I’m new to advocating for urban planning so I don’t know where to start. I know can attend city hall meetings and even email the mayor but I feel like those aren’t effective solutions. Any advice? Thanks.
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It may not feel effective at first, but in small government it is. If you go to a city hall meeting there usually aren’t many people there, your voice will be heard. If you have a friend or two who feel the same have them come too. If 3 out of 4 people at the meeting are for a certain topic every week itll get through.
Also don’t be afraid to talk to other people about issues you care about like this. You can sometimes be surprised to find out that other people agree with you or are easily swayed to your options.
citynerd on yt mentioned this a while ago:
https://parkingreform.org/2023/11/30/a-message-from-citynerd-making-a-difference-with-prn/i’m not in usa so i dont know if it’s any use.
Will definitely look into this. Looks like a good start.
Actually thinking about it this urban-cycling guy also on youtube called shifter did a video about Edmonton changing over time.
Not really practical advice for you, but maybe some interesting stories - sadly none from the opposition so it’s far from balanced.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KBvBw8kk7bwI’m sure this is all very specific to that community - so maybe not that relevant. but it might be interesting nontheless.
I think there was a similar video about Montreal on his channel.I guess he’s looking at cites that are quite well developed in having removed some car infrastructure.
This bloke never really looks at public transport though; I guess he’s not the first cyclist to shy away from a bus.
The answer heavily depends on your city. How big is it, what’s the governance structure, what citizen committees are there, etc. It also matters what the pressing issues of your city are, and what relevant advocacy groups are already in existence. Not knowing any of these specifics, the only advice I can give you is to track down the Shoupistas.
I live in Memphis. Top issues at last year’s mayoral election were (as always) poverty and crime. I think I’m going to have a hard time trying to convince city officials to create better bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Also, Memphis is the corporate home of Fedex and Autozone and with Ford moving in with the Blue Oval City project, I don’t know if my voice will get heard. But I’ll definitely look into those Shoupistas.
You can tie bike infrastructure to both of those issues. Cars have less visibility than bikes. More cyclists on the street mean more eyes on the street, which tends to mean less crime. People in cars can’t just stop and ask someone who’s doing something shady, “hey, what’s up?” This means they’re either going to call the police (which could result in a lot of wasted officer time) or they’re going to ignore it. Cycling infrastructure is a far better investment than police since it’s preventative rather than reactive. (I have my critiques of this argument, but it’s supposed to be convincing for people who care about crime so…)
Bike infrastructure also helps treat poverty. Cars are expensive. Bikes are a cheaper and more reliable than the cars you can afford when you’re poor. They also tend to be more reliable than mass transit. Reliable bike infrastructure can make it possible for people in poverty to get to work without being dragged down by the burden of car ownership and maintenance. Bike infrastructure can help people get out of poverty.
People who are trapped in poverty are more likely to commit crime, and those who have the hope of upward mobility are less likely to do so. So bike infrastructure serves double duty in reducing crime.
By abolishing free parking, we can turn an expense in to income. We can use that income to build a well connected bike network, and that bike network can help lift people out of poverty.
Neighborhoods with bike infrastructure have higher property values. As we build bike infrastructure, we lift people out of poverty and increase the properly values. This increases tax revenue, allowing us to build more bike infrastructure. Conversely, car infrastructure decreases density, driving down property values and starving the city of money.
Etc… if you keep saying it for long enough, and keep getting more people involved to say it again, eventually they’ll get it.
Thanks. I’ll use these as talking points when I go to city hall.
Good luck! There’s also a book called “Curbing Traffic” that has a lot more data. It’s definitely worth a read.
Noted.
I know can attend city hall meetings and even email the mayor but I feel like those are effective solutions.
I’m confused, if you know those are effective solutions then why not do them?
Opps, grammatical error.
