In this episode, I connect with Martina Haggerty, Director of Special Projects in the Planning Department for the City of Providence, Rhode Island, for a discussion about the status of the city's active mobility initiatives, including the completion of a major signature project the Van Leesten Memorial Bridge built upon the footings of the relocated Interstate 195.

Active Towns Landing page for this episode - for additional content and photos

Providence, Rhode Island is one of our oldest cities in North America and one of the original 13 Colonies, but just like so many others post world war two they transformed their historic built form into an automobile-dependent environment which drained it of life and vitality. The good news is that they realized relatively early on where things went wrong and set out to fix the damage, bigging in the early '80s with the uncovering of the Providence River.

More recently they tore down and relocated I-195 and then reused the footings to create an amazing activity asset in the Van Leesten Memorial Bridge.

Additional Helpful Links:

PeopleForBikes Big Jump Project

PeopleForBikes Five Cities Breaking Down Barriers

PeopleForBikes Best New Bikeways 2020

PVD Streets

PVD Affordable Housing

Providence River Relocation

Providence Great Streets Master Plan

Providence Bike-Ped Commission

East Bay Bike Path

Washington Secondary Trail

Zoning Rewrite article

E-Scooter Pilot

E-bikes Return - Spin

Active Towns Podcast Episode w/ Jon Larsen - Salt Lake City

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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

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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.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2021

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.