#102. Rethinking Mobility From Car Culture to Community Care | Colin Fiske

Scott Hammond: Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, it's Scott Hammond and the 100% Humboldt Podcast, episode 103, with my new best friend, Colin Fiske.

Colin Fiske: Thanks for having me.

Scott Hammond: Hey, thanks for coming, man. Tell us, uh, who are you? What do you do?

Colin Fiske: So I am the executive director of CRTP, which is the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And, uh, we're a local nonprofit, been around since 2015, and we do public education advocacy around what I like to call safe, sustainable, and equitable transportation. So, uh, trying to make sure that it's easier, safer, more convenient, more affordable, uh, to get around by ways other than a, a private vehicle.

Scott Hammond: Nice. I- it s- seems like with the new trail, uh, we're, we're getting closer every day.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah, we've had a lot of progress lately and, uh, the Bay Trail is super

Colin Fiske: exciting.

Scott Hammond: It's so cool. I drive by every morning from McKinleyville to Eureka, and I look over there and go, "Man, I wish I was riding a bike right now. That'd be fun."

Colin Fiske: Yeah. I, uh… Well, I just rode it here, and, uh, it is super fun. I can g- I can attest.

Scott Hammond: Oh, the weather's… It's that pre-storm, warm-

Colin Fiske: Yep

Scott Hammond: … balmy.

Colin Fiske: Yep.

Scott Hammond: S- I, it's my favorite Humboldt weather.

Colin Fiske: I like it too. Although, I have to say, it was a headwind down here-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … and I'm looking forward to the tailwind back.

Scott Hammond: Oh, you'll get home, you'll get home really quick.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It'll be good. So, uh, y- we mentioned off-camera that you, um, um, that they're, they're building the Annie and Mary

Scott Hammond: Bike Trail.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: S- started construction. What?

Colin Fiske: Well, so it's divided into several sections.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, but the… So the first section technically was just a little half mile in Blue Lake, and that was built a couple years ago.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: But this next section, which starts at the skate park in Arcata

Colin Fiske: near-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … Cal Poly.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: And then heads up, eventually it'll get up to the, um, Pump Station Number One Park.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And so that part is under construction.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Colin Fiske: Um, and they've actually completed the segment from the skate park to the new dorms so that the students can get back and forth on the trail, and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … continuing to build it out. I think they're supposed to be done next summer maybe.

Scott Hammond: So the high-rise, uh, dorms go down to the skate park, which takes them anywhere but over the bridge back to Hu- Hu- Cal Poly.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. It'll be pretty much the most direct route to walk-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … or bike on that trail.

Scott Hammond: The running joke at 103 episodes is, uh, Cal Po- oh, no, Humboldt's,

Scott Hammond: uh-

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yeah, exactly

Scott Hammond: … Cal Poly.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's Cal Poly.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Gotta get it through the head.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So that's gonna be cool. And so then the dorms would take you around to Pu- the Pump Station, like, West

Scott Hammond: End Road.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. The other reason besides that connection with the university that I think it's really exciting is that it's gonna be the first kinda safe and comfortable way to bike or walk between Valley West and the rest of Arcata.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: Um, 'cause with the highways, it's been so cut off from the rest of the town.

Scott Hammond: You'd have to go around to the hospital out that way.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: James Way.

Colin Fiske: Or West End Road where there's, you know, high-speed traffic and not real comfortable to bike.

Scott Hammond: There's not a lot of bike or pedestrian lanes at all, right?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: So this will be that. There's… You still have to get over, uh, the overpass on Gentilly.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, um, as sort of in coordination, Caltrans is supposed to-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … be making a few upgrades to that, so there should be, like, some, like, bike-walk lanes over the overpass after this.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um…

Scott Hammond: So if you're missing all this, uh, it's in Arcata in, uh, Humboldt County, which is in California. So had to use my prop. There it was.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, so you're more than a bike guy. You're, like, a, a, a Transportation Advocate for s- a, a new, um, I guess th- th- next level stuff.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So talk about what, what that is. I mean, we're not gonna have cars forever.

Colin Fiske: You know, it's hard to say what'll happen. I, I, uh, I don't like to make predictions.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, uh, I think right now, over the past, well, I'd say over the past century or so, um, and there's a really fascinating history of it if you wanna get into that, but we've really, uh, in the United States and in a lot of parts of the world-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, planned our transportation network and our communities, the way we build, kind of on the assumption that everyone's gonna drive a car.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: And that, um, makes it so that it's often hard to do anything but drive a car.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: Um, and so we tr- are trying to make sure that there's a little more balance in that system, and that people can get around other ways-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … whether it's walking or biking, rolling, taking the bus-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … uh, those kinds of things. Um, and I… There's a couple reasons I think that's so important. Um, one is that a lot of folks actually can't

Colin Fiske: drive for-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … for various reasons.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Um, folks with disabilities, obviously kids can't drive.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: People when they get a little older-

Scott Hammond: Elderly, sure

Colin Fiske: … ca- can't drive or possibly shouldn't drive.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And then there's a lot of people who just can't afford it.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And so, um, we did a little math and, uh, estimated that there's at least 36,000 people in Humboldt that don't have a driver's

Colin Fiske: license.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Colin Fiske: And, um-

Scott Hammond: That's a lot, right?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. It's a lot.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: I mean, that, that includes kids, but at least 16,000 of those are adults.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And, um-

Scott Hammond: What's our population of Humboldt?

Colin Fiske: About 136,000.

Scott Hammond: Or 136. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It doesn't, it hasn't grown much.

Colin Fiske: No, it's been pretty flat.

Scott Hammond: Year over year.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And so, you know, it's a lot, and, and probably a lot of people with driver's licenses, uh, don't b- drive because they-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … can't afford it.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Can't afford gas, insurance, whatever.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And so, you know, that's a lot of folks who we don't hear from

Colin Fiske: sometimes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: You know, in, uh, public meetings, they don't necessarily have their voices heard. So we try to remind people that those folks exist, and they need to get around, and they need to be safe and get to their work and get to healthcare and t- all those things. Um, and then the other reason, um, is, you know, basically environmental, that, um, our leading source of, uh, climate pollution comes from transportation, almost three-quarters of it here in Humboldt.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And so, um, to address that issue, you know, obviously a lot of folks know we gotta make the transition to electric vehicles and zero-emission vehicles.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, um, really, uh, if you look at the models, we probably can't do that fast enough to meet the, the climate goals that the scientists say we need to hit.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Colin Fiske: So, um, so part of it also has to be, uh, just driving less and doing those other

Colin Fiske: things more.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, as a good neighbor, uh, I, uh, talk to a lot of people insurance, and that we insured a lot. You know, there are a lot of people that don't drive much.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: They have cars. They have insurance. They just drive 2,000 or 3,000 miles a year maybe.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Uh, or in town.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: You know, so there's- There's a lot of reduction there. I a- agree with that. So let's talk about some specifics.

Scott Hammond: So, uh-

Colin Fiske: Sure

Scott Hammond: … let's go back in time to, um, I don't know, early traffic calming measures in Humboldt. Where… Do, do we start with H Street and I Street or J, or would that be-

Colin Fiske: Sure

Scott Hammond: … a place to start?

Colin Fiske: Sure. I mean, so, you know, I've been doing this since 2015, and there certainly are, um, things that happened before that-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … um, before my time. But, um, I would say, yeah, H and I Street was kind of the thing that probably got the most attention in the last, I don't know, seven, eight years.

Colin Fiske: I would-

Scott Hammond: And, and-

Colin Fiske: Well, the first big thing I would say.

Scott Hammond: And he, right?

Colin Fiske: And he, yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Was that Miles Slattery, was he part, a big part of that?

Colin Fiske: You know, trying to remember what the timeline is, where he, whether he was city manager yet at that point.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: He might, not at 15 or 16, maybe not.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. But, um, so I couldn't answer that for sure.

Colin Fiske: But, um-

Scott Hammond: Hey, Miles.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, exactly. Um, but, uh, you know, my perspective from, like, an outside advocate was-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, you know, we were just there trying to support, um, a good, safe design for people-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … and, um, making sure that people could bike safely back and forth. But the other thing that I think is missed sometimes is that putting in good bike infrastructure actually makes it safer for

Colin Fiske: drivers too.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and part of the reason is that, um, it tends to make people drive a little slower-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … and that is-

Scott Hammond: Right

Colin Fiske: … real, that's much safer.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, but also probably it makes people, um, just pay a little bit more attention-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … realize there's other people on the road and-

Scott Hammond: Right

Colin Fiske: … so, um, when you put in, like, a bike lane and especially a protected bike lane with, like, some sort of vertical element there, which we are just starting to see a couple of here in Humboldt-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, the, the research shows that it's not just safer for bikers, it's also really reduces, uh, car crashes.

Scott Hammond: Wow. So the numbers bear it out-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … nationally.

Colin Fiske: Uh-huh.

Scott Hammond: Probably enough data over decades, right?

Colin Fiske: Yeah, there's a lot of data on it.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So I, I noticed that in Eureka and Arcata, they have the, uh, whole streets dedicated, like I think, uh, C Street goes into Old Town from-

Colin Fiske: Uh-huh

Scott Hammond: … downtown and it's all green lanes, and so-

Colin Fiske: The bike boulevards they call them?

Scott Hammond: Like, yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Te- tell me what those are. Or tell us-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … 'cause a lot of us don't know what that is.

Colin Fiske: Sure. So, um, a bike boulevard is, it's a shared street where people can bike and

Colin Fiske: drive.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, but whereas, you know, most of our streets kind of get driving priority and, and bicyclists are kind of like have to make their way however they can-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, uh, a bike boulevard is really meant to kind of give bikes the priority.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And so the ways that you do that, um, typically there's, there's two, uh, key elements to it. One of them is controlling speed of traffic, and so that's, you know, the typical traffic calming stuff that we see, um, both there and other places around town with the bulb-outs and-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Colin Fiske: … even, even speed bumps or-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … you know, signage and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … striping, all those things.

Scott Hammond: You call that a bulb-out, they're on the, on the curbs-

Colin Fiske: The curb extensions, yeah

Scott Hammond: … the corners.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. They slow me down.

Colin Fiske: Yep. That's what they're meant to do.

Scott Hammond: Well, and we'll talk about downtown Eureka and what a mess-

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yeah

Scott Hammond: … it is traffic-wise-

Colin Fiske: For sure

Scott Hammond: … or bad habits-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … in a, in a minute, but go a- go ahead.

Scott Hammond: So the-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … so bike boulevard.

Colin Fiske: So traffic calming-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So-

Colin Fiske: … slowing, slowing speed is one of the elements.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Colin Fiske: The other element is, uh, reducing traffic volumes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And there's a couple different ways you can do that, um, but the way that they did it here was setting up alternating one-way streets on, on a couple of the blocks.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: So, uh, you can access any point by car, but you can't drive through 'cause sooner or later you're gonna hit a one way and the other direction.

Scott Hammond: Really? Where's that at?

Colin Fiske: Uh, there's two or three of them, and I'm sorry, I don't remember off the top of my head which intersections they're at.

Scott Hammond: Maybe they're way up- uptown a little bit more from downtown.

Colin Fiske: The closest one, I think it's at Seventh or Eighth. It's not far.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: Um, and then, um, but basically it's just one block-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … on each side is, is one way-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … in opposite directions. Um, the other way you can do it is, uh, what, what are called diverters, where, um, you still have a two-way street, but every few blocks or every quarter mile or whatever, you, um, you kind of put some bollards or something across the intersection so cars can't continue, but bikes can.

Scott Hammond: Gotcha.

Colin Fiske: Um, and the idea is just you don't want a lot of people using the street to go long distances and cut through. You just wanna have kind of local traffic-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … to limit that volume-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … make it more comfortable and safe for people biking.

Scott Hammond: Gotcha. So the other I noticed in those, uh, bike boulevards is they, a lot of green paint on that street.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So you're going, "Oh, I'm in a… What, what do I do? Well, I th-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … I think I'll slow down."

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I think I'll keep my eyes out for bikes 'cause you never know what kind of bikers are gonna show up on this boulevard.

Colin Fiske: Yep. The green, green paint is important.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … I think people around here are learning to associate that with biking.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … and, um, you know, uh, just a little, uh, PSA here. The, if you see just the solid green lines, that's to tell you that's, you know, a bike lane or a place-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … for a bike to stop. If you see the big sort of dotted lines, that's a conflict zone, so that's where a bike and a car might have to, like, be in the same area.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: So that's a particularly watch out for bikes kind of a thing.

Scott Hammond: Okay. Good to know.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So if you're just joining us, uh, my new best friend, Colin Fiske, uh, from the Coalition of, say it again.

Colin Fiske: Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities.

Scott Hammond: Nice. And that's your organization, huh?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. I'm the executive director.

Scott Hammond: How do we get ahold of you guys? Just do a shout-out in terms of wanted to participate, wanna join, wanna throw money at you, gold bullion.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Uh, please.

Scott Hammond: Bicy- bicycles.

Colin Fiske: Throw the bicycles and gold at me.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Um,

Colin Fiske: it's-

Scott Hammond: Could use some of that.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. It's, uh, our website is transportationpriorities.org.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, you can also get there, 'cause one of my board members thought that was way too long, so crtp.info also gets you there.

Scott Hammond: crtp.info. Okay.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. And, um-

Scott Hammond: Who's on the board with you?

Colin Fiske: Well, let's see. Uh, we have Carol Monet,

Colin Fiske: um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … James Clore, uh, Robin Baker.

Scott Hammond: James Clore.

Colin Fiske: Uh-huh.

Scott Hammond: I know James.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Premier Financial.

Colin Fiske: He, uh, he's, he's great. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: What's up, Jim?

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Just saw him, actually

Colin Fiske: … he's, uh, he's, uh,

Colin Fiske: um, works at Humboldt Area Foundation, actually.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um, and then, uh, uh, Tom Wheeler's on my board.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, Josefina Barrantes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Curris Geronimo, um, and Peggy Martinez. I think I've got everybody.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Sorry if we didn't get everybody. But close e- close enough. Yeah, so I s- uh, Arcata has a boulevard, a bike boulevard too, on L- 10th, I think, by Los Bagels that goes out to the-

Colin Fiske: Yeah. I would say, uh, and sorry to the person who designed that, but, um, and Eureka has another one too that, that they call a bike boulevard that was built a long time ago.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and I would say they're not really bike boulevards.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: Um, all they, they have, um, what we call sharrows. You know- … just the, the painted, uh, bike symbol with the two arrow signs.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and that's kind of all they have. And so, um, they're, uh, those used to sometimes be called bike boulevards.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, it's a little bit… See, legally, it's the same category as a bike boulevard. Both of them are called Class 3 facilities.

Scott Hammond: I see.

Colin Fiske: Um, and so sometimes they get called that. But really, if it's just a sharrow, it doesn't provide that same safety or comfort for bikes.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um, so we're trying to make sure that, you know, the bike boulevards that get built in the future are, really meet, m- meet a higher standard.

Scott Hammond: Nice. So let's proceed north to the, the Bay Trail Arcata. We'll talk about McKinleyville last.

Colin Fiske: Sure.

Scott Hammond: Uh, but before we do any of that, tell us, tell us the Collin story. Were you raised up here? Uh, how'd you get here? Who are you? What do you want?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. I was raised in Philadelphia.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and, uh, I went to college in Southern California.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. What school?

Colin Fiske: Uh, Pomona College-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Colin Fiske: … in Claremont.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Good schools.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Is that all part of Claremont, or is it just part adjacent to?

Colin Fiske: Uh, there's the Claremont Colleges. It's part of the Claremont Colleges, so there's, um, seven institutions that are affiliated.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Does that mean you're smart?

Colin Fiske: Uh, I don't know. Hopefully.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: I was before I went there.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Uh, no, I learned a lot there, and I met my wife there, so, um-

Scott Hammond: Oh, cool

Colin Fiske: … that was great. Um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. We go down to Glendale, so Glendora.

Colin Fiske: Oh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Not too far away.

Colin Fiske: Nice. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: You ever been to that, uh, really cool gar- the Huntington Gardens?

Colin Fiske: I have been there.

Scott Hammond: Oh my gosh.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. That's super cool.

Scott Hammond: They didn't tell us about that place.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Right there in, near Pasadena. It's pretty amazing.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Anyway, I digress.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, no.

Scott Hammond: Tell us more. So how'd you get to Humboldt?

Colin Fiske: Uh, well, my wife got a job at the university.

Scott Hammond: Nice.

Colin Fiske: Um, so she's a professor of oceanography.

Scott Hammond: Cool.

Colin Fiske: And, um, we moved here in 2011, so I've been here since then.

Scott Hammond: Wow. Reminds me of a story.

Colin Fiske: What's that?

Scott Hammond: So when I was, uh, a lot younger and I had beautiful long hair, kinda like, uh, now you and I have the same haircut.

Colin Fiske: I had long hair when I was younger too.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I got voted best, uh, hair in my-

Colin Fiske: Oh

Scott Hammond: … most prettiest hair, which who doesn't want to have pretty hair-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … when you're in high school?

Colin Fiske: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Um, we were wandering, uh, the streets as we had a chance to do as young, uh, feral hippie children in National City, California, which is just south of San Diego, and went to the career center, and the career center had this microfiche where they talked about this university called Humboldt State. And I go, "Wouldn't that be great to go up there and be an ocean major or, or a, uh, forestry major?" And Phil goes, "Yeah." And so he, he never made it. I made it. Came in as a declared ocean major.

Colin Fiske: Wow.

Scott Hammond: Had no idea how dumb I was. So l- four years later and a liberal arts degree later, here, here I sit in the podcast chair, so.

Colin Fiske: Oh, there you go.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Life, life is a journey.

Colin Fiske: It is indeed.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, so she came up and taught, and you came, uh, along with.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Pretty much.

Scott Hammond: Nice. So what, do you have a d- d- do, do you have a day job? What do you do when you're not doing this, Collin?

Colin Fiske: Uh, well, this is my day job.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: Um, so, uh, you know, we're a small organization, and, um, most of the time, uh, that we've been around, I've been the only sort of full-time

Colin Fiske: staff.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, right now we have another person working a few hours a week, um, doing social media and stuff.

Colin Fiske: But, um-

Scott Hammond: Cool

Colin Fiske: … but it is, this is my job. Um, and when I'm not doing this, um, I do a few things. Uh, let's see. I'm, I'm also on the community advisory committee for, uh, Redwood Coast Energy

Colin Fiske: Authority.

Scott Hammond: Oh, cool.

Colin Fiske: And, um, I'm on the City of Arcata's Transactions and Use Tax Oversight Committee. Um-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … and, you know, just like to, uh, hang out or sort of play board games.

Colin Fiske: You know.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. You guys have kids?

Colin Fiske: Uh, I don't have kids.

Scott Hammond: Dogs?

Colin Fiske: I don't have kids. I have a dog and a cat.

Scott Hammond: Dog and a cat.

Colin Fiske: Yep. They are beloved members of the household.

Scott Hammond: Sure. Yeah, we have Richard the cat.

Colin Fiske: Nice.

Scott Hammond: Uh, Jodi's belo- he's beloved to Jodi. I'm not sure if that applies to me, but- … that's another story. Anyway, um-

Colin Fiske: They have their favorites.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So, so yeah, you, so you made it to Humboldt, and n- now it's home. How long have you guys been here?

Colin Fiske: Uh, 14 years.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Colin Fiske: Since 2011. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Wow. Welcome.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Thanks.

Scott Hammond: Welcome to Humboldt County.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Um, well, cool. Good story. So tell, uh, what, what do you see as your challenges then to get out your, um, your gospel of transportation and, and make it palatable? And what are the obstructions and obstructionists out there that keep your, um, your good word and your, your v- vision and mission from going out, and how do you, how do you frame that up and tee that up?

Colin Fiske: Well, I think change in general is always hard.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And, um, you know, as we mentioned, cars have been so central to the way we've planned our, our communities-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Colin Fiske: … for so long that, um-

Scott Hammond: Over 100 years, huh?

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: It's a big change.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um, so I think, you know, that's always gonna be a challenge.

Colin Fiske: Um,

Colin Fiske: I think, I think actually w- What we call car culture is, is especially challenging. Uh, it's very pervasive. Um, you know, we've all been exposed to the messages and the marketing our whole lives about cars making us strong, cars making us sexy, cars making us-

Scott Hammond: All of it

Colin Fiske: … yeah, you know.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Some people really associate themselves with their cars, so.

Scott Hammond: I'm fast.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I got a cool car. I got a good truck, man. My truck is bad A.

Colin Fiske: There you go.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: I mean-

Scott Hammond: I don't, I don't, but-

Colin Fiske: Oh, well, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: I, I-

Scott Hammond: I like my Toyota Venza. It's kinda cool.

Colin Fiske: Nice.

Scott Hammond: Gets me where I'm going.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: No, it's funny. There's a… I, I insured a guy that was in a car wreck, and he had a, a really kind

Scott Hammond: of a… I didn't find it a very nice car. It was an old Mitsubishi.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: But you would've thought he, they hit his mom when they hit his car.

Colin Fiske: Hmm.

Scott Hammond: 'Cause he was freaked out, man. This was like his, his baby, his idol, his, his

Scott Hammond: thing.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And it's like, I said, "Dude, it, it's a possession. It's a pi- it's a rusty piece of metal, and it's getting worse."

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And it, you know, it's, you're gonna outlast it by, hopefully

Scott Hammond: by a lot.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And, and you cannot take it with you on the train to heaven, so just lose the Mitsubishi, bro.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And so, so you're right. There's, there's that possess-

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It, it is a, an interesting,

Scott Hammond: uh, cultural

Scott Hammond: inherited, uh, a- you know, advertising is persuading us that we have desire, and maybe it would, could be met in a car.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Um, or other things. That's what advertising is.

Colin Fiske: That's what they do.

Scott Hammond: Boy, we're really di- di- digressing here.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: But ca- carry on with, I-

Colin Fiske: Well, y- yeah, so I think, um, there's the practicalities of it just often being difficult-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, to get around other ways, and there's the culture. I think, um, there's this fascinating concept that a researcher in the UK came up with. Um, he coined this term a few years ago called, called motonormativity.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and it came out of this study that he did where he, uh, which has since been repeated in the US, um, where he asked, uh, he surveyed a bunch of people.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And he asked people, uh, these paired questions where some of them are about cars, and some of them are about a sort of equivalent situation that doesn't involve a car. So, like, the most famous one, um, was he asked some

Colin Fiske: people, uh, you know, "Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Uh, you know, we shouldn't, people shouldn't smoke in, uh, crowded areas because the fumes can poison other people." And most people in the modern day agree with that.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: And then he asked another group of people, "People shouldn't drive fossil fuel vehicles in crowded areas 'cause the fumes can poison other people," and almost nobody agreed with that. They thought that was-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … a crazy position to take.

Scott Hammond: Right. Ah.

Colin Fiske: And, you know, uh, and then he did a whole bunch of other sort of r- related things where, you know, substitute car for something else.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Colin Fiske: And he found that people, even people who don't drive but who are just, you know, living in this culture-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, kind of give cars a, a pass morally, you know?

Scott Hammond: It's an auto bias.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Colin Fiske: And so it's just really interesting to get, it's like they're so-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Colin Fiske: … they have such a special place in our lives that it's like-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Colin Fiske: … they, we don't treat them… We treat them as if they're a special case and different from anything else.

Scott Hammond: Right, right, right. Yeah, I think of all the old TV commercials from my age when, in the '60s and '70s and all the, the cool, "Oh, wow, if I could have that car."

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: A Volkswagen Beetle. What?

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's a c- 1995. What?

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I know. I, I, th- it's interesting. So you have an uphill battle.

Colin Fiske: For sure.

Scott Hammond: You have a c- you have a, a mindset cultural battle ahead.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Which is, uh, I'm glad you're up for it. That's cool. You know, after m- you know, and, and none of this would have any context unless Joan and I have traveled to Amsterdam.

Colin Fiske: Mm.

Scott Hammond: Not one, but three times.

Colin Fiske: Wow. I'm jealous.

Scott Hammond: It's cool. Yeah, there's a lot of b- I'll tell you, there's a… Let me, this is a quantifiable term. A shit ton of bikes.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: In fact, if you live in Amsterdam, you have two bikes. You have your party bike.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's this destroyed old thing, and it winds up in the canal eventually. And then you have your real bike, your commuter bike or your

Scott Hammond: whatever.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And, uh, uh, it, it is bike-centric, as you know.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Maybe you've traveled there.

Colin Fiske: I have not-

Scott Hammond: It's-

Colin Fiske: … unfortunately, but I have read about it-

Scott Hammond: It's pretty cool

Colin Fiske: … quite a bit.

Scott Hammond: And we go to Utrecht, which is, Utrecht is, uh, south about 30 minutes.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: And it's, uh, it's a third of the size. It's younger than Amsterdam, and I don't… It, it's very inconvenient to own a car.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Just why, why would you have one? 'Cause you got mass transit that goes to-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … London and, and Paris-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and Belgium. You know, every eight minutes, my son goes, "You know, you missed a train. It's not like an airline, Dad."

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: "There's another one in eight minutes." I go,

Scott Hammond: "What?" So you just, you lose the paranoia.

Colin Fiske: You know, uh, and the fascinating thing, 'cause I've read quite a bit about,

Colin Fiske: um, biking in the Netherlands and, and the history there, uh, even though I have not visited, but-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … it's on my list.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But the fascinating thing about it is that, um, they've had a sort of a bike culture for a long time, but-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … in the mid-20th century when the US was, uh, you know, knocking down neighborhoods to build highways through cities and all that kind of stuff, they were doing the exact same thing in the Netherlands.

Scott Hammond: For highways?

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Oh, wow. Okay.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, they were like, they were knocking down historic buildings and widening-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … the streets and building highways and-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … turning their cities into car-centric cities like we did.

Scott Hammond: Interesting.

Colin Fiske: Um, but there, there was this big backlash to it.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: And, um, it was in the form of sort of an alliance between the historic preservation people who, you know, didn't want the old buildings and neighborhoods torn down-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Colin Fiske: … and, um, families who were really upset about their kids being unsafe with, you know, all the fast cars in, in the neighborhoods.

Scott Hammond: Interesting.

Colin Fiske: And, um, they kinda teamed up and, and had a huge amount of success in, um, changing the, the political, uh, narrative, I guess-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … in, in that country-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … to where, um… But it did take a couple decades, but then, you know, in the '80s, I think, is when they kinda started really focusing on building bike infrastructure.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And now a few decades later, you know, it's like a biking paradise or whatever, but-

Scott Hammond: It is. Yeah

Colin Fiske: … but I think it shows that, um- We can make choices and, and we– You know, they didn't, they weren't always that way.

Colin Fiske: Um

Scott Hammond: Yeah. I kinda wonder about the history. I figured, oh, this is a hundred years old. Probably not.

Colin Fiske: No, no, the bike infrastructure is pretty… I mean, biking was around before cars, right?

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, um, but building that specific bike infrastructure-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … not that old.

Scott Hammond: Funny thing, really progressive country politically in every way, bikes, energy, the whole nine, not a fricking bike helmet in the country. Nobody wears a bike helmet, dude.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: It's so… It's f- it's, it's, uh, that Dutch personal rights, personal responsibility. If I fall on my head, I die. I, you know, I, I, I… We're at a used store, uh, kind of a thrift store. Bike helmets, like- … dime a dozen. They're everywhere. It's like, oh, these guys… May- maybe children wear them,

Scott Hammond: you know?

Colin Fiske: Could be.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. I mean, children do frequently, but that's, that's all we saw,

Scott Hammond: so.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And so it's a paradigm shift here.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. And, you know, um, so I'm gonna– I'll preface this by say- saying that I am very much in favor of bike helmets. I wear a helmet every time I get on a bike.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: However, uh, the US is kind of an outlier in emphasizing bike helmets-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … um, as the sort of way to be safe on a bike.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Colin Fiske: And, um, I would say that even though a bike helmet can definitely save your life if you get in a crash, um, the fact that we have one of the highest rates of bike fatalities and injuries of any country while we focus on bike helmets-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … I think tells you that's not the most effective thing to do.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: The most effective thing to do is to have the safe infrastructure.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: And, um, so I guess my feeling about it

Colin Fiske: is we kind of focus on that because we feel that it's the personal responsibility of a bicyclist to take it upon themselves to be safe.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Colin Fiske: Whereas the attitude maybe in other countries is, like, it's a social responsibility to make sure that everyone on the street is safe.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, obviously, I think there's a balance there.

Scott Hammond: Different framework, yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. But-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … but that's a, it's just a different way of thinking about it.

Scott Hammond: That's good. That's really good. So, um, this, th-this show comes on, uh, Access Humboldt, and on Access Humboldt I see the guy a lot, the guy that came and lectured in Arcata, the Wharfinger, and different places. He's the traffic-

Colin Fiske: Oh, Dan Burden?

Scott Hammond: Dan, the older guy.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Kind of big, big guy.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Tell… What's Dan's, uh, gospel message? What's, what's he all about in transportation?

Colin Fiske: Well, shoot, I don't wanna speak for Dan. He's the, he's the-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Well-

Colin Fiske: What do they say? The, the Johnny Appleseed of walkability or something.

Scott Hammond: He is the, he is that guy though, right?

Colin Fiske: He is that guy.

Scott Hammond: So he comes to towns and lectures and, and-

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep

Scott Hammond: … teaches and…

Colin Fiske: Yep. He, I think he was one of the inventors of, uh, what they call a walk

Colin Fiske: audit. Um-

Scott Hammond: Oh

Colin Fiske: … which, uh, we've done a few here, and he has come here and led several. And it's basically you get together in a group, and you just walk a certain route.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And you kinda walk slowly, and you stop, and you look at things, and you make notes of, like, uh, how safe is it to

Colin Fiske: walk here?

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Colin Fiske: How comfortable is it, um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … if you were to imagine yourself in another person's position, like, uh, someone who's blind or in a wheelchair or, or a kid, you know, how might it feel to

Colin Fiske: that person?

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Colin Fiske: And then you kinda, um, you take all those notes, and you use that sort of crowdsourced knowledge from people-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, participating, and then you write up a little report, and you-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … kind of figure out, um, what you could do to make it better.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: Um, and so he was a real, um, a real innovator of that method, and he kinda does that everywhere he goes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and, uh, CRTP has, has picked it up. We did, um, we did one, actually two last year, uh, on 4th and 5th Streets in Eureka.

Colin Fiske: And-

Scott Hammond: Oh, I was gonna say, did somebody do downtown?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. So we actually, we came out with a report a couple months ago, um, based on that and also other, like, crash data and

Colin Fiske: other, um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … you know, information to, uh, sort of document the safety issues, particularly on that corridor, the Caltrans 4th and 5th Street corridor-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … and make recommendations for making it safer.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, when I first came to Humboldt, they had a bypass planned.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: They bought a bunch of homes up-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and they were gonna bypass the whole darn thing.

Scott Hammond: And-

Colin Fiske: Yep

Scott Hammond: … then that plan got, well, bypassed.

Scott Hammond: So-

Colin Fiske: See what you did there

Scott Hammond: … I was wait- I was waiting for that one all day. Um, so, uh, interesting that you'd pick those. I was thinking that. I go, "They're not gonna do downtown. That would be disastrous." That's the first place you went.

Scott Hammond: So-

Colin Fiske: Well, the first place we went-

Scott Hammond: Makes, makes sense

Colin Fiske: … was Broadway, I would say.

Scott Hammond: Okay. That would be second.

Colin Fiske: We've been working on Broadway for a while.

Scott Hammond: It's a tie.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. But that– I mean, honestly, if you look at, uh, pedestrian and bike deaths and serious injuries-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … over the years-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … in Humboldt County, that's where they're concentrated is Broadway, 4th, and 5th Streets.

Scott Hammond: Had a couple friends, uh, Scott Q. Marcus has been on the show, and great friend. He got hit downtown and flipped over.

Colin Fiske: Oh.

Scott Hammond: Uh, haven't had Cliff Ber- Berkowitz yet, but he, he got hit-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, somewhere on the way to Ferndale and-

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, cr- crazy accident. So what are some of the hotspots in Eureka that, do you know offhand that are hot intersections like Myrtle and West or-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … 8th and 7th or 6th?

Colin Fiske: I mean, well, corridor-wise, it's definitely that 101 corridor.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Um, in terms of, um, the particular intersections, yeah, I just went through Myrtle and West, and, uh, not fun on your bike. Um-

Scott Hammond: I bet, yeah

Colin Fiske: … a lot of people I know avoid that intersection.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: That's your way on back to the trail, though, to-

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yep

Scott Hammond: … to go back through, um-

Colin Fiske: Yep

Scott Hammond: … b-behind Open Door to get to the trail, right?

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm. Yep, that's where I was coming from.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um,

Colin Fiske: so, you know, I, I think in general what I would say is that, um, the, the, there's this class of street called an urban arterial. I don't wanna get too wonky here, but-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … basically an arterial is the kind of street, uh, like Broadway, 4th, and 5th, but also like Harris, Henderson,

Colin Fiske: HI.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: You know, the streets that were designed to carry as much traffic as possible as fast as possible.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And, um, you know, they were designed at a time when that was just the

Colin Fiske: priority.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, but the problem is that when you do that through a neighborhood, through a community, uh, where people are also gonna be walking, biking-

Scott Hammond: Schools

Colin Fiske: … schools. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Colin Fiske: Senior centers-

Scott Hammond: Right

Colin Fiske: … businesses, um- It's dangerous, you know?

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: It's dangerous to have that many cars going that fast.

Colin Fiske: And so-

Scott Hammond: You can't jam through Henderson Center.

Colin Fiske: Yep.

Scott Hammond: That's just a bad thing.

Colin Fiske: Right. Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And so, um, urban arterials, that type of road-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … uh, just everywhere in this country is where the most people are, are killed and injured on, um…

Colin Fiske: And so-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … a lot of the, what has to be done to make things safer is kind of retrofitting those-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … uh, those types of streets.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And I mean, that involves, um, a change in priorities,

Colin Fiske: basically.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: We have to be willing to say, you know, when we're in an established community, when we're in Eureka or Arcata or, uh, even going through Willow Creek or Orick or wherever-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … like, the priority is gonna be safety and not speed and

Colin Fiske: throughput.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and I would say, you know, when you pose it like that, I would– most people kind of agree with you.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: But, uh, but when it comes right down to it, there's often a lot of resistance because people-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … are used to it. They don't wanna spend another-

Scott Hammond: Right

Colin Fiske: … minute getting from one side of town to the other or whatever and-

Scott Hammond: Right

Colin Fiske: … um, so but for us it's like you hear all the time, uh, safety first and-

Scott Hammond: Right

Colin Fiske: … you know, the Caltrans will say that. The s- the city transportation departments will say that, but we really, really gotta… If that's true, we go we gotta do that, you know?

Scott Hammond: Yeah. And culturally, we don't wanna really-

Colin Fiske: Right.

Scott Hammond: We like that.

Colin Fiske: Right.

Scott Hammond: We pay lip service.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's like the doctors at oncology in the backs having cigarettes.

Colin Fiske: Yep.

Scott Hammond: It's like, "Okay. We wanna cure cancer." Um, so to your point then, um, so Joni went to this MCMAC meeting a couple weeks ago-

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … and we wanna traffic, uh, we wanna calm traffic on Central Avenue.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Um, you know, as, as soon as first blush without even looking at anything, I, I… That's a terrible idea. I-

Colin Fiske: Right. Right

Scott Hammond: … how do you do that on Central Ave- You know, the traffic will be backed up back into Arcata 'cause-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and that could be true. I mean, I don't know what'll happen. But as she explained the idea to me and how we could take four lanes into two at certain parts of McKinleyville, and your net time drive from,

Scott Hammond: say, entering, uh, Six Rivers Brewery to coming out at Ace Hardware-

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … could be less 'cause there's fewer lights.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Now you're talking, and hey, that's… If, if it's fewer lights and more safety and more roundabouts, um-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … talk, talk to that for a minute.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. So it's an interesting thing, um… Okay, I'm gonna start at what seems like a little bit of a diversion, but I'm gonna get back to this.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: So, um, there's a concept called induced travel or induced demand, and, um, I would say this is kind of the central principle of transportation planning, and it's something that, um, has been documented for many decades now, and you– probably you've heard of, like, the classic example, which is you have a freeway-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … and it gets c- and it's real congested.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: And so the engineers add another lane to the freeway.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And then six months later, it's the same amount congested. And you're like, "Well, how could that be?"

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And it's ca- it's induced travel, and it means basically if you build more capacity, people will fill it up.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Um, and the idea is, like, basically from an economic perspective, uh, the cost of travel is mostly time.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And so when you reduce the amount of time that it takes, then, uh, people will… You know, it's cheaper to do, so people will do it until it gets slow again, and then, you know, then it reaches that equilibrium of congestion.

Scott Hammond: I think of my budget. If I make more money, I spend it.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, exactly.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And so that's pretty– That's well documented.

Colin Fiske: We've-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: We know that that happens. We still often try to add capacity to relieve congestion even though-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … we know it won't work, but that's another thing.

Scott Hammond: It's LA freeways, yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um, but, uh, the inverse of that, it turns out, is also kinda true, um, although less well known, and it- it's s- sometimes they call it traffic evaporation.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Colin Fiske: Which is, um, if you remove capacity-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … uh, people drive less.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and it's hard to explain how that happens, and I would say that, like, the experts really don't know how that happens.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Colin Fiske: Um, some of it is people take other routes, but, uh, when you look at something like a, a road diet like we're talking about-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … in McKinleyville, um, those have been extensively studied, and they actually rarely result in large amounts of traffic being diverted to other streets-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … even though you would think that might be the case.

Scott Hammond: There's not other streets.

Colin Fiske: Right. And in McKinleyville there's not. Well, there's the highway, but yeah.

Scott Hammond: There's the highway, then there's, um-

Colin Fiske: There's McKinleyville Avenue

Scott Hammond: … McKinleyville Avenue, which is-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … low capacity.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. But, um, you know, a lot of what happens is probably people, uh, make other plans. They, uh, they use other modes of transportation, or they-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … take fewer trips, or they chain their trips together so they don't have to, you know, go out multiple times a day.

Scott Hammond: So, so numbers bear this up that there is evaporation.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. And, um, I would say the most famous examples are, um, when cities, uh, have eliminated entire urban freeways, right?

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And this has happened a number of times now. Um, and every time this happens, y- you can sh- be sure you're gonna hear the phrase Carmageddon.

Colin Fiske: That's-

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Colin Fiske: You know, the predict- the prediction is, like, there'll just be completely stopped traffic everywhere in the city because where are all those cars gonna go?

Scott Hammond: Never happens.

Colin Fiske: Never happens.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Colin Fiske: And-

Scott Hammond: Where does it evaporate to?

Colin Fiske: Yeah, exactly. It's fascinating, right?

Scott Hammond: Where all the socks go in the laundry.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: It's one of those, like, emergent phenomena that, like, you know-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … you couldn't predict it from any one person's behavior, but somehow when everybody gets together, it happens.

Scott Hammond: It's a truth. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Interesting.

Colin Fiske: So, you know, that's a thing. And, and there's also, and Dan Burden talked about this too, is that, like, you can also just design a street so that two lanes could carry as much as four.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, part of that is, like, what they call friction, you know? So it's the, the stopping and the g- stop, go, stop, go-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Colin Fiske: … and the, the driveways and, you know, kind of like, uh, managing those

Colin Fiske: things.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, but also- Counterintuitively, sometimes when you have more lanes in the same direction-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … it slows things down because people are changing lanes and trying to, you know, act, they're sort of acting unpredictably, trying to speed in front of other people or whatever.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Where if you only have one lane, everyone's just kind of going the same speed, doing the same thing.

Scott Hammond: It's 'cause you gotta.

Colin Fiske: 'Cause you gotta.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hey, if you're just joining us, it's, uh, Scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt, uh, podcast with my new best friend, Colin Fiske, who is about to, uh, perhaps order this Dick Taylor bar.

Colin Fiske: Oh, man. Exciting.

Scott Hammond: Oh, this is the Quinoa Crunch.

Colin Fiske: That's good.

Scott Hammond: This is Adam Dick's, uh, mom, Colleen's favorite. I think she might have invented this.

Colin Fiske: Wow.

Scott Hammond: And, um, I'm looking for my, uh, Quality Body, uh, card here, one of my other sponsors. And Kim Kemp likes this. She has this on Red-Headed Blackbelt, so-

Colin Fiske: Nice

Scott Hammond: … you, uh, you're soon to be very famous.

Colin Fiske: Wow. All right.

Scott Hammond: So, hey, let's do the quiz. You ready?

Colin Fiske: Okay.

Scott Hammond: The bell.

Colin Fiske: Well, now I'm nervous.

Scott Hammond: Question number one: What do you like about Humboldt?

Colin Fiske: Oh, a lot. A lot.

Scott Hammond: Make these fast. I'm gonna have a lot of these.

Scott Hammond: Ready?

Colin Fiske: Okay. Oh, geez. All right.

Scott Hammond: I had a lot of coffee today.

Colin Fiske: Do… Uh, like how much detail do you want me to go into?

Scott Hammond: Just a little.

Colin Fiske: Okay. Well, I, I love the natural landscapes.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Colin Fiske: I love, uh, the redwoods and, and the beach and the dunes and the rivers and, um, and I like, I like the people. It's just a, um-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … a welcoming, warm environment.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Nice. Good answer.

Scott Hammond: What, uh, what fills up your cup? What, what, what is… What, what fulfills you in, in life?

Colin Fiske: I think it's, uh, time spent with people that I love, you know? Time with my friends-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … and my family and, um, just doing things that are fun and meaningful for us together.

Scott Hammond: Cool. Ready? Number three. What do you find soul-crushing?

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: You're laughing 'cause you're already thinking of something.

Colin Fiske: Well, you know, uh, paperwork. I'm not… I, I don't like paperwork.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That'll do it-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … every time.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: I'll just, I'll just leave it at that.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. We'll just stop at paperwork. So you have a, uh, a full day, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM in Humboldt.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: And, uh, you know, cost is no object, so what would you do with a, with a 12-hour day that was yours?

Colin Fiske: Wow. Let's see. Uh, I would definitely go for a hike somewhere.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, probably, uh, probably in Prairie Creek.

Colin Fiske: Um, although there's a lot of good places to choose.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: My wife's gonna like your answer. Just Prairie Creek in general-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … would… That'll work.

Colin Fiske: It's beautiful up there. Um, I would definitely go to, uh, a restaurant that I like. Uh, let's see. There, there's a lot of those to choose from too. I really like Renata's, like, get the crepes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, let's see. I like, I like Brick and Fire in Eureka here, you know.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Just, uh, my wife and I are kind of foodies, you know.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: We're into, into food. Um-

Scott Hammond: Cool

Colin Fiske: … so I'd probably do that.

Colin Fiske: Um, maybe go out, uh, go out for a drink. We- my favorite beer bar is Dead Reckoning in Arcata.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Does a good job.

Colin Fiske: Yep. I like to hang out there.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: What's the guy in the kilt, what's his name?

Colin Fiske: His… Uh, oh, well, I knew until you asked me that.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Big guy in a beard.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yep, yep.

Scott Hammond: Is he a Scotsman?

Colin Fiske: It's completely escaped me. Um-

Scott Hammond: Oh, it's, uh… Is it… It's not Sean.

Scott Hammond: It's, uh-

Colin Fiske: No. Uh-

Scott Hammond: I'll think of him in a minute. Nice guy.

Colin Fiske: Well, now I'm embarrassed. I can't remember.

Scott Hammond: Do they have Pliny the Elder on tap?

Colin Fiske: They do. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I've heard that.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. They have-

Scott Hammond: Pliny the Elder, if you don't know

Colin Fiske: … just, yeah, incredible tap list.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. It's, uh… No, he's got some re- really interesting stuff.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I like that guy.

Colin Fiske: Theo is his name.

Scott Hammond: Theo, thank you.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: You were looking for that one.

Colin Fiske: I was like, "I can't believe I can't remember that."

Scott Hammond: And, uh, last question. What would you like to see happen in Humboldt?

Colin Fiske: Wow. That's, that's big.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Um, well, I guess since I'm a transportation person, I'll stick to that side-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … of things. Um, I would like to see, uh, I would like to see it just easier to get around without a car. I'd like to see better public transportation.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: You know, and I would say the Humboldt Transit Authority does an incredible job with a very small budget and a-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … huge area to cover. But, like, just to make it easier to get back and forth, get around, uh, by bus, um, more like a complete network of safe bike facilities would be cool.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: So it's like we're talking about, we have this great trail, but then I gotta go through Myrtle and West to get here, you know?

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: It's like if you, if we had a whole network, so you didn't have to, like-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … take your life in your hands once or twice, you know?

Scott Hammond: Right. Right.

Colin Fiske: That would be-

Scott Hammond: This arterial. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. That'd be super cool.

Scott Hammond: So you could go all the way out Myrtle and go Old Arcata Road safely.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Even that, that'd be cool.

Scott Hammond: Do you think, uh, think that'll ever happen?

Colin Fiske: I think there's, there's nothing, nothing stopping it if we have the will.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Well, hey, congrats on the Q- Quinoa Crunch.

Scott Hammond: Uh-

Colin Fiske: Nice

Scott Hammond: … Dick Taylor, located in Old Town Eureka, California.

Colin Fiske: I neglected to say I should go to Dick Taylor too, 'cause that factory is pretty

Colin Fiske: cool.

Scott Hammond: And it's right on the trail.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yep. Yep, yep.

Scott Hammond: Go in there right after we're done here.

Colin Fiske: Nice.

Scott Hammond: So yeah. No-

Colin Fiske: Thank you

Scott Hammond: … appreciate that. So, uh, I'll give you Joni's two questions. So what, what's realistic and what's idealistic in terms of your outcomes and your vision for the county and transportation? What do you… What general big picture things would you

Scott Hammond: wanna share? Let, let's go ideal first.

Colin Fiske: Okay. Ideal.

Scott Hammond: And it kind of piggybacks on the last-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … question.

Colin Fiske: It's kind of a similar answer, I would say, to, to what I was, I was just trying to express. But, um,

Colin Fiske: I think making it… Yeah, making it so that, um… Well, let me step back for a second. You know, it's not possible to envision that kind of place where it's just easy to walk and bike and take the bus everywhere without some changes to the landscape.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: You know? And, uh, I know to some people density is a bad word, but we need to have more density. In other words, like, more people close to each other and to work and to school and to all those things-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … to make it possible-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … to walk or bike and to make it possible to have good transit service.

Colin Fiske: So I think- Um, and I personally think that if we start doing that, which, um, you know, Eureka has been doing some of that lately with, um, the affordable housing downtown and-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … the transit center that's gonna be built with, um, apartments above it.

Scott Hammond: I was gonna ask about that, yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. And-

Scott Hammond: Is that behind Lost Coast Brewery?

Colin Fiske: Right. Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And so I think that, um, that not only will help make it possible to walk and bike places, take the

Colin Fiske: bus-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … but also isn't it, you know, it enlivens the community a little bit, you know?

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: It's like right now you could go downtown Eureka at certain times of night and there's like nothing. It's dead, you know?

Scott Hammond: Certain times of the day, dude.

Colin Fiske: Certain times of the day, that's true.

Scott Hammond: It's just like I'm g- I'm walking around going, "The only things happening are banks and dispensaries."

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: It's like not even that.

Colin Fiske: And part of that is 'cause not very many people live there.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: But, like, if people live in the… And you find that, um, in any city where, like, the downtown is, like, just businesses, you know, just offices or whatever, um, at night or during, you know, holidays or whatever-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … it's just dead.

Scott Hammond: Just dead.

Colin Fiske: But, like, when people live there, then it's active more.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: You can support more, like, businesses that are open at al- at all hours.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: You can kind of g- get that more vibrant scene, and people can get to know each other more. There's people on the sidewalk you're running into.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: So, um, all the kind of things that we love about having, like, small towns, I think you can kinda, like, amp that up by having just a few more people in those core areas.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, so yeah, I think, you know, I guess making, um, making our small towns, our, our Eureka, Arcata, and the smaller towns more vibrant-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, more walkable, more bikeable-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, investing more in the transit system so, like, you don't have to, like, look at this complicated schedule and figure out where you're gonna go and hope you m- don't miss the last bus, but you can just walk out there and be like, "A bus is gonna come in a few minutes," you know?

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Right.

Colin Fiske: Um, that would be, that would be an ideal transportation system for me. Oh, and also nobody's dying.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: That's, that's a really big thing.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, 'cause it's like a leading cause of death, especially for kids,

Colin Fiske: and like-

Scott Hammond: Bike, bikes?

Colin Fiske: Um, no-

Scott Hammond: Car?

Colin Fiske: … just traffic in general.

Scott Hammond: Just getting in a car wreck.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Um, real quick on the homeless-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and I, I don't mean to digress there-

Colin Fiske: Sure

Scott Hammond: … but, uh, certainly we have a high degree of homeless people that get hit on Broadway or-

Colin Fiske: Sure

Scott Hammond: … middle of the night-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … Fourth or Fifth. Um, how, how do you attribute that? I mean, there, there's certainly-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … takes two people to get in a car wreck, but-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … or more.

Colin Fiske: I mean, we don't– So I'll say this is mostly speculation 'cause we don't actually have data on, like, the housing status of people-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … who are hit. Um, but anecdotally it does seem like, um, there's a high proportion of, of houseless folks who are, um, victims of, of those crashes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and that's not just true here. That's true, um, where it's been looked at. It's true throughout the country.

Scott Hammond: It's got tracks in San Diego or Portland or wherever.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. And I think likely reasons are, um, one is that, uh, people who don't have a house often end up, uh, living in places that are, uh, high risk for that, so, like, living in, uh, sort of under underpasses or-

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Colin Fiske: .. living, um, you know, in proximity to speeding traffic.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And so that just, like, they have a higher risk than, um, those of us who might have the luxury of living in a nice, calm neighborhood somewhere.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and the other thing is that because they live in those areas, they're likely to be, um, around, uh, at times when people might not be looking for pedestrians or

Colin Fiske: bicyclists-

Scott Hammond: Mm. Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … like late at night.

Scott Hammond: In storms.

Colin Fiske: In storms. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

Colin Fiske: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: So I think those are probably two of the big factors.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, I would say that though it's kind of, it's kind of an indicator thing. Um, and actually there's really interesting research that shows that, um, nationwide the rates of, uh, pedestrians who are killed in car crashes are much higher in low-income neighborhoods and-

Scott Hammond: Interesting

Colin Fiske: … they're higher in, um, they're higher among, um, uh, people of color, and especially among Native Americans than among-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … the general population. And so, you know, the– it's not just houseless people. This is kind of like the people who are most vulnerable in our society are the ones who are bearing the brunt of the problem.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: And I think that that, um, I think there's a lot of reasons for that, some of them I just discussed, but, um, you know, a big– If you back up a little bit, a big reason is that we're building these high-speed dangerous facilities in

Colin Fiske: places-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … where, um, you know, you or I probably wouldn't wanna live, but people who don't have a choice might be living there.

Scott Hammond: And they're, they're exposed.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And then they get hurt.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That, that tracks. Um, just some more shout, shout-outs. How do we get ahold of you if we wanna, you know, get on the board-

Colin Fiske: Sure

Scott Hammond: … throw you, throw you money?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah. Um-

Scott Hammond: What do, what do we do to participate? Do you guys have monthly meetings?

Colin Fiske: We don't have monthly meetings. Um, we do have, uh, uh, an email list where we send out, um, uh, actually a weekly email newsletter-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … comes out every Friday that, uh, has a lot of information about what's going on locally in the-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … transportation type world.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Also opportunities for people to get involved, um, you know, speak up, comment on public issues, that kind of stuff.

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool. So we gotta email you and get on the list?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. There's a sign-up sheet or sign-up form on our, um, on our website. Um, if you're interested in getting more involved, uh, we also have a volunteer list.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, one thing I didn't mention is we do bike valet at public events.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, so this past year I think we did maybe 12 or 15 events. Um, the– Like we do Oyster Festival, North Country Fair-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, all sorts of, um, smaller events where if you bike there, we'll watch your bike for you and, um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah, we did one of those at-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, Wharfinger.

Colin Fiske: Oh, yeah. Yep. What was it the-

Scott Hammond: What was the, what was the event?

Colin Fiske: Was it the trail celebration?

Scott Hammond: Correct.

Colin Fiske: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: We did it there, yep.

Scott Hammond: Yep, that was you guys.

Colin Fiske: Yep. So-

Scott Hammond: So you know Re- you know Reese Hughes then.

Colin Fiske: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hey, Reese. What's up, Reese?

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Reese is great. Um-

Scott Hammond: Great guy

Colin Fiske: … so yeah, so we, uh, we take volunteers for that-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … or for other, you know, other tasks that we have.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Um, email address again or website?

Colin Fiske: Website is transportationpriorities.org or-

Scott Hammond: It's easy

Colin Fiske: … crtp.info if you, if you want a shorter one.

Scott Hammond: CRTP. Okay.

Colin Fiske: Um, and there's a contact form on there if you just have anything you wanna contact us about, um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … and, um, just, yeah, encourage anyone to reach out.

Scott Hammond: Sweet. So before we sign off and talk about your legacy and your, your gravestone and all that stuff, um, we took a bike ride with you and the group-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, in McKinleyville on the new, uh, uh, we started out at, at, uh, is it Hicks Shari down there at the foot of School?

Colin Fiske: Uh-

Scott Hammond: That-

Colin Fiske: … the Hammond Trail?

Scott Hammond: The Hammond Trail.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: What's the foot of… It's, it's the foot-

Colin Fiske: Oh

Scott Hammond: … of School s- yeah, we started on the Hammond.

Colin Fiske: Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see. Um-

Scott Hammond: We did go on the Hammond.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. That, uh, what is the name-

Scott Hammond: You know about the Hammond Trail?

Colin Fiske: Uh, y- yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's named after my great-great-great-grandfather, Andrew Hammond.

Colin Fiske: I, I think you told me that.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I'm a London bar- uh, London, uh, I'm a lumber baron's, uh, kid. And I just show up here for fun. I just hang out. No, he, um, Andrew was quite a guy, though. He had, uh, the biggest, uh, redwood mill-

Colin Fiske: Wow

Scott Hammond: … in the world at the time at, uh-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … Samoa, and it later became, I think, Georgia-Pacific. They did a-

Colin Fiske: Okay

Scott Hammond: … monopoly buster on that, and he-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … wound up in Hammond, Oregon, way up by-

Colin Fiske: Wow

Scott Hammond: … Astoria.

Colin Fiske: Wow.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, the lumber guys.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. There you go.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. No relation. Joanie gets… Every time I bring it up, she just gets so tweaked to stop. So no, anyway.

Colin Fiske: Oh.

Scott Hammond: Uh, where was I going with that? Um-

Colin Fiske: The Hammond Trail

Scott Hammond: … so, so we, we did the ride.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: We did the ride. Tell us about the ride and then the, the traffic, uh, calming on, um, McKinleyville Avenue.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Um, so we did a little sort of family-friendly bike

Colin Fiske: ride. Um, started at the trailhead of, um, the Mad River Trail, that new trail there-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … and then took the, um, I don't know what the name of that segment is along

Colin Fiske: School Road.

Scott Hammond: That has, it has a name-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … that trail.

Colin Fiske: It does.

Scott Hammond: But then we went up to the Hammond Trail.

Colin Fiske: Up the, up the Hammond Trail, um, to Hiller Park. Uh, picked up some more folks there, and then just

Colin Fiske: headed, um, up Hiller, uh, to Central and back down-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … and stopped at, uh, Sea Goat Farm Stand.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: My bad. I'm calling it McKinley. It's Hiller Avenue.

Scott Hammond: Hill-

Colin Fiske: Hiller

Scott Hammond: … Hiller.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hiller is where they did the, the, the county came in and-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … did the traffic slowing for-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … the bike lane.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. And then-

Scott Hammond: And that was cool, by the way, the, uh, with the A-frame there at the, um, the, uh, Sea Goat Farms.

Colin Fiske: Uh-huh. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Used to be Grace Good Shepherd Church, I think.

Colin Fiske: Uh-huh. Uh, that's still there. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Still is.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Um, the-

Scott Hammond: That's a cool little store.

Colin Fiske: It is a cool spot, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I like that.

Colin Fiske: And they, um, actually, I should give them a shout-out 'cause, uh, Sea Goat, it's a, it's a nonprofit, and they-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, really coordinated the mural part of that project. They kinda brought the artists on board and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … helped raise money, and, um, actually, it's still ongoing. They're still raising money for, um, a mural in the new roundabout that, that was built at that intersection.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Oh, cool

Colin Fiske: … it was just built a week or two ago.

Scott Hammond: Joanie took me on it. She was so excited.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I think we should've went twice.

Colin Fiske: It was… It's pretty cool. And that, um, again, I, I don't wanna get too much in the weeds 'cause I can talk about this stuff all day, but what they did there, it's called a quick-build project.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And it's, the idea is, like, if you don't have to do any new paving, uh, or, or cement, you can do stuff pretty quick with just, like, paint and plastic.

Scott Hammond: And those, and those, uh, plastic tube things.

Colin Fiske: Yep, the little bollard things.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: Bollards

Colin Fiske: … and, um, so the idea is, like, it's not gonna last forever, but, um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … you can get some of those safety gains right away, and you can have people interact with it and, like, get feedback and figure out what to do in, in making it permanent.

Scott Hammond: So you can tweak it up-

Colin Fiske: Yep

Scott Hammond: … as you go.

Colin Fiske: So we've been trying to, um, promote that idea around here-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … to kinda like… 'Cause sometimes, you know, you do this work, and you're like, "Wow, that bike lane. Yeah, we agreed to do that bike lane, and now it's been 10 years, and they finally painted the bike lane," you know?

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: And it's like, maybe we could do it a little quicker, and even if it's not permanent, get some of that improvement.

Scott Hammond: I like that. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And what if it really, really worked?

Colin Fiske: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: So would we do the same on the, on the, uh, Central Avenue proposal? Would that be kind of-

Colin Fiske: It could

Scott Hammond: … a trial-and-error type of thing?

Colin Fiske: Uh, I think it's gonna still be more public process before-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … you figure out exactly what happens there.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, um, I would say in that case– Well, actually with Hiller too, um, you know, the McKinleyville Town Center ordinance that was just adopted-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … it, it s- shows what it'll be roughly in the long term.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, but there is a possibility of, um, having some of those quick-build things in the near term because it'll probably take a long time to raise the money and-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Colin Fiske: … figure out how to do the permanent.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: So you must have some advocates at county level then, Steve Madrone and-

Colin Fiske: Yeah, for sure

Scott Hammond: … different people.

Colin Fiske: Yeah. Yeah, Steve's been a great friend. Um, we actually gave him our Responsible Transportation Champion Award this year, um, for all of his work on trails-

Scott Hammond: Steve

Colin Fiske: … and transit.

Scott Hammond: Congrats, Steve.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: One of my first guests.

Colin Fiske: Oh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, he's great.

Colin Fiske: He's great.

Scott Hammond: Really great guy.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: It's funny when you actually talk to people how you discover, oh, Colin's actually a pretty cool guy. Scott, Scott's… We, we could go either way on Scott, but-

Colin Fiske: Great guy

Scott Hammond: … he's, he's okay. We like him anyway. So, uh, parting shots. Uh, what are we, what are we saying at your le- your, uh, your funeral, at your celebration of life? What would you, what would you hope that people would say about you, Colin?

Colin Fiske: Uh, he cared.

Scott Hammond: Nice.

Colin Fiske: That's what I would hope people would say.

Scott Hammond: That's good. Caring. Caring's good. I think, you know, caring and then, and then expressing that care, I think that's-

Colin Fiske: You know-

Scott Hammond: I'm not writing your funeral, but yeah

Colin Fiske: … yeah. No, I, well, I've tried to devote my life to making things a little bit better, you know?

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: And there's a lot of different ways to do that.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, um, I think transportation, transportation interests me because it's this cross-section between, like, all these important things-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … like environment and social safety and equity and the economy and, you know-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … community, and it's like all these things are wrapped up in it.

Colin Fiske: And-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … um, and I feel like, you know, you can make improvements that really change people's lives.

Scott Hammond: I like it. And before we go, I'd like to talk about the Re- Great Redwood Trail for a sec.

Colin Fiske: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: I mean, that's gotta have, have play into your vision in the next-

Colin Fiske: For sure

Scott Hammond: … decade.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: 'Cause as we connect that next leg to Lolita or wherever

Scott Hammond: south.

Colin Fiske: Yep. Yeah. Um, so the next segment that's being planned, um, in addition to the Annie and Mary Trail, which

Colin Fiske: is ongoing-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … um, is extending the trail south from Eureka to CR.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and we participated in a planning study for that. Um, so there's initial plans for that, and then they have to raise money to do the engineering work and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Colin Fiske: … environmental review and, and then actually build it.

Colin Fiske: But-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Colin Fiske: … but that's sort of the next big step in our area, and that's super cool 'cause so many, um, students at CR commute and, and don't drive. They ride the bus or whatever.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Colin Fiske: Or people do bike down there, and it's kind of dangerous.

Colin Fiske: Um-

Scott Hammond: There's gotta be highway time.

Colin Fiske: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Colin Fiske: So, so that's-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Colin Fiske: … that's a really exciting next step.

Scott Hammond: And then Lolita would be a, a stop on the trail, right, at some point?

Colin Fiske: Yep. Lolita, it'll go right through Lolita.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: Um, and so I would say, you know, the, the trail, um, the whole Great Redwood Trail is, like, a huge vision. It's gonna take a long time.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Colin Fiske: Um, but the parts that are most exciting to me are the parts that are,

Colin Fiske: um, not just recreation, like not just the backcountry trail, although I love

Colin Fiske: that.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Colin Fiske: But, but that also function to provide safe transportation for people. Um, and so, like, that, that Eureka to CR is a great example where it's like-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Colin Fiske: … it's gonna be beautiful. You're gonna be going right through the National Wildlife Refuge and all that stuff.

Scott Hammond: Perfect. No, it's perfect.

Colin Fiske: But it's also, like, really important safety infrastructure.

Scott Hammond: It's got a purpose. It's taking students-

Colin Fiske: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … back and forth. Yeah.

Colin Fiske: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's great. Yeah, really glad you came.

Colin Fiske: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Scott Hammond: Appreciate you having me.

Colin Fiske: Appreciate it.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So, uh, hey, everybody. Uh, Scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt with, with my new best friend, Colin, and, uh, thanks for listening. And you can join us on, uh, on Access Humboldt, all the podcast platforms, YouTube, and of course, um, right here. Uh, this will be our last broadcast for the year.

Colin Fiske: Oh.

Scott Hammond: And, uh-

Colin Fiske: I'm honored.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah, we're honored to have you. And, uh, gosh, I, I wanna thank so many people. Nick, my main man with Growing Pains, uh, podcast. Nick Flores is amazing. Uh, my daughter Kalia. My wife Joni's a big supporter. Uh, Quality Body Works in Arc- E- Eureka. I was gonna say Arcata. They're in Eureka. Uh, Kim Kemp, we're, we're on her, uh, Redheaded Black Belt all the time. And of course, our good friends at Dick Taylor Chocolates, where their chocolate's just, it's pretty good.

Colin Fiske: It's pretty darn good.

Scott Hammond: It's pretty darn good. We saw them play down at The Steeple in Ferndale.

Scott Hammond: They were-

Colin Fiske: Nice

Scott Hammond: … Huckleberry Flint. They're amazing.

Colin Fiske: Cool.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, back in the… Uh, love to see those guys. Anyway, uh, hey, again, thanks for having us, and, uh, we're out.