(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 475: Lessons from Quickbuild Street Projects

This week we’re joined by Heidi Simon, Director of Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America. Heidi talks about lessons learned from Complete Streets Leadership Academies as state and local officials and advocates work to create safer streets through quick build projects.

Find the report here.

Listen to this episode at Streetsblog USA or find it in our archive.

Below is a full unedited AI generated transcript: apologies for any spelling errors.

Jeff Wood (1m 52s):
Heidi Simon, welcome to the Talking Headways podcast.

Heidi Simon (1m 54s):
Thank you for having me.

Jeff Wood (1m 55s):
Well, thanks for being here. Before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Heidi Simon (1m 59s):
Sure. So I am the Director of Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America. I’ve been there for just about a year now. And before that I was at America Walks, which is the National Pedestrian Advocacy Organization and the National Safety Council Managing the Road to Zero Coalition. So the space of transportation and public health in communities is very familiar to me and something that I’ve enjoyed for many, many years.

Jeff Wood (2m 24s):
And how did you get into this initially? Was it when you were younger? Was it when you into college?

Heidi Simon (2m 29s):
So it wasn’t necessarily anything when I was younger. I think I took a lot for granted growing up and being able to walk to school and bike with my friends and have that sort of freedom that comes from a community that is well designed to support childhood mobility. But then when I was working with America Walks and just getting more exposed to the fact that that experience is becoming increasingly unique across the us it became sort of a, a passion of mine. You can’t unsee that kind of thing. You can’t unsee the numbers, you can’t unhear the stories of the traffic fatalities and the loved ones lost.

Heidi Simon (3m 11s):
And that really stuck with me. The other thing that I have always enjoyed is making connections, whether that be linking people whose work should inform one another or highlighting great efforts of an organization. And the work that I’m doing at Smart Growth America and the work of the Thriving Communities team really to me is about making connections available to people, whether it be connecting to neighbors and friends in their community, whether it be connecting to school or work or parks. It’s, it’s really about building those connections and making the connections available to them. So I like to think that I’m, I’m in the business of connections.

Jeff Wood (3m 53s):
Yeah, and that kind of segues this right into the report, the Complete Streets Leadership Academies are basically connecting people and connecting, connecting state dots with local folks and expertise from around the country. I’m curious, what are the leadership Academies and how did you get this all started?

Heidi Simon (4m 10s):
So I can’t take credit for starting them. I was

Jeff Wood (4m 13s):
You as Royal

Heidi Simon (4m 15s):
I was. I was fortunate enough to come into them, but yes, the Complete Streets leadership AC Academy is they are an opportunity for us to test out some of the things that we know at Smart Growth America after working in communities for years, for example, we know that Quickbuild demonstrations are a great way to make designs quickly and efficiently to streets to improve safety and health. We know that state owned arterials are disproportionately harmful to people walking and biking and we know that the status quo isn’t working. And so with all those things in mind, I think the question really became what are we going to do about it? And the Complete Streets Leadership Academies presented an opportunity to combine the knowledge and expertise that Smart Growth America has built over the course of many, many years in working in communities with the opportunity to foster relationships between state dots and local communities where there might have been not the best communication or partnerships previously.

Heidi Simon (5m 18s):
And to do it through a shared activity like a Quickbuild demonstration that’s going to have very real impacts on community members.

Jeff Wood (5m 24s):
What’s the number on state owned roads? Because I think that number alone, when you say it, I think it kind of switches on a light bulb about how much state roads are actually impacting the numbers of people who are killed in traffic collisions every year.

Heidi Simon (5m 39s):
So nearly two thirds of all traffic fatalities in urban areas occur on state owned arterial roads.

Jeff Wood (5m 44s):
That’s a lot.

Heidi Simon (5m 46s):
That’s a lot. That is, that is a disproportionate number. And what that means is that in a time of our pedestrian safety crisis, when we are facing challenge upon challenge to move that needle, knowing where these fatalities are happening and where we can have a bigger impact is the place that we should be going.

Jeff Wood (6m 5s):
So that leads us to the applicants for the academy, which is basically you required states to be the leads on this and make sure that they are the ones that were applying for the discussions on these specific roadways.

Heidi Simon (6m 16s):
Yeah, I think for us it was a matter of being able to see that the safety d OT was committed to doing this project. That it wasn’t going to be something that they opted in and out of as it was convenient to them, but that they were leading. I think it also was necessary in the fact that we were asking them to make changes on facilities that they owned and manage. At the end of the day, it was going to be a design that they had to support. And I think that requiring them to engage with communities as part of the application process to have that early commitment and that early interest really made this a joint opportunity. This wasn’t something that we wanted to do with SGA as the middleman.

Heidi Simon (6m 59s):
This was really meant to be a single project owned by both parties.

Jeff Wood (7m 5s):
Now did you have to solicit a bunch of state dots to get applications or did you when it put out the call, it was easy for you to kind of pull in different states that were interested in the program?

Heidi Simon (7m 15s):
It was fairly easy. We did a lot of outreach and I think people recognize Smart Growth America and the technical assistance programs that we provide as being a value add. I think the fact that we were willing to provide and support something like Quickbuild demonstrations, which are of interest in a number of communities, also added to the popularity of it. So I was excited to see which states we were working in and I continued to see the interest in it from other state dots.

Jeff Wood (7m 45s):
So who ended up being in the cohort this year?

Heidi Simon (7m 50s):
So it was Alaska, California, Connecticut, and Tennessee. So great geographic representation, great level of kind of who is doing what currently in traffic safety. I think we had some unusual suspects versus the usual suspects. It was my first time being able to find Soldotna Alaska on a map. I will admit it.

Jeff Wood (8m 12s):
I looked it up last night too. I was like, I was like, okay, where is this? Let’s go to Google Maps and see two and a half hours from Anchorage.

Heidi Simon (8m 17s):
Exactly. But I think even some of the more recognizable places like a Berkeley, California or in Nashville, Tennessee might not get the same attention in the traffic safety world as some of the other cities and had a lot to offer and a lot to learn from the program.

Jeff Wood (8m 34s):
So you put together these groups of folks, state dots, local officials, advocates, et cetera. I’m curious, did they all come to the meetings and did they all come to this process kind of with the same definition of Complete Streets Safety reducing collisions on Streets? Did they, did they have the same language when they started?

Heidi Simon (8m 52s):
I, I don’t think so. I think they all had the same vision in terms of wanting to improve safety and accessibility for the residents of the communities and of the state. I think when you talk about knowledge levels or experience, those varied greatly. One of the benefits of working with an organization like Smart Growth America is that we were able to provide some level setting and capacity building sessions upfront. So there was a series of virtual sessions that took place three before an in-person workshop and three after an in-person workshop, all which took place before installation actually occurred. So we were able to answer questions like what is Complete Streets and how does that benefit a community?

Heidi Simon (9m 35s):
We were able to dig into some of the mechanics of a Quickbuild demonstration and while we were having those conversations and delivering knowledge, we were also able to build relationships across the state dots and local jurisdictions as they learned together, which was just a really uniting activity.

Jeff Wood (9m 53s):
I feel like we find this is the case in a lot of projects, whether it’s transit or street design or anything along those lines, but getting everybody on the same page is often hard because of the different silos that people are in. I’m wondering what the process was for kind of aside from like the introduction stuff that you’re talking about , when we got everybody in a room, how did people kind of interact with each other?

Heidi Simon (10m 11s):
So one of the things that I found to be very satisfying and maybe one of the greatest successes of the program was the fact that once we got people in the room, they realized, oh there are actually people. I think it’s easy when working at a state DOT or a local agency to be emailing the same person over and over and not realizing there’s a person behind that email address and getting them in the same room broke down that barrier almost immediately. I think sharing the same goal about the project also helped do that They had something that they were working on together. They had that shared success and interest in that shared success.

Heidi Simon (10m 54s):
And I think the most successful connections that were made, the most productive conversations that took place were when there might have been a little bit of conflict. I’m not going to try and say everything worked perfectly throughout the entire process, that would be very misleading. But I think the times where people heard no or hit an obstacle and were able to work through that with the common vision in place resulted in some of the greatest projects that we saw implemented.

Jeff Wood (11m 25s):
Improved collaboration and communication must create time and resources must have strong leadership. These are the three of the things that you found that I kind of cut down into like bite-size things. Which one of those three of those did you feel like was the largest finding after you put together the report?

Heidi Simon (11m 39s):
I think all our important, and I think you’re not going to have success without any of them, but for me, looking at the leadership and the commitment of leadership was really important. And I don’t mean leadership only in terms of the state DOT commissioner, although that’s very important, but I’m talking about the leadership even at the staff level or the community advocate level. Being able to show up and speak up and give of your time to a project and a program like this, I think demonstrates a certain level of leadership that we need to see more of across the US if we really want to improve safety and accessibility.

Jeff Wood (12m 17s):
One of the things that struck me about that leadership idea was how much you needed somebody to be able to make decisions as well, right? So something needed to be done, you needed somebody to prove it, somebody to say, okay, we’re moving in the same direction. We need to just have somebody say, okay, let’s do this and get it done. Versus . I think what happens in a lot of places where there’s kind of a void in leadership and stuff doesn’t happen. I, I’m reminded of a lot of light rail projects that happen around the United States and you have these elections where you have to have huge votes on them, right? And what happens is if you have a strong mayor or some like champion, it ends up being much easier than if it’s something where there’s a void in leadership and usually those fail. So I kind of drew some parallels.

Heidi Simon (12m 56s):
I think that’s exactly right and I think it also speaks not only to the success of the projects themselves, but what came after the projects. So for example, you can look at Connecticut and the commissioner in Connecticut really wanted to see how Quickbuild demonstrations could be a better utilized resource in the toolbox of the Connecticut DOT overall. And so they used this process to identify some of the changes that would need to be made in the system to make that happen. Whether that be a pre-approved list of materials and online application for communities who wanna do a Quickbuild demonstration, but they use this kind of testing ground to identify those needs and get some of the initial thinking in place to make that happen.

Heidi Simon (13m 41s):
And I think that type of leadership and that commitment of the commissioner to say, this program’s not only important because we’re going to see changes that will save lives and improve health and accessibility, but we are doing this program because I believe in it so strongly. I think it should change the way that we do things going forward.

Jeff Wood (14m 2s):
And that was interesting too, is putting in place the permissions to allow these things to happen. I think that’s probably an important part of that as well and And that is a great example of what happened in Connecticut.

Heidi Simon (14m 11s):
Yeah, exactly. I think it would surprise no one listening that the number one challenge we came up against in terms of identifying projects and ultimately what projects looked like going into the ground was the M-U-T-C-D

Jeff Wood (14m 27s):
Notorious MU tcd.

Heidi Simon (14m 29s):
Exactly. I have to get it in there. And just a lack of clarity maybe about how far A DOT could go or what the boundaries were in terms of what projects could look like or what shape they could take. We saw it in all four states and I think that there were a lot of discussions and a lot of finding that middle ground. But ultimately if we do not have the clarity and the guidance on what will be allowed on state owned arterials, we’re gonna see limits as to how successful these can be.

Jeff Wood (15m 5s):
Is this gonna be a hard question? I’m gonna ask you do the changes in the M-U-T-C-D that just came out because you did these projects before, obviously the new M-U-T-C-D came out, which is the manual and uniform traffic control devices. I wanna make sure that we get the the non TLA three letter acronym out there. But does the new M-U-T-C-D address some of these issues or does it just continue as business as usual from what you found from working with these cities and states?

Heidi Simon (15m 30s):
I, I don’t wanna claim to be an expert on the M-U-T-C-D, that’s

Jeff Wood (15m 34s):
Why I said it was a hard question.

Heidi Simon (15m 36s):
I do think it made some changes that will hopefully make projects like these easier. But I still think it has a long way to go to make innovation and design changes more convenient and accessible for communities and states across the us. I think that what we are doing is not working and we need the space and the flexibility to find out what does. And I don’t think the changes to the M-U-T-C-D got us there.

Jeff Wood (16m 11s):
Another related question, we have a lot of guidebooks that can tell us best practices or things that folks are doing. The NTO guides are are one, there’s also guides like the green guide that basically all of the state highway departments follow. I’m wondering if those guidebooks in general are helpful or is it something that’s kind of made it harder for you all to come up with innovative ways to solve some of these issues?

Heidi Simon (16m 33s):
I think there’s space within a lot of those guides to be innovative. I think the, the confusion might come in what is required or what is forbidden when in actuality it might be limited or under special consideration. I also think for Quickbuild demonstrations, we need to consider that these are not permanent installations. And so giving them the flexibility and the space to do things a little bit differently as part of the testing process, this is where that should happen if we’re going to do it.

Jeff Wood (17m 11s):
So this is something that came up in your work in Alaska. There was kind of a question about what you could do and couldn’t do.

Heidi Simon (17m 16s):
Exactly. Yeah. We were in Alaska, they were looking to improve the crossing from a largely residential area where the local schools were located a pedestrian crossing across a state arterial to their riverfront Parkway where during the summer they had concerts and music festivals and farmers markets really the place where everyone wanted to be. And they had concerns about the number of people being able to safely cross this road. So they had identified a number of improvements that they wanted the community wanted to consider including looking at improving bike infrastructure, expanding the width of the crosswalks, using some kind of color or artwork to draw attention to the crosswalks.

Heidi Simon (18m 6s):
And ultimately the time that it took to get everyone on the same page and the back and forth really just didn’t get to a common plan in time to be installed. We were up against the clock in Alaska in one way that I think we weren’t in the other stage, which is weather. It was just a shortened window that we were able to install a project to get data that would appropriately inform long-term changes. And so they elected not to install.

Jeff Wood (18m 38s):
Are they gonna come back next year kind of at the beginning of the year to try it or is it a lost opportunity? I don’t

Heidi Simon (18m 43s):
Think it’s a lost opportunity. I don’t think it’s unsuccessful either. Yeah, I think there was a lot learned on both sides. I think there’s interest in coming back to that location and seeing what can be done. I am having conversations and I hope to have more conversations with various parties in Soldotna to see what we can do to support that happening. I’ll also add that I think it demonstrated to Alaska DOT the opportunities that exist within complete Streets and some of these other changes. So we’re actually currently working with Alaska DOT as they put together a statewide complete Streets approach in policy. So there are good things to come out of this program even if the projects didn’t go in the ground.

Jeff Wood (19m 28s):
Were there any lessons you took away from the projects in terms of like materials implementation specifically of these Quickbuild projects that were new to you?

Heidi Simon (19m 37s):
I always get inspired by the creativity of what can be a Quickbuild material and how little it can take in terms of cost or in terms of the amount of materials to have a real impact on safety, whether it’s reducing speed or improving crossings. So I think that just was reaffirmed for me throughout this program. And I think the creativity that was shown in terms of incorporating the work of artists, the work of kids and other community members was really what stood out for me.

Jeff Wood (20m 18s):
You mentioned data collection in Bristol, they collected before and after speed data and I’m wondering how that foresight to do that actually changes the project as it unfolds, but also after it’s completed.

Heidi Simon (20m 29s):
If I had a magic wand, every community would have a very robust data collection program throughout their Quickbuild demonstration. ’cause it, it tells the story not only of that Quickbuild, but I think it’s also useful in informing what comes next. So we encouraged all the communities to think about data collection throughout the program and things like speed data is something that is an obvious one. Ped bike counts are also very important. One of the things that Waterbury Connecticut did that I thought was very creative and speaks to what might come next for Waterbury is they actually surveyed and engaged business owners along the corridor to try and see if there was increased economic activity with the changes that were put in place because it’s a state owned arterial that serves as a main street, which we know happens all too often.

Heidi Simon (21m 26s):
But yeah, I mean we saw some great impacts. For example, Waterbury Connecticut saw a decrease just from April to August of 11% of speeds along the corridor. I think we saw increase bike pet counts. South San Francisco had an incredible reduction in boarding times for buses to get people just where they need and want to go faster. And more conveniently,

Jeff Wood (21m 55s):
How much does parking mess up? Good ideas

Heidi Simon (21m 59s):
Generally or related to the Quickbuild demonstrations?

Jeff Wood (22m 4s):
I I’m just thinking of like , if you take away our parking, we’re gonna murder you kind of responses.

Heidi Simon (22m 12s):
The number of times I am accused of being anti-car would probably not surprise you. And I think what’s, I think what is important to note is that we’re not anti-car, we’re anti-car dependency. And so what we are trying to do is to help communities realize that the way they are doing things, the way that they assume things have to be done might not be the case. There might be a different way of doing things that will still be okay. And parking does come up South San Francisco and Berkeley both engaged with parking discussions with local businesses and community members.

Heidi Simon (22m 55s):
I think one of the benefits of doing a Quickbuild demonstration is that because it is temporary, you can demonstrate that if you take away a parking spot or two things aren’t necessarily going to go awry, it might actually improve the experience for everybody. One area that it did result in a more serious complication for a project was middle punk Connecticut. They initially wanted to explore backend parking as part of the Quickbuild demonstration. The uproar over just talking about doing that resulted in press community comments to the point where they realized for the the sake of the project, for the scope of what we were dealing with, it did not make sense to do that.

Heidi Simon (23m 43s):
So they actually looked at improving lighting for pedestrian crossings, which was still greatly impactful to the community to improve nighttime crossings for people, people walking and biking. But it was that pushback, that narrative that forced their hand a little bit.

Jeff Wood (23m 59s):
Basically they’re throwing a wrench in something to try to slow it down and make sure that it doesn’t happen. And in the end, and if you’re trying to get something done in just a summer or in just a short amount of time and pilot it and make sure you get all the data and everything, it just seems like you can, you can come back to it later and it would still be there possibly in the future.

Heidi Simon (24m 17s):
And change is hard. Change is hard, change is uncomfortable, but I think Quickbuild demonstrations because they are temporary once installed, can help proactively combat some of that negative pushback that might come from a permanent installation because it gives people the opportunity to experience it and see that maybe it means their kid can bike to school now or it means that they feel more comfortable crossing the street. And that value add changes a little bit for them once they see it in action.

Jeff Wood (24m 51s):
Along those same lines, kind of community feedback is important, but it can also be something like we said, that slows projects down. I’m wondering what some of the keys are to getting community feedback and approval in some of these Quickbuild projects. Because I imagine that it’s a different process than say something that might take a few years to change a street or something along those lines.

Heidi Simon (25m 9s):
Well, one of the benefits of Quickbuild demonstrations is that the community can and should be part of the process from the beginning. They should be part of the design process and identifying what the interventions and changes will look like. We had advocates at the table represented in all four states, and I think they provided important lived experience. I think they provided important channels back to larger parts of the community. And I think they brought people to the demonstration projects to test them out, to prove them successful, to identify what needed to be changed either in real time or for a long-term installation. And so I think it brings the community members in closer more immediately.

Heidi Simon (25m 54s):
And I think their needs and reactions hopefully are responded to faster than with a permanent installation.

Jeff Wood (26m 3s):
Now, how long does it really take to get a permit from a state DOT?

Heidi Simon (26m 7s):
That varies. That varies greatly. And I think one of the benefits that we saw in doing this program was that we had the state OT at the table from the beginning. So there were some quick turnarounds on permits that I don’t know we would’ve gotten otherwise. But I think one of the things that this program identifies is a need for a change in the way that we permit things like Quickbuild demonstrations. If we want quick builds to be something communities can do, whether alone or in partnership with their state dots, we need to make it easier for them to get the approval to do so.

Jeff Wood (26m 44s):
That makes a lot of sense. And that example of getting a permit that would’ve taken, what, eight months to two months or something along those lines? It, it just kind of shows, and we’re seeing this in LA with housing right now. The mayor signed of an executive order and they said, okay, well you shouldn’t have to wait more than 60 days if you’re under the zoning code and all that stuff. You shouldn’t have to wait more than 60 days. And now all these people are proposing affordable housing projects without any subsidies. Whether that gets built or whatever, we’ll find out. But I find that ministerial difference, huge and permitting feels like one of those things where state DTS kind of get in the way of progress in changing streets in a quick manner to fix the things that a L is.

Heidi Simon (27m 22s):
Right. And we’re not suggesting that there shouldn’t be permits, but I think No, no, and I think some solutions were identified in the program. So some of the communities, like the ones in California did a lot of meetings and conversations, but they called pre permitting meetings. So by the time the permit got to the desk, everyone knew what was in it. The application could be passed along fairly quickly because it had been put together in partnership. I think another possible solution and strategy that we saw that worked well was in Connecticut where they had the different offices within the DOT that had to sign off on the permit, review it at the same time.

Heidi Simon (28m 5s):
So it wasn’t a matter of going from dust to dust to dust to dust to dust. It streamlined the process a little bit. Looking back on all of this, I think there are things that if a state was serious about incorporating Quickbuild demonstrations that they could do to help the permit process before the permit ever got to their table. Looking at a list of pre-approved materials, for example, or a pre-approved list of type of projects that maybe get to the front of the line of the permitting a little bit faster and more efficiently.

Jeff Wood (28m 39s):
Yeah. Was there anything else you learned in terms of how these states and cities can work together in this way to make things faster, quicker, to make things more efficient?

Heidi Simon (28m 49s):
I really think communication is key here. And I think recognizing that while everyone has a job to do, the ultimate goal needs to be the same. And that needs to be improving safety and accessibility, making sure that people can get to the grocery store, to the school or get to work without having to sacrifice. And I think with that in mind, people are at the table together in a different mindset than maybe coming at it from a defensive standpoint or, or looking at someone as an adversary versus a partner.

Jeff Wood (29m 25s):
Now there’s also this kind of issue of capacity in these smaller towns like in Soldotna. How much does the local capacity impact how much can be done on some of these projects?

Heidi Simon (29m 37s):
I think it’s a factor, and I think it’s not only in smaller towns, but I think even in larger communities there are competing priorities. There are any number of projects that are underway at the same time. And while Quickbuild demonstrations maybe temporary, they require work and they require staff capacity and resources and time. The materials require time to be procured and shift before you even reach installation. And I think when you talk about navigating all of those pieces, it’s really an opportunity for states to provide and step up in partnership to some of these smaller local communities.

Jeff Wood (30m 22s):
Were there any results that you didn’t expect?

Heidi Simon (30m 24s):
That is a good question. I don’t think so. I think the overall positive nature of the program was what I had hoped to see. I was surprised by some of the challenges that we encountered, some of the pushback and the barriers not having engaged as directly myself. In the past, some of the, some of the nos surprised me. For example, the South San Francisco project had to go to their city council to get approval to even be part of the program and accept our grant funds. Their initial request and their initial project was denied by the city council.

Heidi Simon (31m 5s):
This was before we even had a, a project plan in place. So that pushback surprised me. The, the hesitancy surprised me, but I think one thing I guess that pleasantly surprised me was the fact that people kept showing up and giving of their time. Even when things got hard, they were willing to roll up their sleeves and and stick it out. And I hope that that as much as a positive surprise to me, , there were times when I was convinced that project wasn’t going to happen and it got in the ground. And I hope that the people participating in doing the hard work on the ground felt satisfaction and took something positive away from that as well.

Jeff Wood (31m 50s):
Can you gimme an example of something that got hard and then made it through?

Heidi Simon (31m 54s):
So San Leandro was looking at putting in a bike lane and they were running up against a conflict because the state DOT had planned construction and maintenance along the corridor. And so they had a very narrow window that they were going to be able to test this out before the street was going to be under project essentially. And it was one of those things where it was will the timing work out? Will the timing not work out? Will we have the permanent time? Will we have the materials in time? And then I remember one day I got an email and with photos of people engaging with the bike lane and, and marking up the, the project feedback.

Heidi Simon (32m 37s):
And it was one of those feelings of they did it and, and that it was a sense of relief and satisfaction. And I think there were moments like that in every community where it was a will they won’t, they , what does the path forward look like? And the ones that were able to put projects in the ground were the ones that didn’t shy away from, from those obstacles.

Jeff Wood (33m 3s):
I think I know the answer to this next one, but did you have a favorite project?

Heidi Simon (33m 6s):
I think they’re all great.

Jeff Wood (33m 8s):
Yeah, that’s, that’s what everybody says, but come on, you have to have like one that you have an affinity for. I

Heidi Simon (33m 13s):
Listen, I think they’re all great and I think they’re all successful in different ways. I think my favorite are the ones that engaged people of all ages in their design and their construction and they’re testing them out the, the kids who get to ride in the bike lane for the first time because their parents finally think it’s safe. Or the Boys and Girls club in Bristol who help to chalk out different designs as part of the the project. That’s what really speaks the most to me because at the end of the day, this is about saving lives and improving accessibility in creating connections.

Heidi Simon (33m 55s):
But I think we also need to remember that you should be fun too and there should be an element of joy in these quick builds.

Jeff Wood (34m 4s):
Yeah. I mean that’s what really makes ’em special is and tactical urbanism and, and quick builds and, and everything along those lines. I feel like that’s kind of what pushes them over the edge is people are like, oh, this is whimsical and there’s something about it that makes you interact with it or make you engage it. And I think that that can change people’s minds more than just being like, here’s the project and we’re be all about it. Right? Like, just like, yeah. And it’s got striping and we’re, it’s like, no, this is supposed to be fun.

Heidi Simon (34m 27s):
Well, and also I think it’s, and I get it, permanent projects take time to install and figure out, but once something has been talked about for three years, you lose the sense of wonder about it. Whereas if three months after you say, Hey, wouldn’t it be nice to have a roundabout here? And there’s a roundabout there, there’s a certain magic to that in seeing it happen so quickly.

Jeff Wood (34m 55s):
Yeah, it’s it’s a expectations enhancer.

Heidi Simon (35m 1s):
It’s it’s gratifying. Yeah.

Jeff Wood (35m 3s):
So going from the small Quickbuild projects to kind of like a macro discussion about traffic safety and, and state dots and state roads and all those things, what did these kind of the smaller pilots teach you about kind of the overall discussion about these issues?

Heidi Simon (35m 19s):
I think it demonstrates to me that while these Quickbuild demonstrations are great and successful, and I love to see that on the ground changes, our default approach is still very oriented to personally owned vehicles. And the conversation around what transportation can and should look like in our communities has a ways to go at a big picture system level. I celebrate all of these successes and I celebrate all of the successes that we see at Smart Growth America through the National Complete Streets Coalition, but they represent such a small percentage of the United States.

Heidi Simon (35m 60s):
And I think we need to take these lessons and be able to apply them at that big picture level to really move the needle not only on on safety, but all the other cross sector benefits that we know will happen when we think about things a little bit differently.

Jeff Wood (36m 19s):
So what’s next?

Heidi Simon (36m 21s):
What’s next? Well, we have engagement from a few states who are interested in doing these themselves and working with Smart Growth America. We are hoping to continue the relationships with these communities as well to stay tuned and to what they have going on. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that you too could have a Quickbuild demonstration in your community with the support of Safe Streets and Roads for all

Jeff Wood (36m 47s):
Me.

Heidi Simon (36m 49s):
No, but, but seriously, I think it might not be as well known that there is federal funding to support projects like these in communities across the US and Safe Streets and Roads for All is a fantastic opportunity to get funding to support a demonstration project, whether it be big or small. And we are here to help, but that funding can really hopefully open some doors to more quick builds.

Jeff Wood (37m 17s):
So where can folks find the report on the Complete Streets Leadership Academies?

Heidi Simon (37m 21s):
So you can go to smart growth america.org and find it there under the National and Complete Streets Coalition section of the organization’s webpage.

Jeff Wood (37m 33s):
Awesome. Well, Heidi, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

Heidi Simon (37m 37s):
Thank you for having me