Honestly, just go to every council meeting and every chance you get tell them what you want. That’s how all the parking lots and stroads got there, from people stomping their feet and making a scene at council. Get organized, get like minded people involved, and apply pressure on your local politicians.
Exactly, it sounds like your town is big enough to have/deserve decent transit, but small enough that a small vocal group could have a big impact.
Get involved, show up, campaign for/against politicians that support/oppose improvements. If you can find a friendly counselor (don't discount anyone, you never know who might already quietly support a special interest like this) to meet with you, get their help to make a list of practical improvements that could be enacted now/quickly, focus your activity around these (for now). Work to mobilize other bus takers/cyclists/young people/older pensioners who are more reliant on transport. Contact local press, write letters to the editor, befriend a local reporter. Consider planning a small demonstration, but keep the tone very friendly, you are trying to convice and even befriend people who maybe didn't care or know about the issue. Frame the debate in an inclusive way (i.e. rush hour traffic is terrible, wouldn't bike lanes and bus lanes improve things for everyone, even car users?)
You don't have to do all of the above, just what you can to move the needle. Local politics can actually be a lot more rewarding than national, because you have a chance of seeing a real impact.
Do you have any ideas on how to find likeminded people in the community? It seems everyone I talk to isn't that passionate about public transport
You'll find very few people randomly who are adamant about public transport. Especially in a car dependent and bad public transport area.
Maybe talk to people on the bus?
good idea, thanks
Ehh, they usually go to poll data exactly to get out of individual people that show up.
You need to shift the overton window.
In local city politics, showing up counts for A LOT. Even big cities don’t enjoy ANY polling data on most issues, to say nothing of medium sized cities or smaller. Also, most people don’t vote at the local level, so polling is less important.
Yeah, be a problem they'll desperately want to make go away. Just don't break any laws.
step 1: give them money.
step 2: make them think you'll give them more money. this may involve repeating step 1 several times.
step 3: let them know that if you don't get what you want, the money stops.
then it's just a matter of whether the money you were giving them is significant enough to make them care.
Look up local bicycle advocacy groups in your community. They're great at helping people to get involved.
We don't have one but I'm open to starting one
Strongtowns.org is a great start.
You could also map out bike lanes, road surface types, and bike trails in your area in open street maps. This will make the data accessible to other apps/sites using OSM and make it easier for everybody to find/make bike routes. Same goes for bus stops, etc. StreetComplete, EveryDoor, and Mapillary are a few apps that are handy to accomplish this.
This is a feasible goal I can work towards, thanks
Writing to all your councillors (especially any green and lib dem), see if you can get any on side is a good start.
Run? Easily said, but that's another way to effect change.
How big is your town?
40,000 people
Wow, that place definitely needs more public transit. Here 10k residents and a bus every 20 mins, except 1 hour on weekends
If there's no strong feedback after attending your local government meetings, moving might be a better option IMO. Have a drive or bike around some other regions where effort has been put in to start/expand bus right-of-ways and bike infrastructure.
I would love to attend local meetings but there are no meetings with public transport on the agenda on their schedul AT ALL. It seems like I would have to shoehorn public transit in which could potentially alienate the cause. I'm also not sure if I really know enough about the implementation of public transport - if I'm met with pushback I can't deal with I'm not sure if the cause will survive.
Well the UK may be different, but around here that wouldn't be big enough to have much transit. It's just not going happen.
I think you'd have better luck with pushing for bike infrastructure. Say that it's small enough to cycle everywhere, businesses won't need as much parking (easier development), cheap for residents, etc.
I agree with you, it's just how to campaign for it. When most people in the UK hear bike lanes they just switch off - people hate hobby cyclists in this country and they tend to associate anything to do with bikes with them.
Either enter politics yourself, or bribe the right people.
Do you have a local paper which might be interested in launching a campaign? There's plenty of good material for a journo there. People who don't want a car but need one to get to work. Buses which take an hour to go 5 miles. Cyclists endangered by traffic. People with restricted mobility being stuck in their homes. Older people who can't actually use their free bus passes.
If you have any kind of creative talent, or friends who do, you could make some vids about specific local problems and stick them online. Not because you expect to get a big audience but because you can promote the link in local area groups and send them to the paper.
More effort than turning up to council meetings and collaring candidates when they're campaigning for elections. But likely more effective if the issue is not already on the local agenda.
Something involving explosives?
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