Cassie’s post got me thinking about why I signed up as a volunteer writer with streets.mn. I came up with three reasons, all pretty selfish.
- I love the content that helps ME be a more informed participant in discussions about transportation and land use.
- I saw a need to effectively communicate why these topics are relevant to the daily lives of everyone in Minnesota. I want to build a bridge from the “why would I care” crowd to the “seeking tips on bus bump-outs so I can comment on this project” crowd. It’s key to building the political will needed to implement for some of the ideas proposed here.
- I didn’t see my personal experience – my experience as a woman, and as someone who once in a while hauls a kid around by foot or bike or bus – represented on these pages. I was pleased as punch to see the story in L. K.’s post — one that I can personally relate to.
A metaphor for the potential variety of streets.mn readers. Metaphorically, our current writers share perspectives of the hypotehtical upper left hand corner perspective and the fourth down on the right perspective.
Frequent commenter Monty’s comments also prompted today’s desire to detail the reasons I think it’s important to share a wide set of experiences here. Over the weekend, he shared his request for more driver-perspectives on streets.mn – and then returned to say,
if people really aren’t submitting articles with different viewpoints, I guess I can’t expect to find them. Maybe those people are driving their kids to soccer practice rather than writing articles for web sites- they’re satisfied with the status quo now that they have a house and car so they’re not trying to write about their views.
He’s hit on much of the story — satisfaction. Our world is so coherently designed for people in cars, drivers have no reason to notice the status quo (except when they can’t find a parking space, or when someone is slowing down their driving). He’s absolutely right that we don’t have writers representing the perspectives of drivers at streets.mn, at least not much (Note: if you want to provide that perspective, it’s invited).
Those of us who get around other ways discover dysfunctionality every day – we end up sitting on benches like these, or getting harassed, or even getting killed. I’ve been thinking about that during every commute since 1996, and have only in the last couple of years found a community of somewhat-like-minded people large enough to get some social traction — here. Given our concerns, and our experience of being brushed aside as a little crazy, no wonder we’re writing blog posts.
Streets.mn shares lots of perspectives not available elsewhere. I’ve learned a lot about things in Richfield from Sean, gotten interesting perspectives on doing things in the city with kids from Amy, found Betsey’s take on Northfield issues fascinating, and learned useful train trivia from Mike.
Their stories help me have interesting streets-related conversations with my parents, my brother-in-law, my co-workers, and other people whose experience is wildly different from my own — in a way that is relevant and engaging for THEM. We saw commenters learning through Laura’s post. Clearly, I’m not the only one interested in others’ perspectives, and hopefully gaining some empathy with people who travel and experience the world in different ways from themselves.
On the other hand, there are lots of perspectives still missing, and while we’re still exploring how to address that, I know I would learn from them. Could car-free reverse commuters living on the North Side inform my comments on SWLRT or Bottineau? Could a car-free parent teach me how to live that way, or how Minnesota could make it easier for car-free or car-less parents? How would my dad feel about walking to downtown, or busing to his church? How do UMD students navigate Duluth, and how do their neighbors feel about the UMD-related land use issues? What happened to my tiny childhood home of Spicer, MN when they expanded highway 23? What are the issues I am not even aware of that I ought to know about?
What streets.mn-relevant topics do the St. Peter residents living on this bucolic, small town street care about? I don’t know, but I want to.
Let me connect these dots. I write because I want others’ to empathize with my daily experience of my neighborhood. I write because I hope my story will help others understand why transportation and land use matters in their own daily lives. I write to teach others how they can engage effectively in local decision-making, and in turn make decisions that work better for all Minnesotans.
Streets.mn is effective at many of these things, but it has gaps – one or two of which I think I can fill in.
I also want others to share their stories with me, so I can understand and empathize with their daily experience, and take that into account in forming my opinions, as I hope they’ll do for me. I look forward to becoming even better informed about why the technical and economic impacts of our transportation and land use choices at all those levels, so I can make more informed decisions and provide more useful comments, whether to MNDOT or the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association.