The opportunities are endless AND they don’t have to involve more work for already over-stretched teachers (I know I was one for a while in the UK and many of my friends in Qld are teachers) and that’s why I trawled my hard drive library to find this blog about involving teenagers in policy, planning and design projects which was first published way back in 2002!

TEENAGERS…

To

Engage &

Enthuse

Normally

Apathetical &

Grumpy persons into

Engineering

Real

Streets

Enthusing primary school children to walk to school is easy; a few posters and the prospect of being given a sticker and they’re putty in your hands. A few free breakfasts and the rumours of cash payment in return for their workplace car parking space and the average Joe Bloggs is prepared to hear you out on travel plans. But teenagers, well that’s a whole different ball game.

Just sneaking a peep into my teenage sisters bedroom (obviously entrance is forbidden) should have been enough to make me wonder why I willing suggested and enthusiastically volunteered to work with them.  In them, I mean 600 teenagers.

Teenagers had been bothering me, so to speak, for a considerable period of time. Girls didn’t like cycling, boys were being bullies on the bus and the whole concept of owning an old banger was just so cool.

But I had been set a challenge. The Local Authority whom I was working to develop travel plans had plans to put a pedestrian crossing at a location between the comprehensive schools main entrance and the towns shopping area (basically at a point along a 500m distance). There were two key issues. Firstly there were simply too many pupils for the width of the pavements and secondly there were no safe crossing places. At the beginning, but most prominently at the end of the day teenagers literally swamped the entire highway.

My gut reaction was to give the teenagers their say. To let them decide on the type and location of a new crossing. With the Local Authority persuaded that whilst it was not the ‘norm’ it could lead to some innovative conclusions, I approached the school, who were eager to include a ‘Plan 4 real’ day into a forthcoming Citizenship week. My next task was how was I going to ‘entertain’ 600 teenagers for a day?…

The day began with an aims and objectives presentation. The teenagers then split into modal groups and set off to walk the perimeter of the school grounds with their assigned facilitator. The students were given a relatively open brief; ‘Identify how the school site and local highway could be improved, including your preferred location for a new crossing’. The number and diversity of responses were unbelievable. When the ideas were collated onto a site and local area map there was hardly any area untouched by ‘teenage thinking’. Back inside school the groups underwent a ‘mode MOT workshop’ ©. Each group identified what they liked, disliked and wanted improved with their normal travel mode. This was translated onto the MOT form with their main actions for each issue.

Can teenagers make a difference? Should teenagers be consulted? Well the proof is the pudding. The Local Authority had proposed one pedestrian crossing – their logic ‘best location to help the most people’. The teenagers want two zebra crossings – their logic ‘a wider range of people have the greatest benefit’. Not only this but they came up with some innovative proposals to radically improve safety, reduce vehicle conflicts and improve movements on their school site.

They might have messy bedrooms but believe me they can teach us a thing or two about transport planning!

This opinion piece was first published in the UK in the Journal of Road Safety in September 2002

1. In the context of living in the community, how do we move our focus from me to we?
2. How do we create and foster an education culture that teaches skills and values to meet global challenges and optimises regional strengths?
3. How do we empower and educate individuals, communities and institutions to embrace responsibility for an active and healthy lifestyle?
4. How do we structure our economy to ensure our children inherit a resilient future?
5. How do we strengthen our economic future and achieve sustainable landscapes?
6. How do we attract and retain the brightest minds and ideas where they are most needed and capitalise on global opportunities?

The question “How do we empower and educate individuals, communities and institutions to embrace responsibility for an active and healthy lifestyle?” made me think of my old life back in Blighty developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating active school travel. I loved it. No two days were ever the same and I saw real people, in real places make real fundamental changes to their travel behaviour and that’s why I scrambled through my hard drive library to find this ‘Recipe for Success’ blog (below) first published way back in 2002!

We have 1230 State Schools here in Queensland and a million opportunities.

I’d say our future here in Queensland is bright and our future will be very active.

Active School Travel Plan’s. Cooking up a recipe for success

Well, it’s like making a cake really, some of us would add cherries to the mixture, other sultana’s, although personally I would go for chocolate every time!  Travel Plans are similar, everyone is on a steep learning curve, all sharing ideas and experiences, we each have our own unique ways and styles of implementing plans but are all striving for the icing on the cake – a successful, self-sustaining plan. 

I’m no Nigella or Delia.  In fact I change my mind on my own travel plan ingredients regularly.  But here are a few of ideas I have prepared for cooking up a victory.

Take

• A handful of champions
• Mix with a few pounds of commitment
• Add several kilos of inspiration
• Bags of enthusiasm
• Add a good serving of motivation
• Garnish with a sense of humour!

If there is one thing that I have learnt it is that no two schools are the same and no two problems require a similar solution. Here is my own personal step-by-step guide for cooking up a success… Try it, test it, mix it with your own ingredients and most importantly share it with others!

1. Find a suitable school.  Enthusiasm, motivation and commitment are all crucial ingredients

2. Form a working party.  Mix in Governors, the Head Teacher, parents, pupils and staff.  Add a Police Officer, School Crossing Patrol and Road Safety Officer for good measure.

3. Visit your school.  Explain your recipe of success to the working party. Mix with pupils with a ‘hands up’ travel survey to sieve out those who are currently sustainable. Gather together all pupil postcodes (for GIS postcode maps), audit the site for facilities and walk the local area to assess initial problems. Produce a visit 1 report setting out your plans blended with a colourful pupil postcode plot map.

4. Conduct a travel survey.  Either a  ‘hands-up’ survey, paper questionnaire or use Young Transnet, dependent on utensils and time available.  Analyse and report the results in a jolly newsletter for the wider school community to savour.

5. Get their taste buds tingling… Explain the Travel Plan process in a full school assembly, launch ‘WOW – Walk On Wednesdays’ and an ‘Adopt your feet for one week so you can Plan 4 Real’  © campaign.

6. Mix in a ‘Plan 4 Real’ © day.  Organise all your ingredients into groups, walk the school site and local area and gather back at school to work in groups identifying key issues, objectives and actions to pursue. Garnish with displays, maps and aerial photos.

7. Cook up a similar activity for parents and residents in the evening.  Allow them to take ownership by getting them into small groups to prepare a draft Travel Plan by providing workshop worksheets. Just add wine for a fuller flavour!

8. Blend in the local environment and a Highways Engineer. Take a number of parents, the Head Teacher and a Highways Engineer and walk all the routes to school.  Provide the Engineer with a (empty) pushchair, double buggy or pram, then stand back and all enjoy the moment watching him (or her) struggle manoeuvring around bollards, dodging cars on busy roads and battling uneven narrow pavements.   

9. Produce a newsletter for pupils, parents and staff just so everyone know what is quietly simmering away.

10. Gather the working party together. Spend the day reviewing the problems, identifying the solutions and setting targets then blend into a draft Travel Plan.

11. When everyone is happy produce the final Travel Plan

12. Turn up the heat and let the plan go off with a bang… Launch your plan with a celebratory day at school. Invite the media, write a song, have a bike race or get everyone to walk as far as they can.

13. Health warning: Beware during this process you are likely to contract nits, measles and various strains of a runny nose!

14. Ice the cake with a slogan…  like my own concoction ‘wake up and work out on your way to school’ ©

Finally. Sit back and relax with a cup of tea – but keep your apron on … there are lots of hungry schools!!

What do you think?

This opinion piece was first published in the UK in the Journal of Road Safety in August 2002

The last few months have been hard. We’ve been battered and bashed environmentally, socially and economically; heatwaves, floods, cyclones, tornadoes and bush fires, the calling of a federal election, falling house prices, cost of lifestyle anxiety and declining coal prices. There’s a temptation to sit around focussing on the ‘here and now’, but if we do, there’s a very real chance that we’ll miss opportunities. That’s why Karyn Brinkley, Brisbane Institute’s CEO, started 2013 by challenging Brisbanites to see past current distractions and to start imagining, creating and taking action for the future.

For Reality Bites Time 4 Action #2 I’m inviting people to make a ‘wish List’

It’s important, really important. We need to be ready, and on the ‘front foot’, not procrastinating when opportunities; funding, project partners and willing volunteers arise.

We need to be ready to respond.

When I worked in Road Safety and Safer Routes to School at a Council in the UK I always had a ‘shopping list’ of projects I wanted cash and collaborators for. People would pass by my desk and leave bequeathing budget underspends or providing people. I wasn’t someone special. You don’t have to be anything special to achieve something amazing. You’ve just need to have a wish list and be ready to make it happen.

Now is the time to celebrate our successes as we plan for the future. That’s why I’m inviting everyone to celebrate and share their cycling successes as well as their big and small wishes.

Here are mine.

Two recent cycling successes

1. More than 75 people on bicycles at a recent Lazy Sunday Cycle
2. MX newspaper writing an article on my idea for a ‘Cycling Hero’

Two small cycling wishes

1. The overgrown vegetation along the South East Freeway bikeway being cut
2. Regular suburban ‘Style Over Speed’ bicycle rides

 Three big cycling wishes

1. North Brisbane Cycleway
2. Bulimba to Teneriffe Green Bridge
3. West End to UQ Green Bridge

What have you achieved?

What are your wishes?

Why are your wishes great ideas?

What are the challenges with your wishes?

What would the first steps to make these wishes happen be?

How many people would need to be involved?

What are the questions which would need to be asked?

 … We all can’t wait to hear from you

We all want change.

We all want a story and we all hope to be part of the next big story. (I’ll ‘fess up and admit I borrowed this from Tim Smit, Creator of the Eden Project)

My brave new idea for Brisbane is really it’s a story about change

We’ve got a big problem. We’re Fat, Flat broke and Lazy

• We’re obese
• We’re obsessed with national debt and the cost of living (not the cost of lifestyle)
• We’re lazy because all we do is click ‘like’ on Facebook

Our problems are mindset problems, because we all fear failure

What would you do today if you knew you would not fail?

I’d build a Cycleway on the Brisbane River made of waste plastic and coke cans. A Cycling Super Highway. In 2009 I went around the world and visited 30 of the world’s most acclaimed cycling cities. I interviewed the urban rock stars and the world’s most famous architects and then I met the skipper and boat build project manager of David de Rothchild’s Plastiki boat and my world changed forever. We could build the Cycling Super Highway out of plastic and put it on water!

A working city is about smart infrastructure,  people, technology and smart funding. For this reason my brave idea has four components:

1. Smart infrastructure – Lets’ be like David Rothchild. We need to tackle big issues like waste and recycling face on. There is no ‘away’. Our waste stagnates at Nudgee landfill. We could build our bikeway with our household crap?
2. Smart people – Let’s put our smartest thinkers in one room. Let’s not compete and let’s not just sit around talking. Let’s collaborate and then plan, design and build innovative architectural and engineering solutions. Let’s be like Vertech in the UK who have create road bridges with waste plastic
3.  Smart funding – For all we know, the money we donate to airline carbon offsets could be used for drinks in the business lounge. What about if as well as the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options there was a ‘donating towards the floating bikeway’ option? People who pay would get a Green Boarding Pass. Like KPMG’s Liz Crawford said at the launch “we can’t expect Government to pay for everything”
4. Technology – What if the added technology like real time data collection sensors or water based urban gardening to the bikeway? We could make it a multi use asset

When the Los Angeles Department of Transport said “for the bike to catch on we need a revolution in our bicycle infrastructure” they were right.

What’s the benefit for us, all of us?

For the last 12 – 18 years the Queensland economy has been great and life has been easy. Now is the time to be bold and brave. We need to try new things, we need to invent and we need to adapt our city for the future. Perhaps a floating bikeway made of household waste is just the legacy our city, our world and our future needs.

And finally I’d like you to remember the phrase “Just 2 4 U”

If all of us made just 2 trips by bike each week – that’s just cycling to a local café for Sunday breakfast and back home and if we all made just 4 trips with our feet each week – that’s just walking to the gym and back home again on Tuesdays and Thursdays then 30% of all trips in Brisbane would be by active transport.

The first few steps of this brave idea are very easy… Just 2 4 U

Pukka Plan for Cycling

That’s why I am launching Reality Bites: Time 4 Action because as my pal Paul says “Sometimes you have to grab the bull by the horns while someone else kicks him up the butt because that’s the only way to move forward”.

So, first up I am Bicycle Harvesting.

Bicycle Harvesting is a brand new phrase invented by me – and instigated by my yoga buddy Julie an early year’s teacher on a mission to get multiple resources in one central place – on the Sandgate bike path last Sunday afternoon.

It strikes me that there are heaps of people out there doing incredibly awe-inspiring advocacy and community work that no one really knows or ever hears about and conversely lots of energetic individuals, unemployed graduates (in Australia & Overseas) and underemployed professionals wanting to get involved in cycling and community projects but not knowing where to go or where to look for such opportunities.

So Action #1 is

• Collecting information on all the different bicycle advocacy and community cycling groups
• Sharing the information widely
• Storing the information in one place
• Connecting the people who can help (for example the people who are currently underemployed) with the people who need help (people like my mate Mike who has a million ideas and a 10 kilometre long ‘to do’ list)

What’s in it for me?

Absolutely nothing!

I’m just fed up with feeling frustrated. I want to forget all the reasons why this won’t work. I want to believe the one reason that it will and if nothing really happens then at least I will have tried and failed, which is better than not bothering at all!

If you have any kind of bicycle advocacy group or cycling community groups please email me rachel(at)cyclingrachelsmith(dot)com or rachel(dot)smith(at)aecom(dot)com the following information

• Group name
• Website or Facebook link
• Your goals and priorities for the next 3 – 6 months
• The types of people who would help you the most; investigators, communicators, builders, resisters, nurturers and networkers http://www.cyclingrachelsmith.com/media-articles/%e2%80%98reality-bites-%e2%80%93-bike-week-special%e2%80%99-%e2%80%93-can-just-6-people-transform-australian-cities-into-%e2%80%98cycling-cities%e2%80%99/

I’ll be uploaded all your information, as I receive it, onto the Bicycle Harvest page on this website.

“Knowledge, unlike other resources, is not reduced or depleted by sharing! ” 

                                                                                                              Says Mitch Bright, Brisbane Airport Bicycle User Group

Download here Latz

That’s why in this final episode of ‘Reality Bites – Bike Week special’ I’m asking…

‘Where to from here?’

It strikes me, right now, that if we really want riding a bicycle to be a viable, convenient and equitable mode of transport we need to ask a few ‘Whys?’.

Trouble is in Australia we’re obsessed with TV. Nothing gets our blood pumping more than My Kitchen Rules, The Block, Biggest Loser, Master Chef and The Voice. The list goes on. Then there’s the sitting on the sofa watching sport. That’s a national sport in itself, which might just explain why more than two-thirds of our population are overweight or obese. Why don’t we switch off the TV and do something else?

If people like Hughie, the yogi with a chocolate craving, are passionate about Cycle Queensland but the value for them is the community spirit and the food, and not the actual cycling, then why are we selling cycling how we’d sell soap?

If KPMG’s Liz Crawford says that we should stop asking Governments to do everything for us and if the ‘Story of Stuff’ and the ‘Story of Change’s’ Anne Leonard says we need to work together to take action and that we can do it with just six different types of people, then why are we all too busy watching TV?.. or just clicking ‘Like’ on Facebook?

If we want a cycling ‘voice’ or a cycling ‘hero’, someone like Jamie Oliver financially backed and properly endorsed by a major brand to lead the bold and brave conversations then why aren’t we supporting the volunteers in our community? Why aren’t we helping the 1 or 2 people in each city and regional town who devote 20 hours of their personal time each and every week to run the BUG’s and cycling events?

If we want women to be the indicator species for cycling then why aren’t we hosting more activities at schools, at workplaces and at community centres and for women to have a go at cycling? The annual Heart Foundation and Cycling Promotion Funds cycling survey showed us that less than one third of women have ridden a bicycle in last 6 months but more than 60% want to cycle. Why don’t we have a monthly Lazy Sunday Cycle in every suburb in every city and regional town?

If we want to have affordable inner city first homes for young people then why aren’t we challenging and inspiring planners, architects and developers? Why is it that a new affordable housing residential development in Gladstone will have 30 units and 48 car parking spaces and probably no bicycle parking?

Why aren’t we supporting our new, independent small bicycle related businesses? Why is it that a cycling business closes down every single week?

If, as a nation, we’re so passionate about improving our lives, making our streets and our public spaces more vibrant, reducing obesity, increasing physical activity, reducing depression, eliminating transport poverty, safeguarding our economy, reducing redundancies and increasing our financial stability why are we all watching TV?

Like the 1980’s UK TV program ‘Why don’t you’ always said “Why don’t you switch off the TV and go and do something else instead?”

So as we all struggle to make our financial ends meet, to stay out of debt, to stay healthy, keep fit and to enjoy this beautiful, safe and comfortable country that we are all blessed to live in I ask “Where to from here?”

I think that perhaps cycling might be one part of the answer in connecting our communities.

Earlier this week I met Michael. He’s a Government advisor and very passionate about sharing skills and knowledge. Michael reckons that our car dependency and our low-density large block master-planned suburbs have broken down our ability to share knowledge, and have eroded the opportunities to collaborate and removed the opportunities to innovate.

I reckon Michael’s right.

On my second day living in Berlin I got a bike. I biked everywhere; to work, to Aldi, to the swimming pool and the market, to see friends, to parties and even to fancy art gallery openings. I connected with my community. I knew the guy who ran the laundrette, the butcher and the baker. I knew everyone in my apartment block within a week because I saw them each and every morning and evening at the cycle parking stands.

And so here’s the thing. Are we pedalling or are we really connecting?

Last Sunday saw the ‘all time world record’ – for us – participation in Lazy Sunday Cycle. More than 60 people rode their bicycles along the beachfront from Sandgate to Redcliffe as part of the Brisbane bike week festivities. For many Lazy Sunday Cyclers the ‘value’ is in making new friends, connecting with different people and getting out and about in their community. It’s more about the connecting than the actual pedalling.

And here’s the thing. How often do you see a lone lycra cyclist? With the exception of my crazy friend Craig who cycles from Brisbane to the Gold Coast every Sunday morning on his own, it seems to me that ‘Lycra equals Lots’. They ride in groups, they connect with friends and they share experiences. Like they say cycling is the new golf. The peloton is the new networking forum and the post ride coffee shop is the new board room!

So here in Australia, as we face many modern challenges; mortgage poverty, rising food costs and mass redundancies we need to connect our communities, we need combine our contacts, we need to collaborate to innovate and we all need communicate our knowledge. So then perhaps pedalling might just be one of the answers to connect our communities.

What do you think?