The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…a Better Way To Teach Transportation Engineering
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich is a professor of engineering at Dordt College in Iowa. A trained chemical and environmental engineer, he started teaching transportation engineering due to staffing shortages. Unsatisfied with the standard materials required for the class, he incorporated the book "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer" by Chuck Marohn into his curriculum and had his class conduct a Crash Analysis Studio.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Dr. Gingrich shares how his unusual background helped him see past engineering codes and look for a better way to design streets. He explains the logistics of incorporating crash analysis and safe street design into the classroom, as well as the benefits it had for his students.
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Tiffany Owens Reed 0:07
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the bottom up Revolution podcast. I'm your host. Tiffany Owens, read I am bringing you this episode from where I live, in Waco, Texas. I really consider it an honor to host the show, we bring people on ordinary people who, in the course of their lives, in the context of their of their everyday life and their everyday work, are finding meaningful ways to improve their towns in ways that align with the strong towns mission and the strong towns message. We've had someone on the show not too long ago who I had a chance to talk with her about the work she did with the with the crash analysis studio. Um, if you don't know about that, you can find out more on our website. I'm bringing you a similar conversation today. The studio is really a chance for people to nominate an intersection in their city and that that's really dangerous, or to talk about specific car accident and really get you know, super specific, detailed perspective on the elements of the design in that area that are leading to this, this sort of dangerous experiences, or the dangerous feel of it. So I'm bringing you a similar conversation about that today, but also with it, with a slight twist, because we're also going to talk about what it looks like to bring the strong towns message into a college classroom. So I'm really excited about this conversation. And my guest today is Dr Jonathan Gingrich,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 1:29
it's okay. Gingrich,
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:31
thank you. We went over this multiple times. We'll just kind of keep rolling. Thank you for helping me through that. He is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at dort University in Sioux City, Iowa. Dr, dr, Jonathan received his bachelor's of engineering at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and his Master's and PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas in Austin. He also spent a year as a visiting student at UC Berkeley. His primary research interests include air pollution exposure, and he's also done research in both indoor and outdoor air pollution, as well as field studies in India. He currently teaches courses in civil engineering, including environmental engineering, hydrology and transportation engineering. When not teaching, he enjoys volunteering with his church, learning how to live more sustainably and being outside, hiking, biking and camping. Welcome to the podcast. Dr Jonathan, and thank you for helping me through that little pronunciation. Guffaw.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 2:27
All good, Tiffany, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. I'm really looking
Tiffany Owens Reed 2:31
forward to sharing your story with our audience. So I would love to just start things off. Can you tell us a little bit about the kind of engineering you studied? And I would just, I'm just really curious as to a little bit of the backstory as to why you chose engineering as a career path. Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 2:47
so I grew up kind of interested in chemistry and in science in general, but I really liked just having the opportunity to really think about like the applications of those sciences and engineering provides a great chance to just give you an ability to have just practical problem solving applications to those scientific findings and discoveries. And so it's been really cool. I started out in chemical engineering undergrad at Calvin, and then when I went for my PhD and for my master's, it was really I was interested in problem of water treatment originally, and so I went to grad school to kind of study things around that, and kind of on the more environmental side of the issue. But while I was in graduate school, I learned about air pollution, and especially how damaging it is worldwide. And it was really striking to me that that was the number one environmental cause of mortality worldwide, and so I started out just getting really interested in that. So started out in indoor air quality for my master's work, and then for my PhD, I moved on to study outdoor air quality, specifically just how we measure air pollution, and kind of where different measuring devices we can use to try to get a better understanding of how humans are exposed to air pollution.
Tiffany Owens Reed 4:05
Okay, so let's continue the story, if you can just kind of tell us a little bit about your journey throughout all those getting those different degrees, and then how you ended up in Iowa teaching at dort.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 4:16
Yeah. So I really liked doing the research side of things, but the thing that I found that I was enjoying the most about my graduate studies was actually getting to work with undergraduates and help them and mentor them in their research. And so I had gone to a pretty small Christian School in Calvin when I was kind of coming up through my undergrad experience. And so I was kind of just looking, just to see what opportunities there were, just in that process of, is there a place for me to be able to teach engineering and kind of focus more on the undergrad side of things? And so when I was finishing up my PhD, I was looking for opportunities in dort, which is a sister school of Calvin. They're. Kind of run by similar denominations are affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, which is one of the denominations here, and so they had an opening here, and so I applied. And wasn't sure if Sioux Center Iowa was the place that I wanted to move to, but really enjoyed the collegiality of the faculty here. Enjoyed being able to kind of just, yeah, meet the people who were really concerned with, how do we integrate, kind of our Christian faith into our engineering? And that was a big question that a lot of people here really enjoy thinking about and trying to learn more about. And so ended up enjoying my interview and enjoying my experience talking with them, and so decided that when it was time to finish up my PhD, I would start teaching here.
Tiffany Owens Reed 5:50
I've actually been to dort. We talked about this, which is kind of fun, because a lot of the guests I bring on the show, I've not been to where there. I've been to many places, but there are many cities I have not yet visited. So it's fun to have, like, kind of a little bit of a visual. With the campus, but also the town and just the, yeah, just kind of the general place. It's very rural where you are, quite rural, yeah. So I mentioned in your introduction that you, and you've explained it for us, that your primary research was in air pollution, and this other side of this other type of engineering, but you're teaching a class in transportation engineering. So how did you find yourself doing that?
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 6:29
Yeah, so on my interview time here, I knew that that was gonna be something that I might have to do. And so when talking with the faculty, we're a pretty small engineering program in terms of the number of faculty that we have. So we teach different concentrations here. We teach concentrations in civil engineering and mechanical engineering, electrical and chemical and biomedical. So we have quite a few concentrations, which means there's a lot of classes, but we've got about 12 full time faculty here, and so we kind of have to stretch into things that we're not necessarily experts in. And so I was given the choice of either teaching a class in soils and soil engineering or in transportation engineering. And so I chose, I felt like with my experience in air pollution, I at least know like the traffic related air pollution in that area. And so that gave me at least some way to connect with transportation more than I have kind of experienced in soils. So that
Tiffany Owens Reed 7:26
was, yeah, I was wondering about that when you talked about air pollution, and I know most of this conversation is going to be around transportation, and I was wondering what that connection was like for you.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 7:35
Yeah, so our lab when I was in grad school did a lot of looking at kind of, especially the environmental justice side of air pollution, and so thinking about who is exposed to what. And we've done projects in that lab looking at putting air pollution monitors in Google Street View cars and driving them around the Bay Area. That was a lot of what kind of we've been, we'd been working on and so we saw that there was pretty stark relationships between where people lived and their closeness to living to a highway, and then the concentration of air pollution around them. And so we could see that there's, especially like with urban highways, there's a very strong like emissions factor around highways with air pollution there. So yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 8:24
all right, so let's talk about the class. So you pick this, you just you sign up to teach this transportation engineering class tell, can you just tell us a little bit about what it was like, kind of getting adjusted to that, getting yourself oriented with all the different materials and and, and what stood out to you as you started kind of getting your feel for what you wanted to teach?
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 8:45
Yeah? Yeah. It was a a tough start to the first my first year here, and just kind of jumping into it. I had never taken a transportation engineering class, because that's mostly for civil engineers, and I was a chemical engineering undergrad and moved into environmental engineering, so I kind of skipped the whole transportation curriculum. And so it was basically a lot of me taking a look at my previous like the previous people who have taught the class their notes as well as the textbook, and kind of madly trying to read and learn it the night before and just to kind of show up the next day to try to teach it. And I'm thankful for some forgiving students for that first time around, who were willing to kind of just go along with me and try to learn the material together, basically. But yeah, it was, it was a, it was kind of a first kind of look through it, and as I was reading through it, I think there are some really good aspects to it. It was, it was cool to kind of see this, I guess intersection between kind of the engineering side of things, but also trying to figure out human behavior, because a lot of transportation engineering is focused around, how do we get humans to not have these huge accidents on the road, and make sure that we can spell it out as easily as possible for them along the way? So that was an. Interesting thing with it. But I also was had my own ideas already with the worries about air pollution and thinking about how much that affects human health and human well being, as well as seeing some of the issues and knowing about some of the history of where these highways have been built, I had, I had found a book talking about kind of the racial injustice around highways. And so that was something that I was really passionate about thinking about. And having lived in Austin, I knew that there was some history around I 35 as well with that. And so I brought some of that information into that first go around in the class. But I again, kind of got out of that class. I was like, I want this to be to have more of a critique around the transportation engineering as is set up in America, and how we teach this class, and so that was a lot of what I kind of came out of my reflection after that first year.
Tiffany Owens Reed 10:54
So it sounded like you wanted to add more of a narrative around transportation, not so much, in addition to the essential focus on sort of the technical side, would that be an accurate way of describing,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 11:06
yeah, yeah. I think a lot of it within the like transportation engineering curriculum that as I received it was basically conversations on the code, which is what we use it in the engineering, and engineering within transportation is just, you find the directions in the code, you apply it. And so I also didn't find that very intellectually stimulating for the students, because it was, it was basically, I don't know what the basis is for any of these equations. And so within a lot of engineering, we have a lot of we teach a lot of, like, the first principles. So thinking about kind of like, how do we use the stuff that we learn in physics and chemistry and all of these science subjects, and then apply them in engineering transportation doesn't really have that. A lot of it is people just collected a bunch of data and have drawn a line through it to try to get some sort of basis for the design process. And so that's a lot of what feels like it shows up as the code. And so you basically just learn the specific equation. And that's basically all that there is to the class. And so it felt like we need to, I wanted to help the students understand why we designed the way that we do, and what are some of the reasons behind that? And the textbook doesn't, didn't really give us that. And so that's why I started looking for some other resources. That's
Tiffany Owens Reed 12:27
a really interesting way of framing of how like what you're saying about how transportation engineering doesn't have sort of these first principles to go. I would argue there are first principles around how humans exist in space. And I think I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm saying, I think you're saying, like, there's no first principles in this context of engineering. But if you think about cities as primarily human spaces, there are plenty of first principles to think about. They're just completely divorced from the world of transportation, because transportation is engineering. I'm not an expert in it, and I'm not really spending time, but it strikes me as a very mechanical world where you're thinking more about machines, and like, you know, the movement of machines, and I think there's been a great disservice and kind of forgetting that, yes, these are machines, but they're moving through a human space, and what does it mean to be a human in space and then to be a human in space with machines? You know, it's a very different conversation, other than if you're just hyper focusing on like the movement of these machines in space, which I think, from what I do understand about transportation and the history of it in the US, and then, and then you see the results of the code, and you look at the cities, and you look at the movement of parts very it just becomes very obvious. It's like, wow, this became such a mechanical conversation that we totally missed the point. Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 13:50
yeah. And that's a lot of what Jack Maron talks about in his book is this idea of, like, it's a very mechanical oriented idea, and we need to kind of switch that idea to more of, like, an ecological or biological lighting and so yeah, when I, when I was thinking about first principles, a lot of that is based off of, like, like physics and like Newton's first and second laws, which makes up the basis for a lot of this. And there isn't really, like, those specific equations that then we apply to a transportation side. So yeah, that was kind of where is, but that's a good clarification.
Tiffany Owens Reed 14:23
So you mentioned Chuck's book. Tell us about that. How you How did you find his book, and what resonated with you about, kind of the way he talked about, because it sounds like, after that first year, maybe you were starting to think about, you know, the class, the content, how to structure things and and that's where this book came into play. So tell us that story.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 14:41
Yeah, it was actually in that first year before I had even started teaching the class, that I had bought the book because I was just, I wanted something a little more than just the textbook, but I wasn't quite sure what that was going to look like yet, and so I basically just went on and found, like, a book list of like, these are the books you can find in transportation engineers. And started, like just purchasing some of those to hopefully have chance to read, and I didn't have a chance to read it in my first year of teaching, it was a little I had enough on my plate before, just to get survived the year, rather than start thinking about some additional things I could bring in. And so that summer, which would have been this last summer, I was able to finally have time to start reading that book, and so I started kind of reading it in that first chapter of that book, which really gets into kind of the the idea of the code being a cookbook versus a bible was a really powerful comparison for me. It was really good to kind of see that there are values in the code. Like I said back thinking about this first principles idea with a lot of like when I teach a class on fluid mechanics, fluid mechanics is very much based off of you have these first principles, the Newton's first laws of things. And they basically define how fluids move through an area. That's a lot of what engineering is thought about. And I think that those like this idea that you're saying, right? We then take those ideas and then try to move them into this code book and say that's what it is. You just take these equations, you then throw it in, and there's not really any meaning behind it. But I think what Chuck Morone was saying in his book is saying that these equations have values behind them. There are principles behind them, like you're saying there are these, these things around them that aren't divorced from from just the, I guess, the straight up and down equation. There's things behind that that then have ramifications for how we interact with the city. And so that was a really powerful first chapter. And so from then on, I was like, I feel like there's something here that I might want to try to help my students understand. And so that was a lot of what this summer was. And
Tiffany Owens Reed 17:10
yeah, so basically saying that the code is not value free, it's not value neutral, yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 17:16
yeah, there, yeah, exactly. It's it has specific things within it that reflect kind of the value of the people that the people who are using this code without, with or without knowing they're instilling into it that they're putting into there. Okay,
Tiffany Owens Reed 17:33
so how did you integrate those insights from the book into your class materials? And can you tell us a little bit about how that began to shape a class conversation. Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 17:43
yeah. It was really interesting. As I finished the book, I was talking about this with the other civil engineering faculty member that we have here, and he and I were just discussing, and I was saying, and I basically asked him, like, is it okay if I put bring this into the classroom? It was interesting, as I'm starting out as a new faculty member here, that as a new faculty member, there's a lot less guide rails than I would have expected. When you're teaching a new curriculum, we have some very general guide rails for from our like accrediting organizations. But once you're in the classroom, you can adapt a lot of things to it, and it's very adaptable. So it was a little nerve wracking knowing that my first year teaching here, but as I've gained more experience and more ability here, it's given me a lot more freedom to adopt some things. And so my colleague gave me the blessing to kind of go for it. And so I thought it would just be best if the students and I just read it. We would read one chapter a week, basically, and discuss it a few times during the semester, just to kind of check in. And so got a chance to really just use that and then be able to then have a couple of discussions throughout the time. And so we would then talk about their experiences growing up in their own towns, and be able to kind of see where some of these things talked about in the book occurred in their towns. And so I had one student who was from Fort Collins, Colorado, and so we talked about, kind of some of the things that he saw that were really good in his town. And we just pulled them up on Google Maps, on Google Street View, and just like, walk through them to kind of see, as a class, like, what are we talking about here, that, like, works well in the city, and then what might not be working so well. And so we looked at some examples of strobes and see, and saw, kind of where that might be a challenge for promoting, kind of the flourishing of people in that area. You saw a lot of people. And then even within those Google Street View things, we could see a lot of people in the places that he remembered as being good, well designed places for people, and then you didn't see those people in the places that it was poorly designed. And so it was really cool to kind of discuss that with the students. And they were able to kind of see with their own experiences, where some things might be well designed and where some things might be poorly. Designed in their own towns. So
Tiffany Owens Reed 20:01
it sounds like you were able to facilitate a conversation that allowed them to bridge the gap between the code and the effect on people.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 20:08
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I think that that was, that was a really fun time. Those are fun conversations to have with them. To be able to kind of see, like, Oh, this is stuff that we've experienced. And I think sometimes, because this is a lot of theoretical engineering engineering, until it like gets to be, like, you design a specific thing. So we have a senior design project, and so the students have that time to, like, really take the stuff that they've learned throughout their four years of education here at dort and put it in. But this class gave them time to really reflect on, oh, I've experienced this and make it more practical as well. And so I think they really identified with that too well.
Tiffany Owens Reed 20:50
It's I, I'm glad the students had a great time with that. I also feel like what you were doing was, was kind of critical, like mission critical, you know, to helping, hopefully spark a new way of looking at transportation for you know, within the minds of students who might be contemplating going into transportation engineering, and maybe even helping shift the narrative around who should be adapting to what. Because, when you're having a conversation about like, look at the code and then look at how it affects people. You're basically kind of flipping the narrative of engineering on its head. And the entire history of transportation in America, which has been since the introduction of the car, a conversation about forcing humans to adapt to cars and to car oriented design. But I think if you're introducing students to this conversation about how does design affect flourishing, you're basically kind of pushing back on that and saying, Maybe we should be adapting to humans the way we design transportation. Should be adapting to how humans actually function and what they actually need to flourish, rather than constantly expecting them to adapt to this code that, like you said, has no real connection to, like, objective, like, meaning or truth in some kind of way. That's just what was coming to mind, as you were saying that, just that, yeah, no.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 22:08
And I think, I think that goes back to kind of that, those last couple of chapters where Chuck talks about, like, a lot of engineering is physics based or math based, where we have a lot of like, these are the laws of the universe. And then, instead of switching from that to more of a biology based design principle of thinking about the city as an ecosystem and thinking about it as a as a way for people to interact with the city, rather than the city be shaped around or shaped for them, basically. So yeah, so that, I think that that we ended up kind of, that was one of our last conversations, was was thinking in that direction. And I do remember, like one student specifically kind of gravitated towards that idea.
Tiffany Owens Reed 22:49
Yeah. So, so you reached out to strong towns in the course of all of this, and from that conversation, I believe you talked with Edward, you created a very hands on opportunity for your students to put what they were learning into action. So can you tell us
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 23:03
a little bit about that? Yeah, it was really cool, as I was kind of learning more about the strong towns area. I had heard about strong towns before, but this was really kind of my first huge introduction to strong towns. And so I, as I was reading this and thinking about adapting it, I thought it'd be really interesting just to contact your all at strong town, and just, kind of just get to know, kind of if you would be interested in, possibly speaking in class, if there would be anyone who would be interested in that, if, if we were reading your book, I thought it might be an interest and have more of a conversation there. And so I started talking, and ended up getting connected with Edward Erfurt at strong towns, who was really instrumental in kind of just discussing this material with me and giving me some suggestions. And so he suggested that we do a crash analysis studio here in town as part of, like, just an assignment for the students. And I thought that would be a great idea to kind of have the students go out and observe some of the stuff that we've been talking about, both from an engineering principles idea. And so being able to think about like, we talk about, like the geometric design of roads, and we talk about kind of stopping distances and stuff. And so being able to take some practical calculations in that way, but then also thinking about the overall design and and thinking about, what do we value here as a community, what should we value, and how do our roads allow for that values to shine through, but or or don't? And so we ended up talking with Edward, and he encouraged us to do this. And so as part of an assignment for class, I had the I had the entire class work on a crash analysis studio, forest Street in town, and so in Sioux Center, there's a the main street of Sioux Center is actually a state highway. So state highway 75 it goes right through the middle of town. So there's a lot of heavy truck traffic, a lot of cars for Rural. Iowa standards that go through that area and so, but it's also the place where we have kind of our like local shops on one side. We have the like City Mall on one on the other side, all of the like grocery stores on one side. So there's a lot of things that should be it should be a very businessy area worth a lot of people around and interacting, but it's a very car centric area, just because there's not really a ton of ability for people to be out. And so we were, that was kind of the main question that we had. There weren't any major crashes in the area. There had been some here and there, and we'd seen probably like five or 10 over the last decade or so of minor crashes, but it was enough to say, Why aren't This is a place where people should be, and why aren't people like out and about in these areas? And so that was kind of what started our idea to kind of study this area. So yeah, that was the intersection that we took this intersection along Highway 75 that felt like people should be there, but there aren't. So
Tiffany Owens Reed 26:07
I've never been part of a crash analysis studio a project. What were some of the specific like exercises that the students had to do? Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 26:16
so it's actually not super, it wasn't a huge like field study, like level of effort that I've been used to in my research. It was pretty accessible for the students, which was really nice. So they could just get right out onto the intersection and start measuring. And so we had the students divide up. There's kind of three main teams, where one team was doing measurements of speed. And so they had a speed gun, and they just kind of sat along the side of the road and took measurements of speed on both directions. And then we had another group that was the geometric design group, and so they went and took measurements of the intersection, all the lane widths, and divided that up. And then we had another one that was in charge of kind of the documentation. And so they took pictures along the intersection, kind of up and down the intersection, to kind of see what opportunities there were, first from, like a photo side of things, to be able to see all of that. And then they also were able to, like do research into kind of the crash records, and looking at, kind of, where are their their conflict points with this intersection, and where have we seen that in the past with accidents and crashes in that area?
Tiffany Owens Reed 27:35
So what was it like in terms of, so you have all the students doing the work, you know, I'm sure you know, I'm sure you guys are having conversations, but then turning outward and talking to the community, or getting the community involved in some way. What was that part like? Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 27:47
so that was, that's a big part of the of the crash analysis studio is being able to see where what community members think about this. And so we're all in the community. So we had our own thoughts, but it was very fun to talk with people. And so on the intersection that we chose is a coffee shop. And so the coffee shop is owned by another instructor at dort. And so we got to talk with him. He was there that day that we were doing all this. And so we talked with him about his experience with the community there, and where did who does he normally have come into his coffee shop? Are they people who are coming in by car? Do they have a lot of pedestrians that are kind of wandering in off the street? Has he seen crashes there in the past? And what have those looked like? Have there been any serious crashes? And so that was one of the community members that we talked to. And then at my church, I've had conversations with a couple of other guys who all work at dort, but they're very interested in kind of urbanism related topics and such, and so I invited them just to come into class one day after the students had completed their initial measurements and kind of put them together, then to have a discussion about the intersection and kind of their experiences with it as well. And that was a really fun conversation to have. We, I had planned for about 20 minutes just to like a brief, kind of overview, but we ended up going the entire class period, of entire 15 minute class period, just because there was so much that we wanted to talk about within that. And yeah, and it was a really beneficial conversation, I think, for the students to get it here local people who care about the town that they live in. And also, I think for the local people to see that like that people are doing things about the town that they care about. And so that got, I think everyone pretty excited about having those types of conversations.
Tiffany Owens Reed 29:44
Were able to talk to anyone, like in, like, the municipal level or anything like that, yeah, no,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 29:49
we weren't able to get that far. This was kind of my first dry run through of it and the challenges of of teaching something like this. Is that a lot of the momentum dies after the end of the semester, and so that's definitely something that's in the works in the future, I think, and I think that this is providing really good data that we can use to bring to the municipality into like City Council, but we weren't able to cross that hurdle within the confines of the semester, and so I'm hoping for next semester that we can really start looking at
Tiffany Owens Reed 30:31
that. So what were some of the most like surprising or interesting takeaways from what you all found looking at all of your data? Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 30:37
I think the first thing that we were all surprised about was just how wide highway 75 is. It's when we were, when we were looking at our textbook and doing the work within the textbook, we have our designs for a 10 foot road and 11 foot road and a 12 foot road lane, Lane with those are the those are the lane widths that are used when we're looking at what we call calculate this level of service. So how many cars can we service? And those are the adjustments that we make for for it. And so when we took the measurements, we found that the road was about 17 feet wide, so about five feet wider than what the widest part of the textbook is the widest road with the textbook was telling us. And we were kind of shocked by that, that we didn't realize it would that we could see something that wide. We remeasured it a couple of times, and we checked the measuring wheel to make sure that it was in meters and not feet, because we couldn't figure out why it would be so wide, and so we spent a lot of time looking at that. And so what we found is that you've got these two really wide lanes with the middle turning. And so it's almost does a 70 or 80 foot wide road that you're that a pedestrian would have to try to cross, which is really hard for pedestrians, especially if you have young kids, where are a lot of the people who live here are young families. It makes it really hard to cross that road, and there's no control there at all. So you're trying to cross this road and just kind of play Frogger across it. And it makes sense why there's not very many people that cross that road, because it's really, really hard to do it, and so that was probably the biggest finding. We also this road is currently in the process of being reconstructed. They're doing a pretty major overhaul of state highway 75 through town, and so we were able to see some of the plans they had for the road, and do kind of look at those plans and critique them as well. And so we saw that they were adding things like bump outs on the the east and west sides of the road, so the road that this long intersection doesn't account for but they weren't. They aren't going to be adding bump outs there to this part of the intersection. And so that was some of the major critiques that we had with with this new design, is that as they're redoing kind of all of these designs, are redoing all of these roads, they aren't really making any changes for the major part that people would want to use to cross along this. And so that was a really interesting finding that we were, that we had, and that that would be like as we're planning on working through this again, bringing that concern to the city council, that as that would be, that we'd want to have added in. So
Tiffany Owens Reed 33:41
I'm going to ask you in a minute about any other kind of how this whole experience affected how you kind of think of structured your class and structured assignments and stuff. But before that, I'm just curious, what were the responses of the students as they were going through this?
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 33:54
They loved it. Yeah, no, it was. It was a really, it was a really cool experience to have with the students, because this is the one of the first classes that I've taught where I really felt like everything kind of fell in place, where the students were consistently engaged with the material and really wrestled with, how do We think about our careers as engineers, not just as a job, but kind of as a vocation, think about, how do we think about when we design? Are we just following the rules, or are we considering the implications of the design and where it goes into and and I think the students really grabbed hold of that and wrestled with that. Well, this semester, we were able to really dig into kind of the what it means to be an engineer, but also to be a member of a community, yeah, and be able to say the things that we do. Matter, because they can shape kind of how a community interacts with its surroundings, and so that was, that was really fun to to dig into with the students.
Tiffany Owens Reed 35:11
Yeah, so looking to the future. How did this experience? I have a couple questions, but first I'm curious, did this lead to any other changes with how you thought about the class, or, like, structured assignments, or anything like that. Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 35:24
it did. It was, it was fun. But so by the end of the semester, the everything was going pretty well, and both, like, with, like the technical aspects too. So we were still using the textbook. The students were worried about that at first, that they wouldn't get kind of their technical experience, met with this, but they were, we were doing both of those things, and so we had two semester exams, and the students did fantastic on those. And it got to the point where I was preparing for to write the final exam, and I was basically, I don't know technically, what more I need to test from them to assess their learning of the technical but I do think it would be really cool to use the final exam as a way to kind of bring together all of this information from the crash analysis studio to write to kind of work on writing the crash analysis studio report that they could put in, and then also have a presentation to present this report to anyone who is interested. And so I re invited Edward from strong towns back as well as the community members, to be able to kind of have them be the audience for my students to present this and I made that kind of in place of a final exam. So the students weren't too upset about not having to take a final exam, and I felt like this was a better way to kind of more recognize and celebrate all that they had been able to learn during this and so we had a great time with with Edward and the local experts to be able to talk further about what further changes we might want to make to the design and so and then, yeah, it was a really encouraging time for myself, as well as I think the students, to be able to see all of the fruits of their labor the last couple of months.
Tiffany Owens Reed 37:17
I can imagine for you, like what you were seeing at the beginning of this conversation with, really, like, your interest in science, but then realizing that engineering was a way to put that into practice in the real world, I feel I can just, I can, I can imagine that this was really rewarding for you to see that full journey unfold with. Like, we've talked about the technical but then we went out into the real world, and now we're talking about, like, real world implications of these decisions,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 37:41
yeah, and yeah. And I think that that was another thing that, like one of the local experts, highlighted to the students, was like, this is something that you can do in your own communities. Because most of those students aren't going to stay here in Sioux Center to be able to see and continue this, this work here in Sioux Center, but they're going to be going out to wherever they end up in their different careers, and, yeah, where they end up moving but and so my hope is that they'll remember some of the information that we talked about in class and be able to see like even if they don't end up in a transportation engineering profession, they still can take some of this information and be informed citizens of where they're living, and be able to say, like, this is an important thing for myself, but it's also for my entire community, and this is a practical way that I can use my expertise that I've had in engineering to affect my community for good. Yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 38:35
so you've kind of hinted at this already, but just give you a chance to talk about anything else that comes to mind. But as you're looking to the future and future classes, it sounds like you enjoy teaching transportation engineering, even though it's not your main, your main wheelhouse. What are you hoping for in terms of how you continue to develop this class? Yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 38:53
it's definitely something that I'm still processing. I would love. I mean, I'm for sure, doing the crash analysis studio again and working through the book again, I think, talking about and kind of hearing from the students, they wanted more of that. And so that was a good thing to be like, hey, the things that I brought in are things that the students actually enjoyed and want more of, and they also want more credit for it, too. And so I'll be happy to do that if that's going to be the things that we can do that. And so one of the just trying it out for the first time, it was a little late in the semester, and so we just were really crunched for time. And so I probably will start the crash analysis Studio project a little earlier. And then I think one thing talking about kind of bringing in front of the community, I think that would be a really good learning experience for the students, and to look at, can we get City Council involved as part of the assignment and then have almost the final exam, instead of just being just for the local experts in strong towns, but also to be as a presentation in front of city council? I think that would be a really cool addition. Into the class, and I'm hopeful that we can try and do that with with the students, and with, yeah, whatever this next iteration of the class looks like. And so yeah,
Tiffany Owens Reed 40:09
that feels so important, because it is such an important part of the the way that change happens in transportation, in the transportation world, it's like really understanding the role that local government plays in those conversations, and how deeply embedded sort of the status quo has become, and how they think about transportation. But also, you know, talking about the like, the way that the complications even around like transportation funding or like, and how funding can be attached to doing things a certain way. So I think obviously not making it a class about, like, the politics of transportation, but just helping your students see this is the other reality of like, you know, it's not just about knowing the technical it's also about knowing the design and how this affects human beings. But then we also have to think about how does change happen in a community, and really wrestling with sort of political side to all of this. So maybe even if they're not able to make some amazing reform, even just exposure to that and exposure to that side of it, I suspect will be really valuable, yeah,
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 41:11
and I really value having my students be able to present to a wide variety of audiences. Because I think a lot of times with engineers, we get into our very like, like, we just have to know the technical sides and all of the ability to communicate. Our technical ability needs to also be something that's under development. And so I think if I can get my students to learn how to present to not just a science understanding of things, but also to a broader audience. I think that would be a great experience, just in itself, but also be able to say you're going to be interacting with a wide variety of people with with your material. And so you have to know how to work your material in a way and present your story that you're trying to convince people of in a way that they can understand it. And so I think we can't just use our equations to defend it. We have to also be able to to explain it in a way that someone who's not technically um trained, like my students, hopefully will be by the end of the semester, can understand it as well. Yeah, um,
Tiffany Owens Reed 42:19
I want to ask you how, how has all of this kind of affected your perspective on on your, like, vocation, or just your understanding of what it means to be an engineer? Yeah, I, like I said, or not, not even just an engineer, but a member of, like, your community, and sometimes a pedestrian, sometimes a driver, you know, like, how it's kind of, like, shaped your perspective on this thing. It's
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 42:39
definitely something that I've really been thankful to think about, because it's cool to be able to teach the class, but also to say, like, how am I taking this information for myself? And I think being able to be in a small community like Sioux Center gives us a lot more connection with our ability to connect with our city council, I think that it's a lot. The level of steps between myself and a city councilor is not is not very large here, and so I think that's something that I'm looking forward to continue engaging with and continue talking, having conversations about, how can we make changes in our small town here to promote really the flourishing of the community, make it so that there's so many co benefits with designing more rock more walkable neighborhoods, and designing cities that are situated around the people of The city, rather than the cars of the city, that I think I mean from my experience, as in, in air pollution, like there's, there's so many benefits that come from this that it gets me really excited to continue working in this area, continue figuring out how we can do this, from, from both a technical side of things, but also from a member of the community here of really how we can work with both of those areas to promote flourishing.
Tiffany Owens Reed 44:10
Yeah, you've used the word flourishing several times. And I feel like with transportation, one of the biggest challenges is like telling a different story about flourishing. Because I feel like the story that's been told is that something like this, like, oh, a flourishing community is where you can drive door to door and find easy, free parking and go and not have any hindrances as you drive fast, so that you don't have to waste any time waiting, you know, and that you don't have to worry about pedestrians being in the way. And so there's like, there is a story about, oh, this is what, this is what success looks like when it comes to the movement of people in cars. And I feel like, you know, finding a way to tell a different story of like, well, actually, you know, a community doing well, not even we don't even have to talk about, like, philosophically, like the theme of flourishing. You can just talk about very practical things, like, will people come out and spend more money if they feel safe? Wife, wife of those really inviting and pedestrian friendly, right? Like, but the perceived trade off, the trade offs that, like, stress people out. When you start to talk about pedestrianizing, it's like, oh no, we're gonna get what about parking or, what about this? What about that? I feel like that's the that's like, such a big part of the work is like, finding ways to tell a different story and help people develop an appetite for, like, trying new things that might seem counterintuitive to what we've all been exposed to for like, decades now.
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 45:29
Yeah, I think I mean thinking about, like, the values a lot of people value time saving, right? That's, that's like, the primary reason why all of this is there. But I think in in I debate this a lot as a Christian of like, what is this? All this movement to be fast and to have everything now, we were supposed to teach contentment and being content with things that we have, and taking things slowly sometimes, and being meditative and and the ways that we've designed our streets in our cities don't really encourage those types of as well. So beyond even just a practical like you're like, what you're talking about being I mean, we have huge issues with loneliness and the in our communities as well. And if we can provide opportunities for our places to be places where people can feel welcome to be outside and not solely isolated from everybody else. I could do wonders for a community is beyond just economic benefits. The
Tiffany Owens Reed 46:30
problem with this conversation is that if we keep going, I'm just going to get completely, like, on my soapbox. We're going to talk for a whole another hour. Yeah, I think you're so right, like the fragmented, individualistic way that cars tell us how to live. I think there's so much packaged in the car that could be unpacked, could be unpackaged, that was not very, very eloquent, but thinking of the cars almost as a symbol and not just as a means to an end, not just as a tool, right? It's like, really are it's like the car is a story. The car is a story about how you should live your life. And I think there's a lot worth re like, considering and then reconsidering about, like, what that story has told us. But for the sake of you and our listeners, I will try not to get carried away, because this is one of my favorite rabbit trails. But yeah, thanks for bringing up those, those those other themes, because I think they're really important. So in closing, I asked this question at the end of every episode, but tell us a little bit about your town, and what are a couple places you like to recommend people check out if they come to visit?
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich 47:32
Yeah? Yeah. This has been a great community to enter into as a person who's not from Sioux Center, Iowa, this was a fun place for me to start to get to get to know and develop over the last couple of years of me living here, really enjoy the communities that I've had at my church, and we get an opportunity, really, to kind of know each other pretty well outside of the anonymity of the larger cities that I've been able to live into. And so that was kind of one of the things that I feel a lot more empowered to just because of living in this smaller place where I have, I feel like an ability to have a greater influence on the community. So I think some of the places that I enjoy visiting and seeing around here, I have a park nearby that I get to go and go for walks almost every day, which is a really nice place to kind of go and see. We have some cool gravel roads around here. So I have a gravel bike group that I get to be a part of that have been able to kind of use that to get to know some of the people here on campus. So we have dorks. Campus is pretty much entirely enclosed within Sioux Center. We have a cool prairie that we tend to and we get to walk around in the summer and fall. That gets all the wild flowers, which is really fun place to be. And then, in terms of, like, businesses and things, we've got a great coffee shop in town. That's the coffee shop that the owner I've talked to, that's the fruited plain. So I would go there almost every Saturday, just get to read. And it's also my main grading spot too. So if you see me on a Saturday, I'll probably be creating papers there. And then Sioux Center is has a lot of strong Dutch heritage, and so we have a Dutch bakery as well called Casey's, and so I can usually get a good Stroop waffle from there as well.
Tiffany Owens Reed 49:23
All right. Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Jonathan. It was really fun hearing your story and how you're helping a new generation of Americans understand transportation, look at it differently and really bridge the gap between the technical and the human side of this conversation to our listeners, thank you so much for joining me for another conversation. I hope you'll come back. We'll have another episode ready for you in a week. If you enjoyed this, please send it to a friend who you think would enjoy it. And if there's someone in your community who you think we should have on the show, please nominate them using the suggested guest forum that we link to on our show notes. I'll be back. Speak with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.
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Tiffany Owens Reed is the host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, she is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.