Streetsblog Network Training, Kansas City, Feb. 8, 2013

Today's Agenda:

9:30 - Dani Simons and introductions

10:00 - Aaron Naparstek, "Blogging for Change."

10:30 - Local Reports from Angie Schmitt and bloggers- David Johnson, KCLightRail- Alex Ihnen, NextSTL- Kristen Jeffers, BlackUrbanist- Randy Simes, UrbanCincy

11:40 - Jason Barron, Cincinatti Mayor's Office

11:55 - Neha Bhatt, Smart Growth America

12:00 - Stephen Davis, The federal transportation process

12:20 - Lunch and discussion: How can we help each other?

1:15 - Feedback surveys

1:30 - The end!

Aaron Naparstek@Naparstekadn@mit.edu

Streetsblog Network Gathering: Building a Movement for Change

Smart Growth America New Partners Conference

Kansas City, Missouri

February 8, 2013

I. Background:The New York City

Streets Renaissance Campaign

How I got my start in this business

Honku: Haiku poetry about horn honking

Honku.org. Check it out.

Midtown Manhattan circa 2005

NYC transportation policy: Stuck in gridlock. Literally and figuratively.

Meanwhile… Over in London

Congestion Charging

London: Motor vehicles removed from Trafalgar Square

Before:

After:

Copenhagen: 40% of Commuters are Biking!

Urban expressway

removalprojects.

Before

After

Seoul, South Korea

Cheonggyecheon River.

Restored in 2004.

Paris: The Expressway became a Beach.

"I promise to fight, with all the means at my disposal, against the harmful, ever-increasing and unacceptable hegemony of the automobile."

- Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, 2001.

Bus Rapid Transit

The TransMilenio. Bogotá, Colombia.

"We like traffic, it means economic activity, it means people coming here.

-- NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, August 2, 2006

A typical afternoon on Broadway, Lower Manhattan, 2006

New Yorkers had forgotten:Streets weren’t always the sole domain of motor vehicles.

Mulberry Street, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, circa 1900.

Source: Library of Congress Photocrom Collection

Park Avenue was once… a Park!

Manhattan’s Park Avenue at 50th Street looking north

Before 1922 After1922

"Erosion of cities by automobiles entails so familiar a series of events that they hardly need describing. The erosion proceeds as a kind of nibbling -- Jane Jacobs

1913

2005

Plan and design for cars and traffic, your city will get…Cars and traffic.

This is the result of 80 years of planning for cars and traffic.

NYCSR: Reimagining the city's streets

What if we thought of our

streets as public spaces

rather than transportation

corridors?

NYCSR brought together a coalition of advocacy organizations

NYCSR invited influential thinkers and leaders to NYC.

Enrique PenalosaMayor of Bogota

Donald ShoupUCLA parking guru

Jan GehlDanish urban designer

Streetsblog launched in early 2006

Able to give attention to stories that might not get covered otherwise.

The original goals for Streetsblog

1. Cover a daily beat around sustainable transport and livable streets issues.

2. Watchdog and reform the New York City Department of Transportation.

3. Show and spread new ideas for NYC’s streets.

4. Create a community forum for high-quality discussion.

An audience of one.

Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff

II. The Impact of Streetsblog

and the NYCSR

One of my first examples of the power of Streetsblog

In April 2007 Streetsblog got a hold of this secret plan.

Streetsblog put a face and a name on these car-oriented policies

No one had ever paid much attention to NYC's Chief Traffic Engineer

700 people showed up to a local meeting that normally would have attracted 35.

Streetsblog mobilized an unprecedented response

This is what livable streets advocacy looked like before the Internet

• Access to Information

• Group communication

• Group coordination

• Public documentation and distribution of information.

By reducing these costs, social media helps to accelerate the political organizing process.

Social media reduces the costs of four things that are critical to advocates, activists and organizers:

Streetsblog put pressure on City Hall and NYC DOT

Provided an outlet for frustrated progressives within NYC DOT

Streetsblog helped to create fundamental change at NYC DOT

NYC DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall resigns, January 29, 2007.

Fundamental change comes to NYC DOT

Janette Sadik-Khan takes over, May 2007

Parking lot transformed into a public plaza.

Before After

DUMBO, Brooklyn

Projects that had been "impossible" for 40 years start happening

Making Broadway car-free at Times Square

Before After

Car-Free Broadway at Times Square

Before After

Times Square

DUMBO, Brooklyn

Busy intersection transformed into a public plaza.

Before After

Ninth Avenue at 14th Street, Manhattan.

Madison Square, Broadway at 23rd Street.

Before After

Herald Square, Broadway in front of Macy’s

New Lots Triangle, Brooklyn.

New public space near a busy subway station.

Before

After

Select Bus Service

Dedicated bus lanes, off-board fare collection, signal priority

Building a citywide bike network.

Protected bike path on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn.

Thanks to infrastructure like this, we are seeing an incredible boom in bike commuting in New York City.

The new protected bike path or “cycle track” on Manhattan’s busy 8th Avenue.

Creating more complete streets.

First Avenue and E. 6th Street, Manhattan.

III. Tactics: How to blog theStreetsblog way

1. The decision-makers

Governor MayorChief Traffic Engineer

Planning Director Police Chief Transit Head

There are three audiences you want to reach:

There are three audiences you want to reach:2. The public

There are three audiences you want to reach:3. The local media

Bad guys are compelling!

Remember, you're tell a story. Stories often have good guys and bad guys.

Regularity is important. Try to be there every day.

Headline round-ups are a great way to define your beat and provide valuable service to readers.

Write good headlines.

- Have fun

- Frame the issue as clearly as you can

- Use officials' names

Bring new ideas and best practices to your community

Streetfilms (and web video, in general) is a great tool for this.

This Streetfilm helped to change policy in multiple cities.

Streetfilms' Bogota Ciclovia video

Try to make wonky, complex policy issues more accessible.

BREAKING: It's a news medium

There is value to getting news online first and fastest every once in a while.

Make stars out of your local activists…

The annual Streetsie Awards: Activists of the Year

… and make stars of your readers too

Feature your best commenters on the homepage

Get your readers involved and invested.

Caption contests are a fun way to invite particpation.

This awful group of state legislators held

transit funding hostage for a period

in 2009.

They called themselves

"The Four Amigos."

Get your readers involved and invested.

Caption contests are a fun way to invite particpation.

Streetsblog readers renamed them

"The Fare Hike Four."

(Incidentally, three of these four are either in

jail or on their way.)

Hold government officials accountable

Put them on notice: We are watching what you say and do.

Hold your local media accountable

"A Second Avenue bike lane is next to the Israeli consulate,

leaving many wondering what would happen if a man on a bike

were a terrorist!"

Point out the absurdity of their ingrained windshield perspective.

Headlines from the Great NYC Bikelash of 2010-11

Even a high-quality outlet like the New York Times will publish baloney

Do rapid-response fact-checking.

In fact, the exact opposite of that New York Times story is true.

Celebrate the innovators

More often than not, they only hear criticism.

Market and distribute your content!

The #BikeNYC hashtag on Twitter

Market and distribute your content!

Make use of existing social networks or create your own.

Raise money. Give it a shot!

Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland is

raising three kids on advertising revenue

from his web site.

I'm talking to you, Alex Ihnen!!!

Have fun! Try to be entertaining.

Don't be boring.

IV. Streetsblog Network: Can we do more together?

We launched the Streetsblog Network in 2008

Concept: Connect local livable streets bloggers to the federal transportation process

All blogs ≈ 450High-frequency local blogs ≈ 125

Unique visitors > 390,804 Monthly pageviews > 1,375,909

Today: Virtually every big U.S. city has a local livable streets blog

Streetsblog Network members are becoming influential

Transit Miami compels Commissioner to respond and retract.

"Now twenty people testify at hearings. It used to be two."

6,758 Twitter followers makes NextSTL a viable political force.

Fighting for Cincinatti's streetcar and other projects

Instrumental in helping defeat two different referenda intended to kill the Cincinnati Streetcar.

Livable streets blogs encourage action and engagement.

"About 25 residents spoke in favor of the plan compared to only 6 opposed."

It can be challenging to get readers to engage the bigger issues

Gutting the Clean Air Act?

One comment.

Harassed by SFPD while

biking?

60 comments!

It can be challenging to get readers to engage the bigger issues

“Digital networks have acted as a massive positive supply shock to

the cost and spread of information, to the ease and range of public

speech by citizens, and to the speed and scale of group

coordination.”

- NYU Professor Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody.

Does anyone recognize this urban public space?

Tahrir Square, Cairo.

On the local level the Livable Streets movement is powerful

350 people rally on a weekday morning to support a bike lane in Brooklyn. October 21, 2010.

So, how do we build our movement?

How do we take advantage of our network?

How do we move the federal transportation fight

out from inside the Beltway and onto local turf,

where we are winning?

Today's Agenda:

9:30 - Dani Simons and introductions

10:00 - Aaron Naparstek, "Blogging for Change."

10:30 - Local Reports from Angie Schmitt and bloggers- David Johnson, KCLightRail- Alex Ihnen, NextSTL- Kristen Jeffers, BlackUrbanist- Randy Simes, UrbanCincy

11:40 - Jason Barron, Cincinatti Mayor's Office

11:55 - Neha Bhatt, Smart Growth America

12:00 - Stephen Davis, The federal transportation process

12:20 - Lunch and discussion: How can we help each other?

1:15 - Feedback surveys

1:30 - The end!