Introducing the Dubai-based Street Design Team (Active Mobility)

In this episode, I connect with Deema Aburizik, the force of nature behind the new Street Design Team, a firm that is taking inspiration from the Dutch Cycling Embassy, the European Cyclists’ Federation, and other institutions to build the knowledge capacity needed to expand the active mobility networks on the ground in Dubai, the UAE and across the Middle East.

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Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):
– The Street Design Team: https://streetdesignteam.com/
– Dutch Cycling Embassy: https://dutchcycling.nl/
– European Cyclists’ Federation: https://ecf.com/

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Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

Since 2010, I’ve been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a “Culture of Activity” for “All Ages & Abilities.”

The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2024

I asked many questions and then this is the answer that came and then I audited the infrastructure which is the next slide and I asked them to say where they the problematic areas and based on the methodology that we developed based on PR practice from different parts of the

World we audited the infrastructure we walked around the neighborhood and we identified the problem areas and they were identical to the areas that we audited so the actually the people who are using the street are actually well aware where the problem areas are hey everyone welcome to the active towns

Channel I’m John simmerman and that is dimma abik from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and we are going to be talking about some of the exciting things that are happening in Walking In biking in the Dubai area uh let’s jump into it with Dima dea it’s an absolute pleasure having you on the active towns podcast welcome thank you John for having me uh I always like to give my guest just an opportunity to introduce themselves so uh who is Dea um I’m an urban designer based in Dubai um I’m passionate about cities and

I’m passionate about design I feed my passion with reading and uh um watching uh YouTube and listen taking courses and traveling to everything related to cities and I’m so fortunate to be able to travel with my children and my my two boys and my husband to different cities

Around the world in the past 5 years I uh became more and more focused on um cycling and walking as a means to inform my practice and um like as a catalyst for positive Urban change in our environment when it comes to inclusivity affordability environmental sustainability and quite frankly Joy

Yeah that’s why yeah yeah quite frankly Joy yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s having fun like spaces where yeah you can walk on cycle are much more fun yeah yeah well I’m going to pull up this map here because uh a uh you’re you’re not originally from that area you’re

Actually uh originally from Jordan uh but you also have uh ties to Texas too yeah you remember so yeah I um I I was born and raised in Jordan and I moved to the UAE with my husband to work um um UAE is the United Arab Emirates and

Dubai is one of the Emirates Emirates are like equivalent to um states in the US so UAE is a federal system and the UAE and Dubai is um is a state in that country and uh yeah so I’ve been here since 2005 but um the rest of my family

Are all like all over the US frankly and my sister lives in uh like your neighbor in San Antonio one of them yeah yeah just 90 miles to the south of me here in Austin so uh hopefully one of these days we’ll be able to uh uh connect with each

Other in person if you have an opportunity to to visit excellent yeah yeah in fact you I I owe you a bicycle tour of our Dutch inspired cycle Network here in uh in the Austin area because we’ve been building out uh you know that

Over the last decade or so and you and I know some of the same people in the Dutch cycling Embassy and uh and and some of the folks that have uh really helped assist us in helping to build out that cycling Network and I love giving

Tours to folks that are able to make it to Austin and if I’m around if I’m available I I love uh giving uh bike tours around the area I can’t wait yeah that’s good stuff um and so you connected with me a a few months ago and

You were super super excited about this opportunity as you just mentioned you know to getting inspired about creating some joy and creating uh and promoting active mobility and talk a little bit about that inspiration the Nugget what what were some of the key things that really inspired you to want to transform the

Built environment into healthier more active promoting places so as an urban designer I worked in different roles in Jordan my role was back back home in Jordan I was in research and we were focused on water conserving Landscapes and like great water use because Jordan faces like major challenges related to

Water scarcity but then when I moved to the UAE the scale changed and the priorities changed and the timeline of implementation of projects changed so I worked for 13 years in a multidisciplinary engineering firm and I worked as a master planner Master planning Brown fields and like Green

Field developments mostly in in the United Arab Emirates and then um I moved to uh from to the other side to a real estate developer a designled real estate developers and and you here mostly the like you have um a big design team within the developers so not they don’t

Only rely on Consultants they will be a design team within the developer where I worked on the top right project it’s a Brownfield Redevelopment of an army base in one of the cities in in the UAE and some blocks we designed ourselves and some blocks we T tendered as competition

And this competition specifically Was Won by Z Hadid Architects and they um developed this concept of bubbles in the middle of the desert like water being a scarce resource in the desert and the few of these bubbles are already constructed so I was like working on the public real design on the construction

Aspect and on the Urban Design aspect and then during covid which a lot of people did we like you pivot right I would say that throughout my role I was looking at cycling and walking uh more and more but then I worked with the government I moved to a government trol

Where it’s called the roads and transport Authority RTA and I was part of the strategic planning team responsible for promoting walking and cycling mobility and this is where we built worked on the infrastructure that you can see in the bottom photos which are like dedicated off Street cycle

Tracks in different parts of the city wow yeah and and talk a little bit about that culture of uh trying to encourage people to uh to walk and bike more is that a huge challenge in in the UAE well like I have my story of how cycling and walking get um evolved in

The UAE but um I’ll like in general Dubai is a a city made out to 3.6 million inhabitants I 10 of them are the UAE Nationals and 90% are expatriates from different parts of the world so the culture I would say it’s only a Dubai culture whereby everybody comes here

Together and they we like they put together a culture that is a like a Dubai culture per se so the city maybe we have a photo like a slide of of the story of how tiing and walking evolved maybe it would be like you can skip down

Yeah yeah let’s uh let’s skip a over a couple so this is the overhead of the one of the Brownfield developments that I told you about it was an Army base and we were developing this this city in in terms of scale of this development it’s 70,000 people it will like host 70,000

People and it will be buil over five uh 10 years so this is the the the scale that I was working on as a developer but we can skip to the photo where it shows the different snapshots of um of uh cycling infrastructure in the city ER

But but I will I will talk uh while we’re while we’re talking so Dubai is famous for this photo as well which is like car Centric state-ofthe-art modern infrastructure um there’s also um a Metro and it was one of the first few metros that was introduced in in this

Region yeah um um and then um I was going to say you know are you sure you didn’t just steal this photo from from Texas er no but but it’s like some people some people like they they think of Dubai as La more than Texas maybe because it’s

Facing the water but however the the leadership uh and the government of Dubai uh early on realized that concept of wellness and um attracting the skilled Force the skilled like skilled people and also to um improve the well-being of the people we have to Pivot away like and improve the

Sustainability of our city and use of resources so h a network of cyc infrastructure um grew in the city some of them were for leisure and some of them were in the desert for exercise and some were around the Metro stations where it like serves to do the first and

Last mon M and um as I told you you going to see like a unique story that’s not associated with the brand with what people think of dub they think of it as like those famous buildings like the one in the background of this photo and the other iconic buildings but there is

Another another story to be told about the cycling and Mobility um here in in in the city yeah yeah and you mentioned a couple of things there you mentioned uh you know wellness and well-being and being able to attract and retain people and so you start to you’re starting to

Get into some of those quality of life things but then you also layered in some of the practicality of like yeah first and last mile associated with using Transit definitely like what we saw before is a cycle track on the beach and the ruler of Dubai the the she Muhammad

The ruler of Dubai was riding with his with his team this photo shows a unique transport mode I would say in Dubai which is the connection between Metro and scooter so the electric scooters and the personally personally owned scooters so Dubai Metro is um was built like so

Far in three phases it does not cover the whole city because the city is made out of like C Urban centers and with and CBDs and connected with this uh with this Metro however there’s low density developments like close and far from the city center so um the distances like the

The scooter became a crucial role in this played a crucial role this weather specifically in the hot weather and that the Metro is not covering a whole city that a lot of people who use the Metro the metro and then take the scooter fold it with them and then take it out and

Finish the Last Mile and maybe the last mile is not a mile maybe it’s five kilometers like I I think in kilometers I don’t think in Miles maybe it’s two miles but the scooter gave them that opportunity and that freedom to do that so it’s a unique uh thing here

Personally own scooters not shared scooters not specifically ebikes because ebikes you can’t fold them so it’s actually the electric scooters they made they make a lot a big part of the mobility like the the active or some people don’t think it’s active Mobility but for me I think it’s also solving a

Solution to sustainable Mobility sure sure more more sustainable mobility and the ability to use some of the same infrastructure that we put in place uh you know for you know getting off of the uh potentially highspeed Network you’re on a lower Speed network and so yeah you

See that mixing of uh you know the ebikes and the E Scooters and the regular bikes you know they’re all sort of mixing and mingling uh in the cycle networks and the the cycle paths and um yeah that makes makes sense and this also makes sense too that this would be

A very practical solution to the distances that you’re referencing cuz when we get to you know that that 5 kilomet range or 3 kilm range you know somewhere between 2 and 3 miles that’s longer than somebody’s going to be willing to walk especially if it’s in a hotter environment yeah that’s exactly

It and the the barrier to entry for the scooter the cost of owning a scooter compared to an ebike the the ease of like Mobility when you’re moving a scooter from one place to another you can take it into elevators you can take it you can uh so it’s actually um it’s a

Unique like I haven’t seen it in when I travel that much as much as I see it in Dubai when it comes to personally owned H scooters let me talk a little bit about the quality of the those personally owned uh E Scooters uh some of the the high-profile news things are

From some of the cheaper uh devices that are made and the uh fires the battery fires that take place and even you you may remember the mobility devices the the hoverboard type things that they were they were catching on fire because they were very very poorly made they

Weren’t built to standards uh you know UL standards and things of that nature and so uh they suddenly were banned from being on airplanes they were banned from being on Transit they’re you know in some cases they’re even being banned from being in apartment buildings because they keep catching on fire um do

We do you get the sense that the these machines are built at a high quality they have those sort of Standards uh versus really cheap products that have that risk of of safety compromises especially if you’re bringing it on the Metro I haven’t uh like when I worked in

RTA or during my like existing in this space I haven’t like heard about these incidences incidents right now but I don’t um think that because it’s this a high quality or not high quality I think because it’s a new phenomena here and it is uh like we’re yet to see what what’s

Going to like if there are any incidents as such yeah I don’t like think that they are made of a premium material or anything like that they are they would be a mixed basket of premium and um lower quality and however it hasn’t been the challenge or the barrier the barrier

Has been safety right so and get to that yeah so that is is is is what the perception so here I’m showing you that that photo is the the ruler of Dubai he’s just Ino like he shows an a photo of him endorsing an urban structure plan

For the a spatial plan for the city it’s called Dubai 2040 and that plan actually will draw that what what Dubai will look like in the next 20 years and it’s been endorsed at the highest level so this is a ma major because the the major statement and objective of this plan is

To improve the quality of life and make Dubai the best city in the world for people to live and play and use resources effectively so that’s why I like chose to put because this is guiding the actions of every government agency and every like semi-government agency in the city so this is the

Umbrella that is encompassing all the governance on the policy on the project prioritization that’s happening in the city yeah is it a sort of a friendly competition between the other members in the UAE it’s h it’s h definitely a friendly competition between the whole region so yeah because everybody’s

Competing for the same um Workforce and for the same tourist so definitely um it’s a friendly competition and the even um within the government of Dubai there is like an award called the Dubai um Excellence award and it’s between the different government agency is That’s Unique to Dubai actually whereby the

Ruler himself like he is all about accountability and about responsibility and about roles so every agency like they set the strategy everybody has kpis and there is a there is a clear way of how to reach at kpi in the next like quarter year five years and um and that

Excellence awards that every government agency has a kpi to meet satisfaction of people of the so and at the end of the year the best and the worst agencies are publicized and they will say why so there’s a there’s competition but I think it’s very very healthy uh it’s

Very healthy yeah yeah uh you you used an acronym kpi why don’t you define that for the audience kpi is the key performance indicator so if I would say like I want to make Dubai friendly Dubai as a cycling friendly City H some agent some cities will say that we want to

Have like a mod share we want to the Cy like in the overall cycling or travel trips within the city cycling will be 5% or 2% and every City around the world they will set their own kpis and however when setting the kpis we need to be

Mindful that the kpi is actually not about um things that people will not feel so so I like one kpi when it comes to cycling in London is that they will measure H how far is any Resident from a cycle track or an off Street cycle track

Or some people talk about nodes and networks instead of tracks so I I like that more than the length of the tracks or or some some agencies do that some agents who do that but that’s that’s a kpi yeah and we see here that the the

Cycling tracks yeah really is a is a success story in the sense that yeah we’re not putting in the context of what accessibility is for for the population but at the same time that’s pretty impressive it’s grown tremendously from from 2006 at just 9 km

Uh to 544 km in in 2022 and then then as you’re you’re pointing out okay let’s also overlay the kpi of how accessible is this to uh you know the the populace can they get to those uh facilities and and also I would say what do those facilities um actually serve are they

You know actually connecting people to meaningful destinations or are they you know more of recreation not that that’s a problem but we we would love to see uh a multitude of uses for the facilities that are that are put in place in other words yes it can be for recreation but

It also can serve meaningful destinations so definitely I this is something you told me about and the more which is the culture of activity sometimes it h it feeds in the active mobility and the transportation and initially I was like my motto was cycling and walking as a trans sport not

Sport however more and more I’m learning that especially in the story of Dubai the people who are promoting the sport like the the people who are doing sports cycling as a sport are more and more um transitioning into um making it cycling as a as a like a daily commute thing so

It’s um it’s actually serving because we’re both we both want the cycling like safe cycling infrastructure so this this this slide specifically will tell you about the story of cycling in Dubai so I’ll briefly um start from the top left which is showing two um gardeners leaving from their like a len City

Development and heading to their like homes I’m assuming because they have like some gardening equipment and recycling initially was two things which is the bottom the top layer of the photos one was people who don’t have access to cars will use cycling to go in and in from their places of work to

Their place the residences then cycling was also a Leisure activity on the waterfront which is the top right photo that was on waterfronts around Parks Etc that was the initial story however with the opening of the metro in 2009 we had uh we had to create an integrated Network around Metro stations

And then at the same time a new track to was built in the desert which shows aludra cycle track it’s a cycle track it’s a 90 kilometer cycle track it’s the longest in the world I think it has the Guinness World Record it’s an off Street

Cycle track in the middle of soft sand dunes and like a beautiful scenery and the story of that specific cycle track is super interesting a group of I think German uh I’m not I don’t remember but they were a group of um um experts who get get together and on weekends and

Cycle on the desert roads outside the city early in the morning when they’re very quiet and the group crew from 4: to 10: to 30 and in the morning they would the ruler of Dubai himself Sheik Muhammad will drive past them say hello or wait behind them until they cross

Over they pass and then like slowly walk around slowly drive over because he had like a a home in the like on on around that that area in the ruler part of the of the city however one day he rolled down his window he waited for them and

He rolled down his window and he said guys cycling on the road your the group is growing bigger and bigger and it’s fantastic however you need maybe H like what do you need to make this safer and that’s how it all evolved so somebody said yeah just give us our

Own path exactly and within four months six months uh like the roads and transport Authority the Sports Council the police got together H the they they spoke to the the athletes and the athletes told them yeah an off Street cycle track maybe four meters maybe two directional what kind of services do you

Need lighting do you need end of trip facilities and that track right now is one of the most popular tracks and sports actually cycling became part Dubai Dubai tour there is a Dubai cycling tour it became um like a part of the European tour I’m not sure I don’t

Follow that tourist specifically but I know that that there’s a big hype when they come to the city and in the winter months in Dubai the weather becomes better so you have European teams coming here and training so um then what after they built it in the desert now they’re

Connecting it in the city because people want like every Community now they want to connect to that truck so right so it’s it’s interesting how it all happened then we’re moving to the last row which is shows the Dubai Vision focusing on the well-being so they closed one of the

Main thorough faires of the city or it is the main thorough fares of the city it’s 6 by6 Lanes cutting the city in half it’s like a river and they cut it they close it for six hours um once a year for a like a a cycling event like a

Covia event it’s not a race but it’s a ride like it’s a leisurely ride and it’s one of those days of Dubai that like the energy and the joy and it’s electric people are lying on asphal taking photos and and um so and with the more and more

People are adopting cycling and walking as mode of Transport in the city of course it’s not uh it’s not like right now cycling amount M share is less than 2% H the aim is to get it to 3% in the next four years the walking is around I think um I think

133% more share and this what this do these two numbers do not count the scooters as well so the aim is to increase these trips and um and definitely connect them to the Metro because of the weather so not people are not anticipating that people will will

Cycle for 8 kilometers or Etc people will like connect to a first for for for the public transport and then do like a cycling or walking trip yeah yeah fascinating fascinating and it it it also sort of um points to what you had said earlier about how many of the

People in Dubai and in the cities and states uh in the United Arab Emirates are people coming in from other countries and so they have other cultures and so and and like you said too you know in in this particular photo you you may have a situation where uh

They can’t afford to to have an automobile and so they they sort of lean towards okay well what are the most practical ways for me to be able to get around and as the the network starts to develop you may see even more people say oh it’s it’s affordable and practical

For me to be able to get around by bike and that helps out a great deal for these individuals that don’t have the finances available to to drive a car and as you said it’s not a mod only for the people who don’t have access to cars

Right so it’s a mode for like it’s evolving and don’t forget that we have lots of tourists so we have like 20 million people coming to the city um each year so these people will walk they will expect you know when you reach a destination you like in in the brain

Vacations means more walking and more walking so it’s and they are the gel I would say between the residents and expatriates and everybody so it’s it’s not it’s a new like it’s not only for the people who don’t own cars or have access to cars it’s becoming more and

More to everybody so and distribution of the Metro it links different kinds of neighborhoods so if we’re looking at cycling between different neighborhoods it’s actually um the Metro is linking with that and the last thing as I would say the beach is a public beach here so

The beach is a place where everybody comes to right so and we have a 30 km cycle track on the water so it’s actually a place for everybody it’s not only um for the people who have access to cars or not yeah and then here’s the

You already uh uh talked a little bit about the figures here in terms of the percentages and all of that and we see that we have a a a target of 3% of the uh share of cycling trips uh for 2025 so in a couple years we would’ like to see

A doubling of of that and what the point that you just made too in terms of the expectations of the visitors and the tourists that are coming I’m assuming that that are those is the data from from tourists included in walking and cycling trips or is this mostly okay so

This somehow captures that those those numbers as well yeah yeah yeah it’s h of course we always say that uh counting will like walking trips are not counted as good as car trips however these are the figures that we have and I think that there’s more work to be done to

Improve the walking condition for tourist especially because connectivity of the network needs a lot of improvement but the vision is is definitely to to move that and that that’s why all of us in this space right now are working hard to to meet because the vision is really aggressive so we

Really want to work that this photo shows actually a cycle track next to my place so you you have different different shapes of cycle tracks in the city and the majority is off Street H the majority is shared between walking and cycling and however when it comes to um a high

High like an area where there is so much popul so much walking people walking then the the cycle track stops so we’re not talking about busy areas busy downtowns with walking and cycling shared if it’s less if it’s quiet then you can have shared infrastructure cycling on asphal or on shared surfaces

With cars is limited here and which I I am like I agree with and people actually if you look at the most popular tracks are the tracks which are always off Street and not shared with cars right right and and part of the reason for you stating that you’re in favor of

That is because I would assume that the motor vehicles are traveling at uh too high a speed and so it wouldn’t feel comfortable and not only High the motor vehicles are the majority right so if any surface and that’s what like you always talk about and the all the like

Um Advocates are talking about if the car is the majority and the cycling and and the walking are the minority then it sharing surface does not work we have to be the majority the people on foot or on cycle should be the majority and then

The car as a guest that’s the only way it works the speed the design speed okay the Post-it speed may be 30 right but the design speed is higher than that and the behavior is on another level and the type of vehicles the SUVs the expect and

And to be honest I don’t want to like also I have to be fair for the motorist is that they don’t expect you because there’s not many of you you know so that’s the another another thing so separating them definitely um I’m I’m PR

Of yeah yeah so this photo we we see a uh a bike share station and the the title of the the slide here is infrastructure improvements is is Bike Share a thing is that yeah okay actually one of my like I’m very close to the operators of the Bike Share scheme here

It’s called kareim it’s one of the first all electric caring schemes it’s actually not dockless it’s on on docks and um they’re all ebikes and they’re growing exponentially and I think they’re one of the largest electric bike sharing schemes in the whole world um yeah and um the cost of like making a

Yearly subscription becomes extremely affordable it’s less than like if you take the yearly subscription and divide it over um a like a day so it’s like less than $1 a day to use that their ebike ebike and it’s an ebike so ebikes are not cheap and um but if they are

Mostly around Metro stations it’s growing and it’s um it’s really really um giving a very nice service in the city and when you look at the people who are using this system um it seems like you’re leaning towards encouraging uh actual residents who are using the Metro

Systems to do that and then uh versus you know just having them located in the tourist areas and like near the beach and blah blah blah which you can do both um but th this is an indication that you have a an annual pass which would lean

Towards a resident uh as well as situating them near the transit stops which really emphasizes that yeah we’re talking about people who are living and working here and then then that next step to that is we’ve got to have the infrastructure in place to get them to their meaningful destinations yeah that

Last mile yeah and connecting it to meaningful like locations so it’s uh ebikes are like pivotal in that in delivering that especially that there are ebikes as I said the weather here usually um it’s Pleasant for six seven months a year and like less than 40

Celsius I would say or and then January the weather is 27 celsus so it’s very pleasant however that we have three months of like um really hot conditions humid conditions in July August and September and um according to the ebikes H ebike provider they say that they

Don’t they only see a 10% drop in the number of trips in when it comes to when when it’s really hot in the high density H neighborhoods in two we have a CBD and they told us it’s one of their post popular Destin trips number of trips and

One of the is the tourist area as well and they don’t they only see a 10% drop between summer and winter months because of that it’s electric and what’s interesting too I’m glad you brought that up because you know you’re you’re talking about temperatures that are very similar to the temperatures here in

Texas and Central and and Southern Texas as you well know since your family’s down in San Antonio so we get very very hot in the summertime we’ve got three months where people are like oh my gosh would you even bother riding I’m like yeah I I ride through the year because

When you’re on that electric assist bike you you’re creating your own wind and even though it’s brutally hot out it’s actually not bad it’s it’s actually pretty comfortable and we see the same sort of Trend in that uh we only see a little bit of a dip during the hottest

Hottest times and and honestly it it works and when you have that little bit of an electric assist it really helps even out uh you know whether you have Hills or whether you have hot and or even extremely cold weather it’s sort of an equalizer to that so that’s that’s very

Good I am painting a Rosy picture but I’m just saying there’s so much work to be done climate comfort so definitely a tree here like more trees are needed more shade is needed the cycle tracks that are like protected from the weather conditions weather here is more extreme

Than the weather in in Texas because yeah it’s it’s hotter and we have like sand it rains in more in in there’s more landscape in in Texas because it R rains more I’m not sure about Austin but I remember in Houston it used to rain a lot so it’s it’s extreme but there’s

More work to be done so definitely the more people will ride the more there will be pressure to improve the the user experience of these tracks yeah and I was going to say that you know one of the most important equalizers too to to extreme conditions is yeah it’s nice to

Have that electric assist but the other thing that’s the most important important part is what we have on screen now which is we have to build meaningful uh or or excuse me we we have to build authentic all ages and abilities facilities that really help to encourage that because if you do that

Then people will ride whether it’s brutally brutally cold or brutally brutally hot they will ride them if you’ve got truly inviting safe and inviting infrastructure that they can utilize because it’s one less friction point it’s one less barrier for people to do that it’s like for example

Singapore um the weather in Singapore is all year humid and hot and yet because of the a myriad of interventions by the government in terms of the cost to owning a car the barriers to owning a car a compact Urban fabric a very connected public transport Network a all

Of that a safe off Street Network a beautiful or an attractive offet Street Network as well those those green ways so it made it all more viable to make to to move people from walking and cycling I understand that this might not happen throughout Dubai because we have low

Density development and high density areas however um high density areas are the lowest like for high density areas this is the lowest hanging fruit to improve conditions and to be honest I I’ll just say something like walk schools close in the summer and schools

Make a lot of the trips and a lot of the congestion that’s happening in our cities right now they don’t have to do these trips when it’s really really hot however when during my work in schools they tell me that we have the same congestion and problems around schools

In January when the weather is super present and in June when the weather is like really really hot so the weather is it’s clearly not the barrier one not the major barrier when it comes to um the behavior and the car Centric lifestyle so there are other things play and civil

Is another option civil is a civilia is is another um example civilia enjoys a very nice scale because it’s like a compact a cute it’s it’s a network I’ve been there in the summer it’s really really really hot and it’s really really really dry H however people adjust like

I noticed that for example we have dinner early like when we travel because we’re traveling with the kids and when we are on the roads between 600 and 8 in the evening there’s nobody there like it’s only us because people shift shift their like lifestyle between summer and

Winter and uh and adjust really yeah yeah yeah okay so I’ve uh pulled up a few photos uh from a very special little uh tour that you did uh because you wanted to really absorb you know from and you and I had chatted a little bit

Before you committed to to doing uh this particular uh study T talk talk a little bit about what you did and and why you did it and and I’m noticing that there’s you’re wearing a shirt that I kind of recognize what is that yeah yeah yeah

Just like my mug streets are for yeah thank you very much for doing that and and I and I bring that up simply because part of the reason why I got inspired to do uh you know shirts that say streets are for people and mugs that do that is

Because I it really got driven home for me in the Netherlands because uh about 70% of their entire network their cycle network is actually some form of shared Street space like the feet strats and the and the very very low volume lowp speed residential streets and so what we

Think of when we think of the Dutch network is definitely the protected and separated Pathways but in reality it’s a big part of it is the fact that they really do embrace the fact that streets are for people people and so it’s an interesting Dynamic that they’ve been

Able to get to because there’s a little bit of both there’s the the protected and separated and then there’s also the shared I haven’t been I haven’t had a chance to do a complete debrief uh from your visit and your study to her and so why don’t you set this up and explain

What it is you did because you did something very very special when you were over there definitely I I love traveling and I um like I’m very lucky that my husband loves traveling as well and we always explore different destinations on foot when I graduated my degree was architecture in school so

When I used to travel to cities it was like we would like draw a map of the buildings that I want to see and then we would like walk around the city to see these buildings and many times the like an interesting building will be outside of the city district City like uh

Tourist area and people would be surprised to see us there but because of like we’re following something however more and more when I like I think the practice changed and we changed with it um I started more focusing on Urban Urban Design and urban uh Urban uh and

Streets and like life and I think there was like I think there was a a specific shift at one point I can’t like put a my picture on it I put a finger on it but there was a shift in practice where we started looking at Place rather than

Iconic buildings and from dimma myself because I’m always looking at sustainability and ivity like it made sense so having been an employee all my time all this time I could not have the luxury to take off and do those fantastic cycling tour everybody talks about such as you you you go around the

World when when when I left my last role at the RTA we didn’t mention that I started a p uh like an advisory firm focused on promoting cycling and walking mobility in our region and the the one of the like highlight was that I will be

Able to control my time and um do a cycling study tour and I found that there is a bubble of like-minded people on the internet on podcasts on books and I reach out to you and um asked you about a number of options which cycling

Tour I I should take and you said dimma you cannot go wrong like they’re all fantastic and I chose this which was designed designed by or organized by sensible transport Institute it’s a group from Australia and we were um a group of like people from Australia different kinds of governments we were

From the states we had um um a mayor from um San Francisco metropolitan area we had one of um northern state of New York in the northern part of state of New York and myself so a group of 11 people spent maybe eight days in the Netherlands touring different it was not

Only looking at cycling and walking it was looking about the ecosystem of sustainable mobility and land use planning and urban planning and parking and electric and trains and Comm and service and behavior it was fantastic we met the usual like the celebrities in cycling like Marco and these people and

Mark however we also I they were fantastic and they delivered on what I like expected the presentation to be the the the experience to be but there were also like some very nice gems when we went to the um the train provider how they talk about service and how they

Measure satisfaction we had one tour which is on the left we met with um land use planners from University from the mayor of UT and land use planners from the municipality of UT and they took us around fantastic infrastructure around the city and they would answer questions

Like what is the density how much did this cost and all of it’s like you you’re like feeding the Curiosity all the time and this is a photo what the last thing I also enjoyed in this trip not only like being around like-minded people being in my own like enjoying

Myself being reactive learning and and you know when you practice you don’t learn you don’t get that fantastic atmosphere of being in a classroom but that gave us that at the same time as an adult not as a as a as a a young person and the last thing is

That the amazing thing about the Netherlands is that the cyc infrastructure can be iconic you know iconic now became a dirty word or sexy became like a dirty word but the cycling infrastructure there is like is is is definitely iconic it’s not a bad word do you say iconic it’s just it’s like

Places for people what do you think yeah yeah no I think it’s great yeah really really good point yeah that’s that’s fantastic and I’m I’m really super super stoked that you had this opportunity uh to do this and you know it it this is a

Just a little bit of a video we’ll kind of let this play in the background it’s you know some of some of the iconic images uh the well-known images of you know the the the the can the canals and the going through that now was that your

First visit ever to the Netherlands or is that no I’ve been many times I’ve been many times but this is my first time to yeah this is the first time to like I’m studying this yeah yeah yeah and and and usually actually to be honest when I go to the Netherlands I

Don’t cycle because it’s very intimidating extremely intimidating for someone from the outside I would like cycle for two hours and like just just walk it’s sa much safer to walk however UT provided a safe safer opportunity for someone like me it’s really um it’s really um it’s been it’s been fantastic

And actually it’s nice to visit like I always tell my friends it’s like a better am like a cleaner Amsterdam more Amer people around the water they were like paddle boards they were like um um swimming and it was a heat wave of course and it was a a children were

Swimming it felt it’s the the scale is like San Antonio you know the water level and there are shops however it’s it’s it’s also Amsterdam so it’s like if people don’t think about UT as a tourist destination it’s like University town and it’s like a working town but it’s

Really really nice like yeah fantastic it really is it’s it’s fantastic it also happens to be one of the busiest uh you know Central TR train stations yeah it’s it’s a major major Hub and I also see uh in the top right photo here uh if we

Look up there you know to the top right that looks like that the new parking structure in Amsterdam yes yes we’ve been to the new new have you seen it so I haven’t been there yet no it was still under construction last November when I

Was there so yeah it’s a it’s um like it’s really high quality and the finishes and the lighting like it’s not harsh you don’t feel like even it’s a metro station it’s also seamless the speed male female the the staff are smiling some of some people I heard they

Think of it as a cathedral like the colum and the lighting it’s really like um um what not what you expect from a parking structure yeah like a parking structure yeah that’s a good point I mean one of the things that I really talk about here at the Active towns uh

Initiative is that if we want to see Behavior change if we’re we’re trying to change the way people are getting around and we’re in a car dominated Society we really need to think about things in a way that says okay how can we encourage uh and support Behavior change how can

We encourage and support doing things a little bit different and one of the things that we can do so from a behavior change perspective is make it Pleasant is make the experience enjoyable is make the experience convenient and when you do start doing these things you start

Ticking these things off you start to realize that oh yeah for 800 years we’ve been making driving everywhere for everything say the most convenient the most Pleasant if we can start making walking and biking that way too including providing high quality secure clean bike parking facilities that

Facilitate the use of Transit voila I mean you’re able to do some really really cool stuff so that’s great now you’re doing all of this and you and I have been talking about this for the better part of almost a year now of preparation for that next phase because

You have a dream that you want to bring these Concepts there to the UAE and that brings us around to your very first Workshop yeah yes yeah yeah yeah so um um when when we talk about promoting Cy and walking any in any part of the world

Um education we have like we have to raise awareness we have to change policy and we have improved to improve skills okay and data of course however when it comes to skills you know that worldwide there there’s a a gap in um skilled Engineers Landscape Architects Urban designers um government officials in

Promote how to promote cycling and walking and it does not take one infrastructure Improvement it takes like uh everybody working together to improve that uh to to promote that aspect or to make that that shift so I knew when I started Street design team which is the startup focus on promoting walking and

Cycling in here which is less than a year old um that workshops and bringing workshops in Dubai people taking people from their offices and sitting together with like-minded people or not with light Bank people and changing perspectives is key so that was part of

The reason that I took the time to go to the Netherlands but however and I take always time to travel around the world I didn’t only go to the Netherlands by the way I connected it with like a Euro tour H to look at different infrastructure different parts of the world but however

In different parts of Europe however um not everybody can take that time remember that I have been in this space for a very long time but in taking that time away and studying and bringing the like taking that it’s not it’s not doable for everyone and it’s not

Scalable so I uh threw like a very nice network of supporters I was able to um work with the Consulate of the Netherlands here in Dubai and with the Dutch cycling Embassy and the ministry of infrastructure and water in the Netherlands who made a pledge in cop 27 last year to trained 10,000

Professionals around the world to on in on active travel and um we made it happen so we last week we um and created the first Workshop to promote active travel in Dubai we invited the because of the ministry um and the agenda we invited mostly people from government

Agencies however we also invited people from the private sector we had people from dub police we had people from the knowledge Authority like the education Authority we had people from the roads and transport Authority we had developers in the region and the real estate from Real Estate development and

We had the the Sports Council which was very interesting I’ll tell you about it in a bit and we had the Kim bike sharing and we sat in of course and was facilitated by by myself and the and experts from the D cycling Embassy and the ministry also um the presentative

From the ministry also spoke about the policy level so and we did a cycling tour we we we solved some case studies and the findings were extremely interesting yeah overall how would you say the audience you know received this information I’m sure at some level it was almost like a

Culture shock yeah I think it it wasn’t because the actually the expert from the dut cycling Embassy we were like we had a like a long prep in order to bring them here and bring them on the same level as the infrastructure because the story of cycling and walking is not

Really publicized in about Dubai and maybe the resources are in Arabic maybe the so it was actually for them a little bit of to like to understand that there is cycling infrastructure we don’t have to plant the seed there is a walking um infrastructure however we like let’s

Look at the other things so then the the interesting thing that I heard from the participants is that a lot of people were focusing and thinking about infrastructure however people start to think about Behavior change and how to impact Behavior change I also wanted to focus about communication how do we talk

About cycle infrastructure and how do we talk about safety and how do we talk about changing the the mindset and I learned also from the participants a lot as well I also learned that that Sports can that the Sports Council are an imp important Catalyst in making that happen

Because that sport Council are the ones who are organizing those rides and and and they’re organizing the sport but they are an a very important partner and I am and the police are also important partner the police spoke about how to make it safe for everybody because H

They deal with I would say 200 nationalities in the whole and everybody comes with their mindset okay and they they really brought so much to the table to talk about uh how how do you enforce how do you inform that change in a in a in a safe and seamless manner so I’ve

Learned so much and I think even the experts from the Netherlands also like got so much information and the people in the room and I um the interesting thing is that something happens after these uh tours and you can something magical happens we are creating a

Community so we agreed to meet later and we’re going to like make it a catalyst for more more workshops however the next next workshops that I will organize may be more specialized maybe we’ll do workshops for um infrastructure and maybe we’ll do workshops for specialized and maybe I am not only talking about

Dubai I want to work in my home country Jordan and I work to work work around the region because development is happening all over and we’re not stopping here right yeah yeah that’s great I think that that’s just so incredible and I’m so excited and happy

For you that that a you were able to pull that together and leveraging that commitment from from the cop meeting uh because that was a a key point to to that commitment was you know getting out and trying to uh you know spread the word and and train more people you know

Really work on that knowledge capacity building which is is so incredibly important and actually it’s also like if you always talk about it and because like it’s about community so the like when I had the meeting with the person who introduced me to the people in the

Consulate I was doing I was working alone and the the consulate was also organizing this by with the ministry so it just it’s it’s about talking to more to more people and connecting with more people even if you think that it’s not gonna like nothing’s going to come out

Of this meeting but trust me every time I talk to people like my energy is like boosted and especially when you’re entrepreneur when you’re alone when you are like creating something new because we are the first startup in the whole region focused on walking and cycling so

It’s very important to H build a community and I’m so happy with the support we I have so far I even have like an e Community with you and people who support me as well I keep asking you questions and you always like reply within few hours advising me on uh

Different facets of like the challenges and the opportunities that we are facing which I am always grateful for and it’s it’s my pleasure and honor to be able to do so and when we talk about creating a culture of activity it it really is agnostic to you know the type of

Activity we’re talking about here where you you you had mentioned how important it was to have this the sports representation there at the workshop and and yeah I sometimes we we kind of divide ourselves needlessly into these little groups of oh that’s just sports and recreation we’re talking utilitarian

Walking and biking no no no no no it’s all trying to encourage a culture of activity and getting us moving and there’s many different ways that we can do this including activating public spaces like we have in this photo here uh but really it’s it’s really you know

Just whatever we can do to reinforce the that reality that as a human species being Physically Active is the most natural thing that we can do and what better way too to be able to experience our beautiful environments and being able to to get out into nature uh and

And I just I can’t wait to come visit you one of these days I look forward to having you here but I’m gonna have to come visit you there definitely definitely I can’t wait to host you the the photos that you were showing is about like Dubai comes to live when the

Weather becomes better and and you you’ll be surprised that it is built to be an outdoor City so like the city is somehow like restricted in the summer although everything is air conditioned but in the in the winter months when the weather is really good the whole city

Comes to life and one of it is a whole a month a whole month organized called thebay 30 by 30 which is in November whereby the government is organ like it’s from a wellness point of view they wanted to improve the wellness and they tell people like let’s move for 30

Minutes for 30 days in November and then it triples around the whole year and then they organize events from like obstacle racing to cycling to Iron Man to to um um as you said the yoga in public spaces and the the the whole city becomes like electrified with these

Amazing activities and it actually boost tourism yeah really boost tourism like one time that you know the Iron Man races yes they’re very like they’re not mainstream you know they’re very specific they need a lot of training and one time they announced that they organized a like a Iron Man in Dubai and

I think the number of participants was around 10 ,000 which is for a city of Dubai is a lot which means that so many people came from different parts of the world to take part of that activity so it’s actually boosting boosting definitely boosting tourism and it’s a

City that the the government is well aware of that yeah yeah okay we need to wrap this up so to close us out talk a little bit about school streets and uh and and and why you’re passionate about uh this in the context of the work that

You’re doing in your region I’m a consultant so I’m an adviser however the most of the projects that I worked on throughout my different roles of my career were top down so either a developer or a government government entity that’s doing some work and then they implement it and and people are

Just like waiting for that uh to happen to them however when I started the street design team I wanted to think about it from bottom up so instead of like waiting for something to happen why don’t we all um participate in improving the built environment around our our

Places and improve our our lifestyle and people don’t know that you know and they need someone like Engineers to or like some me who have been practicing in the city space for some time to help them however it’s not about me telling them what they need it’s about us teaming up

Together and letting me and and knowing what they need and from like we form Street design teams and from the for Street design team we actually start identifying their goals and from that their goals we collect the understand like the do some surveys with the with the parents and then um

Identify some action plans and usually I start with the lowest minimum intervention that can really like meet those goals and from that scale it up and then at the end we really need to also scale it like tell the story and record it so that’s the methodology on

The right which is about building a team identifying goals and then from that identify H understand empathy like empathizing with the people understanding what they need um listing the actions and then lastly telling that story so this is a photo of so I’m I am working with like I signed an mou with

One of the major scool providers here in the UAE um and I’m working um on promoting walking and riding to schools and we are like we want to replicate this to 100 schools in the region and the by saying that we are focusing on lowest hanging fruit is that maybe the

Infrastructure change will come come maybe will the cycling network will come to this school at C like in five or four years time however like we can actually change the signal time we can like for that photo is a signal like a signal that a lot of people use it in the

Morning so what we are proposing to change the signal time in the morning when people are crossing to make it more for pedestrian rather than for uh for for cars at least in the peak hours in the morning and this is a a slide showing that we surveys the parents on

In that one of the schools and we wanted to understand stand from them like a menu of 11 reasons why don’t why don’t they cycle or why don’t they cycle around their around to get to the school and then we excluded the people who live more than eight kilometers away from the

School because we could not actually say cater for those we will like cater for them in a different different different maybe providing public transport or a bus route however we wanted to focus on the people who are really going to use the infrastructure and they identified that 40% they wanted Improvement in

Sidewalks 18% they wanted Improvement in um in pedestrian Crossings and what I like learned from this survey is that nobody said that we need more lighting or we don’t feel safe or security they didn’t say these things they said that we need those specific items so I

Learned like I asked them is it the weather is it the dust is it what they said no would like a shade for example so these are really noise for example they like I asked many questions and then this is the answer that came and then I audited the infrastructure which

Is the next slide and I asked them to say where they the problematic areas and based on the methodology that we developed based on PR PR practice from different parts of the world we audit the infrastructure we walked around the neighborhood and we identified the problem areas and they were identical to

The areas that we audited so the actually the people who are using the street are actually well aware where the problem areas are and then we listed few uh like a number of infrastructure changes and now we are working on them and the nice thing is that we’re not

Only working at infrastructure we’re also looking at the behavior so that that’s that’s that’s one of the schools that uh like we I’m working with well I have to I’m laughing because it’s like oh gee imagine that the people who are actually using the streets they’re the

Ones that know about the streets yeah we just have to ask them yeah exactly and Survey them and we had the I think the the school had 1,000 students we had 300 respondents yeah so we people wanted to talk about it’s very personal for them so it was it was

Really fantastic and now I’m I’m working on rolling it on more more and more um schools yeah yeah that’s fantastic where can people uh follow up with you and is there a website that they can go to definitely um Street design team.com and um LinkedIn is also a great way to

Connect um please give me a shout to my page or to the firm page but definitely I’m I look forward to to uh to U engaging with people people I am not active on other forms of other media platforms it’s mostly LinkedIn and the and the website so if people wanted to

Um um join the upcoming uh workshops H or tell me what they want to organize the workshops on you can do that if a school in our region or um um a school in the re like in the whole GCC or the whole like Middle East is facing

Challenges I’m happy to share the resources that I talked about and uh yeah I um also um if someone wants to have a cycling tour or recommendations about where to walk and cycle in the way I’m happy to assist yeah yeah fantastic it has been such a joy and

Pleasure thank you so much for joining me on the active towns podcast it’s my pleasure and thank you for having me and thank you for your support um answering my questions and being very patient with me and being very generous with your time again uh I I it’s truly truly my

Pleasure to do that I it’s one of the things that I love most about doing this sort of work is to help uh spread the joy exactly yeah BR hey thank you all so much for tuning in I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did please give it a thumbs up

Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend and if you haven’t done so already it’ be honored to have you subscrib to the channel just click on that subscription button down below and ring the notifications Bell and if you’re enjoying this content please consider supporting my efforts by

Becoming an active towns Ambassador it’s easy to do just head on over to active towns org and then click on the support button again thank you so much for tuning in I really appreciate it and until next time this is John signing off by wishing you much activity health and

Happiness cheers and again sending a huge thank you out to all my active towns ambassadors supporting the channel on patreon buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks as well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active Town store every little bit adds up and it’s much appreciated

Thank you all so much