Planning for Physical Activity

And now I'm gonna pass this on to Amy, to begin the presentation. Alright, great. Since I cannot start until there we go. Okay, just, let me get started. And so I'm gonna start just with a brief overview of. Like whales and vision. Let me all know if you give me a thumbs up if you can see my screen. There we go. Okay. So I'll start with a introduction to Lake Wales and Vision. So this is a plan for the city of like Wales to guide growth and conservation within the city. Limits as well as the surrounding utility service area. You can see here on the map the dark areas and city limits and then that surrounding areas over 50,000 acres as Rob mentioned the Olmsted brothers did the original plan for the city in the 19 twentys as a city in a garden with memorable parks there's a historic downtown and the surrounding area includes rolling citrus fields and large-scale natural areas. But today there is recent trends in the citrus industry and housing demands that have increased development pressures leading to the need for this plan. So the plan was led by the city of Lake Wales, but there are a number of local and statewide partners that provided support throughout the planning effort, recognizing that this plan was important and the challenges here are similar to other peer communities. So we started in March of last year with a series of presentations of best practices, looking at community design, transportation, conservation and development, wanting to start the community conversation about what was going to be possible here. On April, we did a week long chorete that including workshops where we gathered around tables like you see here. To brainstorm. We also had an open design studio where we met with city staff and stakeholders and was open for the community to drop in. So it was through these conversations that the main ideas for the plan were established. We also, we didn't just have in person events. We also had a number of online events, presentations by our partners as well as members of our team to get into details of, you know, specific interests of topics or specific topics of interest. Such as mobility and conservation and the environment. So the final report for this project is a magazine format. It's easy to reproduce and distribute and review the recommendations. It's posted to the website for anyone who's interested to look at that. Like whales and vision. Com. There's also a short documentary that includes interviews with stakeholders and tells the story of the plan. It's just another great way of telling the story and communicating the vision. So the plan was approved last October just a couple months ago and endorsements by our project sponsors, helping to explain the vision and its benefits. I think really helped with that process. And so I'm gonna spend just a few minutes talking about what's in the plan. So during the Sherat workshops, we asked started by asking people where and how they wanted the city to grow. And so we did, this is one of the exercises we did at that hands-on session for each orange dot represented a set number of households. And each table had to place all of their dots somewhere on the map. So you can see on the right, you know, examples from 4 of the tables, you start to see patterns. For example, you start to see patterns, for example, growing in the south side of the city. In the south side of the city. In the zoom in, you can also see an example of the city. In the zoom in, you can also see an example where one table or several tables actually did this. Stacked their dots in downtown, or several tables actually did this and stacked their dots in downtown, several tables actually did this and stacked their dots in downtown and you're wanting to see increases of density there as a way of accommodating the, you know, attempt the growth in population. So using this input and analysis, the Lake Wales and Vision Maps identify planned growth areas near the city core, as well as limited growth areas where intensive development is not as appropriate. And then we did a lot of maps like these that further convey the vision. So we show those growth areas as potential employment centers and new neighborhoods with their own green networks and also potential large-scale conservation areas. So one of the aspirations that the City Commission adopted as we started this process was assembling an enduring green network of open spaces and conservation lands. There are 4 main efforts in the plan and this green network is the first one that I'm going to describe. And so we started this by identifying priority areas. You know, studying the existing data where their wetlands, the rare species habitats, critical landscape linkages in combining these all together and seeing where they overlap and what we saw was a network of priority size emerging in corridors to the sites. You know, the corridors to the east and the west of the city. This became known as the big green network. So looking at that. Another way from overhead. Here are those parcels that were identified as priorities for the big green network. And then we started thinking about how can these be connected to residents and folks in the city. And so, you see here a network of tree lined streets and trails. Waves kind of talk in a few minutes a bit more about this. And then we talked about neighborhood. So here's the neighborhood green network and that includes the existing city parks as well as potential new green areas that would accompany the new development. And bring that green network into the city. So that would be green ways, you know, strongwater treatment areas that could double as parks, you know, basically thinking about how all these green connections could be made. So wondering about how this can be implemented, the the report talks about a number of ways it could include acquisition, it could include conservation easements, new land development regulations, but most importantly, conversations and collaboration and partnerships is really what what would be needed to bring this to fruition. So as an example, a first step was announced earlier this month. During the Shorette, we talked with the free landers who were lifelong residents of Lake Wales and they talked about wanting to put their ranch into permanent protection. The parcel is, you know, an immediately adjacent to existing conservation lands and really a great candidate for part of the big green network. So that started a conversation with the city in the county and the land is now being considered for acquisition through the county's program. So the next area of focus of the plan is economy. And, you know, this is an idea about the plan building prosperity and really creating the needed infrastructure for opportunity. So the illustrious plan identifies large areas that could be dedicated for employment centers and it also describes mixed use centers in the existing downtown and along the city's commercial corridors that could incorporate jobs and industry. So here's an example of what that could look like. This is on State Highway 60 and you see here an existing shopping center with vacant out parcels and then the vision for how that could be redeveloped as a mixed use neighborhoods with walkable streets and quality green spaces and you know it's not only residential that you know that area could be there is adjacent to a hospital and so the site could include new jobs. Medical offices and be the foundation of a new health district. So, an example of how the area could grow to accommodate more jobs. And this quote from the president of the Chamber of Commerce, I think, is pretty telling and explaining to Key idea behind the plan's economic development strategy and it's basically that the focus is on neighborhoods and the physical environment that they create and that's gonna attract investors and industry to this area. So that leads into the next focus of the plan and that's neighborhood design. And so here's a zoom in of the illustrious plan showing those potential growth areas as a series of walkable neighborhoods, you know, 5 min walk from center to edge. I know many on the line will be familiar with these principles, but you know, the plan illustrates them showing how the neighborhoods could contain a mix of housing units, but the design of these is really important. So buildings are oriented to front the sidewalks and create walkable tree line streets. We talked a lot during the plan about the importance of alleys as, you know, means of access for vehicles, but then what alleys mean for the positive pedestrian experience along the street. Neighborhood green spaces fronted by the fronts of buildings creating a shared sense of shared space and a quality public realm. So we talked about this as the Lake Wales way. It was development of traditional neighborhoods like the historic parts of town. So the report includes a series of images like this that says like this not like this and it illustrates and explains that vision. And that the vision includes neighborhoods that have a mix of uses. So, you know, daily needs and walking distance, so not every single trip has to be made by a car, but there's places to go walking and biking. And it also describes details about how buildings should front streets and public spaces to create walkable places and places that are easy to bike. So the vision applies, not only to new neighborhoods, but also to, those limited growth areas. So for example, we could have a conservation village where you have the development clustered and you know only apply to a partial portion of the parcel and have the rest for those large-scale natural areas. So to shape those design of neighborhoods and conservation villages, we drafted a new TND ordinance that would help to guide new development. So this is under review by the city, but includes things like standards for neighborhood design as well as design for streets and open spaces. So with that introduction, I'm going to turn it over to Wade to talk more about the mobility aspects of the plan. Thanks, Amy. And you know, I think one of the important aspects of the of the plan is you see all of those those 4 components and and they were all very very integrated and one relies on the other from a mobility standpoint once the the decision was made by the community to really focus on a vision that looked at these mixed use more dense village kinds of notes for development as well as infill within the downtown. It really guided the mobility system that would enable that vision to occur. So, you know, we took some basic principles whenever we started looking at the mobility system and really, you know, the general principles were that, you know, we had to be sensitive to the context. We had to have the right street in the right place. We needed the streets to be safe and not just safe for people surrounded by 6,000 pounds of steel but also those on bikes and walking. The streets need to be for everyone. Not only everyone, regardless of their mode of transportation, their choice of mode of transportation, but also being able to cover 8 to 8 to 80 perspective as well and and like Amy mentioned earlier, you know, even the street design needed to be done in the like Wales way. So we paid a lot of attention to the aesthetic and how it blended with both the natural and the in the built environments. Thanks. I'm sure all of you have seen this comparison before, but we took it a little step further in in Lake Wales to really kind of show people. We heard a lot of, you know, I'm choking on traffic all the time. So we use this illustration to start to show them. Well, this is why this is this is why you feel this way. Especially on the the bigger east west and north south. Major arterials. So, you know, Lake Wales traditionally developed in in a more traditional pattern, you know, in the like Wales way. But what does that mean for traffic comparing the 2 types of development patterns? Well, next. If you get to, if we start to look at that, you know, there were a lot of ahas in the in the with the community that oh yeah I guess that is why I'm choking on traffic because everything that I'm doing is relying on me getting in the car and getting out on this road with everybody. Else that is going on different, you know, different trip purposes, different destinations. System like that, where you have a large state arterial. And then your point loading all of these single uses. You've got a system that's really set up for longer distance trips. Dot has absolutely no interest in providing, you know, the small short local trip they're looking at the bigger statewide system. Streets then are designed only for cars and what happens in that situation is you can have a very small amount of additional development, but the impacts that it has on that facility and the amount of congestion or can be huge. Whereas next, if we go, if we look at the more traditional way of doing it and you really can see this. See this play out around downtown. Is that in that traditional mixed use development pattern, it can handle those increases. There's a redundancy in the network. The streets are more of a people scale, friendly to all modes. Most importantly, it's a system that becomes friendly to short trips, which can be accomplished by walking or biking and will have those destinations that people want to go to, within that distance as well. Thanks. When we really start to look at that, it really does align with create how we can create walkable places. You know, there's very little of it 9 and 10 or rather the only 2 that are really governed by what we learn in school for traffic engineering. Everything else has to do with traffic engineering. Everything else has to do with traffic engineering. Everything else has to do with the place and engineering. Everything else has to do with, the place and the urban design and the planning. So, all of those factors were taken into account, whenever we started to look at the mobility system for like Wales. Thanks. Safety. Can't stress safety enough. I'm sure all of you know Florida's track record right now with pedestrian and bicycle, serious injuries and fatalities. The good news is we're working really really hard to try to reverse that. But, you know, one of the realizations is that speed kills. Absolutely. And it's not a linear relationship. As with many things in engineering, you know, for instance, whenever you increase the travel speed by 1%, the injury crash rate increases by 2%. And fatalities by about 4%. So those are all things that we want to. So travel speeds, higher steeds increase the not only the probability, but the severity of those incidents. And whenever we're talking vulnerable users like as pedestrians and cyclists. That makes sense. So we really started off with, looking at community and what had been built and the street network that was the major street network that was in place. The city had done a mobility plan that really looked at those different connections and looked at potentially adding a complete retrofitting complete streets. We took a harder look at that and really started to flesh that out as to what are complete streets in the like Wales way. So next. And so basically we looked at 3 different types of roads, 3 different types of streets within Lake Wales, one being the larger. State roads. This is a state road 60 that Amy showed the what if of earlier. And one of the things that we looked at next. One of the things we looked at is how can we Oh, I think we may have missed one. But, anyway, looking at how can we make those cross connections and may and humanize this, humanize a street like that as well. So, interesting sidebar is that Florida Department of Transportation can actually do these kinds of enhancements through regular resurfacing. We were blessed. With all 3 of our major state highways, in Lake Wales, we're slated for that resurfacing and trying to work with the department to get those. Get these, these, retrofits accomplished. Next. Also really again, looking at an additional street. This is Burns Avenue. This is the street that runs right in front of Park Tower Gardens. It's a 5 lane facility, carries around 8,000 vehicles a day. No one really could tell us why it was widened to this cross section at some point in the future, but I think everybody agreed that it could be something better, especially where it was. Thanks. And so we got a lot of direction from the community. The hands-on session that Amy showed the picture of earlier. We actually did a build a street exercise in addition to the dot exercise and ask people what would you do with Burns? And next, what we found was that people really gravitated to a rethink of Burns Avenue. And so separated bike facilities, potentially rain gardens, much more lush landscaping and repurposing a lot of that asphalt next to provide what would be a great Street that fronts this national treasure of bot tower gardens which you see the entry sign on the right side of the screen and if we start to think about what could happen there this is one of 3 roundabouts that would be proposed along burns and you can see that the level of street scape and amenities within within that corridor as well. Thanks. So the third level would be the neighborhood level streets, neighborhood level street network. And so we started with a street palette of I believe 2 cross sections. And we said, well, if we're gonna need to see if we're gonna have new streets in new neighborhoods, we need to really humanize those rural roads. That are that that we would be leading to and start to provide some definition as to how you enter and travel through these areas. So So what you see is a pallet of street types that we developed, one being how it transitions from the more rural road as it comes into a settlement area. Another being a, single family and a multi-family kind of facility and then separated by facilities as well. One of the 4 of many street sections that were developed from a transit standpoint looked at building on some of the existing County transit service, but also augmenting with local circulator shuttle services that could be taken in peace in small bite size increments. One of the first ones that the city is looking at is between downtown and Bach Tower Gardens. As well. So really looking at how can we amp up transit service since we are gonna have development that's a little more concentrated. Next. Finally, we looked at the the trail network and in this part of the the this part of the state there are some planned trails that were memorialized within the mobility plan. But we also looked at some additional opportunities that were afforded to us. Next slide, by the, by the big green network and the new neighborhoods that were developed. You saw this earlier with the arrows showing those connections. And we looked, we tried to find some opportunities to actually, put some meat on these bones and really look at some additional trail networks. So looking at some water corridors, utility corridors, being able to get people through the new development. And the new villages and getting them to and from downtown as well. And this is just an example of an image for a trail side, a creek side trail such as what might happen along with Peace Creek. In the western part of the city. With that, John, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Wade. So really, when we look at an overview such as this and we see that the mobility network, in my mind it really helps us understand one of the key challenges that we have as humans. We are naturally gravitate towards physical activity. We, you know, walking was our original mobility mode of getting around. And so it's helpful to understand a little bit of, you know, the human nature and the psychology behind how we choose to get around and how we choose to interact with our communities. So keep in mind that natural, you know, physical activity is a natural part of daily life for humans. However, So it's being sedentary. And so is being lazy and taking the easy way. And so one of the big challenges that we have now in in our current realm is that so much of our environment is designed around using the automobile and taking quote-unquote the easy way. And so part of what we're trying to do in communities such as this. Is making that active choice an easy choice. And we can do that through strategies where these little nudges and a lot of it has to do with proximity. So when we look at an overview like this. And the way that I look at a community is through an eyes, the eyes of activity assets. What will actually encourage people to choose to do an active thing? What's the proximity? To a park? What's the proximity to a pool, a pathway, you know, protected bike lanes in the community. These are all critical things and so proximity is a very big aspect to that. But then also ensuring that, you know, it's truly a pleasant environment and we're going to kind of look at that a little bit in just a little bit. But the other thing this out there is when we look at an overview like this, we see the the network design and the and we can see the colors. Basically referencing different types of streets. But there's also at a finer grain level, if we were to zoom in, we also see that there's an hidden activity asset, an active mobility network in there as well. And it's what Wade was mentioning earlier is, you know, at that at the more discrete community level and the neighborhood level that that Amy was talking about is how comfortable is it to be able to just walk out your door and be able to get to meaningful destinations. And, you know, being able to create more meaningful destinations within walking in biking distance. And so what I'd like to do is take a look at relook at the the street palette. So next Amy. So when we look at this, we're seeing as Wayne had mentioned, the different sort of strategies of, you know, different types of streets and we're seeing some active mobility in grained in that. And for for those in in the audience that might be you know really adamant active mobility advocates that they see the shareows and they're like that makes them very, very uncomfortable very, very fast. And I want to show a quick little video here and we'll keep our fingers crossed with the technology gods that this will work and show you and bring some of these. Active mobility street types to life here. This particular video, it's a little, it's a little jarring here. I hopefully it'll smooth out over time. But this is actually shot in Delft in the Netherlands last November. And the reason why I wanted to show this is because The environment here is of similar density in scale and human scale nature. And what we're seeing out here on the streets is people going about their daily life and you'll notice that there really is truly a mixing of mobility modes in this particular environment. And I do apologize if this is a little difficult to watch. In my screen, it looks like it's a little jumpy. I'll be sure to provide the link to the original film that you can take a look at. I published it last week. And you can see it in it's all its glory. But really what I wanted to focus hit on in on here is just the diversity of people that you're seeing out here. Wade mentioned it earlier, is it we're designing these streets to be truly welcoming to all ages and abilities. And you'll see in this particular segment here where, you know, parents are sort of riding with some of their kids, but then you see an entire cluster of basically middle schoolers and high schoolers heading on into school on this early morning in November. And it's it's also very very important to embrace and understand that these are open streets. This is not some sort of controlled environment. Amy and I were talking about this before we hit the the play button here is that you know really this is just like any any morning I mean this was literally November fourteenth 2022 I just was my last morning and I went out with my iPhone to shoot this. So the point really is is that we're creating an environment where truly all ages and abilities can feel like they can venture out into their communities. And again, this is one of the things that we're hoping to achieve with the Lake Wales plan and many other developments around North America and elsewhere. We're looking to try to get the densities right and the street design right so that it reinforces the type of behavior that we'd like to see. Obviously, from my perspective, I'd love to see more people. Participating in active mobility, but in order for that to really truly happen, we need to make sure that the environment is is truly safe and inviting. You know, for those people who are out there. And you'll notice too that, you know, Drivers are here. It's not a completely car free network. And in fact, it reinforces them being able to participate in life, everybody participate in life and share the space. One of the things that I really want to emphasize on as well too is, is the scale of the buildings that we're looking at here. We're not looking at massive, massive buildings here. We're looking at a similar type of scale to what we saw in the illustrations there in in the Lake Wales area. And really, truly, I mean, somebody just commented, you know, and drivers are expected to be civil, yes. And in fact, it's reinforced by the design of the streets as well as the off street network. And we just saw a person on a mobility scooter go by again enforcing or reinforcing the concept that we want this to truly be on all ages and all abilities environment. And the final slide, Amy. And again, or not final side, the second to the final side. Again, I wanted to show this overview because it does reinforce exactly what we saw on the video. Is that we're seeing in a more North American context and a Florida context, the same type of situation that we're looking at in terms of the level of density. The narrower streets and trying to create a human scale. Environment which encourages people to get out there, get active, get along. And if you do have to drive, you can still drive, but you're encouraged to do so at a more civil pace. The final slide here. And again, having activity assets within easy reach. We see access to parts, access to green spaces, trails. And green ways. Really super, super important because we know from a health behavior perspective and from a public health perspective, including mental health. Access to greenery and having greener streets is a huge part of it. And that's one of the things that you'll really notice about the way that this plan was brought together and a lot of the streets that that Wade had talked about, there was an incorporation of a lot of street trees in this design. And that's all I have. Wonderful. Thank you all for the presentations. And once again, I wanted to remind everybody. To use the QA function of Zoom, to ask your questions. There were, a number of questions that have been asked in the chat. Please, if you could just copy and paste those into the QA function. We already have a couple of questions, but, First, I'm gonna ask a few questions and, you know, one thing that strikes me is that active living is embedded at the core. At the core of like Wales and vision plan. this is clearly you know not an afterthought not a byproduct there's a lot of new urbanist plans out there that you know active living is part of it but it's really it's it's sort of an outcome of it, but it's really it's sort of an outcome of the planning. Can you talk about the distinction between putting health and physical activity at the core of the planning versus maybe a secondary effect? I'll get started and then wait and John, please jump in. But I think that, This is just a really great opportunity where Lake Wales, that the situation that Lake Wells is in and that they are seeing, you know, kind of their planning ahead of time for, you know, this amount of growth that there're seeing coming their way and so being able to, you know, visualize and get their regulations in place for that type of development. I think is just really key and so you know you can you know sit with the community and kind of talk about what what brings quality of life and what's important to you and you know for existing residents. How could new neighborhoods make things better? And, you know, if we're even, you know, thinking about folks who are going to live in those neighborhoods, how could they be better? And so I think from that standpoint, you know, the the active living component just kind of comes straight out as you know just being key to quality of life and you know having access to parks and you know as John was mentioning for not just for physical health but mental health and it's just you know a key thing so I think this is an exciting project for me to work on personally because again it's you know kind of at that Yeah, Amy, I think I think another really important. Part point out is I believe a lot of the idea of activity and active living is baked in all the way back. To the Olmstead Brothers original plan. For the city. You know one of the things that really struck me Is very unique about like Wales. Is. The waterfront, the waterfront around like whales, spelled with an I, LES. But the center like that showed on the diagram. Whenever that was originally planning you think about florida and lakefront property or beachfront property and it's all privatized. And that's for the big houses go and, you know, here 2 for none shall pass. In like Wales Yeah, that whole waterfront around the lake was envisioned as public. Public waterfront and a lot of people you go out there anytime a day and there's people walking on the pathway around like Wales. And, you know, the, the, the plan that Amy's group worked on preceding this for downtown actually looked at you know making connections from the lake into downtown and they've done separated bike claims with some lane reallocations on roadways and then you also see the trail system. So I think a lot of that activity is built in and a lot of the desire. Is built in and it truly is and you know it really is a case of if you build it, they will come and they will use it. So, you know, it's We're really we're really seeing that play out in Lake Wales. stage where we could really make a difference. And you know kind of see something really exciting happening. Like Wales. And I'll speak just quickly to, you know, sort of the difference between the activity assets that we build that are in the built environment and wages said, you know, if we build it and they will come and then I usually include a dot dot dot. If we've built the right thing in the right way and we follow that up with encouragement, engagement, and education and awareness activities and we have the policies in place that, you know, really help manifest and bring the right thing into fruition in the first place. And so oftentimes, you know, you know, folks are like, oh, well, you know, hey, we built a bike lane, but why isn't anybody using it? Well, oftentimes it's probably not the right bike lane. It's probably not in the right place in the right environment and it may not be comfortable to all ages and abilities and more importantly going back to that network. Was it part of an entire comprehensive network that gets people to meaningful destinations and is truly to waste point on all ages and abilities facility, a network of facilities that get you there. And so the other thing that I wanted to point out and looking back to that little video and you know seeing the parents sort of working with them that's part of the activity assets that's the software activity assets. It's the engagement is the encouragement, it's the awareness and and you know the the stuff that takes place the soft stuff that takes place that really truly brings life to our built environments to our bike lanes to our safer streets that are out there. But then that extends to what a city can do. So from a planning perspective, you can also be looking at, okay, we're gonna build this out. Hopefully it'll, you know, get built out very quickly in terms of being able to have a comprehensive network, but then also overlaying that with those other softer side of things like the engagement and the awareness and then I saw a question pop up in here about maintenance and management of the facilities because for them to be truly welcoming and inviting all ages and abilities facilities, we need to make sure that they're well-maintained and they're desirable and pleasurable places to be. And occupy. So they it's sort of layers in it that way. But again, my brain is thinking of it in terms of activity assets that are the hardware and the software. Great. We have, we've talked a lot about street design, but there was also, you know, in some of the, planning images, there was, discussion of trails or clearly trails were shown. And, it strikes me the trails, multi-use trails are becoming even more important these days with all of the advances in micro mobility and ebikes and so forth. And you can really get around without a car a lot easier, especially with, you know, if you have a. And, can you talk a little bit about, how trails fit into the, to the lake wheels plan and how this could apply to other communities as well. Wait, do you want to start that one? Yeah, I can and Rob, I mean, we looked at it as. An integral part of the plan really looking at. Multi-modal accessibility. Biking, walking. Not and taking some lessons from downtown and some of the things that we've seen in the neighborhoods around downtown. And then starting to apply those to the context of you know, a new small village or hamlet in the in what was a citrus grove. At 1 point that would still be proximate to to town but it would have its own you know its own mix of uses and attractions and destinations and goods and services as well as residential. And we knew that we really needed to make sure all of those were connected. So, but we wanted to make sure they were connected in a, in a thoughtful way and one that really blended with the plan and because we started to look at, you know, with, what I mean was talking about with the big green network. And looking at ways to connect those but also being able to connect, connect the dots on these settlement areas as well. And that what we found was there were not only water corridors. That we could utilize for that, but also utility corridors. So, you know, if there is any kind of blessing of overhead, overhead power lines, it's that, you know, a lot of the right of way can be used for. You know, trail corridors and a lot of the utility companies actually encourage that and have guidelines about how you can do that. So, you know, we really looked at how can we make those connections. Let's connect these settlement areas, but let's also connect these huge green assets. That we have in the community. As well. Rob, you brought up a good point and this one thing that, that you know, the the rise of e bikes and the the increase in trail usage that we saw as a result of during the pandemic and quite frankly has continued into in present day. Is as we are getting these other technologies, you know, we're now dealing with some of the things on trails that we deal with that we've dealt with and dealing with on roadways. And that you know behavior of some users. With regard to speed doesn't necessarily mesh with others. So we really are trying to bake in a good amount of Design now to really manage speeds and speed differentials on trails. But, you know, we're also looking at, applying speed management and traffic calming. Techniques in a trail for nacular. As well. So things like Terminating Vistas and you know deflections. Within a trail context other than just on roadways now so the fact that we're now having to calm trails tells me that more people are using them. Interesting. Yeah, and that's something that that I'm observing and watching and documenting globally is, you know, this challenge of as the pathways get more and more crowded and we do see those speed differentials that that we just mentioned. We need to take that safety situation in into concern and into consideration. What we are also seeing too is that many communities are realizing they under built their system. They under built the pathways and the trails and so they're realizing now they need to go in and make them much wider because they are being quote unquote loved to death. Part of the big challenge and wage you touched upon this as well is making sure that we create systems and management programs to be able to, you know, sort of work on what expectations are. We saw certain behaviors out there on the streets of Delft there where you know everybody was kind of getting along and the drivers were being very very patient. We're gonna see that sort of expectation management out on the trails. I also time tend to think of these mobility active mobility networks as being all inclusive. And I try to really gauge and guide communities not to make their trails and pathways be just serving one purpose, not just being a recreational trail. I mean, there's an opportunity to make almost any trail, any pathway, something where you can connect people to meaningful destinations. And not just be like a one-way trail to a dead end and it only is considered a recreation asset. So that's one of the things that I try to encourage people to take into consideration. Got a lot of questions and we're gonna get to these in a minute. I wanted to ask one more and we talked or you guys talked a lot about the Lake Wales way. And, I'm wondering whether, you know, this is substantially different from the way in some other city, and how would you apply this concept to another city? And how would you apply this concept to another city. And how would you apply this concept to another city? Is there a, and how would you apply this concept to another city? Is there a, Syracuse way? I'm in Syracuse. Is there a Fayedville way and how would it differ? From the Lake Wales Way. Well, I think, you know, the Lake Wales way is really looking at, you know, how the historic parts of town that everyone loves and treasures and, and thinking about how that can apply to new development. So I think that absolutely applies in many communities and you know that's what urbanists are doing right so you know looking at like the Lake Wales way could also be you know thought of as you know traditional neighborhood development but just looking at you know the things that we love and what the DNA the DNA of the town is and you know what those streets look like how the houses front the streets you know with front portches and you know close to the sidewalks and you know looking at the setbacks and you know how that all looks and feels and then you know designing our new neighborhoods to fit that way. So we're going to get to some questions. And once again, if you have questions, you can ask them in the Q&A function of Zoom. And. We had one, from, Scott. What are the kind of state and local policy changes you each recommend to make this sort of shift easier and more possible? I want to turn this. I mean, you can answer that question just as he asked it, but. There was a slide shown in there about the Florida contact zones. And, it really wasn't talked about much, but I wanted to, I think this is so important, what Florida is done with its contact zones and I wanted to ask how that policy change in Florida is affecting the Lake Wales envision plan or how it could affect other plans. That's right, yes. Wait, I think that's the FDOT contact zones. Is that the one that you're referring to? Yes. Maybe way you could start. Yeah. Sorry, I'm dealing with a Small computer issue. I'll jump in wait and you can add to it. I'll do my best to think of how Wade Walker would answer the question. But the yeah, I think Well, absolutely, we're, you know, excited that, you know, FDT has taken the lead at looking at context and designing streets to fit the context that you're in. So, you know, they have a whole series of zones, you know, and they think about that the design of a suburban road is much different than the design of a road in town and you know you need to be thinking about the the lane widths and the sidewalks and all of those aspects differently depending on where you are. So it's great that FDOT has taken that leadership in defining those things. It used to be, you know, that we were, you know, having to, you know, make, you know, to start from scratch, but now we can actually pull out the FDOT manual and show those design standards, you know, and start from those and I'll be talking the same language. I think it's, you know, absolutely, you know, just a great thing that FDOT has done. Just for a little bit of context here, Florida is the first and only state that has where the over the DOT the state DOT has taken the transect concept. And has applied that to road design through its context zones. And so that if you have a, you know, view of a place that is either a walkable city or designated as, you know, planning, plan to be a walkable place. You would design that differently from if you were planning a thoroughfare through you know, a rural highway. Context. And so this gives the, the street designers, ie the engineers, a way to think about street design in a different way. That is one policy change, obviously, but you know, that was a broader question if anybody wanted to jump in, before I move on. For, other policy ideas that could, that, could apply to making, you know, making it easier for active transportation. Maybe John? Yeah, sure. I mean, obviously, you know, for, since it is phrased as a broader type of question, you know, you get into everything from land use. Patterns and and what you can do in terms of state and local policies that make it easier to be able to build. Places where meaningful destinations are within proximity to other, you know, to residences and and being able to you know get to places as well as policies that make it feasible impossible you know speaking of transportation and mobility to be able to create, you know, streets that are truly designed around people and not just about around a level of service and trying to move as many cars as possible through a space. So. Yeah, and apologies, my computer decided to go haywire at, for a second, but, Rob, I mean, I think one of the one of the really important pieces to understand about the context classification system. Is, you know, it is something that, you know, our Department of Transportation in response to this, the safety crisis that we've had, is really taking a lot of steps to really focus on. Safety and especially safety for vulnerable users. Such as pedestrians and cyclists. Even to the point that, you know, we are, as part of just general resurfacing. You know they can include that they now regularly include pedestrian and bicycle safety projects. In resurfacing in general. Resurfacing projects. So, you know, it's been an uphill, uphill climb, but just really understanding that. You know we all we all have practiced it for years but You know, even on, even on a state level and understanding that the context is different and we should really be designing for the context. It is huge. Hmm. Revolutionary. And we have a question about the intentions. Going into shape the Lake Wales code. Could we talk a little bit about the code code reform that you use in Lake Wales and how that's I helping to create an active place. So, I mean, probably the most important code, reform is the TND ordinance that I mentioned. So, I mean, this is, you know, specifically to shape the design of new neighborhoods and it lays out the, you know, standards for neighborhood design. It includes street design standards in there. So, you know, requirements for those tree line streets and sidewalks and things to be included. And so that I think is probably the the most important aspect but then also you know through this project we went through the existing code and just you know made sure there weren't any barriers you know seeing how we could what would need to be change to make sure there wasn't anything preventing. The development this way. But I think, you know, having a T and D ordinance that, you know, specifically proactively calls out all the design things that we're talking about and incentivizing that and getting folks to use that ordinance is important. There was a question about the communication engagement. I know that Amy, you talked about the, had quite a few slides on, engagement, public engagement. And, but in speaking, broadly, you know, in terms of planning for physical activity, are, you know, what are the keys to getting people to really, get behind that concept? Oh, I think, yeah, I tried to highlight that we had a number of different ways reaching out to folks not just having in-person meetings but a number of online opportunities as well. So, you know, that and you know during the the Shorette week you know having you know not just the big meetings but the open studio people having you know not just the big meetings but the open studio people could drop in. I think I saw a question asking about the open studio people could drop in. I think I saw a question asking about kids and we did you know try to incorporate kids into the planning process. I think I saw a question asking about kids and we did try to incorporate kids into the planning process. We had a kids table at the hands Despite the sort of technical difficulties on that video, I think that really struck a chord with a lot of the audience. It Delft and the vision for Lake Wales is the, yeah, the backs of the buildings. And. I don't know the continuous building frontage that you see in Delft. You're probably not gonna be seeing that in many contexts in the United States. So could you get Could you get that kind of an active environment where, you know, bicyclists and walk, people walking, people in cars could, could relate to each other in the same way in an American context. Yeah. Yes, if you want one word to answer, yes. Yeah, I mean, when you look at that, density that you saw there, I mean, I can think of a couple of communities that are being built right here in Austin, Texas that have some of those continuous fronts. And so every community is going to have its own sort of, you know, Look to it and feel to it and the light or the the lake whales way that we're looking at I still think is incredibly walkable and bikeable and then it's just a man matter of fine-tuning what that environment feels like, especially if it's going to be shared some form of shared space on the street network. So in on those streets where we're going to have a mixing of people walking and biking and in cars, then you need to make sure that we've done some of the strategies and some of the fine details of traffic combing and bringing the motor vehicle speeds down, which is exactly what Wade had talked about in terms of addressing speed. I think 2 just to add to that, you know, Lake Wales does have a downtown area that does have that continuous building frontage like you would see in that video. It's just not that's obviously not the entire city. You know a lot of the city is more you know neighborhood areas where the buildings get detached but they're still you know the same just show you know the ideas that they'd be oriented towards the street where you have, you know, front porches kind of still thinking of the street as public space, you know, not just, you know, if you turn your back on the street or have parking lots along the street, that's when you start to see that public ground, you know, break down and you wouldn't have as much of the walkability and bike ability. So that's, you know, I think, but I did want to mention that there is a part of like Wales that looks like that video. Yeah, yeah, I mean I was thinking the same thing that you could you could walk along. Park and see something that would be very similar to that scale. Certainly, I mean, not, not as large, but. At least the scale was there. 1, one thing that I do want to point out is that to me is, and one of the things that I found is as important as the built form. Is. A lot of it is simply the culture. And the expectation that walking and biking are normal. Activities and that sharing a street is a very normal thing to do. One of the things that I mentioned, the, this idea of the trail traffic calming and, you know, as part of the work that I was doing on that, we benchmarked some aspirational communities and one of the one of those was Boulder. Colorado and Boulder basically they don't have to enforce rules on the trails or speed because there's a lot of peer enforcement that goes on. They have a saying, they, they call their trail rules the way of the path. And if they, if they, if a user is seeing someone that is misbehaving, they all say, hey, remember the way of the path. Stop doing that or slow down or and so I think in a lot of communities as those activities increase they become normal. And there is an expectation of motorists that you know that activity is going to be there and it builds on itself and just and does make the the whole system safer. You know. It's interesting. I mentioned culture and norms and there was a question, that, has there been any consideration around communicating etiquette? I is assuming that these these trails are not just for cyclists, they must be shared with pedestrians, wheelchair users, e bikes, etc. There is a different etiquette when you're talking about designing for all different all users, right? Yeah, when you're when you're talking about creating a culture of safe environments and a culture of activity in general and in way do you address this quite beautifully there is that you know one we need to make sure that it's an environment that draws people out and into that environment and encourages them to use it. And then at the same time, reinforces what the proper behavior is. When it comes around to, you know, considerations of communicating etiquette, you know, having lived in Boulder for a decade a wage, you know, in the past, I've spent many times, many days on those trails. And yes, it is self-reinforcing and also having spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, those streets are also self-reinforcing in terms of in terms of what the proper etiquette and behaviors are expected. Out there. So it's really important too to understand that part of creating a culture of activity is, you know, having that environment that is really truly conducive. To encouraging people to do it on a regular basis. And the more regular that you do it, and it becomes something that was a pleasurable activity. You didn't feel threatened out there. It was beautiful and welcoming and pleasurable. You are able to get habit formation in the brain. That reinforces that, hey, this is something that is, you know, very, very pleasurable and is beneficial. That's when you get the psychology side of things happening and it reinforces and that's when the power of numbers start to help out because then you have more people doing it, you're starting to get social interaction with other people. And sometimes they're just micro interactions. Maybe it's just seeing, oh, there's Rob again on his bike. He's, yeah, I hate to rob, you know, you maybe it's just an acknowledgement that you are having these little interactions and it brings a level of sociability up within the community and that's is a self-reinforcing thing. In terms of culture creation. And it's something that takes time. To. We are now at the one o'clock just after the one o'clock mark and so I wanted to let people know. That we will be posting this video. If you have to go and we ask your question after later that you'll be able to see the video posted on the CNU website and the answer to your question, but we're gonna talk for a little bit while longer because we still have more questions to answer. Here's kind of a, a fun point that was made. And, but I think it, you know, always, you know, goes to another question that I'm always curious about. Wade is one of the leading, transportation engineers who is involved in, designing walkable streets. It has been for a while, but he says, Wade is a great name for a mobility expert. And, you know, did your last name influence your path in your career, Wade? Or is that just a coincidence? How? I, I would love to say that it did. But, it's strictly a coincidence, but, I'm glad that I'm glad that my last name isn't driver. Okay, but how did you get into, you know, like being one of, you know, the few in the crowd, you know, like being one of, you know, the few in the crowd, new urbanist transportation engineers. Yeah, interesting story. I completely fell into it by accident. I always say I'm trained as an engineer, but you know, exposure to some of the best and brightest minds in transportation and urban design. Have really shaped shaped my outlook. I would say that you know fortunate to work with people like Amy and Victor and you know people like that throughout my career but probably the biggest influence was a was my first supervisor, you know, people like that throughout my career, but, probably the biggest influence was a, was, my, people like that throughout my career, but, probably the biggest influence was a, was, my first supervisor. those of you that are old time CEOs probably remember Walter. And, I worked directly with him for 15 years. At the very early stages of my career and being able to really look at transportation as a means of moving people. And not just cars. Has really shaped the outlook that I have. Well, that was really learning from the feet of the Guru. Yeah, I refer to him as my sends. Okay. And just in fairness, I should just like, 30 s. John and Amy, how did you get into the, where you are right now? Involved in the new urbanism. Oh, I was lucky enough, right out of school. I got a job at Dover Calling Partners and working for Joe and Victor and just, have been here ever since. So that's my Short story. Yeah. And, my story is a little bit more complex. I've been working in public health and health in the built environment for about 34 years now. And I really discovered. The the connection between what I was doing in public health with urbanism, new urbanism, about 1520 years ago, I guess. And, and then really got engaged with CNU and realizing that how we transform and how we build our environments can really have a profound impact on the health and well-being of entire societies and so really went down the the rabbit hole of new urbanism and drinking from the fire hose of all the familiar faces. I did see a question out there from Alec Thomas about would there you be measuring and monitoring health outcomes? And I'll speak to that just in general from a more global perspective, rarely do we see health outcomes managed or monitored at a societal community level, mainly because it's really, really difficult to do so. I had a couple of environments where I was able to do some actual. Studies where we could atomize things and autonomous things down to you know, actual individuals and then maintaining, you know, privacy obviously and be able to see participants versus non participants and be able to get a return on investment of types of activities. It's way too difficult to do that. But what you do end up seeing and what we can demonstrate from a public health perspective. And looking at actuarial data is that cities that do have a culture of activity and a higher percentage of people participating in active mobility, we do see that they have better health outcomes overall. So I doubt that there will be any, you know, really fine-tuned health monitoring. Amy, you can correct me if if there's a particular health group there that is looking at trying to do some before and after data but more likely that's not typically what we see in communities. Hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting question. I'm not aware of anything, but I'll check into it and see, but, it would be interesting to see. We the question, are there specific design codes for each street? In the Lake Wales plan. I know we saw the street sections that were drawn up and probably trail sections as well. But did you get down to the point of saying this street section should go to this particular street or maybe? These 2 street sections should be applied to this kind, this street or that street. did you do it in, in, in that, did you get to that level of specificity? I'll start with you can add to this. I think, you know, there are some specific recommendations for specific streets like Burns Avenue, the one that we showed, you know, that we really looked at in detail. But then, beyond that, for specific streets like Burns Avenue, the one that Wade showed, you know, that we really looked at in detail. But then, beyond that, we, and the, TND ordinance, we have standards based on the context where you are. So, you know, the neighborhood center, the middle of the neighborhood or the edge of the neighborhood and, you know, standards for the width of travel lanes and with the sidewalks and planting areas and that sort of thing. So you could kind of take those components and assemble your own section that doesn't require a specific street, for example, be designed the same way in every neighborhood. Yeah, and I mean, I think that definitely hits, hits home on it. We did look at several, specific streets in addition to burns. We did a little bit of a deeper dive on the, on the state roads just knowing that they were coming up for resurfacing. You know, the city would have an opportunity to, to potentially be able to include some of the modifications within the resurfacing. And then really looked at. You know, I think Amy hit it right hit it right that we kind of shied away from. You know, setting street types, and coding every street in the, in the city, but more looking at, you know, these are the guidelines of how you should do that. Part of the part of the issue in like Wales was the fact that that there's the, yeah, that they were using. In the areas we were studying. The county. Street design guidelines prevailed. And I have a whopping to have a whopping total of 2 street types for those kinds of areas. So we did need to add some more specificity and guidance. But, you know, my hope would be that at some point the city develops their own street design manual. Or set of guidelines, but, to Amy's point. Make sure there's enough flexibility in it to be able to deal with different issues or different contexts or different constraints that you may have. Buddy Millikan asked or is there any provision for transfer of development rights? You know this would seem like a natural thing if you're really trying to create that big green network So that's listed among the tools to, you know, to pursue in the big re network. We don't have it that's not fleshed out yet but definitely you know one of the one of the ways that can be can be done so it's it's not yet in place but certainly on the list. And, David asked for like what environmental problems were specific. Did you solve for? He also asked about sync holes. I don't know if this sink calls are an issue in like Wales. Well, I think the identification of the big green network is probably one of the biggest environmental aspects, you know, kind of identifying those priority sites for conservation where there's wetlands where there's, you know, just critical lands. And identifying them as being prioritized for conservation and, you know, kind of keeping that green area. So I think that's probably one of the biggest components of the plan that helps to speak to the, you know, environmental aspects. Hmm. Linda S is our community of Madison, Wisconsin continues to densify. People are increasingly concerned about 3 canopy loss. Your drawings show terrific tree cover. Is there a tree canopy overlay and vision that would help encourage? Or require private landowners to plan and maintain native trees and support a healthy ecology and provide shade. It's great, correct. So I think the Olmsted, the Omstead history in here, you know, there, there is a great culture of street trees and. You know, they're already existing in the city. You know, they wanting to, you know, plant more trees having a public program. That does that. And so, yeah, and with the design of new neighborhoods, you know, they'd be required to have street trees as well. So I think, absolutely, you know, from the Olmstead city in a garden. History here specifically that the idea of street trees. Is, you know, big part of like Wales. I'm glad that came through in the drawings. Let's see. So what's the next step here and, can you talk about I always try to broaden it to other communities but you know what's the next step in Lake Wales, but what could be the next step in a similar community in creating this. So I mean, there's a number of next steps. There's a, at the back of the report, there's an implementation, you know, steps that, you know, kind of lay out what those are and immediate next steps we're planning for a meeting of the partners and co-sponsors so we could you know kind of talk with you I mentioned there's all these you know local organizations Main Street Chamber of Commerce, you know, all these partners who are going to help with implementation, as well as, you know, statewide, you know, partners, a thousand friends of Florida and such. So we're going to be organizing a meeting of all the partners to kind of talk about how how those you know they could be partners in in those next steps but you know basically you know the city is kind of organizing and already pursuing next steps, you know, the the Tandy ordinance I mentioned is the big, you know, the the TND ordinance I mentioned is the big thing and so we're reviewing is the big thing and so we're reviewing that and getting that ready. And so we're reviewing that and getting that ready. And, you know, I mentioned the, you know, there's the free lander parcel having that, come forward as being part of the, you know, the first piece of the big green network to be permanently preserved. That's a big step. So I mean, I think a number of ways, I think, you could speak to, you know, those, FDOT projects or, you know, what some of the next steps with the streets are, but I think, you know, there's, a, number, is, not, just, one, thing, but, you know, each, of, these, kind, of, moving, forward, and, the, city, has. a, great Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It sounds like implementation is the Lake Wales way. But, well, I wanted to thank, the panel and everybody you attended today. It's a really a great discussion. Thank you, Amy, Wade, John and and all the attendees and. Once again, I appreciate everybody. Coming on on the park bench and I will look forward to, the next, the next one. In the future and everybody have a great holiday. Thank you. Thank you.