Patty Weins: Transportation, Safety, and the Right to the City

We sit down with Patty Weins—author of That'll Never Work Here, host of the That's Her Problem podcast, and Bicycle Mayor of Winnipeg. Patty's journey from winter cycling newcomer to city-wide advocate reveals how transportation choices connect to mental health, physical wellbeing, climate justice, and the fundamental right to move safely through our cities.

We're talking:

• Why 30% of the population can't drive—and what that means for designing equitable cities

• How winter cycling transformed from a parking cost workaround into a movement for safer streets

• The hidden connection between snow removal priorities and gender equality in urban design

• Why "trip chaining" matters: how women navigate cities differently than traditional planning assumes

• What happened when one collision on Wellington Crescent galvanized 54 advocates in four weeks

• How Brazil's bike culture shaped Patty's view of car dependency in Winnipeg—and what needs to change

  
  

Patty challenges us to see transportation not as a convenience issue but as a fundamental right. When we design cities exclusively for cars, we're making choices about who belongs, who stays safe, and who gets left behind. Whether you're a daily driver reconsidering that right turn at Sherbrooke and Broadway or someone curious about the freedom winter cycling can bring, this conversation offers practical insights into building cities where everyone can arrive alive.

Episode Transcript:

Stuart Murray 00:00

This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands, on treaty one territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis nation.

Amanda Logan (Voiceover) 00:20

This is humans on rights, a podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host, Stuart Murray,

Stuart Murray 00:30

this evening on humans on rights. I'm joined by Patty weans, author of the new book that'll never work here, host of the podcast, that's her problem, and the bicycle mayor of Winnipeg Patty's storytelling doesn't just entertain it opens up conversations about the human experience at its most vulnerable and most resilient. Her work pushes us to ask deeper questions. Whose voices are we overlooking? What blind spots shape our communities, and how does empathy move us from awareness to action as an advocate, a creator and a community builder, Patty challenges us to consider what dignity, justice and responsibility look like in everyday life, especially at a moment when human rights feel increasingly fragile. Patty weens, welcome to humans on rights

Patty Wiens 01:33

Thank you so much for having me

Stuart Murray 01:34

So Patty, I gave a kind of a real, kind of top of line, kind of just the intro for you, but for those listeners, tell us a little bit about let's do a deep dive on who is. Patty weans.

Patty Wiens 01:47

I am just a person who started riding a bike in winter one day because I didn't want to pay for parking, and here I am now, right? But, yeah, I'm an advocate. I'm a person who is passionate about mental health, physical health, community health, I think that's all that all ties together. So I feel like I've discovered that the bicycle happens to fix all the problems in the world. So it's not my fault. I can't help it, but it's just how it is so but

Stuart Murray 02:21

Patty, you were, were you born in Brazil?

Patty Wiens 02:24

Yes, I was born in Brazil, and I moved here when I was 17 years old.

Stuart Murray 02:28

Did you ride bikes in Brazil? Yeah, sure. I mean,

Patty Wiens 02:31

what kid doesn't ride a bike, right? So we, for most of the world, I think people ride bikes when they're young, and I rode my bike everywhere. And that's kind of my origin story is I just love the freedom that I brought. I was able to get to school on my own. I was gonna able to go to the swimming club with my brother. I was able to go to friends houses whenever I felt like and it just gave me a lot of freedom. So when I moved here, I remember thinking, Oh, it's flat here. This is going to be great for riding bikes. And then the stark reality of the car dependency and car dominance really hit me. And I was shocked to see that, you know, in a place that seemed so conducive to riding bikes, it was just not, not really a thing people did.

Stuart Murray 03:19

And I think you hit on something that you know you talk a lot about in your book, you talk, talk a lot about it publicly, is the card dependence that we do have in in this city and and I, you know, that's something that we've we've lived with, and we've grown up on. So you're really through. What you're championing is something that is, is fighting uphill. And you know, the fact is even what I'd love to get your thoughts, I mean, about a Why did you decide to write a book? But when you decided to call it, that will never happen. That'll never work here. I mean, sorry, that'll never work here. Yeah, that'll never work here. That strikes me as a phrase that people often use to shut down possibility, right? That'll never work here. So that shuts down possibility. Why did you, well, why did you write a book, and why do you use that title?

Patty Wiens 04:10

So I wrote it because, well, I was approached by Mitch and Emma Durant Wood, who are editing this series called the city project. And Mitch, his book was the first one. It's called you pay for this, and it talks about city finances. So they were, they were thinking about several of the several of the options that they had to talk about a city, and active transportation was one of them. And because I had become this loud voice on the internet, I was the bicycle. I am the bicycle mayor of Winnipeg. I have a YouTube channel. I have a very active Instagram account for advocacy for safe bike infrastructure. So they asked me to write it, and I thought, yes, yes. I didn't even really think very much. I just thought, I'll put all my thoughts on paper, because I already have them all swimming in my head and the. Reason I called it that'll never work here. You know this? You go to Amsterdam sometimes, and you come home, and the first thing you want to tell your friends is, you know what they did? You know what the mayor just won by advocating to cut 10,000 parking spaces? That's That was her platform. And what do your friends say to you,

Stuart Murray 05:21

very difficult here. Never work here. That'll never, that'll

Patty Wiens 05:24

never work here. Yeah, we're not, you know, it starts with, we're not Amsterdam that'll never work here. We're not Paris, that'll never work here. We're not Montreal, we're not what's next, Regina,

Stuart Murray 05:36

but I but, you know, Patty, it's one of those things to you know, and I've just said in the intro that you, you know, you talk about, how do you go from awareness to action? So, you know, you obviously started riding your bike. At what point did you decide to say, I'm going to ride this bike, not just in the nice weather? That's going to be my major mode of transportation, regardless of day time or whatever condition.

Patty Wiens 06:01

Well, you know, it started because I was I just wanted to know if it was a viable alternative to paying $280 a month in parking or having to take a bus that was going to take me almost an hour to get to work to get downtown to the University of Winnipeg. So I said, Well, let's, let's see. Actually, I didn't say it. My partner said, Why don't you try? There's people who do it. So I did it one day, and something amazing happened on that very first day. I felt invincible. I felt like there was nothing I couldn't do. And it was a thing not it wasn't just about bikes. It was something that happened inside of me, that I felt like I had conquered something inside of myself, and that any challenge was was just, you know, I could accomplish, I could overcome, I could I had strength inside of me. So that's what happened and when I became this person who decided to ride the bike year round, I knew that there were some things that were going to have to change. I noticed right away that there was a difference between the way the city treated people in cars versus people who wanted anything but a car. So there was, you know, the lack of infrastructure. It was, it's a lot more prevalent, more noticeable in winter because of the snow removal. There is the cold, which now I had to take a longer route because of winter. Why? Why are my human rights less than that of a person who chooses to drive. So it really opened my eyes. So this one journey that I took on a winter, you know, on a winter, snowy day to work, really changed the way that I saw my city and my community, and the way that my city was treating me.

Stuart Murray 08:01

And when you Patty started that kind of, that first day that you went out, and it was, I mean, you know, during the summer, lots of bikes in Winnipeg, fantastic. It's great nice weather, but when you get to the inclement weather, maybe a snow storm or a snow fall, or whatever it may be, but what was the very first ride? I mean, you said it was liberating, for sure. But did you did you see other people biking? Did you come across other cyclists that you said, wow, there's a there's a community here. We can build on this. Yes. Or was like, Where the hell is everybody?

Patty Wiens 08:34

Well, your first reaction actually, the where the hell is everybody starts around Thanksgiving. People start dropping off, and you see some people still going. You're like, Hmm, I wonder if this person is going to go all the way through and when that first snow falls, I tell you, it's something magical, because everything is muffled and it's quiet, and you're it just you get this crazy happiness inside. And then you see someone else coming your way, and you go, I see you. I see you. You're a monster, good for you. And you see someone else. And then you start seeing them every day, and you have this, not you're you're all bundled up, but you know who you are. And you started to recognize your people.

Stuart Murray 09:16

Do you, just from a straight bike standpoint, for somebody is listening to this and going, Wow, this sounds a little bit crazy, but, you know, Patty weans is a little bit crazy. And you know, as she said, That'll never work here, and she's proven us wrong. So Patty, do you do much changing to the kind of bike you ride, say, in July versus February?

Patty Wiens 09:36

There is one very important change that I do, and it's sad to get different tires, so studded tires. Now, what happened in the first year is I was really battling with a lot of wind, and you don't you don't realize that it's flat, but it's you really are facing that strong north wind. And I was struggling, and I noticed that. My commute was really becoming, instead of 45 minutes, was becoming an hour and a half, and I was arriving at work super sweaty, and sometimes there were snow drifts where I had to carry my bike. And it was just not, not very good. So I got an E bike, and I have to tell you, Stuart, it was the thing that changed everything. It really, really equalized. You know, it was like the equalizer of seasons, because it didn't matter to me what the weather was, if I could wear the clothes I could do it, because here in Winnipeg, we pride ourselves with being tough. And even though I'm an adopted Winnipeg, I have been here for 35 years, so I really can't be saying all the sorry, I'm Brazilian, right? Yeah, but people here are tough. We we can do cold. The cold is not the reason people don't ride their bikes in winter. If you talk to anyone, they'll say, Oh, I just don't feel safe, right? So, so you can adapt. And I decided, a lot of people say, Oh, get a really crappy bike for winter so you can ruin it. I go the other way. I went and got myself a really Deluxe bike because I want to feel like the queen that I am for riding in winter, right?

Stuart Murray 11:15

So, So Patty, one of the things that you know when you talk about your book, that'll never work here. Talk about your thoughts about transportation as a right to the city Stuart,

Patty Wiens 11:29

when we think about it, we are really the first people like our generation, and just a little bit older than us. We don't know life without cars, right? So we think that this is just how things are, and we have to give more space to cars, and we have to one more Lane destroy homes to make a highway that is just abhorrent, that we think that this is okay to do, cities are being destroyed. People are losing the ability to have an affordable life. You know, I was talking to someone at work, and she said to me, Oh, I just so hard to get into the housing market. So she's living in a rental and can't get into the housing but when I challenged her about giving up her car, which you know is $12,000 a year, is what a car costs in Canada. About that, probably more by now, she said, No, my car is my freedom. It's a non negotiable. What kind of freedom is it if you're having to trade shelter for transportation, right? Not only that, people who arrive here, we meet people all the time who arrive here from other countries and and are starting out and they can't imagine being able to buy a house because they need a car for work. What kind of freedom is that? What kind of right are we providing for our kids when they don't have a chance of succeeding without having to pay that much just for transportation. $12,000 a year after taxes is what? 20 before tax? Right?

Stuart Murray 13:14

Yeah, yeah, it's a big number, I mean, and I think it's a great way to look at the conversation Patty to give people choices, right? I mean, sometimes a choice that they're not aware of, they might not sort of see that they're aware of it. You know, I know there are places that you know they have if somebody needs a car, there's cooperative rentals if you have to absolutely need a car for whatever. So it's not like it's not an option if you don't own a car. There are options if you want to look at different different modes of transportation. One of the things that I just would love your, you know, I mean, this is a kind of a lighter question, Patty, but is there, have you ever thought about and maybe you've done this because I just want to make one quick shout out on you, because you've got a great website, Patty bikes.com, which has your podcast. You're obviously talking about your, your, you know, your book that'll never work here, your YouTube station. I mean, it's a great, great site for anybody that wants to go. That's, that's Patty bikes.com, but Patty, have you ever thought of designing a clothing line?

Patty Wiens 14:18

That's a great idea. What would it say? I belong here, right? Who hurt you, right? What's your problem?

Stuart Murray 14:27

Exactly, right? But you, I mean, you've been on bikes, you understand what it's like. I mean, you know, I mean, at some point, you know, we bundle up pretty big here in Winnipeg, particularly when it's windy, that's always the killer. I mean, it can be, you know, minus 20 the sun is shining. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. You know, as you see, the snow is white, it's quiet, but, man, you get a little bit of a wind and all of a sudden it changes the dynamic pretty drastically. So, have you ever thought of what's it like? Or have you ever thought about, you know, I'm going to maybe design a patty weans clothing line specifically for cycling in winter.

Patty Wiens 15:00

Sounds great. I'm gonna definitely give it some thought. But you know, what's interesting Stuart is I need less to ride my bike than I do to walk to the car. You know, I need less clothing, because once you start moving, even on my E bike, like I have e bike and I have a traditional bike, or what I call a meat bike. A meat bike is meat powered bike, okay? And and I find that with either of those, I start to enjoy being a little bit cold so people who are intimidated by they don't have the right clothing, you'd be surprised. You might have it in your closet. You might have just a wind breaker, like, right now, you acclimatize so quickly right now, when it's minus 10, I'm only wearing really a fleece and a windbreaker for you know, so you get used to it, and you start kind of enjoying and I think that that's the shock, the temperature shock. That's good for your physical health and your mental health, right?

Stuart Murray 16:06

Yeah, yeah, no. And, I mean, I It's, it is a reality. I mean, I love to go walking, and so I know what, what I'm going to wear when I'm walking. And it's surprising as your body moves, it heats up. I mean, it that's everybody kind of is aware of that. So, you know, you can kind of dial it back. I mean, people always talk about layers and that sort of thing. So I'm sure you, I'm sure you do that Patty, just to get back to something a little bit more serious. I mean, talking about safety as a fundamental right. And I know you, you write about it, you talk about it. You've been very vocal about safety. Just share sort of, since you've been so active in this in this arena, what sorts of challenges have you seen? And have you seen some things that you say, Okay, we're slowly making steps in the right direction. Or have you just said, this is like one step forward and two back? What? What is your been, your personal experience?

Patty Wiens 16:59

I think that our community in Winnipeg is really being activated right now. Last year, we lost Rob Jenner in a collision on Wellington crescent, and he was killed while doing all the right things, right but someone was driving too fast and hit him at 159 kilometers an hour on a road that should be narrower, because if that road had been narrower, maybe the person wouldn't have thought to go joy riding at 7am right, right. So, so the that really brought us all together, and we have been finding each other and advocating more at City Hall, we have had made some roadways, for lack of a better word. And you know, what's really great is we have some amazing city staff. So the public service is incredible. The Public Works Public Service employees, they really know the right things to do, and they've been waiting for someone to advocate for them to activate these things. So right now, one of the things that the local councilor, who is the Chair of Public Works councilor, Janice Lukes, implemented leading pedestrian intervals. And if you are in Winnipeg, especially around downtown. You may have noticed that the green pedestrian light gives you a five second lead when you're crossing before before the green light goes for Carson, and that is one step in the right direction. So that really helps, and it's the idea is to get it implemented all over the city. So if you are listening to this, and you're in Winnipeg, and you're somewhere where you think there should be a leading pedestrian interval, all you have to do is go to the city of Winnipeg website, winnipeg.ca and fill out a form and request it. I would like a leading pedestrian light at this intersection, and they will do it for you, because it's supposed to be implemented all over the city. Another thing that has been implemented is the curb cutouts. So I don't know if you've noticed, these big concrete barriers all of a sudden making an intersection narrower, right? That is a visual cue and a physical cue for drivers to slow down. So that is another thing we are waiting for. A report for 30 kilometer speed limit in residential streets that would make a huge difference, even though people in Winnipeg might not exactly do it, but it needs. We need to start somewhere, as you know, in Amsterdam, that is the that's the speed limit in all of Amsterdam, not just residential streets, unless you're on a highway, it's 30 kilometers an hour, and that is speed recommended by the United Nations. Mm. You know, for safety, for the biggest killer of children in the world is traffic collisions. So we need to think of safety, in this sense, as a really basic human right?

Stuart Murray 20:16

Yeah, for sure. And Patty, you know, a couple of things that I'd like to get your, you know your advice on so I'm a car driver, okay? And I give you a specifics. You know, I'm driving northbound on, say, Sherbrooke, and I know there's bike lanes on the right hand side. There's also the opportunity to park cars there. So you have the vehicular lane, a parked car lane, and then a bike lane. And as you're coming up for, as an example, towards Broadway, you know, the part that makes me just very, very nervous if I want to turn right, to go towards the ledge. So I'm driving and I want to turn right, you know, there is pedestrians that I want to be mindful of. I mean, I'm the driver responsible. It's my car. I need to be responsible, but in my mind, but I'm thinking, Patty, that are there any pedestrians walking across? And then I know that there's a bike lane. And I'm trying to think in my mind, have I seen a bike in the back as I'm coming? So, you know, I It's almost turning yellow, and I want to turn so, you know, just, you know, you're on a bike and I'm in the car. What do you want me in the car? I mean, obviously, number one I get it is to be aware of you. But is there some way that you would say I think the car should stop and do a complete shoulder check and then proceed? I mean, what would your advice be to to a driver in that regard? Wow.

Patty Wiens 21:38

I love this question, and there are so many answers. If we have time, I'm going to give you all of them. Go for it. Number one, Sherbrooke is our dear first ever bike lane. So you know, it's one of those things that started signaling to Winnipeg, things are going to change here, but it's the worst bike lane that we have in the city, but we're still thankful that it was the start of a movement. So Sherbrooke and Maryland are both going to undergo redesign in the next few years, right? So one of the things that would facilitate you noticing that there is a bike lane, remembering, because it just so happens you are one of those drivers who is considerate and who is looking outside of the car and thinking, you know, everyone has a right to live, not just me, which is not that easy to find. But one of the things that the better designs would have is that the bike lanes would be raised so that it would be a physical barrier for you, and you would have to go, oh, hang on. A second reminder, there may be someone there, right, right, right. So, so that would help. So that's number one, is the design of the bike lane would help you. Secondly, I would love it if drivers would respect me half as much as they respect a garbage can.

Stuart Murray 23:00

I'm laughing, but you got real you've got real stories to tell. Here it's it's

Patty Wiens 23:03

real stories. I've had many, many, many, many times where I'm accidentally forgotten or purposely right someone, especially a man in a truck, feels very empowered to take me down many, many times, and I know that I'm gonna get some hate for saying this, but I'm sorry you only know I'm the only one who knows my own lived experience, right? So getting a little bit of slow down, a bit slow down, if you're in such a rush to get somewhere and you don't want to be in traffic, then get on the bike, don't be in a car, right? Respect everyone else's life. Think them, I may be somebody's child or somebody's mom, but yeah, it's, it's, it's always going to come back to Design. When the design is lacking, it is harder to enforce something. So that's why, when you go to other countries, you see such different things, because the design was a priority. And someone asked at my book launch, why is our design so shitty, so crappy here? And it's because of money and political will. The moment that you take space away from cars, people feel so threatened. And it's that old adage of when you are so used to privilege equality feels like a threat, right, like oppression. So it taking away space from cars is so threatening. One time, I had someone email me to say, you know, Patty, if you want bike lanes, you're going to have to pay for it. And I'm thinking, I'm pretty sure you can park for free in front of your house for free. I'll pay for that. I pay property taxes. I have a right to have some. Safety on the road. It is my basic, right?

Stuart Murray 25:03

Mm, hmm, so, so. Patty, again, you know, just asking, you know, from your perspective, because I've read a little bit about this, just to give it another situation. So now I'm saying I'm driving down Academy road. Okay, two lanes of traffic, and it's rush hour in the morning. Caton, there's no bike lanes on Academy road, so, but there's somebody up ahead riding a bike, and I'm in not the center lane, but I'm in the right lane, and that person on the bike is in front of me. I know that a lot of people will just kind of slow down and maybe leave, you know, three feet, and kind of squeezed by the bike rider. And I've heard, you know, from other bike riders, sort of, you know, get a little bit annoyed saying you're putting me in danger. I mean, I, you know, I could, I guess. And this is what I'm going to ask your opinion from a from a biker standpoint, should they hug the curb that way? I know if they went out a little bit further, the horns would come out pretty, pretty aggressively, and they'd be honking like crazy. But what is if there was such a thing as a safety and a kind of a safety protocol, or a common sense protocol Patty, what would you hope that would look like for that bike rider and for that car that's trying to both travel in the same direction? But you know, obviously there's a lot of tension there when there's no bike lane.

Patty Wiens 26:24

Yeah, I would really like this a good question too, because we don't really have a law that dictates that. I would love it if other drivers could consider me as wide as a car and just take a whole other lane. We have this joke that we say that you can tell when someone in a car also rides a bike once in a while, because they go and take the the other lane and give us a lot of space and and nothing warms my heart more than that. One time I was taking a bus the it was Portage Avenue. It was winter. I took the bus because the snow. It was one of those days I'm like, I'm just gonna take the bus. And the driver slowed right down. There was a bike in front of him. He changed lanes and slowed down and passed the the cyclist. And I got up from my seat in the back, and I went all the way to the front, and I said, Man, can I tell you that I love you? What you did, like, it was, was huge. And he was just, so he says, oh, what else am I gonna do?

Stuart Murray 27:26

Right? Yeah? So, yeah, yeah. No, good. I mean, good experience. I just think that, you know, and I've had this comment Patty that I've said to many people that you know when you're out on the streets, and I'll just speak about Winnipeg, because that's where I drive most of my time. If, if people were as aggressive in the workplace as they were on the road, our production in Canada would be kicking every country's ass. I mean, we are just so aggressive, you know, driving. But then you get to work and it's like, well, you know, I'm gonna go for coffee. I'm gonna hang out and chill out a little bit. Because, you know, we, we are pretty aggressive on the on the driving. I see that a lot, and, and so, you know, but thank you for that. And the other question I wanted to you mentioned about the kind of the man on the truck and the pickup truck, I wanted to ask you, you talk about emphasizing making the last mile friendly to women. So you talk about sort of gender equality and urban design. Share that. What do you mean by that?

Patty Wiens 28:26

A lot of times, everything is designed with the working man in mind, and it is a legacy from the 50s, the 40s, when you know, men came back from the war and wanted to go to work and move their families to the suburbs, then they needed to just get to work. So our cities are designed that way, and it really isolates people when a woman and I say this with utmost respect to men, it's just the way that the system hasn't changed in years, and even in a in this day and age, when we have changed so much already, things still remain the same that way. But women make trips differently. Women still take on the role of more of a caregiver. So when I make a trip, I go get groceries, I drop off my kids at daycare, I go buy some clothes, then they may, you know, they may need, then I go to my job, and my trips aren't linear. They're kind of like, we call it trip chaining. We put everything in one trip and multi task, because that way that our world works. So when we are traveling these paths that are created in our city, these bike paths, they are very much designed to go, you know, from one end of the city to downtown, one another end of the city to downtown, or all the way across to the university and to the hospital. But there isn't that little bit of detour to get. The grocery store or to quickly stop at my parents house on the way. So we're missing that last mile, and that is where makes it a little bit safer for us to veer off that main path and continue safely.

Stuart Murray 30:16

Yeah, it's a, it's a very powerful statement. And and I was, I was really sort of taken, you know, with what you were trying to say there. And I, I'm glad you kind of put it that into into words, because it really does, really deal with that gender equality and urban design or lack of that what you've seen. So, you know, that's, I think that's fantastic. You know, share your thoughts on climate change and transportation. Is that something that you feel strongly about, or is that? How do you feel about that with respect to those that are choosing to ride a bike?

Patty Wiens 30:50

Oh, again, such a great question, with so much to say. So I'm gonna say it all. All the things that I always say, the emissions from transportation, are the second highest contributors just CO two emissions in Manitoba, the first one is the fact that we have to heat our homes right? So winter is the first one, but the second one is transportation. So we are contributing so much to these CO two emissions and to climate change just by living here and then choosing to use the car for everything. And I get it, there aren't a lot of other choices, because we have made the wrong choices in our city design, in our road design, right? So there's a lot to be fixed there. So what I always say to people is, you know, what? Never mind the environment. Never mind just ride your bike, because it's cheap. It's cheap, you know, like, even if I invest on a good e bike, it's still cheaper than having a car. You're going to notice it the first week that you ride to work and you don't pay 1212, $12 a day to park. So that's the first one. The second thing you're going to notice is, all of a sudden you're going to feel really good, and winter is not going to feel so bad, even if you don't ride in winter, you're going to get this extra energy at work. Extra energy in the summer, you're going to feel better. But the thing that's really going to change is that you are going to have an impact in your environment, and you're going to be able to know that you are impacting the world positively. And because I have such a following online, I've had so many people say to me, you know, I thought that maybe I should try, and it really changed my life, and now we're having this thing catch on, that people are wanting to ride their bikes more, and it's changing their lives and changing the Earth, the planet. What's What's not to like about that, right?

Stuart Murray 32:54

For sure, yeah. I mean, it's a win, win, feel good and save the planet, right?

Patty Wiens 32:58

Yeah, it is such a great by byproduct. What other modes of you know, moving can you say that you're doing so much all at once?

Stuart Murray 33:08

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. Patty, one of the things that you know I think about when people are riding bikes, would you say that for somebody who is just maybe not sure about they're kind of new to it. They're not sure, is there ways that they can buddy up, or they can, sort of, say, ride with other people so that, like, for example, this is, you know, you mentioned Amsterdam, and I know if you're a tourist in Amsterdam and you want to rent a bike, they're like, bright red because they want everybody else to know. No, these people are new. They don't know the rules of the road. Give them some space. And usually they're they're in together. But you know, somebody who's brand spanking new and is not sure listening kind of, you're kind of challenging them. They say, I'd like to do it, but I'm not really sure. You know, how might I least ride with a buddy?

Patty Wiens 33:55

Great question. In Winnipeg, we have an organization called bike Winnipeg, and bike Winnipeg is an advocacy group that's been around for over 15 years. We have been advocating for I'm on the board of bike Winnipeg, and we've been advocating for safe bike infrastructure for about 15 years. I've been on the board for a couple of years, but one of the things that bike Winnipeg does is we have these group rides that we offer all through the summer and fall in spring, and we show people how to get around their neighborhoods. So this is one thing that I would suggest if you are in Winnipeg, is to go to bike winnipeg.ca and check out the group rides, because this is a good way to start. And if you're not in Winnipeg and you're listening to this, I am telling you, all you have to do is ride your bike. And at the next stop light, you stop beside someone on a bike, and you say, Nice bike. And you just start asking, Hey, is there is there any group rides? Are there any groups I'd really like to ride more, but I don't know anyone. And chances are that every. City has a little group that gets together and rides together, so it is a really quick and easy way to find community is to get that bike off the rafters and go for a ride.

Stuart Murray 35:12

Go for a ride. So bicycle Mayor Winnipeg, what's that about? Right?

Patty Wiens 35:17

So bikes.org is an organization that actually was founded in Amsterdam, and it is a collection of a network. It's a network of bike advocates from all over the world. There are to over 200 of us in every continent, in almost every country, I think, 180 countries, yeah, collection of bike advocates. We have quarterly meetings and we have a group chat. It's really a support network for people who want ideas of how to make biking safer in their cities. Yeah. So the way that I became bicycle mayor is I applied for it. So I had to send in a resume, and I had to fill out some paperwork, have an interview, and have three people in the community refer me as a bike advocate, and that's how it happened.

Stuart Murray 36:10

And and so is that? I mean, I just see you in very your social posts that you put out, and you've got a little crown on your helmet. Is that? Is that just Patty weans being Patty weans? Or is that because it's

Patty Wiens 36:26

kind of started as a joke one time when I had a crown and I just glued it on my helmet, and now it's become my signature. But I say I we can have many queens. I'd love to have to see lots of people wearing crowns on their helmets. And I actually gave away some crap, some helmet crowns that my book launch last weekend. Excellent.

Stuart Murray 36:46

Patty. Talk a bit about that. What was it like to write a book, something you're passionate about? What was that process like?

Patty Wiens 36:52

It started with me telling stories of how I became a bike person you know, growing up and moving here, and my struggle to find my voice in this this space, and I was worried that I wasn't going to have a lot to say, because I was I had to put 20,000 words down on paper, and it ended up that I had too much to say, so I had to dial back a bit. But I was really fortunate that my editor, Mitch and Emma, my editors Mitch and Emma Duran, would they really let my voice come through and weren't too harsh on the way that I said things. So when you read the book, it really sounds like you're just listening to me, but without a Brazilian accent, right?

Stuart Murray 37:35

Okay, well, you better do an audio book, because you're Brazilian accent. If you sell a lot of them, I'm sure. Patty. Thank you so much. Hey, listen, you know, when you talk about that'll never work here, what was there a time and a moment in your life when someone told you that that'll never work here? I mean, when you say and you prove them wrong, I think you're doing that with this book. But I'm just trying to get a sense of the inner working of a patty weans who's so passionate and so driven that, you know, there's something in your life that when somebody said that'll never work here, you purposely wanted to say, I'm going to prove them wrong. Absolutely.

Patty Wiens 38:17

I'll never forget I was talking to someone at work, actually, and her name is Kathy. She doesn't know that she inspired my book. And I said to her, you know, the snow clearing here really sucks, and in Sweden, because I had just read the invisible women by Caroline criado Perez. And if you haven't read it, it really I recommend it, because it's once you see it, you can't unsee it. And in this book, it was talking about how, in Sweden, they changed the priority of the snow clearing, and instead of clearing the roads for cars first, they decided they would clear all sidewalks in active transportation paths and the GDP of the country, the whole country, increased exponentially because women were able to get groceries, go shopping for their kids, drop them off, do all those things that you know they do as caregivers. You know, people in cars, they were still able to get around, because cars can push through things for the most part. So I was telling some, you know, this co worker that that, you know, it should be like that here, and she said to me, that'll never work here, right? And I said, Oh, well, that's because we haven't had anyone loud enough yet. So I started really advocating for that, and not just me, because we have a group of us. We have a Discord server dedicated to cycling in Winnipeg, and we're constantly helping each other out. And for the past two years, we've been a really loud voice at City Hall, advocating at various meetings the. And asking for better snow clearing, and it really has improved in the last couple years. So they're listening, you know, because we do vote, and I think that deep down inside, people know that we need to shift from this car dependency, or else we're not going to be sustainable.

Stuart Murray 40:17

Was there Patty, when you were writing the book? Was there something as you were writing it, saying, you know, I've spoken a lot about this topic, I'm knowledgeable about this topic, but there's something different, having a conversation with somebody and putting something down in writing. So when you were putting something down in writing, was there something you said, I just have to get this right, because it's my voice in words, but it's not my voice in a podcast, or it's not my voice at a lecture, so it's going to be somebody reading my words, and I want to make sure that I get this right. Was there something that you felt about that?

Patty Wiens 40:54

Yes, absolutely, when I was writing the chapter on walkable, pedestrianized streets and the forks, you know, and and other cities that got this right. I really relied a lot on my editors to help me get the facts right. So I did have to. I did. It wasn't a book that you do a lot of research, because it was supposed to be a think piece. No, just, here's my opinions on things, but I wanted to get my opinion right. So there has been a lot of studies of how bike lanes increase the profit of the stores that are, you know, adjacent to bike lanes, because the increased foot traffic and bike traffic is really great, because people on bikes generally have a little bit more money to spend on local shopping, and we do our shopping more locally. I recently interviewed someone on my podcast. Her name is Patty Baker, and she talked about how she did the math on how much she spent at one grocery store because there was a bike rack there, because it was close to a bike path. So things like that, I really wanted to get right. So it took me a little bit of time and research and reading, and I wanted to get the facts straight so that when people read it, they could really believe me.

Stuart Murray 42:18

Yeah. And I think that's, I mean, you know you're, you're passionate. Clearly, anybody that knows you knows that. I just think that one of the challenges is, and that's why, again, I'm going to come back, you know, sort of to be your quasi agent Patty, that you should do an audio book with your own voice on this thing. I think it would be great. I really do fantastic. Thank you. Do you think that you know you storytelling, which is what you're involved in when you write this book and your podcast and all of the stuff that you do. The Power of Storytelling from a human rights perspective, share how you believe that that can make a difference with trying to convince people to go back to what you said earlier about going from empathy to action.

Patty Wiens 43:02

When you tell a story, it's a lot more than just a theory. It's someone's lived experience. We think that that's the difference between storytelling. And if we could do our all our learning in life with storytelling, it would really make the world a better place. It would make people listen more. And I think that that's one of the things that I have been successful at, because I'm not afraid to tell my story, and I really don't care what I look like while I do it, I'm not I don't curate my feed. I'm always sharing everything, whether it's good or bad. I try to share mostly the good, but sometimes when I share the bad, I get people saying, you know, I'm really glad you shared this. And keep going. We got you, you know. So I think that theories are based on stories that happened anyway. So the from empathy to action, I think, is when we are struck by something that brings us together, and we feel like we need to band together, for example, a tragedy or, you know, a common goal that brings us all together. It really is powerful. We went from, you know, two people advocating for safe infrastructure on Wellington Crescent to 54 in the space of four weeks by finding each other and getting angry and getting passionate and being passionate about something very simple, we just don't want to get killed. We just want to arrive alive.

Stuart Murray 44:36

Patty, when you ride your bike, do you listen to anything I was going to set this up, by the way, saying, other than my humans, on right podcast, do you listen to anything on your bike? But I was going to say, yeah. But I was going to say, Do you listen to anything? Or what would you say for somebody to say, you know, you should be, you know, I would advise you not to listen to anything. There's too much going around. You have to be aware of it. Or no, I, you know, I like to. Listen to something. I'm aware it doesn't matter. I mean, what? What do you do personally when you when you ride your bike?

Patty Wiens 45:04

Personally, I go between listening and not listening. I usually have one headphone in so that I can still hear something and not noise canceling, so I can still hear what's going on around me. So just one little earphone, headphone in, and I love listening to podcasts and audio books and Taylor Swift, as we know, it's a big thing, right? But I love the fact that I can listen to audiobooks on my way to work. But there's times where I just want to hear nature too, you know?

Stuart Murray 45:40

And, yeah, no, that's, that's incredible. Now listen, this is, we're kind of getting towards the end of our conversation here, Patty, but I didn't know if I could just shift gears a little bit and talk about soccer. Yes, Coach ball. You mean, yeah? Well, okay, so now, what's your take on I understand that the, I mean, the FIFA cup men's is next year, but the women's is in 2027 so let's go year by year. How do you think the Brazil men are going to do in the FIFA cup?

Patty Wiens 46:11

Oh, you know, I have not been following very much because I found that the last one was a little bit disappointing. They didn't get very far, so I kind of didn't follow. I hope they do well. I i To be honest, I'm more concerned about where the World Cup is going to be hosted, and I'm terrified right now. I can't even imagine, are you

Stuart Murray 46:37

talking about the men's? Yeah, because the women's, I believe, is being hosted in Brazil. Is it not in Brazil, is it not in 2027 That's right, yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah. So you're concerned about where it's being

Patty Wiens 46:47

held, the USA, hosting the World Cup, just because of the amount of people traveling and everything that's happening with ICE agents just picking up people who don't look a certain way right now. So that really tugs at me. I'm terrified, so I haven't even really thought about but I hope Brazil kicks butt. It'd be great. It'll also be great to see Canada doing great too, right?

Stuart Murray 47:15

Of course, yeah, no, I know, yeah. You're in a you're in a bit of a double spot there. But I just wondered what you thought. Because I remember once, I was at a sort of a social event, and I got talking a little bit of soccer with you, and I, you know, about soccer than I do, but I just thought I'd, I'd hitch up on that Patty weans, you know, author of that will never work here. You're proving that it will work here, not without a lot of work and a lot of trepidation and a lot of passion and a lot of you know anger from people who don't see the way that you know you would like them to see. And part of that's an education. Part of that's what you're doing through this conversation, through the podcast that you have, and through your book. But I wonder, Patty, is there anything in this conversation as we draw to a close that I haven't asked you that you would like me, or wish that I would have asked you.

Patty Wiens 48:04

You know Stuart, I think it'd be really important for us to remember that 30% of the population cannot drive. 30% and that's not counting children. That's counting children from the ages of 12 and up, 30% cannot drive, we need to shift away from depending on the automobile for everything, because it's going to destroy everything. It's going to destroy our environment, our roads, our cities, and it's going to isolate us. Think about the last time that you felt really happy when you were stuck in traffic. It doesn't happen when you're on a bike and you see a bunch of bikes in traffic with you in your little bike lane. It's the happiest feeling ever. But you don't feel that way in a car. So we need to start thinking outside of the automobile and changing the way that we expect the world to be. Have you

Stuart Murray 49:01

got another book in you?

Patty Wiens 49:03

I don't know, it was a lot of work, but I would really, I would really like to write more, absolutely good

Stuart Murray 49:09

for you. Yeah. Well, you're very active, you know. Again, I want to just say that I was thrilled. And I mean, when I went on to your your patty bikes, P, A, T, T, Y bikes.com, you know, it's a great website, Patty. You know, there's a lot of great information on there. It's fun, you know. I mean, you make points, but, you know, you have fun doing it. And I think that's part of your personality. So you're drawn in to get this information. And it's not sort of pedagogical, where it's just lecturing. You make it you know, you make it fun, but you make your point, you know, because you're passionate about it. So, you know, I really enjoyed sort of cruising through your website. It was very interesting.

Patty Wiens 49:43

Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything that you're doing highlighting human rights. We are in a human rights crisis, and we need to look at all aspects of making our lives better. Transportation is just one little piece, but it's an important piece, and I really appreciate you. Giving me an opportunity to share my experience.

Stuart Murray 50:02

Thanks for jumping onto this podcast. And as you know, you've got your own podcast, which you know, that's her problem, and I love that too. So lots of lots of things to share back and forth. But Patty weans, thank you so much for taking time to speak to me on humans on rights. Thank you.

Matt Cundill 50:18

Thanks for listening to humans on rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Humans on rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray, social media marketing by Buffy Davey, music by Doug Edmond. For more, go to human rights hub.ca.

Tara Sands (Voiceover) 50:38

Produced and distributed by the sound off media company.