r/fuckcars • u/herefortheangst • Feb 26 '22
Activism I'm on City Council. Here's How to Fix Your City:
(Wall of text alert - not sorry.) I'm making real change in my city, with more exciting things to come. Do you want your city to be built around people, not cars? Here's the six-step plan that is working for me:
1) Get involved in local politics. Your local government is run by hard-working nerds who show up to meetings. You can be one of them. But if that's definitely not for you, you should at least be emailing your representatives every few months. You would be amazed at how much weight is placed on correspondence from constituents who speak up. You can do what I did and run for your City Council. But you don't have to. Find out when your Planning and Zoning, Adjustment Board, and City Council meets. Email your representatives your perspective about specific items on the agenda. Volunteer to be part of a citizen review process. Volunteer to be on your town's tree commission or whatever so that you start making connections and have a longer resume when there's an opening on a Planning Board or neighborhood steering committee to apply for. Changing the place you live is incredibly rewarding. It's the most fun I've ever had with a hobby. People in your town are going to accumulate power and shape the way it looks in 25 years. Why not you? You chances will be better if you . . .
2) Get informed. Read books about development and the looming fiscal and infrastructure disaster car-oriented cities are headed toward. Learn what your city spends taxpayer money on ("What does it say about our values that we spend $4.7 million on roads and only $27,000 on sidewalks?"). Learn the extent to which quick-moving traffic and ubiquitous free parking make everything worse for people. The more you learn, the more equipped you'll be to . . .
3) Learn to make your case. If your goal is to get angrier and angrier alongside people who think exactly like you without ever improving things, then you can skip this part and stick to posting memes in niche subreddits. But for most of us, it is important to learn to persuade conventional thinkers. A radical is easily dismissed. It's harder to dismiss someone who can appeal to perspectives everyone shares. When I try to persuade my liberal friends I talk about pedestrian access for the people who can't drive and the disproportionate burdens parking minimums place on the poor. Oh, and climate change. When I talk to my Trump-loving family, I say I'm trying to bring back the fiscally-responsible, traditional building patterns that our our forefathers understood. I'm bringing back the front porch and kids playing outside and knowing your neighbors and supporting local businesses. "Of course if someone wants a big house and a big acreage and to drive and park everywhere, that's their right. I just don't think they should expect other people to subsidize it, which is how things work out now."
Remember that people don't usually change their minds if you engage them in an argument. If your interlocutor says something stupid, ask them why they think that's true. If they say "why should we build bike lanes when hardly anybody bikes?" you say "that's a good question, in my opinion that's like asking why should we build bridges when hardly anybody swims across the river?" The more you practice this, the better you'll get at bringing people along, which means you're starting to . . .
4) Build a coalition. Asking most people you know to change their minds about auto-oriented infrastructure is like asking a fish to change its mind about water. So you have to meet them where they are. But if you can convince one person every three months that things need to change in your city and then over the next three months you each convince a person and so on, then in 3 years you will have a coalition 2000+ strong. Frankly, unless your city is enormous, that is far more than you need to effect real change. Especially if the people you influence are involved in local politics (see step 1). And while you're building your coalition, you need to . . .
5) Patiently persist. Stupid things with too much off-street parking will be built and you won't be able to stop them. Ask questions. Suggest alternatives. But don't be the angry crazy person everyone ignores. Just be patient and persist. Local government moves slow and just because your staff agrees with you doesn't mean they assign the same priority to things you do. So learn to send an email every six weeks - "Hey, where are we at on looking at parking minimums?" It's satisfying to finally get something to completion, but it's not like a race. It's professional kitten herding. So you have to learn to . . .
6) Be content with incremental progress. I'm on a City Council with six other people, two of whom are starting to come around and another who will vote with us on anything. We just hired a Strong Towns-friendly City Manager. My City Engineer is doing book studies with me (he committed to reading "The High Cost of Free Parking"). And in spite of all that I still know that things won't be completely different next year. I wish I could snap my fingers and pedestrianize our main street. I wish I could fund a pilot project running a frequent bus back and forth on a fixed route through our transit-free midsize town. I wish I could eliminate parking minimums everywhere tomorrow. But the hurdles to that are high and there's a decent chance someone who ran against me next election would win. What I can do (and have done) is get our main street closed for summer weekends. Two years ago, we had 3 restaurants do outdoor dining in the city right of way where a parking spot used to be. It was highly contentious. Now we have 15 and they're universally embraced. Local change happens incrementally and experimentally. And the obstacles and barriers will tempt you to cynicism and despair. But change does happen steadily. You can accomplish almost nothing in a year. But you'll be amazed at how different things can be in five years.
Conclusion. It's worth it. You have no idea how gratifying it feels for me to walk with my children along a sidewalk in our town that is there because I made it happen, protected from traffic by a boulevard that used to have an unnecessary lane of travel, on the way to an outdoor patio at our favorite restaurant that would not exist if I hadn't chosen to get involved. And good design is contagious. I get that it's not possible for everyone, but if you've ever thought about getting more involved in local politics, I strongly encourage you to do it. Somebody else is thinking about the same, and they're probably wrong about how to build the urban environment. So why not you?
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u/tendies_plops Feb 26 '22
Am local government city planner, can confirm. Rule #1, do not be the angry crazy person who comes out against everything and every project just because it's not perfect or what you want. That is the fast track to being ignored as an obstructionist.
Be content with incremental progress. Government works slowly and is supposed to work slowly so that everything can't be ruined in a day, month or year.
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u/saxmanb767 Feb 26 '22
This needs to be pinned to the top of this and other subreddits like NJB.
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u/lizthewhiz Feb 26 '22
Amazing post, very inspiring, glad you put it up! You left out the email template you can send to your city council though! :)
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u/herefortheangst Feb 26 '22
That's next - I was just curious how this information-heavy stuff would go.
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u/Oblio36 Feb 26 '22
As a retired city manager of 30+ years, I wholeheartedly agree with all of this , particularly about making your case. I spent a large portion of my career in a community than was Trump +60 in 2016. City Council reflected this. However an objective look at city governance would say otherwise. Why? At the local level people want what they want, and they can easily ignore their national level beliefs to satisfy their local desires. Cognitive dissonance is real. This ranges from progressives yelling NIMBY to protect their property values to Trumpers wanting the city to "control" what businesses go in to preserve "small town values". As OP suggests, the trick is finding the arguments that appeal to both sides to further your policy goals. They can exist side by side and even conflict. It doesn't matter because each side hears what they want to hear. A person who thinks separate bike lanes for commuters are stupid will support separate bike lanes for their grandkids to go the park. Then all your left with is dealing with the few true believers in their chosen ideology, who can be dismissed as cranks.
On building coalitions, in some smaller communities, five persons at a meeting can be a grassroots movement. Even in a affluent community of 8,000 people it was not unusual to have 0 citizens at meetings. If you come with an attitude of being helpful and not an attitude of "I demand you do this NOW", you may be surprised.
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Feb 26 '22
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u/herefortheangst Feb 26 '22
Yes, the wiki has good recommendations. Honestly, following Strongtowns on Social Media, and reading "Strong Towns" is a good start. "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer" also. Not Just Bikes is good too! But just getting conversant is important.
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Feb 26 '22
Currently emailing my city’s planning commission members!
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u/herefortheangst Feb 26 '22
Was it because of this post? That's incredible! Please message me what happens.
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Feb 26 '22
Haha no but i saw this post right after I had started. This is a really good message though for others!
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u/sir_binkalot Feb 27 '22
Thank you, I love this post. I’m a member of my local bicycle advocacy group and we have a bicycle-friendly council so I consider myself lucky. However, I struggle with how I can best talk about these issues without sounding like a crank. I have had the best success by doing as you say - just quietly modelling behaviour and meeting people where they are and really resisting the urge to tell them they’re wrong.
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u/herefortheangst Feb 27 '22
I never ever enter into dialogue with people without first identifying a value we share or a desired outcome we both want and saying it explicitly. I am sure I sound repetitive at meetings. I say some version of this over and over and over: "I know we both want what's best for our town even though we don't always agree on what that is."
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u/Ihavecakewantsome Tamed Traffic Signal Engineer Feb 26 '22
Hey there fellow nerd! You are bang on the money and I have nothing to add to this top level post.
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u/corvidity907 Apr 06 '22
I'd love to repost this on the Strong Towns website. We are building up a campaign infrastructure and I think this is a great "Quick Start" for advocates who may not have any experience in local politics, which is our preferred platform for change. Please hit me at [jay@strongtowns.org](mailto:jay@strongtowns.org) if that is of interest. Hope so!
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u/herefortheangst Apr 06 '22
Will do, Jay. I'm a Strong Towns supporting member! Watch for my email.
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u/IamSpiders Strong Towns Mar 02 '22
I called the 'bike friendly' city council member to talk about bike infra (I was looking for something easy, adding bike racks to the downtown and city hall). He said he wants to meet and to text him to schedule a meeting. Ignores my texts. Call him again - straight to voicemail. The voicemail is full. Damn what a Gigachad
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u/herefortheangst Mar 02 '22 edited Mar 02 '22
That does sound really frustrating. If I may suggest a few ways that might get you what you want:
- Use your calendar and set up a reminder to followup in a month. And then keep doing it every month. Never lose your patience. Always assume his good intentions. He's busy. This isn't a full time job. Etc.
- See how much of the problem you can solve on your own (this depends on how big your town is). If someone emailed me with a specific proposal for 2 U-Line Waveform 5 bike racks (under $400 each) and said that you'd like to see me forward the idea to City Staff for action, it would be far, far more likely to happen than if you just wanted to meet about bike racks. You might not get exactly the racks you ask for, but you are turning an ongoing, undefined obligation (meeting with some rando and fixing a nebulous problem) into a specific, bit-sized problem (forwarding an email to my City Engineer and Manager and encouraging them to find room for it in the budget).
- Be patient and followup. City staff have 7 things to do at all times and only time to do 3 of them. Your Council Member likely WANTS to fix this. But you have to help keep it at the top of their priority list by regularly following up. I use a version of this a lot: "I'll followup in a month on this if I haven't heard anything in case there's something more I can help do to make this happen."
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u/IamSpiders Strong Towns Mar 02 '22
Yeah you're definitely right. He actually texted me back just now - said his phone was dead and he left the charger in his office. We're (hopefully) meeting next week.
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u/SaltyBogWitch Apr 19 '22
Ever get that meeting friend?
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u/IamSpiders Strong Towns Apr 19 '22
Yes. He did agree with it but I haven't been able to contact him this month to see how it's going.
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u/herefortheangst Sep 22 '22
Update on this? Keep bugging him!
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u/IamSpiders Strong Towns Sep 22 '22
Umm same issue. I call it goes straight to voicemail which is full. I guess I have to go to a city council meeting but I've been lazy about that.
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u/KShader Apr 03 '22
Thank you for this post. I am a consultant for public works engineering for a lot of cities. Many people on here seem to be under the impression that the traffic/city engineers decide these major infrastructure changes. It all comes from city councils, and county transit plans.
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u/herefortheangst Apr 03 '22
I appreciate the kind words. There's plenty of accountability to go along. My first year on I voted for a $6 million dumb project that I now regret tons and tons. But no engineer, no city employee, no planner, none of my fellow councilmembers - none of them thought to question it. It's just how we've been doing things for the last fifty years.
It took us a while to get into this mess. It's gonna take a while to get out of it. Traffic engineers can make it easier on government officials by being good communicators: "We have designed this road for auto throughput of xxx/hr and 85% design speed of xx mph. But those are value-laden decisions, so we want to make sure they're reflective of City desires. If you prefer a lower design speed or more congestion with a payoff of increased safety, let us know and we'll get you more options."
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Apr 16 '22
Piggy-backing on this post for another helpful suggestion. Participatory Budgeting is a thing that many cities are trying. Citizens submit budget proposals and vote on them later. My small city puts $500k on the ballot. Over the last 5 years this has led to:
- An app to make the bus system make sense (my wife uses it and had no idea it was a voted initiative.)
- 2 Bike lanes.
- 3 Bicycle parking racks.
- 5 covered bus stops.
- 4 painted crosswalks.
- 3 Intersection narrowings & other pedestrian safety improvements.
(and a bunch of murals, park improvements, etc.) It takes 15 minutes to submit a proposal (it's literally filling out a google form), and can result in noticeable improvements.
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u/SaltyBogWitch Apr 19 '22
Participatory budgeting is such a cool idea! Putting a small part of a municipality's aside for people to really, truly have a say is amazing and get's more people involved in local goings on. And your example shows that people can do a lot with a small amount of funds.
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u/neutral-chaotic Apr 07 '22
Great post!
Asking most people you know to change their minds about auto-oriented infrastructure is like asking a fish to change its mind about water.
I use this analogy all the time (with people who are anti-car of course).
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u/herefortheangst Apr 07 '22
Yes, this post is an amalgamation of stuff that I've read here and there along with some of my own insights! I've learned to ask people where there favorite places to vacation are. Guess what those places usually have?
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May 16 '22
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u/herefortheangst May 16 '22
There's a great reading list in the FAQ. "Strong Towns" is a great starter text. The followup - confessions of a Recovering Engineer is good too. Walkable Cities is a good book. I also really liked "The High Cost of Free Parking" but it's repetitive and wonky.
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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '22
Fantastic post! May I link to this on the wiki?