streetsblog network training, kansas city, feb. 8, 2013
DESCRIPTION
Streetsblog Network Training at the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Kansas City. Led by Aaron Naparstek and Dani Simons.TRANSCRIPT
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@[email protected]
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!