Carbon Trace

Getting involved in bicycle (and active transportation) advocacy is serious business. How do you discover/plan the right course of action to encourage people to get out of the cars once in a while?

Like many other bicycle advocates, I have approached this question programmatically, i.e. identify a problem or opportunity and then dream up a program to satisfy it. Our Drive Less, Live More booklet is a good example of this. And so is the 1-mile Solution. The trainers at the advocacy training seminar in Little Rock (sponsored by the Alliance for Biking & Walking) last fall hammered pretty hard on the idea that advocates should learn to think in terms of campaigns rather than programs. The campaign we developed for the STAR Team: Encourage the city of Springfield to adopt a “complete streets” policy in 2010. We’re working on that right now.

But even the campaign paradigm is lacking a certain something. It’s been nagging at me for awhile now: Alternative transportation is not disconnected from a host of other urban (social, political, economic, cultural)  issues. So while well-designed programs and campaigns certainly keep the bean moving up the hill, there are multiple powerful forces at work dragging it back down the hill. A lot of very smart people around here know this, of course.

It’s time for me to get smart.

So I’ve decided to go back to school.

I’m taking a class at MSU called PLN100 Understanding Cities. And if that goes well, as I think it will, I may take try to earn a planning certificate.

I have no desire to change jobs. But I do want to start bringing something more to bear in my advocacy — something more than experience on the road and the ability to write and talk about it. I want background and context.

I’ll bring you along on the journey. Stay tuned…

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