Accessible, Equitable, Activity-Friendly Communities - America Walks [Podcast Series]

• [:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Mike McGinn

  • Mike is the Executive Director of America Walks.  

  • He also served a term as the Mayor of Seattle, and is a longtime environmental and climate advocate.

• [1:14] History with walking advocacy

  • “So I guess that’s a warning to everybody.  Be careful! If you start working on sidewalks in your neighborhood, you might end up running for mayor of your city. It’s always been at the core of it, is this idea that we need to create places that aren't just safe, but that are really welcoming, inviting, inclusive, accessible, equitable, you know, where people can live full lives.” 

• [4:14] Role elected officials can play in creating safe, walkable communities

  • “So the biggest thing is, elected officials have power, undeniably, but the necessity for public demand. You need the public demand. You need people organizing out in the community pushing the Mayor further.  It's very hard for a Mayor to get out further than the political demand. And then it also really helps to hire a good traffic engineer.”

• [8:57] America Walks mission

  • “But the ultimate goal of America Walks is bigger than just you should get out and walk more. It's really taking an approach of places should be, you know, should have activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations.   We should have great places, we should have walkable places. That's a slightly different type of message and mission than simply, you know, safety while biking.”

  • “It's really about building, as I said, these inclusive, accessible, equitable places. That draws people from different places to it, right?  People might come in from a public health perspective, people might come in from a climate perspective, people might come in from a land use and economic vitality perspective, an affordable housing perspective. So we have a little bit more of a challenge, trying to figure out how to really support everybody and knit together a movement.”

• [12:35] Changing culture from car-centric to walkable

  • “Somerville was a town that was built up, you know, back when people walked more, and you can feel it, because there's so much more within walking reach. And so changing the culture of America to think that, let's go back to the old ways and invest in that again, it'd be good for all of us.”

• [14:18] Creating public demand

  • “One thing a city could do or town could do is actually get out there with clipboards and ask everybody who's arriving, where are they coming from? where are they shopping, and how did they arrive? It'll vary by neighborhood but you'll find that a lot of neighborhoods most of a large number of people are there on foot or arrive via transit, you know, and they're shopping on their way home. So actually answering that question is helpful.”

• [16:26] Walkability movement future

  • “I like to think of this walkable community thing as on one side of it, how can we make a place that is not terribly walkable, more walkable.  We could also make the walkable places accommodate more people, which by itself would make it more walkable. But we could probably do that a lot quicker than we could repair horribly auto centric places and turn them into walkable places.”

• [20:15] Community organizing

  • “So we've got a host of great arguments why we should make these changes, right? Whether it's climate, your personal health, the safety of your community, the vitality, the economic vitality of your small businesses. We have no shortage of arguments. What we don't have yet is sufficient public demand and political will from elected leaders to implement the changes that would really work for us on so many different levels.”

• [24:07] Finding allies

  • “But if you can get yourself to start sitting down and reach out to somebody who's not like you, who's not in your demographic trouble or your neighborhood bubble. And just ask them, you know, what do you care about? What are you working on?” 

• [27:58] Moving the walkability movement

  • “I am working to talk to the leaders of all of our state organizations or big city organizations. I really want to talk to people who shared some characteristics with me when I started, which were, you know, hey, I'm a volunteer in my neighborhood, and I just want to make it better. I want to hear from them, too, about what they care about, and what gets them engaged.”