Walkability and Health: The Changing Lanes Story with Filmmaker Ben Wolf

What if one of the most important factors affecting our health isn't how much we walk—but whether our communities make walking possible in the first place?

In this episode, I sit down with filmmaker Ben Wolf, director of the documentary Changing Lanes. The film follows a grassroots movement in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, after a beloved teacher is killed in a hit-and-run crash on a notoriously dangerous roadway. What begins as a local fight for safer streets evolves into a larger conversation about transportation, public health, community advocacy, and the concept of walkability.

Together, we explore how street design influences walking behavior, why walkability should be considered a health variable, and what communities can do to create safer environments for people of all ages and abilities.

Learn more about Changing Lanes and filmmaker Ben Wolf.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome back to Why Walking Matters, The Science Explained, the podcast where we explore the many ways walking shapes our health, our communities, and our lives. When we talk about the benefits of walking, we often focus on what happens inside our bodies: stronger hearts, healthier brains, better moods, and longer lives. But today, we're going to explore something equally important, the environment around us. After all, people are much more likely to walk when they feel safe doing so. Today's guest is filmmaker Ben Wolfe, director of the documentary Changing Lanes. The film follows a community struggle in Green Point, Brooklyn, a powerful story about transportation, public health, and community advocacy. Today, Ben and I will discuss the story behind changing lanes, the role of street design in shaping behavior, and why walkability may be one of the overlooked factors affecting public health. Ben Wolf, welcome to the podcast. Please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Sure. I am a Brooklyn-based uh filmmaker. I think the reason that you're having me on this your podcast is I recently uh completed a documentary called Changing Lanes uh about sort of the politics around the way our streets are designed, uh specifically in in uh Brooklyn, New York, but I think more generally in in cities in America and how that compares well both the history of how our streets have changed and how they compare with other places around the world. And most particularly, I think how the we balance automobiles, bicycles, pedestrians, and and how we either do a good job or maybe not such a good job of that.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Okay. Thank you. You you jumped right into it. Um I just I kind of wanted to get to know you first. Um I'm always interested in how people end up where they do, especially when um through their work you can see that they're clearly passionate about what they do. What was your journey to making documentaries?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Okay. Well, it's a long story.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Um I grew up in California, I went east uh way back in the late 80s to go to college, and then ended up in New York City in 1991. And a few years later I got a MFA in film directing at Columbia, and so since then I've worked in film. Uh mostly I do camera work, cinematography, and the work I've enjoyed the most is documentary work. I feel it's it's the thing I do that I feel really makes a positive contribution versus a lot of the more commercial types of work that I do, which I look at more as just a way to pay the rent. Um I had wanted anyway, I had I worked primarily in other people's movies, and for a long time I had wanted to do my own film. And so brings me back to this film that I just created. Um I have um well, I've been a passionate cyclist sort of all my life. I used to race bikes and now I ride them around a lot. Um for transportation. In New York I also walk a lot, as as do most people in New York. Um and I I also have a car in New York, which primarily is just for work because it's a pretty um challenging way to get around the city. The the traffic is is pretty horrible and it's quite expensive just to park the thing. And so anyway, I use all these modes of transportation and I've been interested in in sort of the interplay between them and uh for a long time. And I've seen a lot of change happen in New York in the in the time that I've been here, so again I sort of thought that would be something interesting to explore. Change in the way the streets are organized. Um the car has really dominated even in New York where most people don't have cars, the cars have really dominated the streets. And in the time I've been here, little little bits are being taken back for for other uses, which is something I find exciting.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Tell us about changing lanes, the movie.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yeah, so well for about three years I followed um Okay, well, to pick it back really the the story that I followed really began in 2021 when a um elementary school teacher in this neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, uh was killed in a hit by a car that that sped off on his birthday while crossing the street. Um this was a street called McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, which is one of the more dangerous streets in New York. It's not the only dangerous street, but it's it's probably in the top ten, and it had been for a long time. It's almost something like almost like a highway going through a pretty dense residential community where people need to cross the street to for any number of reasons, to go to school, to shop, whatever. And uh it's this was created in the 1950s. It had been a sort of a small little residential lane that and about four or five hundred homes were knocked down to widen it. Uh in you know, in the in the middle of the 20th century, that was a lot of there was a lot of that going on in cities where they were just putting highways right through cities. Um from today's vantage point, that mostly doesn't look like a very positive thing. And uh we now know that something approaching apparently a couple hundred people were killed on this particular boulevard over the years. Uh there was an a serious injury in a uh in a crash about once a week. And you know, basically to much of the community that was no longer acceptable, particularly when this sort of beloved teacher was killed. And so a lot of the that neighborhood got organized to to try to do something about it to make this street safe for just for people walking, for cyclists, for everybody, um, and to to not just have it be a thing that where cars could just speed through with sort of impunity. And that seems pretty sensible, um, but it you know, the politics being what it is, it's actually quite hard to get it done. So so while a lot of people, probably the majority, wanted that. Some very loud and and powerful groups in the community really resisted it, and I sort of followed the back and forth over three years. Um don't want to ruin all the twists and turns in the surprise ending, but it uh a lot happened and it was sort of uh, I thought an interesting microcosm to look at how difficult it is in America right now to to sort of make changes, even changes that like our life-saving changes that at least to me seem like yeah, it seemed pretty obvious that something needed to be done.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

So what drew you to this particular story?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Well, I I uh was looking for a well, it's a couple things.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

One, again, I just sort of have this passion for how how we get around cities and and um particularly pedestrian and bicycle as as ways to get around. I find it I love I'm somebody that also travels a lot for work. I also have a house in Italy, and I see like the reason I think we love so many of these foreign destinations is because they're so wonderful for walking and and biking around, and we often don't see that here, and I've but maybe the reason I live in New York is it's closer to that than most parts of America, like LA where I grew up, you you really don't have much options uh to get around other than to get in your car. Um sometimes you're lucky if there's even a sidewalk. Um so this seemed like an interesting area to explore. I also am sort of very preoccupied with politics, as I think maybe most people are these days, and it's sort of thick feeling that yeah, that whatever's going on, whatever side you're on or whatever, it just doesn't seem like we're making progress, and it's very frustrating. And again, especially when I compare what I see happening here with what I see happening in other parts of the world where seemingly a lot more progress is being made in in areas that I care about, you know, be it healthcare, be it transportation, education, whatever. So I wanted to find a way to talk to be to make a political movie, but that wasn't sort of a preachy movie or too grandiose. I sort of was looking for a specific story to follow.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yes. Um, I don't want to give away too much, but it was mainly about a community's journey to getting um some change to their streets, um for many reasons, including the one that you mentioned, which I guess was basically the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Um their beloved teacher dying. Um so I I kind of want to, you know, you guys reached out, you thought that this podcast which explores the benefits of walking would be a a good platform to I guess get your story out. And you approached that kind of a connection um by talking about walkability as a health variable. And so that's kind of the main topic of the show today. So to start, what exactly do you mean by walkability?

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Well, I suppose when it the m at the most basic level uh what my film in many ways is about is just is could just be safety. And and one could one that maybe the one of the most basic definitions of walkability is just, you know, is it safe to walk there? You know, because we all know about the health benefits and physical and mental health benefits of of of walking.

SPEAKER_05 11:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Um, but but you know, if you get you're gonna get seriously injured or killed, that's kinda that undermines all that stuff. Um so before we can even have a healthy scroll, we have to be able to have a safe, a safe place to to have that, to do that walking. And uh I guess well one of the things that I learned a lot about in making this movie is is how is the history of of of streets. And specifically I'm looking at New York, but I think it it's more generally true, you know, streets before early 20th century, you know, were were about primarily they were about walking.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Walking some street cars, some horses, but that's how people got around. And in the 20th, and and they were sort of because people were just walking on them, there's a lot of activities that could be happening. People could be just hanging out, it could be, you know, there could be some sorts of commerce that was happening, kids were out just playing, enjoying the you know, it was almost like a park in many ways, like a public space where people could do a variety of things. And over the course of the 20th century, most of that went away as the car just gradually took over and it made it unsafe to do anything else on the streets. Um, so pedestrians end up pushed to sidewalks. If there are sidewalks, often the sidewalks were made narrower and narrower and narrower as more and more and more space was given to cars. Um in my opinion, that was not beneficial for you know, it obviously I have a car and there's a place for a car, but giving up sort of almost all your public space to cars and taking away space for every other activity seems like a bad bargain, especially I would argue in a city. Like to me, the whole point of being in a city is that things are close, which means you can interact with people, you can walk to places. But if if suddenly all the public spaces aren't are no longer safe to do that or or very unpleasant because of exhaust fumes and you know, literally like having to run to dodge fast-moving vehicles, it sort of undermines the whole point of of having of cities, really. And so again, I'm sort of excited by the prospect that we can change, that we can we can sort of re-embrace some of the better aspects of the past while while while also enjoying the conveniences of you know of the of the present.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Um said. Um I you know, I've seen photographs of um before, and I guess just at the point where the cars were introduced and the streets were a third place. You'd see pedestrians, kids, you'd see animals, everyone in the street. And I I've never actually looked at what, you know, like any statistics about you know, injuries or anything like that or accidents back then, but it seemed that people were able to share the streets and and I guess um it's down to design.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

So I guess one of the questions that I've thought about in thinking about this topic is what the key elements of walkability are in a neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Well yeah, with regards specifically to, you know, and I think that could be answered in a lot of ways, but I think an awful lot of it boils down simply to um separating out um vehicles going different speeds. Basically, when you mix pedestrians and bikes and cars, and the cars are going 40 miles an hour and the bikes are going 20 miles an hour, and the pedestrians are going five or you know, three miles an hour, that's a prescription for disaster. And uh I think that places, again, if we're gonna look at especially cities in in Western Europe, Copenhagen and Amsterdam are often looked at as models. Um, it's about separating out these these different modes so they're not all sort of on top of each other. It's you know, so the car is often pushed to um like the an outer part of the city where the sort of historic inner cities are are more much more um designed to favor other, you know, public transportation, walking, bikes. Um I mean that's the short answer. And again, what's particularly strange to me in the context of New York, because in a lot of America, walking is something that actually most people it does is actually like where in LA where I grew up, most people don't walk very much, or if they do, it's specifically just to get exercise, like they'll drive somewhere nice and then walk and then drive home or whatever. In New York, most people don't have cars. Most people to get around are using transit and walking. That that is in fact what most people are doing. So I I have always found it odd that in even in New York where that is the case, still we like we gave over almost all of our public space to the automobile, which was never a thing that most people were doing. It just seemed like an oddity. Um and you know, I I don't have all the answers to exactly why that happened, although I don't think you have to be a genius to understand a lot of it had to do with what was good for business, not necessarily what was good for people.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

You know, this this arrangement was great for the oil companies, it was great for the car companies, it was great for the steel companies. All of these are very sort of politically powerful groups. Often it was quite bad for people, especially poor people or immigrant people that that lived in these communities where they were just knocking down, you know, commu you know, whole neighborhoods to put in more and more fast-moving car traffic. And it it destroys walkability. It makes the place very unpleasant to be in. In some cases, in the worst cases, even things like you know, respiratory disease are going way up because people are having to breathe all these fumes. I mean, it's it's really uh incredibly unwalkable.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah, I and you know it's it's interesting. You say so we, you know, here on the podcast we explore the benefits of walking each week. We know that the research is clear, that walking regularly improves overall health, including cardiovascular health, joint and bone strength, blood circular regulation, healthy aging, and even mood. So do you really think that the walkability of a neighborhood influences the amount people walk in their daily lives? Do you think that's important to be?

SPEAKER_03 18:42

100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Okay. And have you is there data, is there research or data to support that, or is this just something that you strongly believe just from your own experience?

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Um there is data to support it. Don't ask me to provide it. And I know more about similar data around cycling, because that's something that I've sort of been more specifically focused on. When you build good cycling infrastructure, surprise, surprise, people start doing the thing. You know, it should this should come as zero surprise that when when something is unpleasant or unsafe, people aren't going to do it. Um, when you give people an opportunity, you know, when you create a beautiful protected bike lane or when you pedestrian, like Times Square is an example as far as walking, it was, you know, it was completely given over to cars. And uh in the Bloomberg era, um the head of transportation in the city, Jeanette Sada Khan, who's somebody that a feature in my film, um, took away, you know, pedestrianized Times Square. And that was very controversial at the time, people, especially local businesses. Many thought that, oh, you're taking away cars, our businesses are going to suffer. Yes, remember. Well, that's that's not what happened. You know, what happened is you again, you make a place pleasant to walk, you actually are inviting people to come. And now there are many, many, many more people spending their time and their money in Times Square than there ever were when it was all about cars. So that's a good sort of anecdotal example of uh what we're talking about. Yeah, where when you when you make something pleasant, guess what? People are happy to take advantage of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Yes, that's definitely a model for this concept. So it looking at it that way, should this concept of walkability be seen as a public health topic or an urban planning issue?

SPEAKER_03 20:42

I I don't I think it's I think it's certainly both. I think it's certainly both. And I also think in um in dense cities like New York, you really have no choice, really. If you care about if you care about people, like if if you just um if you're only uh giving people cars as the solution to getting around, it's just not going to work. There's just not enough space for all these cars. And and and to the extent that people that that's the only option, you know, the result is simply going to be like terrible, terrible traffic, which is what you have in New York, which is why most people would rather just jump on the subway or or you know, it's literally faster for me to jump on my bike and bike somewhere than to like try to drive. And crazily enough, in some cases, I literally think walking would be as fast as driving because the cars, there's a light at every corner. You know, it's just an extremely inefficient way to get around. I guess part of my passion would be not just thinking about walking as far and cycling as for exercise, but I I love the fact that these are practical, you know. Again, if you live in a city, like most of what I need. if I'm not going to work on a given day is within like five or ten blocks of my house. I and I can easily just take care of my needs, you know, and get exercise while like like this morning I you know I went got my hair cut. I went to Trader Joe's. I did a variety of things that I needed to get done, you know, with probably walked a couple miles.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

It's pleasant.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

It's fun and and you're you're going about your life. You're not needing to sort of separate out, oh I need to do this thing for exercise. You're just yes it's just happening.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

It's incorporated within your day.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Mm-hmm. You know, I think what's almost perverse is the way we've we've sort of separated things out and w instead of making it like just just design cities and streets so that people can live in a in a healthy convenient way. And then they maybe don't actually have to like go to the health club to work out because they're actually just burning calories and getting you know doing what they need to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

That's actually one of the um concepts that come up when we look at the blue zones and how uh people within blue zones, you know, how their just daily life it's you know walking and movement and how they eat and what they do. It's just built into their their just daily movement. You know, you you mentioned being able to you know just like walk to wherever you need to go to the grocery store to get a haircut. And it leads me to thinking about something that I wasn't sure if it would come up, but it's kind of a I I guess a good um segue into talking about equity and um walkability and street design and places because I can imagine that um you know there's more that would need to be thought through rather than just street design in certain neighborhoods. Because even if they design the street in a way where it's more walkable um you know all the other uh you know the grocery stores and all the other little things that the restaurants that might be nice to walk to aren't there. And so it sounds to me like this is possibly even a bigger conversation.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Yeah. Well I mean this is a very good point and it's a huge subject and I'm you know I'm not an academic or an urban planner. I can just give a couple of observations. I think you're absolutely right there's a lot of sort of chicken and egg stuff here um like do you build the roads to get you know and then the neighborhood improves or do you improve the neighborhood and then and and also this gets mixed up with the whole um concept of gentrification with all the sort of good and bad aspects of gentrification. So like a lot of the resistance to like pedestrianizing places or putting in bike lanes is people say oh you're gentrifying it you're gonna you're gonna price me out which sadly might be true in some cases. On the other hand is somebody making that argument saying I'd prefer to have a really you know unpleasant dangerous neighborhood than one that that was nicer? Like it's you know I I think you're right that we can't look at these street improvements in isolation from also worrying about well how are how are we going to you know allow all you know all sorts of people to continue to live in this neighborhood and um how are we going to encourage you know um whatever good business is to open up here. I mean it's all this is all it's all interwoven and complex and uh and I don't have all the answers but I you know I do think that everybody deserves safe pleasant streets. I mean that to me doesn't seem too much to ask. Yeah it's a good con it's a good conversation starter at least sure and I would just also add that I don't think I don't think that we should be too comfortable or too accepting of a status quo that is killing people. Like I do know some very specific statistics um that I learned while making this documentary that that American cities we have about four times as much injury and death on our streets compared to Western Europe and and Japan in particular. That is dramatic. I mean that is you know that thousands of people getting killed probably tens or hundreds of thousands of people getting injured every year that if things were just literally designed better it wouldn't be happening. And and so to me I mean that's that's something you I don't even see that there is an argument against that really it's it's so once you know that things can be better then they actually in that way then they need to be better. And to not do that is just sort of is just sort of not caring about people um people's lot lives and I I don't I just I'm very uncomfortable with that idea that we don't we that we don't care. So for listeners evaluating their own neighborhoods what are there relatively small changes that local governments can make that can have an effect on walkability Absolutely um I think what happened on McGinnis Boulevard is a very good case study of a of a local community getting organized um and working with their local you know assembly people and and state senators um to to fight you know very hard and for years but to finally accomplish it to really make changes I can tell you McGuinness Boulevard basically is no longer the sort of dangerous thoroughfare that it had been it is no longer sort of a highway that goes through the community. It was almost taken back to what it originally been it is now down to a two lanes of cars with much more space for pedestrians much much more space for bikes. And like and like crossing two lanes of cars is a very different experience than crossing four lanes of cars. Yes absolutely that's a success story um and it's just subjectively way more pleasant to walk there it literally felt before like you were walking next to a highway it was just like this is not you just had the feeling this is not a place where I want to walk period and now it is sort of night and day if you go there now it's and I believe it changes the vibe of the neighborhood absolutely and I think you're gonna see you know this has only happened in the last year and parts of it are only being implemented literally as we speak but I think you'll you will start to see a very different um vibe on that street. I think you're gonna start to see you know cafes thing you know things that are catering to to people that actually want to spend time there instead of instead of just like industrial businesses where people just didn't think of it as a as a place where they wanted to to ever spend any time. Yeah or live actually have have a life yep but because it's Brooklyn people were living there you know and that's that's again why we had all these this this danger this was it was almost like having an industrial area but but also residential and that's it's just not a it's not a that's very difficult to combine those two things.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

So um I guess we're almost toward the end of our conversation. What is one thing that you wish every listener understood about the the connection between where we live and how much we walk?

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Well it's interesting I guess I would just I think most people have have enough variety of experience to see that some places are are much more pleasant to walk than others and I just think people should should to try to uh not accept the status quo, not accept that just because a place you know is is unpleasant or dangerous that it has to be that way. I think that's the important thing is to to believe in the possibility of change and to to look around and and to understand that you know even that almost every place has changed a lot already. Like as as as we've talked about in the streets that are now yes dominated by cars once had horses on them. Like things have changed and they can continue to change and if you you want to see change um I you know I'd encourage people to to get organized and to to to fight for it. I think these things are very it's sort of underappreciated and I think there's just a it tends to be an acceptance of the way things are as though that's inevitable and we nothing can be done but I I think you know again I think this movie is a good illustration of of the fact that something was done and it's it's it's made a huge huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yes perfect point.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

And finally we haven't had many guests on the podcast you'll be our fourth but we have already established a tradition of asking each guest what is your personal relationship with walking outside of work what role does walking play in your own life well as somebody I'll tell you this I have I I sp I split my time between Brooklyn and I actually have a a place in Sicily where I spend two or three months of the year and those are very different places but I realize that one of the things they have in common is that they're both all about walking in both places my number one mode of transportation is my feet and I think that's why I am attractive you know I grew up in California but the reason that I don't live there and that I that I live in New York I think is largely to have this kind of life where I can walk out my door you know take care of my daily needs within you know half a mile of my house and constantly you know run into people that I know um can live a much more sort of active spontaneous life where somebody can call me you know and say hey you want to meet here in an hour and I'm like sure and and there they are it's uh to me that's uh that's sort of the reason to live in a city like it'd be one if you're in the country okay you're you've isolated yourself but to be in a city to me the whole point is to be like in a community with other people and I think yes yeah and I think walking is sort of the number one way that you enjoy that.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Yes well thank you Ben um thank you so much for joining me today I appreciate you sharing not only the story behind Changing Lanes but also the broader lessons about how design of our communities can influence our safety our health and our willingness to walk it's been a fascinating conversation.

SPEAKER_03 33:27

One thing before you go please share where can listeners watch the film Changing Lanes Okay well it just started streaming it's on Amazon and Canopy. Additionally there are sort of public screenings of the film that are still happening in in different cities and if uh you'd like to follow those or perhaps even request a screening uh you can find out more information on the website for the film which is changinglanes doc changinglanes docdoc like documentary um dot com.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Okay changinglanesdo thanks again Ben thanks for having me one of the things that really stood out to me from both the film and our conversation today is that walking is often thought of as an individual choice but our ability and willingness to walk is heavily influenced by the environments we create safe crossings, accessible sidewalks, traffic calmed streets, and thoughtful design aren't just infrastructure decisions, they're also health decisions. For listeners, I hope today's discussion serves as a reminder that every step we take happens within a larger community context. When we make our neighborhoods safer and more walkable we're not only encouraging physical activity, we're creating places where people can connect, thrive, and move through life with greater confidence and independence. If you'd like to learn more about changing lanes or watch the documentary I'll include links in the show notes. Thanks again listeners for joining me today on Why Walking Matters The Science Explained if you enjoyed this episode please be kind, share it with a friend and as always you can share your walking story or topics for the podcast at whywalkingmatters.com until next time keep walking stay curious and remember every step back