220317 Henderson, Arias, et.al. Urban Waters in The Driverless City by Rafat Mahmud

THE DRIVERLESS CITY The Socio-Environmental

Implications to Urban Waters

The Driverless City Lab Draft Copy for Experimental Purpose Only

IISG Grad Students Scholars Research Project: The Socio-Environmental Implications to Urban Waters in The Driverless City

National Science Foundation Award Number: 1830642

Contents

Introduction

5-10

Bios + Photos

11-12

Foreword

13-38

Interviews Ricky Burdett (15-16) Catherine O’Connor (17-18) Justin Keller (19-20) Jeremy Glover (21-22) Mary Pat McGuire (23-24) Karen O. Lutsky (25-26) Lindsay Bayley (27-28) Andrew Watkins (29-30) Jay Womack (31-32) Indraneel Kumar (33-34) Kara Salazar (35-36) David Lampert (37-38)

39-40

Afterwards

41-226

Appendix

227-228

Bibliography

Introduction The Socio-Environmental Implications to Urban Waters in The Driverless City

The dual technological advances in autonomous vehicles and electric/hydrogen vehicle propulsion offer society a unique opportunity to reshape our transportation infrastructure and, therefore, our cities. These innovations will have consequences, either beneficial or detrimental, to the urban structure. The Driverless City Project, a current initiative at the Illinois Institute of Technology, interrogates these technologies' urban design implications, focusing on social equity, risk and safety, and environmental quality: What happens with the corner gas station, a common source of water contamination? Can fewer street parking spaces contribute to new localized water infrastructure in areas with Combined Sewer Overflow systems? How can the street rightof-way change from 20th Century transportation infrastructure into 21st Century human infrastructure? The environment's physical structure determines the autonomous vehicle's ability to localize and navigate. Cities can be shaped to mitigate potential risks and improve the safety of citizens. In the public realm, creating ordinances that dictate the street structure guarantees that self-driving cars navigate within predefined protected corridors. However, modifying the urban setting to expand autonomous vehicle safety could negatively impact the community's environmental health. The creation of corridors dedicated to Autonomous Vehicles, like the Detroit to Ann Arbor corridor developed by Cavnue and the Michigan Department of Transportation1, can disrupt bio-corridors, isolate pedestrians, increase impervious surfaces, and consequently exacerbate several cities' run-off stormwater issues. This research aims to leverage a shift in transportation technologies and the substantial investments advancing these technologies, in a period of climate crisis, for the benefit and safety of people and natural systems including water systems.

Notes This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) for the 21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.

Proposal This proposal seeks funding to support an inventory of possible benefits to water systems in this period of shifting transportation technologies and develop speculative graphic scenarios for possible water quality and quantity benefits that may emerge. This inventory will extend the Driverless City Project's research into urban waters. It will be developed through interviews, collaboration, and communication with various regional and global professionals, government agencies, academics, non-profit organizations, and public intellectuals whose work focuses on urban waters and ground transportation. For instance, urban water interviews would include the University of Minnesota's Great Lakes Lab, a regional network of thinkers that recognize and engage the Great Lake Basin's dynamic qualities. The Calumet Stormwater Collaborative, a group of stakeholders committed to rainwater management solutions and other issues. Other urban water interviews would be with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Freshwater Sciences, Pennsylvania State University's Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Chicago's Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, University of Illinois Landscape Architecture Department, municipal and community leaders throughout the IllinoisIndiana Sea Grant region, amongst other actors. Ground transportation interviews would include MIT's Senseable City Lab, an initiative that recognizes that cities are being radically transformed and studies these changes from a critical perspective. The Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago-based non-profit advocating for transportation diversity. Other ground transportation interviews would be with the University of Michigan's M-City, Carnegie Mellon University's Remaking Cities Institute, Chicago Department of Transportation's Complete Streets and Sustainable Urban Infrastructure initiative, US Department of Transportation (under the leadership of former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg),

Introduction

the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, community leaders, and others. The study will compile ideas on a multidisciplinary effort, representing different areas of the city and diverse effects on the inﬂuence of technology in urban water systems to present a comprehensive document that questions the possible outcomes not only in the physical but also in the political and social aspects. The United States has as many as two billion parking spots, and about 115,000 gas stations for about 250 million cars, a ratio that many planners and economists describe as overbuilt2. What will happen to this land? Can it be reused to improve the performance of urban water systems? What policies will guarantee the reuse of this land not only for development but as green infrastructure? How much land will be needed to ameliorate water systems issues? What type of water infrastructure could be placed in this land?

Outcomes The inventory of concepts that emerge from these interviews will be the basis of a journal article in technology and landscape journals, such as in Landscape Journal. It will be compiled into a published report that will document and describe the diverse range of ideas on the implications of autonomous vehicles and electric/hydrogen vehicle propulsion. The document will include a series of illustrations, texts, and quantifiable results informing city planners, architects, landscape architects, and other interested parties on planning and designing cities for the upcoming autonomous vehicle technologies and providing water infrastructure benefits for regions municipalities. It is not intended to generate environmental data, existing resources such as geodata bases will be used in order to generate simulations that present estimates of the possible benefits of new urban structures in water systems.

State Street, Chicago, IL

Working with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) network will considerably benefit this research on many stages. IISG is the idoneous opportunity to strengthen the multidisciplinary research collaboration efforts among leaders on environmental and water-related matters. Additionally, it is a platform for propagating ideas and concepts concerning autonomous vehicles that will play a key role in urban water systems. The grant resources will reinforce environmental assessment expertise, acquire the necessary tools to quantify ecological performance and distribute documents that will provide a rich inventory of autonomous vehicles' benefits in cities' water systems performance. Finally, on a personal level, I have been passionate about advocating for the presence of water in prolific urban environments. By designing projects in Chicago, Cuidad de Mexico, and Quito, I have learned that water systems require new models of planning and am interested in setting up natural, cost-effective, and long-term solutions for urban Statement of Interest 3 processes like run-off water management and phytoremediation. Ambitiously, I intend to dedicate my career to academia and teaching as a contribution for future generations. IISG is a platform to improve this research and expand my network of thinkers concerned about ethical practices for urban waters. I want to act proactively to an incoming future that we need to be ready for in the short term. The presence of autonomous vehicles is happening, and our cities and water systems must benefit from it.

References 1 Grinnell, Michelle. “Michigan, Cavnue Creating Road of Future Between Ann Arbor and Detroit: Michigan Business.” Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), 13 Aug. 2020, www.michiganbusiness.org/pressreleases/2020/08/michigan-cavnuecreating-road-of-future-between-ann-arbor-and-detroit/. 2 Bliss, Laura. “America Probably Has Enough Parking Spaces for Multiple Black Fridays.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 27 Nov. 2018, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11- 27/why-parking-lots-are-not-full-even-on-black-Friday

BIOS PHO

+ OTOS

Ricky Burdett Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Program.

Interview: Summary_ page (15-16) Interview: Raw_ page (43-58)

Catherine O'Connor Research Scientist at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

Interview: Summary_ page (17-18) Interview: Raw_ page (59-78)

Justin Keller Manager at Metropolitan Planning Council. Member of the MPC Water Resources team and leads the Drinking Water 1-2-3 initiative, the Calumet Storm-water Collaborative. Interview: Summary_ page (19-20) Interview: Raw_ page (79-96)

Bios + Photos

Jeremy Glover Transportation Associate at Metropolitan Planning Council.

Interview: Summary_ page (21-22) Interview: Raw_ page (79-96)

Mary Pat McGuire Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Interview: Summary_ page (23-24) Interview: Raw_ page (97-114)

Karen O. Lutsky Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of MinnesotaTwin Cities.

Interview: Summary_ page (25-26) Interview: Raw_ page (115-136)

Lindsay Bayley Senior Planner, CMAP. Parking Reform Network.

Interview: Summary_ page (27-28) Interview: Raw_ page (137-152)

Andrew Watkins Architect, Urban Designer and Planner and Principal, SWA at Laguna Beach.

Interview: Summary_ page (29-30) Interview: Raw_ page (153-170)

Jay Womack Director, Ecological Landscape Design

Interview: Summary_ page (31-32) Interview: Raw_ page (171-188)

Bios + Photos11

Indraneel Kumar Principal Regional Planner at the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD).

Interview: Summary_ page (33-34) Interview: Raw_ page (189-204)

Kara Salazar Assistant Program Leader and Extension Specialist for Sustainable Communities, aﬃliated with IllinoisIndiana Sea Grant, Purdue University Extension, and the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. Interview: Summary_ page (35-36) Interview: Raw_ page (205-215)

David Lampert Assistant Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, conducts research, teaching, and service in environmental and water resources engineering.

Interview: Summary_ page (37-38) Interview: Raw_ page (217-226)

Foreword

Notes This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) for the 21stcentury so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.

This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure (such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) for the 21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs of the entire community. To do so, it will explore trade-offs between three key elements: safety, usability, and aesthetics. It will then propose a suitable balance between these elements by developing a framework for reshaping the existing infrastructure. The resulting framework will serve to inform city planners, architects, and landscape architects how to plan and design cities in which autonomous vehicles safely interact with humans, and it will serve to educate roboticists on how to ensure that the technology they are developing has a positive societal impact. This project will investigate the critical link between the urban landscape and navigation safety of mobile corobots, from self-driving cars to delivery drones, or any mobile co-robot that operates on city streets and sidewalks. It will address fundamental questions of safety and trust in operating ubiquitous robots in dense urban environments by determining what changes to the urban infrastructure can simultaneously ensure safety, usability, and environmental sustainability. It will bring to light opportunities enabled by ubiquitous co-robots, and more to the point it will show how to leverage that technology to make changes in the transportation infrastructure that lead to positive changes for society. This award reﬂects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

INTER V

RVIEWS

Interview: Ricky Burdett

Ricky Burdett Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Program.

“Like heart transplants or, you know, replacing a knee. Um, the city is the same thing and their resilience to adaptation is extraordinary. And I mean this, both the physical form, but also at the policy level.”

This research project will investigate how to reshape 20thcentury transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) For the 21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.

The dense or compact urban form must be at the heart of any discussion of urban water management and mobility advancements. Motivated by private vehicles, urban sprawl increases infrastructure ineﬃciency, creates impermeable surfaces, and creates a ﬂoating population in dense center cores. This sort of vehicle, when operated under unregulated practices, can increase the number of miles driven, hence contributing to urban sprawl. The public and private sectors will need to work together to maximize these technologies' potential. Cities have an incredible ability for adaptation and resilience, both on a physical and policy level. Cities will use policies such as taxes to reduce the number of private or singlerider automobiles. We will eventually learn to coexist with these technologies, for better or worse. There is still much work to be done to educate the next generation of inhabitants, urban planners, and landscape architects about the prospects presented by emerging technology. Among these opportunities is resource management, such as water management, to promote healthy urban environments.

Interview: Catherine O'Connor

Catherine O'Connor Research Scientist at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

“If there are a couple of inches of water on the street for a couple of hours, that's much better than in somebody's basement. We want the storage. I mean, we, we know we must protect vehicles, but two or three inches throughout the city, that's a wonderful reprieve and give the sewers time to catch up and convey this ﬂow.” This research project will investigate how to reshape 20thcentury transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks)

Among the most signiﬁcant issues facing cities, and particularly the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, is the constantly increasing amount of stormwater runoff and the complexities associated with its management. There has been an increment in the volume of water, from 6 inches in 1960 to 8.58 inches in 2019 on a hundred-year storm event. Water treatment has become more complex as impermeable surfaces have expanded, prolonged drought spells have increased, and communication amongst metropolitan organizations has deteriorated. It is vital to develop novel approaches to urban water management. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is now engaged in projects involving green infrastructure and ordinance enforcement. However, considerable work remains to be done. With emerging mobility technology like driverless cars, repurposing existing automotive infrastructure such as parking lots is possible. Including green infrastructure technologies like bioswales, phytoremediation, and water basins in schools, shopping mall, or residential parking lots might considerably help urban water management.

This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) For the 21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) For the 21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.

Interview: Justin Keller

Justin Keller Manager at Metropolitan Planning Council. Member of the MPC Water Resources team and leads the Drinking Water 1-2-3 initiative, the Calumet Storm-water Collaborative.

“The people that own the road right away are the departments of transportation. They're huge landowners and there's a huge opportunity for us to have different types of storm water infrastructure alongside those roads.”

Transportation directly impacts urban water management by creating a substantial volume of runoff water. For instance, the expansion of the transportation infrastructure aggravates the issue. Although the current infrastructure of the water treatment organizations in the city can manage a large volume of runoff water, occasional rain events can considerably increase the amount of water. When this happens, systems fail, and they will either overﬂow into the city or surface waters such as the Chicago River, dragging many pollutants like oil, leakages, and rubber. Furthermore, although there are government efforts to deal with these problems, more is needed than simply covering expenses for infrastructure maintenance. The best use of technology requires a comprehensive approach. Cities must create policies to regulate these vehicles and stop infrastructure expansion. Leaders, citizens, and stakeholders must Advocate for public and alternate transportation. Furthermore, inventive infrastructural solutions like green infrastructure are required to address urban water concerns.

Interview: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy Glover Transportation Associate at Metropolitan Planning Council.

This research project will investigate how to reshape 20thcentury transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks)

Interview: Mary Pat McGuire

Mary Pat McGuire Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“is focusing on a kind of subtractive process, you know? Rather than thinking in design as always something like an adding to a situation. But in this case, we really need to think about a subtraction process rather than adding.”

This research project will investigate how to reshape 20thcentury transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks)

The Chicago-land region has a deeply inherited history with water, and we have grown a built environment with an antagonistic relationship with these systems. Chicago is a metropolis that has been overengineered, with an abundance of paved surfaces. In the south side of Chicago, over 30% of the city area is dedicated to hardscape. It is an aging system dominated by automobiles. These urban conditions make the city a tremendous experimental site with much room to be creative at handling water. We inherited a fixed system, making it difficult to imagine it differently. That is why water management operations should be a subtractive process rather than a complete rebuild. There are opportunities to retrofit infrastructure like street parking. We can think of them as more spongy and absorbent. Alternatively, as an extended parkway to serve social purposes. Furthermore, we should be experimenting with more porous materials, extensive growth of urban tree canopy, more continuous soil, and green infrastructure.

Interview: Karen O. Lutsky

Karen O. Lutsky Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

“And part of that is getting rid of the duality, and the recognition, of this idea of nature over here and whatever the environment is doing over here. And then the people are over here and we're ruining this and we're just trying to like ﬁght back, as opposed to ﬁnding the points where humans and nature can intersect.” This research project will investigate how to reshape 20thcentury transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) For the 21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous

Today, we live in a world where we tend to separate the different environments. We live in a binary system segregating the constructed environment from the natural world. Herein lies a unique opportunity to reformulate this paradigm and think of it as a multiple, intricate, dual system. A system that is connected and therefore needs a holistic solution. The focus on water issues needs a better approach than only water infrastructure. We need to understand and design with it as an instrument; as Donella Meadows would say, "we need to dance with the system." Amongst the most destructive procedures of urban water is the maintenance of roads, especially in northern regions. De-icing roads with salt can contaminate drinking water, endanger wildlife, increase soil erosion, amongst other drawbacks. Driverless vehicles can provide creative solutions to these problems, including less de-icing, phytoremediation, repurposed service surfaces, alternative energy systems, open land for green water management.

Interview: Lindsay Bayley

Lindsay Bayley Senior Planner, CMAP. Parking Reform Network.

“So the policies that we've had for nearly half or more than half a century are how do we accommodate more cars in the environment? And that has come at the expense of so many other things, whether that is the pedestrian or the environment”

Cities like Chicago inherited a situation created by the automobile, parking supply. The current policies are the same as they were more than half a century ago, and they act as a barrier to egalitarian transportation. These policies look to accommodate more cars in the cityscape at the expense of pedestrians and the environment. This enormous supply increases impervious surfaces, aggravating urban run-off, heat island effect, and pollution. While much of this demand is necessary for enterprises and isolated communities to succeed, there is an opportunity to remodel these areas for environmental and social beneﬁts. The overly engineered infrastructure might be worsened further if driverless vehicles increase demand unless rules are implemented to reduce the need for parking. Only then would there be a realistic chance of reclaiming that area and growing and maintaining urban forests, green water catching systems, porous surfaces, and green spaces.

Interview: Andrew Watkins

Andrew Watkins Architect, Urban Designer and Planner and Principal, SWA at Laguna Beach.

Interview: Jay Womack

This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks)

Jay Womack Director, Ecological Landscape Design

Interview: Indraneel Kumar

Indraneel Kumar Principal Regional Planner at the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD).

Interview: Kara Salazar

Kara Salazar Assistant Program Leader and Extension Specialist for Sustainable Communities, aﬃliated with Illinois Indiana Sea Grant, Purdue University Extension, and the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Interview: David Lampert

David Lampert Assistant Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, conducts research, teaching, and service in environmental and water resources engineering.

“One of the key things I would raise in response to that question is that density or the compact urban form must be at the heart of any discussion of urban water management and mobility advancements.”

21st-century so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.

The Driverless City Project develops social scenarios, technical solutions, infrastructure prototypes, and model urban codes that transform city streets into the twenty-ﬁrstcentury human infrastructure. Research workshops, computer simulations, visionary drawings, physical models, and narrative videos will give shape to this future city. These elements are developed into smart driving control systems, design guidelines for transportation agencies, model municipal codes, and infrastructural. As cities around the world leverage the opportunities and manage the impacts of driverless cars, this crucially important project investigates a transformative advance in transportation and communication technologies—the kind that has always changed cities and demanded new forms of physical infrastructure. In the next decades, we can improve urban social life by increasing the ecological performance, safety, and eﬃciency of streets while also recovering underused land and revitalizing our cities. As cities around the world leverage the opportunities and manage the impacts of driverless cars, this crucially

Afterwards

Notes This research project will investigate how to reshape 20th-century transportation infrastructure. Such as highways, intersections, roads, and sidewalks) for the 21stcentury so that it may accommodate autonomous vehicles while addressing the needs.

Afterwords

by developing a framework for reshaping the existing infrastructure. The resulting framework will serve to inform city planners, architects, and landscape architects how to plan and design cities in which autonomous vehicles safely interact with humans, and it will serve to educate roboticists on how to ensure that the technology they are developing has a positive societal impact.they are developing has a positive societal impact.

APPEN

NDIX

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Ricky Burdett

2021-11-08

Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Program.

Alexis

Alexis: All right. Um, yeah, I would like to say thank you so much Professor Burnett for joining us in this session. If it has been an honor to have you here, uh, we are so excited, to have this conversation with you. Uh, and yeah, once again. Thank you, Ron. Thank you professor for, uh, this opportunity. And as we mentioned a, in our current grant, we are asking ourselves, what are the implications of driverless cars, especially in urban cores. And I would like to start with a few questions for our archive. And my first question will be like, how would you describe your research agenda? And if it is okay to say that you are an urban researcher.

Ricky

Ricky: Yeah, no, hold on. The reason I’m posing is that I think you can hear me well now. Right? We can hear you very well. Yeah. So fundamentally I’m, uh, I guess as Ron knows, I’m interested in the relationship between physical, urban, and social forms. That’s at the heart of, I guess, what I’ve been involved in for a number of years, which, uh, clearly spills over into, um, environmental issues. But I think it’s sort of, I guess, it’s that triangle that I’m interested in, in other words, how does the shape of the city by which I mean. Uh, the width of the streets, the Heights, the buildings, but also how sprawled or how dense, how does that affect the way human beings connect or not connect, and how does it affect the environmental footprint of cities? So in that sense, I guess I’m an urbanist slightly outside the box of what urbanism normally means because very often urbanism, um, Uh, or town planning, if you want to call it, that tends to be very technical and very quite siloed. You know, you, you only talk about certain systems while I’m very interested in this sort of interdisciplinary, uh, uh, contaminate. So I think your questions, a part of which anyway, I, I think, uh, I’m, I’m certainly intrigued by and interested in. And the other thing I would add is that much of my professional life, um, in parallel to, or alongside my

Ricky

university, I’ve been very involved with policymakers. So mayors and government agencies, or, uh, special projects such as the London Olympics, uh, to actually try and put my money where my mouth is, and, uh, not, not stay at an abstract level of what might be an ideal policy to create a sustainable city. But what should you do? When you come to a decision for the mayor, say on the south side of Chicago, or the east side of London to sort of deal these things. So that’s, that’s just a general framing to your question.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. Thanks. I have a question dedicated to what is the resources crisis that cities are currently facing and that will face in the future. And then of course, how can we start tackling these issues, eh, in diverse levels, political and design levels. Can you give us an insight into these issues

Ricky

Ricky: So when it comes to resources, I mean, that’s your question one again, I guess it’s quite easy to respond in the context of what I was saying. There’s an issue of human resources and then there’s an issue of let’s call it, um, physical resources in terms of, um, uh, infrastructure. Um, I, and, and of course the two are connected and I would always stress that, um, You’re asking me this question from the United States where most urban form, um, you know, one has to generalize a little bit, but I think one would not be wrong in saying that, um, the spread out cities, the sprawling city is still the norm. And certainly some of your fastest-growing cities, the Phoenix Arizona’s or whatever are maintaining, um, that, uh, that dimension. I think the impact of that on both human capacities, let’s call it rather than just resources. And physical infrastructure is really fundamental. So at the most simple level, the fact that a sprawling city and that’s a political decision, it’s not God-given right. Someone has to make a decision, to allow developers to keep on building over agricultural land. And the opposite is the case say in Hong Kong, right? Where. The central government says, no, you can’t build outside that. You’ve got to pay me lots of money and you have the most efficient system in the world like in Singapore, but not, you know, New York is not dissimilar. Anyway, the negative impacts of the spread-out distributed city dispersity shall I say, is very close to, I think behind one of your questions about water systems is about, but it’s the total wastage. Efficiency of service infrastructure. So the mere fact that if you need to build out 10, 20, 30, 40 miles in order to service a two-story or one-story house with four cars and four car parking spaces, you know, the, literal length of pipes of water, the amount of water, sewage waste, etcetera. The distribution of that network to service a domestic unit is, you know, by far the most inefficient you could ever imagine. How long that I guess indirectly affects the issue of water quality and, you know, one of the best examples or worst examples, point of view is Mexico city. Um, can you still hear me? Hear me hear you.

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Alexis

Alexis: You’re still okay.

Ricky

Ricky: Yeah. Uh, is Mexico city, which is 22 million. Um, and dispersed over a plateau, and Ron, and you know, all about it, but, uh, the negative impact of its horizontal sprawl on its water procurement, uh, is absolutely critical if it were a dense, um, concentrated form of development. Not only would you get efficient transport, but you’d also get efficient water distribution. So, I mean, I think that becomes important. So I guess one of the key things I would raise in response to that question is that density or the compact urban form must be at the heart of any discussion of urban water management and mobility advancements. Um, because, and this leads me to the human resource, or as I say, human capacity question, which is, and I’m going to be banal. You can’t make a nice space in between buildings. If all you have is, um, between 200 meters or 300 meters of tarmac and no, no edge. Right. So Ron and I share. Happy memories of Italian cities, uh, which I was lucky enough to be brought up in Roma studied carefully, but the Mediterranean, the medieval sort of dense, compact city is all about creating a shape for society to play out their role. And it has an implication of containment and therefore I’m linking, uh, as I say, the human environment that is created by proximity. Um, and the environmental wastage, I guess I would add to that in a slightly unsophisticated way. Is that the more you have compact space carved out space, the more you have the potential to landscape it. And, uh, sculpt it with water. You know, the fact that the G20 summit, the other day, with all these criminals who are running our nations, where did they stand? They stood in front of the Fontana di Trevi. Do you know what I mean? That, that, that was, it really struck me so that, that they should choose. Um, that sort of metaphor of this sculptural fountain, which defines the essence of city ness as a, as a model. So I think there’s possibly a connection there.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. Thanks. And what do you think about Uber? Like dense urban cores, like for example, London, um,

Ricky

Ricky: Alexis, there’s something, not a hundred percent going.

Alexis

Alexis: Let me, let me check my microphone. Sorry. Is that any better?

Ron Alexis

Ron: Yeah. Speak, speak up just a little bit, Alexis. I hear you fine. Alexis: Is that better professor? Yeah. So, and then my question is also like a, how about an urban dense cores? Like for example, in cities like London or like downtown

Alexis

Ron Ricky

Chicago, eh, what do you think is a healthy transportation infrastructure affects in those areas? Um, you know pollution, imperviousness, etcetera. I just wanted to see in your experience, eh, if you have any insights about it. Ron: Now we don’t hear you. We see your lips moving. Ricky: Is that better? That’s okay. Something’s not working perfectly, but here we go. Um, so the point I was making is that I actually feel incredibly optimistic despite the doom and gloom out there at the time of COP26 of what cities can do when it comes to this issue of transportation. And I mean, this at the level of, first of all, the design of cities, Uh, but also the retrofitting of cities, right. You know, whatever we say about urbanization, the reality is that most of us will be living in cities that have been there for a very long time. So it’s a question, a bit like an aging body of people like Ron and myself that you need to begin to take, you have to start taking care of it and retrofitting it. You know, whether it’s, um, uh, heart transplants or, you know, replacing a knee. Um, the city is exactly the same thing and their resilience too. Adaptation is absolutely extraordinary. And I mean this, both the physical form, but also at the policy level. So, um, the fact that Alexis that, you know, um, cities like London only, um, 17 years ago imposed a tax on congestion incoming into the central area, uh, which has stood the test of time is, is incredibly positive. And only last week. Um, you know, London is one of the largest, uh, cities in the global north in terms of, it’s not only as population size as 9 million people, but it’s 5,000, uh, square kilometers or something. Uh, it’s one of the largest and extent and breadth. And as you know, it’s defined by, uh, planning technique, which was Patrick Abercrombie in 1947 or the green belt. You know, these are words that are very powerful. Right. And in terms of what they mean, um, from last Monday, um, any vehicle that moves into this vast area, [00:13:00] um, comes under something called the U.L.E.Z, the ultra-low emission zone and any vehicle which has either diesel bay. Or has an engine, which is that’s called an out of date effectively polluting, uh, has to pay not just the congestion charge, which is a much smaller area in the center, but actually has to pay, I think it’s, um, 15 pounds. So that’s about $18 just to go in. So, um, you, you can actually, uh, uh, Organize the system in terms of, if you have good governance and sort of political responsibility to, uh, manage the transport system. Now none of that will work and reduction of cars, unless you have a, the density, you know, you, you, you can’t make these systems work where you have, um, not enough critical mass to make transport pumping, Constable pay for it. So. And B you have to have a hell of a lot of investment in public transport as well. And even there, we know that public transport has an enormous potential when it comes to using green energy, uh, you know, more and more buses and number the plastic, uh, London baton, as you will know, is red. And the logo on the side of it yet, one more red goes green, right?

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Ricky

Because they are hydrogen-based on all that. So you can actually, uh, when it comes to questions of procurement, uh, the, the city of authority is going to have an incredibly effective, uh, impact as they did in, in. New Delhi, a number of years back, I think when Ron, we were talking about this. When, when all the little motorbikes were, were, were, were turned into the pop parts, uh, were moved from, um, diesel-based or petrol-based any way to gas, not the gas is great, but it’s better than the diesel or petrol. So I think back to your question, Alexis, there, there, there is much that can be done and is being done. In terms of making transportation more rather than sustainable, uh, but it requires political intervention. It just won’t happen by itself and the urban form. And that will density is also part of it.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. Thank you. And you know, like talking about driverless cars, uh, sorry, eh, talking a little bit about driverless cars. There are so many transformations that are coming with this technology. So we speculate there are going to be political, social, also environmental. Um, and do you have any, any idea how can politics, uh, actually. It started using these as this technology in order to help mitigate this issues. Some, for example, one of the ideas was that we were discussing with Ron, what will happen with gas stations and garages and parking lots. Uh, but also there are so many

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economic models like car ownership is going to be substituted by a car subscription-based or environmentally or speaking. As you mentioned, we’re going to jump from. Gas-propelled vehicles to electric vehicles. Uh, what do you think will be the most effective way to, eh, to, to start improve it, to start implementing these technologies

Alexis

and also to start improving the health of our urban water systems? Eh, yeah. Besides, you know, once again, what this transformation will be the most effective. Ricky: What I mean, there isn’t one advantage of COVID is that has shown us all how we can be reliant on the current technology that’s there/ Um, you know, it didn’t take very much for a typical family who never, ever relied on. Home delivery of goods to turn from zero or 1%. In my case, my family to 99% dependent on delivery. I mean, the technology is there. So I think my answer to your question is that, um, the, the current technology and, and it’s happening from day to day, uh, facilitates the sharing economy. And, the sharing economy affects our lives in very different, broadly speaking, positive ways. Um, and that goes from obviously, you know, the Uber model, um, Zipcar type, um, but which applies to all different sorts, of course, vehicles from scooters to shared bicycles in Paris or, or Uber’s anywhere in the world where.

Ricky

Ron Ricky

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Ricky: Allow, but also to, um, the sharing of goods, you know, um, there’s a small town in Northern England, which is quite poor. It’s at the bottom end of the sort of deprivation scale where, um, they share long hours that not every family has, you know, and there’s something in that. And I think in terms of actually the, the efficiencies and the social bones that can actually grow out of that. So I think the more technology. Uh, as enabled by, uh, smartphones, um, uh, something you can carry around with you, uh, allows that to happen the better. Um, there obviously is now a massive debate around EVs and, um, uh, you know, charging points. The UK government has set an incredibly ambitious target, I think from 19, uh, 2035 to switch old cars to electrical. Um, so where are you going to charge them? Um, some of the discussions have been had, in fact, my son is a student at the Royal College of art and service design. And they’re looking into this issue now, which is where, where, where do you charge? Vehicles. And what is the human behavior associated with charging? Ron, you were saying that there they’re 20,000 gas stations. Well, the gas station is a sort of quick in and out or you also try and do something else shopping or other things. Um, and of course, that could be given the time or perhaps extended time required for, uh, charging batteries. You know, some there’s a new urban, something that can come out of that, you know, is it a point of encounter and exchange? Um, is it the 21st-century Nini fountain, uh, so to speak, um, uh, I’m being cynical, um, rather than. By the way Ron, as far as I know, there are only six gas stations left in central London, Ron: Six! Six! Ricky: So if you take, if you take central London or the zone where the, and pushing. Uh, replacing petrol stations, uh, and I’m using these incredibly valuable sites for other things, housing and, uh, well, my experience as a, I drive a scooter, uh, to try and find a petrol station I have to plan in advance. I can’t suddenly run out of gas and, um, but that’s been a policy decision. So now whether the number of six or 60, it doesn’t matter.

Ricky

I think it is six, but call it 12. It just says something, uh, you know of, um, it’s quite interesting that that should be the case. I would stress that you can’t think about. Any of these issues on their own that are willing to connect it. So it’s not just a technical issue. It’s also, you know, our kids being educated at school and in such a way that they will, you know, they won’t be picked up by that parent in a gas, guzzling SUV, you know? Um, I know just that in Barcelona, um, the impact of the. The Superblocks initiative. Do you know about all this is that actually, they now have groups of kids going to school with their parents and in hordes of bicycles. So they all go together. So no one’s going to run them over. Right. So can you imagine how exciting that is in terms of you as a kid and also the parents let’s go in together and I guess in Copenhagen it’s been not that for 50 years. So, um, I think there are these cultural. Human dimensions or different shifts and move in, in, in patterns of movement, uh, w which have an almost, um, positive potential.

Ron

Ron: I think one of the things that we, we certainly are interested in is just the land use of the public real estate in our cities. You know, like you, you know, as you mentioned, the, um, the landscape between buildings have, you know, over the 20th century been, um, systematically organized into a kind of series of linear parallel modes of transportation. So the pedestrians are on this line. The buses have a bus lane, the bicycles have a bike lane, the cars have a car like. And really in the US over the last 20 years, those bike lanes and bus lanes are just now starting to displace cars, you know, the policy and the kind of privilege of automobiles and the American city, in particular, is, uh, um, I mean, it’s fundamental to, um, a lot of the politics of, of, of governance. Um, and then we’ve seen what Anne Hidalgo has done in Paris. It’s remarkable. Um, and so I think we’re, you know, we’re also looking to see what that ownership is. If there might be more cars or fewer cars, uh, maybe if there are fewer cars, there’s more real estate for something else. Maybe that’s even landscaped, maybe for water infiltration. Um, maybe it’s any number of, you know, solving a calcified [00:24:00] combined sewer rainfall combined system that contaminates our waterway. Um, and so I think that the connections, that kind of sense of the, of the land use ownership, public land use ownership, and its land use is really fascinating.

Ricky

Ricky: I mean, I, I wouldn’t limit it to public land use ownership. I mean, I wouldn’t, I would include in a very positive way, the private sector here. Cause some estate better. Right? So, um, the, the, um, so just two points. One in case of Paris, um, the, uh, more hard surfaces and fewer parks, but the heat effect is much more dramatic. Also, climate change is more noticeable, and, uh, Anne Hidalgo her deputy mayor, used every single opportunity. Ron, You probably know this too, uh, with their sort of new version of the ground crochet, um, under the banner of reinventing Paris, which is still

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Ricky

ongoing too, um, effectively bring water onto the great avenues and streets of Paris, um, and, uh, another initiative, but they. took That little Chicago, right? I think that’s the case. The mayor of Chicago, the mayor of Paris. That is not the case in London. That’s why I’m always intrigued by this example. So the mayor of Paris took initiative three, four years ago, is that, uh, all the schools used to have a hard surface. Um, for, for a number of reasons, um, you know, the fashion of play changed over the years and they single-handedly decided that they should, they should have green and they should have water. And, um, the, the, the cooling effect of that, because if you add all the schools together, it comes up to actually quite a big, big chunk of land is significant. So it’s good. It is going back to your point. Public ownership, but not the expected, not just the, you know, the, the, the sidewalks and the roundabouts or whatever, even though they lend themselves to them the most successful, um, use of water, uh, of course, in, in, in, in numbers. But, um, Chicago as well as in, in, in, uh, Sorry, when I say Chicago is not sure I am right by that. But it is in the King’s cross-project. Uh, which I think you’ve seen it. We’ve talked about Ron, Alexis. I don’t know if you know it, but it’s a very large, uh, private sector development next to a station called the King’s cross. And it has one of the most successful, um, Fountains used very important not just by the people who live around this development, but in a sort of, um, five-mile radius, which includes housing estates with people from deprived families, etcetera. If I’m looking out of the window and I can practically see it, it’s in my part of London. And, you know, I’ve experienced that, not as a PR bullshit but as a real project. And then that’s. What happened? So, um, I would, I, I think, you know, the private sector, the developers there for them to spend, call it a million dollars more or $5 million more on a fountain in a project which cost $3 billion is peanuts. They don’t even think about it. Um, and, um, it’s added to the value of the real estate. The rental market,but also its reputation here. I am. I’m talking to you about it. So, uh, and, and, and this is where Google has decided to build its new headquarters, uh, built, designed by Bjarke angles. Um, and it’s, it’s under construction.

Alexis

Alexis: Awesome. Yeah. Um, there are many scenarios. Uh, there are many scenarios coming from driverless cars. Eh, one of them is that actually, eh, that automated vehicles without the right policy interventions, will add more miles travel. And, and as you mentioned, most of more infrastructure and more urban sprawl, But the other one is that actually they will have the potential to densify cities. So what’s your take on this technology? Do you think, what do you think would be that scenario coming updates or do you think it will be more locally based? Let’s say in Chicago is going to be the first scenario in cities. Like London will be the second one.

Ricky

Ricky: You’re freezing though. I’m saying, unfortunately, you’re freezing at the moment. Um, and I think you’re asking me a question about technology, but I’m not sure what

Ricky

you’re asking me. Try and repeat it.

Alexis

Alexis: Sure. Um, I w I would say that there are, there are possible scenarios, uh, coming from this technology. One of them is that they will add more miles traveled, and that will mean that will represent pro, which will mean more infrastructure. Alexis: But there’s also this scenario in which this type of technology without the right owner or without the, without the right ownership, will densify cities. I was just wondering, what is your take on these technologies on driverless cars and or you think if this is going to be more like a local type of issue, for example, in Chicago is going to be the ones that are the first scenario or is it, our London is going to be the second. So I was just wondering, what’s your take on this?

Ricky

Ricky: I am, is it’s a question around driverless cars in particular, is that right?

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah, that is right.

Ricky

Ricky: Frankly, Alexis is not something I’ve thought a lot about on, on the, um, and I think it’s going to be quite a long way before. You know, a, a, an urban environment, um, with dense pedestrian populations will feel comfortable and safe, uh, with, with a large percentage of driverless cars. I mean, I’m sure it will happen. Um, and I guess probably may, maybe my foot is one. Once it does happen, it will be fine. You know, it’s like there, there are driverless trams and drivers trains. Um, not many people have been, uh, run over or killed by them many more run over or killed by human beings. So driving. Uh, but I’m not, I don’t think that was the point of your question. I think the point of your question is what do I feel about. With one technology over another is I don’t know, better suited. I don’t really have a comment on that. I think you also asked me about the length of the problem, is that what we were saying?

Ron

Ron: I could, I could reframe it, um, maybe a little bit, which would just be, you know, some people think that there will be more, more private vehicles on the streets. Because of our vehicles. Some people believe there, maybe fewer. Um, how, w what kind of, what kind of policies urban, urban policies might we look toward? That might influence the values that we feel we would encourage cities to pursue. Um, so, so that we can leverage that kind of driverless car evolution, um, as a kind of Trojan horse to, to accomplish some of the things that we might otherwise, uh, hope to accomplish.

Ricky

Ricky: Yeah, I guess, you know, I, I, I start from a position where I don’t believe that the

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Ricky

Ron

city without cars and I is an ideal city. I don’t know. I think a certain amount of mess and unexpectedness and, um, my friend Richard Sennett refers to it as sort of a sort of arousal of this. It is important. And, you know, we, we, we have all experienced how desperately I boring, uh, you know, a pedestrianized street can be.So, uh, I think that one needs to capture them, you know, if there’s a degree of single well smaller units, Which move around quietly and effortlessly, but don’t kill you. Um, I could see that being relatively exciting, you know, um, I [00:34:00] saw this extraordinary film by the Lumiere brothers, uh, which probably wrong new world seen. So a hundred years ago, uh, one of the Paris expos in 1900. Uh, these walkways at different speeds we’ve ever seen that Ron: I have not,

Ricky

Ricky: no, literally we look it up. It’s, you know, Lumiere Paris and their travelators before that time. And they’ll probably do the three speeds so that you could get it all from one to the other and everything else. I know that this was, uh, both frightening and exciting, and I think that sort of stimulus of seeing people moving. But in such a way that, you know, they’re safe is, is something which I would in a way, trying to protect them. Making them feel welcome. How do you do that? The only effective way of managing the private sector or personal behaviors is through taxation.I mean, in the end, that’s how you stop people from doing things that you don’t think are. Right. Um, so if you apply that to cigarettes, Uh, or alcohol, you know, that slowly, the more you increase the price, you know, the, the more you can, uh, determine people’s behavior, uh, until you got to the point where you literally don’t allow them, you know, because they’re bad. I don’t think that, um, environmentally damaging vehicle, private vehicles necessary about. And I’m also realistic that most of the urban world is low density. Most of it, um, the famous last mile, uh, the situation is always going to have to be dealt with more than just public transport. I mean, 90% of Chicago will require a lot of smart, you know. Um, London is not that different.

Ron

Ron: So I, I have one other, um, comment or, or thoughts and, you know, uh, of course, it’d be great. You know, if there’s anything that comes to mind over the. Um, you know, following this conversation, Ricky, you know, we’d welcome any, any lingering thoughts as you kind of go about your scooter driving, and something comes to mind about, oh, I wish I had mentioned this to them as well.

Ricky

Ricky: Um, yeah, I know. I get, I guess, wrong. And, uh, Alexis, I haven’t really talked about water because water systems as such, but I think certainly there’s, uh, As you have less tarmac, uh, there is an enormous potential there, which was also a design issue, a landscape design issue. And there’s a long way to go to train the next generation of occupants, urban designers, and landscape architects to deal with water and, and a

Ricky Ron

lot of extraordinary, a lot of opportunities. Ron: Great. Um, I know that some of the discussions that are ongoing right now with Alexis are, um, the geography of this investigation. And so we’ve our, our NSF grant and the Indiana seek grant are both geographically tied to the Chicago region. Um, but we’re discussing. Now, you know, as he enters into him, you know, writing is a Ph.D. proposal, um, looking at, at at least one other city, if not multiple other studies, you know, as I mentioned, you know, Alexis is from Quito. Um, and I think, you know, Quito, uh, fairly well.

Ricky Ron Ricky Ron

Ricky: No. I mean once for three days, Ron: but that’s well, okay. Ricky: So like every other urban is onerous Ron: um, but cities like Quito. Um, you know, I think we’re, we’re trying to understand, uh, what the implications might be, uh, for, for those other cities, both, you know, in the tropics, uh, or in places where the. You know, where, where the urban form has, uh, elements of both designed intention and in formality. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s been fun. I have to say looking at this question because it just seems like there’s so many possible, um, implications. So, you know, looking at this, you know, through your. Lands of expertise as you know, with, with density and, uh, the both social density and, and physical density. Um, you know, some cities make it very difficult actually to make room for the automobile, uh, both economically and spatially, um, and kind of what that model. Of informal development or intentional development now, uh, might have. So, um, that’s not a very well-framed question other than to say, I know we’re, we’re looking at other cities other than the Paris and the London and the new York’s and the Chicago’s, um, and you know, any insights of what. Look to in those other, uh, in those other cities.

Ricky

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Ricky: So, Ron, I think I got the gist of what you were saying, but unfortunately that the line is, is becoming more and more fragmented as we shift. But yeah, but I, I, you know, I think one of, one of the ways to deal with what you said, whether it’s Quito or Paris or Chicago is to actually, uh, abstract. What are some of the fundamental qualities of a city spacial quality, diversity, you know, and, and whether, um, you use a figure-ground

Ricky

plan, uh, or, you know, or, um, Kevin Lynch model, you know, so that you can talk about those cities, not as, as, as abstract patterns of the density of connectivity, etcetera, and then apply those ideas. Um, to say Quito, which has all of those attributes, they’re just there, they look different. But I mean, I think one phrase we haven’t used today is to topography, but, you know, topography has enormous potential when it comes to issues in the water because of its excitement, uh, or falling water. Um, but, um, Also of cooling and you know, which in Quito you’re moving more to what would make a hell of a difference. I would imagine in certain places remembering how hot it was sitting, trying to get into the, uh, 2016, uh, the world over in the habitat event. Right. I mean just saying things, things of that nature. And of course the cable cars in Medellon. Um, leave aside the whole social impact, which is considerable, right? Uh, Just in terms of, um, you know, enjoyment of changing section from down there to up there is, is, you know, some people pay lots of money for that. So is there a potential there and relating it to landscaping and more, I’m sure there is. I’m afraid. I’ve got to leave you guys.

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this day. It was actually a very insightful conversation. I really appreciate your time. Uh, yeah, I wish we could have more time to talk or actually meet you in person, but it’s got to be really, really helpful and I’m really good at it.

Ricky

Ricky: So what floor are you on the lakeshore drive

Ron Ricky Ron

Ricky

Ron: 19 Ricky: right? I think I recognize it. How beautiful. Ron: So looking out over about 20% of the, world’s fresh water supply, um, it’s, it’s a, it’s an important question that Alexis is, is trying to get some insights on. Um, and so thanks so much, Ricky, uh, for, for this time. And it’s great too, you know, great to talk. Um, it’s been too long. Ricky: Thank you very much. I’m even more conscious now that I absolutely know nothing about the subject. So hope we get something. Okay, goodbye. Bye. And good luck Alexis.

Appendix: Ricky Burdett

Alexis

Alexis: Thank you so much,

Ricky

Ricky: if you want clarification, just email me on anything.

Alexis

Alexis: All right. I will! Thank you so much

Ricky

Ricky: but I would look into Paris.

Ron

Ron: Bye Ricky.

Ricky

Ricky: Bye. Ron.

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Appendix: Catherine

Catherine O’Connor

2021-11-09

Research Scientist at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

Alexis

Alexis: Okay. Um, so as I mentioned, we got this grant, uh, in order to, to understand the possible impact that autonomous vehicles are going to have in the urban water systems. And therefore we are doing these series of interviews. With a diverse number of experts in different fields to try to understand what’s the current situation and what can we do if we actually start thinking about driverless cars as a, as a tool rather than as a disruptive technology? Um, so first of all, I want to start just to have on record, can you talk to us about your field of expertise?

Catherine

Catherine : Yes. I completed my doctorate at IIT and environmental engineering. And my research was on removal of silver from dilute solutions to support water reuse and industry. But I have worked quite a bit in a phosphorous removal and recovery from wastewater. Um, Infrastructure, sustainable infrastructure. And now more recently, the last seven or eight years, um, I’ve done an awful lot of work in stormwater management. We, we spend on the order of $80 million on stormwater projects here at water reclamation district. And those are projects to alleviate flooding and cook county. And every one of those stormwater projects where we’re at 222 now projects that are completed In design or under construction. And every one of them has a landscape element to it. So everything is through a lens of sustainability and reducing the energy footprint, the carbon footprint, and certainly maintaining or improving water quality.

Alexis

Ron

Alexis: Great. And how would you describe the current situation of cities like Chicago? Like how are we doing in, in the storm water management, and urban water management? Ron: We could do better.

Catherine Alexis Catherine

Catherine : Oh, it’s our, it’s our number one priority Alexis: Right. Catherine : We are, so water reclamation district and I, I don’t want to sound, I, I certainly hope I don’t sound defensive when I say this. Cook, stormwater management was never, there was never a lens of managing stormwater from water reclamation district. I believe the Cook county department of transportation had some, little bit of involvement, but stormwater was not managed. In 2004, the Illinois legislature gave water reclamation district, the authority to manage regional stormwater projects. So

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Catherine

large, mostly overtopping streams. That that was the focus, nothing related to urban flooding. So, from that the district completed 60 to watershed plans to 6 watersheds that comprise Cook County and a couple of projects came from that. Most projects didn’t have a good cost of benefit ratio. Uh, so not much was happening, but by 2014, staff were able to convince our elected officials to go back to the legislature. And ask for authority to do local stormwater projects. And that’s so the project, the program really is only since about 2014. And in that time we’ve removed on the order

Appendix: Catherine

Catherine

of 10,000 homes from the regulatory floodplain and at the last resort, the house has to be purchased only with a willing seller. We don’t condemn homes for flooding. We do have condemnation rights for our core mission, but we don’t for stormwater management for buyouts to create green space. The land has to be deeded for no development moving forward. So. Stormwater management, flood reduction, flood mitigation is our absolute number one priority. I don’t give us high marks. I think it’ll take us three, 30 years to we, it took us 50 years to pave the county and it’ll take us 30 years. Hopefully we’ll gain some efficiencies, but. It’s a terrible challenge. It, no, it’s a wonderful challenge, but it is heartbreaking. I just last week, and I don’t want to get off on too many tangents, uh, a village manager and two elected officials. Or very rough and it was a, not an in-person meeting, but we are doing in-person meetings because they don’t want to comply with the updated rainfall data. It costs money. And I said, you know, very respectfully, I see how upset you are. You are, you made your point. But what we’re talking about here is money and the people that have five feet of water in their basement, they’re a lot more upset in hostile than you’re being right now. So, I mean, we have people that are saying we, and the person said, and they were just angry. You’re you control, uh, development? No, we don’t control development, but we do have updated rainfall data and that’s been incorporated into our, um, Watershed management ordinance. So development does have to provide additional detention from 1960 to today, a hundred year event requires 40% more stormwater detention. Rain has changed. The weather has changed. Rain has become much more intense. And then we have these long periods of dry conditions. They create odor and corrosion in our collection system.

Alexis

Catherine

Alexis: Right. Um, well, that’s interesting, yeah. I’m pretty sure you’re making enemies. Um, and you know, I wanted to talk a little bit about in your experience, how, um, how do you think the current transportation infrastructure is affecting, uh, urban water? How they are like, eh, contributing to these flood events and, yeah? Catherine : Well, um, that is interesting. I mean, what we are trying to work with cook county department of transportation, Illinois, department of transportation to have their projects comply with our watershed management ordinance. But for these government agencies, we can come in and provide a cost share for their detention. We need there. The Illinois department of transportation does not today need to comply with the watershed management ordinance so they can build or upsize the roads, provide the drainage off the roads and they don’t have to be worried about water quality or exacerbating flooding. They want the roads clear our program. We say, well, if there’s a couple inches of water on the street for a couple hours, that’s much better than in somebody’s basement. We, we want the storage. I mean, we, we know we have to protect vehicles, but two or three inches throughout the city, that’s a wonderful reprieve and give the sewers time to catch up and, and convey this flow.

Catherine

So transportation, it’s very interesting. And, and to do some research and really document the impact of what’s on our roads and that drainage into our local streams. It’s it matters. There, there, there is a problem. I mean, I, I, I believe in the coming few years, the, um, Diesel, uh, emissions will be tightened considerably, and that’s horrible for our roads or for our local streams air quality. And with the whatever’s admitted into the air comes down and is discharged into the streams as well, what deposition? So transportation absolutely matters.

Alexis

Alexis: Right

Ron

Ron: And that’s to that point. It’s interesting. Yesterday we spoke with Ricky Burdette at the London school of economics, and, uh, he reminded us that London has just started, um, um, essentially a carbon tax on diesel and legacy vehicles. Um, when they enter into the city center. You know, there was a density tax of just coming into the center city center in London with your own car, but now there’s an added carbon tax that they’ve just, um, just inaugurated. I think Ricky said within the last couple of months. Um, and so we, you know, we, we know that, uh, they’re probably two. I mean, you’ve mentioned two factors. One is just the water runoff in, in a, in a rain event that may be catching and collecting things on the surface and carrying contaminants, um, off the road, uh, in addition, which is, which is, you know, pollution. And then there’s the, uh, just the water quantity, which causes flooding, but then the transportation. The motives of transportation with internal combustion engines, especially also contribute to air pollution that eventually falls into the soil and the water system. So actually that’s three factors. That’s really helpful to just, even for us to help define what, what those would be in our research.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Um, and it’s funny that you mentioned all these, uh, all these drainage systems and everything, and I was just wondering what type of infrastructure would you recommend to have, uh, as a, yeah, as a buyer retention or that as a green infrastructure next to these, these roads that can help us to mitigate these risks?

Catherine

Catherine : Well, bioswells right. Like you said, French drains, anything that could capture and then the soil treats.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Great. Um, And, you know, talking about a little bit is interesting because we’re talking about these scenarios with driverless cars. And, uh, first of all, of course there is the possible scenario that driver’s cars are gonna are going to increase the miles traveled, which will probably increase increase urban sprawl.

Appendix: Catherine

Alexis

Catherine

Um, and they one that I wanted to have a little bit of a conversation with you. What, what, what are the risks of actually increasing urban sprawl, if this is scenario comes? Catherine : Gotcha. I, I am not as familiar. I, I would think that driverless cars would reduce. Why, why would it increase? Just because it’ll be more attractive? Is that it? Or?

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah, they, you know, we we’ve been looking at both sides. Uh, one is of course the negatives and in which if there are not enough policies. Uh, to actually manage this type of cars, these type of vehicles, one could have, that they will all show actually bring more, more, more, yeah, more, more comfort, or more attractiveness to users to actually, um, you know, move, eh, to surrounding areas and all that kind of stuff, which is the negative. The negative is scenario, which is the one that we don’t want it to happen. And that’s why we are doing this.

Catherine

Catherine : You know, driverless cars is not something I’m all that well-versed in. But in my crazy fantasy world, I’m thinking that the driverless cars are make our highways like trains, but like really efficient trains. You don’t have to keep so many feed. You have faith, like the, these things slow down. So you really can be closer in touch once we, once we really trust and believe in them, we actually. Drive onto the highway and we were kind of clicked into a train and we figured out how to get off. I see it as a huge positive.

Ron

Ron: Yeah. If you have adaptive cruise control on your current car, like I do, um, it regulates your distance. So it does it, you know, it does maintain a safe distance and everyone is just kind of going down the road at the same velocity. Um, no, I think there are, there are some people that have just been very clear that they have, uh, they’re very confident, um, that they’re going to be more, more vehicles on the road with autonomous vehicles. Some of the people that are looking at future transportation systems, and then there are other people that are absolutely convinced that there will be fewer. Um, I think one of the. One of the arguments that those who believe that there’ll be more vehicles on the road, um, speak about how the delivery of goods has changed just over the past five years or so. Um, so every. You know, every restaurant is going to need a driverless car. Um, every pharmacy is going to need to driverless car, you know, every kind of small businesses going to need a driverless car to deliver goods. Um, and just that if the, if the reduction in private vehicles isn’t, uh, doesn’t match the increase in commercial vehicles, uh, it may result in an increased. I think for, for, us, I mean, one way to kind of think about our research is we’re trying to see how the autonomous vehicle can be a little bit of a Trojan horse, you know, to bring values that we

Ron

might like to bring into our cities. Um, so if they do, if there is a reduction in the number of vehicles and the number of miles traveled, uh, what might we be able to do with that new real estate that’s available in the streets, in the public realm. Obviously one of those could be water management. So I think one thing that we would, and we know as, as Ricky Burdette said yesterday, the, the, the most effective, um, model of behavioral change for society is taxation. Um, If, um, you know, if there was a policy that might encourage a reduction in the number of vehicles on the street, then we might be able to then have a discussion on what we might do with, with the space that becomes available. Um, so I think some of our research would also begin to look into policies that might help us accomplish this kind of collateral benefits from, from autonomous vehicles. Because we know, we know, as you said over the past 50 years or last century, um, the individual automobile has just radically transformed our cities. And we think that the driverless car. And electric vehicles and maybe the shared economy, those three things happening at the same time, um, might have a similar effect let’s look at and see how we can leverage that to, to things that are, uh, more rather than less beneficial to society and to, um, uh, equity and diversity and all kinds of other, other factors.

Catherine

Catherine : Gosh, it’s so interesting. I drive a Nissan leaf and, when I first had the car, I’ve had it since 2012. I initially we leased it and then I loved it and I purchased a used one at the one. But anyway, initially my car registration was $35 for two years. And then, you know, there was some sort of a nuclear explosion and people think everybody who drives to electric vehicles driving a, you know, $200,000 Tesla. And now my car registration is $235 or something like that per year, because we’re not paying via the uh, taxes that are collected by gasoline sales.

Ron Catherine

Ron: Right. Catherine : So. It is very interesting. I mean, one little off side that I just realized, it seems to me that when school’s out of session, traffic is much, much lighter noticeably lighter. And I always thought, oh gosh, how everybody’s a teacher? Is that what’s going on here? You know, I mean the elementary and high schools, not, not university. I realized dropping my son off, it was a freshman in high school. All the juniors and seniors are driving. Right. Is there a way, and is there a way to incentivize just these high schools to make sure that if a car is parking at the school, four kids were in that car? I mean, these kids have time to go pick up their buddies. Right. I mean, that’s so I guess policy, I don’t think we have such good luck in this country taxing things. Right. I mean,

Appendix: Catherine

Catherine

Ron Catherine

there’s, I don’t know how well will go over in London. I guess it probably will be. Okay. Because I think all of Europe is a little more taxed tolerant than Americans. Right? Ron: Right. Catherine : Because things do have to change because we can’t just keep doing what we’re doing. What’s the easiest way. So at a, at a flood meeting that we had at a community, not the one with the people that one of the community public works, people said, why can’t we get all these big box store? And put in the stormwater capture from their roofs. They only have to do that once they redeveloped. So something that’s been there for 20 years, they can put all that flow. If they’re in the combined system, from their roof into the sewer, flood the neighborhood. And now I think we, we have to just think creatively and create easements and pay for this. In areas that are more susceptible to flooding that are, uh, generally in more underserved communities. So I think there’s gotta be a creative way to get to this. We, I think we want fewer cars on the road. We need to concentrate on. We can’t have one person in a eight cylinder car, where the way we’ve been doing it, and just sitting in stalled traffic.

Ron

Ron: So, you know, some, uh, some municipalities in really it’s um, no, we don’t really have a strong, how do I say this? We don’t really have a strong federal urban policy. Um, and so cities or counties are really the jurisdictions that can manage their local resources. Um, you know, there are some, some jurisdictions now that are, that have zero runoff, uh, requirements. So that all of, all of the water management needs to happen on, on, on site, um, in a way that it either infiltrates or we’ll we’ll manage, you know, 80% or something of, of a hundred year storm or something like that, um, is, is cook county, like what’s the most progressive, uh, legislation that that is either kind of in the pipeline or that you and others might kind of imagine? And then I think what, for us, it’d just be interesting for us then to then think about how that might impact our, our research on driverless cars?

Catherine

Catherine : Well, our watershed management ordinance was passed by our board of commissioners in 2014, and I believe there’s zero runoff in the flood plain. So anything that falls on the flood plain has to be contained, but this is for redevelopment. So I could provide a summary. And I think we are most progressive. The one thing we did before the collar, we call them the collar counties was, uh, update the ordinance for the, uh, updated rainfall data.

Catherine

So in 1960, Uh, 1 inch, a hundred year storm event, a hundred year, 24 hours with 6 inches of rain. In 1989, that 6 inches of rain went to 7.58 inches. And in 2019, now it’s 8.58 inches in 24 hours. That’s a tremendous amount, additional water. So stormwater detention facilities have to be 40% capture 40% more. So there are portions of the collections of the, uh, watershed that have zero runoff. Um, and I could, I could provide a, uh, a summary of that. And I think we do have handy, how we compare with Dupage and Lake County and.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. That will be helpful. Thank you. Um, yeah. And you know, we’ve been talking a little bit of, uh, of these policies and in, and, one of the things that we are actually learning that is also, uh, well, probably we touched this already. It’s eh, what should be the private involvement in this type of infrastructure? Uh, And now, you know, we’re talking about a, not just a development, all that kind of stuff, but one of the scenarios that we were looking at is for example, garage, a garage and parking parking lots. Uh, yeah. What should be the approach to this? Especially we say that driverless cars are not going to need this infrastructure anymore because they will be able to go to specialized or centralized garages. Um, yeah.

Catherine

Catherine : Gosh.

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah. Do you think this should be like a public investment, or it should be like tax incentives, private investment or, uh, yeah?

Catherine

Catherine : I wonder if there were, if there were. Metrics and somehow there’s incentivized. I dunno why I’m so focused on these high schools, but if there were a metrics that like per a hundred students, you should need X number of parking spots, and that, that puts you into. Some better category, then you’re rated as a better high school because you’re more environmental in something. It would be interesting. Right? All these juniors and seniors, I don’t know. And for any, any sort of most people downtown well, and that changed so much with COVID, but an awful lot of people come through union station. Now, I mean, do we know how that’s ever going to come back? Is it ever going to come back? There’s a lot of empty offices down here. Yes, there are. Right. And people are so, the water reclamation district. Now I’m telling family business, but there’s some real resentment. So I manage the engineering department, which includes all of our construction. We do all in-house store, um, construction management. So those engineers and technicians are out in the field. They go to work every day. They did all the way through COVID kept social distance, and we had many photos taken. The construction, continued.

Appendix: Catherine

Catherine

Downtown. Nobody came to the office. For quite a while. And now we’re on three days a week and see people kind of enjoy that. These are the design engineers and architects. They are very convincing that they’re getting the work done. They like two days a week at home. They do like coming in three days a week, but with, on their own schedule, we don’t keep track. You have to be here for a full day, but if they come in at seven and leave early, or they come in at 10 and leave late, that’s all fine. But people are not, they’re slowly getting back to taking mass transit. I mean, what should the model be? Should people not have cars?

Alexis

Ron

Catherine Ron

Alexis: Right. That’s kind of like the. The, you know, the utopian scenario in which we have a shared economy and people will stop have a right ownership and actually start having like subscription-based models. Um. Ron: Yeah. And I kind of, you know, it’s the Zipcar model or, you know, the divvy bike model. Um, you know, I think some of the things that we’ve also, you know, have learned from. Um, you know, with a subscription model, if you were driving to school or driving to the office, you know, you can drive a Nissan leaf, you know, small vehicle for you, maybe two people. Um, you don’t have to buy the GMC Yukon. Which is the largest that you need, you know, because you have a family and you go to the beach and so you needed to get the biggest car for the biggest use that you would ever use. Um, in a subscription plan, you could drive your Nissan leaf every day. And then, you know, if you’re going someplace on Saturday with, with a larger need of space for storage and people, then you just pay a little bit more in your subscription for a different kind of vehicle. So you, um, exactly kind of how those work and, you know, they can come to you because they’re driverless. Catherine : Right. Ron: You know, we’ve, we’ve had scenarios where say, if you did work downtown, you, you catch a Nissan leaf to your office, it drops you off. Um, then it goes, picks up somebody else that works all day. Um, you can call in your, you know, your whole foods order. Um, tell it to go pick up your child. Um, and when it comes to pick you up at the office, it’s got your groceries and your child already in it. You just jumped in and go home. Is that, is that, is, is that scary or is that like, oh, that would be so great?

Appendix: Catherine

Catherine

Catherine : Well, I’m not the right one to ask. I really like to shop. Through all a COVID, as terrified as I was early on in the grocery store. I don’t have, and I know many people have not grocery shops since. But I, I like to see how fresh things are, and picking up my kids. That, I guess now if there are teenagers, but I, you’re not talking about babies. Go, the babies in the? But that is a wonderful thought. And, and, and, and maybe Uber X is the way to model what’s going on with Uber. I know people have real strong opinions at Uber increased traffic. I’m not convinced they did. And they seem to pick people up right away. So this would be Uber with autonomous vehicle.

Ron Alexis Ron

Ron: Right, right. Alexis: Right. Ron: You know, and so I think some of these scenarios, a lot of these are just. In terms of water quality, if there’s a reduction in vehicles, that may mean there’s a reduction in street widths, or, you know, an ability to take a little bit of that real estate and give it to ecological services of some sort. Um, and in the end, I think that’s what, that’s what some of this research is kind of looking for, and that we’re, um, kind of enjoying having these conversations with people like yourself. Um.

Catherine

Catherine : I mean, if you could cut these parking lots in half in, in, in many of these, I dunno why I, I’m probably very annoying with the schools, but schools and target parking lots and all the big boxes. And put in micro forest, the capture storm water, and provide shade and fresh air. And gosh, I, I, there’s a lot to be said for that.

Ron

Ron: Well, we’ve, we’ve done research, uh, on parking density with driverless cars. You know, if you, if you get out of the car and then the car goes to park. Then the width and the size of the spaces doesn’t have to be as wide because you don’t have to get out of the car. So you get out of the car and then it goes park. And then you can, you can just pack them in like their valet parking and, you know, driven by Spider-Man or something that comes in through the roof, because, um, and so we, even the same number of vehicles, if they’re driverless, uh, we can cut. We can park the same capacity of cars in less than half of the space.

Catherine Ron

Catherine Alexis

Catherine

Catherine : Wow. Ron: So instead of a parking space needing to be 9 by 18, it can be 6 by 14, 6 by something. Catherine : Gosh, that’s gotta be the, the best argument right there. Alexis: And that leaves us room for doing all this infrastructure, green infrastructure that yeah. Most of the cities need it. Right? Catherine : Yes!

Alexis

Alexis: Um, and you’re like, yeah, I was, I was just wondering a little bit, how big, or how how big does the scale of an intervention like this in a urban environment has to be in order to actually make an impact? And what is the cost benefit out of it?

Catherine

Catherine : Right now, we’re looking at, um, the village, uh, or a neighborhood Chatham in Chicago. And we’re trying to find public parkway area and vacant properties to turn into green space. Right. But if, if in the long term the roads are more narrow we have a better stormwater capture design for the road itself with an emphasis on trees. Right. You can predict the price of a house based on the density of the trees in the neighborhood. Right. It’s it’s, it’s uh, it said that, you know, so-and-so grew up on a tree lined street, right? That’s the fairytale. So. I mean, I don’t have the numbers, but we could come up with a way to get those numbers. How much greenspace and, and, and, and what, in this areas dedicated to parking, right?

Alexis

Alexis: Um, yeah, I’m talking a little bit about this because, you know, I’ve been trying to do my research on it and I, yeah, I came up to this document that actually said, in order for this type of interventions to be effective enough, they have to be like, Like big scale, not talking about just, you know, one block, but actually talking like almost like neighborhood wise. Um, so that, that that’s something that of course we will have to consider. And it’s something that we might be speaking, that it’s under a scenario that might happen, you know, in the entire city. And of course they, they, you know, the benefit that of not only

Appendix: Catherine

Alexis

capturing water, but the social benefit, as you mentioned, which is super interesting that actually trees have the impact, not only on water retention, but you know, also the rise the prices of housing. Um, that’s why I was wondering a little bit about it.

Catherine

Catherine : I mean, are you thinking about like taking a community, and, and modeling what this would look like for a specific community?

Alexis

Alexis: Um, we were actually thinking about it. That will be, that will be probably the next step is taking what we’ve learned from our conversations and do some diagramming on it. Um.

Catherine

Catherine : I think we could probably help with some GIS, but I mean, one thought two areas that we’re looking at, one is Chatham, the Chatham neighborhood in Chicago, and they have repetitive flooding. And the other is La Grange, Illinois. They have terrible flooding. They have overdeveloped, but to, gosh, I really, this is so interesting. To rethink their vehicle usage. So the, so the, the thinking would be that everybody in the village has some sort of prescriptive, subscription to an autonomous vehicle system. Now they don’t need their garage. I mean, that is, I mean, that’s really thinking. Right. That is changing. So to do compare La Grange, which is 2.2 square miles, and see what that could do for their flood control needs. We’re flood mitigation needs and the neighborhood of Chatham. I mean, that would be, you know, the underserved versus the overserved. I’m just kidding, that’s a very affluent area, but they do have horrible. Devastating flooding. I think that would be really interesting. And I think we could probably provide you with a lot of information that would support. But gosh, that’s very, very interesting. And we’re not that far away from this, right? The technology’s all there.

Ron

Ron: Yeah. A couple of years ago we spoke with, with some folks from Toyota. And they said that, you know, even Toyota, which is not so advanced in this, you know, as others, you know, Ford is kind of gone all in on, on EVs. And, um, I think autonomous vehicles is going to be part of that eventually. Um, they said that they actually have a lot of technology that they don’t roll out quickly, just because the market box at, at too much technology. So they’re like incremental step-by-step. And so I think they’re pacing it just in a way that will allow society to gradually accept more and more autonomy. So like the regulated cruise control. Um, BMW had it 10 years ago. Um, and everybody sort of had it, but just kind of getting, getting it into the cars and getting society to accept it, um, is a different timeline than the technology itself.

Ron

Not surprising.

Catherine

Catherine : No.

Ron

Catherine

Ron: So yeah, I think it’s fairly soon. And certainly within the, the framework of legislation and policy and you know, those things that we know take a while, um, themselves. Catherine : Maybe now, I was, gosh, a kid in 1990 and I honestly thought that, you know, it’s only going to be a handful of years and they’re going to outlaw internal combustion engines where we are. I, it just seemed like why would we live in these cities with this polluted air? And then COVID gave us a glimpse of how fresh the air could be and how clear the water could be. And here, we’re back at it. It’s it is curious, but I think, I think that would be a very powerful demonstration to compare La Grange and Chatham and any information we can provide. We’re happy to. I mean, we’re embarking on projects in both of those areas for stormwater management. But gosh, to take the garages out of the picture and you have more land in some mature trees that you can enjoy. I mean, in both of those neighborhoods, that would be just, and maybe it’s this kind of demonstration that’ll force the acceptance.

Alexis Ron

Catherine

Appendix: Catherine

Alexis: Right. Ron: You know, a simple policy change has been, uh, within the city of Chicago and many other cities, you know, there used to be, if you’re building an apartment building, you needed 1.5 parking spaces for every unit or 1.5 parking spaces for every three bedrooms or something like that. And right. Those numbers have gone down significantly in many jurisdictions. So they’ve gone down to one or less. Um, and then some jurisdictions have simply eliminated parking as any requirement in any apartment building. Um, the developers love it because they don’t have to provide that. You know, that that helps their proforma. Uh, And then it just provides and, you know, a you know, uh, a mass transit, self transits, um, active transportation solution. You know, I think that’s one of the kinds of examples of how policy can change thinking about how the modes of transportation use are changing. So what’s the kind of neighborhood scale version of that? Catherine : Right. Very interesting.

Ron

Ron: So I’m sure we’re where we need to continue this conversation for sure. Um, yeah, because I think that, uh, I mean, you’ve mentioned some very specific scenarios or places that might be worth investigating. You know, our, our hope is that we can continue to be, to get funding, to continue our driverless city project. Um, and it’s, you know, I think it’s people like you and the water reclamation district as partners that we would like to engage in a way that we can, uh, Yeah, build out these scenarios and maybe lead to policy changes or, uh, pilot projects or, or not pilot projects or pilot project to death at this point, let’s just do some right. Let’s do some, um, real transformative neighborhood scale work, right?

Catherine Ron Alexis

Catherine : Yes, Ron: Alexis, did we get all of your questions? Alexis: Yeah, we actually did. Um, uh, no, but this, this has been such a. So yeah, such a good experience. So actually talk that yeah. You know, like the, the impact that can actually just changing the behavior as we said. Or, uh, accepting this type of technology and improving, as I said, using this as a tool for improving our cities, uh, can make an impact. And in this case, in water. But we are pretty sure that we can also create more impact in other eh, environmental crisis. So, um, I just wanted to thank you so, much for your time sticking to this, uh, to do this. Uh, and, and, uh, we will love to actually make the, the, the case scenario of Chatham and be in La Grange. I think it will be, uh, a really nice addition to our research. So we, if we think continue or eh...

Catherine Alexis

Ron Catherine

Catherine : Please, Yes! Alexis: We will love to do that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, from my part I think we’re good. Um, as I said, like wanted to thank you, I, I cannot thank you enough. And yeah. Um, I dunno, Ron, do you have any? Ron: No, Catherine, just. You know. Um, come see us at IIT also. Catherine : I’d love too!

Ron

Ron: And, uh, you know, we’re working on, um, kind of any number of projects. You know, I think just to give you a sense of, of our landscape architecture program. You know, we were, uh, this program was inaugurated in 2006. And was accredited in, in 2010. So we’re also a kind of new new program were the, we’re the only landscape architecture program in the city of Chicago. You know, uh, Urbana Champaign is the, uh, has historically been the landscape architecture program in Illinois. Um, but our program was founded on the premise of the role of landscape architects specifically in dense urban environments. So we’re really looking to see what landscape architects can do. Uh, you know, in the third largest city in America, what are the things that are the contributions that, uh, we, we can provide. Our, our program is focused particularly on the public realm. So it’s not like we’re doing, you know, having students investigate private developments or, um, that kind of work.

Ron

We’re really dedicated to the public realm. So we’ve got, uh, projects that have been working in Englewood, uh, uh, Kenwood, um, which have, have worked with, uh, rainwater and water mitigation kind of issues because I mean, you know, the, the whole south side of Chicago is floods. Like it’s, you know, it’s, uh, it’s a, it was a marsh and there’s water there and the water persists. Um, and it’s, it’s a stronger force is as humans, you know, it just, it it’s there. We’re working with, um, the DuSable Park coalition now, uh, working on re-imagining DuSable Park. Um, um, we’ve been working with, uh, Santiago X. Who’s an indigenous. Um, artists, uh, looking at kind of the Irving park corridor east-west, um, and the kind of

Appendix: Catherine

Ron

native American presence there, um, in a way to bring forward kind of cultural awareness, of different peoples, um, including the work there where there’s just a new mound built at a Warner park as part of that army Corps of engineers, Irving park, north branch river, uh, work, which is starting to wrap up and, you know, it’s transformative. It’s just, there’s people out there all the time. Um, so, you know, these are some of the things that we’re, we’re investigating, um, in our, in our program. And so we’re, um, we’re, we’re a young, young and growing program. And so we’re also looking to find ways that we can impact, um, and influence the health of the people and the environment in Chicago, uh, through our, through our graduate program.

Catherine

Catherine : Wonderful. Well, I I’m going to, uh, put together a list of things that hopefully we can collaborate on. We, we keep, we put in, we build these stormwater amenities and then we have the contractor on the hook for three years to maintain the landscape. And I think we pay for brand new landscape for three years in a row. We’re we’re not doing that efficiently. So. I’d love to hear your ideas on that. And we want to look at, um, how much better native prairie is and absorbing storm water than turf grass. We need to get out of the turf grass business.

Ron Catherine Ron Catherine Ron

Catherine Ron

Ron: Right. Catherine : So, um. Ron: We do, you know, Jack piso? Catherine : I know the name. I don’t know him. Ron: Yeah. He, he was a landscape architect and Prairie ecologist that led the um, construction, I guess, of Orland grassland. So I don’t know if you’ve walked through through that. Um. Catherine : No, I haven’t. Ron: So, you know, it was, it was a farm field, uh, and there was adjacent flooding because of course the, for the fields to work, they had to have drain tiles. Um, and in Orland park, they busted up the drain tiles and brought in Jack to lead, uh, the construction of a, of a tall grass prairie. Um, really had to be, it’s a whole new construction. Is not a restoration or anything. Um, he has some wonderful insights on that because

Ron

they’re, they, they had assumed that the water regime would take several years to, uh, kind of recalibrate to pre agricultural, uh, functioning. He said it took just a couple of months. It just immediately, it just immediately, uh, Recovered and, you know, water infiltration, um, you know, a femoral pawns, you know, all these other great things happened to almost, you know, within the first season or two. Um, and the, and the flood mitigation happened, um, was, it was immediate.

Catherine Ron Catherine Ron

Catherine Ron

Catherine Ron Catherine

Alexis

Appendix: Catherine

Catherine : Oh, wow, what is the name of the area? Ron: This is Orland grassland. Catherine : Fantastic. Couple of months, right. Mother nature. Ron: Right. Um, and it’s, it’s a very, you know, it’s a, it’s a very large, I want to say it’s maybe a hundred acres or so. Um, you know, but, and certainly at, at a, at a scale where. Um, where the capacity of that site, uh, almost solves most of the drainage concerns for the whole district, right. For the whole neighborhood. Catherine : Yes! Ron: So, um, and of course it’s beautiful and their bike lanes through there, and there are walking paths, um, and educational programs. So it’s, it’s also a, you know, a different kind of public space and park. So, um, maybe someday we’ll take a walk through that. Jack is also a really helpful, generous... Catherine : Oh wonderful. Yeah I’d love too! Ron: Yeah. Enthusiastic person. Catherine : It sounds fantastic. And those are the types of solutions we need to be looking at. Not just storm water pumps. Alexis: Right.

Ron Catherine

Ron

Catherine Alexis Ron Alexis

Ron: Yes. Yes. Catherine : Well, you gave me an awful lot of optimism. We’re blessed with all these problems. Ron: Yeah. I, you know, Alexis and, and you know, his and other students, you know, they, it, it does working with them, brings a lot of optimism. I do say to them, In their careers in landscape architecture, the good news is there’s a lot of work to do. The bad news is there’s a lot of work to do. Catherine : Exactly. Alexis: Uh, Yeah, we are here to do it! So. Ron: So let’s get to work. Alexis: Let’s get to work. All right. Well, with that being said, um, thank you so much, Catherine. Again, we really appreciate you taking the time again. Um, and yeah, we’re hoping to keep collaborating with you and I will follow up with any results that we found, and yeah keep you posted on how the research is going. Um, I think that would be it, yeah.

Catherine Ron Alexis Ron

Catherine : I appreciate meeting both of you. Thank you very much. Ron: Great. Thank you. Alexis: Thank you so much. Bye everyone. Ron: Bye now. Bye, bye.

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy Glover

2021-11-12

Transportation Associate at Metropolitan Planning Council.

Alexis

Jeremy Alexis

Justin

Alexis: All right. Great. So, um, how’d you spell your name once again, the, we are exploring a little bit of the urban design publications related to urban waters of the upcoming technologies. Uh, just for, to have these on record, would you mind explaining to us, what is your, what is your work or what is your research agenda? Uh, any, I’m happy to take that. And Jeremy back me up, if I miss anything, you mean generally about the metropolitan planning council, Alexis: uh, above the metropolitan council, but also about your, your yeah. Your personal work and it, okay. Justin Keller: all right. So briefly then the metropolitan planning council is a 87 year old nonprofit planning and policy organization. Our focus is primarily on Northeastern Illinois and the surrounding region of Chicago land. And we work on a variety of urban issues, including transportation, [00:01:00] housing, water, and environment, uh, as well as supporting municipal government to function more efficiently and effectively. My name is Justin Keller. I’m the manager of water resources. So we have a water resources program, which works on both drinking water and. And the work that I do is largely supporting, uh, suburban municipalities, uh, around water and storm water issues.

Alexis

Jeremy

Alexis: How are you doing? Jeremy Glover: Uh, yeah, I’m Jeremy Glover, uh, transportation associate at the metro-

Jeremy

politan planning council, uh, and the transportation team. We, um, do a lot of policy research and advocacy. To, uh, try to move the region into a more multimodal and sustainable, uh, transportation system. That’s more equitable as well. Um, and sustainable both in terms of, uh, fiscally sustainable, uh, but also environmentally sustainable.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. Thank you. And how do you think both of your, both of these disciplines intersect, especially in the metropolitan council? Um, you know, I was reading this morning. They, they, the infrastructure bill and that Audrey worked on that. Right. And it was really interesting to actually see. Um, but

Alexis

Jeremy

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

yeah, my question is, would be like, how do you think both, both disciplines, interstate, especially, yeah. As a metric, something metropolitan council. Jeremy Glover: I can, I can say a few things and Justin obviously feel free to jump in, um, you know, I think transportation and water, drinking, water and storm water specifically kind of all fall under that infrastructure umbrella, um, transportation, you know, the way that most directly impacts water in my mind is thinking about stormwater runoff and how, as we expand the footprint of our transportation infrastructure. That frequently creates more of an issue, uh, with stormwater. Um, but also, you know,

Jeremy

for so many, uh, pretty much any municipality, really where at least a dense place like Chicago, um, the public right of way, you know, the streets, the sidewalks, that’s like the largest part of our public works. Uh, and so there’s a huge opportunity there too, to try to tackle some of those water issues like storm water, you know, retention. If we incorporated more, uh, you know, of those kinds of. That’s obviously more Justin’s area of expertise than mine, but just there’s so much space that the transportation network is just has such a huge footprint, um, that there’s a lot of opportunity there to try to be creative with the stormwater. And then too, like when you think about development happening at the edges of the region, um, so often. Transportation like an area can’t really grow unless it has certain infrastructure. And so storm water, drinking water obviously is hugely important. Um, and so our roads, and so the way places at the fringes of the region decide to invest in those different infrastructure categories really impacted. How the region grows. Um, and oftentimes it’s not exactly growing in the most sustainable way right now, Justin, if you had any other thoughts.

Alexis

Justin Keller: Yeah. Uh, I think that our, our current transportation infrastructure in the region involves a lot of hardscape. There’s a lot of concrete or whatever material. Which has a huge impact on stormwater runoff and stormwater runoff has an impact on drinking water. Uh, so for example, when it rains and it hits the street, it’s picking up the oil, gas, and other pollutants that are on the road surface and brings those into our sewer systems. If a sewer system, uh, has sufficient capacity, it’ll carry that to a, uh, water reclamation plant in our region, the MWR D managers. Uh, and they treat it, but there’s a lot of times where there’s too much rain and a system can’t handle it. And it’ll either back up into somebody’s house or it will overflow, uh, out into the surface waters, surface bodies of water, such as the Chicago river. And if the Chicago river is too high, then they have to open the locks and spill untreated sewage out into. Is the source of water for about 55% of the state of Illinois. Again, uh, we have treatment infrastructure that we can clean that. I mean, we can clean water so clean that it’s not even safe to drink because it’s going to start leeching elements out of your body. I mean, we can clean it. That’s not the issue. Uh, but there are, uh, quadric uh, and recreational uses of these bodies of water as well. Aquatic habitats that is, um, So I think that the fact that we have so much hardscape is not good for either stormwater or drinking water. I mentioned already the [00:07:00] pollutants on the roadway, but also we have to put a lot of salt down to make the roads safe during winter.

Jeremy

Uh, pretty much as a general rule, we use too much salt. Uh, that’s both people salting the sidewalk. I think that a lot of municipality. I have a better understanding of how much salt they need, but generally, still err on the side of using too much salt because it’s better to be safe than get a lawsuit or a multimillion dollar millions of dollars. So the salt runs off and that results in chloride pollution of rivers or groundwater. And additionally, just the fact that we have, uh, so much road and so much vehicles. Uh, infrastructure results in a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, which is loops right back around because we have warming air warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. So think about in the summer when it’s humid versus when it’s the winter, you have to turn on the humidifier because the cold air can’t fold the, uh, water as well. So in the summer we have warming air that which holds more water, which means the storms are really even more intense. And therefore it’s more likely that when it hits the road, surface goes into the sewers. There’s a lot of rain in a short period of time. It’s probably going to overwhelm the capacity of that sewer system. And then these overflows of untreated sewage into our waterways is even more likely. Right. But then if I can add, I mean, Jeremy was also talking about the public realm. Uh, the people that own the road right away is that departments of transportation. They’re huge landowners and there’s huge opportunity for us to have different types of stormwater infrastructure alongside those roads. I think the energy transmission right of ways are a good example. Some of them they’re another huge landowner and generally just have grass that they mow, but some of them are starting to. Think about how they can use that land, uh, to manage stormwater or butterfly habitat or restoring somewhat akin to the normal pre-development Prairie conditions. Uh, so there’s just opportunities for collaboration with these huge landowners.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. And, and it’s funny that you both mentioned this big opportunity that, you know, actually we are segregating these systems, officially automobile from pedestrian rooms and everything. Um, my question will be, yeah, for both of us, I think, I think Jeremy also has a very social agenda, which is something that’s so far out of our interests. Um, how do you think, can we, uh, design better street? Not only to, you know, to attack these, eh, to mitigate this water crisis problems that we’re having nowadays, but also to mitigate some of the social crisis that we are seeing on these, on the series. Right. Uh, so yeah, Mike, my question would be like, eh, how can we, you humanize these, this type of infrastructure.

Jeremy

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy Glover: I think the models exists. There are places that are doing this a lot

Jeremy

better than we are. It’s really just a question of political will. I think. There are so many, there are so many benefits to kind of right-sizing our streets and enabling people to have more mobility choices. I think we’re really bad at communicating how taking space away from cars is not reducing people’s choice. It’s increasing people’s choices. Cause right now people really only have in so much of the country. Uh, and even the so much of Chicago people really only have one choice, one viable choice and that’s to drive. Um, and that’s horrendously inequitable because driving and owning a vehicle is insanely expensive, not just gas, but insurance. Maintenance, uh, registration, fines and fees, which also more negative and more heavily impacts low-income areas. There’s all these reasons why, you know, driving a car, um, is a huge, uh, financial drain not to mention all the epidemic of traffic violence in our nation as well. You know, 40,000 plus people die on our streets every year and millions more. Mangled for life, you know, like it’s horrifying and it’s just a level of violence that we have just come gone completely used to in this country. Um, you know, 40,000 people. We’re getting killed from something else. Well, it’s hard to say actually what people were saying and, you know, in a post COVID world where 700,000 people can die and nobody seems to really blink an eye. But, um, yeah, I think we know, we know that creating a more multimodal, um, transportation system has all these benefits. We’re just not, I don’t think as advocates we’ve really figured out how to communicate that drivers. Um, and it’s just really, it’s a really slow, it’s a really slow process and there’s some five kind of [00:13:00] foundational principles that people just don’t really understand, you know, like induced demand. Is such an important principle for how we organize our streets? Um, but it’s really unintuitive for a lot of people. Um, so figure out how to message that.

Alexis

Alexis: And, and th you know, the infrastructure build is going to be, I mean, I was wondering if these funds are going to be used to actually make more roads or, you know, make rolling more, more wide, or, which is what you were saying. Like it’s gonna increase the demand is gonna, uh, my, my, my question is you’re saying. Can we use the funds to actually alleviate or you part of the agenda, the metropolitan council to work on this?

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Certainly. Yeah. I mean, we’re already thinking about how we can influence, um, I dot, uh, and all their local agencies to use this funding, um, in a new way and not just kind of in the status. The federal, you know, the, the, the feds, there are really like states really have just an enormous amount of, um, flexibility with this money. The federal government could come in and say, listen, like you can’t spend this on highways. They’re not going to do that. They’re never going to do that. It’d be great if they did that. But. But there’s nothing stopping.

Jeremy

I dot from saying we’re not going to build a single more lane mile and we’re going to use all of this new federal funding on transit or on bike lanes or on whatever. Like they could do that. It’s, it’s really, it’s such a [00:15:00] flexible pot of money. Um, so really for us, the advocacy has. At the state level and with our state agencies and try to get, um, the governor interested because the governor can, the governor has complete control over the state department of transportation, but he doesn’t typically show a lot of interest. Um, we’re hoping that like with, you know, uh, Cop 26 and there’s also been a recent climate action plan in our region. We’re helping that weekend kind of use an environmental angle to, um, to advocate that we rethink the way we spend these transportation dollars. Cause it’s just, it’s a huge amount of money.

Alexis

Alexis: It could be really transformative. Right. And, and yeah, it just seemed to be for you. How about urban water systems? Uh, we, uh, I also noticed that there’s a lot of money coming for, or actually treating water. Uh, so how do you think, uh, you know, how will you be seeing the seed is going to spend this big amount of investments?

Justin

Justin Keller: A lot of the money is going to come throw state revolving funds. So there’s a clean water state revolving fund and drinking water state revolving fund. The clean water one is related to stormwater and wastewater. Uh, but these are, these are essentially by, by is it essentially low-interest loans from the state to, to units? Uh, and frankly, they’ve got a long backlog of projects. I think that the amount of money that’s going to come through is not even enough to address all of the challenges that our municipalities face. I think it would be great if they try to use this money to envision, how can they imagine. The infrastructure as they reinvest, but probably a lot of them are just saying, I’ve got these leaky pipes that need to be fixed and here’s this solution. So I’m going to just reinvest in the system that’s already there, which is important. Uh, I’m not going to say that they shouldn’t do that entirely. I don’t think that the water and stormwater system is, uh, quite to the extent that our transportation network is where we need a wholesale rethinking of it. We’re providing water. We just need to reinvest in it. Uh, the challenges along with transportation, a lot of the infrastructure was built with federal money, but now with water infrastructure over time, uh, it’s just more and more of the responsibility has fallen to the state and local level, which didn’t have sufficient funding. And it’s largely started. It’s just deteriorate a lot of it’s in really terrible condition. Yes by I’m talking mostly about the drinking water infrastructure, storm water infrastructure by Nope, just coming back. Um, since most of it is going to be meted out as loans, then it’s just, it’s still going to be a challenge for these communities.

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy

They’re going to get the money to pay for the upgrades, but then they’re going to have to pay that money back and they have to do that by a rate revenue. And a lot of them are currently not charging sufficient rates to cover the cost of maintenance. Otherwise the infrastructure would be in better condition for communities that are, are lower capacity. They have fewer staff members, or they don’t have the revenue to, to hire, you know, larger departments that are larger number of full-time specialized staff. They’re gonna even find it challenging to apply for this funding. And then to, to [00:19:00] administer it, to, to do whatever reporting is required. And therefore a lot of the money is going to go to some of the higher resource communities that have infrastructure already in a better condition. And then a lot of the lower income, lower income, lower capacity communities are going to find themselves in the same place that they are. Then on the flip side of that, though, there is a lot of money that’s coming in specifically for that service line replacement.. Uh, and that’s largely earmarked as a principle forgiveness, so it’s, it’s technically alone, but then it, functionally is going to be a great right.

Alexis

Alexis: Um, and because they’re being investment in green infrastructure,

Justin

Justin Keller: uh, it is an option. It is one of the potential is, so if we look. Uh, cook county. Anyways, cook county is managed either by Chicago stormwater management ordinance or MW RDS watershed management ordinance. So if you break ground in any way you trigger one of those ordinances, and then you have certain requirements for keeping water on site, uh, or just slowing it down, just holding it back. So it doesn’t all immediately go into the, the storm sewers and green infrastructure. That there are practices that are eligible to meet those requirements. And certainly a large number of developers have, have chosen that option. But the difficult thing is that the wastewater managed this wastewater is managed in our region is largely by these two ordinances, other projects related to stormwater infrastructure, kind of one-off things where they’re, they’re opportunistic, there’s this grant and there’s a willing landowner. Or MWRD has a grant program where they’re trying to work with communities to address major problems, but largely it’s, it’s just a slow burn of waiting for development to take place. That’ll trigger the ordinance and then upgrade the storm infrastructure.

Alexis Jeremy

Alexis: Right. Hmm. Well, interesting. Thank you. Um, and you know, Jeremy Glover: can I add something to that actually bringing in a, related to something that you were, that Justin was mentioning.

Jeremy

There’s this real vicious cycle with low capacity communities having to shoulder more and more of the maintenance and replacement costs of their infrastructure. How’s the exact same thing happens with roads. Um, low capacity communities cannot afford that. There’s obviously there’s the state system. There’s the interstate system and there are state owned roads and there are county owned roads. And then there are the local roads that fall under the jurisdiction of the local municipalities and for so many, uh, communities, um, they just don’t have the money to keep them in a state of good repair. And then once they kind of Crow, you know, there’s a, there’s like the best practice. Now, the previous practice was like pavement management was worst. First we have a limited amount of money. We’re going to spend it on the road. That’s in the worst condition. Now the new kind of asset management technique is, you know, if you spend a little bit of money, there’s kind of the cost curve, um, with road, you know, pavement management. where You know, it kind of goes like this and then it goes really high. So if you wait until the road is in really bad shape, it’s going to be extremely expensive. But if you get it right here on the curve, it’s going to be a lot less expensive. And you’re also going to extend the life of that road really far.So. It’s just, you’ve just spent a lot less money over time, but so many lower, low capacity communities. They’re already way up here, you

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Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy

know, the higher capacity communities can, who have more tax revenue, you know, and more capacity to just do this sort of thing. They are able to keep the roads in better shape for a lot less money work versus these communities that really just needs a completely rebuild their system. And they just don’t even have anywhere close to the amount of money that it would take for that. And a lot of these communities are places that have experienced a lot of population loss. That’s especially a problem in the Southern cook county. Uh, Where they built this road network for maybe a community of 20,000 people. And now there’s only 10,000 people there, like how are they going to raise those revenues needed to upkeep that system? It’s just not, it’s not possible. Justin Keller: I haven’t heard this before Jeremy, but these are the exact same arguments that I make about storm water and drinking water industry. The population loss, especially in the south land, uh, having to maintain the infrastructure from the peak capacity. But this is actually the first time that I’ve heard that the transportation infrastructure is exactly the same. It’s very interesting. Yeah.

Alexis

Alexis: It’s funny that you mentioned that you’ve all mentioned this, the, uh, what was like one a year ago, we did a study of the signing. And we were dealing with, you know, some water and everything.

Alexis

And eh, as you say, like you can, you could, you could see that there was actually some negligence on how the streets were maintained over there, but there was also these big issues about a pollution and storm water management, and this correlates to the amount of people that have left Inglewood. So it’s it’s eh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for mentioning that we haven’t taken like that. Um, but yeah. Um, well just to get it a little bit into subjects, um, we’ve been asking these questions to our interview. Interview is what is your take on driverless cars? What do you think about him? Or what do you know about them?

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Um, you know, there’s a whole lot of excitement about driverless cars a few years ago. Um, and then I think we all kind of realized that the horizon was going to be a lot longer than maybe some of the, uh, [00:26:00] manufacturers claimed. Um, but it’s still like, it’s something that is like, you know, probably it’s going to happen. Whether it’s 10 years or 30 years, you know, we don’t really know. Um, I think it has, it has the potential to be completely transformative. And whether that is a good transformation or a bad transformation is going to be entirely up to policy that reset and. You know, the last time we had a mobility revolution of this magnitude, really, it was like when the car first really got, oh, they want it became affordable and got adopted by the masses, you know, and kind of early, mid and mid 20th century. And the, what we chose to do there, I would say most people in the transportation policy. World would say was not good. You know, we, um, we destroyed our own cities, right? You look at pictures of like, uh, clearance for, uh, urban interstates. And you look at pictures of like bombed out your pan cities in world war two. And you like, can’t tell the difference. You know, they look. And, um, we destroyed an enormous amount of wealth and, uh, it’s something that cities are still trying to come back from to this day. Some never have. Um, and I think with autonomous vehicles, driverless cars, whatever you want to call them, there’s a very real chance if that would trigger a second wave of highway construction. Um, a lot of studies are predicting that I think it’s a little bit inconclusive, but there’s a very real chance that widespread adoption of driverless cars is going to increase the empty a lot of the proponents of this technology life to say, well, when you no longer need to own your own car, you know, And we’re sharing cars, that’s going to drive down the empty. Um, that’s not necessarily the case, if it’s a lot, if it becomes a lot easier to take a car somewhere, um, it’s just as possible that the opposite is going to happen. And with the increased efficiencies that the road that, you know, autonomous vehicles enable, you know, they can, they can move cook. Drive closer together. Get rid of human error. You know, that’s just going to be another source of induced demand. If our roads now can have a higher capacity, the demand, what we’ve seen in

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy

every other top case, pretty much the demand just rises to meet that new, um, capacity and the way that we do well, the way that we handle that now is when we hit, you know, complete saturation, we just wiped in the road. So if we, now, if autonomous vehicles creates this new. Um, capacity, it could just trigger the same cycle that we keep seeing.

Justin

Justin Keller: Um, the I’ve got it. Yeah. I think you’re about to, to answer this, but I’m just curious, what are the possibilities of things going? Right. I’m thinking like we don’t have to give over our roads to parking anymore because the car can just go park. I mean, I’m, I’m imagining, you know, the [00:30:00] decommissioned robots and I robot where they all just hang out. Storage boxes. Okay. It’s really depressing. But, uh, possibly we don’t have to give away so much road, uh, real estate to parking. That seems like one benefit. What are the other possible ways that it could go, right?

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Or, or that for sure. Or travel names. So you had a four lane road now with autonomous vehicles and maybe we can move the same number of people with just a two lane road because of those, you know, cause they can. Platoon and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so yeah, don’t need parking really anymore. You don’t need as much space to move the same number of people. So we could, in the, in an ideal future, we would shrink the footprint of the roads and give back all of that space to. Transit to [00:31:00] pedestrians, to biking to other land uses. Um, and in that, in that future, you know, it could be an incredible thing for cities. Um, but you know, I don’t necessarily have a ton of faith that that’s going to be the way it goes.

Justin

Justin Keller: And I think from my perspective, it’s still. And therefore you’re still gonna need to put down salt on the roads. You’re still gonna have the pollutants. I mean, unless they’re all electric vehicles. I mean, I, I, I suppose there’s a variety of possible futures, but it’s still a car. You’re not moving people as efficiently as you are with public transit. You’re not getting people to use a bicycle. Uh, and therefore it’s not, it’s not really solving some of the bigger issues, even though it has some possibilities to make some things better.

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Yeah, exactly. It’s still spatially inefficient, unless [00:32:00] you’re like, you know, in an all time, maybe in the future, we’ll have these little tiny one person, little pods or something, and like that’s completely possible.

Jeremy

Alexis

Um, but yeah, like even if they’re all electric particulate matter, huge pollution problem, par uh, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles. They still have rubber tires. They’re still going to create a particular matter. They’re still going to leak fluid. They’re still gonna leak, you know, all the other kind of stuff that ends up giving our roads a nice glossy sheen whenever it rains. So, um, yeah, they’re not a panacea. Alexis: And you know, it’s, it’s funny that you mentioned as we were talking, actually we recovered that. Um, we were mentioning that, you know, one of the outcomes is actually negative is what you’re mentioning. The kind of be more demand, more supply. And at the end is not, is not going to benefit the city, but, uh, What do you think are like, you know, uh, how to say this, let me frame this. How do you think we can actually avoid to have this key actually mentioned that there is like some poll political engagement about it. She mentioned the recent taxation, because that has been implemented in London for a legacy cars and diesel engine. Do you think that you think, uh, I don’t know, culture’s like the city of Chicago is actually something that we can implement the thing, uh, which, you know, taxation can be a little bit of, uh, you know, uh, let’s say, uh, dramatical instances to, to actually implement this, but you have any, any insights on how can we avoid these two? We have, you know,

Justin

Justin Keller: You were just talking about taxation, I think. And, uh, and it seems from recent examples that, that doesn’t go over very well. They [00:34:00] successfully implemented a bag tax to get people to use reusable bags. Um, but, uh, the, the beverage tax didn’t go over very well. I think the bag tax didn’t go over. Well, the idea of banning, uh, single use takeout containers is not. People don’t people don’t like the stick way of changing behavior. I mean, that’s pretty clear, right? I don’t know what incentive structure could potentially work.

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Yeah, it’s true. And there’s a real erosion of, of public trust of trust in our public institutions. Um, I think the city has kind of raised in Chicago specifically has in recent cases, really botched a few, um, instances of where they’re trying to use the stick to create more positive outcomes. Like the red light, the, the, the new, uh, the reduction of the speeding. And the kind of for the red light that you probably know what I’m talking about, the speed cameras they recently changed it so that, um, you get now get a speeding ticket, uh, for going six miles per hour over the speed limit. Whereas before it was 11 miles per hour over would get you as a speeding ticket, um, and speeding cameras and red light cameras to have statistically shown to improve safety and also remove a lot of. Um, the really harmful parts of enforcement, you know, for so many people, uh, uh, in-

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Jeremy

teracting with, uh, police. Can be a life threatening situation. And also the, all the biases that come with human enforcement. Um, a lot of that gets removed if you just do this automatic enforcement, but when they’ve reduced the speed, the speeding threshold from 11 to six miles per hour. Instead of freemium as a public safety thing, the idiots in Sydney, in the city council framed it as a revenue thing. So of course people are going to be mad about that. And it’s just like, why would you do that? Um, and they did it because it was for revenue, but they could have, it also has already been shown to be improving safety. So I think. Um, just the leading, leading with kind of the benefits, um, and just making sure to frame things in a way that isn’t going to kind of play on that already existing distrust that people have.

Alexis

Alexis: Um, thank you. Thank you so much for mentioning that. Uh, my, my girlfriend actually tries to crumble park all the time and she has the end game. So many of these tickets and she has been so busy cause it’s like, they are actually doing these just because of the revenue. You know, I was trying to talk to her like, you know, there, there’s gotta be a reason also like some safety and everything. But, but yeah, it’s, it’s a clear example of that. If you tell the people that isn’t Caribbean it’s because of revenue, they feel like they are being punished. Um, great. Well, thank you so much. And you know, they just a little bit, um, it was, it was interesting to, to actually have that you both have different. Eh, outcome or different insights on what the outcomes are going to be. Um, one of the things that, for example, we’ve been working here is actually trying to understand how land use ordinance works now in the theory, right? Um, for example, the state of Illinois has a, uh, around 1900 gas stations, uh, and across the country also, we saw that party parking spots, there’s like close to 2 billion parking car parking spots for 250 million cars, which is definitely an infrastructure that has been overbuilt. Right. And in some of these scenarios, as Justin said, like, uh, what have you actually. And the car doesn’t need to park anymore. In, in, in, you know, in your street, you can actually go to, uh, you know, to a special parking garage or like a specialized parking garage. What can we do with that space? Um, so that’s one of the questions that we’ve been asking and what, you know, if we have done much real estate that we can actually. Use a, in order to solve all these crisis, as I say, the social crisis and the water infrastructure, I am interesting to, to, to know, um, yeah. To learn from you. How would you define this as a street? Like, uh, yeah, that, that has been so many outcomes have come out of this question and I’m I’m yeah. I’m very interested to see what you think.

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: I think you mean like just the streetscape or just kind of land use in general, if we need as much parking. Yeah. I mean, there have been a lot of people trying to figure out how to adaptively, reuse parking garages, you know, and turn it into housing or office space or something else. It’s really hard to do, um, for a variety of reasons. I’ve also read that like people who are building new parking garages are building them in such a way that it would be easier to later on, you know, adaptively reuse it. I can’t, I it’s mind-boggling to me that we’re still building new parking garages, but you know, there you go. Um, there’s also kind of a little bit of a natural experiment now, um, where the pandemic induced, you know, change in travel patterns is making all these parking garage owners. I have to figure out or try to figure out new ways that they can use. This enormously expensive asset that they have. And I was on a call a while back with, I don’t remember their names now. They’re like one of the larger parking kind of management companies that works in downtown. And they’re trying to think about how they can set aside like a certain number of their spots for ride hailing, kind of state. You know, um, if ride hailing vehicles need somewhere to kind of wait while they’re, um, waiting for a customer, which is kind of like what exactly what you were talking about, where driverless cars would maybe have one central place where they would go back to, and if they don’t have another, you know, ride to give, um, Yeah. I mean, just, there’s just so many better things that we could do with all that space, more housing, um, more open space, really this just, just about anything that he would put there would be better than parking lot.

Justin

Justin Keller: So Jeremy I’m, I’m curious if you think that people are still going to want. Car ownership if it’s autonomous and it’s just going to go park in some, some other place. I mean, does it, does it becomes single occupancy, public transportation, or do people still all have their own personal vehicle?

Alexis

Jeremy

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Alexis: Sorry to add a little bit, you know, may maybe also a rideshare and economy that have a ownership economy. Jeremy Glover: It’s a great question. I mean, Americans love their cars and that’s. Such a big part of our culture. And I don’t think there’s ever going to be like, uh, scenario where everybody just gets rid of their own cars. I mean, people love their cars.

Justin

Justin Keller: I just, I want to say that when I was in Germany a couple of years ago, I heard the exact same statement. Germans love their cars and they have much better transit, cleaner, more reliable, they’ve got high speed train networks that are right in the center of Europe, so they can easily go anywhere and they still are just like us. They really love their cars just for some context.

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe there’ll be kind of like, uh, maybe cars will become kind of more. Like how they used to be in a lot of cases, you know, people used to like, go on pleasure drives and stuff like that. And maybe it would become more of a hobby, um, and less of like, you know, an all consuming mobility paradigm. Um, I don’t know, culture also can change really fast. So 20 years from now, I don’t know, maybe the kids don’t, the kids won’t care about the cars, people who are my daughter’s too, you know, when she’s an adult, she might have like, absolutely no emotional attachment to cars whatsoever. So, but it’ll take time. That’s my prediction at least.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Well, and, and, and Jesse, you have anything to add? You know, how can, how can we use these, these real stateless possible real estate, uh, for the benefit of, of our urban waters?

Justin

Justin Keller: Yeah. I think that it’s going to take deliberate will and putting it into policy like ordinances or codes or state legislation, but I also want to be realistic that it’s going to cost. Like just cause you can give over a large portion of your roads, uh, take it away from, from on-street parking doesn’t mean that it’s automatically gonna become stormwater infrastructure. That’s going to cost money and take political will to use it for that purpose rather than who knows what else people might see the opportunity as, no, I don’t have any, any insights here has been really interesting to listen to Jeremy, honestly.

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah, it has been quite an interesting experience to, you know, at this, as I say, the third interviewing and different points of view for sure. Uh, um, yeah. Uh, you know, like, uh, and I’m just trying to elaborate a little bit more, but, um, we don’t need to be said, like this had been a. Sorry, give me one second. Um, oh yeah. You know, anything that would you like to add to this idea of, you know, the driverless car in the city, uh, will be very valuable to us?

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: I will say one more thing that, you know, just made me think, you know, it talks about. You know, reusing adaptively, reusing any kind of [00:46:00] space is going to take a lot of money, especially if we want to use it for the public. Good. Um, but also creating like an autonomous future is also going to be insanely expensive and. You know, we can’t hardly even afford to upkeep the roads as they cur-

Jeremy

rently exist. But if in the future we need to have this like fully digitally enabled kind of 5g universe, where now, in addition to all the other stuff we already have under our roads, and we also need, you know, All this other infrastructure that would enable the technology to work. I mean, it’s hard to imagine, you know, that happening anytime soon when you know, we can’t even fill the bottles, not to mention, you know, the billions and billions that entertain. Do you know, to, to have the technology that we would even need for this future. Um, so that’s, I’m not sure how that problem will get solved. Yeah.

Justin

Justin Keller: I think from my perspective, autonomous vehicles are interesting and fun to talk about and because a lot of people stand to make a lot of money from them. It’ll probably happen, but really the bigger bang for our buck is. Uh, investing a lot more in bicycle infrastructure, uh, investing more in walkable, compact neighborhoods, investing more in public transportation. I mean, it depends on, on what the goals are and because some people’s goals is make a lot of money, then they’re probably gonna win out

Alexis

Alexis: and yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, like, eh, do you think, uh, as a society, are we ready for these type of changes or yeah. Yeah. No,

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: I don’t know. Yeah. There’s only, there’s so much good that can come with it, but, um, it’s good. I mean, it’s good that it’s gonna, it’s gonna be. Take a long time to get here because that’ll give us a long time to figure it out. Um, so it’s good that we’re, you know, having so many conversations about it now,

Justin

Justin Keller: I think, I think that Americans can be ready for it. And I say that because I grew up in suburban Chicago. Uh, drove a car everywhere. Really? Like my car is a Jeep. It’s really nice. Uh, and then I lived in Seoul and I saw the opportunities, uh, that were available in a different way. And now I live in a dense urban walkable neighborhood. I mean, it, I changed because I saw what the opportunities were and as Jeremy said, culture 10. Uh, some people, many people would say, I don’t want to live in a city because the way we view it is either live in single family development. While I lived in like super high rise apartments that are in the city, it’s noisy. And I don’t, it’s dirty. I don’t want that. But understanding that there’s somewhere between those two things that are actually pretty nice, uh, as well. Uh, there’s, there’s an opportunity there, but it’s gonna take changing people’s minds and showing them what’s fun.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Um, well, uh, so yeah, uh, this has been really a nice experience. Uh, um, I’d run out of questions. Like, as I said, like you can, you know, quite, uh, we, we

Appendix: Jeremy Glover

Alexis

are learning so much from every single, every single person that we have interviewed. And, and yeah, I spoke this also, you know, bring some insights to you about this topic. Uh, I, you know, I don’t want to take more of your time also. Uh, I know that we said that this was going to be 20, 30 minutes, I say an hour now. Um, but yeah. We are very happy to have you here. We’re very pleased. Um, I’m pretty sure that Ron, eh, Jeremy, if you don’t know Ron, he’s the director of the elastic program, eh, for the pricey. And he has been really interested on actually, eh, working with institutions like the metropolitan council and everything. So. Eh, he made sure that I, you know, I’ll let you guys know that we are investigating all these issues. We are very interested on see what you guys are doing. And just because we’re landscape architects, we’re not thinking on your guys’ and you know, but also thinking about a regional issues like water systems and pollution and all that kind of stuff, and also social inclusion equity. Um, so we are very happy to have you here. And, and, and yeah, eh, I just wanted to close this conversation with, thank you. I cannot think enough as I said, because we really interested, um, and I would like to keep, you know, keep you guys posted on call. My research is going and, you know, just to make sure that we have a normal channel of conversation, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to go back to you guys in. You know, have a little, that, a little bit of a quick chat and you know, just two things keep going. So thank you so much. Yeah, it has been, it has been such a pleasure to have you such a pleasure to meet you both. Um, yeah. You Justin and Jeremy, a, these have been one of the most interested because we have both, you know, both, both, most of the people come in, like, yeah, I know about transportation, but not much about water. So. Um, so yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: And if there’s any chance that Ron’s going to watch this video, I hope to see you in person again soon.

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah. And you know, if you can think of something or something comes up, um, please let us know. Uh, we will be happy to, you know, help also, uh, a actually gathering O’Connor from the water reclamation district gave us this opportunity to, she was like, I stopped the project. And I don’t know if you guys are interested. Uh, we will like to, you know, just give it a try and everything that we can sell. Um, so yeah. Thank you so much again. Um, I will follow up with you guys and yeah. Have a great day. All right.

Jeremy

Jeremy Glover: Thanks for reaching out. Good talking to you. Thank you so much, guys. Thanks.

Appendix: Mary McGuire

Mary Pat Mcguire

2021-11-23

Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Alexis

Alexis: All right. Cool. Um, so I just wanted to introduce you to what we’re doing and why it’s important for us to talk to someone like you. Uh, we are the driverless city project, this multi-disciplinary research team from my IIT. Uh, but we are currently working on driverless cars and we are a group composed of roboticists, navigation, engineers, landscape architects, and urban designers. And we, the landscape architects are seeing this opportunity as, uh, to bring a Trojan horse and start talking about the possibilities of, uh, these new technologies. So I’m very excited. We got this opportunity to apply for this grant for the Illinois Indiana sea grant. And, and of course our topic was let’s see, how can we deal with urban water and how we can cope?

Mary Alexis Mary

Alexis

Mary: Yeah. So you’re a landscape architecture graduate, or a PhD student? Alexis: I am a landscape architecture PHD student. Mary: I see. And what, can I ask you to just briefly, what’s your background? What brings you to this topic? Alexis: Uh, sure. Yeah. Uh, I started my undergrad in, I am from Quito, Ecuador. I started my undergrad in architecture over there and over there we don’t have landscape at all. Um, luckily I ended up with a really good professor who won this, Parque del Agua; which is the repurposing of a old airport. And I got a chance to work on this project and this just opened my mind and was like, okay, I got to do something like this. I ended up going to, yeah. I ended up going to IIT doing my dual master’s in architecture and landscape and, and Ron invited me to, to be a part of the team of the Driverless City. So here I am one year and a half in my project. We’re still going. Yeah.

Mary

Mary: Yeah. Okay, good. Thanks. I just appreciate that background. I didn’t know which, which of the disciplines you’re coming from.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Um, well, and yeah, I wanted to see, uh, well, let’s see. So can you, can you tell us a little bit about your research and a little bit about yourself?

Mary Alexis

Mary: Sure. Just very briefly? Alexis: Yeah.

Mary

Appendix: Mary McGuire

Mary: Sure. Um, myself, um, Well, I’m also landscape architect. Um, I was in, um, practice for about a decade before I came into a research environment and teaching environment. And so I’ve always been interested in also in cities and in natural systems, you know, and trying to kind of rebuild cities through, um, like we talk about it as the built environment, but I like to think about us, the grown environment. And, um, and in Chicago in particular, I got really interested in the, the, um, history of water here and how, what a negative relationship the city has with water. Even though we embrace our location on the lake, you know, and we say we have rivers, and though we have a pretty antagonistic relationship with water.

Mary

We try to get rid of it so quickly. You know, we drain it away. We have the entire surface of the city is kind of conditioned against water. And so I sort of looking at that. Um, I had started looking at that condition and situation more carefully. I’m looking at the surface of the city and how highly engineered it was. And so, um, a lot of my interest in ecological design has kind of landed on that surface environment, you know? Um, and so I look at the surface of cities and try to question. The materiality of that, the, um, engineering of that, the sort of surface geometry of cities, and to think about how we can work back into that, to act more receptive toward rainwater. And in particular, and kind of reconnect with the land that we’ve paved over. So I look at, um, I’ve in this Chicago context, most of this work has been in the Chicago context. It’s just because it’s sort of an, an underexplored aspect of looking at this city. And so I’ve been working with geologists and engineers and ecologists to kind of refined the pre urban nature of Chicago, of the Chicago region. And to try to resurface that through drawings and other kinds of visual media, and then to re-imagine what the surface of the city would be in the future. If we were to. Kind of unmake some of that modern engineering surface of pavements and stormwater infrastructure and collect collection system, you know, and the sort of export of water from one watershed to the other watershed through our reversal. So those are, that’s what I do now. So I work with people who like to call that green infrastructure, green, blue infrastructure. But I mostly am interested in the surface of cities and how we. Yeah, how we create more of a sponge, like, um, surface and rebuild, urban forestry, rebuild gardens and rebuild soft surfaces for people to live on and, and for habitat creation and, and for yeah, biodiversity? You know, all those things basically. How do we make a living surface in the city? So Chicago is a great experimental place to do that because it’s so engineered, but also we have a lot of room to do it. There’s a lot of spaces that are over paved. And so there’s a lot of experimentation that can happen here and a lot of need for it in this place.

Alexis Mary Alexis

Mary

Alexis: Right. Mary: So that’s, that’s what I do. And I teach and I do research on that. Yeah. Alexis: Cool, thanks. And I guess depaving cities is Pretty much what this research is about. Mary: Yeah. So depaving. So I’ve landed on depaving as one of the really important operations that we as landscape architects could be doing, is focusing on a kind of

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Mary

subtractive process, you know? Rather than thinking in design as always something like an adding to a situation. But in this case, we really need to think about a subtract and an add. And so my. I’m really interested in how we strategically subtract from that paved environment. So yeah, depaving cities is like depaving and depaving Chicago is a key area of interest of mine. And I too just received a grant called, um, to start a depave program here. So, um, so I’m going to get a little bit out of the research aspects, you know, the drawings and the modeling that we’ve done and now, uh, do some real depaving projects here in the city coming up in these coming years. So yeah.

Alexis Mary

Alexis: Well, congratulations. I’m looking forward to it. Mary: Yeah, another time when we have more time, I’ll share that with you.

Alexis

Alexis: Sure. Um, yeah. And, you know, would you mind telling us in your experience, like how is the current automobile infrastructure affecting the cities? Uh, you know, we’re talking about all these pave services, surfaces why is it so important to deal with this?

Mary

Mary: Yeah, it’s so interesting. Cause it was sort of like we’re living with an old we’re living with an old system of vehicles and a vehicle dominated environment. Um, cause if you look out your window, almost everything, or a good percentage of the exterior, you know, of our cities outside of the outside environment, um, is engineered and designed for cars, you know, for vehicles basically. And a lot of times single passenger vehicles. You know, you see one person getting in. And all these cars parked on our streets and everything. It’s just like a giant parking lot. If I look outside the window. Um, and, and people driving around and we’ve had. Um, yeah, and that, in addition to like the major highway expansion that kind of cut up and fragmented cities, we also have just a lot of surface, um, driving surfaces everywhere. And we have. You know, I think statistically anywhere from three to eight times, the number of parking spaces per vehicle that exists. And depending on what city or context you’re talking about across the country. So we have a lot of surface infrastructure that’s just dedicated just to the car. Nothing else. And so, and in the city of Chicago, that surface we’ve calculated that where we only did really an accurate mapping of the south side of Chicago. So everything below the sanitary and ship canal and the loop, um, we calculated that about 30% of the surface is just driver surface, driving surface and parking surface. So we have a third of our urban land dedicated to the car right now in Chicago.

101 Appendix: Mary McGuire

Alexis

Mary

Alexis Mary

Alexis: Right, right. We actually also ran some numbers on that. And it was just insane, saying the U.S. Is 2 billion parking spots, which is not really. Yeah. Mary: Yeah. There is a good book that I’m sure you’ve read called, uh, ‘Thinking a lot’. Have you read that book by Aaron Ben, Joseph? Alexis: No I haven’t. Mary: So you should check that book out. Um, but he focuses mostly on parking lots. This is Aaron Ben, Joseph. He’s a professor, I think at MIT anyway, one of the east coast schools. Um, maybe at Yale. Sorry at Princeton. And he’s in one, is one of those, but he, um, he wrote a really good book. It was over 10 years ago called ‘Thinking a lot’ where he just, um, cited a lot of statistics around just parking spaces alone in this country. But you can read. I also, I think I’ve put statistics into an op-ed this summer on depaving cities. Um, and I think I cited also the amount of urban land that’s dedicated toward just part just toward the car.

Alexis

Alexis: Right.

Mary

Mary: So, um, yeah, so we know of course we also know that the heat island, that results from that. So there’s like, that is the big, that’s also a kind of killer, is heat. You know, people are realizing now they’re more heat deaths. Heat related deaths now across the country. Um, and then of course, as I mentioned earlier, the drainage aspect of pavement is it’s basically a double duty of driving surface and stormwater collection happens through our street infrastructure. You know? And in older cities, it’s a combined sewer system. So you have that complexity of rain, water, and sanitary. Yeah.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. Um, yeah. And I’m really interested to think, now well to see, how do you think about cities? Like, uh, you know, we were talking about these different cities and everything. What type of infrastructure, like would you accommodate in those spaces? Or, yeah. How, how would you design or redesign the streets? Let’s say a typical regular street in the city of Chicago.

Mary

Mary: Um, well, how I would design it? I mean, it’s, I think that’s such a good question. Um, I think there’s a redesign and there’s also a removal idea that we, um, unfortunately we’ve inherited such a, a fixed system that it’s hard for people to imagine it differently than it is now.

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Mary

And so, um, what we talk about a lot is retrofitting cities. We talk a lot about, you know, what can we do to modify, make changes here and there to make it work better, perform better, be cooler, you know, have a better public space realm, be safer? You know, we’re, we’re basically trying to address a whole host of different needs that aren’t met in the public right of way right now. And, um, and so, and people have different agendas for that. Some people want to make more spongy. Spongy streets, you know, um, not literally sponge, you know, but like thinking about more absorptive surfaces, thinking about expanding the Parkway, thinking about, you know, rainwater gardens and, um, removing pavement, of course. So there’s a lot of proposals to remove lanes of parking, for example, And or to put those into interlocking for old papers and develop more of a stormwater trench, you know, um, there’s definitely a need to rebuild the urban canopy through a street. So that also allows you to create more continuous soil. So there’s an idea about a more ecological street thinking about rebuilding in natural systems of swelling. Soils and plants and trees, you know, so there’s that. And I would definitely advocate for that. Um, there’s a need for there to be a better places for people to walk safer places for people to hang out, you know, so it kind of expansion of the sidewalk environment itself. Um, and there’s a lot of. Like looking at European examples of, you know, the La Rambla, you know, in Barcelona for examples. Like just places where we see the allocation of that street space in a reverse order where the car has to kind of sneak through, you know, an otherwise kind of richer environment that’s maybe messier, you know, more vibrant and more kind of like diverse. So, um, That is really important for heightening people’s sense of space, uh, and each other, and the kind of ecology of the street. People talk about it as like an eco tone where there’s more variability in the edge condition. It fosters more life and more interactivity. And so there’s that kind of a texture and density shift that I would love to see as the landscape architect that happened in those spaces. Um, Where the car was really something that was, um, not even secondary, but you know, really just kind of, not a dumped dominant for sure. Something that kind of like maybe needs to come through. But also I’m really a big fan of some of the street removal proposals that are out there, like in again, on Barcelona example of like the Superblocks example where they’re starting to envision. Um, every nine blocks as a kind of core unit and that the streets that intersect that nine blocks then become something else, you know, and sometimes even take the street away. I mean, I, I love those ideas and I would, I, um, as a landscape architect would like to see those, the priorities of people and those spaces and that land. Um, priority, prioritized over the car and even, I mean, I own a car, so it’s not like I’m not

103 Appendix: Mary McGuire

Mary

aware of the convenience, you know, of pulling right up and dropping my stuff off, you know, and all those things. So I think we’re, we’re in a transition right now. We’re trying to think like, okay, what’s the, what’s the balance. And also what is the priority? Like if we’re going to really climb out, adapt and live in more meaningful, closed unit ways, you know, I think what I think we have to make some of those choices. Yeah to keep your car somewhere else. And there are different ways to design the surfaces for driving too. Of course, it depends on the climate of that city, you know, but you, there are different surfaces to drive on. It doesn’t all have to be like a continuous, uh, asphalt paving or concrete paving. And I would imagine that your question about the driverless vehicle and maybe some of the technology that has to go into, I don’t know what the requirements are in terms of some of the technologies or the fiber optics or the sensors. I’m not really sure what goes into the street section in a, in a driverless city. Um, or, yeah, I’m not really sure about, I don’t really know much about that system, but I would imagine you’d have to rethink the entire. Street section, if you were to have a combination of different sorts of vehicles or vehicles that only show up during certain times of day. Um, but most of the time they aren’t there and maybe they’re parked outside of the city. I really don’t know how all that works with the timing and the flow of those movements. Um, but I, yeah, so I, I imagined a place that’s depraved, you know, more alive,

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Mary Alexis

Mary

Alexis Mary Alexis

Mary Alexis Mary Alexis

105 Appendix: Mary McGuire

like a backyard. Yeah. Like a muse or something. Alexis: Yeah, I, well, we recently saw this investment bill. Give me, sorry one second. You know, this big investment bill that it’s going to be for infrastructure. And I had the chance to talk to the metropolitan council department here, and they didn’t seem very optimistic that we are going to use this money to actually rethink possible solutions. Um, and of course the question is like, what type of agency do designers have or the, to rethink these things. And I guess that’s why we’re doing this, this type of research in which we are sharing ideas with some other people to try to, you know, plant the seed over there. Mary: Yeah. Why did NPC say that they didn’t think there was an opportunity for change through that bill? Alexis: Um, yeah. Mary: Did they give any reasons? Alexis: They, they, they be saying that there’s a lot of a neighborhoods with bad conditions that are going to need a lot of that money to just fix holes and... You know dealing with water. Mary: The same as, same old, same old. Alexis: Same old, same old. Mary: I see. Alexis: Yeah. And one of the big findings that we had, because I had the chance to talk to the water part of it, then also the transit. And they were like, oh, it’s crazy because the neighborhoods with the less income. Or where the poor qualities of life are the ones that are suffering the most in both cases, they are the ones that have more, more floodings, also the most they have more potholes in the streets. Mary: Yeah.

Alexis Mary

Alexis: Um, so. Mary: But the problem there yeah. Is that they want to put back the same condition. That’s creating those damages. Alexis: Right. Mary: I mean, I think that those you’re and you’re the, in the Chicago context would be interesting for you. I don’t know how your interview, how, what interview process is? But to interview, um, transportation departments and water management departments and other cities, because this city I think is probably the most behind in thinking about transitioning to, through climate adaptation and to think about transitioning its infrastructure through natural systems thinking. I think this is the worst city to try to experiment. You know, we might have one example of one street somewhere, you know, built one day, but I don’t, I also have had the same conversations with people at the water district. And the department of water management and the department of transportation that they pretty much, they, they really are not, um, interested in experimentation or innovation.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Right, right. I asked them the same question and they were like, well also people, people don’t like how it’s framed. Like saying like, Hey, we’re going to have this type of infrastructure. People just don’t like it.

Mary

Mary: Yeah. I don’t know. There’s some, it’s a very strange thing about Chicago. It’s just, it’s a bit, the mindset is this sort of do it the same as they’ve always done it. There was a lot of like, uh, greenwashing, you know, like greenest city in the country. Daley used to say that this is before you and I were here, mayor Daley. Used to say this. Um, and there’s also all these, um, Building a greater Chicago signs, you know, whenever they’re doing a street infrastructure, like if they’re doing, um, infrastructure upgrade, you know, in the street right away, they’re saying, oh, making a greater Chicago. I think that’s the frame. I think that’s the slogan they have of their signs, but they’re not actually making anything greater than just fixing what’s broken. And there, there have a lot of deferred maintenance. There’s been, there’s a backlog of. Um, yeah, maintenance that just is basically fixing what was there, you know, for decades and decades. So yes, it’s a challenging place. It’s also an interesting place because it’s, we keep trying, you know, we keep trying. So, um, so I’ll be interested to see how, what progress you make. Um.

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Alexis

Alexis: Sure, and as you said, you know, there’s so much to do here. It’s, it’s unbelievable. Just looking, yeah. Looking at maps just helps so much and yeah, because it has been a good exercise, um.

Mary

Mary: Yeah, also those communities would just, one last thing before we move on, is that those communities that are, um, that are suffering from a lot of urban flooding and a lot of the degradation in their infrastructure is, um, also a place that I’ve heard from a community scale and interest in trying new things. Um, so I actually think working with the communities and not working so much with the city, because the city is not very interesting and very innovative, you know, but, um, although I think that there’s some interesting things going on in the planning department now, um, having to do with some economic. You know, trying to do some more economic investing in south and west side, but the, um, but neighbors and communities are interested in change and they actually want to have a bit more autonomy about what their neighborhoods look like. And that might be a place to share your research, you know, or directly sort of more of a bottom up movement than a top-down one.

Alexis

Mary

Alexis

Mary

107 Appendix: Mary McGuire

Alexis: Right. Uh, yeah, definitely I think with those communities are where some of the solutions are. Um, but, but that’s one of the things that we’ve encouter. We’ve talked to Ricky Burdett the other day and he was very optimistic that driverless cars can actually bring some change, but we have to rethink also the way that we own cars. Like, do we jump from ownership to shared economies. Do we think of circular economies? And that’s definitely where, you know, where these communities are going to come in and say like, we want to take advantage of this technology. We are very optimistic about it. So we’ll see. I think it’s a, it has to be a very. Mary: Yeah, it’s going to be a, kind of a very, kind of a messy in between stage for awhile, probably new systems and old systems overlapping. Right. Alexis: Right um, and yeah. The, this is one question that I’ve been asking everyone and that, you know, just to see what you think, what’s your take on driverless cars? Do you think they are going to make it, you know, they’re going to make it worse all these city issues, or they’re going to make better? Or what is your insight on it? Mary: To be quite honest. I really haven’t been following the discourse on driverless cars. Um, I’m not somebody who’s been, so not to disappoint you or anything, but I don’t have an, I don’t have an opinion on it. Um, I’m kind of still new. Like I’m not, um, You know, I’m like aware of the conversation, but I’m not like reading on it beyond a surface level.

Mary

You know, I read about read about this and kind of general media, but I don’t, I don’t read this. I haven’t looked into what the possibilities are in terms of the benefits and the. And the, um, the challenges that will happen in terms of, you know, safety or what the possible models for it are in terms of like how driverless vehicles will occupy cities? Um, you know, we’ll be, will it be reducing, you know, the benefits being reducing, um, car use. You know, will that really happen? I don’t know. Will these cars be stored off site? Meaning outside of the city, like real it start to reduce congestion. Will there be, um, will there be dedicated lanes? On top of, you know, like kind of using leftover space now for the autonomous vehicles. So you have like the driver vehicles and the driverless. I don’t know. And I imagine there’s a ton of conflicts and a lot of challenges to people designing these systems. Thinking about the, um, yeah, the conflicts between, uh, driver vehicles and non driver vehicles. If that’s an issue. Um, or like how you dedicate lanes to it? I mean, it’s interesting, even in Chicago, like I was downtown in the loop yesterday and looking at. Like where do buses go and where do cars go? And what are the conflicts, even between just different modes of transportation as they exist now, you know, how do you signal them and who who’s, how are you reading those signals? You know, either through the human body, if your other sensor systems, I mean, all of that, I would imagine as a sort of can be worked out in a model somewhere, the kind of technology, and then you have us people we we’ve done that, do things that are not rational. You know, or we like, or we behave emotionally, you know? So who knows how we’ll be interacting with autonomous vehicles? Like I honestly don’t know. I, it’s not something I think about. And you would think that, um, with my interest in depaving, that I would be like all over these different ideas, but I just, I haven’t been focused so much on the future of technology and how that’s going to change road use itself because it’s still so, um, It feels like, um, how do I say this? It feels so I’m still speculative, you know, without really any good models for understanding it yet. And I’m um, and I’m quite frankly, just sort of sitting and looking at where we are today and already realizing that even without the question of the driverless vehicles, we already have an infrastructure that’s not appropriate for vehicle use today. So part of me is, is. In a, not, it’s not that I, it’s, not that I have not. I am interested in future planning, you know, of those roadways, but I’m also realizing that right now, we still need to demonstrate the, um, the abundance of paving and what we need to do right now, because. You know, with the realities of how we live in our cities today. So that’s sort of sitting a little bit, like right now, just sort of in the present moment. Um, and I bring a lot of like knowledge about the history of the city to try to bear on the present moment. And also I am anticipating, um, But I don’t anticipate. Yeah, I don’t, I haven’t been thinking of the driverless vehicles as much as you probably wish I have been. Um, I don’t have a fantasy about it, you know, and I don’t have a vision for, for that. To be quite honest.

108

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah.

Mary

Mary: Sorry.

Alexis

Mary Alexis

109 Appendix: Mary McGuire

Alexis: No, no, don’t worry. Um, you know, I, I actually, um, I would like to share with you what we’ve been finding. Mary: Okay great. Yeah that would be great. Maybe you can give me. Alexis: This is actually very exciting, especially for people, for people like you that are trying to rethink these systems. For example, right now we’re teaching the cars, how to read trees as navigation, beacons. And one of the findings was that in areas like the loop where the canopy coverage, is only 6%, we can actually increase that canopy coverage to 30% in order to make a navigation, safety. Yeah. Navigation safe for these vehicles. So part of our research. Mary: How does that work? How does that work? Alexis: So the car, the car we introduce an algorithm to the car that uh, learns how to read certain urban features. So at the beginning, we taught them to read the light poles. And the problem right now is that driverless cars use a lot of GPS and other types of sensors that are not very reliable. So they need to use new sensors like, like lidar. And that’s, that’s why we don’t see driverless cars in very dense urban environments like Chicago. Uh, so we are trying to figure out a way to make it safe, but also sees the opportunity to do something good for the city. So at the beginning we taught the car for, to read light poles, then we decided to go, let’s try to see if he can read the. Building columns. He did the same. We were doing good. And we were like, okay, let’s see if it works with trees. And then we realized that our car actually reading trees. And one of the models of the simulations that we did was in the loop that we don’t have enough trees for the car to recognize where it is because it triangulates its position with trees. So one of the clients is like, okay, we can actually jump from from 8% canopy coverage to 30% in areas like the loop. Which is, I think for me, it’s just an amazing finding. We also deal the, did some findigs on urban heat island. You know? And also low lowering the temperatures to up to eight degrees celsius by doing this operations. So it has been really interesting to see, and now we’re getting with water. So, we are now thinking like, okay, how can we use water as part, as our design of the streets and see there is still reliable for these cars to actually navigate in this cities? Um.

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Mary

Alexis

Mary

Alexis

Mary: Are you saying that the streets have been redesigned for autonomous vehicles and no other vehicles? Like, are you, what is the what’s the what’s affording the additional tree canopy and the reduction of heat island is that because you’ve redesigned the surface? Alexis: Uh, it’s, it’s part of, because we redesigned or a system, the systems that some cars use, of course, it’s impossible to compete with these huge companies, but eh, in our grant for them to say, we’d say like, we want to develop a system that will not only make the car safe, but also will help the city. So we pretty much are developing our system. Our group of roboticists and navigation engineers are the geniuses behind this. And they’re pretty much telling us like, you know, what, what can we use from the city that we can use as beacons? So we’ve been saying like, let’s use trees, let’s use this elements. And now. Mary: Are you saying as you sensor the trees, how do they read the, how do they read this? How do they read the tree different from a light pole? Alexis: Yeah, we use, we use lidar. Um, I’m pretty sure you. Yeah. And what we did is we actually told that when the lidar reads these types of conditions with the point clouds it’s a tree and we told the car, like, do we recognize this as a tree? So use these as a navigation beacon. And we started eliminating all the other stuff that we don’t want to be recognized, like, like buildings or like we are still using light poles. Those are the type of vertical elements that we’re using right now. So...

Mary Alexis

Mary: Does a tree have to be a certain size? Alexis: Uh, for now we are still experimenting. So it has to be mature trees. Uh, Right now this for next week, we’re going to do the actual experiment to see how small can we go? But it has been, it has been recognized in the medium size trees and the size trees, which are the mature trees that already are there. So it has to be on the interesting finding. And of course it will be interesting to see if we can actually start planting a lot of trees in at least in IIT campus and see if that works or not.

Mary

Mary: Oh, yeah. That’s a good idea. Yeah. So you’re using or using the campus as an experimental space for this?

Alexis

Alexis: Yes. We’ve been using the campus and some areas we’re using a state street.

111 Appendix: Mary McGuire

Alexis

We’ve been doing some data collection from the loop. The Gold Coast and IIT. And yeah, for example, IIT, that is full of trees. It’s actually really safe and. So it has been a big finding. And now it’s the moment for us to start rethinking about, you know, this speculative scenarios, but yeah.

Mary

Mary: Yeah, that would be great if it was a kind of argument for rebuilding that kind of navigation infrastructure, I guess it would be, but it’d be a natural composed of natural infrastructure you’re saying.

Alexis Mary Alexis

Mary Alexis

Mary

Alexis: Right Mary: Yeah. No that would be, I mean, that would be of course be terrific, you know? Alexis: Yeah. Um, well, and yeah, I think we are out of time and I, I don’t want to be disrespectful, and. Mary: Did we get through much of what you are asking your, your interviewees. Alexis: Yeah. It has been good. Um, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a lot of more questions and you know, if, if this is okay with you, I would like to reach out for you. Mary: How long has your sutdy be going on? Alexis: Uh, we have until May. So we’ve been collecting, you know, a lot of information, then we’re going to do some diagrams on the most important aspects of every, every single interview. And then we’re going to present this to the Sea grant, to the Illinois Indiana Sea grant. Um, and I will like to keep updated on it also. Mary: Yeah, I would love to be updated on it, cause it, if you can, can teach us what you think the implications are for your research back into; thinking about the natural infrastructure of cities, you know? Not just for the sensors aspects, you know, but also like how a driverless city reduces the need for surface pavements starts to consolidate, you know, consolidate that surface and allows us to, to remove some of that paving. That would be for me, that would be a really great contribution.

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Alexis Mary

Alexis: Right. Mary: Um, so the work we’re trying to do, which is to depave and retrofit and, um, yeah, it’d be great to it will be great to have some evidence from your research. Alexis: Sure. Sure, sure. I will be happy to share. Mary: Specially in Chicago.

Alexis

Alexis: I know. Um, um, yeah, with this being said, I won’t take more of the time. I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am. I hope we’ve got some fun of this. I hope it makes you think like maybe we should start looking at driverless cars and see, we can depave cities with this technology and, and, and yeah. And, you know, To again, appreciate it. And I would like to have an open channel of communication with what you, you and your team are doing. I think it’s very cool.

Mary

Mary: Well, we have also, yeah, I’m sorry. Do have to go. We have, um, we have a small my small, like very small design lab called water lab. We have a space in downtown, so that’s um, but we’re gonna kind of reopen over this winter. Um, I’d probably have some occasional events in the spring time. So when that happens, I’ll put you on our invite list and see if you can come to any of our meetings or our discussions that we have on our work.

Alexis Mary Alexis Mary Alexis Mary

113 Appendix: Mary McGuire

Alexis: For sure, I would like that, yeah. Mary: Okay. Great. Alexis: Great. Mary: That would be good, maybe you can come and give a talk about your research there? Alexis: I’m I’m open to it. I would love that too. Mary: Okay. Cool. All right. Nice to meet you. Take care.

Alexis Mary Alexis Mary Alexis

Alexis: Thank you so much. Ron says Hi. He says that he is sorry he couldn’t join. Mary: No Problem. Alexis: But he wanted me to make sure that. Mary: Thank you very much. Yeah. Please tell him. I said hello as well. Alexis: All right. Thank you.

Mary

Mary: Bye bye.

Alexis

Alexis: Bye bye.

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115 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Karen O. Lutsky

2021-12-08

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky: Um, okay. Well, we can’t Ron: That is always, Alexis’ question.

Alexis

Alexis: That’s how I break the ice.

Lutsky

Lutsky: Um, I’m happy to, let’s start with your questions and then if it’s helpful. Yeah. We’ll figure out what else I actually thought of if it doesn’t come in mix.

Alexis

Alexis: Sure. Yeah. We, you know, we pump ourselves in during this process because we like, there’s like, I start with the questions and then out of nowhere, the conversation started being more dynamic. And so it’s always fun to reach that moment or realization that, you know, interesting things can happen. Um, and yeah, I would like to start just to get this on record, like, would you tell me a little bit about more about yourself and also your research agenda, especially with the great lakes, design lab. We’re very interested in learning about it.

Lutsky

Lutsky: Yeah. Happy to, happy to share more. So I don’t, I won’t go, I’ll go back a little bit, but my undergrad was an environment in society. So I did do, I kind of started out looking a lot at a mixture of kind of the sciences, but also anthropology and law and all those things kind of were in some of my undergrad. And then I taught environmental education for a while. And then I made my way into landscape architecture, and I mentioned that. It’s still very influential on how I approach things. Um, and let’s see, I’ve been working in studying within the great lakes for, I think almost a decade I’ve lived. I grew up in Milwaukee.

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Ron Lutsky Ron Lutsky

So, um, I, I dunno, I, I grew up with lake Michigan and that city in particular, so I know. And then I lived in Chicago for a bit too, so I know Chicago. Ron: You taught at IIT. Lutsky: I taught at IIT, was my very first. Ron: Ukrainian village, I think. Lutsky: Uh, yeah, I lived in Ukrainian village and uh, I taught Sarah Hanson Delgado. She was my first student, one of my first students there. Yeah, I did. I taught IIT and I taught at Penn state, which is where I met Ron. And then I did, I was at Ohio state for, I like doing a visiting professorship. I mentioned this only because all these places are in the basin and then I was at Buffalo. And so what did it allowed me to do is actually be in a lot of different places, um, and close to different areas. Um, along the great lakes. And then we use those essentially for kind of studio explorations or seminar explorations. And now I’m in Minneapolis where everyone’s like, well, why don’t you look at the Mississippi river? And I have to feel like I don’t care about the Mississippi. I want to go north and lake superior. No. It’s been really helpful to be in this region, um, so that I can be close so that we can constantly visit and constantly see the changes I think has been really, really important to that research to this research. Um, so I started looking at the great lakes and I started initially, I don’t know if you remember this Ron, but it’s still pertinent and just like how at the time I was starting to look at it with super low water levels. And what was showing up was like this, this land that nobody planned for it’s this like, and so it had this, and it also hadn’t had tons of time to start growing, but things had started to grow and also people started to move their infrastructure, their docs, or even start building their houses closer and closer to the water. And all of that had to do with also the understanding of the water levels, which were minuscule and continue to be pretty minuscule. Because people think about the great lakes, water levels in the same way. They like to think about the ocean water levels and they’re not connected at all. So are, I mean, a little bit in terms of climate, but, and we get surges and things like that. But the water levels shift on the great lakes, like the cycles. And I think like Michigan is like 50 year cycle that will shift six feet as opposed to having like the daily tides that you have on the shorelines of the seas, where you constantly on a daily basis, know that the water goes in and it goes out that there’s this like lateral zone that is super dynamic and in the great lakes.

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Lutsky

That is not obvious on a day-to-day basis. And it may not even be obvious in like a year’s basis. And so suddenly, like, people are surprised when water levels come back up. But in fact, at the time we were talking, we were kind of talking about it. We’re like, listen, these water levels are going to come back up. There’s nothing about the cycles that would suggest that it’s going to stay down or stay low. Over hundreds of thousands of years, we’re going to lose the water in the great lakes, that will happen. Because the initial influx of water was from the glacial waters. And that’s not getting put back in, but there’s still a lot of water being fed back in. Um, and I actually, I mean, I guess as it’s, as it’s pertinent, just like Chicago, you guys know very well clear, like the Chicago, uh, shift it’s watershed. So now, you know, it no longer inputs or at least a good chunk of it. Doesn’t input into the great lakes. Any more because of, because of wastewater and probably related directly, I guess just some of the things you guys are thinking about. Okay. Now I’m off in the weeds. I greatly design labs, uh, is kind of, um, I was able to kind of start it once I was here in Minnesota. And, um, it, it has included like the big question behind it is like, how do we approach. Designing so that we can design with change. Um, and that’s been at the heart of a lot of the ways that I like looking at things. And that includes the way that we approach looking and understanding the site. Like if we never think that the site’s going to change and never open ourselves up to what is actually changing, both what’s obvious and not obvious, then we will never design with it. And then not in a way where we’re controlling it. And it’s a, it’s a bit cheesy, but I really love it. ‘Denalo’ Meadows in her thinking with systems, and actually something she wrote and was never fully published in a book, but it was published on her website. She talks about dancing with systems. As opposed to controlling them. And I think that’s like my favorite. It’s a little cheesy, but it’s my favorite way of thinking about like, how do we actually design and make design decisions and act, but do it in a way that it’s not about control. Like I’m going to design for the change because I know exactly what the change is going to be. Instead the position is, I don’t know exactly what the change is going to be. I know there are changes, there are patterns, or if you want to like use the analogy, there are like dance moves of, or dance steps that are happening in these systems. And how do I work with them so that they become part of the. The conversation, part of the elegance of the place, or I don’t know if we want to use word elegance, sorry. My word choices might be a little off today, but, um, the part of the dynamic, like part of the really essential ‘placingness’ of the place, if you will. Um, and it becomes something that is, uh, is something that we can design with, um, not in a completely negative way, but in, in a, in a way that recognizes potential. Because that is what happened. There isn’t a, I don’t know, there isn’t always a right way.

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Lutsky Ron Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

I’m going off into, okay. Let’s so back up. Ron: This is the crux of the curious methods. Lutsky: Yeah, the crux of it is. Ron: Is supplying this curious methods, method to get great lakes as a dynamic landscape system. Lutsky: Absolutely. I don’t have to go too deep, but yeah, for an example, like if you open, if you’re looking and exploring and you’re not deciding, okay. The issue is an often, oftentimes in planning and we, and in problem solving, we say, okay, we’ve identified the issue as being x. And so I’m just looking at this and I’m only looking at that and it doesn’t, it doesn’t offer up the other systems that are at play that actually are influencing it or that we could work with to influence it. So for example, You know, we, you know, so if you open that up and you’re exploring in this way that other systems might, he might identify as, um, as being related that you didn’t initially identify, um, I’ve been working with phragmites for awhile. That’s a good example. Which is like, um, phragmites is like this huge read. I don’t know. Do you. Um, maybe I can bring this back to driverless cars, by the way. So let me see if I could do this? Um, it’s, uh, it can be 15 to 20 feet tall. It gets, it’s an invasive species. There’s an, a native version, but the invasive species is super, super dense. And, uh, you know, we, it shows up on shorelines across the great lakes. This, the read like for us, the question like the, for land managers, the question is how do we get rid of this plant? It is terrible. It is bad. We got to get rid of it. From our point of view and how we started to look at it is like we started to play with, it, started to go into, it, started to see, you know, like, what is this plant? Spend time with it. And then ask more of the question of also, what is it doing here and why is it here? In this? You know, why is it succeeding? Why is it at the shoreline when it wasn’t before? And, um, and with just even a small amount of probing, you start to realize. The plants showed up with men, with ship, you know, it came with shipping. Um, from, from Europe. So it is directly related to kind of that move. Likewise with the shorelines coming down with some of the climate. You’re, you know, just the, the low water levels. You had a lot of exposed land. That’s its favorite thing. And you also had really degraded soil, uh, from things like runoff, from things like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff, um, from the farm fields. And one of the areas we were looking at had massive amounts of that. It also is the site of ‘Dow’ chemical. It’s got you know,

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Lutsky

polluted landscapes so that you have raw and crappy soil right there on the shoreline and that’s and phragmites can handle all of it. It does not care how bad the soil is and it’s nice open and it’s sunny and it just, it gets growing. And it is a ‘phytometerator’. It’s used in different parts of the world in sewage treatment plants and things like that to actually, uh, to remediate the water and soil, it can be, it is incredibly invasive and it seems to be more invasive here than it is in other places. Um, but it’s able to grow on the soil. It’s able to fix it in place. It actually will develop a new soil base with its cycles of, of deteriorating. And if you’re thinking about like reducing runoff, I mean, in some ways I like to think about it as like a scab of some sorts. There’s some healing that’s happening there. Um, and the question is not necessarily, how do we get rid of it?

Lutsky

Cause the, the methods of getting rid of it are really destructive and, uh, They are like, they pour chemicals in there, say they are like, oh, the chemicals are safe. But the chemicals are, have never been safe. Like it’s never been told like that time after time, we know that it’s just like, we don’t know enough yet to know how they’re not how destructive they are. Um, instead we could actually just, uh, we can, we can use, like, you can cut it down and use it for biofuels. Um, you can graze animals in it. Like you can find ways of actually utilizing it. In which case it reduces its it’s really invasive qualities. If you’re managing for habitat, you manage in a different way than like complete eradication.

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Lutsky

Why would you want to pour chemicals on a whole bunch of habitat that you’re trying to save? Because you’re killing a whole bunch of other things alongside. You know, trying to manage it for the birds or something. You’re also killing insects and fish. And I don’t know. So I’m going off on a side note, but I do think like that’s, if we didn’t actually see the phragmites, then the phragmites can come into the mix of the question about the larger system. So here it’s both a buffer and in the, in the sense of maybe driverless cars are thinking about energy, it’s a biofuel. So here you have a thing that is both doing both, uh, on both ends. And that would be a pretty interesting landscape. Um, I don’t know.

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah, Like a system.

Lutsky

Lutsky: Yeah. A landscape system to look at. Could be a direct, like a constant feedback loop and it would have to be, you know, like you would not, it would not be a massive scale of every place and everything, but you could look at it, you could look at Saginaw, like that’s, what’s happening in Saginaw. It’s a great place to look at because that’s, that’s the place I’ve been referencing. What would driverless cars, you know, that system look like in Saginaw? Um, that would make it different than somewhere else. Where like, we don’t have phragmites up here in, in a superior. Like it hasn’t really gotten in Superior. There’s a bunch of reasons I think for that, we’re getting more of it as we get warmer climates, but, um, Yeah.

Alexis

Alexis: It’s it’s, it’s funny how you talk about, about it. It kind of makes me think like, almost like human movement, right? Like, you know, we are pretty much an invasive species that came here to this area of the lakes. We settled, we did a lot of environmental damage, and now we’re having this big opportunity to actually get rid of some of these environmental damage or, you know. Or just learn how to control it. And I think that’s one of the things that we’re trying to accomplish with the, with the driverless city is talk about how, you know, the human systems can control also all the environmental, uh, the environmental damage that we’re trying, that we’ve been doing for, you know, for centuries pretty much. So. Yeah, it just came to my mind in with this. I want to set up a little bit, you know, it, talk a little bit of a urban component of our research. Um, and, and yeah, I wanted to ask you, you know, in your experience. How do you think of this urban environment, urban systems affect the environment? Especially in the great lakes? Yeah.

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Lutsky

Lutsky: I mean, they, there’s no question that they affect, like the, the environment and the, and the health of the waters. Like, um, if you’ve taken a look ever at the gleam. Do you ever get, you seen the gleam mappings? Here, I a going to put it on the chat. Um, if you look up the gleam kind of, um. The gleam stands for. Great. I don’t know. I don’t remember the whole, what the whole thing stands for, but it’s out out of Michigan. They did a series of maps, a number of years. And they’re directly cor- correlated with urban centers in terms of the amount of stressors on the waters in different places. Um, so the urban component is important. I think that’s where the larger system also comes into play, which is like, they’re all connected. So, and so this idea. And I’ve always kind of thought at the site, we’re not getting rid of all the people. We’re not getting rid of urban centers. That’s, that’s not, that’s not the answer to this, at least in my mind. Um, it’s not, I, it’s not seeing. And part of that is getting like, I don’t know, like getting rid of the duality, the duality and the recognition, you know, this idea of nature over here and like, whatever the environment is doing over here. And then the people are over here and we’re ruining this and we’re just trying to like fight back, as opposed to saying, to finding the points where humans can, that we stop looking at it in this, in this, um, binary and start thinking about how humans are part of it. And then we feed into it and. Do both harm or we can also do good and that the relationship needs kind of mending. And so in the urban spaces, like there is a question for me about like, being really strategic about the, how we enter the water? And how, how our water enters the water? And how we treat those spaces? And how we also maybe allow for other spaces?

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Lutsky

So this idea of, we think about if we really push for points of density and I’m, I’m like. In my mind, I have a visual of, for example, the dock like docks and areas of access of personal private land ownership, which is what, like the cities are the only place we tend to have large amounts of public water access in the great lakes on the U.S. Site. So like when you look at Chicago, Downtown Chicago, almost all public downtown Milwaukee, almost all public downtown Cleveland, little less public, but still, I mean, if you’re looking, if you look to other places when it’s not a city or it’s not a bit of an urban center, you don’t get public access to the water and that’s really, really detrimental. So, um, I think the recognition that like. What I mean, I dunno, we put Sean and I put a proposal out there. Something called the wedge in the third coach Atlas. And in which case, we’re just kind of hinting at this idea that what if you fixed the, the water level, um, and everything below the kind of high watermark is, um, at one point in time becomes public and actually the, the land. Gets deep privatized in that way because the water will kind of come down or it’s uncertainty about when it’s going to be public. And when it’s not going to be public, we’ll keep people from doing stuff in that zone or building. Um, And that if you do something like that, anytime you have something that’s more public than you start to condense the number of areas or number like where you actually access the water. How many things are actually structured really hard and how many things are not? So, and then actually looking at it in a whole system, which we do not do and say, okay, we’re going to have just 5% of the shorelines are going to be, um, are going to be structured with something when we can’t go back. But this is like, if you were going forward and thinking about how you were going to plan or develop? Or consider how the shorelines might change? How might you be very strategic about the places where we have more people? We have, you know, we do have concrete walls. We have ways of people accessing the water because that’s important. And then we have places where it’s not, and it’s not too. Um, it’s not too structured. We allow for change and movement and erosion to happen. And we plan for that. So I think that could come into the mix. Does that answer your question?

Alexis

Alexis: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s good, because my next question was going to be like, if you’ve had the chance to redesign a city like Chicago, what would it be in? And I think pretty much the answer is right there. Like densifying the city and, you know, opening more public access to, to the great lakes. Which is great. Um, and how about, have you ever thought about the delta mobile infrastructure? Like, because these ever come into your research? Or have you ever thought about how to deal with this?

Lutsky

Lutsky: No, I haven’t, uh, as much. So maybe tell me what you’re thinking, what maybe the. Yeah, go ahead.

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Alexis

Alexis: Sure. Yeah. Well, we know that, you know, all of these huge infrastructure that happened in the 1950s, 1960s, uh, created so many problems like. You know, all of these suburban station movement, which increased all the run off, uh, of the surfaces, uh, and you know, also created this huge burden on the systems that deal with, with the storm water. Uh, we also have all the, all the pollution that comes from the, you know, the fuel that we use for it. And everything. And of course, one of the, one of the big fears or the big concerns is that actually driverless cars are going to make everything, are going to make everything so easier. That actually urban sprawl is going to be a big issue. So, you know, we are trying to deal with it like saying like, how come can we regulate? Or how can we redesign our cities for these not to happen?

Lutsky

Lutsky: Yeah.

Alexis

Alexis: And then that’s a scary moment to just the thing that, okay. You know, if you talked to people about this, many people have been like, oh yeah, I think it’s gonna increase the urban sprawl. And it’s gonna be a huge issue, issue for urban water. So, um, yeah.

Lutsky

Lutsky: I mean, in some ways I think that like, cause I was also thinking a little bit about this because in my mind, this is also happening. At the same moment where at least, you know, like that more and more people are able to, uh, work from home, right. Or work tele, telecommute, at least for most of the time. And I think that, that for me, that’s the, like, that’s more of a, that could help with this issue. And in terms of like, okay, can you reduce, reduce the number of times people are coming in or? Or that need? I think like the need to be in physically there. Um, yeah. How to reduce server? I mean, if you reduce, if you put a, if you put a block on it, further development, which you see out in Boulder is a good example, right. And Portland does it too. Seattle does it too. I mean, it can be really detrimental to price, housing prices. But, you can block further development or subordination, suburbanization or sprawl. And then with the driverless cars, I mean, I don’t know, like in theory, we would have less traffic, right? So less traffic, less, ideally you’d be in the car for less amount of time. I don’t know. There’s also a part of me that was thinking about like, does parking system change? Because you don’t have to get, you get dropped off. So suddenly you have an open, I’m sure you guys, right. You have an openness to your streets, potentially an openness to like without losing accessibility, um, which gives you more spots on the streets, which makes travel in non-car ways better allows you to put in more green infrastructure, but plant things better. Or have, I don’t know, at least give a little bit more, space to the plants and be able to

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Lutsky

hold water and clean it before it goes into the rivers and the lakes. Um, just by reducing the number of cars on the road at any given time. I, you’re right. Like, does it increase the number of cars? Are there, I don’t know, I feel like the. I love that they’re not directional. And then there’s also like, in my mind, like the next jump would really be, if we could reduce. It’s not driverless cars and it’s just driverless transportation. And there are no, like, if we can get a car that doesn’t hit the road, we reduce a lot of the issues that we have, you know, like driverless cars still need to stop. And I don’t know about you, we’re in, like snow mode. Right. And like the ice is really detrimental. And so. Sand and the salt and the.

Ron Lutsky Ron Lutsky

Ron

Ron: We are not in snow mode yet. Lutsky: Oh, you’re not in snow road yet. Ron: No. Lutsky: But then I was just walking the dog today and I was like, thinking about the driverless cars and thinking about the ice. And I’m like, you know, at the end of the day, like they still, if we can find a way for people to transport without this being an issue and our road maintenance being an issue. It would be good. And we’re going to be in worse mode than we’ve ever been up here because our it’s already starting to happen. Usually our winter we. Once we hit like 32 degrees, we don’t come back out of that. It’s we don’t do the like. Ron: Freeze thaw. You just freeze.

Lutsky

Lutsky: We just freeze. It’s perfect. It’s my favorite thing. Cause in Milwaukee, we freeze thaw all the winter and it’s just ice and it’s gray. But here historically it just freezes. And then you don’t have ice, you just have snow and it’s not that slippery and it’s not that detrimental, but now we have freeze thaw and it’s a whole new game. So.

Ron

Ron: I mean, to me, that’s one of the interesting things to think about. Um, Is how street or watersheds maybe as a way into collapsing, transportation and systems and water systems. And how, how, if we think of ‘word’ as a, as sub watershed, what, you know, what we do with that real estate, if we, if we do gain some space, that’s not for vehicles, what do we do there?

125 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Lutsky Ron Lutsky Ron

Lutsky Ron Lutsky

Ron Lutsky

Lutsky: Yeah. Ron: And particularly in parts of the world where there is, um, snow and ice. Lutsky: Yeah. I mean. Ron: Because we’re trying to, we’re also trying to discover how different nations or different climates or different cultures may also respond to this question. Lutsky: Yeah. I mean. Ron: So the frozen north is a, is a, is a new perspective. Lutsky: I mean, it’s a new grid, it’s a grid, it’s a like, so I think a little bit about, I had a student who was doing a project and then spent some time up in long years, been long years been up in. You know. Okay. Uh, in, um, The most kind of Northern parts, um. Ron: Sounds like a very desolate place. Lutsky: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of care, on the Tundra. There on the Tundra. Right. And there they don’t have, and actually in the same way as Shawn was up in Northern Alaska this summer. Right. And like, on this tiny little, uh, tiny little town. So these are places and you would find this in Canada, like all over the place, right? Where, like they’re not plowing the streets because it’s just, there’s not that many streets and it’s not that big of a place. Um, I do think it pulled a lot of territory. Once you start looking at Canada and once you start looking at these Northern places, but you know, they move around on snowmobiles. And they move around on. Um. Ron: Trenching vehicles. Lutsky: Yeah, and they don’t have roads. I’ve meanthey have a road, you know, like one road that is, uh, that maybe things are cleared. So it’s a little easier quicker to move in certain spots. But, um, if you are out. If you’re kind of wandering out around this more like a non bounded type of movement, and that’s not an urban, I know that maybe it’s not pertinent because it’s clearly not an urban, but it is urban within, within that land-

126

Lutsky

scape itself. But we, for example, have people. Like, you can cross country ski. I think they do it in Winnipeg people cross country ski to work. People can cross country ski here. So like the snow, if you’re not trying to get rid of the snow, the snow becomes another method of transportation.

Alexis

Alexis: Right.

Lutsky

Lutsky: Oh, or the ice, you ice skate, just. You ice skate there really fast. And, but this is actually like ice skating is faster than biking in some cases, right? Like there is an opportunity for a different type of transportation, which could be. I mean, it’s really fun. I don’t know, like here, one of my favorite things about one of my favorite things is in the twin cities. We have a series of three, there’s a bunch of lakes, but there’s sorry. There’s three lakes that are, um, completely public access around them and they freeze over completely. And the, they have, um, they called it a lumped* event and there are these, like, they bring out all these lights, it becomes a new type of public space. That’s completely open and people are, uh, cross country skiing. And it’s an amazing use of public space that we never had, in like people, there were ice skating rinks, but not like this. This is like, there are always tons of people. It becomes a whole new park in, in it, of itself in a way for people to kind of move around. So, I guess what I, I guess all this to say is like maybe in the north driverless cars could also really be driverless snowmobiles or like, you know, they’re not bounded to streets or there’s a moment where like you have a main street and then you have these kind of theater areas where you come off of. The other thing I was thinking about that we have up here, um, and Duluth is a good example of this, our old railroads. And the other thing I was thinking about was how to railroads come into this, into play here. Because I think they could, we don’t use them, in the great lakes. We’ve never done railroads well, and we could really, like railroads could be this main artery. With feeders off of it. Um, and they’re controlled completely differently than like having to salt and plow them. So I don’t know. Have you guys been going into that realm or not really?

Alexis

Alexis: Um, we, we haven’t been going into that, that really? But it’s interesting because you’re not the first person that had thought about multi modes of transportation, actually. Yeah. We ask this same question to Rick Burdett, and his first answer was like, first of all, I don’t think cars are going to disappear. But there is a huge opportunity to implement other types of movement or mobility,

127 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Alexis

like, you know, bike paths and maybe increase the pedestrian areas. So, and that’s of course information. Like I talk also to Mary Pat McGuire, and she mentioned kind of the same. Like, you know, we need to increase all these new modes of transportation and we have to design them to build. Not only with the mobility, but also dealing with, you know, all of these, urban water and ecological and environmental questions. So, so yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s very interesting that we are still finding a pattern that everyone thinks about kind of like the same deals and how come we deal that, this is very interesting. Um, you know, one, one of the things that we found on our research is that the, the, you know, we’ve been developing these scenarios in which, for example, the car, doesn’t need a parking now. Or doesn’t need to be a parking spot anymore. And what will happen is that the car will drop you and go to either a dedicated parking garage. And what do we do without that, you know, that new area. So for example, in the U.S. There is 2 billion parking spots and yeah. It’s, I think is for like three hundred million cars that we have. That’s kind of like the numbers we ran. Uh, or, or just, you know, in Chicago, for example, also we were thinking about gas stations. And Illinois, Illinois has 1900 gas stations that, yeah, if we say potentially you could charge your car at home, we are not going to need that area. And what can we do with that area to start dealing with all these things? Um, so I, I don’t know if you’ve have also any insights on what can we do?

Lutsky

Lutsky: Yeah.

Ron

Ron: I mean, that’s one of the unexpected scenarios of the internal combustion engine. Was, you know, gas stations essentially all ended up a superfund* sites and contaminating water. Like nobody thought that the local gas station was a water contamination center. Um, you know, so how do we turn that around with, um, you know, What do we do with gas stations? But also how do we be careful with the new technology not to invent another unforeseen system?

Lutsky

Lutsky: Yeah. Well, okay. Two thoughts I had with that, which I, I love this idea that the gas station, I mean, ideally the gas station become because it’s now a super fun site, becomes a parking lot. Makes sense. There’s a question for me in there and like, how do you, the nice thing about gas stations maybe historically is that they are meeting spots, right? There are these places where it takes a moment there’s an openness. People pick up little things here and there that becomes a corner. Like the gas station has become a corner store in a lot of places, and a lot of cities that don’t particularly non walkable cities. So how do you not lose that, that program or that, that social entity. if it is, if it is something to be saved, I don’t know, but some people have a lot of, a lot of feelings about gas stations too. I don’t know.

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Lutsky

Ron remembers like at Penn state there’s what is it? Woah, like out in Pennsylvania, there’s specific gas stations. People feel very strongly about going to their gas station. Um, but also it makes me think of like, if you do have alternative energy sources, right. Um, I mean, I’ve been hearing that, like, you know, Tesla’s putting in their bank like that, you might be able to swap out your battery, essentially like pull up to a gas station and it becomes a battery swap and it might be. And I imagine too, that like, if at those stations or where they’re located, is there a, like if solar get becomes a lot better or wind becomes a lot better, are those stations actually like powering those batteries right there? So. I think about like, if you go this or that there might be a, there, is there a relationship between actually the gas station or the filling station or the battery switching station also being an energy source, you know, like, do you put a wind turbine up there? I don’t know. There’s just another question. Like what’s the most efficient way to charge those batteries or maybe they always just get pulled in, but it, yeah.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

Ron: I think, you know, the, the new Ford F 100, um, electric pickup, uh, you remember that the Texas freeze energy crisis last winter, you know, the good old boys who had their electric F-150, um, that the generator on wheels, they just needed to get their battery charge and with their battery charge, they ran the houses off of the car. Lutsky: I mean. Ron: The cars become mobile power generators. If we can go off grid, if we just all drive Ford F-150’s. Lutsky: Yeah. I mean, it’s, uh, I I’ve been looking at that. I have don’t, I don’t own a truck, but there is. Yeah. I mean, but, and the ranges are getting, I mean, we seem to be finally hitting it, right? Like next year, the next crop of cars are coming under 40,000 or like they’re becoming more and more affordable with longer and longer ranges. And so this is pretty exciting, cause we’ve been talking about it for literally what 50. I just remember in my, one of my classes, like the, like in the seventies, they were trying out electric cars. Right. But they stopped. They just never pushed that research forward. Cause nobody wanted them to, and it wasn’t going to be beneficial. Maybe I’m taking that out. I don’t know. I don’t remember everything on that, but yeah, I think that. That part is really interesting, I think in terms of like the, maybe Ron, to your question too, about what happens with those extra spaces.

129 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Lutsky

I do think that that becomes really, really interesting. I think we are also getting more out of that. I don’t know. I don’t know if you guys did it in Chicago. Cause clearly we all just like stuck to our own corners, but here in Minnesota, those lakes, for example, they’re all public around them. And part of that public part of keeping a public is that there is a road. So it goes, partly, it goes lake. You know, park and bike and then road and then house. And so the roads in a lot of cases, uh, they closed them or close half of them to really expand the bike paths, expand the walking paths so that people didn’t have to be close to each other. And it was fantastic. And I know that my sister out in San Francisco, they also had the slow streets. Have you seen these? In San Francisco too. Yeah. Okay. That they, and they’ve permanently kept them slow streets. So they’re places where people are walking out in the middle of the streets and they are inviting community more so than they ever have. They are, people are meeting their neighbors in those spaces more so than they would meet on the parking lot on the sidewalk, just because they have more space.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

To hang out to put their chairs out. They like go and sit out there and there are some planters there are. People put up like weird little dog park, pop up, dog parks. Like they’re, they’re using that space particularly. I mean, in San Francisco where they have that density. And I think here too, like in those places, more people came at to, to walk and to use that space. And so I think there’s like. People, I think we will use them. I love the idea that there’s some of them that are not delineated. I will say like it has been, or are just taken by the, by the neighborhood neighborhood by neighborhood block by block. What do you want to do with it? Alexis: Yeah. So, so would you, I mean, you’re, you’re agreeing with using this space, but what you leave with more like a naturalistic, like, you know, give the privilege to the people to design it? Um, I liked that idea. Lutsky: I think, I think based, I mean, I don’t think I would do that everywhere. I think it’s probably a balance. Because I think there’s a real opportunity for water management. That, that won’t happen if we just, if it’s just the person by person, unless you, I mean, unless you give it in, I don’t know. I hate that unless you give it economic incentive. Right? So let’s say you manage, you know, Hey neighborhoods. Hey street, if you manage and you can just do, I mean, I think that the amount of money that the, that the, the city spends on management of these things, if that was given back to the individual people who live there, I do think you would have it.

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Lutsky

I mean, people would do it. I don’t think many people recognize it. Do you feel like that would be the case? Like you almost, I don’t know if you could apply that in your taxes and you just pay the people who are actually going to take care of it or use it, or like save a certain amount of water. Um. Alexis: Yeah. It’s funny that you mentioned that. Uh, well, I live, I live here in the, in the Boulevard street in Chicago and they started doing all these shared streets with bikes. Lutsky: Yeah.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Alexis: And it hasn’t been accepted quite well though. There’s still a lot of people that move the cones that they put, you know, to, to the share space and it’s because they prefer their parking. Um, but, but yeah, and talking about this a little bit of the background research that we did. Is that actually trying to see the revenue that people got from parking that the city got from parking. And is pretty much, uh, imbalance with the amount of money that the city has spent with dealing with urban waters with, you know, storm water and everything. So, yeah, so there’s clearly, you know, there’s clearly like this idea that we need this money, but then we’re using it on this. Why don’t we just change the parking and deal with that without having to use the money. Lutsky: Yeah, well. Ron: Say it again. The amount of money.

Lutsky

Alexis: So they, the amount of money that they, that the city got from revenues, from parking, from parking. Yeah. They use it is they use it either to deal with stormwater management or, you know, but it’s just, it’s just the political act of you’re getting this money, you know, what makes it be more important? Yeah. Lutsky: Yeah. I mean, thats so interesting. Ron: So Karen*, if it was I dunno one, you know, a few, I dunno topics or a few issues that you would see as critical to great lakes, waters. And then we can take, we could, we could take waters from being a fairly big generic umbrella. Lutsky: Yeah.

131 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Lutsky

Ron: To look at, you know, cause I know you and Sean have also worked in estuaries and their biodiversity and the cultural, um, language and practices around plants and those kinds of environments just, you know, is there a, um, uh, maybe, maybe it is a place or maybe it’s a, another kind of issue that might. Um, I don’t know, bring, bring some, a detailed look at one particular kind of problem or one particular kind of place that might be a scenario builder for what the driverless city might do with great lakes, urban waters. Lutsky: Okay. Interesting. Ron: You know what I am sayig?

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

Lutsky: I, yes, I think, well, I mean the big, the big hands-on issue is the, is runoff period. And I think to the point too, about like also, how do we care for these? How do we care for these streets? Um, and I think. And, and, you know, I mean the opportunity for the more space that if space is freed up, because we’re not using it to park, I think there’s an opportunity for direct catchment like that, that doesn’t happen with another system. If we can have more space for the water directly next to the, the roofs that are coming off of, or that streets, or if there are roads that they’re coming off of, like the space for that. That having less cars parked all the time would allow for, I think is great. And I think would, I mean, would, would make a huge difference because the sooner we catch it, the less it’s moving through the pipes. I mean, in Chicago, you guys have pipe issues across the board and that’s happening everywhere. Right? Like our infrastructure. I think that’s the other thing like nobody’s talking about, which is like, our infrastructure is needs, needs replacing. I mean, you guys are, everyone’s talking about it, supposedly this bill’s going to help it. Nobody has thought about it too deeply because they haven’t had money to think about it. So now a whole bunch of new shitty infrastructure is going to go in, in my being very pessimistic. But yeah, so, but if we, if we make, like we made, we spent all this time and money making new systems really, really big. But water doesn’t, water works really well when it’s small. Like, and you know it, and where can we shrink those? The, the relationship and usage of water as much as possible and in the great lakes, we see the water and we think we have so much, like, I think there’s another, like, there’s this interesting. I think that’s where landscape architecture also has to play in the mix. So it’s just like, we love these spaces. How do we. Also not to take that to mean we can do whatever we want with it, which we do all the time. We still treat our water. We wash our dishes and take our showers as if we have water here. Um, versus the west where you kind of are, it’s very clear that you don’t have water and we still have, if we are not careful, if we’re not thoughtful, we will have more people will have same, you know,

132

Lutsky

we’ll have more water issues as well. So I think we’re in a moment to mitigate that. I think. But I’m thinking about marshes or individual things. I mean, maybe the phragmites is example in some of the best, which is like, what are those lands? What landscapes are working for us in certain ways now? Um, how do we? I guess I have this also this moment about driverless cars, where without the driver, there’s this reduction of. You don’t need the time of that person and you don’t need the will of that person. And you don’t need the like energy of a person. And so if you had vehicles or if you had a machine or a robot moving around all the time throughout your city, what else could it do instead of just driving? Could it do your reading for you and have, you know, you have one that like, oh, by the way, when you pass by here, you’re just going to like throw out your mowing arm. I mean, I’m, I’m thinking big. You have an opportunity for them to be all around the city all the time, moving around, and there’s not people involved, so you don’t have emotions and you don’t have time or tiredness or any of those things.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

And so how do you like this idea that if you, I mean, maybe you salt the streets with individual cars as opposed to a larger, I don’t know, maybe like if you did that, would you not have to spray it everywhere? Could it be smaller could because it, because the cars become individual a little like robots, drones, whatever it is like, could you do more things at a smaller scale so that your large-scale maintenance operations are not as wasteful and not as harmful? Alexis: That is a great point. yeah! Lutsky: I don’t know. And when you take, when you release them from the roads you have, I mean, it can be, I mean, I understand they’re terrifying and scary. Um, I, all the black Amir*, I see. Which I assume you, you know, like the views, but also could be, yeah, it could be caregivers. I don’t know, too far out there? Alexis: No. Ron: I mean, for sure driverless cars will increase mobility and independence. Say for people with disabilities and the elderly, um, You know, before I get too old and people take my car keys away from me. I hope we have driverless cars. Cause I can still just get in and go and ride. Lutsky: Yeah.

133 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Lutsky

Ron: But I think the, there are a couple of things that have come up in this conversation that I think are really of, of interest three things stick out. One was, I loved your description of how the snow and ice transforms Minneapolis and the north, where the streets lose their importance as the kind of constricted transportation minds. Because one of the things that we talk about in the driverless city is well, cars are going to hit people. So do they have to stay inside the curve? And so this idea that there is a spatial transformation of cities in snow and ice is, is in some ways some of the scenarios that we did in the driverless city Nayar Prize five years ago, four years ago, where we said, well, do we need curves? You know? Lutsky: Yeah.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

Ron: And so that was one thing. You know, the, the articulation that run off is the key. Um, one of the key issues means that, you know, we, we could look at a single kind of sewer watershed collection, watershed through some neighborhood in Chicago that outlets into the Chicago river. Um, and see what we could do along that one sewer CSO infrastructure, um, to change that so that their local conditions at some of the streets that would increase infiltration, um, alleviate the amount of combined sewer overflow, change the flood interval. You know, do those kinds of things in a way that infrastructure money could also reconstitute our streets to be more social ecological systems, not just transportation systems. Lutsky: Yeah. Ron: Um, and you know, I think the, the third condition, um, to me is just this idea that, you know, we might find some other scale of place focus, focus in on it as a, as a scenario, also. Lutsky: Yeah, I think, I think the smallest, I mean, I think that is a, like, that’s the thing that never comes out with some of the discussion about the driverless cars or even like when you have these computer generated, uh, uh, Systems or like, you know, these kind of, what if places you don’t, you don’t have anything to work with in terms of what that place might have to give to you. Which has always, to me, the, the issue with like, I do think like using typologies is great, but then actually choosing to your point and real watershed for real street, a real to test out some of these things, then you’ll start to see some of those individual connections or even how people play into the mix. Because you cant. A generic person just only gets you so far. So, you know, if you do see, for example, you have, you know, people have different rhythms to their lives. You

134

Lutsky

have the retired person that’s on the street and or that lives on the street that uses that car Mondays and Wednesdays, you know, like, does it become easier to share your cars? To like, that is very specific and it can be a relationship and maybe it just works for two or three years, but still that would reduce car usage by X amount. And you could imagine how that would influence a system and getting into some of those details. There’s always just like, for me, that’s just where the, the intricacies of it come out and, and where you can actually find a lot of success. It’s not efficient that’s a problem because it’s different in every situation. But I don’t know, maybe there are three types of driverless cars. Okay. I know where it needs. I think I’m supposed to go on a faculty search guys. No, I don’t. I found a little bit of time. Okay. Meetings upon meetings. Alexis: This is the beauty of, of Zoom.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

Lutsky: That’s right. Ron: But I do, I, I do have a 12 o’clock. I need to jump on to the next thing. Um, gosh, uh, yeah, we’ve got to figure out is it’s been it’s, it’s fine to see you in zoom, but we gotta, we, we need to get together, and. Lutsky: Well, Sean and I are driving through actually down through Ohio at some point, um, right before Christmas, but then we’ll have to make our way back up. So I don’t know if you’re around. I will just let you know when we’re coming back through after Christmas. And if you’re around, or you’re round, Alexis, we’re happy to. Always happy to stop in Chicago. Alexis: Yeah. Um, and yeah, with this being said, like, uh, well thank you. Ron: I am going to jump off. Alexis: Alright, thanks man. Appreciate it. Um, I just, yeah, I just wanted to thank you. And, uh, I cannot thank you enough, Karen this has being at, you know, every single time we finish an interview is just, there are so many more things to explore. Um, definitely one of the things that we are trying to make sure is that. We will like to continue this, this conversation, uh, you know, and also to figure out a ways we can collaborate. Um, so, so yeah, if, you know, if, if you have any specific projects that we can somehow,

135 Appendix: Karen O Lutsky

Lutsky

you know, getting there and trying to. Help or whatever it is, uh, that can be dedicated to car driverless cars. Uh, we’ll be happy to have yeah, to, to assist you, and also we will be happy also to, you know, a, have you, um, definitely one of our interests to keep you updated on how this research is going. Um, yeah, we’re gonna, we’re going to be presenting this for the Sea grant then, then, and yeah, we’ll have to figure that out. We hope to get the publish, a published document out of this. And yeah, we will make sure to, you know, just keep you posted on it. Lutsky: Yeah. Alexis: And yeah, I, I appreciate it. Yeah, it has been, I hope it has been fun for you as well. Uh, for us, it’s definitely something to think about. So.

Ron

Lutsky Ron

Lutsky

Lutsky: Ugh, absolutely. It’s fun. It’s very fun for me. I’m having a rough semester. I’ve got a lot of, I’m working with some undergrads and I’m just like trying to get them to do drawings. And I’m like, why is this my effort? So this is much more fun for me to. And how to get a 19 year old to do a drawing? Um, yes. Uh, I really liked being in this headspace and I’m happy. Yeah, absolutely. Always open to collaborating. I feel like right now, a lot of the stuff I’ve been working on with great lakes, design labs is not urban. It’s, we’ve been working out in the forest a lot. But, um, absolutely. If you I am happy, I will please keep me updated and I will let you up keep you updated. And, um, I know I’ve got, we don’t have as many large cities on the great lakes up where I am, but I do know Milwaukee very well, and I know Chicago pretty well and Cleveland. And if you find yourself in Toledo and like, these are all places, we’ve spent a lot of time. And so if you don’t hesitate to reach out again, I’m happy to chat anytime. Alexis: For sure. I’ll take that for granted. Lutsky: Okay, cool. Perfect. Alexis: Thank so much Karen. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Bye. Lutsky: Bye.

136

137 Appendix: Lindsay Bayley

Lindsay Bayley

2022-01-14

Senior Planner, CMAP, Parking Reform Network.

Alexis

Alexis: Great. And I would like to start, yeah, a little bit with, with some questions about you, about, you know, your work and, and, you know, we will find a way to attach all of these things together to the driverless cars, which is the main goal of the, of the conversation then. Yeah. First of all, can you talk to us a little bit about yourself a little bit, but you do. And why is it important yet for the, for the, you know, the Chicago planning, eh, what, what your work is? Yeah.

Lindsay

Lindsay: Sure. Um, so I focused, um, I’m in, I worked for the regional planning agencies CMAP, and most of my work has been in the area of transportation. Over the years I’ve been there about 15 years and I’ve kind of merged into the world of equitable transportation and parking policy. And I feel like a lot of our barriers to equitable transportation are because of the parking policies that we have adopted, um. And about me as somebody who’s been living in Chicago for that long, without a car as our, like one out of every four households in the city. I feel like it’s very important to make sure that we consider the people who don’t have the resources or desires to have cars. And whether that is their own car or another car. They make use of shared vehicle. Um, I feel like the, we can more efficiently serve all of our residents if we focus, um, buses and transit and biking.

Alexis

Alexis: Right. Um, yeah. And, and talking about this, you know, why, why is parking so important for the city? I mean, uh.

Lindsay

Lindsay: Specifically Chicago or anywhere?

Alexis

Alexis: Let’s say specifically Chicago. Yeah.

138

Alexis

Lindsay

Lindsay: Um, yeah, so I think that the last time our zoning code, except for the TOD policies that were changed in recent years, most of the zoning in the city is based off of the 1957 zoning code. So the fifties were a time. The car is going to solve everything. We’re just, everyone’s going to be in a car. So the policies that we’ve had for nearly half or more than half a century is like, how do we accommodate more cars in the environment? And that has come at the expense of so many other things, whether that is the pedestrian environment. I think it also hurts our retail success and, um. Even just encourages people to be separated from one another. Um, and I feel like when we develop in with a focus on a human center design, where most people are within walking distance of most of the needs that they have, it encourages better relationships among citizens and safer cities, all sorts of things that are better for the environment. That’s kind of just like way out there. Alexis: Great. And you know, you mentioned that yeah, pretty much. It’s a system of supply and demand and. Lindsay: Oh yeah.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Alexis: Right. And, and, you know, yeah. One of the questions is like, why, why do we need these excessive supply of parking? And, you know, and what are the problems of this? Um, I was reading a thing Bloomberg published that the U.S. Has two, 2 billion parking spots for 250 million cars. And it’s just, it just makes no sense. So, um, so yeah. Can you talk into that about what are the problems of these excessive supply? Lindsay: Yeah. So when we are designing or thinking about cities and putting it in our zoning codes so that every use has a parking space that encourages people to take their car from one activity to another, from their house to the store to drop off their kids and then back home. And so that makes it so that you need a parking space at every location where you’re going. And so while the demand changes at these spread out uses throughout different times of the day, that means you have a lot of empty underutilized spaces at other times. And when we think about sort of more of a shared parking or paying for it in this high demand areas, we are better able to make use of the supply. So it doesn’t have as much of that unused asphalt surface throughout most of the day. Um, cause a lot of parking spaces. Are not used for a large portions of the day. And then you have the urban runoff, the heat island effects and just the mere presence of this large surface parking lots it’s going to spread everything out so that it makes walking less appealing. It makes biking a little bit less enjoyable. And then because so many people are driving, there are more cars on the road, it slows down the buses. So then even taking the bus is less efficient. So then you think like, well, I might as well just drive if I can, if I have the

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resources to do that, I will. And I think our approach has always been provide as much parking as possible so that it’s always free to the driver and, and that really just feeds the demand for it. So we’re not looking at it of like how much it costs the city to provide it. And to maintain it. And then we’ll also in terms of foregone benefits, whether that is through a higher use of the land. So you could be getting tax revenue from a store or an apartment building instead, it’s just storage for vehicles. Alexis: Great. That actually answered my next question. That was what is the revenue this type of infrastructure for the city, but I think that’s a good point. Um, and, and what will be the risk of, you know, eliminating all this parking or this parking supply? Yeah.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Lindsay: So, I mean, I think right now parking is so ingrained in the habits of most people in the area that if you just got rid of it immediately, there, there would be not just backlash, but harms to the businesses that can’t have that broader um, source of customers. And then there are also parts of the city that have so have been disinvested for so long. Like they just, they don’t have all the shopping and grocery stores within their walkable local neighborhood that they have to drive to where they’re going or take like three times as long on transit to get to. Uh, location that does have those needs. So I think you would be cutting off people who are even more marginalized already. Alexis: Right. Okay. So it’s a, it’s a matter of, of commodity and, you know, like being comfortable enough, I would say, but, um. Lindsay: Well I feel like it’s just, it’s a process to transition away from always providing free parking. So starting with making the most high demand spaces more expensive so that you get to a point where you have a space available on every block. At all times. So that’s sort of the Donald Shoup philosophy of getting the Goldilocks price. And a lot of people see that as inequitable as it is just like, well, then only rich people can park. And the idea is that there are people who don’t need to drive that are driving and just a little bit of a price increase, which will change their decision on how they get there. Or. How close they want to park. You know, when I did have a car, I was always the cheap skate, you know, like I wasn’t going to pay for part, I was going to drive two blocks out to find that free spot, you know? And that’s the sort of thing that we want to do. You want to spread the demand out? Alexis: Hmm, interesting. Yeah. Um, yeah, you know, it has been because has fun because you are actually not the first person that starts talking about this, you know, taxation and , you know, revenues, and then they start talking about maybe raising

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the price can solve these things, but, you know, so we live in a country that doesn’t do pretty good when we do things like this. Uh, uh, yeah, I actually, you know, talking about this, I actually live in the, in the Boulevard in Logan and it has been fun because they started doing all these shared street things. And I have a neighbor that is being a constant fight. Him also, you know, moving the cone. Every single time, because his parking spot is there.

Lindsay

So I, I don’t know, I actually want to start documenting it because it’s kind of fun seeing like the fight between the city and the neighbors, but, but yeah. Awesome. Yeah, this has been okay. So. And, you know, one of the questions that we have, especially for our research purposes is like, how can we evaluate all this parking situation in cities? I mean, there is not like a very specific way to calculate, you know, the parking spaces that we need. Uh. Lindsay: No I’m often called in as a consultant to do parking studies and they’re like, we want to know how much parking we need. And I’m like, it’s not about how much you need is how much do you want? And how many cars do you want to be accommodating on your streets?

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

And like, what kind of city do you want? Do you want a city where there are more people taking their bikes out or were there more people on buses? Because the way we design our cities and the way we charge for different things does influence what the end result of the city looks like. Alexis: Right. Yeah. It’s as I say, like, you know, there’s not like a exact science to determine the parking spaces and, um, yeah. So, it has being a challenge, but you know. [00:11:04] Lindsay: And it was financial incentives that influence me to get rid of my car. I was living in DC and I got two parking tickets in a week. And they were really expensive and I had no money at the time. And I was like, well, I’m not even using my car. And if I hadn’t gotten those tickets, I probably would have held onto it and just used it sometimes. But because there was that financial, like negative hit, I, I started thinking about it like, gosh, I’m also paying insurance and like paying for my car. Why? Like, that’s not very smart. I could save that money. And so. Money really does impact how people think about what, how they make decisions really. Alexis: Right. Well, I’m glad you had that aha moment. Lindsay: Yeah.

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Alexis: You know, some people had it different ways. Um, and you know, just, just as a personal question, how, how are you, are you moving yourself today? Like, do you use like public transit or? Lindsay: Mostly bike.

Lindsay

Alexis: Mostly bike. Nice. And because of COVID, I guess you don’t have to go that much to the, to the office or um. Lindsay: No, and actually, so I, my big project right now is down. It’s like 10 miles from

Alexis

here in Washington park. And part of the motivation in 2020 to get an electric cargo bike was I’m going to be going down there a lot. Yeah, I don’t want to ride my own. Like I’m lazy. That’s far. So like getting an e-bike was part of that thinking like if I take transit, it takes an hour or I could be riding a bike and it’s about the same time, but I’m getting exercise. So I don’t have to go to the gym, you know. Alexis: And they might killed. Yeah.

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Lindsay: Yeah. Alexis: Nice. Um, good. And, and, you know, I, I was also wondering if, if the CMAP has been considering doing some of these, adaptive parking design, or is that something that, you know, you guys are looking at, or?

Lindsay

Lindsay: What do you mean when you say adaptive parking design? Is that like parking structures that you could transition to different uses or? Alexis: Yeah, you know, there is like cases in which, eh, you know, even, even in the street parking that has been like designed with the, you know, in case that there is not that much demand, it could be used for something else. Um, yeah. I, you know, the first example I can think is parking day, but you know, I’ve been seeing some, some projects that are like, oh yeah. In the case of, let’s say the weekends eh, our parking space can turn it into park. Um.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Lindsay: So there’s one project that I wasn’t too directly involved with that CMAP did during the pandemic that was working, you know, because we’re not just Chicago. We, we cover the seven counties. So a lot of smaller communities. And a lot of very car dependent communities, but because of the changes of the pandemic and the lower demand for a lot of their parking lots, especially at the Metro stations, many communities were interested in ways to repurpose spaces. And so there was a group that looked at, I can’t remember what it was called. It wasn’t shared streets, but it was. It was, it was a compilation of different communities and what they had done. So it was kind of a neat little, I guess, study or workshop that they shared some best practices of what communities had done and what some of the challenges were. Um, yeah, that’s all. Alexis: Great. Um, cool. And, you know, going on the reading too, into our topic and you know, us being ahead of, you know, the, all the parking and all these ideas, like, do you guys work also with another entities? Like, let’s say for example, the metropolitan water reclamation district or. Um, you guys have to comply what we know with a, what they say like about the water collection systems or, or this is something. Yeah. Lindsay: Yeah. I feel like that’s a really good idea. And we we’ve partnered with MWRD in different areas, but I don’t think that we have in the sense of parking. So I think that is. That’s an interesting idea. Usually the people we partner with our other organizations and think tanks that kind of have similar focus areas, you know, like MPC, the metropolitan planning council, active transportation Alliance. Um, we’ve partnered with others with schools like UIC, um, and disability rights groups and things like.

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Lindsay

Alexis: Great. Okay. And now, you know, just doing it a little bit into topic, what’s your take of driverless cars? Yeah. Lindsay: Um, well, I don’t think that we’ll, we’re going to have that like level five completely driverless cars, and I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime. I just, I feel like there are so many giant hurdles to that and. I feel like a lot of the tech has been hyped up more than it is ready for deployment in places that are habited by people. And, you know, I, when I used to leave the Sears tower pre COVID at five o’clock and there are so many people leaving the building to go to the train station nearby. Uh, like just sidewalks full, where they don’t even fit on the sidewalk. They go into the road with so many people. And if I think somebody did a calculation of like, if everyone were to leave the Sears tower in a driverless car, it would take several days. I mean, you, you can’t have the efficiency in a city environment when everyone’s in like a giant metal box because of the space limitations of our cities. Cars are just over there taking over in the sense of one single person now is occupying, what is it like 300 square feet for a parking space. And we don’t need to take up that much space. And the whole benefit to having cities is the efficiencies that they provide by allowing people to live closer together. Alexis: Right, right.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Lindsay: So the, I think driverless buses offer a lot of opportunities for. Having an attendant who can do other things, whether that is just making sure that people are okay and feeling safe and, uh, having a good experience in the city, but still being on the bus. Um, I think that is really kind of a neat opportunity. I think freight vehicles, if they can improve their safety, using some of the driverless technology that will bring benefits to our highway systems. Um, but I don’t think that ubiquitous driverless cars in our cities is something we should want or we’ll see in the near future. Alexis: Okay. So, so basically in summary, you’re saying that. Lindsay: I am a skeptic. Alexis: You know, we, we found people from, you know, saying that it’s, it’s gonna make it worse. It’s probably gonna make it better. So, yeah, your, I’ll say your, your place on this that is going to make it worse. Uh, you know, we’ve been talking that it’s gonna motivate more urban sprawl and, and you know, just a little bit on your, you know, in your field of expertise, like, do you think driverless cars are going to make parking worse or they are going to make it better? Or, you know.

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Lindsay: It depends. Um, I feel like if. You know, people will just try and get around any type of costs that are imposed on them. So if you, if you had parking very expensive, you know, people talk about, oh, well you would just send your car to drive around in circles while you’re there. So then you put a tax on vehicle miles traveled. So then maybe they wouldn’t circle so much. Then maybe you have further out parking spots. So it really depends on the policies that accompany the change in the users of the road.

Lindsay

Alexis: Great. So, yeah. Okay. So then take on. Yeah. It needs to be also a policy change in a way on the way you have. We have we think about the systems. Lindsay: Yeah with that end vision in mind of what do you want your city to look like? What is that vision of your urban utopia? I mean, we’ll never have a utopia, but whenever people highlight the things that they love about cities. It usually has to do with the people around them and the, like the things that they find beautiful. And that is not like four lanes of cars.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Alexis: Right. So, so you know that you mentioned this, like, um, let’s say. You know, we don’t need that parking that much parking space now with driverless cars, as you say, we can send a car to drive around or maybe to a dedicated parking spot. Right. What will be the, as you said, your, your city utopia in that case, what would you do with all of these, this space that, that, you know, it potentially can be used for something else? Lindsay: Well, I mean, I think there are cities around the world that are taking steps to get to what I see as kind of that good vision. Um, where in the areas where there are the most people you have tried to have the fewest number of cars. So. They have set up sort of more ex-urban kind of park and ride areas, and then people can take trains or bikes or shared bikes. And I just think that I, you know, I hate to always point to European examples cause there are definitely non-European good examples. They’re just probably not in the media as much, but I’ve sort of watched Oslo change from being pretty car heavy. Like it’s not, it was never like car centric, but, um, you know, first they put charging things on the streets and started, you know, or electric vehicles and then increase the price to park. And then they started removing the parking spaces and their central core. And there were, there were people who were very upset about it, but most people didn’t drive that much. And then they realized it was a lot better when they had so much more space. To walk and, and there are other benefits of it’s just so much quieter. It’s more peaceful and your kids can play in the road and walk to their school without you being as scared that they will be run over and killed. Alexis: Right.

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Lindsay

Lindsay: And those are things that I would like. I mean, my daughter’s school is on the other side of north avenue and it’s like, gosh, I definitely feel like I need to cross the street with her because there’s, there’s not a stop sign at our street. And I just don’t trust drivers to not run her over. Alexis: Right. Great. Yeah. Um, yeah, because we fun you. I, you know, you’ve been mentioning all these examples. For example, we talked to Ricky Burdett, uh, from the London school of economics and he was just talking about the same, the same idea that, you know, cities like Barcelona, or even London are taking all these big steps to try to decrease the number cars. Lindsay: And Paris. Alexis: Paris is also one. Um, but yeah, most of the people have been also, like, I don’t think I completed a scenario without cars will be the right thing. You know, at least we will need some. And then of course, you know, talking a lot, all these multi model, transportation systems and trying to, eh, yeah. Improve the, the supply of public transit, uh, talking about a little bit of shuttles and everything. Uh.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Lindsay: So I have kind of mentioned, sorry, I don’t know. Maybe you have a hard stop at noon, but I feel like if we could make biking so much safer. Once you realize how great it is to get around on a bike, regardless of the weather, it is so much better. And like traveling with a child. When I had her as a baby, like if I had to carry her in a car seat, it was so heavy. And with a bike I’m, I’m going right up to the front door and picking her up and walking in. And like, it was so much easier getting around than it was any other way that I would travel, whether that’s walking, transit or in a car and going to the zoo, like it is so easy. And I think so many parents have no idea and it, if it were safer, if that was like, oh yeah, I’ll do this. And I feel like it has been catching on like cargo bikes have exploded in the city. Since I have been biking here, my husband and I say like, oh, he was a bike messenger many years ago. And he said, he used to know everyone on a bike. Then he used to know every parent with a cargo bike. And now he’s just like, everybody has a bike. I don’t know anybody anymore. So like slowly it is changing, but we have to build a city that encourages that first. Alexis: Right. I guess you live around Lincoln park area, right?

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Lindsay: Wicker Park, Alexis: Wicker Park. I am just Milkwaukee avenue down from you. Oh, okay. Yeah, I got it. Uh, yeah, because you know, I, as you say, like, I think the city also has some really nice projects that are trying to accomplish, I think Deacons Street, this one, right. That they’re trying to turn it. Lindsay: Yeah Deacons. Alexis: Uh, you know, I, I’m also very optimistic about those things. Uh, Unfortunately, I come from a city that, you know, car was the main way to move. We don’t have really good public transit. And as soon as I came to Chicago, I was like, as you say, like. Lindsay: What city did you come from?

Alexis

Alexis: From Quito Ecuador. So we, we don’t do good over there. You know, we’re trying our best. We’re about to open our first subway line and I don’t think it’s going to be, you know, as good as it works here, but. Lindsay: How are the buses, are they not a good bus system at all?

Lindsay Alexis

Alexis: Not a good bus system. Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s given that is a private, private effort. There’s a lot of competition and they are, they are not safe. So, uh. Lindsay: I lived in Guatemala for two years, so I’m like maybe familiar with a similar type of. All of these different kinds of, uh, different levels of quality and safety. Alexis: It’s very formal in cities. Like Guatemala, or like Quito. Lindsay: You can get anywhere on a bus that was like the positive side. Alexis: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, well, I, you know, if you have still some time to chat about the.

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Lindsay

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Lindsay: I don’t know if he had any other questions. Alexis: Yeah. You know, like a, I usually, yeah. This thing they keeps going and everything, uh, you know, we were talking about that you have all these ideas that what we can do with all this parking lot and everything. Um, I wanted to know, you know, if you have any environmental side in environmental notes on, on parking and you know, how can we use these infrastructure to solve some of these things. Uh, that’s probably not your, your field of expertise, but. Lindsay: I’m definitely not my field of expertise. I have like enough knowledge to be dangerous. Like I don’t, but I have thought about these things. I think one of the biggest. Um, influences on my thinking on this topic has been the strong towns website, um, where they really, I mean, they focus on economics again of just how much it costs cities to provide services, to, uh, spread out uses versus, and maintain the roads and the pipes, the infrastructure for that like decentralized kind of community versus a higher density, walkable community. And then the tax revenue that you generate by having that more compact people focused level of density. And I think that the environmental benefits come from sparing all that land and maybe being able to maintain more of the forest, but I’ve also seen some really good research on capturing rainwater in our roadway systems. But I mean, when you do impervious surfaces on the roads, I’ve heard they don’t last as long. And so the, the, wear it doesn’t end up being like the value capture sense of it. But, um, I think if we are to be able to develop more compactly, we can have more. Of the like shared green spaces or impervious, I mean, pervious surfaces that can absorb water to reduce our flooding problems, which are definitely getting worse as the climate change intensifies the storms. We’ve our yard flooded a number of times this summer and the most that we’ve ever seen, it’s just like, wow. We built a rain garden and it’s making good use of it. Alexis: Right, yeah, huh? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, we were talking to Catherine O’Connor from the metropolitan water reclamation district, and yeah, she she’s been saying this it’s crazy how rain data. Rain data actually doesn’t lie. And you know how it has been affecting the city and everything. And, and yeah, her, her take on this was driverless cars, probably they’re going to increase the, you know, all these impervious surfaces. And that’s going to be a huge problem for the water infrastructure that we have. And then of course, for as you know, we are trying to be very positive about our research topic. One of the ideas is that we can repurpose all this parking to start talking about a. You know, water, water retention facilities, that. Also start talking a little bit about the social aspects of it. Um, I think definitely one of the ideas, one of the things that, or one of the findings that we have, you know, through talking to people.

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Actually having, for example, mature trees, eh, not only increases the price of your property, but also, you know, there’s all these health benefits and, you know, social benefits. Lindsay: So there’s a park in the west loop. It’s called Mary Bartlemay park originally parked 5, 4, 2. I think it’s like a. It’s not Randolph, it’s just in the west loop, but it used to be a parking lot. And right now it is my favorite park. It’s just like a dog park. There’s like little Hills and the kids playing area water feature. And like to think you can go back and look at the street view and be like the before and after of like, which is the city you want, like which of these two scenes. Better and yeah, I think I’ve made my choice. Alexis: Great. Yeah. Okay. So, well, I, you know, I think I run out a little bit of a question. Um, you know, we, we’ve been talking a lot about all these things and it’s always a good finding, uh, I, I just, I just cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do this. Um, you know.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Lindsay: Sorry, I can’t provide you more benefits of driverless cars information and all. Alexis: Oh no, no, no. Not at all. You know, like, uh, yeah, I think, I think the main focus on what we’re doing here is trying to figure it out. How is the current system right now and you know, what can we do better? And then of course, there’s the little seed of saying like, what if driverless cars can actually make things better? And, and of course, the goal for us is, is once we’re done with our interviews is to start compiling all the best ideas that we have from here and start making some diagrams, producing something. Um, So, you know, if you come across with some ideas or something that we could work,. Lindsay: I mean, obviously traffic safety and like our pedestrian fatalities have gone way up in the recent years. And I think it has a lot to do with the size of vehicles. So if we can get driverless cars to, you know, have the lower front hood that would help and not have giant SUV, but it does seem like a lot of them are still. Putting their technology just into an SUV because that’s what we’re used to driving. Alexis: Right. Americans love love their cars, so.

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Alexis

Lindsay: Their giant cars yes. Alexis: Yeah. Um, but yeah, you know, uh, as I say, like, yeah, if you can think of something that, you know, maybe, uh, Maybe there’s a cool project about parking that we will start thinking about. We will love to, to be a part of it. Um, and, and, and once again, uh, Ron also was not able to join us today.

Lindsay

He said he sent his grades, uh, he’s the director of the landscape program and he’s pretty much my director in my, my research. Um, and I know he will be very pleased to, with this conversation. I think it was a little bit short, but, uh, we touched on a lot of the things that we wanted to reach to and yeah. Eh, once again, I cannot thank you enough, uh. Lindsay: Sure, any time. Thanks. My Husband was an Architecture student at IIT. Alexis: Oh was he? Lindsay: And I’ve been down there bunch.

Alexis

Lindsay Alexis

Alexis: Okay, cool. Yeah. And you know, with this being said, like, you know, we will like to stay in touch with you and would like to keep your updated with how our research is going, um, for sure. Once we’re done with these, uh, we’re gonna make sure to send everyone, uh, all the interviewees, you know, a little copy of our final product, the product. Lindsay: Sorry to interrupt again, but I didn’t mention the parking reform network, which is the non-profit that I co-founded in 2020. I don’t know if you maybe caught that from my LinkedIn or whatever, but, um, I can bring it up to at our board meeting. If you know, there are ideas of driverless cars and retrofitting parking. If they have anything, I can sort of share it back. Alexis: Sure, would you mind talking a little bit about? Lindsay: Sure. So, um, I met Tony Jordan a number of years ago out in or from Oregon. Um, we met at a parking conference and he created the Portlanders for parking reform group because he read Don sheep’s book and understood that our parking policies were killing our cities and felt like. There weren’t enough people who understood how parking was affecting the city. And so you wouldn’t get people showing up at community meetings who would say like, no, I want this apartment building because I think it’s

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good. And so he was really working on educating people on parking policy and had this idea to go national with that and try and seed different, uh, local parking reform groups, but then also bringing resources together. So. I don’t know how many members we have at the moment. Um, but we do have them. Mostly in north America, a few outside of north America. Um, but we’ve partnered with strong towns to make the map of parking reform policies across the country. And in some other countries, I think we got Mexico city in there. Um, and we’re kind of getting the ball rolling on how we can provide resources to local groups as they try and reform their parking policies and address like, we all face the same challenges when we are working with municipal partners that like, no, there’s not enough parking. You know, we need more parking and how to talk through some of those misperceptions of how cities function. So it’s been a pretty cool experience, but it’s all been during the pandemic. So. Alexis: Yeah. Cool. And, and, you know, one of the things also we were talking with some people is like, maybe those changes, these changes that, you know, we were talking like probably driverless cars and everything are gonna be more prone to happening in community levels rather than you know, municipality levels, and all the cities. I don’t know if this is the same case with the parking scenario, which, you know, it’s actually easier to talk to communities because they are more open to all these changes rather than, you know, talking to the city and see what they are. I don’t know what your take on this? I think, you know. Lindsay: So I’ve worked on like neighborhood level plan, parking plans and. It is a good way to just sit down with people and really work through how they perceive it and collect the data and say, well, actually, you know, most of your parking is over here is available all the time. And this is where your real problem is. And if you put meters there, you could help spread the demand out and they sort of understand the problem better, but at the same time, the policies are set by the city. And so it’s hard to make real changes on the ground if we’re just at the neighborhood level. Whereas like the city is really what drives change. Alexis: Right, right, right, right. Um, well, yeah, unfortunately this is how things are, but yeah. Um, you know, we’re very optimistic about bits of these findings were very optimistic about driverless cars. Uh, as you say, like, it probably won’t happen in our lifetime. Uh, but I would, you know,our goal is to prepare cities for, for these, you know. Lindsay: Yeah, and I think that’s the key you got to get in front of it.

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Alexis

Alexis: Right. Lindsay: Prepare for, so.

Lindsay

Alexis: Right, right. We don’t want to happen, you know what, with what happened with the automobile. So. So, yeah, this is our main goal. And once again, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do this. Uh, I hope you enjoy it. Uh, and I’m for sure. You know, I I’ll be sure to keep in touch with you then, you know, there are so many more things that are going to show up and we will love to have, you know, your knowledge in it. Lindsay: Sure, I look forward to hearing what comes out of it. Alexis: Sure. Okay. So with that being said, I’m going to say bye, and yeah, once again. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Lindsay: Nice to meet you.

Alexis

Lindsay

Alexis: Nice to meet you too. I’ll keep in touch. Lindsay: Alright sounds good, bye.

Alexis

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Appendix: Andrew

Andrew Watkins

2022-01-18

Architect, Urban Designer and Planner at SWA

Alexis

Alexiss: Thanks, Andrew. Okay. So first of all, I wanted to introduce you, introduce you a little bit of what, what is it that we’re doing and how did we ended up, you know, doing about this type of research? Um, so I’m working in the travel, a city project. Uh, which is these multidisciplinary team of roboticist navigation, engineers, landscape architects, and urban designers. And we’re coming up with different systems to, eh, you’re not taking advantage this technology to design the series and we saw the chance to apply to the sea grant. Uh, Bailey no in Genesee grant. And of course we just mentioned, you know, like there’s probably a benefit out of driverless cars in cities and new rock, water management. We applied, we got it. And our, uh, [00:01:00] our application was that pretty much, we were going to talk to a lot of people trying to get as many a experts, uh, possible and, you know, see the outcomes of. So luckily we’ve been able to talk to very interesting people. We talked to Ricky , which was really amazing, uh, Maribel, my wire, eh, and we have some more people coming. And of course the findings can be in really fine, you know, like, eh, we start with some little, you know, a little bit of some questions that we prepared, but then we realized that everything goes and gets going. Um, so yeah, I’m excited to talk to you and, and yeah, just, you know, just to start, would you mind talking a little bit about yourself?

Andrew

Andrew Watkins: Sure. Um, so yeah, I’m a principal at SWA. Uh, I’m a architect and urban designer by training. Uh, you know, so, you know, [00:02:00] you know, you obviously know me through Nila, so, you know, we went to school together at the GSD, uh, studying urban does. Uh, and I’ve been out here with SWA for, you know, a little over 10 years now. Um, and, you know, have been working on a lot of large scale, urban design, master planning, uh, projects with them, uh, you know, everything from, you know, new cities

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to, uh, you know, kind of urban revitalization, a lot of work, uh, here in California. Uh, Uh, you know, new community work, uh, but also, you know, globally, uh, you know, so a bunch of work in Indonesia working on a project in Riyadh right now. And then, you know, we do quite a bit of work in China, um, as well. And those are kind of our big markets right now. Uh, Um, yeah, incredibly interested in how you know that the public realm plays a role in the urban environment. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And I I’ve seen that. Yeah. The projects that they is the [00:03:00] whole year group is like very focused on the balancing, the environment and the grades, culture communities. Alexiss: Um, Yeah. And, and you know, one of the questions that we have is also a why, you know, why it’s so important to balance environment, technology, and also community to create these, you know, these healthier spaces. Uh, can you talk us about a little bit about yourself? What’s the vision with no, we find this WRA group about a, how you guys approach this type of project. Andrew Watkins: Yeah. Uh, you know, and I can maybe talk some, you know, coming from a more. Yeah, architectural background. So SWA has obviously a strong, uh, you know, history and in planning and landscape architecture, right. We’re very well known for our landscape architecture. And so, you know, what I was looking for when I came to SWA was, you know, understanding how, uh, Yeah, start and conceive of projects through thinking about their natural [00:04:00] systems.

Andrew

And that’s really a strength of SWA, you know, whereas, you know, previously in my urban design and planning work, you know, from a more architectural standpoint, it’s often thinking about, um, you know, land use, how kind of development is organized together, you know, or transportation networks, you know, it’s kind of creating a framework. Um, and, and so, you know, Yep. It has to be ways, uh, has taught me a lot about, you know, starting from natural systems, which is pretty cool. You know, we’re very, very interested in the ecology of the site. Uh, you know, what makes the site special from a, you know, kind of the it’s kind of natural or kind of a, you know, cultural condition around. Alexiss: Great. And, you know, can you talk us about a little bit of what are the biggest challenges, you know, the biggest environmental challenges that cities are facing nowadays? Andrew Watkins: Sure. You know, so it tends to be of course different in different

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places. Uh, but in a lot of the places we work, you know, water, you know, which is, you know, on your topic is, is a big one. Andrew Watkins: Um, you know, it could be water provision. Um, but certainly, you know, water use in, in almost, uh, in many of the places we work, you know, the. You know, conserving water, you know, so Southern California and in California in general, um, that that’s a big, uh, concern, uh, maybe a little less important on some of our east coast or Southeast work. Um, you know, maybe sometimes too much water is a concern there. Uh, um, in our, you know, China, I mean, China has lots of things. Uh, uh, climate conditions, but a lot of the work we do there isn’t as concerned about water conservation, just because they have more water availability, same thing with Indonesia. Um, our work in the middle east is very concerned about that, right? Water’s very scars and, and, and, uh, you know, there how it’s reused multiple times on a [00:06:00] project, uh, Alexiss: And then, yeah. Do you guys have any findings on, you know, why is this such a big challenge? Um, I mean, of course we’re, we’re getting to the question in, you know, cows, the transportation infrastructure in, yeah.

Andrew

Andrew Watkins: Maybe before, before I jumped that also say, you know, we’ve also done a lot of work around wildfire, uh, which is, you know, probably not a topic here, but, uh, you know, that, that is a, you know, big environmental factor that, you know, You know, is affecting a lot of our project work. Uh, and something we have quite a bit of experience in, you know, going back several decades, uh, which is some early kind of wildfire testing. You know, it, Southern California has really been a, uh, you know, pioneer, um, and how to, how to build with fire. Um, Back to kind of water. You know, we have done a lot of work here in Southern California, especially that, uh, has dealt [00:07:00] with, you know, how to keep water kind of in the system. And there’s some really big efforts, uh, locally to, uh, continue to, you know, try to recharge our aquifers, you know, rather than sending water to the ocean, uh, which, you know, when California Los Angeles area. Oh, I was developed, you know, we put in these big concrete culverts to get water as quickly as possible away from our development and into the ocean. Right. That, uh, you know, in California’s boom of, of development. Right. Pretty much all within the last hundred years that has certainly. Helped the speed of development.

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Andrew Watkins: Uh, but it’s created a, you know, an issue with, uh, you know, uh, how we, you know, use and reuse, uh, water and, and, you know, being able to capture that natural resource. Um, uh, you know, ha has, uh, been problematic. And so there’s been a lot of efforts to, uh, create more infiltration within the Los Angeles basin, uh, and, uh, you know, get that water into the aquifer where it can then be reused within the system rather than dumping it basically. Andrew Watkins: Um, and you know, there are, are certainly, uh, some big scale projects that have done that, uh, in the region, you know, that, you know, are kind of, uh, Big government infrastructure projects. Uh, um, you know, so like from the inland empire, there’s a big infiltration basin, uh, you know, puts a lot of water into the, uh, the aquifer, you know, comes then into orange county and is, you know, pumped back out for, for use. And I knew that I was just in the last 10 years. Um, so there’s some of that, but then, you know, I think there’s lots of small scale opportunities and, and there’s, you know, both kind of requirements now for a lot of our project work, but also kind of best practices that we’re interested in. And in providing those infiltration opportunities, you know, turning, you know, either [00:09:00] pavement to green areas or, you know, just making sure that we’re capturing providing area for capture, uh, with.

Andrew

Um, our, our streetscapes and public grounds. Right. Alexiss: Um, you know, and, and talking about this, you know, do you think there is a chance for, uh, you know, more green infrastructure, especially with new, with these new infrastructure bill? Uh, Do you think that’s something that you know, is going to get built more or, um, Andrew Watkins: Sherri, how we hope so. Alexiss: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been talking to people here in the planning department and they’re like, nah, pretty much. They’re going to use that money to just fix the pipes. And, you know, so it’s, Andrew Watkins: I mean, I guess, you know, our, our approach is that, you know, there’s opportunities on any projects to. Add green infrastructure, right? I mean, the focus may be to fix the pipes. Right. But you know, if you’re fixing the pipes while you’re doing that, you know, also, you know, it’s not going to be a, a one solution, uh, uh, Uh, you know, method, right. There needs to be multiple solutions to tackle these problems. I think if, if we’re simply going back in and, you know, fixing the pipe with just a pipe where,

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you know, we’ve lost an opportunity, right. It should be the pipe. And, uh, and, and, you know, infrastructure needs to provide, you know, multiple, um, solutions, not just, you know, single solution. Alexiss: Right, right. Well that’s yeah, that’s helpful to hear, you know, like, as I said, people from the planning department, they’re just fixing the pipes. It’s kinda sad, but yeah. Um, and you know, talking about a little bit of these topics, um, I don’t know if you guys have pay attention to the transportation infrastructure. I mean, all these highways and everything, and, and of course the question will be how, how they affect the city, um, county. Yeah. How do you guys think they affect the city? Andrew Watkins: Highways in general, Alexiss: high ways in general, you know, it, it comes always with urban sprawl and you know, all these storm water run off. Eh, so yeah. I was wondering how you guys approach to these type of infrastructure. What’s your take on it. Yeah. You know, so we, you know, I’ve certainly done some projects along highways.

Andrew

Andrew Watkins: Uh, one of our projects, Ricardo Lara linear park is along the highway in Lynwood, which is kind of a. Underserved, uh, uh, part of LA. And so that was kind of a big deal for the community to have a green space and, you know, buffer from the highway. Um, you know, something that, uh, uh, you know, kind of filtered, you know, both the kind of noise and air pollution, uh, you know, that’s coming off of our highway system. Uh, you know, it’ll be interesting to see. What, uh, you know, autonomous cars do to, to a highway system, whether it, it, you know, I, I think there’s more opportunity at the small scale, the urban scale for the autonomous car to free up space. I kind of fear that the autonomous car just adds. To the highway, you know, because if you’re able to, you know, watch a show while you commute, you’re probably willing to commute a little longer. Right. Right. Uh, and, and so, you know, I think there’s the potential. And then there will be further sprawl reinforced by, you know, what we’re going through right now. Right. I mean, it doesn’t, you know, you don’t have to be in the office every day and you know, your location can be cheaper. Um, you know, so there’s, there’s kind of several factors that are potentially, uh, Potentially increasing sprawl. I mean, there there’s, there’s, you know, not needing to be in the office every day may actually, you know, free up some of that, right. If there’s less people commuting every day. Uh, and you know, I think we are seeing something interesting where our local

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neighborhoods are getting more economic, uh, uh, vitality, you know, because we’re not potentially, you know, spending lunch money. Andrew Watkins: Residential neighborhood, you know, where it used to go to downtown and, you know, that’s bad for downtown in some ways. Um, but you know, I think downtown’s are resilient. Find other uses that can create the proper mix over time. Alexiss: Yeah. Um, interesting. Yeah. Um, you know, you mentioned this project uh I’m I’m, you know, I was just wondering, did you guys have to work with the [00:14:00] department of transportation over there? Eh, was there some requirements from them, uh, about the park or it was just like, eh, you know, different things support. Andrew Watkins: Yeah. You know, I actually don’t know the exact interface on that project. It is alongside the highway, uh, and not necessarily, it’s not really within the highway right of way. And so there, you know, there may have been some concerns on, you know, exactly what abuts the highway, but it, but it was not necessarily impacted by, um, um, how highway infrastructure directs.

Andrew

Alexiss: Right, right. Okay. Um, cool. So, uh, you know, now going a little bit into the driverless cars, now that the expert a little bit on it. Uh, what’s your take on it? You know, do you think Andrew Watkins: the question for you, do you guys, as you’re defining driverless cars, is that, you know, basically autonomous or are [00:15:00] you guys defining it slightly different? Alexiss: Uh, well, we’re defining as autonomous, uh, we’re considering of course, a level five automation in the older scenarios, but yeah. You know, and that’s the question like, do you, do you think it’s gonna happen? It’s going to happen in our luck time? They, they, uh, you know, what’s your take on it? Andrew Watkins: What’s certainly some form of autonomy has already happened. Andrew Watkins: Right? I mean, there. There are examples of that. You know, I think, you know, what could be the level five where there’s not even a driver, you know, so like autonomous trucking, that that’ll be very interesting to see, you know, what goes on

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there. I think there are cases of that occurring within a, you know, like a logistics zone where, you know, maybe it’s in a controlled environment. Andrew Watkins: Um, but it will be fascinating to see if that actually. It gets out on the road. Um, but I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess I hope I live long enough that [00:16:00] that’s happening. I think it’s on the horizon. That’s for sure. Alexiss: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, you know, it has been interesting we’re working on this and, you know, we cut so many of the findings it’s there. You know, the technology is very challenging, especially in dense urban cores, like Chicago, like in the, you know, in the, in the loop, in the downtown area. Um, and now we’re seeing, like, for example, the foremost and the has these autonomous capability is actually based on maps. So you have to look on the map where he’s a blue, a blue area where you can drive it. And of course it’s because all of the over BS, you know, a. Challenges that they have to drive through. They don’t exist in this area. So, um, yeah, we, we are still seeing, you know, I think, uh, we, we are hopeful to see the technology. I think that, and, and, you know, the, the goal of what we’re doing [00:17:00] here is to actually be ahead of the game and say like, eh, let’s prepare the cities for these changes.

Andrew

But yeah. Um, so cool. Yeah. And, and, you know, do you think driverless cars are going to, to be a disruptive technology kind of like the automobile was in, you know, in the 1950s and sixties or, or do you think, well, you, you, you know, you, you gave us your thoughts. So that, that probably is probably going to be, Andrew Watkins: I think there’s probably several kind of disruptors. I mean, I don’t think it’s. Um, you know, there’s some things that will change some things won’t, uh, you know, I think, you know, we will, the sprawl thing may occur, but I think in urban centers, you know, we may see space freed up, you know, so either on the street, um, for, you know, if streets become more efficient, uh, And more, you know, kind of [00:18:00] cloud organized, there may be opportunities to, you know, reduce, you know, do road diets and that kind of thing. Um, at the same time, there’s going to be a, you know, more demand probably for kind of drop off and, uh, that kind of space. Um, so there may be less parking on a street, you know, um, more. Uh, and then, you know, I think the whole like parking structure, parking lot discussion is interesting. I think there’s probably some efficiency, but there’s still going to need to be storage. Um, uh, and so, you know, maybe that storage can get tighter because, you know,

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autonomous cars can. Uh, you know, stack closer or something, or you’re not, you know, you can stack and rack them or something. If you’re not concerned about getting in and out in the parking structure, right. You know, parking structures right now are designed for cars and people, and it may well just be designed for cars in the future. Andrew Watkins: And then, you know, the, the real life. Disruptor would be if people, a future generations move to sharing, right. If cars aren’t personal spaces, I think that’s that jury is still out. You know, I think the there’s still a lot of, uh, you know, the car is a cherished personal space for many people still. And I don’t know if that’s a generational thing, a wealth thing. Um, but, uh, you know, that will be. Yeah, I think something to pay attention to, because if it, if cars do become more shared, then there could be, you know, kind of a bigger leap in, um, in kind of how they’re organized and utilized. Right. Whereas if they stay personal, you’re still gonna basically be generating the same amount of trips and, um, need kind of similar storage conditions. Um, although there may be, you know, slight shifts.

Andrew

Alexiss: So, so in order for us to see the benefits, we need to change all these mentality, you know, how, how we see economies that have own make it more like a shared economy. Andrew Watkins: Yeah. Yeah. But, but, you know, it’s, it may, I mean, even when you look at countries that have a high kind of mass transit usage, you know, there’s still like a, a bit of a socioeconomic. You know, play there where, you know, kind of a wealthier people tend to still have personal vehicles, you know? And, um, you know, so it’ll be interesting in the U S to see if that. Adopted, you know, there’s certainly, you know, Uber and Lyft, that kind of, you know, the ride share has certainly changed people’s perception. Andrew Watkins: I think in a good way to realize they don’t need to use a personal card for all trips or, you know, even the, the rental car market has drastically changed. Right. You know, if, if I can avoid renting a car, I will write and, and use a ride share just because I don’t want to have to deal with. Yeah. Getting it or, or, you know, you know, as long as I know that I can have access to a ride share easy enough. I’ll I’ll go that route. Um, yeah, but, but there’s, you know, people like. But there’s flexibility. There’s, you know, there’s even like, uh, uh, uh, storage, you know, like people, you know, you know, you, some people can, you know, there’s a certain, like living out of your car that you, even if you’re not actually living out of your car, right. It is kind of an extension of your home in a way. Um, and you know, or the. Uh, you know, the utility vehicle, right? We’ve seen a large

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rise and, you know, obviously transitioned from sedans and wagons to sports, utility vehicles. And. You know, just in the car market in general, and whether that’s a actual use for recreation or just the style, you know, there is a certain, [00:22:00] um, aspiration there that, that the, you know, I’m not sure that the shared car economy meets now. Andrew Watkins: You know, if you can, you know, there’s other models where, you know, w you know, I don’t know if it’s. Some of these car companies have, have, uh, you know, explored with leasing options where you can use every month, your, your lease enables you to, you know, pick a different car kind of thing. But I think that’s interesting where you, you know, kind of a hybrid model where you have, you know, a little bit of stability of the car you want, but you’re starting to learn to treat it more as a, a temporary thing versus something that. You know, hold onto for a long time. Yeah. Kind of more like a service or, yeah. Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to see how that transitions and then coming generations. Yeah. And, or maybe it’s also like, uh, will be a, um, the segment of a population. Right? I mean, I think like with, uh, Millennials, there was this story that, you know, millennials were never going to buy a house, right. That they would, uh, you know, they didn’t want the, the strings or the, the trouble of buying a house. Right. But you know, now we’re finding that all the millennials are now buying homes. It’s just, you know, maybe it happened a little later than, than the previous generation. Um, but it it’s still happening at.

Andrew

Getting to similar rates. Right? And so maybe it’s more that, you know, everybody in their twenties to thirties, right. Will be, you know, are more apt to have, you know, be doing the car share, you know, it’s more economical, it’s, uh, flexible in terms of the type of car, you know, the more adventurous, whereas, you know, as people kind of transition in life stages, you know, you might find that a. Older population, you know, wants to own the car. You know, I’ve got three kids, you know, our van is like, you know how we operate. [00:24:00] And then, you know, maybe when you get older, then you go back to the car share or something, you know? So it’ll see changes like that. Alexiss: Yeah, exactly like that. You know, like I was about say elderly and children are probably the same in the population. That’s gonna benefit the most out of these technologies. Andrew Watkins: And so even if you could get 50% of the population to move towards that model, you know, that could start to have some, some big effects on the urban environment.

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Alexiss: Right. Right. Um, and you know, you mentioned, you mentioned that there is these big opportunities because of all these free space, especially in the, in, you know, in moving areas, uh, like downtowns and everything. Um, you know, the question will be like, what, what will be the approach, you know, for a good design over there, what, you know, and what type of environmental challenges we can tackle with this. With these designs also, you know, talking about a little bit about the, the social aspects of it. Like what can we do better if we, [00:25:00] if we have all this free space? Andrew Watkins: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of things we’re looking at, you know, and even as a little test bed of this, right, we’re seeing in the pandemic, you know, the, certainly the desire for more open space. So we’ve worked on, you know, A bunch of projects that are either taking away parking or closing down, you know, blocks. Right. And so, you know, I think that’s an example of what, you know, kind of a snapshot into what could occur when there’s less. Yeah, right now, the, the, the emphasis is coming from the desire to have more outside space. That’s usable because inside space is so challenging right now. Right. Whereas I think the autonomous car will just free, you know, have the potential to just free up that space.

Andrew

And we’ll ask, you know, what can we do with this space? So they may, they may be forces that are coming from different directions, but I think that the result is in a sense. [00:26:00] Kind of center where, you know, we do have more public realm, right. So it’s, you know, is there more, you know, outdoor dining and gathering space? Um, is there more just, you know, open space for, um, you know, either, you know, we’re doing a lot of projects where we’re trying to get, you know, better tree canopy, uh, you know, shade, you know, it’s a big thing in Southern California here, you know, just more walkability. Um, and then. Um, uh, you know, is there the opportunity for more, you know, planting and, uh, you know, to kind of what you’re looking at, bio swales, infiltration areas, you know, kind of greenery as well as hardscape, right? So, you know, I don’t think we’re going to free up space and make it all hard. You know, we want to kind of soften some of that up, um, you know, green things, not only just for our own enjoyment, but also to benefit the environment and you create these kind of. More small scale infrastructural improvements. Alexiss: Right. Um, and you know, a larger role. Right. And there’s also another types of infrastructure. Like let’s say gas stations, that’s a big one, you know, and yeah. Do you know, there’s also 430 gas stations in the Chicago area. And of course, one of the, one of the questions was we were asking them like, is there a chance to actually turn all these gas stations into parks now?

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Alexiss: Of course. Yeah. I mean, if you buy it, you can, but the city will never do that. Yeah. Um, yeah. And you know, like what else can we do? And, you know, you mentioned a lot of, you know, via source and all that kind of stuff. Uh, I know some people come in saying like, we should dentify the city in those areas and, you know, eh, trying to build less infrastructure for water with less urban sprawl and everything. Andrew Watkins: Yeah, I think in terms of providing like more open spacer gathering space with kind of the gas station thing, you know, maybe there could be some public private partnerships or something that, you know, allow for special, you know, development opportunities there. Or, you know, if, if something could be developed with how those sites are remediated and because there are certainly challenges with the use on, on a site like that, um, that if there was some. Some way that the public sector was helping to, um, you know, support redevelopment of those sites. You know, they could maybe ask for something in return, you know, so you could see, you know, you know, back to like, you know, new York’s pocket park program. Right. You know, they, they allow that a bonus, right. For, for development on a site. If, if you provided an open space, Um, you know, so it’s not an either or you’re probably going to get, you know, ideally you’d get probably development and an open space, um, together. Uh, yeah, I, it would be great if there were strategic locations that, you know, the city was willing to purchase something for, um, For use, but, you know, I mean, these are often prime locations, right?

Andrew

And the gas stations are usually on corners. Uh, you know, and, and they, you know, could play a great role in our public realm, not just as open spaces, but as you know, development that activates our public realm as well. Alexiss: Right, right. You know, you see now gas stations are usually where people gather and, you know, they go to buy groceries and, um, yeah. Andrew Watkins: Um, so if there were cafes and markets and housing, you know, housing is, you know, we have a huge need for housing, right. Uh, and you know, the, the, those play a good, good role in our society. Alexiss: Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, and you know, one of the questions is of course, now we’re talking a little bit on the specifics is, um, do you see [00:30:00] these, uh, you know, eh, embracing the driverless cars as a, like, uh, like a government effort? Uh, we’ve been talking a lot, you know, the share economy, circular economies. Neat. And you’re going to be part of that fundamental part on changing the society, especially with, with, with the autonomous vehicles. Uh, Yeah, how hard is it, how hard it is to, to

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work, you know, with big governments or city governments, and compared to working with just local communities, that they are more open to this type of, eh, you know, these type of projects. Alexiss: Uh, can you give us a little bit of an insight so that I’m pretty sure you guys work on different levels. Andrew Watkins: Yeah. You know, to be honest, a lot of our work is at the kind of local government level, uh, you know, or for developers. Um, you know, I think local governments, you know, often are, you know, kind of myopically focused or, you know, focused on [00:31:00] kind of what’s at hand. And it’s often harder than for them to think big picture or, you know, have the wherewithal to. I think that forward. Um, you know, and so, you know, it would be interesting if, if, uh, you know, either kind of regional or, um, I’m not sure state governments or the place, but, you know, you know, an academic institutions like yourself, you know, can provide, you know, kind of fill in some of that, uh, kinda missing piece, you know? So, you know, how what’s the best practice for how a local governor. Thinks about their gas stations in the next 15.

Andrew

Alexiss: Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, this, this leads to the next question. That is something that we’ve been asking. How would you frame, you know, the, the appearance of driverless cars, that’s something that society will, you know, actually embrace and say like, okay, you know, it’s not only, it’s not only like a vehicle, but it also comes with these benefits.Um, you know, so many people have been talking about maybe, maybe tax incentives and all that kind of stuff, which, uh, there’s also the, you know, the other side on it. Like if you say tags right away during the year as a special is like, uh, it feels more like you’re getting punished instead of, you know, you are contributing. Andrew Watkins: You know, I don’t know that there’s like there, I say, you know, like the tax incentives for electrical vehicles kind of thing. Um, you know, it’d be interesting, I guess if, if we incentivized that, you know, I I’m guessing that there’s enough, um, kind of economic incentive, you know, apart from, you know, needing the government. [00:32:50] Andrew Watkins: To weigh and all this, you know, the, um, everybody’s moving toward this technology already without incentives. I don’t know that [00:33:00] you need it. I mean, there might be some, you know, getting, getting widespread adoption, I guess, you know, people to transition could be hard, but I think over time that will naturally happen. And I don’t know that the. I don’t know that it needs to happen quick. I think there’s

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going to be lots of things to work out. So having some time could be good. Alexiss: So you think as a society, we are not ready yet? Andrew Watkins: No, no way. I mean, I, you know, we, we shouldn’t flip the switch, you know, I think having it, you know, I think, you know, we will kind of, you know, Wake up someday and realize that there’s, you know, a lot more autonomous things out there than we, than we thought. Um, but, but I don’t, I don’t think it needs to be, I think there’s there’s enough, uh, benefits that I think it will naturally kind of happen through the cycle of, um, you know, Um, hold onto it for five to 10 years. Right. So, you know, as that kind of transitions over it’ll it’ll occur and you know, the, so there’ll be some growing pains, I guess when you’re having to have multiple modes of, of, of autonomy on the road at the same time or something. Alexiss: Do you, do you have any takes on, you know, this project that I dunno, officers like, like big is working. Like they, they will been sitting in Japan or a there’s the city in

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Dubai. I forgot the name or a, uh, Mazda woven city. Eh, Yeah. And you know, and they, they be involved focused on yeah. You know, we’re using artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles. That’s the main focus of the program. Andrew Watkins: I mean, I think we, you know, we, we kind of. I think in general, in our approach to our new city work, that, you know, creating zones where it’s, you know, autonomous only can work really well as a kind of a near term solution, right. Where we’re not trying to send the autonomous vehicle, you know, ideally an autonomous shuttle, right. We’re not trying to send that a far distance, you know, and right now they, they generally work best at a slower speed anyways. Uh, Uh, you know, and so if there’s a, you know, a radius that they’re working within, you know, so you’re combining it with other higher modes of transit. And for example, work on a project right now in the middle east where, you know, we have a subway system that’s kind of our regional connecting to an LRT, you know, so a light rail on, on surface, uh, transit that is serving kind of a, uh, larger, uh, neighborhood, you know, maybe a, um, you know, 20 or 30. Square kilometer area, you know, so it’s still pretty big. Um, but then, you know, there might be, you know, two square, four square kilometer areas within that. That could be, you know, primarily pedestrian only slash you know, autonomous shuttle. Uh, and so you’re, you’re, you’re relegating the, uh, the private, you know, maybe private, autonomous, or not a vehicle to kind of a larger scale network. Andrew Watkins: Um, and, you know, forcing. Um, uh, a more shared system at a smaller scale that, that frees up space in the public realm.

Andrew

Alexiss: Right. So thinking more multimodal Andrew Watkins: plays a role kind of in a larger system right now and not trying to. Change the whole system. Alexiss: Right, right. So, yeah. Um, it has to be a holistic design thinking, not only as you say, not only in the private benefits of the autonomous vehicle, but also in the price in the public ones. Cool. Um, yeah. Uh, well, pretty much I I’m, you know, I’ve been going through [00:37:00] my, my questions. Uh, of course there are a couple of questions about, about water. And you mentioned them already, I think, eh, you know, thinking about all these biosoils and all these retention. Yeah, we, we see these as a really big opportunity to actually say let’s change all this space that we have.

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The street parking for example, is a big thing here in Chicago. And what if we can scale by your retention by your source to it? Um, With what I’m going to is like, eh, you know, eh, we have to present something for the Linda is in Genesee grand and we’ve been compiling a set of diagrams from everyone. Uh, do you have any, any specific dive around that you would like to, you know, like see or that you might consider that might be a good idea to work? Andrew Watkins: Um, yeah, I mean, I can think through, you know, some challenges that we have, you know, so, you [00:38:00] know what, whether it’s, you know, so retrofitting a street is different than. Planning a new street from the beginning. Right. Um, and so, you know, on retrofitting, I mean, we, we have some kind of general strategies and solutions that we tend to use. And a lot of our work is retrofitting. Um, you know, so like overall drainage patterns, you know, when you start to get into the detail of like the crown of the street and how things are being drained, you know, it’s often very costly for the city to go back in and totally change. Storm sewer system. Right? Well, they could on the surface, you know, edit some things, but they still need to keep it the overall drainage pattern. Right. And so, you know, kind of details for how you, um, you know, kind of let water in and out within an existing drainage pattern that is kind of. You know, and, and maybe the size of, you know, kind of, is there a kind of minimum [00:39:00] optimal sizes orientations for, um, uh, the drainage swells, you know, is, you know, is it, uh, if you’re removing parking, how does that work with parallel versus diagonal parking? Andrew Watkins: It was kind of all kinds of little considerations there. Um, and then, you know, another one we deal with is just like, you know, so you can create these. Infiltration areas, but you know, it all depends on your soils. You got clay soils creating a bios swale. Doesn’t really answer. You’re just holding water. You’re not really infiltrating. Um, and so, you know, you know, of course you can, you know, try to remediate that and create a more. Uh, you know, at least some better infiltration, but you’re in and you’re going deeper and excavating more and, and, you know, so there’s just challenges there. Um, and so I think there’s there, you know, there could be also strategies where, um, [00:40:00] you know, that respond to some of those different. Site conditions, you know, I’m not sure the distributed bio swale concept make sense everywhere. You know, the area where you have good infiltration. Um, that’s great. But you know, you may actually have a strategy that does, you know, collect water and, and. Takes it, you know, in, in maybe a larger distributed system, but you know, maybe a whole block goes to a, you know, an infiltration cavity somewhere or something that

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is a bigger infrastructural lift, but, uh, uh, Actually functions versus wanting to put in these small swales that don’t actually, and I think there are some, some varieties of solutions that, um, that would be good to talk [00:41:00] about. Alexiss: Okay. Um, cool. Yeah. You know, people have been saying really, you know, crazy ideas like. Actually Catherine, O’Connor one of the, one of our interviewees. She asked us to look at that city hearing in Illinois and be like, what if you can take the parking lot? Out of their houses and naked, you know, for retention and everything. So, and as you say, like, you know, it’s just a matter of navigating and figuring out what’s the best system in these cases is not just saying we’re going to take this out and that’s it. Um, but yeah, uh, with this being said, I, I, you know, I just, yeah, I cannot. Thank you enough. Uh, yeah, a as I say, like, we have to present these to the Illinois, Indiana Seagram, and then of course, a, one of the goals that we’ve been setting ourselves is to, eh, to give you guys posted, keep other [00:42:00] interviews posted on Cal counties. Yeah. And, and we, you know, for sure we will be in contact with you and, you know, eh, also, you know, I, I will like to have this open channel and, you know, ask you some, some questions in the case, something shows up.

Andrew

Um, and yeah, once again, thank you so much again for taking the time to do this. Um, It has been, you know, as I say, like every single interview has been very mind opening and I hope it was fun for you also. I know we didn’t touch that much, eh, topic about driverless cars and everything, but, uh, we’re getting there I guess. Alexiss: And, you know, as you say, we will see in the next five, 10 years, That’s the outcomes of these technologies. Um, but yeah. And then, yeah. Thank you again for taking the time to do this. Uh, I’ll be sure to that, to tell nearly that is when great. I hope it did for you and I will, and yeah. Have a great day. Andrew Watkins: Thanks. Thanks for conversation. Stay well. Thank you. Alexiss: Thanks. Appreciate it. Bye.

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Jay Womack

2022-02-17

ASLA, LEED AP, Director, Ecological Landscape Design

Alexis

Alexis: Um, and yeah, you know, I wanted to start the talk a little bit, just to have a little bit of a background of your background. Uh, can you talk us a little bit about yourself and also about your work?

Jay

Jay Womack: So I’ve been practicing as a landscape architect for probably a little over 30 years and I’ve worked for. Probably half a dozen different firms. I started out in Atlanta, Georgia moved back to the Chicago area. And, um, today I’m working for a company called GZA who’s based on the east coast that does a lot of work, um, with, uh, the environment with, um, ecology, with engineering and, um, I am the, I am one of two landscape architects and about a 750 person firm, uh, mostly environmentalist’s engineers and, um, people who do work all across the country.

Alexis

Jay

Alexis: Right. So until you say that your, that your work is more on field or more like in an office, Jay Womack: definitely more in the office. I am a first and foremost diamond is. So I’m S so I’m a site designer. And so I really look for opportunities to work as a team and collaborate with architects and engineers and other biologists and ecologists to do site design at almost any scale imaginable. But always with the same philosophy of trying to protect and make better the environment in which we live.

Alexis Jay

Alexis: Right. Jay Womack: And for me, a lot of that starts with rainwater.

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Alexis: Right. That’s perfect. Yeah. And, and, you know, we are also aware that you do a lot of community work [00:02:00] and, and then you’re involving a lot of organizations. Can you talk us a little bit about that?

Jay

Alexis

Jay

Alexis Jay

Jay Womack: I love the, I love collaboration with. Different viewpoints, different professions and different, um, communities to really embrace and educate people about how we can do better to protect the environment. Um, because quite often, most people. Don’t think about, they think about the environment, but quite often they’re, they’re part of a process that is very, um, kind of myopic in its viewpoint, especially with a lot of designers. And it’s very difficult sometimes to break the myopic NUS of looking straight ahead at just what is your responsibility and what’s your scope. I personally, I like to kind of break the envelope a little bit. I like to think [00:03:00] outside the box and get people talking about challenges and opportunities. And if it’s a challenge, how do we make it an opportunity? And how do we make it something that becomes the better design opportunity for the project and not just think of it as a problem, but think of it. An opportunity to solve a problem using ecology as the philosophy of that design etiquette. Right. Um, yeah. And so it’s interrupted by wrong, uh, Alexis: well, cause typing, um, yeah, well, yeah. Um, okay, cool. Yeah. Thank you so much. It looked like well, cause Mike is not working on. Anyway, so a in your experience, yeah. I wanted to see a, you know, what can you tell us what they deliver? Um, so let me answer to them real quick. Um, your experience, what are the biggest environmental challenges that cities are facing now? Jay Womack: That is such a great question. I think there’s so many different facets to the word, environmental degradation. Um, we’re seeing the loss of biodiversity. We are seeing a loss of habitat. We are seeing our waterways impaired. We are seeing air. Pollution, um, rise. We are seeing soils being eroded both through air and our wind and water, um, purposes. So I think there are so many different ways to think about and look at and describe environmental degradation, but they all are kind of wrapped together under one. Environmental principle. And that is to, as elder Leopold said, try to do no harm. And it’s, for me, it’s, it’s using

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the elder Leopold’s land ethic in which he really believed in all things are tied together. And if we don’t think about every single aspect of the environment, the water, the wind, the sun air, the animals, the people.

Jay

Jay Womack: And if we don’t think of all of them as a living, breathing object or entity, we displaced one of them or we displaced two of them and it becomes very difficult then to, to embrace. Uh, tree land ethic and a true environmental, um, healing process. And that’s to me is why it’s so important to look at every facet of the environment.

Alexis

Jay

Um, and water is one of the bigger drivers for [00:06:00] me. As you, as you remember, from my, from the lectures rainwater, doesn’t discriminate it at falls equally on not equally. It falls on everyone in everything. It’s how do we treat that rainwater to be a positive and not a negative. And too often we put it in a pipe and we want to send it somewhere else because that’s the easiest thing to do with it. If we embrace that water, we can, we can create a better environment for our waterway. Um, our lakes, rivers, and streams, we can create a better opportunity for infiltration and getting water to go back in the ground where it belongs so that we can use the soils and plants to help clean and mitigate certain pollution levels. We can get it to transpire back into the atmosphere as evaporation, just like the hydrological cycle that’s been happening for millions and millions of years. And so mimicking that those processes through technology in built environment, um, we can, we can make a better planet for everyone, and it’s a really important opportunity.

Alexis Jay

Alexis: Um, yeah. And, and, and, you know, as you mentioned, uh, we have all these big challenges and, uh, Well, you know, going to a little bit of a specific skill, you think like they all these Ultimo infrastructure affecting women welders, you know, we have all these, skyways all these treats, uh, actually Chico, I think Chico is 30% paid, eh, four series. So yeah, what, you know, what, what risks that we have out of this infrastructure. Jay Womack: So the EPA, the environmental protection agency ranks urban runoff has one of the most, um, as like the, as the fourth, most prevalent [00:08:00] impairment to our lakes, rivers and streams. And that is the water that purely falls as rain. It falls on our surfaces and then it runs off. And when it runs across the surface, it’s picking up all of the pollution, all of the gasoline, all the pesticides, all the fertilizers. And it’s literally putting it right directly into a pipe, which then has to, by law evacuate into a local waterway. And so those local waterways are literally taking.

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The worst water imaginable and letting it run right into our, into our waters. And it’s, it’s depleting our fisheries. It’s depleting. Um, our land values, it’s creating incredible erosion because our lakes and water, our rivers were designed to handle water that comes out of a. That’s 10 feet [00:09:00] across because there’s tremendous amount of energy that comes out of that pipe in our local waterways were never, they didn’t evolve with that type of water management every day. Jay Womack: They eat, they erode a little bit more every day and in that soil falls off the banks and it falls into the water and it’s carried somewhere downstream to a different place. And so now we’ve got, um, very steep embankment and we have a lot of soil erosion and, and we have a lot of dirt and, and a lot of water that’s very dirty.

Alexis

Jay

Alexis Jay

And so there’s, it’s very difficult for plants to grow because there’s no sunlight and what, there’s no plants, there’s no oxygen. And if there’s no oxygen, there’s no life. Right. And so it’s a really vicious, it’s a very vicious circle that we’ve created. Um, To make it easy for ourselves to get to the grocery store in a car in drive fond vacation, and go somewhere. So the opportunity is, is to, is to rethink how our urban transportation corridors in infrastructure to mimic the hydrological cycle some ways so that we can take that water. And some of it might. Um, soak into the ground. Some of it might evaporate into the atmosphere and some of it might be taken up by plants in, in were used and they’re in their cycle of life. Alexis: Right. And as you say, you know, there’s a big opportunity for, they start thinking about green infrastructure that can do all these processes, right? Absolutely. But still where we are seeing now with the infrastructure bill. Uh, and that was talking to some people from the scene, uh, the metropolitan planning council and they were not very hopeful about it. They were like, oh yeah, we’ll probably be building more bikes and, you know, fixing [00:11:00] more streets and making more streets and everything. Um, yeah. Do you think there’s a big chance, you know, for, for landscape architects or for environmental engineers to start taking up, you know, Kind of say a better place in these decisions? Jay Womack: Um, yes. I think there is a huge opportunity. Alexis: Yeah. And so how can we, you know, how can we get to this point? We like, you know, is, is it like a tax incentive is more like a political thing or it’s more like a social awareness.

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Jay Womack: It’s all of the above Alexis. I know. And I hate to say it that easily, but it, it really is. So what it, what it comes down to is education. We have to start to educate ourselves and our leaders about how we can do we, we can do things in a more innovative and imaginative way and still meet [00:12:00] all of the guidelines, all of the ordinances and all of the laws that are put in place to protect people from harm. Right. So like for like flooding what’s, it’s kind of disheartening because I sit in on a lot of webinars and there’s a lot of this talk of coastal resiliency and resiliency, but what they’re doing is they’re not designing to fix the problem. They’re designing to lift the buildings. And they’re designing too.

Alexis

Jay

They’re designing for the worst case scenario instead of designing to solve the problem so that we don’t have to design for the worst case scenario. Right. And that to me is a really, it’s a huge, lost opportunity because we, we need to sit down and say, okay, we’re smarter than this. If we work together. And the problem is is that everything that we’ve built instead of just. [00:13:00] Raising up the building so that the water can go underneath them. We’ve got to solve the reason why we have to raise the buildings up. And so much of our infrastructure today is, is again, is meant to be kind of that conventional way of design. The way of thinking we have to break that mold and we have to start to think bigger. Like Daniel Burnham said, make no small plans. Right? We need, yes.

Alexis Jay

Alexis: Yeah, as you said, like, yeah, I think we’re forgetting that we’re living in a system and, you know, I think we are in this point that we tend to segregate what is sorbent versus what is nature? And that’s, that’s the missing opportunity. And this is some of the times that, you know, with the other interview is, is like, we reached to this point. Eh, and yeah, that’s, you said there’s a big opportunity there that, which should consider that. Um, and I guess that’s what the goal of what we’re doing here it is, is, is to actually start thinking, how can we use this technology, driverless cars as part of that design thinking? Um, I’m talking a little bit about this, you know, like we talk about all the pollutants and all the environmental problems with urban world. Um, what would you say? What type of green infrastructure would you consider to be better than the, you know, the gray infrastructure that we use? Um, and you know, especially in the scale of a city, like a calc, can we start rethinking how cities should be designed to, to mitigate these problems? Jay Womack: So the easiest way to say it is we need to make our cities more permit-

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ted. Right now they’re impermeable. So if we can make our cities more permeable than we can, we can take the water that falls and accept it and infiltrate it or invested into some sort of, um, mechanism that allows the water to be distributed in a better way.

Jay

Jay Womack: And part of it is to kind of. Instead of thinking of the, as the entire city, we need to think of it as if every person that owned a piece of property is responsible for a lot of the fell on it. Then we don’t have to magnify it to the city level. We can reduce it to the personal level. So if, if everybody that was responsible for either a piece of property or a development or structures that were their responsibility, if they could think of.

Alexis

Jay

If they could think about how to make that water a better place, then I think we have a great chance to, to change the way we think about it. So like the people who are responsible for our roads, let’s talk to them and figure out how we can make our roads better for the environment, the people who are responsible for a particular building. Let’s talk about how we can make the water. In the, in the materials that are about that building better for the environment in, and not try to blame other people, but let’s figure out how to change the way we’re doing things right now. And if we start to think of it as in a, in a more systematic way, I think, I think it’s easier to get to an end result. That’s more positive. One of the things that we talked about was that we use. We use almost half to three fourths of all the pottable water to flush toilets and irrigate our landscapes. Don’t do it. Use non-potable water. Rain. Let’s collect it. Let’s use it. If we flushed all of our toilets with water that fell on roadways and in building, just in buildings we could solve, we could solve half of our problem right there.

Alexis Jay

Alexis: Right. So, yeah. So you consider that it, it should be as much as a public or private effort, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s, as you say, that’s part of educate about all these issues and night. Um, cool. And yeah, you know, I wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, what we’re doing here. Um, what’s your take on driverless cars? Jay Womack: I’m not sure yet. Okay. I’m a pur I personally like to, I like to be, I it’s not that I want to be in charge. I want to feel like I am responsible for my own fate. Yes. I don’t hide. I’m sure. Maybe driving his car. You know what? I think there are certain situations where driverless cars will be awesome. Like certain. Freight that has to be moved from one side of a, a place to another side of a place without getting involved with cars and people and bikes and certain decision points in high speeds. I think driverless cars would be really great kind of that robotics of moving like seaports and moving equipment from one place to another. I think driverless cars would be a wonderful opportunity for something like that. The

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Alexis

Jay

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minute I get above 35 miles an hour. There’s there are certain reactions that humans have that I think are very difficult for machines. We can program the machine is as creative as we possibly can, but there’s just. Jay Womack: You know what it is, it’s intuition, right? You can’t, you can’t teach intuition to a machine right now. And if you do, then you’ve gone to Uganda, above driverless cars, you’ve gone into, um, you know, smart, smart thinking. Um, and then the machines are gonna take over and why do we need people anymore? Right. Well, I do believe there are places for driverless cars, but I believe in general, the majority of it, what I would like to see are cars that are. [00:19:00] More environmentally friendly. I think that’s a huge opportunity, you know, and again, I have an electric car now and I love my electric car. A hundred percent electric. Is it going to solve the world’s problems? No. But is it a small step towards making a better environment for my grandkids? Yes. I think it is absolutely. I mean, Yeah. Alexis: And, and, you know, we took a lot of, uh, days because, uh, as you know, there’s a lot of a, there’s a lot of in the news, like, you know, these technologies are happening. [00:19:39] Alexis: People like Elon Musk are like, you know, cut a hundred percent guaranteed that it’s going to crap. And, uh, And, and, and, you know, we, we want to talk about these because it’s definitely going to be a disruptive technology, either it happens or not, the discussion is there. And of course the main purposes of these technologies, eh, they have, you know, good intentions. Uh, they, the most important of all is to actually decrease the number of fatalities and accidents that happen. Uh, but then there is also a, a lot of discussion that Nuno environmental friendly discourse are going to be able to move in storms, which is going to make them more efficient. Uh, we’re talking also about driverless shuttles or like last mile trips that, you know, can be, can be, eh, can be done with, with driverless technologies. Um, and, and, you know, Pretty much, a little bit of an outtake, like we are talking about these different scenarios. Um, of course, one of them is these, this topic, a scenario in which driverless cars are going to take over, uh, because it’s going to be more comfortable for you to just sit in your car, watch a movie while you commute. You know, there’s going to be a lot more [00:21:00] movements pro, which represents a lot of more environmental issues or the other one is actually cars. A become more like a. Um, not a commodity, but more like a tool that will help cities to organize more, eh, to densify series. Uh, what would you, well, yeah, what would you, you know, what, what’s your take on it?

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Alexis

Jay

Alexis

Jay

Alexis Jay

Like, do you think it will be a dystopian or more like a utopian future? Jay Womack: I would love to see. The resources sometimes that are put into these types of projects to go more into, um, public transit. So, um, you know, like high-speed rail so that somebody doesn’t have to get, uh, an airplane. That requires a tremendous amount of energy and [00:22:00] fossil fuel consumption and pollution. But if you could get from one end of the, from point a to point B and one 10th of the time that it normally takes, I think it would be an awesome opportunity. If you look at our European cities, you know, they’ve got bullet trains and they have, um, No highspeed rail and they have connections, but they also have a philosophy that most people want to live in the place where they work so that they can ride their bike to work every day, or they can walk or they can take the bus so that they can be a one-car family. And unfortunately, in the United States, because of. So much of what’s happened with suburban sprawl. We’re forced to have two cars in our family. We’re forced to have two people that work full time and we’re forced to have. All of our errands run on a Saturday and Sunday. And so all of a sudden, every single person’s out in the street, trying to get [00:23:00] their shopping done on a Saturday, instead of being able to just walk to the farmer’s market or go pick up a few things and make a dinner for themselves, right. [00:23:08] Jay Womack: There’s so much that’s packed into the whole. Discussion of driverless cars, but I would love to see more than a driverless car. I would love to see high-speed rail and good train and good public transportation that people are really comfortable and they want to be part of, Alexis: yeah, I think, I think that’s one of the biggest opportunities about these technologies. Also, like, as I say, like multimodal transportation, That will solve a lot of issues in the cities. Um, but now getting into a little bit into the interesting part of what we are doing is, you know, we’ve been developing these scenarios that we’ve been doing some research on, on different topics. Uh, one of them, for example, is this scenario that, you know, Parking lots anymore because the driverless car is going to drive you. It’s going to drop you. And then it’s going to go either to a, to a specialized parking lot that [00:24:00] can be outside outside of the city or the, these, you know, that the car just keeps driving around and wait until you you’re done. Um, so of course, you know, the first, the personality that comes out of it is like, what do we do with all these parking spots that we have in the city? Right. And, you know, um, I don’t know if you cover it don’t show or, um, uh, there’s a saw another author. He has this amazing book that is called rethinking a lot. And they talk about all these infrastructure. I mean, the, the numbers, I think it was like wake up to 2 billion parking spots in the U S for 250 million cars or something like that.

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Alexis: So it’s another build infrastructure, like, and for us, it’s, you know, trying to see what can we do with all these, all this space. Uh, and of course, you know, you know, in knowing you, you, you probably have some really good [00:25:00] ideas, a lot of this. But what would you do with it? Yeah. Jay Womack: Well, first and foremost, I would turn it into green space and I would create either parks or green infrastructure or wildlife habitat or all of the above. Um, I would really, and so open space could be both for recreation and it could be for animals. And I think we need to start to bring that. A higher level of biodiversity in our landscapes because we’ve lost so much of our pollinator habitat in our, in our habitat in general. And like, I really instilling in these open spaces that are.

Alexis

Jay

Wild, but are our natural and native, we can start to have more opportunities for the butterflies and the dragonflies and the frogs and the birds and the, the toads [00:26:00] and the salamanders, because we’ve lost so many of those things and we’re losing them at an exponential rate. And, um, I would love to see, you know, just acres and acres of open space. That’s dedicated to. To native habitat in our cities to start to rewild those spaces, but in a very purposeful way so that somebody doesn’t, they’re not afraid to walk into it because of the, the plants are too tall or there’s too many hiding places or it’s too dark. So that’s where good design really comes into play.

Alexis Jay

You’ve got an understand your, your oncology and your native plants and your systems. So that you can create places that are aesthetically beautiful, are functional and inviting. And that’s, I think what landscape architects can really play a huge role in so much of what’s going on. Alexis: And Cowell water, water treatment. Um, you know, [00:27:00] also one of the questions that we’ve had, because, because you, you know, you taught me, this is how, how can I start making the calculations or how can I start comparing, eh, you know, the currently pre-structured that we have with green infrastructure and especially in a scenario like this. Um, so you see the, you see like, uh, like an opportunity for water treatment systems in these spaces. Jay Womack: Uh, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There’s some great examples of like Herbert dry cycle with what he had done with, with so many of the cities, like, um, Potsdamer plots, where they took down the wall between east Germany and west Germany. He created the most incredible Plaza spaces and landscapes. And they are responsible for 100% of the water that falls on them.

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Jay

You know, a lot of it is a circulating pattern of water from the building that trickles down through planters, into cisterns, into ponds where it’s recirculated for cleansing. And I think there are just, there could be so many great opportunities for water management in these spaces. And then it goes back to the idea of, you know, can we use that water for irrigation, for flushing toilets? Jay Womack: Um, and so then we can take a lot of pressure off of our infrastructure to not have to do every single thing. Um, but it’s, it’s really concentrated on those places where we’ve got those, those new open space per opportunities.

Alexis

Jay

Alexis Jay

Alexis: Right. And, you know, knowing a little bit of days, like what would be the, you know, the cost benefit of having this type of infrastructure compared to what we have now. Jay Womack: The cost benefit is that’s the part where it’s, it’s hard to come up with solid numbers. But if we, if we just use numbers from [00:29:00] flooding, um, problems, they’re in the hundreds of billions of dollars, right. If we can take away that does those. Problems. We can save that money and invest it back into the projects, invest it back into people. We can teach them how to become site stewards and nurture those landscapes and manage those landscapes and grow those landscapes so that they get bigger and better and stronger with time. So, I mean, you could just go back and look at some of the, some of the numbers from flooding issues in our cities, like along the Mississippi. It’s in the billions, right? Even if we saved half of that money, that’s a, that’s a huge amount of money that could go back into more infrastructure and more redesigned and more projects that grow businesses in, [00:30:00] in, in jobs for people so that we’re not just throwing it in and insurance companies to rebuild things. Every single time we have a natural disaster. Alexis: Right. Um, yeah. Um, you know, I talked to Lindsey Bailey she’s in charge of parking planning and SEMA. And of course, one of the findings was the, uh, parking is actually a pretty big source of revenue for the city. But then of course, you know, what do they do with this money as, as you say, like, they use this to deal with other issues like water. So, um, yeah, it’s, they are now everything gets connected together, which is it’s very interesting. Um, Uh, and now that you, that you also joined the green revolution and you have your, you know, your electric vehicle, I’m pretty sure you are happy not having to

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go to the gas stations. Jay Womack: It’s crazy. What the [00:31:00] one downside is the winter. Um, my, I can only get the car to charge up to about a hundred miles. Um, in, in, it’s not really a hundred miles. Um, it’s not like I can drive a hundred miles because I turn on the heater and it’s like a four to one ratio of how fast some of those miles drop. But I’ve definitely seen a huge savings in gas. I feel really good. Every time I get in the car, I try to drive it wherever I can locally. So does my wife and it’s a huge savings savings. Yeah. And, and just in a lot of people say, well, yeah, but you’re using power. You know, you’ve got to draw power off the grid. The little bit of power that I draw from the grid is a fraction of the cost of what it takes to make gasoline and draw oil out of the ground and in move, um, material from one place to another to, to help my car be stronger and better. Right. Here’s just, you know, the embedded energy has reduced it, you know, the car doesn’t require, um, I don’t, I have no oil in the car, so I don’t have to go get an oil change. My car doesn’t create exhaust. So I’m not adding, you know, exhaust fumes to the year. Um, there’s, there’s so many benefits. Alexis: Right. And, and, you know, there’s also big opportunity there. Like just to go has like four countries and 50 gas stations and. Uh, you know, talking about that, we are seeing this massive electrifying, you know, the, the vehicles and everything. Um, of course, one of the question for us was like, what’s going to happen with this bottle like this. Uh, and of course, there’s also, we also have to consider that this gas stations become social places sometimes where people go actually do some groceries or people have. Uh, but yeah, you know, like, uh, that’s part of also another question, like, why would you do with the space like this as well, and, and, you know, how can you deal with all the pollution that these places making to a series? Uh, but by that, I mean, like, is it some of the ideas being like, oh, let’s, you know, let’s build more housing that, you know, the cities need more housing. Uh, but it’s there. Yeah. In your landscape perspective, what would you do with something in a case like this? Jay Womack: I could see taking probably at least half of those gas stations and turning them into electric car charging stations, and they can also become, um, receptacles for energy. So maybe they become. Little mini solar energy producers. And so if you took the footprint of every gas station

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and you made it a solar canopy, every one of those could feed energy into the grid, which then takes away a little bit of energy that comes from our coal powered plants. Maybe those gas stations become little opportunities for rainwater management and maybe they become little mini parks and they become the. Jay Womack: Little these for wildlife habitat again, so that, you know, every single one of them becomes a little green space. Right? So I think there’s great opportunity to take every one of those. Maybe one of them becomes a little grocery store. We start to bring back the little mom and pop grocery stores so that we don’t have to drive 10 miles away to go to our grocery store to load it up. We can have all these little cool little local. Local, um, mini marts with maybe theirs they’re growing their own pumpkin’s in the back and somebody uses on, or maybe we make apple orchards out above, and somebody starts making homemade applesauce, or there’s so many great opportunities to take every one of those spaces and turn them into something that’s more needed in our cities. And that’s green space. And for. Alexis: Nice. Um, yeah. Uh, and, and, you know, like finally, like, um, one of the ideas is like, of course, how we start treating all this contamination, all this pollution. And, you know, probably you, you mentioned already with the green infrastructure type and, um, can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Alexis Jay

Like what type of processes should we be looking at, uh, in, in more of a planning specifically for this type of pollutants. Jay Womack: So it’s a great opportunity for phyto remediation. Do you remember that one of the lectures about phytoremediation using plants to clean the environment? And so I think there is really great opportunity to take some of these areas [00:36:00] and use native plants and plants in general, mostly native plants to do some level of phytoremediation. Um, I think there are also opportunities to do what’s called CTWS or constructed treatment wetlands, where we can take water and maybe we move it off the street into these green spaces. And this is, this is, uh, Um, Martin Martin Filson, you know, this was his dream way back. When was to take all of the east west streets and turn them into water routes so that we could clean the water and move it to lake Michigan and create a resource out of all these places. Right. I think there are some great, some great examples. Um, I think it’s, Marmo Sweden where they started to bring. Um, open up pipes below ground and bring that water

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back to the surface and make it a very, um, open place for people in, in [00:37:00] parks and in accessibility and make water, celebrate water, and bring it back to the surface where we can see it and we can use it. Jay Womack: And we can appreciate it instead of just putting it in a pipe and have a travel underground and be disappeared. We could still use. Water. We could still move water from one place to another, but instead of an a pipe, put it in an open channel where maybe it’s got some plants and some aeration and we can help to clean it and make the water more available resource. And then there’s an education process to get people to appreciate the water is a valuable resource and it’s, doesn’t have to be mean and scary. It just needs to be understood and appreciated. Alexis: Right. Okay. Yeah, it is, you know, as you say, like there’s a big opportunity in working with water and unfortunately, uh, you know, with simple thing that take it, take it out of here as fast as we can. And that’s the solution for CDs. Right now. Yeah. You know, with all the, putting the salt in the streets and everything is just, it’s just a little bit sad to work and you see, you know, the soul that is in there and what’s gonna happen with that. Um, we see this opportunity of using this technology to actually, you know, start mitigating disease.

Alexis Jay

Uh, one of, one of the scenarios that we got to talk with Karen Nance was actually, you know, what, if we don’t need that much salt, because now these scars are going to be able to drive into very specific, eh, lanes. And, you know, we don’t have to spray that much salt everywhere. So as I said that, you know, there’s some cool findings out of these interviews. Jay Womack: Yeah. Yeah. If we can, if we can find a way to make our streets. So there are certain places where they’re actually creating, um, ways to warm the pavement through [00:39:00] the movement of tires across the pavement. So I don’t know if they’ve embedded it with something, but kind of creating that radiant heat so that you see literally. The snow is so I can’t achieve simulate in create ice. And if we can melt it and infiltrate it in and get it below ground, where we can move it somewhere without having to put down a bunch of salt to melt the ice, because it just freezes solid. Then we can reduce our dicer, which then improves our water quality. It helps. Um, reduce, uh, that, that rusting and the eating the way of our metal and our

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bridges, and it just creates less airborne pollution. Right. It doesn’t get sidetracked. And it moved down to city streets and trees where it kills all the buds in the trees. D I serve as one of the most environmentally harmful materials. Jay Womack: We know. But [00:40:00] it’s hard to fight someone who’s fallen and broken their leg. And who wants to Sue you because there was ice porn. So we’ve got to find different ways to, to think of the pavements and how to treat those pavements so that we can get rid of deicer completely and still make people feel safe. Alexis: Um, and just, yeah, just, you know, just to close this and one last scenario that it’s something that is already happening in. Uh, for example, being in Michigan, they are connecting the Ann Arbor to Detroit with the driverless corridor. Uh, and this means, of course, that is that dedicated lane just per base. A, what would you say are the biggest concerns, environmental concerns with this type of infrastructure? Jay Womack: I think it’s, if the road is built in the same way that all roads were built, we’re going to have the same environmental degradation. So I think there are ways to design our roads to be smarter. You know, maybe, maybe, you know, somehow we, we can make them permeable. We can make them out of material. That’s not, asphaltic based. We can make them out of material that maybe is stronger and more durable so that we don’t have to worry about. Those things eroding and having to be rebuilt every few years. Um, maybe I think in Japan is the car drives down the road, the lights turn off and as the car leaves and they don’t need the light anymore, the light turns off, right. That saves energy. That’s a huge opportunity. You know, maybe there’s a way with the driverless car is to create. Um, energy between the wheel of the car and the, in the pavement. So as it’s driving, it creates either heat or some sort of friction that’s then automatically put into the car so that you’re you’re, you’ve got electric cars that are recharging themselves. They don’t even have to go into a charging. [00:42:00] Right. Literally charging themselves as they drive. I think, I think Japan was looking at doing something like this or China meets, Alexis: I think is in a country, in the book on the areas, the thing was Sweden or something like that. They were working on a technology like this. Um, and of course, you know, one of the biggest concerns is also like these, these rubs some of the environmental patches, uh, you know, pretty much. Creating a lane, uh,

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that it could have laying in, you know, does I say like segregating these different environmental patches? Uh, that’s going to be a big issue, environmentally speaking all for these, you know, wildlife, flora, Pomona.

Jay

Jay Womack: Yeah. Well, yeah, it’s a driverless car and. You know, if we can reduce the width of the lane and we can make it a different material and maybe we don’t even have to make a new lane. Maybe we take a four lane [00:43:00] highway, we dedicate the outside lane to a driverless car and we redesign it so that maybe it’s got a little bit of a barrier so that other people can’t cross into it.

Alexis

I mean, Yeah, we work with the existing infrastructure that we have, because if we can take cars off of the typical highway, put people into driverless cars and they just move at a nice, dedicated speed. No traffic jams, no problems, 50 miles an hour. Then, then everybody’s happy and don’t create new infrastructure. Let’s use the infrastructure. We already have just read dedicated to a different way.

Jay

Alexis Jay

Alexis: Okay. Yeah. Uh, so, so that’s, um, run out of questions. Uh, you know, we can, we can just spend hours and hours talking about all these different ideas. Um, but I’m also trying to be a little bit respectful with our interviews time. Um, but then of course, you know, once again, I just want to thank you for, for your willingness to do this. And, and of course, uh, One of the, one of, one of our goals is to give these channels of communication open with people like you. And to start, you know, cover a little bit of a more discussion about this. Like, as I said, like trying to maybe, you know, work together into another type of project or coming your insights when it comes to. And our work, my, my objective of course, is to keep everyone posted on how we’re doing with this. Uh, I think by the end of this school year, we’re gonna have like a presentation and I hope to publish the results of this. And of course, I’ll, you know, I made sure that you, you, you, you get your copy or whatever it is that we can. Yeah. Um, But, but yeah, once again, you know, like, uh, thank you for your willingness to participate in this. Thank you for [00:45:00] what you do with water. I know. Yeah, definitely. Like, you know, they decide visits during your lectures, everything. I was looking at pictures the other day. I was like, that was a really cool day. I remember the day we saw this name and yeah, you showed us all the parking lot and the infrastructure. So. Um, so yeah, bang, once again, thank you so much for everything and

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Jay Womack: reach out anytime you need anything, Alexis, that’s what I’m here for. So I love talking about these things and helping out. So if you need something definitely reading Alexis: . I will, I will let take that. Yeah. And, and, and, and I hope, I hope this was fun, you know, I hope this was like, uh, something that will, you know, we’ll let you think about these things and be like, okay, there will be a coolest scenarios. Something like this. Jay Womack: Definitely. Yeah. I mean, I have a whole new appreciation for driverless cars now. I never thought of it in some of the terms that you had mentioned in. The, uh, just the amount of parking lots and the infrastructure that goes into some of these things. That’s astronomical. Alexis: It it’s insane. Uh, I’m going to send you, I’m gonna send you some of these studies that we did. We did like a really quick diagramming about, you know, different scenarios with driverless. And it will just blow your mind, all this space that we’re wasting on parking spots. It makes no sense. Jay Womack: It doesn’t make any sense at all. That’s crazy. That’s awesome. Yeah. All right.

Alexis

Alexis: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate this. You’re very welcome. All right. Bye bye-bye.

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Appendix: Indraneel

Indraneel Kumar

2022-02-17

Principal Regional Planner at the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD).

Alexis

Alexis: Thank you. Um, okay. Um, I know you talk a little bit about your background, uh, but I wanted to have this on record. So can you, can you give us a brief, uh.

Indraneel

Indraneel: Okay. Yeah. So my background is in architecture followed by urban and regional planning, then community planning, uh, another academic degree on that, and then PhD in civil engineering with emphasis on transportation and infrastructure system. My dissertation was actually on renewable energy. Uh, and I have mostly worked in the area of urban planning, currently focusing a lot on regional planning. So, yeah.

Alexis

Indraneel Alexis

Indraneel

Alexis: Right. Um, and you know, you, your work is a little bit, as you say, this is about the urban planning and about economic development and I’m pretty sure transportation has to do a lot with it. Indraneel: Correct. Alexis: Yeah. Can you talk to us a little bit? Why is transportation so crucial in the world? Indraneel: Yes. So, you know, um, look at it from two different perspective. One is personal travel and second is the freight. Or goods movement, uh, in both the cases, you know, uh, transportation has been crucial is, is because mainly because of, you know, the aspects of accessibility and accessibility is a little bit more than, you know, increasing the efficiency, decreasing the travel time, um, and, you know, making it more efficient to travel and saving the travel time. But it is also about opening up the opportunities. So you know look at a labor in a labor

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market and you know, and you know, a lot of, you know, high speed rail studies. If you see, you know, happening in China and Japan, and then now a lot of US researchers are also looking at it, you know, high speed rail. The US already has Amtrak rail. What does high-speed rail add? What it adds is like, even in the same timeframe, how many opportunities you have open for that person who is, who is part of the labor force? Right? So he had, you know, he had access to 10 industries. Now he can apply to 20 industries. And, you know, this has always been a critical issue with the US urban planning. You know, I worked in Asia a lot planned and, and India a lot and have some experience there. And we just a lot influenced by European planning also. But here, you know transit has a very limited scope. So, you know, like job access, reverse commute. So, you know, the way transit routes are assigned people from suburbs, they come to the downtown in the morning, they work and then in the evening they leave. What about the poor people who are living in Cairo surrounding the downtown? Because the jobs, those skilled jobs that they had access to earlier, you know, the store and retail store and supermarkets and all those things, they are all moving to suburbs. Right. So accessibility. So that’s where transportation comes in. And, you know, I won’t. The only thing I will say about freight is you increase the efficiency of freight. You decrease the cost of doing business. That’s the competitive advantage. We call it competitive advantage. And you know, if you look into regional economics, these economic models, you can immediately see the gains. Uh, so you know, transportation is a crucial decision for industries to locate on a site. You know, many, if you come to Indiana, if you have come here, you traveled to rural areas and you see why Frito-Lay is in the middle of nowhere, right? It’s 15 minute access to interstate or, you know, in Illinois, Peoria is a great example. Peoria is the caterpillar of headquarter. And when it was like established in sixties and seventies, there was a very famous transportation job role, but he was from the field of geography Pullman who did all his research. It is placed in the middle of nowhere, of course, with crucial access to the interstates. So, you know, uh, in the U S the surface transport, I will say plays a crucial part the majority. Uh, for a major cities and incorporates air transportation also counts. Uh, so, you know, we always, west Lafayette does not have a good airport. We rely either on Chicago or Indiana police. We do not have international connection and we lose a lot on that ground.

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Alexis: Right. Um, and you know, yeah. I, I was wondering what, what can we learn about, you know, with COVID-19, especially, yeah. Especially with, you know, all this movement of people, like. Indraneel: Correct.

Indraneel

Alexis: Is there a lesson or? Indraneel: So, you know, if you look into COVID 19 and, and, you know, I’m part of a grant research grant from EDL looking into, uh, the supply chain impacts say, uh, COVID-19 um, people are struggling, right? Uh, scholars that are struggling, they always, you will read in the media that, you know, the supply chain shock, supply chain shock. You know, we have been very good in modeling and assessing the demand side in that. The previous recession has been, you know, the manufacturing industry, real estate shock. Or you, if you see 2001 recession, it was the dot-com bust, right? Internet companies came down and then, you know, the stock markets collapsed for internet companies. And then it was about site nine months recession 2001, but it actually impacted high-tech versus 2008, 2009 recession. It was real estate manufacturing, and then construction. It is spread, right? So when people lose jobs, the regions lose demand. All of these examples are demand-side impact. And we are really good in modeling that, you know, if you look into our economic input output model, Leontief model, these are all demand site. We are excellent in that. We were never prepared to study the supply side, saw where the demand is there. The supply chains are disrupted and you know, the supply chains have become so thin. And so is. Uh, you know, we call it cross falling. So cross falling is, you know, a region, a city and urban area is competitive in a good or service, particular good or service. Every area is unique, but then, you know, simultaneously you are exporting as well as importing the same thing. Right? And this depends on, you know, businesses have connections. Their suppliers is. And then when the COVID-19 is struck and those supply chains got disrupted, the selves became empty. So it started with food industry and it is still lingering quite a bit with automotive, right? If you know, you ordered a new car, what nine months, 10 months, 11 months waiting, going on. Right. So, so, you know, COVID-19 has opened a complete, slightly nuanced aspect of the. And I do not have answer. Um, we are still trying to understand that, you know, um, the old time saying in regional planning was become self-sufficient.

Alexis

Indraneel

You know, uh, and that’s what regions are understanding that, you know, we just it’s it’s, you know, truck drivers, that’s the biggest, the scarcity, our port truck drivers. Right. Um, that’s where automation helps. Right. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, it’s interesting. And, you know, seeing on this aspect on the economical aspect and all these, uh, because I, you know, we’ve been talking to so many people, we got the chance to talk to people like from the London school of economic. And of course his first reaction was like, well, people now don’t have to use their cars

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or don’t have to commute to actually do their work. And, you know, there are so many benefits out of it, uh, social economic to benefits. Um, but, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. It’s definitely, as you said something without precedent and I can imagine it’s got a hard to. Um, and yeah, my next question is like, eh, what are the most significant transportation challenges that big cities like Chico are facing? Well, that’s a tough question. You know, anybody who can solve Chicago’s transportation problem, you know, it’s, uh, you know, I have been engaged with, you know, Chicago projects, Chicago and, and other regional agencies because I’ve been working here for 15 years. And EDA is located there. You know, Chicago has been a cradle of innovation, right? Well, historically, you know, university of Chicago, the sociologist like Vargas and they came up with these other models. Um, then 1960s athletes, the birthplace of transportation planning, the four step transportation planning. Uh, the, the biggest challenge I think for Chicago now is related to Fred. Uh, you know, um, in, in some of the transportation circle, the language they call it black foot. Once it, once it bows the post to Chicago, that’s it, it is stuck there and it takes, you know, um, a couple of days actually out. And then, so it’s a congregation point, no doubt. Uh, and you know, for logistics cluster, uh, it is because I do some research on logistics cluster out for. Like, you know, Memphis and Chicago and Dallas and all those including long beach California means, you know, these, these are logistics cluster because of very unique set of transportation system. Chicago is a hub. No doubt about it. Uh, last one, railroad interstate, it’s a congregation. Uh, I think there is a interesting corridor there. We call it a logistics corridor as one of its unique example, because obviously, you know, we call it inland containerization system, you know, where the containers and everything are stored and then distributed for the, uh, the biggest choking point is probably related to congestion and travel time. And it’s a big loss because travel has a Costco. Add to it, you know, the scarcity of truck driver, which was already there pre COVID COVID has actually really expanded it. Um, and then you do not have people to drive these goods. Um, and you know, that’s why, you know, these automated truck platoons, you know, some experiments have already happened in Atlanta where automated truck platoons.

Alexis

Indraneel

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Traveling on the road and maybe on dedicated truck lanes, right. You know, uh, can solve the problem. I was in a TRB conference and they were trying to explain these automated fret movement and they realized, and in some of the experiments that the driver of the car who is driving in the nearby. Freaks out because when he says there is no driver and these pipe trucks are going synchronized movement, one behind another, and going at 70 miles per hour. So they had to put a fictitious robot. It looks like a driver just to have a psychological

Indraneel

effect. Right. But, you know, um, these technologies are proving themselves. Uh, you know, they are working and I think there is a distinct advantage. So, you know, Let me give you a very simple, very different unique, uh, rural example. So, you know, the pickle, Indiana is an ag state and we work a lot with, you know, the ax, supply chain and things like that. So pickle. If you are eating a big on the map or anywhere in the Midwest, you know, the cucumber has actually originated from one county in Indiana, which is the stark county because it has that specific soil. So that cucumber is harvested and then sent to salt point ponds in Ohio and then processing plants in Wisconsin and everything, and gets a spread out. No, just one example that you can, but only has 24 hours time. To harvest and transport, right? Because you, if you leave it on the plant, it becomes mature. It can not be used for. And if you block it and you cannot transport, then still it cannot be used because it needs to reach the salt point points. So you can immediately understand that how these supply chain linkages drug movement and freight movement can just impact one product. Right? So when we were there for a meeting that was the major. That, you know, uh, our whole livelihood depends in that 24 hour window, 48 hour window. You know, some of these large farmers are basically, we call them, you know, they are logistics companies with ag fields. There are like, there is a fear of. Because of these challenges, it has its own refrigerated truck fleet to send the milk from here to Iowa, right. Uh, just to take over everything. So now the now in logistics conference, they come because, Hey, they are doing everything. They are optimizing the routes and all the engineering you can think because gradually they are becoming a specialized. So, so just, just as an example, and I think automation will be incredibly helpful. For Fred right. In this context and that context. Right. Um, and yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m gonna, you know, we’re gonna get to the point in which I asked you, what’s your take on driverless vehicles, but there’s a couple of questions, you know, before jumping into that topic. Um, yeah. I, I wanted to see in your, in your terms, what it’s, where is the correlation between transportation and environment in that.

Alexis

Indraneel

Um, yeah. Okay. So, you know, uh, transportation impacts every aspect of the human system. You know, we have a graduate class here where, you know, every week by week or, or one and a half week, we study each system, how transportation is impacting that. So their quality water quality. Economic development, economic efficiency, land use noise, visual, you name it. You know, so there are like 14, 15 chapters and transportation is touching each and every system. Now over the decades, uh, the field has also become a specialized. Now that you have a specific model. Right. So you want to study air quality impacts of trans-

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Indraneel

portation, incredible models are available and you can assess how much carbon you can simulate carbon monoxide and particulate matter and things like that. Um, same thing with waterfall. Now because your area is in water. Right. You know, the major, major impact happened is at least in the Midwest is because of the salt and brine and it all goes, eventually ends up in the water body. Right. Um, you know, um, and then it changes the pH of the water. Whether we like it or not. And it has been shown to impact, you know, some of the muscle population and things like that, you know, uh, the, the muscles, which are there, uh, the water molar scan, all those freshwater mollusks. Yeah. No, some kind of fish. Um, second is, you know, the gasoline based vehicles, um, you know, they, at the end of the day, when they are traveling on the road, Um, there are some emissions, there are some deposits, uh, you know, eventually there are some deposit and those deposits have been measured. There are some, you know, hard metals and things like that in, in very, uh, particulate form. Uh, you know, so those also eventually end up in the water. Uh, so, uh, that is one second, you know, uh, the transportation system planning and engineering roads and bridges, whether we like it or not, or however we try, it changes the natural hydrology right. Of the land use. And that’s a major thing, major, major thing. Uh, you know, um, people have tried, you know, how to mitigate this and everything. Um, you know, transportation was the sole reason. And when I’m saying like, uh, several decades of woven into the states were getting built, or even now which impacted wetlands by any means, you know? Uh, so, so it has a distinct impact. You know, we only think of transportation in terms of air quality, you know, carbon monoxide and particulates PM 2.5 and nitrous oxide, and all those things are coming out. Which, you know, probably automated vehicle or especially if they are electricity based can take care of that. But, you know, whatever will remain a question because these vehicles will have to drive on the road. You are still putting salt and you are still putting, you know, the antifreeze chemicals and things like that. So, yeah. So think like it’s the, yeah. And you’re definitely not the first person that I’ve mentioned.

Alexis

Indraneel

But of course, for example, Turkey to some people they’ve been like, oh, when did you know, uh, automated vehicles can move more efficiently and we don’t need to spread salt all over it. Just more in just one name. Like that will be a significant improvement, but, but we will never know, at least not for now. We will never know, um, you know, automated vehicle that like, you know, where do now campus, they have these automated robot. Which are like moving around the campus and you can order your food. So it will go to the Metro. I’ll bring you the sandwich, you have the app, and it will only open from that code. So you get your food in

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your hostel, in your accommodation, and they are doing a lot of research on how it is navigating. And so no, none of the accident, it looks for the road, vehicle, pedestrian. Uh, and eventually it is improving itself. You know, all the machine learning is working inside. So the more it is using it, the more it is becoming efficient. Uh, but those are, you know, the automated boards. So, you know, one part can carry, you know, for the students, um, order four or five students order, you know, that is saving four or five trips. Right. This is how I look at. So, you know, the automated delivery system of, you know, food and services. Um, I think that, uh, in TRB they were saying that Kroger in Minnesota, the pale is, uh, they were already working with automated food delivery, curbside, automated food delivery. You may want to Google it and see because they have been exported experimenting with it. So it is going to your neighbors. You know, that has the potential, because these are battery operated, you know, and they have a lower range, you know, 20, 25 mile, and then you need to charge, uh, but you know, one automated cord can take, you know, uh, food, food order for four or five, six households. Um, that’s straight away taking away four or five, six trips. So, you know, um, now do we need less road? At the end, who knows maybe, you know, uh, if it becomes that much mess, you know, that much efficient and it’s spread out, um, because you know, um, transportation and road is a large component of the urban land. Um, you know, and Los Angeles, you know, it depends where you are. If you are in Asia, working as a planet. Los Angeles is the worst example of congestion and urban planning because Hey, what we are talking 50 360% land use on. Um, yeah, it’s and it’s still, it is congested famous for its congestion and medium density. Um, and, and that’s a lot of a goal to maintain, right? That’s a means we forget about operation and maintenance part infrastructure is expensive by no means, but it’s straight then 10 to 15%, at least 10%. You know what an annual you need to spend this to maintain it. Right. And so, yeah, Ms. Miss, it’s too early to tell, but there can be some cost efficiency for the local government.

Alexis

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Um, yeah. And, you know, as I said, I think I did, the cut was the calculations on Chicago, I think is 32% of the land use is used for streets here in Chicago. Uh, which is also a lot, which is a lot. And, you know, any grid system of city, Ms. Ms. Chicago is a bit exception because you know, it has evolved. Um, it is a really old it’s, it’s a unique example, uh, experiment on urban planning and urban design, you know, any. Is about one third land use. You will have to give it on roads and then you add surface parking and things like that. Right. So, you know, if these automated vehicles can be stacked, you know, in terms of parking and all those. So we are saving a lot of prime land inside the city for some other. Right. So some of these surface parking lot, I’m

Indraneel

sure Chicago will have plenty is a huge component will be surface parking lots. Right. Um, and you know, there will be some opportunity to make a better use of it. Right. And, and we’ll get into that. Um, I, you know, one of the things that I wanted to ask you it’s, uh, How do you think these resources from this new infrastructure bill are going to be spent? You know, they think they’re going to be spend in innovation or mortars like maintenance and, you know, both parts are important. Once my advisor had said that, you know, Indonesia, we overbuilt, um, And now that we have built it, uh, we will have to maintain it otherwise, you know, if you lack on maintenance at a certain point, there is point of no return. So, so much of investment goes to west and obviously, you know, um, a bad connection, bad road, you know, you know, take example of bridge. Um, there are two terms we use, you know, functionally obsolete. And structurally efficient, both are not good. So you go to any state, quarter of a bridges are in that situation. You don’t know that these are all public information, but you don’t know, driving along the divey, the bridge that you are driving, where it is. Uh, and it is all because of lack of funds, you know? So, uh, Yeah. Remind me your question again, uh, is about the maintenance part. Yeah, it was about the infrastructure bill. Yeah. You know, um, I am hearing a lot about transit, correct. Um, and, uh, you know, but the thing is, uh, the transit will need certain level of density to be successful. Right. You know, you need that level of ridership to make a transit, you know, stand on its own. Uh, you know, currently, uh, in lot of places in the us, the transit systems are subsidized. And when you compare it with Asia or even south America, you look at their transit is all because of density and demand. But you know, if there is an opportunity, most of these, you know, automated personal travel and, you know, automated Fred and things like that in the cities can be consolidated. You know, a bit higher densities can be increased then, you know, in these funds, when they say about transit, they say about transit-oriented development. I’m hearing that also a lot that the funds will be used for transit oriented development and for electrical vehicle infrastructure. That is also, I am hearing, you know, uh, increasing the density and all those things will help transit become successful on its own. You need that writers. So there are some spillovers which are positive, uh, by no means, right.

Alexis

Indraneel

Um, you know, this bill, I think they have emphasized electrical vehicle infrastructure in DOD has a major. About it. And actually Purdue has got a major ground. A lot of faculty members are working on that and that is to design a road and pavement, which can charge your vehicle as you go. So magnetized road, right. Um, it’s all with UTA and all those, it’s a big project and, you know, they will start like, you know, it will take few years. But the idea is that you don’t need 10 charging station, right? Your vehicle are just doing every five miles. You have that charging something and then you go over it and that’s it.

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That that will be amazing. You know, like talking about it, there’s this scenario, which what’s going to happen with all these gas stations. For example, Chico has like four countries and 30, I think it is. And, you know, as you said, like, there is a big opportunity to start densifying the city. Singles empty spaces or you’re not creating water retention systems. Correct. And you know, a great opportunity for urban designers and, you know, to think about adaptive reuse, you know, this will be a great opportunity to intervene and, you know, and make something good out of it. You know, these surface parking lot are a huge opportunity for urban reinvestment, right. Um, you know, they are prime land. And, you know, they are under utility. And, you know, in general, you know, in the us, you know, downtown area in cities, the infrastructure efficiency, they are not efficient, you know, it based on the carrying capacity. So, you know, the downtown infrastructure are designed based on the, you know, the maximum daily load that can happen during the daytime. You know, when you have so many employees and everything at night time, it becomes. Right. That’s the way, you know, they say, you know, attract some residents and everything. Otherwise, you know, that infrastructure is not getting used up of the type. Right. So on those, there are some positive spillovers. We will have to see how it evolves. Right. And, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, cool. And now, now, you know, now for the question that I get, what’s your take on driverless car I’m driving vehicles. Yeah. You know, A couple of things. If you look at a person, a household, um, who have disability, uh, who are, you know, or, uh, have challenges, uh, you know, cognitive problems in driving their own vehicle for them, a safe, automated vehicle is a boom. Uh, you know, um, because that happens and in general, our population is aging. Um, and so, so, so, so that is one. Um, and then, then second, if you have automated vehicles where you can combine trips, so these automated vehicles are coming and you know, you and your neighbor are coming to the university. So you joined your trips instead of having two separate trips.

Alexis

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Now you have just one trip and, you know, and. I’m assuming that, you know, the, it will be designed that, that the vehicle will go and drop this person to this department, the other person to that department. So, you know, the curb to, uh, and, and these vehicles, I’m assuming they are compact. They are efficient, you know, running on, you know, electricity or batteries and things like that. You may see, you know, you are taking you, you are building efficiency quite a bit along. Right. Uh, it will take a lot of time, you know, to inform. And urban land use to get adjusted. You know, you just mentioned one, you know, that the gas stations will, they all become, you know, electricity charging stations or what, uh, you know, there is an environmental component.

Indraneel

Also all these gas stations have huge, you know, gas tanks underground. That is, uh, yeah. So, uh, there are a lot of things. Um, but, but, you know, I have, you know, Have you looked into Masdar city in a wound heavy. I, I been looking a little bit on that. We were also looking at woven Siri, which is still, you know, they’re still working on it, but yeah, master, I, I, I don’t think it’s a big success, right. Mazda, you know? Well, it depends like, you know, how do you look at success? You know, it’s a city built in desert. It’s a complete urban design. Um, not Norman foster and all his people did it. Right. And you know, Norman foster. So it’s such a well-known, but, uh, I know that, um, about 10 years ago, I had to give a webinar. And, uh, I was looking into these automated vehicles Mesta had already implemented. So you may want to talk with them, explore them because when I talk with them, they were, they had already sent me the models of their images, of their art and information, which they were experimenting with them then, uh, so you know, um, it can be a decent case system. You know, not only for success, but also, you know, the point where you know it, what are the aspects of failure is how do you see that it’s a smaller scale, but you know, the things that we are talking at here, you know, so maybe automated vehicle becomes a dream because, you know, urban lands, land, user, urban areas, Uh, so, so when this automated food delivery was happening, I think in Minnesota, it was one community and the pale is, and Kroger is experimenting because, you know, it’s a, win-win, it’s a win-win because they think that if you do not have to come to the store, then you can just order online, which is very convenient. And, you know, also during the time of COVID and pandemic, that was not there, India. I mean, they, they, uh, there are certain, uh, uh, supermarkets who are investing in automated delivery technology. Right. Um, and Kroger is one of them and to the level that they are already experimenting, sending it to the neighborhoods they are studying because they want to add because that’s a pretty good competitive advantage. Right. Walmart is looking into it. So. Yeah, I see many positive aspects, but you know, it will, um, you know, when, when model T had come, when Ford had introduced model T, which was the first car, you know, it changed the urban landscape, whatever, right. You know, the sprawl, the suburbs and all the expansion, uh, Maybe, you know, the automated vehicle and this, you know, um, electricity, you know, Ms.

Alexis

Indraneel

Emison less vehicles and automated fleet and all those. May change it again and maybe for good, but I don’t know you’re going ahead of my questions, which is it’s interesting. You’re making a visit to me because yeah. As I said, I was, I was going to ask you questions like, you know, the woman’s pro, um, but you, you, you had mentioned, you had mentioned shared economy as well, right? Uh, which can consider a shared economy. You have mentioning a bullet, some poli-

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cies, a change like land uses, uh, also some social aspects, uh, on the change of how we use a, you know, driverless vehicles for deliveries. Uh, which one is the one that excites you the most? Uh, you know, let me give you one example in TRB. Um, and that was before the pandemic. Uh, we used to have, you know, war games, war games is like you get together a bunch of professionals in a room, six hours, you know, it’s like a military, very intense. You are given one problem divided into team, and then you come back and, um, present it to a panel of expert. That ear, the most important point was, um, they said that, you know, our, our funding system, this entire highway system and everything, uh, it’s actually based on gas sta. A major park. Um, and that’s what, you know, so the more, well we use the gas tax, you know, it was up to federal level. You know, the state gets some component. So based on how much tax you send to federal either you are a donor state, so you are sending more than you need or receive, or you are a Doni and all, all those things right now. Imagine. They said, imagine that these policies will not hold because, you know, electric infrastructure, electric vehicles are coming, automated vehicles are coming and everything, and we do not need such kind of funding resources and everything. Imagine the transportation system, what will happen. Yeah. So our group and we became a popular people’s choice group. We had. So imagine these companies, which are shared mobility companies. So as soon as you do not need a vehicle, that means you do not need to spend on gas. You do not need to spend on insurance, but as a household, You are subscribing to the mobility services, right? And this chair mobility, you know, based on your annual requirements, monthly requirement, you are purchasing these packages, you know, diamond, gold, whatever, you know, so many trips, so many this, that everything. And, and, you know, these are private companies. So the money you use, you, you, you will use to spend on your insurance. Is now you are just spending it monthly, uh, to be part of this mobility service and, you know, everything is app based and, you know, you need to, you need to have such certain demand for, you know, daily travel and things like that. These vehicles, automated vehicles are coming, picking you up and all those combining the rights, but those are all the jobs or job of the mobility service company.

Alexis

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Right. And you know, and so you purchase one service, but it is giving you access to when you need the car. When you need the bus, when you need the. And everything. So it’s all seamless now. Um, you know, Germany and some European countries are already experimenting with some of these phones. Yeah, we were thinking more in the completely capital economy. Right? So you have private corporations and they are competing. So that’s how they are becoming efficient. So there is no monopoly, right? So, so imagine a world like that,

Indraneel

because the reason is, you know, we have such fantastic infrastructure, but you know, the funding and we, we see that there are a lot of challenges with Vaseline and everything. But, Hey, that’s the back, back home funding. Right. And you know, so, so lot of changes, lot of changes in transportation, finance, a lot of changes in the institutional framework. Do you need federal highway administration? You know, and so, so for highway and roads, uh, how will you fund that? So it is, you know, pay as you use. So currently. You know, whether you drive on a highway or not the gas that you purchased, that 10 cents have already gone there. Uh, so, but now here it is, you know, the people who are using more because you know, that that needs, that leads to deterioration. So you pay as you use. And, you know, there are some concepts and models. We had really fantastic discussion, you know, imagining that setup, but you know that the transportation research board and, you know, professors in your institution will be a hundred percent aware of, you know, this. Um, is already thinking, or at least they are simulating and playing games around this aspect. Right. Um, great. Um, and you know, and I’m taking too much of your time also. I wanted the, yeah. Um, you know, the last question will be from, from me is like, what, what would be your ideal driver? CDA scenario, uh, you know, you talk a little bit, uh, is, but I also wonder, you know, you’ve got some like physical aspects of the design aspects. Uh, so many people can mention, you know, more green spaces where all these parking lots are, or, you know, uh, from your standpoint, like, yeah, probably transportation transit, but what would you imagine would be an ideal, you know, high density high-rises. A mix of, with a mixed, with medium density. Um, probably we should get away from single family housing because you know, uh, it is unaffordable at the end. It adds a lot to the equity. Um, and, uh, and you know, Yeah. And, and, and a very proper adaptive reuse of the urban land that will be released. Uh, definitely increasing the green component of the city will have a lot of health advantage, environmental advantage. Um, you know, and I also. You know, I also appreciate all these electrical vehicle infrastructure.

Alexis

Indraneel

The only thing is we will have to think of the entire life cycle, you know, the batteries and how they end up, because there is a, that is a huge, uh, so, so it has to be, you know, it has to be part in that way. Uh, so, you know, I love Chicago and the reason is because of its density and activities and, you know, it’s, it’s a very vibrant. Lively city. Right. Um, and I think I had, you may be knowing maybe Gertrude Stein or somewhere, you know, it was very interesting when I came to us, it was an urban design code. So when you go there, there is no, there, there, right. So everywhere there is mangled and everywhere, uh, there is, you know, um, Based on that, you know, a cartographer had made a map where the Buffalo’s room. So where, where is the location in the U S which is farthest from a man. And apparent-

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Alexis

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ly it was in the middle of the Nevada desert. Uh, he did a lot of statistical analysis to find out that well, I mean, to say, you know, this may be an opportunity for each city to evolve and develop its own. You know, Chicago has its own character, but there are a lot of, you know, it has a lot of historical, lot of layers over it, but, you know, maybe, uh, this may even opportunity to do that. Uh, you know, highways disrupted a lot of, you know, there were a lot of racial and ethnic disruption in highways, went through downtown, disrupted the neighborhood and things like that, you know? And maybe, you know, we can reclaim it back, give it back to them. Um, because you know, when you combine the trips and everything, I am sure, you know, an automated system electric system will have travel efficient. Um, by all means, then only it is, it makes sense. So we may not need means, uh, so many roads and things like that. So it’s like, you know, reclaiming the city back. And that’s why I’m saying it’s, it’s again, part of the surface transportation system, but maybe what model T did to expand outside. This may bring it right. Um, yeah. As, as you know, as you said, there’s a lot of, uh, social and environmental potential in it. And I think that’s, that’s where we’re trying to achieve in, in my research. Um, and with this being said, you know, once again, Intrinio, uh, this coming on the last one hour, like, yeah. I, I, you know, I, it has been really interesting talking to you from that standpoint.

Indraneel

What might you do? Uh, and of course my interest is to keep, keep in touch with you keeping base and you know, also to keep you updated on how my research is going. Uh, yeah. And I’m pretty sure, you know, I, I was, I was Googling yesterday a little bit about you and, you know, you have a lot of participation in these essays and, and I saw some that were really interesting and I will like to, you know, ask a little bit of your suggestions on, you know, how to assess these benefits and all that kind of stuff. Okay. Um, yeah. And with this being said, you know, once again, it thank you so much. Um, well, thank you. It was very interesting and you have chosen a very interesting and pertinent. Right. Yeah. And I’m pretty sure we can just keep talking for hours and hours. We will never reach. Yeah. Um, but yeah, with this been said, uh, also wrong Henderson, who is the, my, my, my director, eh, since, since we got. Yeah. And of course it will be over our interest to have United from, you know, eh, whenever you have the chance to come to Chicago or you’re around town, just let us know and we’ll be happy to have you there. Okay. Uh, in Rainelle. Thank you so much. Have a great day. They saved the world. Thank you. Yeah, you too. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.

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Appendix: Kara Salazar

Kara Salazar

2022-02-17

Assistant Program Leader and Extension Specialist for Sustainable Communities, affiliated with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, Purdue University Extension, and the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Alexis

Alexis: Um, so let’s begin, you know, I have a little bit of set of questions and, um, I, first of all, can you talk a little bit about yourself and your background and your work?

Kara

Kara: Sure. So, uh, my name is Kara Salazar. I am an assistant program leader and extension specialist for sustainable communities. And I have a joint appointment between Purdue extension and Illinois, Indiana seagrant and I’m housed in the, uh, Perdue university department of forestry, natural resources. I have backgrounds in, um, environmental science and public policy. Um, bachelor’s master’s degrees and several, um, professional certifications. I’m a certified planner. I focus on environmental planning and community engaged. And I am currently a part-time PhD candidate. I should be finishing this year in natural resources, social science. So I’m focusing [00:01:00] on environmental planning and how local government, um, voluntarily is incorporating, um, environmental planning or not and collaboration. Uh, so I work for my position. I work primarily throughout the state of Indiana with small to mid-sized communities on planning issues, um, in particular integrating environmental planning into local plans, such as comprehensive plan updates and parks and recreation planning, and, um, other types of planning needs and issues. Um, I also work in other words, States communities based on projects and collaborations. And so we do the same kind of thing. We’re getting ready to do a big project in Ottawa county, um, off of eerie, like area in Ohio, where they’re working on their comprehensive plan, update, and want to work with, um, a team that I I’ve worked with for a long time, uh, where we integrate, um, different types of. Modeling and research into the decision making [00:02:00] process for planning. And so that’s our tipping point planner project. Um, so I have a variety of projects like that, that I do. I also focus on green infrastructure. Um, both in my planning work as well as education. So I, um, I have, I co-chair the, our rain scaping education program where

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Alexis

we’re training, um, people in the benefits and how to install, manage, and all of the components of bioretention rain, garden projects. So those are, those are my primary duties. Um, as I mentioned, I, I I’m teaching a little bit right now, just a. Five weeks, one credit course on landscape level planning. Um, so it really I’m focused on planning and how that local government planning and how to integrate natural resources management, environmental issues into that. Alexis: Um, so, so part of, you know, your research or your work is also about, you know, this sustainable communities. Would you mind [00:03:00] describing what co coat do you define a sustainable community?

Kara

Kara: So the approaches that I’ve taken to my, my work with sustainable communities and the sustainable community, um, umbrella of, of extension program that I do is focused very much on community development and planning. So working with local government stakeholders, Um, helping with that decision-making process and those, um, internal, um, collaborations in reaching some level of agreement or integration for, um, their local needs with environmental issues. And so we, um, the teams that I work with. We work very much. Um, we have some set processes in place, but then we are meeting the communities where they are, uh, through needs assessments, scoping, understanding, um, the, the local context and then having of course data compilation, um, and analysis. But, um, so the, the work is really focused on. Conserving the resources that communities have and improving them for the future too. So we look at what they have, what they can build on and then strategies that we can support that are based on, uh, their local assets. So we’re not trying to go in and tell the community, oh, you should look like, um, Seattle when they don’t have the elements needed to be successful in some of those projects. So, um, So really sustainable communities look like what a community can build on what they’re, what they value and then what they can see to implement in the future based on some short-term wins, as well as long-term together Alexis: and you know, how are we doing it on it currently? Like, you know, what are like the most, uh, what are the better mental risks that we’re facing now in our communities and especially in the area that we’re located? Kara: Yeah. So the issues that, that I’ve been working on communities with in Midwestern states and great lakes, Um, include nutrients and nutrient runoff. So related to

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Alexis

water, quality impairments, loss of prime farm land is another big one. And then that ex-urban peri urban area of tension, where you’re wanting to conserve natural areas. Kara: You have people living into them, you have farm land there. So managing that, um, that, that type of development and the conflicts. That are going on there. So the lot losing that prime farmland and some of those conservation areas that are of great importance to focus on right now to, uh, renewable energy. And climate are huge, especially if they’re going to continue to be, uh, we have a lot of communities that are getting inundated right now with solar farms and or the interest of solar farms. And those are, um, there’s a lot of misinformation. That we’re trying to balance with, um, with communities on that too. And so people are concerned about their local energy and their local energy needs. They’re also concerned about the aesthetics of their, um, of their community and what that means for, for farmland. So balancing it’s a lot of balancing and education. And again, trying to, to understand where communities are and to help them select the best wave pathway forward based on science. Based on research, based on data and helping them then through a process to figure out how they’re meeting those, um, these challenges in, in their ways to not to have someone come down and tell them how they should be doing it necessarily.[00:07:00] Alexis: Right. And, and cover cold water. Yeah. You know, especially urban waters, which is kind of like the focus of my proposal. How’re we doing there?

Kara

Kara: So we have challenges based on both urban, rural, suburban, they have some very similar challenges. So in some ways we’re doing well with the standpoint of things like green infrastructure becoming more common. So that community it’s not so unusual for communities to require, um, standards for new developers. To have by a retention green infrastructure. Um, it’s still something that we have to educate around, but that’s something that I’m seeing a lot more forethought and planning as we’re working in, in different kinds of community projects. I’d like to see more of it. Um, and some of it is still. Not as good as it should be, but, but [00:08:00] communities are still, still looking at that. Um, we have some new and I haven’t gotten into it too much yet, but Indiana just has, um, passed some new Ms. for requirements. So they have, um, some communities, some requirements now for communities that were smaller or exempt from, from

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some of the, um, standards that now are going to have to comply with water quality. Kara: Uh, aspects under that umbrella. So that’s, that’s interesting. That’s good. From the standpoint of, hopefully there’s going to be some more, um, work that communities are going to do to meet those Ms. Ware requirements. But it’s also a challenge because a lot of communities in that small to mid-size range have very limited staff and very limited, um, funds. So it’ll be interesting to see how that’s balanced. That’s one of the challenges that I see when doing community work, it all scales of, um, of [00:09:00] government levels that balancing the time, money, and desire of what they have to do versus what they could do.

Kara

Alexis: Right. Yeah. And, and, you know, you mentioned that, yeah, we are seeing this type of infrastructure and somehow they are becoming mandatory. Um, I guess there is also like the educational component that is right. Like, uh, tug with educate people to actually, you know, like let them know that this type of infrastructure is actually is actually good. Uh, yes. So that’s better on your work as well, right? Like, uh, and, and of course, you know, my focus, especially on my, my area, it’s here in Chicago, like how, how can we start? Yeah. Educate people about all these infrastructure, especially, especially, you know, in that consolidated city like this. Kara: Right. Excuse me. So those are things that. [00:10:00] The programs that I work on on brain scaping education, do we have a 15 hour course to train people on how to install rain gardens? And we do tours. We do, um, uh, demonstration rain gardens, so they can actually work on the project and understand how, how it’s implemented. Um, we’ve done different kinds of education training programs for local government staff. And so those are smaller or shorter in time. The full commitment, those are important. Um, it’s also important when you’re going through a planning process to educate the people who are the planners and others who are working on, um, the plan and getting diverse stakeholders to come together to help with that collaborative planning. Because if you have several different layers of expertise together, I found that that works a lot more, right. Although we’re seeing more green infrastructure installed and different people are talking about it. Um, it’s not always a go-to and planning. And so there’s going to be, you know, you, you go with what you’re required to do.

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You’re you go with what your budget is and then the rest is kind of, yeah, we’ll do it if we can. So understanding the importance as you’re going through and seeing how you can integrate different types of water, quality improvements throughout your plan, it needs to be. It really does need to be intentional and it needs to be a priority for communities going through planning to make sure that it is implemented it’s in the plan and then it’s implemented. And so that’s where we’ve seen some places fall off where it’s not as intentionally, um, implement it, or, uh, it’s not intentionally included in an infant. Alexis: Right. Um, and you know, I have a couple questions here, uh, because one of them, of course is, you know, what did we use tax incentives to start implementing more of this type of infrastructure? And the other one is like, do you think there is like, um, there is a [00:12:00] chance for this new infrastructure. Uh, that, you know, can we use those resources to actually start implementing this type of infrastructure? Or do you think it’s going to be used to jazz, you know, fix potholes and the infrastructure? What’s your take on it? Yeah. Kara: So that’ll be really interesting. I, I think we’re still waiting to see, right. Because some of the, um, like with the, the ARPA funding and some of the other. Government funding programs that have come through where communities have been the recipients of it, it’s really been up to the communities and how they use that money. And so I’m not, I don’t think we have too much information yet about how the infrastruction infrastructure Phil’s going to be implemented, but if that’s the case with communities being able to select what they do, then it’s definitely going to be across the board. Now. Uh, a lot of, especially Midwestern communities. Don’t always like to be told what to do, right. And if they’re going to have more regulations, we’re going to have more pushback. It’s [00:13:00] going to be, you know, it’ll be interesting and that might be rescinded then in a future administration, but having some rules and regulations around what communities would need to do for this infrastructure spending bill, I think would be wonderful if we had, Hey, you need to have so much, um, you need to upgrade. Wastewater treatment plants. And you need to, um, think about permeable pavement and green infrastructure aspects in those ways and looking at admissions and all of that would be, um, we lovely. I know there’s, there’s a lot of lobbying and a lot of, of work to do behind the scenes there. So I haven’t seen that. That’s going to be a big part yet, but. You know, I will definitely help communities as much as we can, as we, as they receive those funding so that they can broaden the

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perspectives too, of what could be implemented in, in those, um, those. Alexis: Um, yeah. And it seems like [00:14:00] there is, I don’t know, from, you know, from the interviews that I’ve been conducting, it seems like there’s actually more opportunity to local communities that are actually like wide, you know, to start implementing all these things, which I, you know, I hope to see something like that. Yeah, until we don’t know how those funds are going to be used. We will never be able to tell. Um, but yeah, let me get a little bit into, um, you know, a little bit into the topic of our research. So, um, yeah. How do you think they, they, automobile infrastructure is affecting water. Kara: So when we, we do, we, we have a lot of research around in purview, uh, around, um, impervious surfaces and know that there are direct, um, and, uh, direct impacts on water quality. You know, when we have more in impervious surfaces, we have a lot more runoff. We have all kinds of pollutants and of course car emissions are, um, [00:15:00] are an issue. And so where that goes and how. Going to be upgraded. Um, it would be interesting to see how emperor, uh, how permeable surfaces can be better incorporated. I know the technology is improving and having some being careful and sensitive around, um, groundwater, uh, as well and how we can, um, mitigate some of the issues. Having too much permeable services around wild water and what that looks like for, um, for contamination to, um, I, I haven’t seen that. There’s going to be, I haven’t seen lately that major roadways are integrating, um, those types of technologies, but that communities are doing it, that, um, there are [00:16:00] incentives for new developers. To have certain, uh, you know, certain percentage of standards that they’re meeting, um, for water quality improvements too. So it would be great to have even more of those as we’re, we’re thinking about this, this bigger scale planning as we’re coming through for, for transportation to and road. Alexis: Right. Um, yeah. And, and what to going to the next question, what is your take on driverless cars? So that’s really interesting. Um, I, I haven’t experienced them directly yet. You know, I’ve been reading about them and, uh, I’ve, I’ve seen the pros and the cons. Right? You have people who are being very responsible, but at the end of the day, it’s a. It’s a machine that is doing the work for people. And so we lose that, that control in a, in a sense too. Um, I worry about, um, some of the technology and the components that go into that kind of technology, of course, from the standpoint of, um, Precious metals

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and, and, and waste in the whole circular economy side on, on how they’re manufactured and how they’re, um, discarded or repurposed. Kara: Uh, and then there’s the, the safety side, as far as how people are operating them, what that’s going to look like. Are we going to have better regulations around that, where you can use them, how you can use them, uh, who is using them? Um, and what that would look like as far as. Where the, you know, are we going to have to have new infrastructure then to accommodate it and more roadways and more, more impervious surfaces? And so that’s all of that is, is a major, a major impact on water quality, for [00:18:00] sure. So, um, we definitely need some rules and regulations around it, so it’s not just this crazy new emerging technology without a lot of. Structure, which I’m not sure that it, it seems to be kind of going in that direction. People are trying things, putting it out there and then, oh, it’s the new greatest thing and let’s go for it. Alexis: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, as you mentioned, there’s many possible scenarios, which one of them is like, But actually increasing urban sprawls which may be a against what we’re trying to do here in my, especially in my research, um, one of them, you know, people, the people that we have interviewed, they’re like 50, 50. Some of them are like, uh, a little bit pessimistic about this. Some of them come in really, really nice, you know, talking about very basically about it. Like for example, one of the benefits will be that we can actually increase density in the series [00:19:00] because. Communities or neighborhoods I’ve learned to be more reachable rather than just public transportation. Kara: Yeah. It’s, there’s a big debate too right now. And kind of the planning spheres about density, you know, is density great or not based on, you know, the pandemic and how quickly, you know, we’ve had, we’ve seen that spread and, and major urban centers. And then, uh, yeah, on the flip side, you know, we have these ex-urban areas that. Wanting people wanting to have preservation. And then we have these gateway communities where people are moving because of COVID because they can, and they can work and they’re getting a lot of pressure and they have a lot more people. So yeah. What all of those things we need to carefully I’m uh, of course I’m a planner, but I’m a big proponent of planning for that and we do have capacity limits. So I think that’s, yeah, that’s a major. Uh, major consideration, but at the same time, you know, you look at access and you look at people who are, who need healthcare, who

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have disabilities, who can’t drive for various reasons. Could this be a way for people to get to appointments, to get, get out and do things that they need? Kara: So that’s also, I think in a sense, good. Um, but with careful management and planning, Right, right. The pathway forward. Alexis: Yeah. And it also, you know, it also comes with, it has to happen also like a change, especially like the way we see our automobiles, you know, we start seeing them not as a, not as a commodity, more like a, you know, like, uh, a, some people have in say a, like a subscription type of business. Uh, or like share ride, eh, that’s when we’re going to see the most benefits out of it. So, well, you know, hopefully that, that will be the case. There are some companies like soons that are working on that type of things now. Um, but yeah, you know, you have these, these remote planning, eh, background. And a lot of these components is also going to not thinking about this infrastructure. One of them possibly it’s parking lots, right? Parking, uh, you know, let’s say in this case we have this scenario in which the driverless cars. Drop you off and go somewhere. You know, that’s a cup to park, uh, because most of the time the car is just parked. I think he’s 98% of the time the car is just parked. So what if you know, what, if we can repurpose all those, all those spaces? Uh, for example, I think Chicago has something like 850 miles off the street park. Which is yeah, it’s too much. And yeah. And you know, [00:22:00] like what, what would you do in, you know, in the case that we can actually play that space? Kara: Oh gosh. I think we definitely need to make it green. We need to get, we need to have nature put back in place, you know, and having, um, trees in particular. So getting. Looking at urban forest renewal and expansion and other types of parks and ways to use it. I, um, I think that would be a great opportunity for improving green spaces where there’s probably areas that has a lot, have a lack of access to, you know, and heavily dense urban areas. I think that would be a really great opportunity. Alexis: And, you know, there are also other types of infrastructure, like gas stations. Uh, we see that that’s a big opportunity to actually start rethinking the way we have it, say this and say, eh, you [00:23:00] know how increasing the density in in this a, how to say, like in this urban islands uh, my help, the community to actually manage their water in better ways. Um, so, so yeah, I wanted, I wanted to, you know, have your take, uh, do you still have a little bit of time? I think we sent you just a, of nowhere. Yeah. I would like to, you know, to, to learn, you know, to hear from you what will be like the perfect

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driverless serious scenario that will be. Yeah. That’s one of the questions that I’ve been asking everybody and they always come with really good ideas. So I’m here to listen from you yet. Kara: Absolutely. So I would of course start with. Some really great engagement processes where you’re, you know, talking to the, um, the people [00:24:00] responsible for implementing this effort, but also the people who are her living and working and recreating, visiting the area to understand what their needs are, how they’re using the spaces and how, what they would like to see for their vision. Um, I think that’s so important and it’s it’s, I can’t emphasize it enough. How poor a job groups do even at a large scale too. So I think that number one is huge that we need to get people engaged in their, in their communities and what it looks like. Um, but I would see what I would, what I think would be really, uh, encouraging is to have opportunity for people who have limited transportation access to have more transportation access. So. Better pick-up drop-off areas that are safe and warm and clean and they can get groceries. They can get medical care. I think that would be a game changer on the social side. I [00:25:00] think that if we can, yes, eliminate parking lots. We can eliminate the number of vehicles that are, um, on roadways that would have a benefit for, for water quality. And if we are, um, able then to increase green space and. Different opportunities for transforming that into infrastructure, into multi-use and having more people choosing how they’re going to move about places. And if the driverless cars is one part of that, that would be really amazing. So we could have bike, um, places for biking, for picking up, dropping off bikes, or getting buses, trains, et cetera. And having the cars as intern intermediate, I think would be. Really ideal and the way that we’re moving forward. I also think it’s really important to look at, um, how the vehicles are going to be fueled. So excuse me, looking at, um, [00:26:00] renewable energy and electric vehicles and what their life cycles are like. Um, as well as, as what incentives there are to make these vehicles more fuel efficient. And, or the best technology that’s there that they can improve, um, to have, have long distance. So I think some, you know, it’d be probably a combination, right? If you’re going short distances, you could, um, look at, uh, different types of, um, electric elbow they’ve improved and you have hybrids in lots of ways, but looking at combinations of the ways that, um, these vehicles are, are, um, used in. Created to, um, I do wonder about safety and how they’re operated and how that’s going to be managed, because if you have a bunch of driverless cars with pedestrians, bikes, [00:27:00] people in their vehicles, especially semis and, and other types of in busy areas, I, I do wonder how that’s going to all work. And so I think.

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We need a lot. We need more, uh, training and, and some tests pronounced for, for seeing envision envisioning what this, this could look like. So I could see there are a lot of benefits, but I also see that they could get really messy, really fast. I think of the, like in our campus, we had the bird scooters come in, for example. So the company was, you know, very grassroots. They came in and they dumped literally. Hundreds of scooters on campus. Didn’t talk to anybody didn’t plan, anything just did it. So people are picking up these bikes, they’re using them. They have that system where anybody can just pick them up and charge them. And, you know, it’s all very entrepreneurial, uh, but they’re leaving bikes like in people’s front yards and in their, you know, in different places. So I kind of, I [00:28:00] liken that to kind of this. Uh, these driverless vehicles in a sense, as far as the autonomous vehicles, how are, how are we going to manage it? Have we really thought through it yet? I don’t think so. And so I think we will definitely have some testing out to do and having some, some things that work in that fail, but we just need to be hopefully thoughtful about. Alexis: Right. Yeah. And, you know, it seems like, yeah, they’re still not figuring out like this is taking longer than, you know, they, their own deadlines. But, um, but we will see, but I, you know, I think your take your take on cows. How are you not really good driver less city will be, it’s like increased public transportation and access to. Green areas, the base series, which is it’s, it’s something that I really liked. Um, yeah. And then, you know, try to, yeah. Try to figure out ways to plan the series on the runaround, [00:29:00] the density, and, and, and you say like, you know, all of these benefits that will come out of this technologies. Um, yeah, we, with that, we say like, uh, You know, we’ve been trying to work on different ways to help us as defenders now. Um, and I wanted to ask you, and, you know, from your own expertise or your own field, eh, can you think about some, uh, or a way that we can actually start, you know, assessing what are the cost benefits of these types of technologies? Uh, for example, There’s one really cool study that we did that this actually eliminated the parking, uh, you know, occurred the current needs 300 square feet, more or less right. To, to manual maneuver park. And then. And we, in this scenario, we say like, you know, actually we can take driverless cars and naked work, everything, a cuddler 12 square feet, what can we do with the rest of the space? Alexis: Um, so yeah, I wanted to, to you not to see if you have any, any ideas on or something that you would like to see in this research.

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Kara: Yeah. Oh, wow. That’s so exciting. Um, it would be. Yeah, again, I would like to see more green space. So how can you integrate more green space into the spaces that are getting removed for, for parking and for the needs of cars? Um, huge. And that would be my ideal and all of these scenarios, more green space, more trees, appropriately placed and appropriately implemented. Um, I don’t think we, we have. With all of these different retail establishments changing too. Right now, it doesn’t seem like we need more space for a brick and mortar [00:31:00] stores. We need, we have warehouses, we have malls that are now declining. Um, we have space to do things, but I think if, if we have these large spaces yeah. Further away, you know, in that next ring of city or, you know, an outskirts of cities having vehicles then transporting things in. Um, I really would like to see how we can, we can improve our green space and reinvision it. Um, versus taking out the, um, the green areas, um, in further out in the cities to. Alexis: Sure. I’ll take a look in it. And yeah, with that being said, I run out of questions and it took a little bit longer than the time that, you know, we agreed. Um, but yeah. Um, you know, Kara, thank you so much [00:32:00] again for doing this and yeah. You know, there’s definitely going to, I’m going to have some more questions for you, and I hope to have this, this as an open channel in which out, you know, whenever, uh, Kara: yeah, absolutely. When does your, when are you concluding? When do you need to run? Alexis: Uh, I think is June 1st. Kara: Oh, okay, great. Yeah. Feel free to reach out if there’s anything that you need or want to chat about. I’m happy to do it. So are you graduating then soon after, or are you, um, are you in the finals? Alexis: No, I’m still working on my candidacy. So yeah, I, I, you know, I wish I could be like you like about to end, but you know, I still have a long way to go Kara: . It’s a journey. Alexis: It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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217 Appendix: David Lampert

David Lampert

2022-02-17

Assistant Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology.

Dr. Lampert: The wastewater kind of a little bit of all the different things I had done previously energy water nexus. Um, and then I just moved up here to IIT last year. And, uh, so I’ve been here for a little over a year and, um, you know, I’m in the civil engineering department and you know, my job is to teach classes related with water. So I have a water engineer in wastewater, hydrology, uh, stormwater. Um, in any of those different areas as bright, I kind of have some different research and teaching interests. So that’s about my background really, um, kind of sums it up. Alexis: Yeah. Very complete one. Um, cool. And, and, and, you know, basically, as you say, we’re talking a little bit about transportation, eh, can you, can you get us through like a, how is the current, eh, you know, automobile transportation, let’s put it that way. It’s affecting the waters[00:01:00] Dr. Lampert: yeah. So, uh, you know, one of the biggest effects of, and I would say of the current transportation system on water would be just from the increase in impervious surfaces. So whenever you have pavement, uh, you’re replacing natural landscapes that have an ability to absorb rainwater and replenish ground. Uh, and if you pay printed impervious surface, then you like pavement, then you get runoff from that. And that carries a lot of pollution into waterways and it leads to issues with flooding. So that to me is kind of the biggest issue. I think with the current transportation system is the no increase in impervious surfaces. Uh, if you wanna look at other things, you know, indirectly, all the energy that’s used for. Transportation today, you know, there you need gasoline and gasoline comes primarily from fossil fuels and those fossil fuels their production has a big impact on water. So you get, uh, sometimes you get spills and you get pollution out into waterways.

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Dr. Lampert: And then, um, you need water in the oil and gas production process to. Well out of the ground, you use water, a lot of that now for fracking, but also in other situations it’s used, um, then you have, uh, lots of wastewater that’s produced along with that, that, you know, is you can call that a kind of a water issue it’s called produced water. And I’ve done some research on that. Um, so those are, those are kind of my initial thoughts. You’ve also got like looking at alternative fuels. Those are also going to have an impact on water. Electric cars have water, uh, impacts because the electricity requires water and power plants and, uh, hydroelectric [00:03:00] dams. Those things all have a water effect indirectly. So, so there’s really kind of a lot of connection is there, I think between water and transportation system right now, but to me, the biggest thing is the impervious services, but there’s also just the energy aspect of it is a big one. Alexis: Great. Yeah. Um, can you talk us a little bit about the pollutants, but it’s coming from this, from this type of infrastructure, as you mentioned, there’s some, um, yeah. [00:03:29] Dr. Lampert: Yeah. Um, I guess, you know, the oil and grease in the asphalt can lead to some, some levels of pollutant and I really don’t know exactly all the different pollutants. I would think that the. PH is in there. Uh, that could be an issue and just generally grease and oil and grease and water is a problem. Uh, other things on the road, salt coming off of [00:04:00] of roads is an issue that increases the solidity of waterways. Dr. Lampert: Um, uh, those are kind of the, the, the ones that come to mind, um, initially. Alexis: And, and, and, you know, um, so, and, and color we dealing with with those, with this type of a, you know, pollution right now, like what is the typical way that cities deal with this Dr. Lampert: dealing with pollution from roadways? Alexis: Um, pretty much with stormwater run the water. Yeah. Dr. Lampert: Well, I mean, I think most storms, storm water. No, they just feed into, into the waterways and they’re not really designed necessarily for treatment. There, there might be some storm water treatment systems if you have, uh, some green infrastructure.

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Dr. Lampert: And yeah, I haven’t done a whole lot of work in that area, but, um, I know that they have different kinds of filters. Um, [00:05:00] bioretention cells. Uh, some of these other things, but I think really that those are capturing very little of the storm water that comes off of roadways. So I think in most cases there’s not a whole lot of treatment that happens to my knowledge. Alexis: Right. And, and do you have an idea why, why is this way? Why we don’t see more of that type of green infrastructure? Dr. Lampert: Well, I think the problem with, with stormwater is that you have huge volumes and so. Just, it’s hard to wrap your mind around how much water really is. Like when you get a big rainfall of in Chicago, the amount of water, it’s more water than all the people using the same, probably for, you know, few weeks in, in an hour or two you can get. And so, uh, it’s just really difficult to try to treat that much water when it, when it happens. Um, so I would say that the costs of trying to build a treatment system for that amount of. Are prohibitive, um, from, you know, from trying to [00:06:00] put in, uh, any kind of system. But, um, that, that to me is kind of the biggest issue I think, is just the cost and, and the lack of rules. You know, if you want to, the reason we have regulations on other kinds of pollution sources is, is from the government environmental regulations and non-point sources are much less regular. Yeah. So I called one point source, like a urban runoff or agricultural runoff. Uh, there’s just a lot less rules in place on that. So, you know, if there’s no rules people aren’t going to pay extra to deal with the pollution. Alexis: Right, right, right. Yeah. Um, we’ve had the chance to talk to some people and they always mentioned that it should be also private effort and not as a public effort. And that also comes with legislation. Incentives or, yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, so you know, getting into a little bit into topic, um, what’s your take on driverless cars?[00:07:00] Dr. Lampert: Well, um, you know, lots of people die from traffic accidents and, you know, people, there’s lots of other impacts on people from driving everywhere. Uh, it’s very stressful to sit behind a car in an urban setting. And I think that wears on people. And so driverless cars seems to me, would offer a way to, you know, help protect and potentially reduce the number of accidents and, uh,

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to reduce the stress on people at the same time, I kind of feel like it’s not really a complete solution. You know, also there’s climate change that is caused by cars. Dr. Lampert: Uh, so I think driverless cars. I think they would be helpful, although I don’t know that they would solve all those problems that we have with our kind of car infrastructure, um, you know, uh, with like climate change, you’re still going to have costs there. We could get rid of parking. That’s something I’m kind of interested in and if you have driverless cars, then you would presumably need less parking as bold as which would reduce imperfect. Uh, surfaces, which would have a water benefit. Now it would take a long time for the infrastructure to catch up to that. But that to me is kind of an interesting angle. And then I think ultimately from a safety point of view, getting people out of, out of control of the cars, if they were willing to give that up, could potentially help with safety. So I would say I’m kind of in favor of it, but personally I would be more inclined to encourage people to use more public transportation and, uh, alternative transport means like cycling and walking rather than, um, than cars. That’s kind of my take. So I think it’s better, but I think there’s still. Alexis: It’s not the complete solution. Dr. Lampert: It’s not the perfect solution. Alexis: Right, right. Uh, and, and, you know, we we’ve been talking to some people and some of them have mentioned like, oh, it’s gonna make it worse [00:09:00] because eh, it’s going to increase urban sprawls or yeah. It’s going to, you know, it’s going to make it so comfortable for people to just commute for longer distances, which, you know, represents more infrastructure, more, a water treatment and everything. Um, what’s your take on that? Do you think that’s, you know, It’s is that possible? Or do you think Dr. Lampert: I, I would disagree, but I could see that point. I might be wrong, but I feel like it, it should reduce the need for parking, which is I think a big problem. Um, you know, and this is not what water my expert in my area, but, uh, from what I can see, I think that the parking is a big issue. And so if you got rid of. Uh, and everybody was going everywhere and driverless cars. Then presumably we could build cities that are more dense and I could see that leaving

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more green spaces and also just reducing the distances that people [00:10:00] have to travel to do things, you know, at the same time it might be possible. Dr. Lampert: Yeah. That some people decide they want to live an hour away and they can take a driverless car and take a nap on the way to work. That’s possible. I could see how that would impact. Uh, commute, but I’m not, um, I think that, I don’t know how you would answer that question really without, unless you just did it. Alexis: So, yeah. Um, well, it’s, it’s interesting that you mentioned Birkin because we actually see an opportunity over there. Um, you know, just some quick numbers, uh, we figured out that there’s 841 miles of a permit parkinson’s in the city of Chicago. Which is, is it’s, it’s a big number. And, and of course we see this as an opportunity to maybe propose infrastructure for, for dealing with water. Um, you know, what type of infrastructure that we need or what type of infrastructure could we start implementing in areas like this? [00:11:00] Dr. Lampert: I mean, yeah, I would say. You know, you could have more buildings. First of all, there, that would be one possibility which increases density and presumably gets people closer to where they’re going, but then you could also convert some of those parking spaces into green green spaces. Now it costs money though. Still once there’s a parking lot there, it’s not going to disappear for a long time. So, uh, so just, I would think any kind of an urban green space would be beneficial from a. You know, point of view, but there could be some implementation of stormwater treatment systems potentially in some of those spaces. Um, you know, like, like those, you know, bioretention cells and other green stormwater infrastructure systems, those could be, could be there and that’s, that’s possible. Alexis: Yeah. And, and you know, how big, how big do you think the systems need to be to actually create an impact, a positive [00:12:00] impact in the city? Um, well, can it be like, just, you know, like, like, let’s say block scale, or does it have to be like actually city scale and connected systems? Dr. Lampert: I think if it’s strategically located that individual blocks could be potentially very useful. So. If you have a large piece of land, that’s in an area that’s kind of already a natural drainage zone, trying to convert that back into some sort of like a natural wetlands area or some other kind of treatment system. Dr. Lampert: I could see providing a lot of benefits for waterways, uh, even at relatively smaller scales. I think it just is

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going to vary from one place to another, how big it would need to be. Right. Alexis: And, and, you know, talking a little bit about this, let’s say, yeah, in the best case scenario, we do get rid of parking spaces and we do start treating water and creating more, uh, more green open spaces. Um, what will be like the social benefits of actually doing this, that, do you think there’s also like a reduction cost on, you know, a portable water or, uh, yeah. What, what, what would we, the social benefits. Dr. Lampert: Well, I mean, I think people like greening spaces that they would just feel better and venerable being closer to those areas. Um, uh, that’s one benefit. And I think you could have places where people could jog and walk and do outdoor activities. That’s another social benefit that you would get from those green spaces. Right. Yeah, proved water quality and waterways would be a benefit like in the Chicago river where there’s tons of that runoff goes into the river, that would presumably be a better quality water, which would provide benefits when people are interacting with that just from being near it or, you know, being actually out on the water, doing things. Dr. Lampert: Right. Uh, so there’s a lot of social benefits I, I can see from, from that sort of, uh, plant. Alexis: Yeah, but, but still like, you know, public transit will be the best. [ Dr. Lampert: Well, I’d like to see more, more public transit, but, um, yeah, but getting people out of cars and car dependent mentality, I think is, I think I could see a lot of benefits to. Alexis: So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, yeah, someone said this phrase that Americans love their cars. So, Dr. Lampert: yeah. Although I think that there is a little bit of a change in people’s thinking in recent years, but yeah, there’s a lot of cars, Alexis: right? Yeah. Um, you know, also, uh, you know, we have also these existing infrastructure, let’s say for example, gas stations, [00:15:00] the gas stations is on, there is a scenario in which probably.

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Alexis: You know, the revolution of autonomous vehicles will come also with electric vehicles. Um, and we also have these massive parking lots in, in, in schools, in malls. Uh, the question with this will be like a, do you think there’s a chance to actually create like a network of water treatment between these spaces? Dr. Lampert: Connecting together, like parking lots and using that space to build some kind of treatment system. Alexis: Right. Right. You seen using the street parking a parking lots. Dr. Lampert: There could be some of that again. I think it really comes down to every side being different. Um, you have to look at the natural drainage pathway. If the, if the water wants to drain this way and your parking spaces over here, it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna work [00:16:00] and we’re there. Yeah. So, yeah, but if it’s, if it’s in an area where you’re getting some kind of, uh, water passes already, then yeah. You might be able to implement some kind of passive treatment system that could be beneficial there. Alexis: I think. Great, great. Um, and you know, I’ve been giving a little bit of a point of view and everything. Um, but yeah, we also like to, to ask our interviewees , and on your interviews, you know, what will be the, the best possible driverless, city scenario for you? Like how would you imagine the city will be with this type of technology? Dr. Lampert: Yeah. If, you know, for myself. I don’t drive very much. I actually drove my car yesterday is the first time since we got a lot of the snow, uh, in middle of January. So I didn’t drive for three weeks. Uh it’s I don’t, I don’t like to drive, [00:17:00] uh, I, I would probably have done the same kind of thing, whether they were driverless cars or not for myself, but if I was going on a trip where I needed a car, It would be nice, first of all, not to have to deal with parking my car as I do now. And driverless cars would give me a way to do that. And again, if I was going on a trip where the public transit was just not very convenient, I could see that being useful. Like if I was going to visit a water treatment plant out in the north side of town and there’s just no way to get there. Um, you know, things like that. For example, I could see that being, being handy right. Alexis: Thank you so much for me, sir. Appreciate it. Okay, bye.

225 Appendix: David Lampert

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