Steve Tornes was a member of the 2019 cohort of the North Shore Young Civic Forum.
Our alumni are constantly spearheading exciting projects and Steve Tornes is no exception. Steve (he/ they) is a Master of Urban Studies graduate, major transit enthusiast, and host of The Trip Diary podcast series! The Trip Diary is an original Below the Radar miniseries that explores how we move through urban spaces and examines the socio-political factors that influence our daily commute. Each episode features fellow transportation enthusiasts and policymakers in conversation!
We caught up with Steve earlier this summer to talk about this exciting project.
The Trip Diary is any transit enthusiast’s dream podcast, with such an incredible audio design. What was the inspiration behind the podcast? How did it come about?
I love to listen to podcasts, especially about urban planning, while commuting. The audio design of The Trip Diary was inspired by my trips around the region. So, our original music was based on the sounds of the SkyTrain, and throughout each episode you will hear various transportation sounds (like the Seabus, bicycles, skateboards, buses, cars). The idea being, even if you aren’t listening while traveling, you will still feel like you are. At the end of each episode, we even describe the distance you could have gone while listening to the episode.
Content-wise, I graduated from SFU’s Urban Studies Program, and I am passionate about transportation in general. I want people to see what I see when walking down the street. You learn so much about your community by watching how people react to forms of urban architecture.
The podcast is all about transportation, but why do we need to think about transportation in our urban design? Why are youth voices important in this conversation?
We need to think about transportation in our urban design, because depending on how we design streets, and our bylaws about mandatory minimum parking, and funding decisions for public transit, it will affect our commute mode choices. A car-centric design will promote automobile use, while providing shaded sidewalks and dedicated bike lanes and bus routes will make active transportation more accessible. What may seem like an individual decision is based on the available choices brought on by urban design. And public health, mental health, and greenhouse gas emissions are influenced by your commute mode choice. I haven’t even touched upon how systemic racisms and inequities affect the relationship between demographics, geographic distribution, and commute mode choices. There is no universal commuter and if we want people to move around equitably, we need to think about transportation.
Youth voices are important because a radical change is needed in what we value in our urban design. Millennials and Gen Z are now the largest voting blocks in politics. We will be living longer with the consequences of our political and societal decisions than any other generation. Writing this during a heatwave, looking in the direction of the future, I have no doubt that our voices are more fearful, angry, and empathetic, and therefore, if we want to make a change, our voices need to be taken into account through urban design. A decision about our future, without our voices, is an injustice.
What do you hope listeners will take away from the podcast?
I hope that listeners don’t view the urban design of their communities as an inevitable outcome, but as a series of planning choices put forward by an exclusive group of urban planners from the 1960s. The way in which we separate residential from commercial, or overly value single-family homes with a homogenous lawn, or conflate a driver’s license with adulthood, those are all choices, not an inevitable way that cities develop.
And I want people to be as excited as me when moving around a community. A street doesn’t have to be a place that you get through as quickly as possible to reach a far away destination. Streets are public spaces where people with varying levels of mobility access, where protests take place, and where we randomly run into old friends.
As listeners reflect on the future of urban transportation, what do you yourself see (or hope to see) as the future of transportation in our region?
Personally, I would like to see the elimination of minimum parking requirements for new developments, the conversion of more on street parking into parklets, more trees planted for shade canopies, more dedicated bike and bus lanes, better bus signage, the SFU Gondola, air conditioning in a new electric bus fleet, better land use planning so people can live close to where they work, more car/ bike share, improved regulation for scooters and other forms of micro-mobility, high-speed rail from Vancouver to Portland, and, of course, a SkyTrain to the North Shore. I’m sure that there is more that I would love to see.
Last but not least, let’s reminisce! What was the biggest takeaway from your time as part of the North Shore Young Citizens Forum?
I took away the importance of collaborative learning and that talking to city staff and council members is easier than I once thought. They want to hear from us, but often don’t know how.
Thank you so much, Steve, for catching up with us and chatting about all things urban planning and transportation. Listen to all episodes of The Trip Diary —available now on all platforms!