How Can Walkable Cities Become the Norm One Small Step
Human Health & the Environment
Did You See This?, 11 15, 2021
Video (12:45)
Description
Living in walkable cities is not only healthier for you, it’s healthier for the environment — here’s how we can make more cities accessible and how that could benefit us in the long run. This episode is sponsored by Pikmin Bloom, which makes walking around your neighborhood even more fun. Download the app here: https://app.adjust.com/wik9ucr
» Sign up for our newsletter KnowThis to get the biggest stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox: https://go.nowth.is/knowthis_youtube
» Subscribe to NowThis Earth: https://go.nowth.is/Earth_Subscribe
Connect with NowThis
» Subscribe to NowThis News: http://go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe
» Like us on Facebook: http://go.nowth.is/News_Facebook
» Tweet us on Twitter: http://go.nowth.is/News_Twitter
» Follow us on Instagram: http://go.nowth.is/News_Instagram
» Find us on Snapchat Discover: http://go.nowth.is/News_Snapchat
NowThis Earth is daily news coverage of climate, sustainability, biodiversity, species extinction, environmental justice, and other planetary concerns.
NowThis is your premier news outlet providing you with all the videos you need to stay up to date on all the latest in trending news. From entertainment to politics, to viral videos and breaking news stories, we’re delivering all you need to know straight to your social feeds. We live where you live.
http://www.youtube.com/nowthisearth
@NowThisEarth
Transcript
Intro
0:02 · i’m standing in new york city which is considered the most walkable city in the country walkable cities could be the key to a longer shelf life for us and the planet and it’s clear why one study found that folks who walk for more than eight minutes a day we’re 72 more likely
0:17 · to report better physical health and 33 more likely to report better mental health not only is a walkable community likely to be healthier but it’s probably also wealthier according to research pedestrians spend 65 percent more at local retailers than drivers do now despite a mind-boggling array of benefits like these walkable cities are still the minority in this sprawl-heavy american landscape so i want to know how
0:42 · can walkable cities become the norm on this episode of one small step sponsored by pikmin bloom i’ll be chatting with city planner jet spec and engineer and city designer vignesh swaminathan about all the benefits walkable cities have to offer but i’m not all talk i’ll also be tagging along with the environmental organization known as shore walkers nyc to walk the walk i’m alejandro alba and this is one small step
What is Walkability
1:12 · off the bat let’s talk about the term walkability for the lack of a better word i’ll be using it throughout this episode but in this context it covers much more than walking the premise is simple however you get around whether you walk use a wheelchair or pushing a child in a stroller use a walking aid such as a walking stick or a crutches or you’re just learning to walk there should be as few hindrances to that as
1:35 · possible we’re talking about level sidewalks safe crosswalks with visibility and ramps clearly define obstacle-free pedestrian routes and tactile paving leaning into a more accessible infrastructure benefits everyone it’s no coincidence that some of the most popular cities in the world are the most walkable take paris for example the city is slowly starting to prioritize pedestrians in 2015 paris held its first car-free day parisians
2:01 · got to see their city in a new way without the usual traffic and noise pollution it was so popular that car-free day has returned and expanded every year since paris venice and new york city all have one thing in common they were all established prior to the advent of the automobile there were cities built for people not cars but now
Why Walkability Matters
2:20 · most cities have regulations that only allow land to be utilized for a single use retail and commercial entities might be sown rendering them miles from residential areas so for someone to navigate the city they have to use a car until the middle of the 20th century
2:36 · almost every place built in the world literally for 10 000 years consisted of neighborhoods they tended to be about a half mile across five minute walk from the edge to the center and they tended to contain most of the needs of our daily life that’s jeff speck city planner author and urban decider he’s been a long time advocate for city planning on the pedestrian scale so he’s here to walk us through all of this no pun intended so what happened to those small but convenient neighborhoods of the past jeff that was thrown out discarded
3:06 · entirely in favor of a new planning paradigm that started in the early 20th century in europe with folks like le corbusier who said actually the city of the future will separate work from home but it will also separate commerce from home and work from commerce and the whole idea was that we would generate economic energy by asking
3:27 · people to move from place to place by automobile but unfortunately we burdened ourselves with the economic cost of getting around in the most expensive way possible and that’s no joke according to the aaa it cost the average american over nine thousand and five hundred dollars annually to own a car or 13 of
3:45 · the average household income and all of this sitting behind the wheel has disastrous effects on her health there were a whole bunch of doctors who started telling us that actually the reason why we had the first generation of americans who were expected to live shorter lives than their parents was because we had engineered out of existence the useful walk in our city so driving is harmful to the environment if you complete five trips a 1.2 miles a week on a foot instead of car we could decrease the number of emissions by 190 pounds a year once they started studying carbon and not carbon output per
4:18 · mile but carbon output per household they realize that it’s the densest areas the most inner city parts of every metropolitan area that have the lowest carbon output because they used to tell us you know and most people have done it now we need to change all our light bulbs to these energy saver light bulbs right it turns out that turning all your light bulbs into energy saver light bulbs saves as much energy in a year as moving to a walkable neighborhood saves in one week and it’s due to a whole bunch of factors but principally just not driving driving is
4:49 · also extremely dangerous to pedestrians it’s half a mile between crosswalks someone crosses with their kids outside of a crosswalk because they save themselves literally 10 minutes of walking by doing that and they’re hit by a car and we blame the victim in those circumstances without asking you know how could we make these places safer and and why are we asking people without cars to live in places that demand car
5:12 · use i know what you’re thinking sure a car can be expensive but walkable cities are infamous for their high housing prices well it’s true that the cost of housing is higher in more densely populated areas like new york city san francisco and washington dc
5:27 · however when you take into account housing and transportation costs together these places are far more affordable than sprawling cities according to data from citizens budget commission new york city ranks ninth lowest in combined housing and transportation costs the least affordable cities when housing and transportation are considered together are actually sprawling a lot of these communities especially in historically redlined communities they never ever had
Housing and Transportation Costs
5:52 · good walking and biking and transit infrastructure and so to try and explain that sometimes it’s just like oh that’s what happens in the rich side of town it doesn’t happen over here and you’re making this area more expensive and that’s where the gentrification conversation comes up and so being able to facilitate hey no you even if you’re
6:08 · undocumented and you don’t speak the language you have every right to talk about your child crossing the street that’s vignesh aminata he’s a city infrastructure designer and the ceo and president of crossroads lab an innovative active transportation firm specializing in feasible protected intersections he’s also a tick-tock sensation but most of all vignesh is a
6:27 · strong advocate for giving everyone a seat at the table when it comes to rebuilding the community they live and work in we’re trying to get to the bottom of planning where we’re listening to community and they’re helping us get solutions so we can actually give them stuff that they need instead of this top down and a lot of communities they feel that they’re being displaced because of gentrification and they feel that hey
6:48 · we’ve been advocating for good great streets in this area for a long time and we never got it i made a tick tock about a crosswalk in oakland that the black panther party when they actually started they were advocating for street lighting crosswalks drainage in oakland for many many years and they never had any reception and they said one day we’re going to have crossing guards to help the kids get across the street and right
7:13 · before the event was planned the city went and implemented the signal and they were like hey if it was that fast for them to implement a signal how come they didn’t do it for this x amount of years and a lot of what crossroad lab does is this quick build where we try not to rip out the entire street because we need to listen to the community first and so when we want to make roads more walkable there’s a lot of things that we can do with paint and plastic before we do concrete work now we do do a lot of
7:40 · the civil coffee work of curb extensions and more ada ramps directional ada ramps to make these areas more comfortable and and walkable but those just honestly are very expensive i try to do stuff that is quick build where we implement something now and we learn from that and we use what we’ve learned from that to go get actual funding to build stuff out
8:01 · fully i don’t like leaving the painted plastic out there for too long that’s not the point of it it’s just there was a permanent product the point is to help us use that to warrant building bigger better projects while vignesh is a strong advocate for making cities more accessible for everyone many city planners aren’t very ada sensitive
8:19 · and more often than not end up building new infrastructure for the perceived majority if you design for the majority then you end up designing for somebody who’s typically male who’s an able person who maybe has a charged cell phone who has a car and you design for that user because you’re just trying to design for majority people if you design for that user you you design for in theory you design for most people one of the things that i advocate for is if you design for somebody who’s maybe blind in a wheelchair who’s undocumented
8:47 · who doesn’t speak the language then you actually design for more users because if you can make it wide enough for a wheelchair and you can make it lit enough for somebody who’s blind or visually impaired and if you can design for somebody who does not speak english to just intuitively know how to use the facilities then you actually design for more people that may require more investment but i think what i advocate
9:08 · for is that actually allows for more access walkable cities still have a long way to go but all this talk of them and the benefits they offer made me really excited to go out and well walk that’s why i’m here with show walkers nyc an environmental walking organization dedicated to promoting and preserving new york’s waterfront shore walkers was started by our founder psy adler he had a vision
Shore Walkers NYC
9:34 · that the future of new york city was walking he also thought of himself as an islander since he lived on the island of manhattan he wanted to walk around the shore of manhattan but at that time right where we are right now you could not walk there were railroad yards and
9:51 · factories and it was dangerous and at some points it was illegal because you couldn’t trust bass he put an ad in the village voice and he asked for other people intrepid walkers come out and walk with me around the island of manhattan people came out he got a small group and that was the beginning of shore walkers back in 1982. tell me a little bit about the walk that we did today what is that structure like how do you plan a walk like that so the hike leader comes up with the idea for the walk and it’s then up to them to go out and scout
10:22 · the walks that means to walk the walk two or three times making sure there are restrooms finding out what the mileage is they do all that work and then we post our walks on meetup and we set a max of maybe 25 per walk and people sign
10:37 · up and show up on the day out of the things that have been built is there one that’s your favorite and that you actually find it very useful and would like to kind of see it replicated around the city to me this whole hudson river park is amazing i mean these were piers that were here each one now has been restored and they have a theme this is a
10:58 · wonderful part we’re so lucky to have it and is there something that maybe you haven’t seen and then they haven’t been working on that you would love to see and that you think is very necessary i think that what happened on the brooklyn bridge is a really good step we’re very happy we’re happy to be able to walk on the bridge and to feel safe and i think it’s a win-win for both the bikers and the walkers what advice you have to those people how would you kind of feel them feel comfortable to come out and join you maybe the beauty about urban walking is if you start out on a six mile walk
11:30 · and after about two or three miles you’ve reached your limit there’s a subway or a bus very close by you can jump on and then come out the next week and and try it again walkable cities may be the minority for now but today we met some of the people doing impactful work to ensure cities will have accessible and safe infrastructure for all i want to stress that the onus is not on you though to save the planet and usher in brand new infrastructure much of this is out of our control but you can still do things
11:59 · to help if it’s safe to do so and convenient maybe you can try walking when running nearby errands instead of hopping in the car you can also organize people in your community and attend a city council meeting and speak up about infrastructure issues that are important to you let your voice be heard i want to
12:15 · thank pikmin bloom for sponsoring this episode pikmin blue makes walking even more fun and encourages you to go out there and explore your city the game transforms your neighborhood into a world of colorful flowers where you can discover different seedlings that grow into your collection of pikmin pikmin bloom is available now that’s all for this episode thank you all for watching and i’ll see you next time [Music]