On this episode, we visit St. Paul, Minnesota. America Walks holds the
National Walking Summit. We talk with the chair of the local host committee.
We learn about Our Streets Minneapolis. We get the thoughts of a pedestrian
advocate. Finally, the deputy mayor addresses the summit. Stay tuned.
We're in St. Paul, Minnesota, talking with Heidi Simon with America walks.
What's America Walks, and what do you do for them? Sure. We are a 20 year old nonprofit
organization that works to make America a great place to walk. So we promote safe,
accessible, and enjoyable places for people to walk and be physically active
across the U.S. And I'm the communications and partnerships director with the
organization. Partnerships director, what's the deal with partnerships? Well,
you know, we can't do this work alone. We work with a network of over 30,000
advocates and 700 organizations at the local, state, and national level to make
sure that walking is a national priority. We're just a small piece of the puzzle.
What's been going on in St. Paul this week? It's the 2017 National Walking
Summit. It's our third national conference. We
host it every other year, and it's the first time that we've taken it out of
Washington, DC, so that people could really explore a city that's tackling
some of the issues that we work with. Who showed up this week, you know, who comes
to one of these? It was a variety of people from different backgrounds, over
45 states and three countries are represented. We ended up with over 620
people at the conference this year a new record for us you know when people went
out and did some of your mobile workshops around the city what sort of
things did they see that the st. Paul and Minneapolis are doing we had a
fantastic local host committee here in st. Paul and they really had their
fingers on the pulse of what's going on in making st. Paul a great place to walk
so our attendees got to go out and see things like the Rondo neighborhood which
is we're coming legacies of division from
i-95 as well as some placemaking and tactical urbanism projects are going on
to really make sure that st. Paul is for the people and for people to be active
and walking yeah when it comes to walkability
you know would be the role be for for st. Paul what what does the state do and
and what happens at the national level what's the contribution of each level
well I think we saw here this week that you know each community has a different
way of approaching walking and walkability but each has its own lessons
to share with one another and to offer success stories best practices resources
and st. Paul's an example of those and what we are hoping to do is take those
success stories back to the national level and demonstrate that need a
broader audience that you know this is something that people across the US and
need to be talking about you winding up in just a few hours people be you know
heading back to where they came from what can they be doing you know over the
next two years before your next summit and back in their communities what are
they going to bring home with them well first thing we want them to do is have
conversations with people in their communities talk about what they've
heard hear and what they've learned and go out and start walking their
neighborhoods see what can be improved upon see what they might be able to be
highlighted in their own work in their own communities and share it with us
so that we can share with everyone else
we're in st. Paul talking with Jill Chamberlain who do you work for I work
at the Center for prevention of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota what
was your connection with the walking summit that just ended well I've had the
good fortune of being able to attend the first to walk summits and when they were
talking about the opportunity to not be in DC and maybe be in another part of
the country I said hey you should come to st. Paul Blue Cross would love to
help and by doing that I became the chair of the local host committee so
even pretty busy we the folks of America Wok's came to st. Paul for a site visit
in June 2016 and that's when the local host committee kicked off our first
meeting what was fantastic is that Minnesota culture is very collaborative
I think that's how we all get through the long winters and so when we said
this events coming quickly representatives from the city of st.
Paul community organizations in particular representatives from
Minneapolis and then also some of our colleagues at state agencies like our
state department of health as well as our take state Department of
Transportation all gave time to come together and talk about how we can meet
the goals for America walks we wanted to make sure they had a great summit but
also what we could do to challenge our own communities to do a little more to
be a good example about what can work what hasn't worked how how we've learned
from some of our mistakes and and so that was June 2016 and here we are and
it's all done yay so how it sounds like you were doing a lot of work well first
of all whoever's gonna host 2019 what advice can you give them from your
experience well I'm keeping a list but I won't tell you the entire list the
importance of working with your community partners and and what that
looks like for us we wanted to do a lot of mobile workshops we
- both highlight some work that we're proud of but also those what are the
things that are works in progress and so a great example we wanted to make sure
people just didn't tour some an avenue in st. Paul which is the street that has
all the sidewalks and these big beautiful homes and that are historic we
wanted to make sure people were touring we're like where more people live in
Minnesota and where there weren't sidewalks or for one example the Rondo
neighborhood which that's the neighborhood that when interstate 94
when in it really it decimated this can this vibrant african-american community
and it speaks to the resilience of that community that they are advocating for
improved pedestrian spaces for community members saying wait a minute
this needs to be fixed and now after years of pushing the city and the county
and even our State Department of Transportation are saying wait a minute
how do we make what is a federally funded bridge how do we make sure that
the community's voice is represented how are we listening to what they want out
of that space and an outcome there is increased pedestrian space for the
people who are going to be walking within their neighborhood inclusion of a
culturally relevant community art that reflects the neighborhood and not just
you know a generic loon I love a loon I live in Minnesota it's the state bird
but like what gets more tailored to that community so we wanted to make sure with
the with the mobile workshops that we were authentically reflecting our
community that takes time and sometimes on a conference planning schedule that's
harder to do and so it was really important that the host committee host
committee felt that burden as opposed to us pushing our time obligations out onto
the community and so my advice to the next host committee well one is have fun
in the planning but to just take the time to really bring people into the
process it works out much better I also have some recommendations about
spreadsheets and how to track it but that's that's not going to keep anybody
interested so what what did the community get out of this
conference how did you involve average people and and and what's gonna be
different you next week when everybody else is gone I'm gonna answer the latter
question first so what's gonna be different I don't know I have some hopes
for what's different next week a year from now five years from now
so why blue cross thought it was important for the walk summit to be here
and really thought it was a privilege to have the walk summit here when a
conference like this is in your home state you know that so many more local
people both local st. Paul Minneapolis but the suburbs and also from across our
state they're able to be here you're gonna be in Fergus Falls you're there
are some people who are from Fergus Falls that have been down here that's a
three-hour trip from the Twin Cities it's still an effort for them to come
this far but the fact that we get so many people from our state out of the
conference of 600 people 200 were from Minnesota
they come in here and they have that opportunity both to showcase some of
their work they also have the opportunity to hear from folks in other
parts of the country about what they're doing what's working what they tried how
they learned from their mistakes and they take that back into their
communities and they start using it and the and work what I am hopeful happens
is that this is that springboard for a lot of our local advocates and
professionals the folks who work in planning and public health they're able
to take what they were hearing here and use it to spring springboard Minnesota
walks which is our statewide pedestrian plan and this I and that's a plan that
was developed with so much community or local input and now we want to see like
how do we make those changes in big cities and in our communities of a
thousand people that they understand the importance of their sidewalk network or
slowing traffic speeds or making sure that the new immigrant population is
engaged in the community and included in the park space so we're hoping this
summit really is a way to kind of propel people forward a little faster
so is your organizing committee gonna be meeting again the sort of follow-up or
wrap-up where we are we will do a formal meeting where we're gonna do some
reflection on what worked what there's some great successes we're really
pleased there's several things I would do differently that I know we could do
better next time so we want to make sure we're doing that appropriate or a good
reflection so that that's useful for the next host committee it's also useful
useful for us for the next time a national conference or summits in town
we're gonna do that for a bit and then we are gonna have a little celebration
and a thank you and a big THANK YOU especially to all there were I think
over 25 mobile workshops I should know the exact number but I kind of lost
count and so many local community members that were giving of their time
to facilitate or be part of it as a presenter so we want to make sure we
have a chance to get them together give a real thank you give some people some
food I get to buy non-alcoholic drinks so if you want a club soda with a lime I
can do that I can't buy alcoholic drinks
we're in the Twin Cities talking with Ethan Valley with our Suites Minneapolis
hello what is our streets yeah we're a
nonprofit that works on walking and biking issues in Minneapolis and what
sort of issues do you take on yeah we're working on making it safer and more
comfortable for everyone to be able to walk and bike in the city so we work on
protected bike lanes we work on pedestrian safety we work on we host
open streets events we and we do walk and bike encouragement programming for
some of my viewers might not have heard about open streets
what is that so open streets is started with the siglo VI and bogota-colombia
and basically its idea we closing down major commercial streets that are
normally really car oriented closed them down on a Sunday and open them up to
people walking biking and having fun so we do eight open streets events in
Minneapolis each year and it's a you know we attract out last year we had
more than 80,000 people come out and enjoy streets in a totally different way
and what how does it change people's thinking about the about the city when
when you get to walk down the middle of the street and not have to worry about
cars well we hear that it makes a significant imprint on folks because a
lot of the streets that we're working on have like not been closed to cars except
for construction in generations and so people say wow I've never felt
comfortable being on this busy street before and this day changed how I think
about my neighborhood and what it could be and so not everybody has that
experience but a lot of people do and we think it's really impactful both in
terms of the day of and bringing people together and they're out walking and
biking and experiencing their community but also in how people think about how
they're engaging with their community and how they think about streets you do
other sorts of events besides the open streets events we partner with the city
and others to host Minneapolis Bike Month and we also help support the
Public Schools work around both walk and bike to school day and I can walk to
school day among other things you know smaller
events as well yeah what-what does Minneapolis need most in the way of you
know infrastructure and things that aren't infrastructure well on the on the
bicycle side I would say we need to continue our amazing trail network we
need to connect that into more destinations in a way that people feel
comfortable doing that and a wider range of people than today so that's why we
focus on protected bike lanes on the pedestrian side it is a lot about safety
and you know fundamentally too many people are getting killed it you know
our intersections we just a 70 year old man died this morning after being hit
last week on our one of our busy streets downtown and you know that's happening
too frequently people of all backgrounds all ages and we really need to improve
that the city just this week announced that they're joining the vision zero
movement and they're setting a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities of all
kinds by 2027 and you know within that we recognize that that's obviously a
very important and valuable work but also it's important that we learn from
the other cities have worked on vision zero and how are we making sure that
we're incorporating equitable engagement and that the solutions that were coming
forward with are driven by the communities that where they're seeing
the traffic fatalities and that we're being conscious of the conversations
we're having around policing when we think about enforcement issues and
thinking about the racial profiling and other things that are you know at the
forefront of a lot of conversations right now and so those I think are
really big and important steps for our city and we you know we can't have 106
people die on our roads every 10 years that's just too many and that's
fundamentally what we're trying to change when the city moves forward with
their you know vision zero project what role will your organization play in
there yeah so we I will say that it vision zero I think takes a different
shape and every you know in different cities ours is very City driven right
now and we recognize that we need to be able to bring community perspectives
into that conversation and we're also focusing a lot on doing that in in a way
that's bringing the equity pieces to the forefront and so we want
to make sure that people are aware of the stories of people who've lost their
lives and their families and what's that means to their community and we have to
personalize it it can't only be about data sure data is important but it also
has to be about people's lives and understanding the real impact that this
has but again making sure that those stories are from all all types of
communities that are in our city and that's really what we're going to be
focusing on if I were to you know come back to you know visit Minneapolis five
years from now ten years from now what sort of progress would you like to be
able to show me what what improvements would you like to see besides a more
complete bike network yeah you know on the pedestrian side we definitely are
working to eliminate traffic fatalities for pedestrians serious injuries I think
that's a achievable goal within you know five years if we were really working
hard on it that's gonna take a number of actions we know it's not going to be
we're not going to reconstruct every street in five years but downtown can we
make a really significant difference in intersection crossings in downtown so
that it feels different in five years I think that that's a really achievable
thing because there are a lot of streets that are gonna be redone and we want it
to feel like a place that you're invited to walk and it's safe to walk and right
now it feels like a place that's really oriented to folks driving in and out of
the city for work and we need to find that that balance more and so that's a
big thing I hope you see as a visitor coming is coming to our downtown that if
that feels different that the traffic's at a slower more manageable speed that
the streets are more inviting and that you're not feeling like I have to yield
to cars at every crossing
we're in st. Paul Minnesota a tiny Danielle sarsti what's it like for
pedestrians in st. Paul I would say that perhaps is not really
that bad but some areas are more critical I think there is are more
critical are the areas in which there next to major highways the road traffic
volume on highway ramps entrance ramps and exit ramps are very high and that's
when pedestrians and bicyclists encounter pretty pretty heavy conflict
particularly the rush time hours particularly the afternoons and I think
perhaps it could be worse for bicyclists to point it I get off my bicycle and I
try to walk the bicycle but still cars I finding you you cars don't allow you to
cross the street not even on a on a crosswalk and the city is not doing has
not done enough I have been here for 29 years since 1989 and crossing some
Street is really really challenged not that I would say that cars are trying to
kill you know but cars are not yelling at places and some curse on car drivers
are little bit distracted so a patient environment is not very good and the
same with the cycling environment now as you heard the the young man that was
here he interview first they had this opening street I think they tried to
recreate a little bit of bow ties open streets on Sundays
it's not exactly quite the same but and I just had it right when was that
ten days ago on Broadway on this Broadway is a road called Broadway in
Minneapolis Northeast Minneapolis and believe it or not broad we has horrible
horrible sidewalks very narrow and it has no bicycle and always calling us or
anything like that and there are some sections don't have sidewalks and so you
ended up riding the bicycle on the the right side of the road of Broadway and
the first thing I started noticing with cars were sticking at the back of me of
my bicycle was riding at 1005 miles per hour and at some moments and times an
incident the it was just the car to me and the car drivers totally failed to
move the car to the left even so it had three-and-a-half
Rowling's to move they just had this load from 35 miles four to five right
behind me and right next to me and sometimes the cars wants to make right
turns but all its nice cars so car drivers is more percentage but you
always find them in the trip there's fixated with the backward bicycle so I
told the council member mr. Rossi start you know what the hell you know what is
happening with this with these drivers and what is happening also with the road
it's not only a problem in some part is in Minneapolis now if you take a look
closely you have example you have Minneapolis they're close together they
have Bloomington you know I never freely you have all these cities next to each
other and they're like 40 or 50 cities so this is a huge metropolitan area
and these always promises with promise and again the veneer problems are in the
major in major avenues intersections and meilleur highway entrances and exits
I'm
people call me
and so I
so you are very close to the watch average and I City Hall victory and
and I can get
and nothing hurts me more than that block and I wonder what the river
together
come here to go to the big box if I go here
you see this particular
it's great
- okay
we reinvested
makes my heart out of the water the most acts that I get through these
departments
today
and all of that
visit us on the internet at www.pedestrians.org
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