The secret weapon of transit, bike and anti-traffic violence advocates.
We have a major structural advantage for our organizing that a lot of other issues lack. What it is and how to leverage it.
JUL 31, 2023
A key organizing principle for advocates across all issues is “make the invisible visible.” Help people literally see the problem. Whether you are trying to raise the minimum wage, pass an eviction moratorium, or save the rainforest, you need to make it so people can understand the problem before they will be open to taking action. Since a lot of problems and solutions aren’t physical things, advocates are forced to get creative to come up with visuals that highlight the importance of their issue. In other words– since you can’t take a picture of Universal Basic Income, advocates for UBI have to figure out visuals.
As transit, bike, and anti-traffic violence advocates we have a huge advocacy asset to deploy. These issues are extremely visible. We can just point to the dangerous roads in our communities and say, “look how dangerous this road is.” We can point to the bus stop and say, “see how it has no shade and no bench?” We can show where the transit lines end and wait at a station for an infrequent bus or train. Transportation is everywhere— and where there is a gap in service, we can point to the blank spot.
Our difficulty is that the problems we are trying to solve are often so visible, they've been tuned out. Where we see problems to be fixed, others just see a fact of life they’ve accepted and tuned out. Hence, stuff like “everybody knows you can’t rely on the bus *shrug*” or “oh yeah people get hit on that street all the time *shrug*”
Even though the costs of car-dependency are everywhere, and most people have a personal connection to traffic violence, for the general public, regulators and elected officials it’s like the nose on their face– constantly visible to the point where they’ve learned to ignore it.
We need to get people to tune into that and that means being extremely explicit about the problem, the solutions, and why the solutions would work.
Here’s an example of what that can look like:
Step 1) Go to a dangerous road and point out to people that it is in fact dangerous.
Step 2) Explain what makes it dangerous. Literally point to it.
Step 3) Explain what a solution can look like. This is where you might need to bring in photos of examples or maybe you can point to parts of the road that are ok and use that as a visual aid.
Step 4) Give people an action they can take to help fix the problem. That can be signing a petition, calling the mayor, making a donation, or some other way they can make their invisible support visible.
Step 5) Repeat, expand, experiment, and eventually deliver the demand to the decision maker.
You can either do that person-by-person as you flyer, you can also make some videos like these I’ve been doing to help make Grand Avenue safer. A key part is you need to give people an explicit action they can take and the tools they need to take that action. Don’t just say “call the Mayor” give them the phone number too.
For transit advocacy, a lot of times, it’s the solution that’s highly visible but the problem is invisible. People can see a bus, but they can’t see a bus that’s not there. The same general advocacy principles of “making the invisible visible” still apply and I’ll do a separate post transit-dedicated on that soon!
In the meantime, literally point to the problems, literally show people solutions to get them to support your effort. Then make their invisible support visible to the decision makers and eventually you’ll win. You can do it.
Interested in learning more about getting support for your effort to improve biking, transit service, or pedestrian safety? Let’s talk. Email me at Carter@carterlavin.com