The Right Path
Monthly Newsletter
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Mission
The
International Professional Association for Transport & Health (IPATH) is a platform for cross-disciplinary and multi-sector professionals working at the intersection of transport and health. The aim of PATH is to share information, exchange ideas, and foster collaboration to improve health, quality of life and well-being in communities by advocating for the integration of health in the urban and transport agendas.
Vision
- To create an accepted professional discipline of transport and health
- To support and encourage research and best practices aimed at integrating health into the transport and urban planning and strategic decision-making processes
- To build a cohesive community of cross-disciplinary and multi-sector professionals
IPATH Membership including THSG extends from 1 January through December 31, renewed annually
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Dual Membership
As an IPATH member, you are automatically a member of the
Transport & Health Science Group (THSG) and access to a copy of Health on the Move 2. If you are not receiving emails from THSG or have not yet received a welcome letter as a new member, please contact
Liz Davies.
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The Continuum
Why is it that we seldom share our personal passion at work, when it's this part of us that drives motivation, defines who we are as a person and as an employee.
As far back as my memories go, I have been obsessed with horses. Maybe it's part of my DNA. Maybe it's destiny. Maybe it's just who we are meant to be.
I should clarify that no one in my family has ever had a horse. And it's not just horses, but one majestic breed of horse in particular; the
Arabian. I own two Straight Egyptian Arabians from a small breeder in Texas, who has also become a very good friend, Louise DeRusseau of
LD Arabians. I have also adopted two Arabian horse rescues that had been neglected and/or abused. This herd of four has not only brought joy to my life, but as an equestrian and a steward of the most noble breed of horse on earth, it's a relationship that has made me the person, I am today.
O! Arabian
Well, that all sounds real romantic. The truth is, horses have taught me the meaning of responsibility, determination, sacrifice and an intuit sense of purpose. They have taught me to be a leader and a team player. "Horses have a special ability to provide you with a dramatic view of how your leadership skills and team work measure up. Over time, many of us learn to hide feelings and filter reactions in the work place, especially from leaders. A horse, however, will hold up a mirror to your leadership style in ways you simply won’t get from your team or your peers."
In the work place, there is often miscommunication, frustration and a lot of effort put into the final project deliverable. It's the same scenario between a horse and rider. Imagine this working partnership as a cross-disciplinary/multi-sector team. The difference is that horses understand what people often forget:
every interaction is a conversation.
- Horses are EQ masters — they respond to our emotional honesty, our trustworthiness, and our ability to create a connection.
- Horses are nonverbal experts and pick up all of our ‘whole body’ communication. It’s not what you say, but how you say and do it that makes a difference.
- Horses respond to leaders who demonstrate confidence, provide clear direction, and act authentically.
- Horses don’t have hidden agendas. They don’t play politics. And they could really care less about your title or where you got your PE or PhD.
Just maybe....We should all learn to be a little more like the horse?
As the snow melts in Northern Michigan and the horses begin to shed out their heavy winter coats, I will start spring training with the herd of four. It might be a little rough in the beginning as we become reoriented to the process and set our goals, however, I'm confident that with a solid vision and a strategy in place, this team will see the winner's circle.
Wishing you a spring filled with new insights,
Karyn
Founder, TPH Link, ICTH & IPATH
Pictured below l-R; Al Adeeb LDA; Nasheet LDA; Xceptshanal Marwan (rescue) and Exxeter (rescue).
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As part of our continued growth, IPATH will be hosting quarterly meetings for the general membership.
This first meeting will be OPEN to the public. Join us for an opportunity to learn about IPATH as a member-based organization, our partner organizations and provide input to creating new activities.
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ANNOUNCEMENT
IPATH Quarterly Membership Meeting
Friday, 29 March
12:00 - 1:30 PM EST
Dial In: (712) 770-4712
Access Code: 117753#
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NEW IPATH Committee: Transit Services
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The
Transit Services Committee is dedicated to cross-disciplinary/cross-sector collaboration and information sharing. This committee provides information, advice, and recommendations on transit and mobility issues as determined by committee members.
Summary: A comprehensive mobility strategy allows a community to benefit through the provision of targeted and efficient transit options for the individual user regardless of income, physical ability, age, gender and ethnicity. This strategy should provide connections to work, health care, shopping and services, schools, social networks and leisure/recreational activities. Mobility options may include demand-response suburban first and last mile connections to transit hubs, rural shared-ride options, and frequent limited stop and local fixed route bus and rail routes. Fast, frequent and adequately-funded public and other shared-ride services are necessary to support growing local economies and healthy populations.
The Committee is led by Steve Yaffe and Daniel Yonto. Take a minute to visit the
Transit Services Committee web page to learn more about these two leaders in the field of transit and submit a contact form to join the team.
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George Town Could Become a Malaysian
Best Practice in Transport
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"George Town, a scenic Malaysian city on the island of Penang, is a culturally-significant and popular tourist destination. The city is a dense, beautiful collection of colonial-era and other historic, well-preserved architecture. Listed as a UNESCO World Culture Heritage site, George Town has long been an important center of trade in Penang, founded as an entry port by the British in the 1700s, and attracting traders and workers from all over the region. Today, George Town is a diverse mix of cultures, with influences of China, India, Indonesia, Burmese, the Arabic world, and many others, including the native Malays.
However, for tourists and locals alike, access to the low-rise hodgepodge of shops, temples, and markets that cover the streets oriented to the still-active port, leaves much to be desired. Despite its density and small streets perfectly suited to walking and cycling, George Town suffers from the same car-oriented planning that plagues cities all over the world. Most residents travel by car, and a lack of parking regulation enforcement means that cars typically block pedestrian spaces, and make cycling dangerous.
While the city does have a quality bus transit system, Rapid Penang, the lack of “last mile” connections and a poor walking and cycling environment prevents it from replacing car trips. Fortunately, the Penang state and city governments are eager for change, and have been working with the Asian Development Bank and ITDP Indonesia, as well as together with local communities and organizations, to tackle mobility problems in the city, increase tourism, and improve its residents’ quality of life.
Over the last few years, the collaboration between local communities, residents and the Government has resulted in the George Town Special Area Master Plan. This plan includes pedestrian improvements, such as ensuring that sidewalks are connected and continuous, separated from cars, and five-feet wide. The bike share program, LinkBike, launched in 2016, are being expanded to better serve residents and tourists, with a higher density of stations in high-traffic locations all over the city." To read the full article visit the
Institute for Transportation & Policy Institute (ITPI).
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ITE Talks Transportation
has a library of recorded podcasts available to the public. Many are focused on diverse topic of transport and health; leadership; real-world practice experiences; equity and much more. Click
HERE
to explore the library.
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20 mph Speed Limits
Help the Invisibly Disabled Gain Social Equality
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"At first sight we can’t tell if someone has a mental health problem - anxiety, dementia, stress or sleep disorder. Yet sufferers are vulnerable and fearful. The partially sighted, hearing impaired, with a prosthetic leg, cancer, elderly or pregnant have protected characteristics not obvious at a distance from a driver’s seat behind a windscreen. These affect judgments, reaction times and lead to crossing roads slowly. You’re disabled under the Equality Act 2010[1] if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on normal daily activities.
Most of us are imperfect - either due to health or tiredness. We make mistakes. Children are impulsive and don’t have the visual or physical mastery to cope with crossings with traffic over 20 mph until 12 years. Vision scientists show mistakes in kids judging looming or approach speeds.
Yet, if drivers don’t allow for mistakes, casualties result. Many are un-clustered and cannot be prevented by site specific engineering. Crashes come from poor road judgement and aren’t just bad luck because many are predictable and could be prevented if drivers went slower to give everyone time to react and avoid hazards. Road users, traffic planners, vehicle designers and elected representatives making transport decisions must all assume that everyone is vulnerable
If responsibility is shared, then the onus is on creating a safe system where errors aren’t fatal or life changing. Health and Safety regulations apply this fail-safe concept widely. On roads it is known as Vision Zero or “safe systems”, a policy adopted by Transport for London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Brighton, Birmingham and Blackpool.
Wide 20mph limits where people are is the top feature of a forgiving road environment – one which fully upholds the Equalities Act 2010 and Local Authority’s Duty of Care to public health. Civilised speeds especially reduce risk to the vulnerable, disabled or those with protected characteristics. Vulnerable road users are non-motorised road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists as well as motor-cyclists and persons with disabilities or reduced mobility and orientation.
To learn more about this initiative click
HERE. You can also contact Anna Semlyen, 20’s Plenty for Us Campaign Manager, T: 07572 120439
Anna.s@20splenty.org
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Call for Peer Reviewers
The Programme Committee would like to invite you to serve as a volunteer peer reviewer of abstracts submitted for presentation at the International Conference on Transport & Health (ICTH) to be held in Melbourne, Australia, 4-8 November 2019. This is a great way to learn about new research and innovative practice schemes in the pipeline. Click the button below to find out more.
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Lizard Brains on Planning
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"As a fresh-faced twenty-something in Corvallis, I watched a smart plan to create a safer, more vibrant, and more walkable space get destroyed at a public hearing.
The benefits seemed clear. But the plan would have realigned a street, making the area more walkable. Business owners were uncertain; drivers were worried. And the collective nervousness caused the city council to skip the plan.
It’s a familiar scenario to planners – months or years of work are thrown out, because people are afraid of the unknown, or simply don’t understand what plans propose.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
In planning, like most professions, we talk too much among ourselves. We create acronyms and use technical terms, we submerge ourselves in a common base of knowledge and understanding of the world — and we forget how average people see our work. And yet we’re surprised when we present strong plans, and see them shot down by decision-makers and the public.
Know this: We’re up against lizards
Or rather, we’re up against the lizard brains people use to make sense of the world. The instinctual side of our brains is engaged more often than our reflective, deep thinking side.
Humans have evolved to use mental shortcuts to navigate a complex world, full of stimulation and uncertainties. These shortcuts often serve us well, allowing us to get through our daily lives. And while we’re able to engage in complex, difficult thinking, doing so takes some real work.
As planners, we need to make sure that when we present our plans and our work, we’re appealing to people’s intellects and their instincts.
Much has been written about the mental shortcuts humans use. To highlight a few:
- Status quo bias, loss aversion and the endowment effect. These related shortcuts lead up to fear of change, especially when we think something we have may be lost. We overvalue things we already have, and have a hard time seeing the value in change or new things. It’s hard for people to start paying for parking when they’ve always been given it for free.
- Confirmation bias. We have a hard time processing new information that doesn’t match up with what we already believe. It doesn’t feel good to give up strongly-held beliefs, so we don’t. Instead, we latch onto the data that affirm our preexisting beliefs. We share the article that furthers our belief, and skip reading the one with the contrary headline, because it seems wrong.
- Observational selection bias. We have a tendency to see only those things that match up with our understanding of the world. We notice the bicyclist or SUV driver who breaks traffic laws, but don’t notice all those who follow the laws, nor our own breaking of laws.
- Self-serving bias. We take more responsibility for our successes than our failures. Also, we interpret confusing or ambiguous situations in a way favorable to ourselves. Traffic or high costs of housing aren’t our fault, they’re the other person’s fault.
- Gambler’s fallacy. We believe the past predicts the future, in the face of data showing us it will be different. Whether it’s a belief in lucky streaks on the roulette table, or that people will continually drive more, we struggle to imagine a future very different than the past, even in the face of clear math or data showing otherwise.
- Availability heuristic. We use the first picture that comes to our mind as indicative of the whole. If we picture a run-down rental property when someone mentions affordable housing, we draw policy conclusions about affordable housing based on that image.
Given all that, what should we do?
Engage the lizards. Use people’s mental shortcuts to your advantage."
Want to read more on this unique perspective? Click on the
Full Article.
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"The AARP Community Challenge grant program is part of the nationwide
AARP Livable Communities initiative that helps communities become great places to live for residents of all ages. The program is intended to help communities make immediate improvements and jump-start long-term progress in support of residents of all ages."
The AARP annual challenge funds projects that build momentum for local change to improve livability for all residents.
The grant application period is OPEN now through April 17. Click
HERE
for more information.
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FREE Webinars
Form Based Codes Institute (A program of Smart Growth America) "Form-based codes pose a significant advantage over auto-oriented, use-based zoning by focusing on the relationship between blocks, buildings, and public spaces. If properly written and implemented, form-based codes can promote human-scaled places that encourage a mix of uses and support walkability."
Call For Papers
Submission opens: 15 March 2019
Submission of full Papers for the Themed Volume: July 31 2019
Deadline revisions: November 2019
Publication: January 2020
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Scientific Journal Articles, Articles of Interest & Reports
To learn more on trending articles, consider joining us on LinkedIn and Twitter
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International Conference on Transport & Health
Smart Cities. Disruptive Mobility. Healthy People.
Pullman Melbourne on the Park
Melbourne, Australia
4-8 November 2019
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RAIL~VOLUTION 2019, Transit & Community Development Conference, September 8-11, Vancouver, British Columbia
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Transportation Policy Director - This role will be responsible for developing and implementing SPUR's transportation policy across San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and the Bay Area.
Postdoctoral Associate – Transportation Engineering Specialty, Fresno State Transportation Institute, Lyles College of Engineering
Location: Arizona State University – Tempe Campus
- Director of Smart Cities
- Communications Intern
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Thank you for taking the time to read through The Right Path Newsletter! If you have ideas to improve the newsletter or would like to contribute, please email us at
kwarsow@tphlink.com
Photo: Karyn at age 5-6 years old on a beautiful bay horse named, Major, at the local riding stable. Dreams do come true. Never give up on your dreams....
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