In today’s book club episode, Parker Seaman and Jeremy Winter discuss When Driving Is Not An Option by Anna Zivarts, in a conversation moderated by Sherry Johnson.
Links
- When Driving Is Not An Option, Island Press
- Anna Zivarts presentation in Rochester
- A 40-Year Fight to Get Speed Bumps
- Katie Cashman riding on Hennepin with Wedge LIVE!
- Next book: Bowling Alone
Attributions
Our theme song is Tanz den Dobberstein, and our interstitial song is Puck’s Blues. Both tracks used by permission of their creator, Erik Brandt. Find out more about his band, The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, on their website.
This episode was co-produced by Parker Seaman and Sherry Johnson, and was engineered, edited, and transcribed by Ian R Buck. We’re always looking to feature new voices on the show, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected].
Transcript
[00:00:00] Sherry: Is it me or does Metro Transit have a sexy new interface on the web version?
[00:00:06] Parker: What about it is sexy to you? The answer’s not strictly “No.” But I want you, I wanna put you in this place first.
[00:00:16] Ian: Welcome to the Streets.mn Podcast, the show where we highlight how transportation and land use can make our communities better places.
Coming to you from beautiful Uptown, Minneapolis, Minnesota, I’m your host Ian R Buck. It’s time for the first episode of our revamped book club. You’ll recall that a few months ago, Parker Seaman announced that the first book would be When Driving is Not an Option by Anna Zivarts. Joining him today is Jeremy Winter with the discussion moderated by Sherry Johnson.
Let’s dive in.
[00:00:51] Sherry: I am producer Sherry Johnson, and I am sitting here with Parker Seaman,
[00:00:55] Parker: howdy,
[00:00:55] Sherry: and Jeremy Winter.
[00:00:56] Jeremy: Hello,
[00:00:57] Sherry: who is happy to read alongside Parker and get us into conversation today. Parker and Jeremy, what, besides us having a cool live recording drew you to this book? Did you hear a good review or recommendation?
[00:01:12] Parker: The, uh, the thing that I first heard about it was when I was, uh, helping edit the episode of the, uh, presentation that she was giving and thought, wow, this sounds interesting. I’d be interested in checking out that book and continuing the trend of reading, uh, books about transportation, land use, driving trains, spikes, all that fun stuff.
Um, and I was pleased to find a book that, uh, was, was a very good read. How about you, Jeremy? Um.
[00:01:41] Jeremy: When I first heard about her, it was because she was coming here and I immediately thought of, uh, the ride hail, minimum wage battle. Remember that? Back when that was the topic, du jour. Uh, Uber had a publicity event where they, um, got a bunch of disabled drivers to advocate
[00:02:01] Sherry: Yes.
[00:02:01] Jeremy: For Uber, essentially as a valuable net positive to society because of its benefit to disabled people. Mm-hmm. And. When I heard about this book, I went, okay, I bet this is the sort of back to that story I never heard. So I had to read it.
[00:02:17] Sherry: Excellent, excellent. And, uh, did it, did the, did it talk about that?
[00:02:21] Jeremy: Um, yeah, I would say.
[00:02:22] Sherry: Okay. What other topics drew you to this specifically you two?
[00:02:27] Parker: I’d read a headline not that long before I picked up this book about, um, the amount of non-drivers there are in Wisconsin, and I believe that was either like a third or a quarter of the people, the state are not drivers, and remember thinking like, well, that seems incredibly high, but I’m from a very rural area of South Dakota.
And having gone through Wisconsin number of times, thinking about the amount of small towns, the amount of different situations people can be in, it’s not that surprising that there is a good portion of the population who cannot, for whatever reason, drive. Um, at least safely drive. Um, and makes me wonder what kind of reporting, um, or information isn’t reported there.
And yeah. Yeah.
[00:03:18] Sherry: So the title is _When_ Driving is Not an Option, so which people don’t have the option? We’ve heard people with disabilities, some sorts of disabilities. Um, what are some others?
[00:03:29] Jeremy: A large contingent of people who can’t drive are the elderly. Mm-hmm. There is. Um, you know, when I first got my car, it was because it was a valuable – giving me a car, was an excuse for my parents to wrestle the car away from my grandmother who really didn’t wanna give up on driving.
But she was in her nineties and really shouldn’t have been driving.
[00:03:51] Sherry: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:51] Jeremy: And so it just worked out that I happened to be turning 17. But you know, it, it’s. The, I, I think they had a stat in the book, which really surprised me that on average, um, Americans can’t safely drive for the last seven to 10 years of their life.
[00:04:08] Sherry: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I, I, I think all of us have a story about that parent or elder in our lives that maybe should have stopped driving. My father, for example, uh, one of his, the last time he drove, um, in his late seventies, he crashed through the back of the garage. So that was the end. Uh, yeah. Who did the book talk about other folks that don’t drive?
[00:04:30] Parker: Yeah. It also brings up the. Uh, the group of people that can’t drive of, uh, children, people under 18. Mm-hmm. And there’s some pushback on using that number in counting how many people can’t drive. But the counter to that is whether or not you think that they should or shouldn’t be able to drive. They still need to get to places.
Mm. Uh, kids need to go to different activities to school. To, you know, live their own life without having to be driven around everywhere.
[00:05:03] Sherry: Yeah. And we’ve created entire cultures in which. Hockey moms and sports moms, parents, have to put their kids in a car and drive them for great distances just to get to their activities as well.
[00:05:14] Jeremy: Uh, while we’re talking about who can’t drive the last categories, yes, I should mention of are, you know, people who can’t afford to drive and, um, sort of tail, you know, in with that is people who just kind of lack societal power in minorities. You know, there, there’s also, there’s an element of like systemic racism in there, right?
Mm-hmm. In that if you are black, sure, maybe you can afford to drive, but do you want to, with your chances of being pulled over are so much higher, you know, unjustly and potentially being killed by police.
[00:05:45] Sherry: There’s an entire subset of things that you are choosing when you drive. Right. Um, so yeah, kind of just sticking with that theme, what is a fact or a story that came to the book that’s really still sticking with you?
I know Jeremy just talked about that. Parker, how about you?
[00:06:02] Parker: At the end of the book, when it’s having its, uh, call to action to see, like for you to try considering life without a car. And like what that, um, situation would be if that had to be that way. Uh, it makes mention of consider what would happen in your daily routine if your car no longer worked, if you no longer had it, and immediately made me think of my friend who has three kids who all go to like different daycares, different elementary schools and all that sort of stuff, and him telling me about how much time he spends in the morning, driving back and forth throughout town to all the different schools for all the different times he needs them there. Thinking about if his car broke down and he did not have the car, he would have no other way of getting his kids to where he needs to.
Mm-hmm. The environment that he lives in does not have. The public transportation system or really any other like, valid forms of transportation he could put a, a kid on, um, without there being like a lot of other risks or consequences to something like that. Um, so that really stuck with me and I can’t imagine that’s the only, he, I mean, he’s not, definitely not the only person out there who would run into that same sort of issue.
[00:07:12] Jeremy: There was that one story about the woman who was trying really hard to find an apartment to live in that was affordable and had a bus stop. And she ran into the problem that the bus stop on one of the sides of the road had no sidewalk connected to it and had a dirt path that was less than a foot wide between like a fence and the edge of the road.
Mm-hmm. And that was the only way to get to it. And she had the problem that when it rained, she could, you know, potentially could slip into traffic and was, you know, fearing for her own safety just to try to get to a bus stop. And I’ve seen bus stops like that, that have no connections. They’re just in the middle of nowhere.
And I’m like, who takes that? And I realize now a lot of it are people who have no other choice.
[00:08:03] Parker: Right. There’s a high, there’s a bus stop on Highway 7, I believe, a little bit, uh, west of like the main metro. And there’s no walkway. There’s not even like a, uh, desired path kind of dirt walkway to it. It’s just grass up to this one bus stop.
I don’t even think there’s a bench there. And I, I, I, I call those ones, “Sure, I guess” because sure, I guess there is a stop, but I don’t really think you’re taking into consideration the. The needs of the people who actually be using that and how infrequently a route like that would run and maybe you want to sit or have shelter from the rain or snow or something for a minute.
[00:08:39] Jeremy: Totally.
[00:08:39] Sherry: Yeah. Well, I am gonna confess here to our listeners, I have listened to Zivarts’ presentation, but I have not read the book. So I’m like your ex-English teaching co-producer who loves talking about books so that I can properly sequence the stack. I’m always working my way through. It’s like this never ending Stack. Parker; soon to be Dr. Seaman: What was it about this book that made it rise to the top of what must be a formidable stack?
[00:09:06] Parker: Um, it’s really simple. The book is pretty short.
[00:09:11] Sherry: Oh, that’s a bonus.
[00:09:13] Parker: Um, it’s a really good book and has a lot of really good information. There are a lot of perspectives that I’ve not really spent a lot of time thinking of when and admittedly really should, and it presents it in a way that does not take a lot of time or… It’s not a very, uh, dense book in getting that information to you. Really, it’s really efficient in how it presents the information. It does not take a lot of effort to get through this book in a pretty, uh, short amount of time. Jeremy, what are your thoughts?
[00:09:40] Jeremy: I couldn’t resist this book because it’s one of the only ones I’ve seen that kind of gets to the base of, of transit rider’s constituency.
You know, I, there’s I think, a certain gap between transit advocates who tend to be wealthier, whiter. Oftentimes, they’re in the not driving because they choose not to drive category. And, you know, the majority of bus riders who tend to be, you know, poor BIPOC, uh, et cetera. Right. Um, and I, I thought that this, this book did such a good job of, of sort of bridging that and bringing them both together that I, I think it’s very valuable for people who wanna really make a change and actually like appeal to people who really do ride the bus.
[00:10:30] Sherry: Yeah. I’m really glad you said that. Having done, I, I did a study on East Metro Travel back in the day when I was a community organizer and advocate, and yeah, I found a ton of people who are willing to talk to me, uh, advocate types. Like you said, Jeremy, but it, it is really hard to get in touch with actual users.
They’re too busy waiting for the bus and getting on it and riding it to the busy jobs that they have and things that they need to do. So it’s, it’s, I’m glad you said that. So you’ve both been with Streets.mn for a while now. You know our listeners from bonfires picnics, listener and reader feedback.
Why might our listeners move this to the top of their land use in transportation stacks?
[00:11:10] Parker: Does it just really continue on the point that Jeremy made of, like I said, there’s a lot of good literature and good information out there, but it does tend to cater to people who are whiter, wealthier and using this, using biking and transportation stuff when they don’t necessarily have to.
And I think, uh, a lot of people like that, myself included, uh, get a lot of value from getting the perspectives that this book offers. A lot of the stories that Anna sources in it are really telling about the state of transportation for the people that it really should be serving and how it could be doing it a whole lot more equitably.
[00:11:46] Jeremy: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no substitute. You know, that’s just how it is. And don’t get me wrong, I love my liberal, wealthy transit advocate friend. You know, they’re great, great people. Glad to have them on board.
[00:11:59] Parker: Jeremy. I’m right here. It’s okay.
[00:12:03] Jeremy: But, but this is the real deal. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, some of my most transformative experiences have been just like talking to actual people on the bus.
We, we did, um, a, a transit. Caucus once with Move Minnesota, where we’d gone to the bus with questionnaires and asked riders questions, and I thought it was so funny that everyone I talked to had didn’t wanna engage with any of the questions, but really wanted to talk to me about completely separate topics.
Yes. And it just showed the gap to me. You know, the, like the MoveMN people were so focused on valuable things like frequency and, you know, speed of the buses. But most of the people wanted to talk about like power dynamics between bus drivers and people who can’t afford to pay. Yes. You know, that was a more interesting and relevant thing to them.
And, and I think, you know, we need more of that.
[00:12:49] Sherry: Mm-hmm. So, alright. Starting with you, Jeremy, what personal connections did you make with the book? What did it remind you of?
[00:12:59] Jeremy: It made me think a lot about, you know, the people in my life who can’t drive. I, um, I live with, uh, a guy who, um, I. Like, makes minimum wage and doesn’t have a college degree.
And we’ve talked about how he, he doesn’t drive a car and he’s basically resigned to the fact that he, he’s like, “chances are I’m never gonna move up socioeconomically and have the money. So I, I’ll probably never drive. ’cause I, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford it.” And like part of me is like, wow, that’s a bit bleak, but like, you know, it’s reality.
Right? I, I get it for a lot of people, it’s just not in the cards. Um, or, or I think about my parents who are in their seventies and they live in suburbia, um, and mm-hmm they are very tied to their house and, you know, where I’m from Transit is for getting to New York City and getting from New York City and nothing else.
Right? Mm-hmm. And what are they gonna do? This is like an unanswered question that has been plaguing my immediate family for a while.
[00:13:59] Sherry: So it’s, yeah, it’s not just, it’s not just a quality of life issue, it’s a hidden social hierarchy in a way. Right.
[00:14:06] Jeremy: Totally.
[00:14:06] Parker: I was gonna add to that of the way your roommate is talking about this sounds like a lot of the car culture we have of getting your driver’s license, driving a car as sort of a, a rite of passage. Mm-hmm. And being in a situation where that can’t happen seeming like. It’s like something’s missing or you haven’t done something right with your life for it. When reality, there’s people across the world who never drive a car because they never have to, because the environment is not, does not necessitate that for them.
[00:14:35] Jeremy: Right? Yeah. For a lot of people it’s just, it’s just not gonna work out. You know? I can say my roommate didn’t graduate from college because of a horrible medical condition that forced him to drop out. Not through any like character failing, right? A lot of people just. D don’t have that option and really deserve better.
[00:14:53] Sherry: Yeah. Hey, Parker, how about you? Where did you personally connect with the book?
[00:14:58] Parker: I’d say there’s a, a couple personal connections I have in my life. Um, first one that comes to mind is my, my partner’s mother, she’s blind and deaf. And, um, uh, because of that needs to make use of the. Uh, transit options that the city offers to help get around.
Um, but that, you know, calls into the question of like, what, what about places that don’t have situations or have systems like that? What if that isn’t? Uh, affordable for the people using it, and all this sort of situations of people are living everywhere where any sort of medical condition, whether visible or not, could affect your ability to independently get around.
The other personal connection being, um, with my, my own grandma of. She for a while had some health issues and would make her pass out, um, randomly. Thankfully, that never happened while she was driving, but we had to have that, uh, tough conversation with her to get her to not drive and have her be okay with giving her rides around just because there wasn’t a safe way for her to get to and front of the things that she needs to.
[00:16:01] Sherry: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I know in, um, rural communities, of course too, even just finding transit drivers, getting enough drivers, um, as well as personal care attendants can be a real challenge, um, that even if those programs exist, the people and the services might not exist. Does, does the book address any of that?
[00:16:21] Parker: It does when talking about, uh, post peak COVID times where, how much transportation agencies really got hurt by how much that changed. And as part of that, trying to bring transit back up to what it was. And part of that issue coming from not being able to source enough people managing and working the, the transit systems from drivers to, um, mechanics and everything else that it takes to keep that operating.
[00:16:49] Sherry: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:50] Jeremy: Yeah. I, I think it speaks to how hard it is to build up a quality public service and how easy it is for things to come crashing down.
[00:17:00] Sherry: Yeah. Yeah. We’ve really made it fragile, haven’t we?
[00:17:03] Jeremy: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:04] Sherry: Yeah. What, what surprised you in the book?
[00:17:06] Jeremy: There was one statistic that said that about. It, it was a, a statistic on, um, ownership of in automobile per household by, uh, race.
And about 6% of white households did not own a car, and about 18% of black households did not own a car. And, you know, I mean, I think it’s, it’s, that’s surprised me. I mean, three times as much, you know, but it just speaks to the lingering inequalities. In our society.
[00:17:39] Sherry: Mm-hmm. So we all know it can be frustrating to be an advocate in these spaces in land use and transportation spaces.
Even just the discussions we’re having now, I can kind of see our body language sinking. Right? What was frustrating or maybe even enraging to read about.
[00:17:55] Jeremy: I think it’s, first of all, the amount of effort as someone without a car that you have to put into getting around. You know, we don’t, we really don’t make it easy.
There’s so many things you have to consider. You have to learn schedules, bus routes. If you have a dial ride service, you have to know when it’s coming, and you have to potentially plan your trip maybe a day in advance. You have to know where the service areas go, where the boundaries are. You have to know if your bus stop, if your bus will be able to take you.
Yeah, maybe you’re traveling with a bike. Is one of your routes gonna be a mini bus that has no rack on it? There’s so many little details that you need to know and need to remember. Just coming here, I got off on the wrong bus stop ’cause I didn’t realize that the 17 goes down 24th and then down 26th.
When it turned south, I was like, “oh my God, I’m going south of 26th. I’m, I’m so far. No!”
[00:18:47] Sherry: And you’re a pretty good bus bus rider I imagine. Yeah, no, my, my worst pet peeve around that is just that some buses will have the same number but go different routes.
[00:18:56] Jeremy: Yeah.
[00:18:56] Sherry: Right?
[00:18:57] Jeremy: Yeah. It’s a lot of work and we put that, the burden of that work onto essentially disadvantaged people, you know?
[00:19:04] Parker: and to continue that, uh, a lot of work note, the part that I found I found really frustrating is how much work that people have to spend to get accommodations put into the stops that they, that are already there of how much work needs to be done to get just a little bit more sidewalk space. Mm-hmm. Or a speed bump. Put on a time of recording, there was just an streets of an article about the 40 year fight to add a speed bump to an intersection and just the amount of time that has to be spent to get those kinds of accommodations.
Really speaks to what the expectations are for the people who it’s serving, considering if you have a lot of other stuff going on in your life, it really only serves the people who have the time to be there to speak up about it, to say something about it. Um, and if you don’t have that voice, if you’re not being listened to, uh, you just don’t get attention to it.
[00:20:03] Sherry: Okay. Can I say an enraging thing around this, please? Oh my God. I was using a mobility device and I had to go to a medical appointment at United Hospital and the bus stop in front of United Hospital. Was blocked off by construction signs. No. With no curb cut. No place to stand like, yes. We really need to do better.
Okay. Thank you. End rant.
[00:20:30] Jeremy: Um, there was a passage in the book where they talked about people in wheelchairs riding on the street because the sidewalks were so poorly maintained.
[00:20:38] Sherry: Yes, I did have to ride it. Yes. I’ve heard of many folks.
[00:20:41] Parker: There’s also a part of the book where they talk about when a city was considering moving a hospital from more of the, more or less the center of town to the edge of town, because at the edge of town it’d be closer to the highway.
[00:20:53] Jeremy: Oh dear. Oh my God.
[00:20:55] Sherry: Okay. I, I think we need, I think we need to feel happier here, folks. Yeah. Um, where does the book offer some hope for sustainability and active transportation or disability advocates like. Please, hope.
[00:21:08] Parker: It, Near the end of the book, it talks about the times that the author spent with public servants, government people, and challenging them to try getting around without a car for a bit, and how a lot of ’em had a really eye-opening experience from that.
Um, even if they weren’t able to meet the challenge, she talks about how one person had a family event that required them to have to drive back and forth, I believe, from a hospital or something to continue out through their day. But whenever they’re driving, they’re thinking about why, what would it be like if I didn’t have a car for this?
What if I couldn’t drive? Would I even be able to make this work? How would that even happen?
[00:21:48] Sherry: Mm-hmm. So getting officials. To actually put themselves in the position of folks who do not have, yeah.
[00:21:54] Parker: And really helping change their perspective from, uh, you know, dr. A bus can be an option versus what if bus is the only option?
Or what if driving isn’t the option? Hey, book title!
[00:22:07] Jeremy: I, I think you see some of that here in Minneapolis. We have the, uh. Famous Wedge Live bike ride series where he rides bikes, bikes with politicians. Um, and I remember from last year his bicycle ride down Hennepin Avenue in Uptown with Katie Cashman, where for about at least 10 seconds of the interview, they’re just uncomfortably riding, clearly trying to not die.
Mm-hmm. You know, then they can’t talk because they’re so focused on that. I think there’s a lot of potential there to force change by opening the eyes of people in power and getting people who maybe don’t have power now organized into a more powerful political bloc.
[00:22:46] Sherry: Mm-hmm. Does the book share any stories of success or, you know, places this has been tried?
[00:22:52] Jeremy: She talks about how there should you. You need to have people with lived experiences in relevant positions of power. And that doesn’t need to be elected positions. It could be advisory board positions. You know, having something like a requirement for a transit advisory board have a percentage of non-drivers on it, right?
Mm-hmm. Something like that, that would make sense. And I think she is essentially that person in her local, uh, advisory board of some kind. I don’t remember the specifics. Mm-hmm. So that’s pretty cool.
[00:23:24] Sherry: Yeah,
[00:23:24] Parker: if you’d like to learn the specifics, you can check out the book too.
[00:23:28] Sherry: So did uh, what other options does the book suggest to improve things in our current system?
[00:23:35] Parker: The main thing is just get involved, show up, make your voice heard, and also simultaneously advocate for the people who don’t have that voice themselves. And when those people who typically don’t have those voices are there and speaking up, make space for them. Make sure that you are making it so that what their, their own lived experience is being voiced.
That uh, it’s not being overcrowded by, um, all the other needs too.
[00:24:02] Sherry: Hmm.
[00:24:03] Jeremy: One technique that she proposed in the book that I really think is valuable is walk audits. Yes. We recently did one of these, I live on, uh, 35th Street in South Minneapolis, and uh, one of 35th and 36th streets are going under construction.
And um, this amazing man, Christopher Vaughn, I believe is his name, uh, he conducted a walk audit. I was there. We walked around 35th and 36th streets and just looked at things and noticed how much, you know, car – broken car refuse there was near the freeway intersection. And you know, something like that I think is really valuable to get people to write down their thoughts and, and put it into words and get people talking about that experience.
[00:24:48] Sherry: Yeah. What would you say is the central message of this book?
[00:24:52] Jeremy: There’s a saying in accessibility that better accessibility benefits everyone, not just disabled people. Right? The classic example they use is, uh, curb cuts, I think, right? Where you, sure they’re great for people in wheelchairs, but people pushing strollers can use them. People riding bicycles can use them. People pushing a cart can use them. And I think this book is a really sort of broad perspective on. Taking that to the next level of, if we make things better for people who don’t drive, then that has much bigger positive ripples for society, and there’s a lot of ways we can do it.
[00:25:27] Sherry: Absolutely.
[00:25:29] Parker: Yeah. I’d probably, I very much agree with you on that, and just broadly that having more perspective on how more accessible spaces can be beneficial to everyone, not just those who rely on it the most.
[00:25:42] Sherry: Hmm. Yeah. All right, so we have the current system. But I think we’re all seeing that there are parts of that system that almost need to be dismantled entirely.
So what might have to be dismantled in the system we use to make any of this a reality?
[00:26:01] Parker: Restrictive zoning laws probably, uh, which I know is kind of a broad thing, but having read other books on it, a, a lot of current zoning laws are really based on a lot of really antiquated things. Uh, and, and racism.
[00:26:16] Sherry: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Parker: Um, and so it’s hard to keep building on a really bad base if, if there was something that was going to need like deep structural redoing in order to really improve it. That might be something that could use a, a deep refresher in order to create a system that is actually meant to improve cities, make things safer, make things more accessible.
More livable, more enjoyable, um, more economically sound, all the other good things there, and not based on how do I keep the people I like living near the people I like and the people who I don’t, not being able to have as much access.
[00:26:56] Sherry: Hmm. Wow. That’s profound.
[00:27:00] Parker: In a very roundabout way. Sure.
[00:27:02] Sherry: Yeah.
[00:27:03] Jeremy: I would dismantle our societal assumption that we need to cater to wealthy and privileged people in order to benefit society as a whole.
I. Specifically, let, let me rephrase that. There are this, this has to do, for instance, with parking. There’s a lot of business owners in our city who would have, you know, believe that if we don’t try our hardest to get wealthy suburbanites to come to our city, all of the businesses will, will go out of business.
What, whatever will we do without those wealthy suburbanites to keep our local businesses afloat? We need to cater to them by making sure they can park their expensive cars as easily as possible. Um, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think what this book does so well is that it shows actually, if you focus on catering to the least privileged people, the people who have the least power and make incremental improvements to cater to them, that actually does a much better job.
It’s, it’s a sort of bottom up urbanism instead of trickle down, you know? Mm-hmm. That’s, I think. What we need to dismantle that assumption that without Edina, Minneapolis is nothing, you know?
[00:28:22] Sherry: Uh, yeah. Uh.
[00:28:24] Parker: Crazy.
[00:28:24] Sherry: Yeah. Um, so, okay. So having read this book, speaking of Edina, speaking of my own neighborhood in Summit Hill, um, what would you say to people who think cars make things easier for all the people that don’t drive, that don’t drive now, if they could just drive, if there were more access to cars through financial assistance, ride share, car sh, car sharing programs, everybody would be better off. Let’s just help. More people drive, what would you say to that?
[00:28:54] Parker: Sure. If we’re gonna do that, we should probably just spend it in a more efficient way. And if we’re gonna, if do it something efficiently, you know, economies of scale.
So we might as well just put, you know, more, more of the people into the same sort of vehicle. And if we’re gonna make it more efficient, still maybe put on like a system with like a low rolling resistance, maybe steal on steel or something like that.
[00:29:13] Jeremy: These cars that we give them, we could chain them together.
[00:29:16] Parker: Yeah. And like link interlink them.
[00:29:18] Sherry: That’s amazing.
[00:29:18] Parker: And then we can like teach people how to operate them. We can train, Ooh, that’s a good name. We can train them how to drive it.
[00:29:25] Sherry: If you can be one thing, it’s be efficient.
[00:29:28] Parker: I, I guess the, the response to people saying that, you know, we just get them a car so that they can participate is like, I understand the idea of wanting to improve the situation, but.
It’s so hard to make that work at such a scale to help more people when there are so many people who are currently underserved. Making the most amount of those resources really makes the most sense when you’re building your environment to be the most accessible for the people who need it to be the most accessible.
To go back to the previous point, doing that is allows you to serve the most amount of people the most efficiently.
[00:30:04] Jeremy: Hmm. Yeah. I would tell those people that. To build off what Parker said, there is no way to provide mobility for everyone with cars because as this book starts off with one of the most shocking stats to me, about a third of people living in the United States do not have a driver’s license.
[00:30:27] Sherry: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:28] Jeremy: If you gave everyone cars, that wouldn’t make a difference to that third, you know, there are a lot of people who cannot drive. Maybe you might give them a car. Do they have the money to maintain it? You know, do they have the ability to drive it? What if we had solutions that actually can help everyone out?
You know, I, the, to me the rhetoric seems very similar to the people who say, oh, instead of helping out renters and having more protections or assistance for renters, we should be promoting and encouraging homeownership like. Sure. I guess there’s some value in that, but it’s naive because we all know not everyone is going to be a homeowner.
That’s just not how it works. You know? It’s, it’s not realistic. Instead, it’s realistic about helping out people who are already privileged. That’s what.
[00:31:19] Sherry: Yeah. Okay, so moving into takeaways, recommendations from the author. So far, I’ve heard get elected officials sing transit more often and other options that are not using a car, move into land use and zoning issues to try to change how we even set ourselves up.
What are some other recommendations from the book that you and doing these walk arounds, right? What are some other recommendations from the book?
[00:31:48] Jeremy: She really thinks that you should try to get the bylaws changed for your local advisory boards to require non-drivers. Okay. Like don’t just try to get non-drivers in office force non-drivers into positions of power by changing the rules.
That might not be easy to do without non-drivers in office perhaps, but it’s something you’ve gotta do. Uh, and in, in order to get non-drivers elected, I think just organizing them as a, as a political body is, is very important. You know, getting them to feel heard In some way or another, and feel like they matter. You know, one thing she did was she just talked to and interviewed so many non-drivers and like, talked about it, it made them feel like, like they mattered and were relevant, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, and we, we, we need that. We need more transit canvassing, I think.
[00:32:37] Sherry: I’m kind of a governance nerd and I’ve been involved with lots, you know, like state level councils and things like that about like how you require certain folks to sit.
So I’m really curious, does she have suggestions for forcing board seats or advisory board seats to have non-drivers? How, how might that be defined and, um, how might those folks be identified and maybe make sure that they stay non-drivers? Um, does she have any recommendations about that?
[00:33:07] Jeremy: So her answer was basically just to, if you are in a room with people making decisions, ask yourself who’s not there?
You know, maybe take a minute to step back and help people who don’t feel empowered, you know, hype them up, try to get them to talk and, and share their testimony. You know, get people involved who might otherwise feel. Powerless.
[00:33:30] Sherry: Hmm. Okay. So that’s more on the identifying folks kind of land and territory.
But yeah, it’ll be interesting to hear, like we’d love to hear from listeners too, who, if you have written governance documents that require certain identities like that, that aren’t written into law, how might policymakers do that? Um, once you identify those folks that could sit on those boards? Hmm. All right.
Okay, so what’s your own personal takeaway?
[00:33:55] Jeremy: Sidewalks are really, really important. Mm-hmm. Um, and there needs to be a better system. The government really should have a more involved role in most of the US of maintaining sidewalks and making sure they are clear and accessible for people because sidewalks are the lifeblood of a lot of people.
And without them, um, people just have nowhere to go.
[00:34:19] Parker: It’s something that’s really easy to take for granted until the sidewalk is under construction or there just is not a sidewalk somewhere. It also makes me very frustrated that the, as much as I like the rentable e-bikes and stuff that are around the cities and whatnot, the lack of a dock for them means people end up leaving ’em just in the center of the sidewalk, and that’s fine for me.
I can move it, but if somebody is pushing a stroller. Does not have the ability to move the thing and if, if the surrounding ground is not safe to walk on, that’s a very risky move and just frustrating. Yeah.
[00:34:55] Sherry: Any next actions that you two are planning on taking? Maybe uh, I’m hearing Jeremy maybe gonna get involved in the, uh, maybe shoveling, sidewalk shoveling battle this year.
[00:35:04] Jeremy: You know, I am very pro municipal sidewalk shoveling. Absolutely. You know, no reservations about that. I, I think it’s something so important. We can’t be just leaving it up to individual property owners to do, uh, you know, for, for listeners not, uh, accustomed, this is like an ongoing policy debate in Minneapolis mm-hmm.
Of should the government plow the sidewalks? Is it too expensive? But the truth is, there isn’t enough enforcement of it. A lot of property owners just do not plow their sidewalks and get away with it. Maybe have to pay a tiny fine. Mm-hmm. It’s not worth it. We have too many people who rely on Minneapolis sidewalks.
[00:35:42] Sherry: Not to mention the people who cannot shovel their own walk. Right. Um, due to either a long term or temporary disability and other things. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Parker, how about you? Do you have a next action in mind that this book inspired you to?
[00:35:56] Parker: Pretty much just what Jeremy said earlier of when you show up to a town hall or what have you, look around the room and think about who isn’t there and what you could be doing to make more space for them so that they can be able to speak their voice and have their needs heard better.
[00:36:13] Sherry: Yeah.
[00:36:15] Parker: And I guess in short, show up to public events and, um, advocate for the things that are important to you.
[00:36:23] Sherry: Mm-hmm. Parker, you do have one more thing to do.
[00:36:27] Parker: I have to pick another book, don’t I?
[00:36:28] Sherry: You sure do!
What’s our next book, Parker?
[00:36:32] Parker: Our next book will be Bowling Alone.
[00:36:35] Sherry: Oh, the classic.
[00:36:37] Parker: It’s a good one.
It was, uh. I’ve, I’ve read it once and I have no issue reading it again. And if you haven’t read it before, I highly recommend it. And that’s why it is the book, the next book of the book club.
[00:36:49] Sherry: Yeah. And I mean, that’s a really earth shatteringly changing book and, and I feel like it really did a lot for Xers, millennials.
In particular. So yeah, anybody that has not read Bowling Alone, you should. It’s definitely kind of around that theme of collectivism versus individuality, right?
[00:37:09] Parker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:10] Sherry: Public space and,
[00:37:11] Parker: and how that’s changed over time. And it, uh, a little spoiler. A thing I’ve really appreciated about it is it does dedicate a good amount of time to, “here are some theories for why it has changed this way and why those are wrong” with, you know, evidence and data and everything to back that up.
[00:37:29] Sherry: Yeah. All right, so listeners, we know, we know you, you have that book stack. I. Uh, here’s your assignment. You have three months to read this book.
We are gonna figure out ways for you to be part of this book club, um, in three months. That’s August, 2025. We’re gonna talk about this and hopefully involve the community a little bit more in surprising new ways we will announce. Your job is to get the book Bowling Alone and add it to your stack. That’s all.
Just add it to your stack, maybe page through it a little bit.
[00:38:03] Parker: It’s at the library probably.
[00:38:04] Sherry: Yeah. Yeah. And then any last thoughts or things that you’d like to share with listeners?
[00:38:11] Parker: Try riding the bus. It’s a fun time, normally.
[00:38:13] Sherry: Is it me or does Metro Transit have a sexy new interface on the web version.
[00:38:19] Parker: What about it is sexy to you? The answer’s not strictly no, but I want you, I wanna put you in this place first.
[00:38:27] Sherry: I just think like, I, I literally had a friend, like look up a, a route and like hold their phone up to me in the first word that came to my mouth was, “oh, that’s so sexy.” Uh, it’s just like really well designed.
I don’t know.
[00:38:42] Jeremy: I would say normalize. Getting around by not car with people, you know, uh, just ride the bus places and be like, oh yeah, I hopped on the 10 to get here, you know, or rode my bike up Lyndale or something. Um, maybe you might wanna wait to ride your bike up Lyndale for a few years. Oh yeah. But um, you know, I once went to a restaurant with some friends I knew who lived in the North Loop and I got there and one guy was like, you rode the _bus_ here? What?? And uh, do your part to make that interaction happen less with the people, you know.
[00:39:20] Sherry: Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a wonderful charge. All right, listeners, until next time!
[00:39:27] Ian: And thank you for joining us for this episode of the Streets.mn Podcast. The show is released under a creative commons attribution, non-commercial, non derivative license.
So feel free to republish the episode as long as you are not altering it, and you are not profiting from it. The music in this episode is by Erik Brant in the Urban Hillbilly Quartet. This episode was produced by Parker Seaman and Sherry Johnson, and was engineered, edited, and transcribed by me, Ian R Buck.
We’re always looking to feature new voices on the Streets.mn Podcast. So if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [[email protected]]. And if you’d like to get in touch with Parker about current or future book club episodes, you can email him at [[email protected]].
Streets.mn is a community blog and podcast and relies on contributions from audience members like you. If you can make a one-time or recurring donation, you can find more information about doing so at [https://streets.mn/donate]. Find other listeners and discuss this episode on your favorite social media platform using the hashtag #StreetsMNPodcast.
Until next time, take care.