court in my backyard and and I just think well let’s let’s make that into a pump track instead.
Carlton Reid 22:13 How much would a tennis court size pump track cost?
Claudio Caluori 22:18 Is a tennis court is right around 2300 square metres, would that be or would it be more?
Carlton Reid 22:29 You really I’m not the right person to ask cos I don’t have a tennis court in my back yard. I’m just I’m just trying to get it like a ballpark figure here, literally.
Claudio Caluori 22:38 They will be obviously that depends on the country you’re in. You’re in the UK if I’m right. So I think the UK pricing is but I might be wrong, I would I would have to call my UK partner that would be around £150 per square metre. So now I already had a glass of wine. Maybe my calculating is is not that good anymore? So 100 square metres times 150 would be 15,000 so we’re talking about £45,000 but I might be completely off. No okay, so for 300 square metres that that sounds right
Carlton Reid 23:31 yeah. And why the difference in in country prices just the price of asphalt the price of labour what’s what
Carlton Reid 23:39 are the what are the things that you’re considering here?
Claudio Caluori 23:41 Yeah, obviously machinery, asphalt and crushed stone and whatever other materials you need local labour. Yeah, that those are very different factors in every country. And you know, like Switzerland, super expensive. UK is also super expensive, then America is also expensive. But then you go to countries like Lesotho or India where you can build things a lot cheaper.
Carlton Reid 24:17 So that might sound expensive. But when you compared to say a playground, I mean playgrounds cost an enormous amount of money when when a local authority or council put one in, they they they cost a lot of money. But these things are very cost effective, because they’re being used 24/7, almost, you know, there’s always gonna be somebody on them, isn’t it?
Claudio Caluori 24:40 Yeah, I mostly compare them with soccer fields because soccer fields are a lot more expensive than our pump tracks and they’re, in my opinion hardly ever used. But now now I’m going to have a lot of haters but you know, like when a soccer field stands there, then it’s mostly empty until the club the local club starts its training in the evening. And then there’s a bunch of people on it but a pumptrack literally, as you say they’re always packed with the kids unless they’re in school but then that’s the time where the way the athletes can get on it because the athletes cannot really use the pump trick when when a million kids are on them.
Carlton Reid 25:27 What are your next plans after you’ve after you’ve left Israel? What do you what do you what’s you’ve got coming up?
Claudio Caluori 25:35 Probably have to go commenting on some on some of the downhill World Cups. But we’ll see. We might have another one in Kathmandu, another Pump for Peace track coming up, then we have one in Armenia coming up. And yes, I’ll stay flexible. There’s actually this summer is going to be quite packed with a lot of video stories as well. And with those videos stories, I’m trying to raise money for Pump for Peace so we can go build more, more of these tracks.
Carlton Reid 26:14 Wonderful. Tell us where people can find out more information on Pump for Peace and Velosolutions, and maybe you on social media.
Unknown Speaker 26:27 Well on social media my it’s just my name Claudio Caluori both on Instagram and on Facebook. I’m not very, very active on Facebook and more active on Instagram, or YouTube as well. Same thing for for Velosolutions, it’s Velosolutions.com. And for Pump for peace, it’s PumpForPeace.com
Carlton Reid 26:50 Thanks to Claudio Caluori there and thanks to you for listening to the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com. That’s it for this month, there will be more episodes in June … meanwhile get out there and ride.
Carlton Reid 0:13 Welcome to episode 274 of the Spokesmen cycling Podcast. This show was uploaded on Sunday 9th May 2021.
David Bernstein 0:24 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the- spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.
Carlton Reid 1:07 In 2019 Chris and Melissa Bruntlett moved from Vancouver — often billed as one of the world’s most attractive cities to live — to make a new life in the Netherlands. They’ve just bought a house in Delft and, as you’ll soon hear, it sounds like this famous urbanist couple will be staying in cycling paradise. I’m Carlton Reid and in this one-hour show I asked Chris and Melissa to describe the premise of their great new book, chapter by chapter. I was hounded to learn that I was one of the first to get a hold of a PDF of the book, which doesn’t come out until the end of next month so this is fantastic sneak preview for you, and listen on because there’s also a promo code where you can save a chunk of cash of Curbing Traffic, which will be published by Island Press on June 29th.
Carlton Reid 2:03 Chris, Melissa, fantastic. And thank you ever so much for coming back on on the show, because you have been on the spokesman podcast numerous times. Probably previous books, you have got this, this this, this new book, curbing traffic now that will be excellent for the people who listen to this. Because it’s not just about bikes, because your previous book we can talk about that was about bikes. And this is just the basic of getting rid of cars. Now I don’t know how we want to do this. Are you going to be because you’re in separate rooms in your in your in your fairytale house in Delft. But how are we because previously you’ve been like sharing a laptop, but you’re actually in different rooms. And you can come in here. So what do you want? What should I say, Melissa? Chris? Or you’re just gonna we’re gonna do this freeform? How do I do? How do you answer the questions?
Melissa Bruntlett 2:58 I think we’re both pretty good at figuring out who wants to say what or jovially interrupting each other? So if there’s any, I think I think if it’s a specific question for one of us, that probably you know, if you want to direct it, that makes sense. But yeah, I don’t think we’ll leave you with any too much dead air. Right, Chris?
Chris Bruntlett 3:21 No, exactly. And I think usually one of us will start answering a question and the other one will finish it. So whoever gets in first gets the lead. And we usually both are on the same wavelength, even if we’re not in the same room. So I don’t have any concerns.
Carlton Reid 3:37 Let’s in that case, let’s kick off with a question that links to that. And just how do you physically write books together as a married couple, and be just as somebody writing one sentence, and then somebody completes the other one? What is your writing method as a couple?
Melissa Bruntlett 3:56 That’s actually an excellent question that we get a lot. Because a lot of people will say it’s impossible to work with your partner, let alone write a book with them. I think for Chris and I, with the first book, we took a very pragmatic approach, we because we had been writing blogs for so long, individually, we approached each chapter as for individual blogs, and we each selected which section of that we were going to focus on, and then basically married them together. And both reading over making sure that the styles flow because I obviously will write a little bit differently than Chris does. But for this book, we sort of approached it because each contain each chapter contains a story of part of our experience in the first two years living in Delft. We basically took ownership of each of those stories. And so if it was something that I experienced more prevalently than Chris, for example, with the feminist city chapter, then I would leave the writing of that chapter or for Chris, the experience of the sound difference in the sound quality and delve has had a much stronger impact on him. And not that it hasn’t on me as well. So that was one that he took ownership of. And then yeah, at the end of the day, we we go through the chapters, at our little pieces here and there to make it flow to make sure that it has the emotion along with the hard facts with with that and with the data. And overall come up with what what we’re always quite proud of, I think.
Chris Bruntlett 5:30 Yeah, I think you’ve, you’ve said it, well, most of you bring the emotion and a lot of cases and I bring the the wanke the policy focus. And so yeah, and so we not only do we complement each other, well, we bring each other’s writing back to the middle, I think. So Melissa will write a segment and I’ll go in and kind of polish it up. And vice versa, I’ll write something and she’ll dewonkify it, you know, make it less technical and more approachable. So it’s, it’s kind of divide, as Melissa said, dividing the chapter up into pieces, each taking a piece, but then going back and rewriting each other sentences and putting your ego aside and just trusting each other to kind of make make the pros better. And eventually, you know, the whole the finished book has probably been read over and revise the dozen times. But we’re finally reached a point where we’re ready to let it go with and that it’s happy. It’s suitable for a while not just an urbanism audience but a mainstream mainstream audience. We’re always writing for the the casual reader if you will.
Carlton Reid 6:37 So let’s let’s get into into the book a little bit more. So it’s it’s Curbing Traffic. And it’s another Island Press book. So that’s that’s the disclaimer here that that’s also my publisher, who did buy my couple of books and you’ve now got a couple of books with them. Quickly, when is it out? If I got like an advance copy? Or is it physically going to be out?
Chris Bruntlett 7:01 Yeah, the official release date is June 29. So it’s still a couple months from when we’re speaking but the the pre orders should start shipping late May early June because the the publication date natural physical manufacturing date is about a month before the release date. But you have most definitely have a early review copy Carlton, one of the first people to see it in its final form.
Carlton Reid 7:26 In which case, I’m very honoured. Thank you very much. And ite’s an excellent, excellent book and it’s it’s just packed and packed and packed with both the emotional part and the statistical but the the wonky the kind of the transport professional part, when you both transport professional anyway, but that it’s just full of meat is what I’m trying to say. So it has been a fantastic reading. I’ve really, really enjoyed it. And one of my questions is gonna be before actually physically read the book was going to be and we’ll get into your biographical details and when you moved to the Netherlands and a second, but it was gonna be you know, is this a stage of your life that you’re going through? And eventually you’ll go back to Canada. And then I read that the last few paragraphs in the book and the photograph of you on the stoop on the on your outside of your your wonderful 130 year old canalside house. And when you’ve bought a house there, and you’re pretty much saying you’re living here for the rest of your lives, that’s your fairy tale. So would that be you you put that in the book? Had you thought about that? Or do you did you talked about that before? putting that in the book? Or was it something that the book has crystallised for you?
Melissa Bruntlett 8:43 I think from the moment we made the decision to move to the Netherlands, I think we both approached it as this could possibly be a very permanent move for us. As we say in the introduction, you know, we we reached sort of a moment in Vancouver where we absolutely loved the city. We love living in British Columbia and being surrounded by all the natural beauty and the city itself is such a wonderful place to live and to raise kids. But we really needed to downsize, we’d reached I guess, that proverbial point in your lives when you’re at your late 30s, early 40s. And you want to settle down a little. And we found ourselves prior to making the decision to move to the Netherlands, struggling to find a city that we could enjoy the quality of life that we did in Vancouver. Being car free, in terms of our living circumstance, and being able to walk in cycle and enjoy the city without having, you know, to rely on cars to get us around. It was really hard to find a place that could mimic that in and around where we were living in Vancouver or even returning back to Ontario in more central Eastern Canada where our parents and siblings live and so we knowing we were coming to a country where we were going to be able to enjoy a similar quality of life in terms of how we moved, we sort of knew that this is likely going to be a rather permanent move for us. And yes, that was solidified a, you know, when we decided to buy a house here and really set some roots down. But I think even before we got here, we knew that this could end very well might be a permanent stay for us.
Chris Bruntlett 10:29 Well, the very last chapter of the book is about the idea of ageing in place and building Age Friendly cities. And I think that the very end of the writing process helped us understand that we wanted to live in a city that allowed us to age in place that didn’t force us as our, perhaps our parents and other relatives, to either become reliant on other people for our transportation, or move elsewhere in the city so that we’re more conveniently located to the services that we need. We knew we had everything we needed in Delft within a 10 minute walk. And as Melissa said, just purchasing this home on a canal, the five minute walk from the city centres is crystallised everything we’ve been thinking about. And we really see ourselves getting old and living forever in this house, because it’s perfectly located perfect size. And we don’t see ourselves in the future. You know, having to be necessarily moving to as if we’re looking for proximity, mobility, or other compromise to make other compromises in terms of the location. Delft is a city where people from young to old can can exist quite comfortably.
Carlton Reid 11:53 The book is a love story, then it absolutely you as a couple, of course, and then just you falling in love with Delft that that’s absolutely there, of course, and getting rid of cars, which is a lovely concept. But the book is about getting rid of cars, but might you just the book actually be you should move to that Delft if you want to live the lifestyle that you’re describing in Delft, this lovely story, shouldn’t you just move to Delft?
Chris Bruntlett 12:21 I wouldn’t say that. No, I mean, not everyone has the privilege, the ability, the means the and in terms of physical space, it’s impossible to everybody to move to the Netherlands. And it’s certainly not what we’re advocating, we’re quite open in the book that we do have this who have had this privilege to move here. But there’s little do we know when we decided to move to Delft that it was really kind of this this place in the 1970s, that tried a lot of different policies, from the corner to the traffic circulation plan, to the low car city centre. These are policies that can be implemented virtually at anywhere, and they are starting to be implemented in places of the world like Barcelona and Auckland. So our intention was not to say, you know, everybody come here to experience this quality of life, it’s to build this quality of life into your own city simply by treating cars as guests, rather than as we have in the last 40 to 50 years treating them as the guest of honour in our urban fabric.
Melissa Bruntlett 13:26 Yeah, I think, I think what’s I think what I really wanted, and what Chris and I think both really wanted to sort of challenge is that it shouldn’t involve or shouldn’t be a prerequisite that you have this privilege to be able to move to a city like this, which it shouldn’t be that you have to leave where you are to experience a higher quality of life. And so you know, both of us in our day jobs, were so focused on exporting a lot of this knowledge to international cities to really help everywhere start to realise the benefits and also start working towards creating these more human focus cities. So we understand that, you know, for example, the suburb of Ontario and Kitchener Waterloo that we grew up in, is never going to be exactly emulating Delft, for example. But there are a lot of things that can be done to help lower car usage, provide people with other options, connect them with their community in a better way, that, you know, they don’t have to move across the Atlantic to a Dutch city to be able to enjoy a better quality of life. These ideas should and can and are being applied in order to make sure that for those that don’t have the ability to pack up their family and move to another country, another city, that their city can start to enjoy some of these same benefits that we’ve come to enjoy having lived here.
Carlton Reid 14:50 Hmm. Melissa, you mentioned your careers there. So that’s a good time to introduce the fact that you’re working for Mobycon. And then Chris, you’re working for the Dutch Cycling Embassy. So, Melissa first, tell me what Mobycon is. And you kind of briefly touched upon it there. But just tell us again. And then Chris, you follow that up by telling us a bit more about the Dutch Cycling Embassy?
Melissa Bruntlett 15:15 Yeah, sure. So Mobycon is a Dutch North American consultancy, that focuses on sustainable mobility. So here in the Netherlands, there’s a lot of focus on all aspects, whether that’s walking placemaking cycling, or public transport, how do they move to more sustainable choices, obviously, there is a lot of sustainable sustainable mobility here in the Netherlands. But that doesn’t mean there’s not room for improvement. But for my part, I work with our international team in exporting a lot of that knowledge largely focused around cycling, but also placemaking. And walking, both elsewhere in Europe, so across the continent, but we’ve also done some work in the UK. And then we have offices in Canada and the US where we are taking a lot of the ideas that Chris and I presented, for example, in the first book in building the cycling city, and applying them in context, through design through planning through policy in cities and towns throughout Canada in the US.
Chris Bruntlett 16:15 Yeah, so I find myself in the very strange position that I am a Canadian, advocating for the Netherlands as the world’s leading cycling nation. But the the, the fact of the matter is, as a Dutch Cycling Embassy, it’s a organisation that public private partnership that the national government here in the Netherlands started, basically to export the knowledge and expertise that exists here in this country, and it’s been built over the last 50 years or so. So, we have about 80 different organisations within our network. They are private consultants such as mobicom. They are bicycle manufacturers, like Gazelle. They are the various municipal governments, universities and bike parking manufacturers, all looking to work overseas and help cities and regions become more bicycle friendly. So we bring teams around the world to host workshops, webinars, training. And then inversely, we also do a lot of study tours and welcome groups from elsewhere in the world and take them for tours and classroom sessions to learn from the the amazing conditions here. And so yeah, as I said, I’m marketing and communication manager selling Dutch cycling as as this foreigners is international outside voice but I think it just speaks volumes to how normalised and mundane cycling has become here that that most people who live here don’t think it’s it’s special or recognise it as something that’s should be spread or or exported around the world.
Carlton Reid 17:52 In your book, you mentioned it on that point that you know, when you go you have been abroad. And then you come back you kind of hear the birdsong. You hear the quietude of Delft, of course, a lot of people have roughly the same thing. Even in the most busy, you know, urban cities with with COVID-19 Coronavirus, where people in cities heard that song again. So we kind of all had that that brief glimpse of what you’re getting on a daily basis. Do you think that COVID-19 might actually help urbanist people interested in getting rid of cars to actually get rid of cars?
Melissa Bruntlett 18:37 Right, think for Chris and I that’s certainly the hope. And we found ourselves in this interesting position. We were writing the book. So we had pitched it to Ireland press hadn’t had everything approved. And it started the initial writing process before the pandemic hit. And we actually had several moments that when we’re writing the first few chapters where we’re like, is this even going to be relevant anymore what we’re writing because everyone is experiencing exactly what we’re trying to promote. But I think and Chris would probably agree that I think the challenge now is to not return to the status quo, which we have seen happen in a few cities, as things start to open up again, that this return to car use, or for busier cities, it losing some of that quality that a lot of people experienced. And so we really hope that with that knowledge with that experience, plus what we’ve written in the book, it helps to really solidify why it’s really important because yeah, that that birdsong we have we remember Clarence Eckerson in New York, commenting us in the heart of Manhattan, Manhattan hearing birds. And you know, who wouldn’t want that on a much more regular basis in New York City to be able to hear the natural world around you and so yeah, I guess the challenge now is to record Notice how important that experience was and should be continued. But yeah, I I remain pessimistically optimistic. Maybe Chris feels a little bit differently. But yeah, I, I was amazing that that was all happening as we were writing this. And I really hope it helps to reinforce what we were saying.
Chris Bruntlett 20:20 Well, I think you know, historically much is made of the Netherlands, experiencing the OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s, in the six weeks where they suddenly had a gasoline shortage and the sale of bicycles doubled. It was kind of this lightbulb moment as a society when they realised they had to build a more resilient transport system and, and look at their streets a little bit differently, both in terms of the politicians, but also in terms of the general population. We’re seeing sparks of that light bulb moment now in cities around the world. We always joked beforehand that to make these changes, people would need to come to the Netherlands to experience them firsthand. But they really experienced them on their front porch and on their front doorstep. For albeit, you know, a short period of time, but suddenly, they were out on their street, sometimes playing tennis, interacting with their neighbours for the first time, breathing the air, smelling the ocean, if they lived by the sea, hearing the birds seeing what their city looked like with fewer cars. zooming around, and now as Moses hinted is, is capturing that momentum, supporting elected officials that are going to implement some of the puppet changes that have been made, whether it’s puppet bike infrastructure, or pop up dining terraces, but making sure that this moment turns into a movement for cities that are prioritise the people that live in them, rather than the vehicles, the motor vehicles that they drive.
Carlton Reid 21:51 Now, Island Press is, of course, a climate change specialist publisher. So it must have been a relatively easy pitch. I mean, it’s never an easy pitch ever, but it must have been relatively easy pitch to say to a climate change publisher, we want to write a book about getting rid of cars. Was that something that just went? Oh, yes, we absolutely need a book like that. How was that that publication? process? How did that go for you?
Chris Bruntlett 22:21 Actually, it was quite difficult to be honest, I don’t think we always package this as our personal story. That would include some of the anecdotes of us moving here. And I don’t think I’ve impressive really published a book like that before. I think they’re very kind of policy nonfiction. technical stuff. Exactly. Exactly. So we had some convincing to do to be honest, to get them on board and you know, ultimately, we didn’t know well, we didn’t want to write building the cycling city to we didn’t want to just you know tell the same story or or slightly different story. We wanted to make this project personal we wanted to make it emotive use our engaging the reader user help them to experience what we’ve experienced here bring them along for a journey that also includes some some technical facts and figures to backup our case. But yeah, it was a bit of a pitch to get them to come along for the ride Not to mention you know, we were promotion for this book is going to look a lot different than the first book with us both working day jobs and having relocated to Europe. There was not going to be any kind of multi week tour of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand as it was the first time around. So a lot has changed since since we wrote our first book and so we’re having to adapt and also bring Island press along for the ride but we hope their their faith in us will be rewarded again.
Carlton Reid 23:54 It’s tough to say that this is one of my favourites because it’s certainly my favourites Of course in in your book, it’s it’s wonderful. But I found especially cute, the the bits of Dutch that you put into the book, and I’m very pleased that you’ve put those bits of Dutch into the book because it really adds a lot of flavour. Yes, you’re learning the language, of course, but you’re also learning in a really cute part of the language, you know, these kind of, you know, aphorisms and and words and phrases that are just so wonderful. Now one of them I picked out was and of course you’re gonna be able to pronounce as much better than me. Uitwaaien is wind bath?
Melissa Bruntlett 24:35 Yes.
Carlton Reid 24:36 So describe what a wind bath concept what a wind bath is and please correct my pronunciation.
Melissa Bruntlett 24:44 Yeah, so that would be uitwaaien. Which, funnily enough, Chris and I seem to be experiencing everyday. It’s been a very windy April and May or, you know, year here in the Netherlands. But essentially, that’s the content of going out and getting fresh air or frisse neus. You know, having the wind in your face sort of washing away any of the stresses of the day or the week or the month. And, you know, it’s, you know, in Canada, we would talk about going out to get a breath of fresh air. Similarly, but in this case, you have quite heavy winds in your face. And it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s an experience to have the first few times, but I understand why that now having lived here for as long as we have, why it’s important for people because it’s just this like removal of Yeah, just the stress that most of us experience, you know, being whether you will have a family or you’re working full time or however you might experience stress. It’s just a way to wash that all the way in what is a very prevalent force of nature here in the country. And I think in the book and I like Chris. Yes, exactly. No hills, lots of wind.
Chris Bruntlett 26:01 Yeah, I just realised, though, that you use the term frisse neus without actually translating it. So we Oh, yeah. brilliant, brilliant, turn a phrase from the Dutch, which literally means “fresh nose.” So when they say that they’re going to get fresh air, it’s actually kind of, they’re going to get a fresh nose. But yeah, I mean, it just comes back to this connection with nature that the Dutch have in their cities because they haven’t paved over every square inch of it. So by having fewer room for cars, fewer lanes, more roundabouts that are vegetated, they’ve got room for more trees, more grass more. And then the compact cities allow for a greater proximity to the surrounding polders and forests and nature. But you’re never very far from greenery or water. And this acts as a therapeutic sensation that improves people’s mental health and overall well being. And again, I think it’s something that we we often neglect when we talk about city living, we assume that it has to be stressful and, and, and bleak, and Asheville everywhere when we can, if we simply reallocate the space on our cities create greenery that’s inter woven with the the streets and intersections and the public spaces.
Carlton Reid 27:21 I’m gonna pick out another phrase and you can give me the Dutch I’ll give you just the English because I absolutely guarantee I’ll murder the Dutch but the phrase is “we’re not the same, but we’re worth the same.” So what’s the what if you can remember what’s that in Dutch? And then just describe roughly was talking about? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 27:38 I don’t, don’t remember the exact that’s turn of phrase because it’s slightly different. But this is in the, in the context of a really egalitarian society. So we make this point that the streets are accessible to everybody, whether they have a, you know, a 50,000 Euro Mercedes Benz or a 50 Euro bicycle, and it’s really ingrained in the culture here that there’s a real sense of equity. And so there’s not this class spaced, reinforced class reinforced system that permeates all levels of society, not the least of which are there their streets and cycle tracks and public spaces. So welcome coming
Carlton Reid 28:27 So did you find the phrase Melissa?
Melissa Bruntlett 28:28 I’m now I’m googling it, because now I can’t remember it. I’m even searching in the manuscripts. And of course, it’s not finding it for me. And I know the phrase, yeah, it’s this. But yeah, forget that, carry on.
Carlton Reid 28:39 No, that was very cruel of me to throw not just one word, but like a whole phrase. But where I guess where I was coming at it from and the reason why I picked it that was so that’s, that’s a cultural norm in the Netherlands. So my question is, you know, to curb traffic to get rid of motorcars, yeah. You need certain things you need cultural changes, not just physical, you know, concrete and curbs and, and Lane width, all those colour changes, you need a cultural switch as well. So, is that not the most difficult thing to actually fix? You can fix engineering, but can you really fix how people and nation a group actually think about mobility, about priority on the streets? And isn’t just not the fact that well, the Netherlands have got this dialled in, and you ain’t gonna be able to translate that fully anywhere else. Yeah,
Melissa Bruntlett 29:48 I would. I would say that it’s absolutely possible. And I think one of the benefits I think we have of having lived in a city like Vancouver, is that we watched as things changed. So as that infrastructure started to be built, and more and more people started to experience getting around the city more on bicycle on foot or, or a combination thereof with public transport, we saw a cultural shift. And it’s but the thing is, it’s not going to be fast. And this is one thing that Chris and I say all the time is we’re talking about change, cultural change, overgenerous a generation, which, for a lot of us working in mobility and an urban ism can be quite frustrating, because we can see we know what the benefits are, we’ve seen it in action and in various places, but it’s to not see it immediately, or have that immediate gratification and in our own cities can be very challenging. But I see it as possible. And, you know, as you were speaking, Carlton, it made me think of when we were interviewing one of our friends in the US who was talking about women in cycling, and how, you know, oftentimes when they build new cycle tracks, in cities, if if they don’t see anyone using it, or they only see it used once in a while, then it’s deemed a failure. But for her, she says that, you know, if you see one woman cycling on that cycle track with a child, that is a success, that’s proof that this is something people want, and it’s just going to take time to build. And, you know, we saw that in Vancouver, where, when we first moved there, cycling was definitely something nice, something for the fit and the brave. And then over the course of the 11 years that we lived there, we saw more and more families cycling more and more people of various ages and abilities and races cycling. So I think it’s absolutely possible. And I don’t think you necessarily have to have that pragmatic culture that we have. We see people have here in the Netherlands, it can be done. It takes patience, unfortunately. But I think it’s absolutely possible. And AI just takes showing people what is what is possible when we start building safer streets with space for fewer cars and more space for public life.
Chris Bruntlett 32:04 It’s sorry, so I found the expression and I’m going to try and pronounce it. It’s so it’s “niet gelijk, maar wel gelijkwaardig” we’re not the same, but we’re worth the same. And it I think you framed it one way, Carlton, is it does there need to be a cultural change to facilitate a structural change, but maybe we can we can look at it the other way and and looking here in the Netherlands, were the structural changes that were made to the streets in the 1970s. Did they influence the cultural changes that we’re seeing today, and this is what we explore in the chapter about the trusting city is how more people on foot and bicycle making eye contact, having to collaborate with one another to negotiate intersections and share space, how that builds, and we’re a trusting society, of people that are accepting of other people’s differences and cultures. And it’s really interesting to think how our transport systems and our mobility systems may make our society more egalitarian. Rather than sitting back and saying, well, only eat out there in societies could undergo these changes the chicken and egg and hopefully we can, we can pick a place to start and rather than pointing at external factors as reasons why we can’t integrate these, these important measures.
Carlton Reid 33:30 Lots that’s very good to hear. If that’s the case, so we can change. I’d like to now cut to an ad break. But after the ad, I would like to go through your book chapter by chapter because you mentioned the trusting city there. And there are there are 10 chapters and the conclusions. I want you to describe each chapter we need to give like a short precis of each chapter, I’m going to give one to Melissa and wanted to create as your forewarning. That’s why I’m going to ask him for next. But right now let’s go to an ad break with David.
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Carlton Reid 35:24 Thanks, David. And we are back with Chris and Melissa Bruntlett. And they’re in their fairytale house in in the in the fairytale city of Delft in the Netherlands. And they’ve been telling us why they moved there, how much they’re loving it. And before we get on to going through and getting a precis of each each chapter in the book, I want to talk about their kids. Because that’s absolutely a key component. We’re not doing any privacy issues here because Chris and Melissa your kids are mentioned throughout the book and their experiences are mentioned throughout the book, which which is which is very, very inspiring and heartening, but let’s just talk about Coralie and Etienne now, I’m assuming that the ages of 12 and 10 so Coralie 12, Etienne 10. That was when you moved in 2019, so they’re now older?
Melissa Bruntlett 36:15 Yeah. Coralie is now 14 and a half and Etienne is 12. And yeah, we’ve got well, Coralie started right in high school, we’ve got another child about to join them in high school as well. So yeah, it’s it, they’re doing well, as far as, as far as they tell us anyways, you know, having a teenager and a preteen, they certainly start to keep a few things from their parents now and then. But yeah, it’s been an interesting experience for them. I won’t lie and say that it was rosy from the start, we had, you know, a bit of melancholy when we first moved here, they certainly miss their peers that they had built relationships with back in Vancouver. But we did actually do a check in we were on holiday last week, because we’re currently on there, may vacation for two weeks, and we went away and asked, you know, it’s been two years, how are you feeling? Do you still hate us? Did we make the worst decision of our life is taking you guys here? And they both said emphatically that they’re happy that we’re here. They of course, still miss their friends. But they, they’ve come to appreciate living here, which is good. We’ll see if that continues. You know, we’ve still got a few more years before they’re adults and fully appreciate where we’re at in life.
Melissa Bruntlett 37:31 But
Melissa Bruntlett 37:33 yeah, I think I think they’re doing okay, as much as they tell us anyways.
Chris Bruntlett 37:37 Yeah, I think Melissa and I both did similar moves as children of around 10 years age. I’ve actually moved from the UK to Canada, she moved from Eastern Canada, French Canada to Ontario. So we’re kind of familiar with the circumstances. And we were quite careful about giving them the time and space they needed to adjust and integrate. They went straight into a Dutch language school in the middle of the school year in February, and which couldn’t have been easy but they really I think surprised us with how resilient they were how quickly they made friends how quickly they learned the city. And of course as we write in the first chapter, the the traffic concentrates and the the cycle tracks really just gave them this freedom that we anticipated, but never really understood how quickly or how amazing it would be that to give them suddenly this this autonomy and independence of getting around a to be without mom and dad at your side.
Carlton Reid 38:43 Because you you quote Lenore Skenazy in the book, and she’s famous for the free range kids, you know, no helicopter, parenting approach, and you’ve basically taken that concept. And you’ve you’ve, I’d like to say ran with it, but you’ve cycled with it, you’ve given your kids the freedom the kind of freedom that kids in the US kids in the in Canada, kids in the UK do not have.
Chris Bruntlett 39:08 We actually flirted with that freedom in Vancouver, you know, we would, within reason allow them to walk to the corner store or to their school or to the community centre. But the problem was the built environment would not support that. That freedom and so we found ourselves worrying about faded crosswalks that drivers would ignore about footpaths that would disappear every time they cross the side street about six lanes of traffic that was cutting through our neighbourhood that they would have to cross and that made giving them that freedom and independence a very difficult choice. And, and more often than not, we found ourselves supervising them for short trips, when we really wanted them to let them spread their wings and, and get around independently. So we’re I think, are quite relieved that we now live in a place a built environment that supports That freedom and it speaks volumes to how the prevalence of car traffic really has robbed children of their freedom, and forced them to be constantly under supervision and rely on their parents for their transportation needs.
Carlton Reid 40:17 So that was chapter one in effect in your book. So the child friendly city is chapter number one after the introduction, of course. So if I can ask you, in turn to describe the other chapters now, I’ll mention which chapter obviously will go chronologically. If you could just take it in turn to tell us what that chapter is about, you’d have to like, give the whole game away. But just you know, briefly, what that that that chapters about so chapter number two is the connected city what’s what’s, what’s the thing going on there? And I’m gonna, I’m gonna give this to Chris.
Chris Bruntlett 40:49 Yeah. So I mean, unbeknownst to us when we moved to Delft, this was a city where the runner was invented the living Street, this concept of reclaiming the space outside your front door for play social activity, gathering and interaction with your neighbours. And for a long time, we’ve been aware of the Donald Appleyard and his really groundbreaking research in the 1970s, about how the volume and speed of traffic outside your front door really limits your connections on your street, your friends, acquaintances with your neighbours and the time you spend on your street and the sense of ownership that you spend on your street. So we really want to explore how prioritising the speed and volume of cars, outside our front door impacts our social relationships with our friends and neighbours. And we interject with some personal experiences, unexpected encounters with people living on our street to that kind of reinforces this research, and makes the case that that perhaps we should be looking at, well, what they’re implementing in London is low traffic neighbourhoods. But this idea of not banning cars altogether, but treating them as guests on, particularly on our residential streets.
Carlton Reid 42:10 Okay, Melissa, chapter three, the trusting city.
Melissa Bruntlett 42:14 Yeah, this this chapter, I think it’s it’s really about it takes the concepts of the first or the last chapter of the connected city and extrapolate that to the broader society. So the way in which people move around their city, if it’s a much more human scale way of living around whether that’s walking, cycling, or some other form of human mobility, it forces you to start connecting with the people you’re moving around the city with, and really creates a social trust. Because here, especially here in the Netherlands, traffic lights are often removed, there’s no traffic signage, and so you’re forced to interact with the people that you’re moving around the city with. And that does include cars, you know, having an what the design of the street really forces people to make eye contact to acknowledge each other. And that leads to a much more interactive experience, but also much more trusting. You know, if you look at someone if you’re forced to make eye contact, that how they react to you that they acknowledge you being in that space will ultimately affect how you navigate around each other in the space in which you’re moving. We interviewed Marco te Brömmelstroet for that, for this chapter, who talks a lot about how speed really impacts our ability to be able to approach our society and the way and our interactions in the city in a much more calm and trusting way. And so when we’re moving in fast cars, whenever things racing bias, we become very insular, it’s about our trip and our journey and anything that gets in the way becomes a very negative, whereas when you start to slow the way we move down, you’re forced to interact with people you’re forced to suddenly acknowledge the existence of the people around you and it just creates much more trusting environment and we obviously get much more into what that means in terms of the city itself and and society at a larger scale because of these forced moments of interaction with our fellow human beings.
Carlton Reid 44:22 And I should just say that Marco there is @CyclingProfessor (@fietsprofessor) so people on Twitter who follow Chris and Melissa on Twitter, I’m sure they also follow Marco the cycling professor. Chris, the feminist city, Chapter Four.
Chris Bruntlett 44:37 I think I’m gonna defer to Melissa because this is a her, er …
Carlton Reid 44:42 No, I constructed the way we started the child friendly city. I knew I actually can’t get Chris to do chapter four. So no, no, no, no, you can’t. You’ve got to tell us about it, Chris.
Chris Bruntlett 44:54 Okay, sure. Yeah, no, I think the way that we have built our Our urban fabric or our cities, our transportation networks up to this point has been very male centric, and men tend to disproportionately drive motor vehicles, they take longer distance, single purpose trips. And inversely, that leaves women out of the equation and doesn’t take their travel patterns in into consideration, which are often more sustainable foot bicycle or public transport. They’re usually shorter distance trips, they’re usually Multi Purpose trips, because they are still doing predominantly that the care work. And so we delve into this idea of care trips, and which are again, disproportionately made by women, and how we can build transportation networks that facilitate those care trips. And as you can imagine, it comes down to fine grain cycling, that works, that comes down to great walking conditions, it comes down to giving children the freedom so that their their moms don’t have to necessarily take them pick them up to drop them off at school. So a city that doesn’t just accommodate the the single purpose one way commute for a predominantly male driver. And that’s largely historically been done, because the people in the decision making chambers are affluent men, that, that we’ve, we can look at building more equity in terms of gender equity, by simply building more walking and cycling and better, faster, more frequent public transportation to support those trips that they’re already making and make their lives a lot easier.
Carlton Reid 46:46 Okay, nice summary, chapter five, Melissa, that will be the hearing city. And I guess we’re gonna have some birdsong here?
Melissa Bruntlett 46:53 Yes. Well, I mean, I think we’ve talked a lot about the benefit of you know, when we remove excessive numbers of cars in our city, and we really reduce the sounds that they contribute to in the city, you start to hear a lot more of the natural world. But one of the things that I think is really important in this chapter is not just the ability to hear the beautiful bird songs, but also the impact that has on us as individuals on our mental state and our overall stress by reducing the amount of ambient noise that we experience. And I think it’s actually funny because I was just watching, pretended to city on Netflix with Fran Lebowitz. And she refers to the the noise of New York City. And that’s just a part of it, you know, we don’t want to escape the noise. This is our noise. But I think there’s not that recognition that goes along with that of the stress of that noise creates, in terms of just us as individuals, if you’re constantly in this hyper noisy environment, you’re always on alert, you’re always at attention, you’re always in that fight or flight kind of mode. And so what this chapter, what I love that it delves into is that when we create these calmer ambient environments with lower decibels of noise, what that means for the citizens in general, not just the ability to hear the nature or hear the bricks, as people cycled by or hear people enjoying a beer on a patio, but overall in you know, really increasing that enjoyment of the city itself, and a sense of calm for us as individuals. And so I love that, you know, birdsong is so much a part of that or just the natural sounds of of the city. But you know, what that means to us as individuals, I think is an important conversation and emerging conversation, and we delve into that in this chapter.
Carlton Reid 48:47 Okay, Chris, you’re up next, because you are going to have to talk about the therapeutic city.
Chris Bruntlett 48:52 Yeah, so building on this idea of calming environments, we do a bit of a dive with our friend Robin Mazumder, who recently completed his PhD on this exact topic, mental health in the urban environment. And look at the way that car dominated environments really diminish minister mental health as a source of stress as a source of noise. And really well as we were talking about earlier, reduce the amount of green space we have access to, and really have these subtle ways that they are testing us as human beings, for lack of a better way to put it. And this was a chapter we wrote, just after lockdown started, where again, I think everyone in the world suddenly gained a newfound appreciation for the ability to just get outside, move their body, have some kind of a social distance, social interaction make, talk to people from a distance. And this was a key way that they kept their sanity, if you will, under some very stressful conditions, and otherwise they were locked down in their home. So I think we, like everyone gained a newfound appreciation for especially in Delft here, being able to get outside for a bike ride or walk into the city centre, a meandering, pedal through the polders all of them have a means to unwind. And de stress from, you know, we were still working jobs, we were still trying to make ends meet internally, but those little breaks that we have, it is possible to build them into our cities, to give people that opportunity to, to de stress and re energise and, well, it’s a form of therapy, as we said, The this, this wind bath or variety of cultures have their own versions of it. But at the end of the day, it’s about a means of improving your mental health.
Carlton Reid 51:09 This next chapter, chapter seven is the world’s shortest chapter, the world’s most obvious chapter, because it’s the accessible city.
Melissa Bruntlett 51:18 Excellent point. But I think, you know, one of the things with this chapter, there’s two parts of this, in that being mostly able bodied, most of the time, I had a brief stint recently with a broken leg that reduced my ability to move around. But we really felt compelled to speak to somebody who has experienced a Dutch city as someone with limited mobility. So we interviewed a wonderful woman named Maya [Maya van der Does-Levi], who shared her story of living with multiple multiple sclerosis, and getting around in the Netherlands. And, you know, in talking to her, there are things that we didn’t realise, including the fact that, you know, we enjoy traffic, calm streets, and we enjoy walking around on the street once in a while. And it’s a bit of, for us liberation, and not having grown up in North America where there’s no way you would remove walking in the middle of the street in the middle of the day. But she points out that that actually enables her to be more independently mobile. And that’s something we also delve into more with Dr. Bridget, for debt from New Zealand who, who really talks about this idea of when we’re thinking about people with disabilities, and how they move through the city, there’s so much focus on making sure that we have roads in order to allow them to be able to transport more freely in cars or in public transport, when in fact, that is the adverse of what a lot of these individuals want. They don’t want to be dependent on somebody to move around, they want to be independent, for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is to have ownership of your own mobility is to have a sense of freedom and joy in terms of how you get around. And so this chapter, I totally agree, it could be simple and say yes, make your cities accessible, period, end of story. But understanding why it’s so important. And you know, how cars do limit how people with various disabilities, whether that’s mobility disabilities, or sight, hearing any of these things, by reducing the ability or the possibility of conflict with motor vehicles and enabling more independent mobility, we are inherently telling these people you are not other, you are not separate from society, you are a part of it. And we want to facilitate you owning your ability to be a part of society.
Carlton Reid 53:39 And as a guidedog puppy trainer, I am absolutely anti car on that particular aspect, because so many cars are parked on sidewalks on pavements. And it’s only when you really you get a guide dog and you have to walk around that you really realise that this is so selfish, so entire door. And so blocking for anybody that doesn’t have, you know, feet to walk and an eyes to see because it’s make cities incredibly difficult to navigate. If you’ve got these big four wheel vehicles parked from the infrastructure that’s actually meant for pedestrians, which I’m guessing you don’t get that much of in the Netherlands, they kind of design that out. We do get that
Melissa Bruntlett 54:25 I you know, we have our own set of challenges. I think your historic cities have had mind boggling mind bogglingly narrow sidewalks and footpaths. And so yeah, that’s one of the things that my actually says is I don’t I never use the footpath. It’s too hard for me. There’s either assign a sandwich boards on it or they’re too narrow or they’re old and a bit crumbly. And so the road infrastructure is is how she gets around. She uses the cycletrack she uses the traffic calm streets, and not just for getting around Delft, but forgetting even further outside of the city. So, yeah, hearing her story and and hearing how motor vehicles through the rest of the chapter are really helping to not to enable these people but really hinder their mobility is is an important topic that anyone working in mobility and urban design needs to hear or read, I guess, in this case, in terms of changing their thinking.
Chris Bruntlett 55:23 And I unfortunately, I think it has become a bit of a counterpoint when you start talking about restricting car traffic, removing car parking, and that you’ve seen it, especially with the low traffic neighbourhoods. In London, the first thing people say is what about the disabled is if you are restricting the mobility of everyone with a disability that they rely solely on a private automobile to get from A to B, when the statistics that you pulled out prove actually the exact opposite, I think 60% of the people with physical disability in the UK do not have access to their own motor vehicle. But the physical disability has been used as this as an excuse to build in more car dependence, unfortunately, when the facts and figures Don’t, don’t prove that out, and it’s usually able bodied people that are using the disabled as a bit of a trope, unfortunately, to argue that cities should not limit their automobility
Carlton Reid 56:29 if we’re going to build back better. And your thesis is that what to do that you curb cars, you’re going to get a richer city. So chapter eight is the prosperous cities how we’re going to get more prosperous cities, Chris?
Chris Bruntlett 56:43 Yeah, this was a, again, a chapter that we had proposed before refer to the pandemic. But for us, it really came down to access to opportunity, I think, coming from Canada, and also, you know, spending a lot of time in the United States, we saw how codependency was really robbing people of their access to opportunity, or their society required the the expense of a private automobile, which is now 20 or $12,000 per year when you take all expenses into consideration. And that’s really inequitable and unfair burden to expect for people, especially low income, and so but that’s only because the options, the alternatives, the more economic alternatives do not exist. And so we look at the kind of public transportation system that exists here in the Netherlands, in combination with the Cycling Network, how the two really reinforce each other, support each other to provide a broader cross section of the population with access to affordable housing, to steady employment, to education, to healthcare, to all of their daily needs, without necessarily the the financial burden of their own private automobile. And so we can speak to this ourselves, okay, where, you know, not in a low income bracket, but without the expense of a car, we suddenly have more money to spend in our community on small businesses. And, and I think, yeah, yeah, exactly. And we are actually, you know, we’re in this very privileged position, actually to walk work four days per week instead of the traditional five day workweek, which is something more Dutch companies are doing, but we probably couldn’t do without the, if we were paying the monthly car payments and parking in gasoline and
Carlton Reid 58:43 Okay, Melissa, chapter nine, the resilient city,
Melissa Bruntlett 58:46 what does it mean to create a resilient city, and we interviewed Dr. Judith Yang for the herb Wang sorry for this chapter. And she really helped to change our thinking a little bit, because when we look at a resilient city, we think, Okay, this is a city that can sustain itself long term despite potential natural disturbances or unnatural or manmade disturbances. But what she argues in this chapter, and what helps to open our eyes a little bit is that there’s two ways for a city to be resilient. One is that you’ve designed it in a way that even if you have impact be that something as small as construction or something much larger, like a natural disaster, the city can easily returned back to you at status quo. But one of the things that we need to look at really when we’re talking about resiliency is can we adapt? Can we change? And can we flip that regime to be stable or resilient in a different way? So that’s the way we sort of reflect that is looking back at this OPEC oil crisis, and how here in the Netherlands, it wasn’t a matter of when that oil reserve became available. Again, they just went back to the status quo, but rather found A different way of thinking flipped the way that they were designing their cities the way that they were managing them to a different stability regime to allow for much more human centred travel. And so it presents these opportunities and really reflects on the idea that As humans, we evolve, we adapt, our cities evolve and adapt with us. And so resiliency is not about making sure that your city can stay the same, but that you can adapt in a way that leads to arguably a higher quality of life and a better city overall, for its citizens
Carlton Reid 1:00:35 Tell me more about the ageing city.
Chris Bruntlett 1:00:37 Yeah, I think, as I hinted at earlier, we’ve watched our parents and our grandparents get old in fairly car dependent places. And in some instances, they’ve really been trapped in their houses, for lack of a better way to put it completely dependent on when there, there is a period of our lives inevitably when we cannot drive safely. The American automobile says it’s on average 10 years for a US senior citizen where they outlive their ability to drive safely. And in that 10 year period, we’re left with very few options, we’re either relying on a public transportation system that that’s infrequent and unreliable, or we’re forced to rely on our children, our adult children or neighbours for transportation, or we are trapped in our homes in in our neighbourhoods or we are institutionalised in a care home. And I think there’s a lot to be said about neighbourhoods, cities, largely, you know, low car places that actually allow people to age in place comfortably without being reliant on others, external forces for their mobility. And so we tell the story of Pater, one of our neighbours here in Delft that has been born and raised his entire life on the street. He was born there. And now in his 70s, he’s retired, they’re living in his own house without a car, able to get around by foot or bicycle everywhere he needs to grocery store, the community centre, the schools, that he volunteers that to stay active in the community. And that’s all supported, again, by the the infrastructure and the policy decisions that were made many years ago to build a city that’s not car dependent, and car dominant. So when we look ahead at this baby boom generation, that’s retiring and ageing very quickly, we suddenly find ourselves with an entire generation that’s going to be tracked in the neighbourhoods that they built, the car dependent places they’ve built. And I think it’s very urgent to to start looking at that as a challenge in this kind of emergency that it is, and giving them means of mobility. And, of course, we talked about Cycling is, is one route, but it is not an option for everybody. But there’s a lot to be said for the fact that the age group of 65 and above cycles more than any other adult Group here in the Netherlands. So it’s Cycling is a means of participating in society. It’s a means of staying healthy, active, and, and part of society. And we often elsewhere in the world, perhaps think of cycling as a young, able bodied activity, but in a lot of sense, it benefits the ageing population much more and gives them an alternative drive when they can no longer drive.
Carlton Reid 1:03:39 Hmm, I will thank you ever so much for going through those 10 chapters with us. And I know people are going to be absolutely now busting a gut to want to get this when it comes out in in June. So to wrap up this show, if you wouldn’t mind, Chris, if you could tell us about all your social media, because you have got quite a few. So all your social media hats where people can actually get in touch with you. But then, but first, Melissa, if you could tell people where people are going to be able to get the book from, tell us again the exact publication date, give us the price, give us how many pages but give us give us that kind of information.
Melissa Bruntlett 1:04:19 Price? That’s a great one. I don’t know. It’s a affordable book. That’s what I know. But you can buy it directly from our publisher Island press from Ireland press.org I believe Chris, correct me if I’m wrong.
Chris Bruntlett 1:04:34 Listeners in the UK, we actually have a pre sale promo code set up with Marston books, which are the US so the UK distributor of Ireland press. So if you go to their website Marston.co.uk. And site the promo code ISCT you can get 30% off of a copy of Curbing Traffic and 30% off of our first book Building the Cycling City, which is significant savings to say the least.
Carlton Reid 1:05:06 Cool, I will actually put that in the, in the show notes if you if you send me the absolute perfect link, so I get that. And also we’re gonna put in the show notes are all your social media handles. So tell us about that, Chris.
Chris Bruntlett 1:05:17 Yes. As you hinted, we are quite prolific on social media.
Carlton Reid 1:05:23 This is the next half an hour of the show …
Chris Bruntlett 1:05:28 We have a shared account @modacitylife on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I am doing the social media for the Dutch Cycling Embassy these days at cycling_embassy again on all four of those platforms. And likewise, Melissa is doing social media for Mobycon at Mobycon. Oh, and and, yeah, you can get your daily dose of such inspiration from all three of those accounts.
Carlton Reid 1:06:07 Thanks to Chris and Melissa Bruntlett there. And thanks to you for listening to the Spokesmen cycling podcast, show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com Meanwhile, get out there and ride …
Ralph is Professor and Chair Urban Affairs and Planning at the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech Research Center (VTRC), Arlington, Virginia, USA.
Carlton Reid 0:13 Welcome to episode 273 of the Spokesmen cycling Podcast. This show was uploaded on Saturday 8th May 2021.
David Bernstein 0:24 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the- spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen..
Carlton Reid 1:09 This weekend I’ve got two one-hour shows back to back, and both feature power couples. I’m Carlton Reid and on tomorrow’s show I’ll be sharing with you a great chat with husband and wife urbanists Chris and Melissa Bruntlett speaking with me from different rooms in their fairytale house in Delft. They’ve got a new book out in June and they kindly went through it with me, chapter to chapter. I asked them how they divided the writing tasks, which is also a question I asked of today’s guests, the august and influential Ralph Buehler and John Pucher. I classify them as a power couple because, as an academic pairing, they write transport-oriented papers and edit tub-thumping books together. You may have read City Cycling from 2012, well now they’ve got a new book out called Cycling for Sustainable Cities.
Carlton Reid 2:09 Ralph and John, I could read from your wonderful book. In fact, I’ve got it in front of me. So your new wonderful book “Cycling for Sustainable Cities” under the MIT, er, tubthumper of a boo. Of course, you had your 2012 book “City Cycling,” which was which absolutely a classic. This is a new classic. So I’ve got the page open, which tells me who you are. But rather than me read out your long job titles, could you please tell our listeners who you are in your own words? So, John first.
John Pucher 2:49 Okay. Um, I have been a hater of cars from my entire life. And that was what I was actually motivated my entire academic career. I started out doing research on so for my dissertation advisor at MIT as well 45 years ago, on public transit. So first 20 years of my career, I spent working on public transit, public transportation, public transport, first in the United States, and then I added Western Europe, but then I added Canada and then I added Australia, and then I added Eastern Europe. Only I sort of did, I was always in this then not always but then there’s more and more international perspective. And then I spent a two year sabbatical as a visiting professor at the University of Munster, in northern Germany, about an hour from the Dutch border. And that city has 40% of all trips by bike. And I had never ever even been to a city that has had that higher percentage of bicycling and living in that being surrounded in an environment where everyone is bicycling for every trip purpose the mail was by by the police officers revived by people in their 70s and 80s run by kids got the school by bike and everything was done by bike. And I just thought I want to know how this is possible. I just can’t believe and I was just fascinated. And and that really is what generated then my my interest in cycling as a as a field that have been totally neglected. I mean it really there was almost no academic literature on cycling
Carlton Reid 4:38 way back then. And I have picked I have gone into your book and there there is a some fascinating stats there about like how many papers are published, you know, in this year compared to like a 14 fold 18 fold increase. So I will get into that. But tell me your actual job title. What’s on your business card, John?
John Pucher 4:57 I don’t have a business card. I’m a professor emeritus at Rutgers University in Central New Jersey, and I was a professor there, I retired six years ago, but I’ve still been doing research. I was there for 37 years as a professor of urban planning and public policy.
Carlton Reid 5:20 So in, I’m going to get to Ralph in a minute … in the preamble where it’s talking about the who you are, and you’ve told us a bit about that it says, this is this is, john. So John’s particular passion is to make cycling possible for everyone, including all ages and abilities. No, no, of course, I would absolutely applaud. And recommend, and and think that’s fantastic. But, John, aren’t academics meant to be neutral? So how can you be anti car? How can you be pro transit, prp bicycle, when you’re meant to be a neutral academic just talking about the science?
John Pucher 6:02 Well, I think the science backs up my opinion. That is, I think, um, I think that scientists who claim to be totally objective, or live, I think that in the background, they have certain hypotheses, certain beliefs, if a scientist is making 99.9% of his or her trips, by car, and living way out in the suburbs, and so forth, supporting that sort of a lifestyle, that is a statement in itself, and I think many scientists supposedly objective, or viewing the whole world through the windshield of a car, without ever even knowing that they were being very subjective, at least I’m honest. And saying, look, you know, I, I, I experience these problems of car dependence. I’m surrounded by them. I experience them every day in so many different respects. And I’m not sure if that means I’m not. Yeah, I’ll be speed. See, no one I don’t think is really neutral. But I think the most dangerous kind of a scientist as a scientist who pretends to be neutral, and in fact, is very biassed because of their very lifestyle, and the way they get around and what they assume implicitly.
Carlton Reid 7:23 Hmm. Yeah, I like that. Thank you, John. And then Ralph. So So Ralph, do you have a business card first off, and what’s on that business card?
Ralph Buehler 7:32 I have a business card. And what’s on that card is that I’m currently Professor and Chair of Urban Affairs and planning it at Virginia Tech, on the Arlington campus.
Carlton Reid 7:45 So Washington DC, basically, you’re you’re across the river from DC. And tell me some of your background, Ralph, because I can tell from your accent that you’re not from Washington, DC,
Ralph Buehler 7:59 No I’m from Virginia.
John Pucher 8:01 So there’s his deep Southern accent.
Ralph Buehler 8:07 So I’m originally from Germany. And my story is a little bit the opposite of John’s story. So I studied Public Policy and Administration in in Germany and went for a student exchange to the US to Rutgers, actually, where john was, was a professor at the at the time. And before that, I had interest in transportation, mainly in public transport, but had not really thought about it as a subject for for study. I definitely bike for some trips, I walked for others, I rode public transport, and I drove a car. And then I came to the US for my study abroad. And the experience in Central New Jersey was that without a car, it was very hard to get anywhere. I tried to ride my bike as much as possible. In fact, the first day we arrived, it turned out we couldn’t even get groceries without having a car. Or so I got someone to give me a ride to a Walmart to buy a cheap bike. And then I rode back from that Walmart to to where I live, which was harrowing, because there’s no no infrastructure, nothing, no consideration for bicyclists at all in that in that area. And then even getting to a grocery store was was was harrowing, and was difficult. And so my interest was piqued Then, why are these transport systems so different? Why is it normal for me growing up to ride a bike sometimes to walk to use public transport, but it was clearly not normal in the new place. I was and then I of course also met John and we started research in this in this area.
Carlton Reid 9:52 I definitely want to get onto that. So first of all, John, is it Putcher or Pooker?
John Pucher 9:59 It’s Pooker. It’s actually original, it’s an Austrian name, it’s originally pronounced Pooker. But that’s got her on, no one can browse it. So I just make it again. So it’s Pucher, I think that would
Carlton Reid 10:12 So, Pucher and Buehler is a kind of a now a shorthand way, in many academic papers for your various papers together, and you are Yeah. Like, from a, you know, like a Morecombe and Wise, fFrom a UK perspective, you’re kind of like always together. So how did you get together?
John Pucher 10:34 Ralph was my was, I was the adviser of Ralph when he was a German exchange student. He was first at Rutgers for one year. And then he went back to Germany to finish his his, I guess you would call undergraduate degree, which is more the equivalent of a Master’s Germany. And then he decided to come back a year later for the doctoral programme, and I was his advisor for his doctoral programme and for his dissertation, as well. And his dissertation was on a comparison of the United States and Germany. And of course, I was extremely interested in the topic at any rate, and then it’s just one thing led to another. And we did a think we had a research project on comparing cycling and Canada in the United States. And it’s just then we just broaden to broaden. And he, he had, I had already done a lot of international comparative research between Western Europe, in Canada and the United States. And then Ralph came along, and that was his interest as well. And we just our interests meshed.
Ralph Buehler 11:42 Excactly. But when I got to the US, I was scheduled to study something like human resources management. But then I saw that John was there in the School of urban planning, and it piqued my interest. And I thought for the for the study abroad here, I may as well switch to to urban planning. And I remember still I formed this is us. Phone Booth. There wasn’t even a booth it was us with a phone somewhere on the on the campus, I call John’s office. And we talk then what he did was really interesting to me, it was also my interest. And then I switched programmes within a week to study urban planning. And then from there, I think, because we both have this experience of living in different countries experiencing different transport systems, and being interested in in sustainable transport and comparisons. I think that really meshed well.
John Pucher 12:30 You see, Carlton, you probably recall our article Cycling is Irresistible,
John Pucher 12:38 Well, you see what Ralph was really saying that I’m irresistible too!
John Pucher 12:42 I’m just just kidding, right!
Carlton Reid 12:47 No, no, obviously it goes without saying. I want to stay with biographical stuff at the moment before we get into the meat of you. And it is a thick book. It’s a good inch and a half thick. Before we get into into your book, so stick with the biographical stuff. So we’ll get onto Ralph’s dedication in a minute. But, John, your dedication is to Chris Kurzman, your aunt, who inspired four decades of car free living. Tell me about your aunt, John.
John Pucher 13:15 She’d never even had a driver’s licence. She She lived most of her life in New York City in Brooklyn. And I was closer to this, my aunt than anyone else in the entire family. But she was forever outsiders. I’m an environmentalist, a health food fanatic, very leftist, politically and for every conceivable progressive cause. And she hated the very idea of cars and like the noise, the pollution, the danger, and I mean, she just walked or use public transit to get everywhere, which is not difficult in New York City. And he really didn’t get out of New York City all that much. So I was I admired Miami so much. And I thought, wow, I just mean both the her interest in the environment and, and all of these same issues, equity and social justice. She was very much into those and so am I. And we just were on the same wavelength. And I mean, I was already even before wasn’t just copying my ass lifestyle. But I before I was a professor at Rutgers, I was a doctoral student in Boston at MIT. And Boston is a very, very walkable, transit friendly city and becoming more and more cycling friendly, by the way. It’s just having a car in Boston, just like it is in New York. It’s just a house. So you don’t want to have it’s difficult to park it. It’s very expensive. There’s very high taxes and owning a car, and so forth, as I mean, I wasn’t I was a student. I didn’t need one anyway. I lived about a mile mile and a half from from MIT. Everything was within walking or transit distance. And then when I went to Central New Jersey, this is the really weird thing. Everyone told me Oh, when you anyone who Jersey has to have a car, and I thought, Oh, that’s awful, I don’t want to change my lifestyle, I literally like don’t have a new car. So anyway, when I got to, I deliberately chose an apartment that was about a mile away from the Rutgers campus within walking distance, and also a mile away from the train station. It took me that’s appropriate rail coming into New York City and Philadelphia, and Princeton, and so forth. And turns out, I just didn’t need a car. And it’s just that just continued that way. And I just, I really forgot how to drive a car. I still renewed my licence, because that was used at that time, I think it still is the main form of ID in the United States, believe it or not, is a driver’s licence. And so whether you want to have it or not, you get it. And that’s, that’s your ID. So then, anyway, the point is, I just, it became, it just became part of who I was. And in fact, my nickname was carfree job. Because not only did I not own a car, it wasn’t just out of principle, it just became part of my lifestyle and my mentality. And the most, I must tell you, the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me is, this is gonna sound weird for most people. When I retired, I wanted to move to here to Raleigh, North Carolina, because my brother and sister live here. That’s, that’s the reason I moved here. And it was I had to postpone making this decision of opponent postponing retirement. Because I knew how auto oriented this part of the country is, if you just have to have a car period, and I thought, I just don’t want to have a car, it’s gonna ruin my life, and even shopping for a car. What’s traumatic, I don’t know nothing about cars. The point is, I did have to buy a car. I do have to use a car but I use it as little as I can. But it just it definitely it’s a very, very different lifestyle. And that for me, I mean, it was a almost traumatic shift from what I was really enjoying as a I’m not gonna say worry free but a collapse salesman from comfortable with not having a car and then here having a car free going to the gas stick to the petrol station to get fill up the gas is a pain
John Pucher 17:28 in the neck.
John Pucher 17:30 I mean, going for the annual inspection of the cars of paint the neck these things that parking your car is a pain in the neck. It’s just, it’s just not something that I enjoy. There’s some people who like cars and I hate them.
Carlton Reid 17:42 And Ralph, your dedication? Are they students? Are they family? Who’s Nora, Niels, Tillman, Liesel, Schorsch, Steffi and Tizian?
Ralph Buehler 17:51 It’s, it’s it’s family. And I think so my, my parents are in there, because they sort of let me find my work. I’m the first in my family to in Germany, the schools are tiered to go to a good nauseum to go to a school that can take you all the way to university. And they let me do that. And then they let me go to university after that, and everybody else in our family was looking at me as a waiter getting a real job. Why are you while you’re doing this, and then in the end, it took me all the way to the US to really find find my passion and find the the work I want to do. And for my family, essentially, because they put up with my interest in transportation. So whenever we go on, on a trip on vacation, I’m always looking at, at bike lanes or pedestrian crosswalk transit systems, and they take photos, and they have to stop and the kids are not fully aware yet what I’m doing. But I always say, Well, I’m taking these pictures for the students and for my work. And then one time I remember we looked at the sunset, and my son says to me, Papa, don’t you want to take a picture for your students? wouldn’t they be interested in that sort of work? That doesn’t stop just when we are out there is always something interesting to see. And to observe and to bring back. I want to make one more point with the, with the biographies. I think what helps me here in the US as a researcher is to be an outsider or to be somebody with a different experience or coming from somewhere else. Because it makes it easier for me to to question things or to see, to see differences. That comes more more naturally to me for being an outsider or being a foreigner versus somebody who was who was socialised in the same in the same system.
John Pucher 19:47 I would just like to make the same point but for me, it was the reverse. That is for me, it was living in Germany for those first two years or two full years, two and a half years in fact, I just never had lived in an environment where there was such good public transport and walking and the most surprising of all such incredible cycling facilities and with literally everyone cycling, and the the notion of everyone cycling cycling for everyone. I mean, that is sort of one of my trademarks, I guess. But that comes from the whole issue of equity of social justice. And that is one theme that that my dissertation adviser Alan Alshuler, it was one of his specialties. And so he really also inspired me in terms of the focus on equity and social justice, as well as sustainable transportation.
Carlton Reid 20:38 Okay, wonderful. Thank you. And so I’m now looking at “Cycling for Sustainable Cities”, the book. And and of course, you’re the editors of the book, you haven’t written a whole book you’ve written basically, you’ve written some bits in the middle, but it’s mainly the the introduction, and then the conclusion. But then you basically corralled, you know, the world’s greatest experts on cycling here. So you have names that people will be very familiar with, you know, Tim Blumenthan Bill Nesper, they’re, of course on the advocacy front in the US, Fiona Campbell. I know, from Australia. She’s in there. Who else we got here? Oh, John Parkin, who’s been on the show before Marco te Brommelstroet, who is @cyclingprofessor, many people will follow him on Twitter. So you’ve got an absolutely stellar list of contributors. Now, what of those contributors done for you and for us, the readers different to “City Cycling” 10 years ago. So how has this book been updated with that stellar list of people in those 10 years?
John Pucher 21:49 There are a lot of new topics. So for example, I, I very much wanted to now that I am, I’m 70 years old. But now that I am an older adult, and I thought, well, we didn’t have a chapter on cycling for older adults, and I’m still cycling. And if you look at the the Denmark or Germany in the Netherlands, or there’s a lot of older adult cycling, and I thought we really need you to chapter and that chapter I wrote together with for Jan was the lead author, Janka Girard, but they were all for my co authors, there are public health experts. And so we’re looking at it from the all of the physical, social, and mental health benefits of cycling for older adults and how to encourage more older adults. So that’s a new chapter, the one I thought on China, in India, it was really important. And again, I can’t tell you how I tried to get other people to do that chapter. And I couldn’t get anyone else to lead. So that’s why I lead it, but with the three Chinese colleagues at one Indian colleague, and I mean, they are the two most populous countries in the world. And there’s more cyclists in China in India, even now than there are in the rest of the world. So that was really, really important to look at cycling and China and India. And we have a new chapter on Latin America, a cycling as a growing part of the world and an important part of the world. And we definitely Ralph and I are no experts of Latin American. So we have three Latin American colleagues are all originally from Bogota, and also like cycling experts. And so they wrote that chapter that was completely new, the E bike chapter was completely new. And that’s been a big trend recently. And then there have been so many developments in bike sharing, I mean, the fourth or fifth generation, whatever they call this, the latest now the front the floating bikes. I mean, that was a new development as well, I’m leaving out something well, what chapters have I left? Oh, they advocacy chapter. Oh, there’s a story to that. And I’m probably don’t want to hear it. But we had, I hadn’t managed to find someone who was willing to write that chapter on her own. And then at the very last moment, she just she got sick or whatever was just you couldn’t do it. And so I then I know all of those co authors, who are all cycling advocates in around the world. And within 24 or 48 hours, I got in touch with each and every one of them explain the situation I’m in a tight bind. And we I really think it’s crucial, absolutely crucial to have a chapter on advocacy. Because academics can have the best ideas in the world. If you can’t implement them, they’re worthless. And it’s the advocates that really help us implement these things, and generate that public support and political supports anyway, incredibly, I mean, I really do know these people, I’ve known that I’ve known Fiona ever since 2005, when I was on sabbatical in Sydney. And so I just got in touch with people I already knew. And they happen to be executive directors of these organisations. And, and they said, Yes, we’ll do it. And so within one month, that advocacy chapter was written And incredibly, we had three anonymous referees, and two of the three set said in the review that their advocacy advocacy chapter was their favourite. And we wrote it in the least time. What chat? What would you like to say all the differences?
Ralph Buehler 25:17 Do we have one, one more chapter that was added on evaluation by Bert van Wee, which we didn’t have before. So trying to get at how to decide what what bicycle project to build. And then a big chapter, a big addition and sort of carrying through all the chapters is, is this focus on equity. So we have a whole chapter on, on equity among groups of people who ride bikes, but also in bike planning and accessible bike planning. And we and then I would push a little bit back against your characterization in the beginning that we sort of wrote the back the book ends, and then corralled people to come in, I think we were much more involved as editors. So we, we tried to get everyone to have some aspects of equity in the, in the chapters to have a connection to sustainability. We also connected the chapters quite closely. And maybe it’s a little bit too much. But you should see many references from one chapter to the other while you’re reading the book, so we really were careful. editors, and many other edited books don’t work that way. I’ve written chapters for edited books, and the editors do very, very little, to make a cohesive whole out of the book. So we didn’t only get the great, a great group of people, but we also were able to sort of make it a book that’s, that’s connected, and then that’s together. And then one other point is, as you mentioned, that research and bicycling has been skyrocketing over the last 1015 years. And I saw that firsthand when I was was chair of the TRB. Committee for bicycle transport. But so we wanted to have experts in these subfields, to write the chapters to really get at the cutting edge of each field, we could have written a book, and we could have done a good job at it. But we wouldn’t have been able to get for all of these subfields into all of the details and at the cutting edge of each alone. And so finding these top experts in their subfields was was really crucial to make the book a success.
John Pucher 27:19 We had four. Okay, we’ll do this. This was the MIT Press wanted just a second edition of what we done before. And Ralph and I both said, No, that would be boring for us. And we want to produce a different book. It’s substantially different book, which it is. And but we somehow thought that well on the sort of second time around even though it’s a different book, that wouldn’t wouldn’t take as much time as I would just guess I’m Ralph can probably, I think it took three times more effort and more time. This second time around. I mean, again, we added so many new chapters, but we did a lot more coordination and editing. And they were just more checking, we have 21 chapters instead of 15 chapters. So there was more work there. And also, by the way, some of it, we didn’t just have the same author. So for example, the safety chapter is written by a completely different person with a very different perspective. And so something we did have, and also even the New York, London Paris chapter, the John Parkin, whose was the case study author there for London, he was a new author compared to the earlier edition. So we did switch out authors, we added new topics, it’s a three times more talk.
Carlton Reid 28:42 And it’s roughly 50/50 male authors and female authors.
John Pucher 28:48 And that would be even more than the scheduled. I mean, it’s the scheduled author who had to then drop out because of health reasons for the advocacy chapter was a woman. And then it just wasn’t our fault. But the heads of these advocacy organisations with a few exceptions, are men. And so that’s why then in that chapter, I think Fiona we see who else Fiona might be the only woman actually in the as a co author of that chapter. That’s very unfortunate, but it just, I had no choice. I left 24, 48 hours to find replacements for Karen who would originally
Ralph Buehler 29:27 I’m not sure how much this is indicative for us are the field of research. So as mentioned before with the Transportation Research Board is this big research organisation here in the US and they have committees for all sorts of transportation modes and infrastructures. And the committee for bicycle transport is one of the most diverse committees they have. Because the researchers are really diverse in the field. There are so many diverse …
Carlton Reid 29:54 Diverse in everything?
Ralph Buehler 29:59 Definitely men and women, many TLB committees have travelled to even find one woman in their area of research. And it’s also getting more diverse in terms of racial diversity. But it’s still lacking compared to society at large compared to the other TRB committees. It’s very diverse, even in terms of racial composition. And it’s also very diverse in terms of ages. There’s so many young researchers doing work on on Bicycle Transportation, but many of the other committees, it’s mainly older white men. And so the field of research itself, so the researchers are, are more diverse, I would say that then in other transportation areas,
John Pucher 30:38 by the way, one thing called the the woman that was originally scheduled to be the author of the advocate chat for I’m not gonna name her name, but she’s African American woman. And I mean, and I mean, and she was well qualified to do this, it’s just the health issues came up. And then I was just very disappointed that I think she might be I’m not sure about this, the only African American, she would have been the only African American among the authors. And I, we we certainly tried, but it was a last minute disappointment that you couldn’t do it.
Carlton Reid 31:14 So that’s, that’s something you’re going to have to do in the third edition, you’re gonna have to write it.
Ralph Buehler 31:21 I don’t think we really we have, I think it would happen naturally, by the end, give us another 10 years and the field will be will be also much more balanced in terms of race and ethnicity. Hmm.
Carlton Reid 31:33 So you talked there about all of the academic research that’s been done for bicycling, and all of the different people and young people who are now getting into academic research on bicycling? What about walking, how come walking falls between the stores, you get plenty people interested in, in motor cars, plenty people now seemingly interested in knowing bicycles, where’s all this fantastic research and advocacy for the world’s oldest form of transportation walking.
Ralph Buehler 32:08 So that there is work being done on walking and speaking from a Transportation Research Board perspective, again, that the walking committee was also growing and getting much more diverse as the bicycle committee was at the time. But you’re right, there wasn’t that that level of organisation and their level of interest in walking then there was in in bicycling. In terms of advocacy, and john can can attest to that. bicyclists are just very, very organised in groups. And they’re very good in influencing policy and creating energy around bicycling. One possibility may be mister speculation on my part that bicycling is more of an organised or special interest because you can identify the group of bicyclists versus pedestrians like everybody walks and everybody walks a little bit. And it’s much harder to organise people around that because it’s more of a common a common trait. We all share and it’s hard to get some money to pick that up for everyone while the cyclists are is sort of smaller, easier to organise.
Carlton Reid 33:17 Tribal, Ralph?
Ralph Buehler 33:20 Oh, I’m not sure what tribal I mean, I know the word but I don’t know what tribal means it has a negative connotation to me. So
John Pucher 33:27 if you look at the Netherlands, riding a bike is nothing special. Whereas if you look at Australia riding a bike is something special. So maybe it’s tribal in countries like Australia or the United States, but it’s certainly not tribal in in Denmark or the Netherlands or Germany. You posted a really interesting question. And I was I got a walking tour. by the hand of it was the Greater Sydney walk. organisation. I’m in a very small one. And we walk all around are much much of the Sydney Harbour. I said, we were staying nice. I said, why is it that you know, the cyclists are so well organised and there’s so much literature and interest in sight and cycling. And I don’t know if any, was very few organisations and he said, Well, walking is sort of like breathing, then you would think of forming an organisation for people who breathe. And the very fact that walking is sick considered so commonplace, it doesn’t have any, you don’t don’t brag too much about the shoes that you wear or the clothes you wear while you’re walking. People don’t really walk for walking clubs. It’s just, it’s just not. It’s not something that’s easy to organise around. Whereas cycling it’d be there’s all different groups of cyclists Of course, but the bike tours and special bike events and bike days and so forth, but even walk to work days walk to school days. It’s just doesn’t have the connotation of bike to work, like to school. It’s hard to explain it. But the other thing, there was a special issue I think was two years ago, of one of the top journals in transportation, its Transportation Research. A, I think it has its own policy, and it was a large issue, and they put out a big request for proposals. And it was specific, I’m walking and bicycling and it really I mean, they just do everything to get as many proposals they could get the the final issue ended up being, I don’t know, maybe 80% on cycling and 20% on walking.
Ralph Buehler 35:40 I’ve been to more thoughts on this, if you if you if you allow one is, I think that something that’s that’s so common as walking is is harder to organise people around an example maybe the bicycling research in Europe is emerged much later than it emerged here in the US. And I remember Kevin Krycek, who you know, as well, when he went to the Netherlands for at on a sabbatical for a year. When he arrived there, he told them that he studies bicycling at the university, and they looked at him and said, Really, what’s next, the professor on vacuuming. And
Carlton Reid 36:15 yeah, brush-your-teeth studies, that kind of thing.
Ralph Buehler 36:18 Because it was it was it was so it was so common. And now of course, we have macular premenstrual and they are moving along in this direction as well. But it took them longer to recognise it as something special. Because everybody icicle there. And then the other aspect is that data are hard to get for bike research, but it’s easier to study bikers bicycling than then walking and getting Ada on walkway networks on the quality of sidewalks, the location of crosswalks the quality of the crosswalks, it’s much harder than then getting the data on on bicycling even though that’s not easy compared to driving. So I think that they have an additional additional burden burden there in the bike in the walkway search as well.
Carlton Reid 37:02 But there is historical resonance there. Because whenever you go back, I don’t know how much you go back into, you know, deep history of this topic. But when you look at traffic statistics in say, the 1920s or 1930s, this is mainly in the US and in the in the UK, I’m not too sure about Germany, etc. But you always find statistics for cycling, and for motoring and the mode shares. And then you never find statistics for walking. It’s just walkers have always just seem to be invisible. But if you look at London, you know the majority form of transport in London, in in, in sending the City of London people on foot. So it’s just an invisible, you know, it’s hard to be a policymaker as well in this area, or to push policy because Yeah, everybody is a pedestrian. So why would you have to, you know, promote that?
John Pucher 37:56 You’re absolutely right. I know for certain that in the United States. And by the way, this is also true in eastern here that the travel surveys are free. They used to be who just did the US Census that we report to every well every 10 years on the trip to work. And but most any travel surveys on the Metropolitan level, the city level did not include walking or cycling at all, they only include motorised transportation. And then what was looking at the data for many Eastern European countries, they simply they just don’t have the data. They don’t include walking and cycling. In their in their travel surveys. It’s it’s very frustrating that somehow the way to save the invisible modes are not considered real transportation. And now here in the United States, they are, but they didn’t used to be and going back to say the first travel survey son in the 19, early 1960s. I think they were in various cities, there were these transportation studies, and they just did not study walking and definitely didn’t study cycling. You know, it’s really only it’s, I mean, by cycling has only recently I was I don’t know exactly when the first articles came up. But it was it was not that long ago. It was I mean, it was certainly not 50 or 60 years ago, it was more like maybe 2530 years ago or so that we started to get some research on cycling.
Ralph Buehler 39:22 Yeah, and certainly it’s been this the last point on there’s been more successful than then walking in and getting recognised like in the US now they are redoing this mu t CD, the manual of uniform traffic control devices, and this chapter on bicycling and it’s outdated, but there’s no chapter on walking in the whole uniform traffic control devices. And they added a chapter now on autonomous vehicles. That’s just more interesting. Something to plan for. But walking that has been around for hundreds of years is not even recognised in that
Carlton Reid 39:52 walking and cycling really shouldn’t be, you know, pulling apart they should be absolutely working on together. Now, on that note, I would now like to cut to an ad break, if you don’t mind to go across to my colleague, David.
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Carlton Reid 41:34 Thanks, David. And we are back with Ralph Buehler. And John Pucher, not putcher as we found out before, I can’t do the glottal stop them afraid. Now, we’re talking about cycling in a second. So you know, in cycling for sustainable cities, and the new book from MIT, by Ralph and john, with all those bunch of experts among whom we talked about before now in the book in a current way exactly where it is, I’m not somewhere it talks about how this book was all of the statistics and book is absolutely super dense with statistics and tables and and everything you could possibly need for for for fact, checking stuff. But in the book, it does talk about COVID. And it mentioned Coronavirus in passing, because, you know, obviously happened as you are going to press almost do you think you might need perhaps even a whole new book on what’s going to be happening to walking and but mainly to cycling because of of COVID. So my question is really do you expect the amazing bike boom, which we have seen? Do you expect that to continue? 2, 3,4, 5 years after everybody’s been jabbed?
John Pucher 43:00 Yes. I don’t think it requires a new book, though. That is we as I think we sent you the the article we just published in the journal transport reviews, which looks at exactly this issue of the COVID impacts on cycling. And, oh, I don’t know how many different sources we looked at, maybe there were 25, or whatever, different studies, incredibly, a lot of interest in in this very topic of COVID impacts on cycling. And I mean, what they do show is overall, that they’ve increased there has been an increase in cycling between 2019 2020 but with a huge variation, obviously, during lockdowns when you weren’t allowed to travel at all, less cycling as well. But in most countries, most of the increase was in recreational cycling, cycling for exercise. So I think just to get outdoors, to have to sort of see other people with social distancing. And amazingly, the survey was done. The state showed that the main motivation for people to ride a bike for the first time or for the first time in a long time was for stress reduction and mental health. And the second most important reason was for physical exercise and and an hour. But the point is that it we so we really already have an update in that article. And I think that if MIT Press would let us do it. What we would probably try to do is to add a new chapter or an afterword or something like this in the book to update what has been happening due to COVID. Because I think we cover that fairly well. And I don’t think it would be necessary to update every single chapter, but rather just to update and by the way, even now, it’s it’s not 100% clear what is Definitely going to happen. But we do think and we give at the end of that article that we just published five reasons we that there’s been huge increases in in bicycling infrastructure of various kinds during the COVID period, that’s going to be there. So there’s going to be better infrastructure for cycling. In the coming years, we have people more people who have cycled who then may now have taken up the habit of cycling. And there was a study done here in the United States by people for bikes. And they found that it was something like 70% of people that they surveyed said, they intend to continue cycling after COVID. In addition to that, there was this huge shift of big decline in public transport use here in the United States, and I think in Europe as well. And some of those former public transport passengers have indeed shifted to bicycling because there’s more social distancing, and so forth. What were the other reasons we listed around Anyway, there’s many reasons why we think that the increase in cycling that we’ve observed in the in 2020, compared to 2019, will indeed continue into 2021, 2022, and so forth.
Ralph Buehler 46:14 And I don’t think we need to, we would need to rewrite the book, you would update the trends to to COVID. But all the strategies, the policies, the measures to increase cycling for everyone have have remained the same, that the policies we need to get people on bikes is to provide cycling environments that are free of fast, high volumes of motorised traffic, that increase increase the safety and attractiveness the same now, after a year in COVID, than it was before, we may have seen accelerated change in implementing these infrastructures, and accelerated change in getting people to try out bicycling or rediscover bicycling. But the the ideas on how to promote cycling that are in the book are still the same. And a lot of the fate of cycling past COVID now will depend on how many new facilities are built. And how many of the pop up bike lanes and the closed streets and all the things we saw will be made permanent or will just be rolled back in Washington DC, where I’m here, they’re just they’re rolling back the the shared streets and neighbourhoods, they’re just taking them out. And so we won’t have that benefit anymore. But in other cities, they have made infrastructures permanent, and they are keeping to increase bicycling friendly, friendly measures. So I think that the fate of this bike boom, we really depend on the policymakers underground and on the infrastructure on the ground to make places more bike friendly.
John Pucher 47:47 Okay, Carlton, that is one of the important lessons is, is an implementation, that one of the problems we’ve had definitely here in the United States, but also in Canada and Australia. And that is the near impossible that a very different company to impose any sort of car restrictive measures. That is restricting food traffic from local neighbourhoods, reducing speed limits, car free streets, shared streets, all of those sorts of things, and traffic, calming neighbourhoods in general. And what we found during and this is in many, many cities throughout the world, that all of a sudden things that we thought would be impossible, had been possible. So the most stunning thing for me was in New York City, I came over the exact mileage was over 100 miles of new york city streets were suddenly made car free exclusively for pedestrians and cyclists from 8am to 8pm. so that people could get outside and socially distancing, socialise with each other and have physical activity. I mean, that would have been unthinkable five or six years, two years ago. And there are other things shared streets and just we have a listing there but I mean, cities all over the world have been experimenting with things that that anti whatever I put the motorist extremist groups have opposed to No, no, no, no, no, you can’t take away our lanes. And indeed, you can put up pop up bike lanes and you can you can make cars, streets car free and expand outdoor restaurant space. All these things were, as Ralph said, they’re not they’re not on not all of them are going to continue. But it was interesting just it’s just fascinating how what is possible in a crisis situation, and that these measures which had would not have been possible before in the United States, especially, it was just incredible what has been been done.
Carlton Reid 49:52 You write in the book — this is a direct quote here now — you recommend basically so cities should make driving a car slower, more expensive and less convenient. So what an awful lot of bicycle advocates whether tribal or not, what they say is what we need to get people cycling, or more bike lanes, you know, forget everything else, just more bike lanes, that’s what will get people cycling. But one of the points you’re making in the book, and I’ve personally I absolutely agree with this is you’ve got to do both. You’ve got to it’s carrot and stick, you’ve got to Yes, provide immunities that are attractive for cycling. But you’ve also got to hit motorist over the head with a huge, huge, big stick. Ralph, would you would you write that particular sentence? Are you both in line with that? Are you are you thinking? Yes, you need that stick? Yeah?
John Pucher 50:50 I think we both are in line with it. And I was gonna just say it’s a pleasure to be interviewed by such a brilliant journalist who is in agreement with us. Because I absolutely mean, I think both of us completely agree with you that these these stick measures which are so difficult, are perhaps the most effective. And Ralph and I together with my former dissertation advisor at MIT, we did a case study of Vienna, Austria. And they had an extraordinarily successful policy over about three decades. They and their two main measures, this is not who they are, they increase cycling to from I think it was 2%. Now to 9% of all trips are by bike and Vienna. So they they have massive increase in in bike facilities, and many of them are protected bike lanes, but then they have a massive, they built a new metro system that will burn and they and then it continued to expand it and expand it. And at the same time, one of the most crucial policies was what they call parking management, restricting access. By the so many residential neighbourhoods, you can’t park there unless you’re a resident. In addition to which even if you’re able to park in a particular spot, there’s a time limitation as to one hour or two hours, which completely eliminated long distance commuting by car into the centre of Vienna. And so they provided people with the alternative of vastly improved public transport, while at the same time making it very expensive and very difficult to drive your car to the centre, and at the same time, vastly improving their cycling network, they ended up reducing the percentage of trips by car from 40%. me what was it rough, I think was 140 percent to 20% or something like that. It was one of the most dramatic reductions in car mode share that we have seen in any major city is just incredible. But that’s that truly is that combination of carrots and sticks.
Ralph Buehler 53:07 And they go together in multiple ways. So they go together to reduce car travel volume and to reduce car travel speed. And at the same time, that itself makes it more attractive to ride a bike. And then they go together in the sense that if you build good alternatives, you can implement more policies that restrict car use, because you can point drivers to other opportunities, they can ride a subway in the case of Vienna, or they can ride a bike. So these carrots and sticks go go together in in many ways. So less driving, make cycling safer, and and then better bike infrastructure makes cycling a more viable alternative. And you don’t need me to drive the big stick you mentioned and beating drivers with a big stick. I would I would object to that in the sense that if you look historically, we really have made every effort in the last 100 years to accommodate drivers to our cities, we have sort of given over city spaces, to storing cars or to moving cars, then we have rolled out the red carpet for automobiles and in this 70s many European cities started realising Well, there are many negative side effects, there are fatalities, there’s pollution, there’s a loss of quality of life, and they started pulling back then already, and now they are pulling back more. So I wouldn’t say it’s about hitting drivers with a big stick. But it’s ending these policies of accommodating cars everywhere in our cities, that don’t have to be cars in our city centres that don’t have to be car parking. facilities in in streets in our city centres. These are places where people live where people want to be outside. And we’re sort of correcting errors we have made historically, but this doesn’t mean we’re hitting them with a big stick. We’re just taking away a tonne of privileges that were given to The car over the last 100 years, they just have gone way too far and accommodating the car in our cities and the cars have destroyed many cities.
Carlton Reid 55:10 Ralph, I’m going to come to you with a question. But I’m going to ask John, the exact same thing. We’ll find out what you both think on this, but I asked you before about who wrote this particular sentence, and we didn’t get an answer to that. That’s not that’s not critical on each particular sentence. But my background, my academic background, many, many, many, many years ago as a as a just as a graduate student, was in biblical studies in effect, so I majored in Jewish texts. And so I’m in I was, at that time an expert in exegesis where I analysed texts. So in fact, the Bible to work out who were the original authors of those texts, so if you know anything about scriptural research, you know, you find that the word will say five or six common authors to say, you know, the some of the major books of the Bible. And you can you can work out stylistically who wrote that. And you get to these these these common authors, Could somebody now or in in that know, some, some future time, come to this book, your book? and go, Oh, yeah, john wrote that bit. Ralph wrote that bit? Or have you? Have you somehow been able to merge it and you know, academic could ever unpick the stuff in there. So Ralph, can you unpick who wrote what in the chapters that you you wrote?
Ralph Buehler 56:43 I think that the two answers to this one in terms of writing style, I think, yes, you will clearly be able to pick apart. But I wrote in what john wrote, I’m not a native speaker. So my language abilities in a foreign language are clearly more limited than what john has as a as a native speaker. And that is a very good writer in the native language. But, but most of the chapters and things we do together, how we work is we create outlines of of each chapter before we write it. And we sometimes even down to the level of of the each paragraph, and within each paragraph, what points we want to make and what we want to say. So in terms of the content, or the logic of the content of how we assemble things, I don’t think you’ll be able to pick it apart. So stylistically, I think you will be able to pick apart who wrote what, but I think in terms of the the logic or the thinking of the chapters, you will not be able to pick it apart because we are doing that really absolutely together.
Carlton Reid 57:46 John, same question to you.
John Pucher 57:49 I agree, in addition to which is looking at particular sentences, such as the one on the need to combine carrots and sticks, and so forth. We have written so many articles together and the the earlier book and, and and now this book that it’s like, we are almost of the same mind. We Ralph is is more focused, maybe on the analytical side and and I’m more focused maybe on just getting the writing style just just right. But just as Ralph said, we we outline the chapters we discuss which graphics do we think we want to include? And then as the graphics are being designed, Ralph is the graphics expert. But then No, no, no, no, I don’t like this underneath. And when you change this, we need to include this or not include that. So we really, when we when we we go through drafts, Ralph has lots of changes to the text as well. And sometimes they agree, sometimes I don’t and it goes, it really went back and forth, back and forth. Whether it was the graphics or or the tax, I think we both provided key inputs to each other really, we’ve worked on so many things together, that we’re a very we’re a team that we complement each other well. So we were sort of an integrated team. And certain things that I can’t do well, for example, graphics and any sort of regression analysis have that Ralph work on that. And he’s also very, very organised and structured. Whereas My specialty is more Does this make sense? Is this going to be understandable to a broad audience? Is it well written? Is it clear? Is it convincing? And I’m always in every single sentence I’m writing I’m asking sort of in the back of my head that question, is it well written in that sense, because it’s not our purpose to just appeal to academics? Our purpose is to appeal to a broader audience, including policymakers and advocates I mean, because if you can’t, if you can’t make a case and a clear understandable way clear English then It’s not going to have much impact. And the purpose of writing this book was not to make money, we make very, very little, for sure. And it wasn’t to become famous because of writing the book, it was to have hope that we can have an impact on policy. And that advocates, policymakers, planners, engineers can use this book to improve cycling conditions around the world.
Carlton Reid 1:00:23 And we’ve talked about the impact of Coronavirus on on bicycling levels in the next 10 years say, but what about might you even need a paper or chapter or an update to your book on the Buttigieg factor? So Mayor Pete? How, how optimistic should we be that the very warm words in which he is saying one word about cycling will come through to both actual policy and actual money and then actuality on the ground?
John Pucher 1:00:59 He can encourage? I mean, there’s only so much discretion he has as Secretary of Transportation, and what money gets allocated for what purposes, is going to be determined by Congress. And, for example, what I see and this, these are all proposals that hasn’t been passed yet. A huge amount, I can retirement $70 billion, or something like that, to promote electric cars. And lots of money for for this that and I don’t know how many billions, hundreds of billions for approving roadways. And I really I didn’t see any line item there for walking and cycling. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But however, the New York Times reported it, it didn’t show up. And I’m thinking, well, the whole point of this is what what he a Secretary of Transportation can do. I mean, he has influence, he can encourage people in his department to do whatever they can to promote cycling, to end walking as well and to enable programmes to they can issue the directives or departmental directives, our policy guidelines, but the funding itself is really determined by Congress, there is some discretion of funding where the Secretary of Transportation does to have discretion. So he certainly has his heart in the right place. I mean, the words of the right place. But I am not aware that Pete Budaj edge cycled to work on a regular basis. So I’m really just not sure, I think I think it depends really, on what Congress does. And then also, much of those, much of the funding gets channelled to the States. And the states ultimately make some of the decision a lot of your marketing as well. But the states will make many of the decisions and many of the states are not necessarily as pro bike as we would like them to be.
Carlton Reid 1:02:57 So Ralph, John isn’t isn’t so sure. How about you?
Ralph Buehler 1:03:01 I would also say that, for your question, that it would be premature to write a chapter about the bootie judge factor, we’ll have to wait and see if there is a Buttigieg factor as you as you said, there are words that point in the right direction, the background is encouraging that we have a transport secretary who who was a mayor, and who knows the urban transport needs and knows urban transportation, so that there could be good good things to come. But in the end, there will be many, many constraints with federal legislation with finding federal funding, I think they’ll be able to move the needle more towards more bike friendly, and they can help the local level. But a lot will also depend on the end on on the willingness of local governments to make these changes and implement these changes and change their their transport systems to be more friendly, towards bicycling and, and walking. So I’m cautiously optimistic. In the past, if you look at past us transport legislation, where bicycling and walking receive more money, that the trend had always been towards growing the pie. So walking and cycling back money, I’ve got more money, but there was even more money for driving and more money for transit. And that made everybody happy because you didn’t have to make a compromise. We don’t seem to be so, so lucky financially these days. So we’ll have to see what happens when politicians actually have to make these trade offs and take money away from one mode and shift it to the other. And as john said, there is a lot of excitement around electric vehicles, about autonomous vehicles, there’s going to going to be money put into into those areas as well and the transport Secretary alone cannot cannot shift these, these priorities. So
Carlton Reid 1:04:51 Sorry, sorry, kind of interrupting because they just come into my head, but AOC has been, you know, championing electric cars in just the last day or so. And you know, She seemed to be a very leftist, a very progressive member of Congress. And yet here she is plugging for wonderful, better word, electric cars, which we know is not the future because of all sorts of different issues. But the most progressive members of Congress are plugging just same old thing. It’s just a car.
Ralph Buehler 1:05:22 But progressiveness does not always translate into being pro sustainable transportation. I mean, during that when Joe Biden was the vice president and the 2008 financial crisis, a lot of the money went into the car industry. And there were these Cash for Clunkers programmes to help sell new cars, because the interest was in saving workplaces, in the car industry. And they are also a big constituent of, of progressive politicians. So progressive politicians does not always mean sustainable transport. And sometimes it sometimes means that
Carlton Reid 1:06:00 AOC is pretty much shown she’s not really that much of a radical at all.
John Pucher 1:06:04 That’s right.
Carlton Reid 1:06:04 People paint her as radica but she is like not radical. That is absolutely what everybody in America has been saying for the last 100 years. Oh, come on, get with get with the programme. So let me just say, I am very, very aware that we’re now 70 minutes into recording and I said, we’ll be done within an hour. So I’m aware of that. But very, very quickly, is cycling, left wing or right wing Ralph?
Ralph Buehler 1:06:29 I don’t think cycling would have to be left or right wing. For example, John mentioned the city of Munster in Germany, which is a 40% bike share the city of Munster with one exception for four years, they had a social democrat other than that they always had a conservative mayor. In Winston it’s as as politically sad comes it’s a conservative German city. So bicycling can be can thrive in a conservative.
Carlton Reid 1:06:54 That’s that’s unfair, because you’re talking about Europe. Of course, I should rephrase the question. In America and by extension in the UK, is cycling left wing or right wing?
Ralph Buehler 1:07:05 forget Europe, I would still maintain that cycling itself doesn’t have to be right or left wing. But it is spun very often as a left and right wing issue. And the it’s fun as a left wing issue for promoting cycling or being environmentally friendly. But I do not think that protecting the environment, getting physical activity. And all of these things have to be leftist leftist issues. But that’s the way that’s the way it’s it’s fun. I remember a presentation via a city planner from the city of Freiburg who was in in New York City, and he recommended the bus only lanes be implemented on certain avenues. And he was sort of run out of town as a left wing socialist, but it’s only about moving people efficiently. Down a roadway without traffic congestion. So many of these things get get caught up in the politics and the politics of the day. But I don’t think they have to be they have to call it political necessary in
Carlton Reid 1:08:08 Fascist states were very famous for even though it wasn’t isn’t true, you know, their trains running on time. So you can be ultra ultra right wing and want transportation to work, yeah?
John Pucher 1:08:20 I got to give you a southern view here. So I’m in North Carolina, unfortunately, state that voted for Trump, both times incredibly. And my favourite bike shop. I’ve got Ron, they’re constantly on bike repair centre, and the election where Trump got elected. I was absolutely appalled. There was this big sign on his front door, Trump pence and thinking, Oh, I thought bicyclists were progressive. And then I got to talking to more and more cyclists on the green right here in Raleigh. And many of them have Yeah, I didn’t yell and scream at them. I thought, okay, we’ll just not discuss politics. But I was amazed at how many cyclists I found out, we’re pro Trump, and we’re Republican, and yet very Pro Cycling. So at least here in North Carolina, being pro cycling has nothing whatsoever to do with being leftist or rightist. It just doesn’t. Okay.
Ralph Buehler 1:09:31 And then the one comment you made sort of as a joke, but with the fascist systems and transport. In Germany, for example, the fascists tried to brand themselves as those who created the autobahns and all that. But if you really look at the history, the autobahns they built, they were planned in the 1920s way before they came to power. They were even autobahn stretches that were built and then the fascists downgraded them to local roads to be the one To open the first autobahn, so I don’t think this necessarily has to have a political orientation dimension to it.
Carlton Reid 1:10:08 Tell me about where we people can get this book from, maybe they’ve had “City Cycling,” and now they should get ‘Cycling for Sustainable Cities.” So where can people get this from, first of all? And then secondly, how can people find out more about you guys? So john, you tell us where we get the book from? And then you tell us where people from find information from and then Ralph can take over?
John Pucher 1:10:32 The book is available in virtually every single online bookseller that I’m aware of. I’m not sure if it’s in all that many bookstores. But it’s definitely in the Amazon. There’s every conceivable, and I mean, there’s dozens and dozens of online sites where the book can be ordered. It costs
Carlton Reid 1:10:56 $30, for an academic, you know, big, big dense things. But that’s not bad that 30 bucks is pretty good.
John Pucher 1:11:01 It’s pretty good for given that it’s almost 500 pages long. So be that’s a bargain, I’d say for for 30 $30. Or bike is about 20 pounds, or 21 pounds, something like that.
Carlton Reid 1:11:14 So John, where where can people find out about you?
John Pucher 1:11:18 All they have to do is put in my name into Google, they’ll find out everything they need.
Carlton Reid 1:11:23 Cos you’re not really on social media…
John Pucher 1:11:25 I don’t do social media. I’m so old fashioned, I don’t do Facebook or Twitter or anything like that. I don’t.
Carlton Reid 1:11:32 But that’s something in common with Trump, then
John Pucher 1:11:38 well, you know, I must,
John Pucher 1:11:40 I must tell you that I have a friend or a friend of my age, and they had been doing social media. And then they said, they found they were wasting so much of their time just responding to tweets or looking at Facebook postings and this and the other they said, they just they said, Forget it. You know, I’m just not doing this. It’s just a waste of my time. With me, it’s just I’ve never gotten into it in the first place. It’s just not my thing.
Carlton Reid 1:12:08 And Ralph will now know where the book is from we now john isn’t on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. Just like his big fan. President ex President Trump. So Ralph, how about you? Where can people find out about you?
Ralph Buehler 1:12:23 I’m on Twitter. And it’s @Buehler_Ralph. I also have my own WordPress website. It’s called, it’s Ralphbuehler.wordpress.com. And I’m on I’m on LinkedIn as well. Not on not on Instagram. And then you have these these other things. But that’s my that’s my social media.
John Pucher 1:12:46 I would like to clarify one thing, lest anyone misunderstand. I hate Trump even more than cars. And that’s a lot.
John Pucher 1:12:58 You cannot possibly imagine. He made the past four years hell for me. I mean, I can’t tell you how much sleep I lost. Oh, oh, well, let’s not go there.
Carlton Reid 1:13:15 Wonderful. Well, that book ended the show wonderfully because that’s that’s how we came in. You said you hate cars. And now you say yeah, you hate cars, but you hate Trump even more. Wonderful. Thank you very much to both of you for for being on today’s show.
Carlton Reid 1:13:31 Thanks to Ralph Buehler and John Pucher there and thanks to you for listening to the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com. The next show will be released tomorrow, 9th May, and is a chat with Chris and Melissa Bruntlett who’ll be telling me about their soon to be published book, “Curbing Traffic,” the human case for fewer cars in our cities … but meanwhile get out there and ride.
