In this episode, I connect with Ben Holland, Senior Associate at RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute), for a conversation about why we need fewer motor vehicles, not just electric vehicles, and the inherent fragility of car-centric cities.

Active Towns Landing Page for this Episode (for additional photos and content)

In order to combat climate change, we know that we must electrify the motor vehicle fleet (and other fossil fuel burning engines for that matter) as soon as possible, but what we also need is far fewer motor vehicles on our roads (not to mention far fewer lane miles), especially in our cities.

We also discuss the critical role that walkable urbanism, better land-use patterns, and active mobility networks appropriate for "All Ages & Abilities" play in our quest for sustainable, successful, equitable, and livable communities.

Additional Helpful Links:

Electric Cars Are Great, But Even Better: No Cars an article with Beth Osborne, Director of Transportation for America

Transportation for America: Driving Down Emissions

RMI's Coming Back Stronger Report

RMI: Building Urbanism into Climate Policy

RMI: We Need New Housing

RMI: The Pandemic and Fragility of Auto-Centric Cities

RMI: Bringing Back Clean Air 

Bloomberg Newsletter: Need To Think Outside the Electric Car

Ben's Guest Opinion regarding opening up West Pearl Street to Diners

CNU - Congress for the New Urbanism

CNU - Central Texas Chapter

Strong Towns

NRDC - (Natural Resources Defense Council)

World Resource Institute (WRI)

IPCC: Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development

Better Boulder

Bedrooms for People

Southwest Energy Efficiency Project

UC Davis VMT Induced Demand Calculator 

RMI Colorado Induced Demand Calculator

UC Davis National Zero Carbon Plan

Smart Growth America

Martha Roskowski - Further Strategies

Constantine Samaras - Low Carbon Transportation researcher

Talking Headways/Overhead Wire Podcast Episode: Jeff Wood and Ben

Chuck Marohn and James Howard Kunstler - Strong Towns Podcast: "Why can't we just have corner stores again..." @41:50

Active Towns Podcast Episode w/ Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett's Active Towns Podcast episode and their new book Curbing Traffic

Indianapolis Cultural Trail

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Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Various mixes also by John Simmerman

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:

- Website

- Twitter

- Newsletter

- Podcast landing pages

- Facebook

- Instagram

Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.