Paths for People
Nicholas: What got you first interested in urban design as a subject?
Shannon: It was incremental - I was introduced to the concept when I went to university and moved into residence, where everything I needed was within a 15-minute walk - dining, classes, services. I didn’t have to worry about driving or commuting. Halfway through my degree, I saved up some money and was lucky enough to go to on a trip through Europe over a four-week period.
That was one of the bigger influences - I saw cities built differently from the ones I was used to. I enjoyed the ambience and physical setting of those places and thought maybe we could have bigger dreams and aspirations for the spaces we have at home. That was the summer before COVID, and that major hurdle started sparking conversations about what public space looks like in Edmonton. Trying to hang out with friends and family emphasized the importance of having spaces to do that outside or in the public realm where people can gather and still be in a safe space.
Now I've gotten more involved in these concepts, wanting to push for them to be built or seen in my own city. Volunteering with Paths for People has allowed me to take a step into the advocacy lens when it comes to working with our city councillors. In the future, I’m hoping to go back to school to be able to work in urban planning; but for right now, I'm content with being able to continue to do the work that I have, contributing to advocacy and being involved in urban design without necessarily having to have a degree in planning.
Nicholas: What got you involved with Paths for People and what have been the highlights?
Shannon: During COVID, I was finishing the last year of my degree as a psychology major and realized that while I had enjoyed the content, I had no desire to work or further my education in that field. I debated switching, but decided to finish my degree and continued working in student affairs. I wanted to take a couple years to work and figure out who I am, but I still wanted to learn more about this field that I’m interested in it but have no practical experience in.
Joining Paths for People was a perfect way to be engaged at the local level on issues including design, advocacy, and active transportation. My interest in them had been building over time in a meaningful way. I had a supervisor who said if you're interested in this field, you should try and get some experience in it before doing a Master's degree or getting a new job. Paths for People was recruiting last summer and I was a good fit. We've still been figuring out where we stand after the pandemic, but it's been impactful to get to shape an organization like this, especially because we have many members across the city. It's been impactful learning about local politics, getting a grassroots understanding of what makes the city great, and how we can create something better. The last couple highlights have been specific events that I've attended, like a community pathways event with Iron and Earth, which is a workers’ organization focused on the transition from oil and gas industry to other industries. Michael Janz held a couple phenomenal events like the traffic camp in March and Tom Babin (Shifter) event recently. I left feeling energized and passionate and I'm looking forward to continuing to attend and eventually putting on more of these events.
Nicholas: Who have you seen been most engaged? And where do you see the sweet spot in terms of the people that need to be exposed to some of these concepts?
Shannon: They’re often people that are already invested in these conversations in other areas of their life or are, for example, biking to work every day. One of our priorities is building bigger than just the people that already know what we're talking about. Our target demographic is ideally the entire city; we don't want to focus on influencing or working with one specific group. We want to make these conversations more visible to the public sphere so that people can continue them with friends, families, and co-workers, and it's not just people hearing directly from us. Our work focuses on working directly with city council and going to public hearings, but we're not just interested in working with politicians. A well-built city should serve the needs of everybody within it and we need people across all walks of life to help determine what that looks.
Biking for leisure is an excellent segue into biking for transportation because you're already comfortable on a bike. I have a friend who wanted to start biking but she had never ridden a bike before. When you have that additional hurdle of learning a new skill and have to apply it in a city without a well-connected set of bike paths, people will see biking as leisure and irrelevant to the conversation. But it has value because it gets people comfortable with moving around in ways that aren't in a car, which is a crucial first step. At Paths for People, we have a bigger focus than just bike lanes. We want accessibility for pedestrians, people who use mobility devices, and anything that gets you around a city that isn’t a car.
Nicholas: Why should everyone care about urban design?
Shannon: It’s hard to know what good urban design or public spaces feel like until you've been able to experience them. There's so much potential we have to create a vibrant city that makes our lives easier, and not just for people that are interested in active transportation. We all want to have what's most important to us easily accessible, and to live healthy and productive lives. High quality urban design can help us by modifying the environment around us and everybody benefits through incremental mindset changes. People complain about potholes and traffic, but the fewer cars we have on the road, the less traffic we're going to have, and the less damage to our roads. Shifting people into different modes like transit, walking, or biking frees up that road space for people that do need it, so it benefits everybody.
Nicholas: Imagine that the city has implemented the top three ideas that you think would benefit the city. What would that version of Edmonton look like?
Shannon: The bike network would be complete. We'd have grade-separated, well-designed bike lanes that can take more than just bikes, since we've got people on scooters and others that need extra space on streets. Another thing we'd love to see are more people out on the streets, even in winter. Good urban design can help create environments that are easy for people to be in, even on the coldest days.
Lastly, we’d have a cultural shift in the assumed method of transportation. Ten years from now, we’d want our work to help people embrace that shift in mentality to bike, take public transit, or walk with a friend instead of relying on a car. When your journey is 20 minutes by car or 1 hour on transit, it makes sense that people would naturally turn to a car because time is valuable and they want to get to their destination in an easy, efficient way. How can we make smaller trips appealing so that people only use a car for longer trips? Having a culture shift about how you're going to get places is one of the biggest challenges in urban design, but can be one of the most rewarding aspects of it.
Nicholas: In terms of misconceptions, what's the most common one that you hear about for public transit, people-oriented infrastructure, or urban design?
Shannon: I was at a campfire with friends and they were talking about how their community had recently undergone neighborhood renewal and there was a change from a sidewalk to a multi-use path. The street had become more narrow and they were complaining about how it was harder to drive through. It's a common grievance with sidewalk upgrades; however, the goal is to naturally slow you down as a driver so that you are more easily able to stop for pedestrians. It needs to be more apparent that things are going to feel slower or narrower as a driver, but that it's for the safety of the people who aren't in a car. Without knowing this point, people can be frustrated at how this change has impacted how they’d typically use that street. Having bigger community conversations about what a safe and vibrant neighborhood looks like can help explain it to people in a way that makes sense.
Both the city and people in those neighborhoods have a role to play in communication as it's part of a culture shift that includes conversations with family and neighbors. Having YouTube personalities or influencers show what this looks like on a daily basis are valuable in a way that feels more tangible to people, too. It's not like hearing a lecture from a university professor or something that feels very distant from you. Having place-based knowledge is important because you can see a bike influencer in Montreal, but hearing from people within your city that travel the same streets you do on a bike or on transit can be motivating.
Nicholas: I was walking around the Fringe grounds and one of the first things I noticed was the space. There are streets closed and it is a well-connected place for people to hang out and enjoy, even if they aren’t going to a Fringe show. In terms of pop-up spaces, there's an open streets event that Paths for People held for a couple years now - what role does that play in the conversation of urban design?
Shannon: They demonstrate the capacity of a space to shift its focus entirely. 104th Street downtown does open streets on Saturdays throughout the summer, going from a busy street that people are shoved to the sides of to a space where there are activities and opportunities to engage with each other in a big physical space. We can be limited by our mental frameworks surrounding the status quo - this street always has cars on it or this street is the most efficient route to get from A to B. Pop-up things like the Fringe Festival help to push those boundaries and answer the question of, “What are we missing out on?” What opportunities exist in these spaces that we aren't currently seeing because they’re used by cars every day? If you have good experiences at these festivals taking over the streets, you're going to want to see more of that in the future.
Nicholas: What can each of us do to continue to build momentum towards that vision that you talked about?
Shannon: Have conversations with our neighbors, engage with infrastructure that does exist because Edmonton does have good pockets of pedestrian-focused infrastructure, host events that celebrate those spaces, or talk about the vision for them in the future. See how they can grow, engage with our elected officials and tell them what you want to see for our communities, and how can we make this a reality and amplify the benefits of that people-focused infrastructure.
Nicholas: What is Paths for People focused on for the next little while?
Shannon: We're a working board of 7 volunteer members, but we have full-time jobs. It worked during COVID, but to host more events and bigger initiatives, we need an executive director to come in as a paid role with the capacity to focus all of their energy into this work. To get to that, we're taking a bit of a shift as an organization to focus on our longevity.
In this next year, we’re hoping to take a step back from organizing some of the events. We're still going to be present supporting broader community events, but we want to focus on looking for funding opportunities to bring somebody into a full-time role to take on work that we don't have capacity to do as volunteer board members. We've had an executive director in a past and it's a model we've been successful with. The non-profit funding landscape changed since COVID, and we’re figuring out how we can navigate it in a sustainable way.
Keep in touch with us through our newsletter, Instagram, and website for more information on what we're up to and events we're attending. We also have our Annual General Meeting (AGM) coming up on September 20th. So if you're interested in that, you'll be able to register here!
