Fighting to Win Better Transit with Author & Advocate Carter Lavin

Stop Requested. Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit. I’m your co-host, Levi McCollum, director of operations at ETA Transit. And I’m your co-host, Christian Londono, senior customer success manager at ETA

Transit. Welcome back to Stop Requested. Christian, how are you today? Levi, doing well. How’s it going today? Man, today is going really well, and th- this is, uh, an excellent conversation that we’re about to have with

Carter Lavin, who is a transportation advocate and author. Uh, I’m really pumped for this conversation. It has so, so many of the areas o- of transportation that I love.

Carter, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Uh, Christian, Levi, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be chatting with you all, and, uh, excited to hear what the listeners have to say about all this afterwards.

Excellent. Well, before we get started, and we get into all the details that I know Christian and I are, are just dying to get into, uh, I, I would like for you to give our audience a, a bit of background on yourself. Y- you know, you are a transportation advocate, but how did, how did you get there? Yeah, um, so I’ve grew up in the Mid-Atlantic, the New Jersey, DC, Philadelphia areas, bouncing around a little bit. A lot of life on Amtrak, the Chinatown to Chinatown buses, you know, metro, taking the R5 into Philly for tap dancing lessons. You know, transit’s always been a big part of my life. Uh, at the same time, as a teen, I became very concerned with what’s going on with climate change. You know, people said, “Oh, well, decades from now.” I was like, “Well, I was a teenager. Decades from now is very much still my life.” And so this has always been a very strong interest of mine, and then throughout my career in other parts of the climate movement, I kept kind of coming back to transit. I kept coming back to transit, and biking, and street safety, because the transportation sector is, you know, a giant piece of this puzzle, not just for our stable climate, but our enjoyable communities. You know, do you want to live where you live? Like, do you… Is your area a great welcoming place for all?

So, it keeps coming back to transit, you know, and throughout my life as, you know, a Millennial, you know, you really do see that, uh, being right is one thing and winning is another.

And so that, you know, if you wanna win, you gotta fight, you know? Hence the book’s title, uh, we just wrote. Um, and it’s, for me and about transit advocacy, one thing that’s been always very interesting is over the years, kind of saying, “Well, there should be a bike rack at this, uh, train stop,” or, “There should be a different bus service type of thing.” And you have a good idea, and then it’s like, okay, well, you have to push for that. You gotta fight for that. You can’t… It doesn’t just happen just because it’s good.

And so over the years I’ve kind of kept going, um, and then a few years ago, I, uh, did a big career switch, and really started just helping transit advocates and bike and street safety advocates across the country better learn how to fight and win the fights that they are choosing to fight in their community. So, whether in a rural community or big city, red state, blue state, whatever, you know, I’ve been helping them out, and it’s been really a joyous thing. And this book, uh, that’s, uh, coming out shortly, If You

Want to Win, You’ve Got to Fight: A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy, is really my hope of helping a lot of folks in the space, both professionally and there for passion, um, make the changes that they want to see, ’cause there’s a lot of changes that we need to make happening.

So, Carter, um, I want to ask you a little bit about, you know, your, of course your book, and first of all, congratulations on, on writing this book. Thank you. I think, uh, it’s going to be very insightful, uh, for a lot of transit professionals, and, you know, advocacy in public transit is in a lot of need, especially these days with this political climate. Mm-hmm. And now that I said political climate, I, I wanna talk about those key themes of the book. And, you know, one is why transportation is political. And, uh, you write that in, in the book, it says, “Being right is one thing, and winning is another one.” So, could you explain, uh, that, that is in the book? Yeah. Um, so politics isn’t a bad word, although it is a scary word for a lot of folks. But at the end of the day, politics is, I believe the definition’s like, the sum total of how people in society interact with each other. At the end of the day, politics is just, uh, how you, as a person in your community, relate to that community, and vice versa. So, of course transportation is political. How are you getting where you need to go? How are other people needing, getting where they need to go? You know, so if you decide to drive a gigantic pickup truck, uh, to go a block to pick up a gallon of milk, and then drive it another block to go pick up your coffee beans and keep going, you know, that has impacts on everyone else, uh, besides the potential threat of traffic violence, you’re clogging the roads. You know, if you park in a bus stop, that’s a political act. Because when you impact others, that’s inherently… That, that is what politics is. And so transportation is, you know, at the end of the day, one of the most political things throughout history. You know, when you talk about the Roman Empire, it’s like, well, all the roads lead to Rome. Like, yeah, that was a, that’s a transportation project. That’s a political project. Um, and so I think one big thing that I hope is that people just get more comfortable with that fact. I know there’s a lot of desire to be non-political or apolitical, or want to set yourself aside from that because politics is, quote-unquote, icky, and I get it. But politics is also, you know, how, a way of collectively caring for each other. So it’s not, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, it doesn’t have to be a scary thing, and it’s something we can get comfortable with. And as part of that, I think one big thing why really chapter one is very much focused on this concept of, of being right is one thing and winning is another, is because, one, it’s true. Uh, through my own personal experience, uh, through your personal experience, you’ve probably, uh, had ideas about how things should go, and had to go a different way…. and, you know, for the book, I interviewed dozens and dozens of activists across the country, and this theme kept coming up. Because at the end of the day, tr- transit is right. When you say, “What is the best way to move a lot of people from point A to point B?” th- the answer’s going to be a bus or a train. Like, that is just, we are just objectively right. You know, we should do bus-only lanes, and bulb-outs, and all sorts of wonderful tech things. Like, that is an objectively, that is a ma- that is a math problem, it is a literal geometry problem. And so what? Like, you know, if all it took was being right, we’d have a very different world. You know, transportation advocates, transportation agencies, uh, uh, people in the business of t- transit tech and all these other things, they get their clock cleaned all day long by all sorts of other political interests, so that, you know, at the end of the day, if your county or if your region is looking at,

“How do we get more people around easily?” The answer is fund your transit system better. That’s gonna have lower emissions, better, you know, de-congesting properties, all this kinda good stuff. Okay, but if the highway lobby shows up and says, “No, what you should really do is bulldoze your thousand homes or wetland or any of these things, and build another couple of lanes, that’ll fix it for five or more years.” Like, you know, the highway lobby wins a lot. Uh, they’re wrong. Uh, as if, if they were right, we would not have congested roads. You know, we’ve built plenty of lanes. If one more lane were the solution, we’d have gotten there by now. And so I think it’s one of those things where, uh, uh, there’s a certain personality type that tends to be drawn into a lot of transit work, for esp- especially on the professional side. You know, there’s definitely a type of person who’s, like, just wants things to be right, and if we can just math this out the right way, things will be better, and that is very true, and you still need to fight for all that.

Yeah, a- and, you know, I like a couple of things that, that you said, uh, that I wanted to highlight. Uh, it is that, um, transportation is political. Like, there’s no way to look at transportation and, and not, um, you know, take into account the political aspect of it, and, and that is ingrained of the, you know, with the nature of public transportation. What’s interesting is, public transportation agencies don’t control a lot of the factors that affect how, uh, public transportation operates, right?

Mm-hmm. There’s businesses, there’s, there’s origin and destinations, you know, there’s these places of work, and there’s land development happening all the time- Mm-hmm. … that is impacting transit agencies and, and, and of course, and, and the infrastructure, the roads, and, and all that stuff. And, you know, we… Sometimes transit professionals, and I heard it from different transit professional, uh, professionals, colleagues of mine and myself, feeling like, “You know, I like public transit, but the political aspect”

“of sometimes, you know, public transportation working for a city or, you know, county government, it’s just, I don’t like that piece.” And, and- Mm-hmm. … and I think it has to do with something you said, uh, just lastly, but has to do with the frustration, right? Like- Mm-hmm. … it’s like, “Oh, we know what should be done.”

Like you said, you know, with mobility and transportation, is, is a matter of geometry, right? Mm-hmm. And, and if everybody was just looking at it objectively at how to drive, you know, more efficiently, mobility, then you have to make some decisions that would be more towards transit. Of course, you know, it might not be what, you know, certain people in certain communities want, but are we fighting the fight? Right? Mm-hmm. Are we putting ourselves in a position, uh, where we’re, you know, fighting hard for a, you know, for transit? Yeah. Well, and I think to that point also, um, politic- doing things you are not good at and don’t understand well is un- you know, is generally unpleasant.

You know, people don’t like boxing if they’re bad at boxing. If they’re good at boxing, they tend to like it a little bit more. Um, and I think one of the things for folks who have a disinterest in politics that either, you know, they come there like, “I wanna do stuff big and fast.” It’s like, well, yeah, our country has a marvelous history of doing really big and fast things, and several of those big things are good,

When you think about World War II home front mobilization, we, as a nation, turned on a dime and did you know? amazing things in a lot of ways really quickly. We have that, and all it takes is political will.

That is a huge thing to build, but political will is, you know, maybe for some of your listeners, but think of it this way: it is a different type of engineering. It is a different resource to build. It’s a different skill set, and so that’s something to be invested in, because as you’re saying, you know, when your city or your community is looking at adding a couple hundred more housing units or, uh, building a new stadium or a new park, you- they’re probably not saying, “Hey, bus agency, where would be the most convenient place for you if we put up 300 housing units, or if we put a new baseball stadium?” You know, they’re saying, “Hey, here’s what we’re gonna do. You all have to figure it out.” And that’s, uh, you know, slightly less fun.

Yeah. Carter, you and Island Press were kind enough to send over an advance copy to Christian and myself- Mm-hmm. … and I appreciate you doing that. When I was going through, uh, some of the book, uh, there’s a part that, that stuck out to me, and I, I re-read it a couple different times just because of how impactful it was. But y- you said that, uh, bec- we don’t have some of the multimodal facilities because we just haven’t fought hard enough for them, and

I, I had to re-read it because I was like, “Have, have we not? Is that true?” And then I started to compare it to the places that I’ve been, and those, you know, like, for example, the Netherlands. I think you bring up the Netherlands in your book.

Uh, you know, I, I spent quite a bit of time there, and they have genuinely fought hard for … a, a lot of the improvements in their society. Uh, in, in the ’70s, when they had m- Mm-hmm.

a, uh, uh, I think a, uh…… a, a very high, I don’t know the exact number, but a very high and- Mm-hmm. … and significant number of children, uh, dying on their streets from automobiles. They protested and- They stopped the kindermorden, yeah. E- exactly. A- and, and as a result, their society has completely changed in the 60 or so years since. Uh, what, what does fighting hard look like in, in our context, in the United States?

Like, w- what would that be if we had to put it into practice? Yeah, and I think a big part to keep in mind when looking at the Netherlands or

South Korea or, you know, take any place that has, um, the thing that you want that you don’t have is, you know, to be honest, we in the United States are doing it on hard mode when it comes to political struggle. You know, it is not that, oh, the Dutch had terrible, terrible tragedies befall their community, from children being killed by cars, and they cared and the Americans didn’t. It’s, you know, we, we’re in a very large country. Uh, we have a lot of very an- anti-democratic institutions that make it harder for our government to represent us. Um, you know, we’re doing it on harder mode. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just means we have to be smarter and strategic and bigger about it. And so one, one of my favorite examples of what fighting harder looks like in practice in this type of stuff is, a, a classic example is in a state where there is a very transit-dense region, or transit-popular region. Maybe it’s a capital, maybe it’s a major city, but there’s one area where there’s a lot of transit. You know, and their state senators, their state assembly members, their state reps like transit. But the rest of the state doesn’t really care, you know, they don’t…

They think that it’s like, “Oh, that’s a Philadelphia problem,” or, “That’s a Vegas thing,” or, “That’s a, a Seattle thing.” You know, “That’s not our district.” It’s like, well, when it comes to getting state funding for transit, when it comes to getting state, uh, policies passed to streamline stuff you wanna streamline or throw up blockages to things you wanna throw a blockage to, that’s hard. Because it doesn’t matter if your rep likes it and, you know, helps, but if you don’t have the majority of votes, you’re not gonna pass your bill. And so fighting smarter and fighting harder involves saying, “Okay, if I want my thing, I need to make sure that there are people in other key districts that are also organizing to fight for their thing, and that we are connected, so when it comes to do the state fight, we’re working together.” So for, to take Texas as an example, you know, that Houston and Austin and Dallas and, you know, El Paso advocates need to be talking to each other. I believe in Texas they are. But recognizing that if you’re ever going to build the political power needed to shift your state’s thing, yes, you need to organize locally. You need to organize, uh, trans-locally, like across localities. Um, and that doesn’t mean saying, getting the people in Dallas, Texas to host a rally, say, “We want this in Austin, Texas.” You know, you say, “We want this thing here,” and the Austin people say, “We want our thing here.” And that together they demand of the state capitol saying, “These are the things that we want in our communities. We want you to do this.” Um, you know, and that’s like kind of on a big strategic way. On the kind of the simpler way, you know, I say one thing I think about all the time for, about fighting harder is transit advocates actually have a gigantic, um, advantage or structural advantage over a lot of other advocacy areas. Um, we know where our likely allies are. They’re, they’re on the bus. They’re waiting for the bus. You know, getting someone to sign a petition for better bus service who’s sitting there just waiting for a bus is, is not all that hard if you know how to approach them, uh, and you do it in a friendly, nice way and you have the right resources. Fighting harder is doing that work. It’s not just, you know, posting online is great, and that’s one part of it, and going out to your bus stops, walking the bus route, or maybe biking the bus route to talk to everyone who’s there, getting on the bus, having the conversation with the folks, like putting in that, you know, that shoe leather, that sweat equity, like putting in that actual work.

You know, and that’s tough, that’s work, but it’s work that is doable and it’s work that really pays dividends. Yeah, that’s a, an excellent point because those, those riders are, they’re on the transit vehicle, right? Or they’re waiting at the bus stop and at, or at the, maybe at the transit center. You, you can find them pretty easily. It’s, it is just about en- engaging them in the right way, uh- Yeah. … making them feel heard. And, you know, and getting them at the right time of day and trying again. Because at the end of the day, you know, ev- every single person listening to this podcast has probably gone past someone trying to pass them a flyer. Someone said, “Hey, c- do you care about the…” whatever, or,

“Hey, can you take a second to save the da-da-da.” And that’s hard work to be the person passing out the flyer. Um, and transit folks need to do it. And I have done flyering where, you know, I’m talking to folks and I say, “Hey, you know,

I’m trying to help expand transit service.” And people will say, “No, I’m not interested. Oh wait, wh- oh, tra- oh, the bus? Yeah, no, I’m, yeah, okay, I’ll actually talk to you ’cause that’s about my life. Okay, let’s talk.”

Um, and it’s work and it, you know, it’s a learnable skill. No one comes out into the world first knowing how to just pass out a flyer and get someone to sign a petition, how to do that. You know, it’s practice. So skill for people to build up.

Another inter- interesting thing that you mention in the book, Carter, is the Overton window. Mm-hmm. Uh, could you, for our, our listeners who maybe aren’t, uh, familiar with the, the Overton window, uh, could you explain that to them and also, uh, share how that impacts some of the decision-making from a community’s perspective, es- especially those key stakeholders? Yeah. Uh, so the Overton window is the concept of kind of what’s considered acceptable or reasonable in your community.Um, and the stuff that’s outside of The Overton Window is the stuff that is viewed as, you know, silly, or harmful, or excessive, or weird. Um, the stuff inside is, that’s what we do. Uh, so one big thing as advocates that we get to do is try to work to shift The Overton Window.

Shift by making a demand of something that’s right outside of it, that’s considered not realistic, but by standing very firm, we get to shift what’s considered realistic. So, for example, in your community, it is probably not possible for, um, the majority of residents to be able to get to a park via the bus within 30 minutes. Maybe 10 minutes, pick your time. That might not be a particular goal on paper, that might not be something in policy or practice.

When you as advocates say, “Hey, everyone in our community should be able to get on a bus and get to a park within 20 minutes, 30 minutes,” something like that, get to a regional park, get to a national park, get to some nature, all of a sudden, you are now changing what is the conversation. You are now changing what’s reasonable. You are now making it so the opposition has to say, “No, I don’t care about people getting access to parks. I don’t care about people being in nature. I, I’m perfectly happy with people being separated from nature.” You know, when you shift this conversation, you, you make it so it’s not just you saying it. You’ve now done the work, you’ve talked to communities, you’ve gotten a lot of people sign the petition, you built a coalition, a lot of other groups are involved. Now you’re saying, “Hey, 1,000 people want this in our community, and there’s

20 organizations that have signed on said that they also want it to be easier for everyone to get to nature on the bus.” We are now the reasonable ones. Like, the other pe- anyone saying otherwise is unreasonable. The ove- Overton Window has shifted. You’ve shifted it to make, to make yourself true, that what you say is people want this, you’ve demonstrated that to be true. And that really helps shift the things for politicians, who, at the end of the day, politicians are our elected representatives. Some people think of them as our leaders, and in some ways, they can lead, but a lot of ways, they’re elected to represent us. And so a big thing that you need to do as a, uh, transit advocate and organizer, is to show the politicians that what you want is popular. It’s, “Okay, it’s great that Levi or Christian want this thing. Who cares? Do 1,000 people want it?

Oh, no, it’s just two people. Okay, well, let’s get 1,000 people wanting it.” Now a politician has to say, “Okay, well if I’m supposed to represent my people, I need to start doing that thing that all those people want.” And a key part of this is, if they don’t do that, now you have 1,000 people, and you need to start creating some electoral consequences to those politicians, saying, “Okay, if you’re not gonna represent our interests, we will find someone who will, and we’re gonna do that work.” Makes a lot of sense. And, uh, you know, I, I, I wanna ask you here, because it, this is, uh, something that, that’s been on my mind since I, I know that we, we had this conversation scheduled. Uh, you know, locally, we have some folks who are, uh, uh, they’re asking for rail, right? Mm-hmm. They, they really want rail in this particular corridor, and, and this is the place to have it. Um, y- you know, my, my personal belief has been, maybe that’s a bit much, right? I- in that particular corridor for th- that space, who lives there, and what you’re trying to serve. Um, is, do- is that part … I know you’re, you’re not really familiar with,

– … with the context perhaps, but, uh, do you think that it could be part of that Overton Window, that they’re coming from, uh, you know, trying to ask for a little bit more, and, uh, you know, also being okay with backing down a little bit, but if they don’t ask for a whole lot, then they’re not going to end up with anything? Yeah, I mean, if you don’t ask, you don’t get, just period, full stop that, that you are, you’re not gonna get good things unless you fight for them. Uh, I think, uh, our

, I think recent history has shown that to be very true. Um, and a big part is, you fight for what you want, you know? You say, “This is what we want.” And, you know, maybe you’re settled, maybe they’ll settle for a bus-only lane and a rapid system where there’s a bus every six minutes that is, you know, kind of like in other countries, it’s so successful where people say, “Dang, we really need to put a rail line here now, because it’s working so well.” It’s like, good, you know?

Fi- fight for that when you progress, and I think one thing particularly that’s a little tricky for transit advocates is the timescale that we’re working on. It tends to be long, unfortunately. You know, it does take a while to get a high-speed rail built. It does take a while to do some of these things. And so, a big, uh, thing to do is fight, make progress, solidify that progress, and then keep fighting for more. And so, you know, maybe it’s an area where there’s not even bus service.

Like, “Okay, well, let’s start. Let’s get bus service. Okay, now it’s hourly service. Okay, now we fight, and we get half-hour service. Now we keep going,” and doing all that stuff to the point where the rail line becomes inevitable. Um, and, you know, and the other part might be that there’s all sorts of impediments to the rail line. There might be various rules or laws or regulations around it. Okay, well, that might need state policy to switch or county policy to switch. And so, if you think about your goal as the thing that’s in the center of a big, twisted knot, and your job is to, like, untangle it all to get to it, you know, who knows? Y- and, and it might end up being that in their fight for a rail line, they end up with a bus rapid transit system throughout your community, but they’ve changed a state policy or county policy, and now it’s easier for other areas to get rail line.

That’s still a net plus. That’s still a good thing, and in the doing, they’ve created an organization. They have created a meaningful political movement advocating for something in their area, and so it makes the next fight even easier too.

You know, having worked for a transit agency, uh, Christian as well, we know that a lot of times these conversations can get really technical very fast. Mm-hmm. And sometimes that can be intentional, and, you know, sometimes I just fall into that naturally just because you’re kind of around it, right? Yeah. You’re in that environment, and you start- And you like this. … using local vernacular. Yeah, right- You know, you like the tech stuff, huh? Right. That’s true. Yeah, and I, I am just naturally a technical person, so I’d- Mm-hmm. … like to get into those technical details. But can you tell our listeners why that may not be a good thing? And, you know, maybe scold me, slap my hand, and say, “Hey, next time you’re doing that, you know, d- don’t get so technical.”

Uh, so I’m gonna say something a little bit different on that, is- Okay. … it is fine to be who you are. The great thing about what we need in transit advocacy is we need everyone p- pitching in as they can. And if you’re a person who’s like, “I’m going to read the 500-page PDF and digest this for our crew,” great. Uh, you don’t have to be the person who goes and talks to every single stranger, maybe in a language you don’t even speak, uh, and say, “Hey, don’t, don’t you wanna be able to get to the zoo on the bus?” Like, if you don’t like having those conversations, if that makes you just… if it makes you cringe and just die inside because you’re a shy person or something like that, say don’t, don’t do that. You…

there are plenty of chatty, talkative people out there in the world who would love for you to say, “Hey, I just digested this 500-page PDF. Let me tell you what…” Like, you can be the inside ally to them.

That being said, until you do find those people to p- partner up with, until you find that chatterbox who d- does just wanna b- all social butterfly, talk to everyone, y- you need, you need to do that work yourself. Like, in advocacy and organizing, you need to do the work, at the very least, until you can find someone else who’ll help take on that aspect. And then you could say, “Oh, thank goodness. I’m gonna go back to, you know, my spreadsheets.” Um, and they’ll say, “Okay, great, ’cause people are asking the spreadsheet question. I don’t know.” And so don’t… you know, be good at the thing you’re good at, and keep in mind that, at the end of the day, the goal is to make a connection. You know, at the end of the day, the way that you get that bus line, the way that you get… it’s a lot of people speaking out to elected officials and telling them the thing. They say, “Hey, I want this too.” That person doesn’t need to know, is it an articulated bus? Does that bus kneel, does it not? What’s the real-time whatever? What’s the GTFS even? I don’t even know. Like, people think, “Is the bus gonna show up? Does it take me where I wanna go? Is it a reasonable price?

Okay, cool, I’m in.” And it just, you know, we don’t have to get in the way of our own sale in that way, and I think this is something that people in the advo- advocacy space, people in the, the sales space, sometimes run into this issue, and it’s, uh, you know, you might think it’s interesting. You might think it’s there. But if you think of it like a sandwich shop. You know, they say, “Do you wanna eat this sandwich?” You’re like, “Yeah, it looks good.” And they say, “Do you wanna know what’s in it or how it went or where the wheat came from and the process?” And you’re like, “No, I’m hungry, and I wanna eat that sandwich.” So, um, don’t… I don’t need the lore and all the backstory. Um, and so I think it’s a hard part for advocates sometimes, kind of across issue, but particularly in transit. You know, the thing that we might like about the transit is the gizmos and the doodads and all that fun stuff. Most people like transit ’cause they like going to other places. They say, “Oh, the reason I like the bus is ’cause I like my friends, and so I need to take the bus to go with my friends. Couldn’t care less if it was a bus, a train, a magic carpet, a slingshot, or whatever.” And so I say, “Okay, cool. Well, so the bus is the thing, so here, can you sign this petition about the bus?” And they’re like, “Oh, yeah. Sure.” One important aspect that you’re bringing up is, uh, you know, the importance of outreach for, um, transit planning, right? Like, you, we should go out and connect with constituents, try to hear from them, get, get their, um, you know, take on things, and, and

I think a lot of agencies sometimes do this outreach. They talk to riders, and, and I… based on what you said, just thinking, uh, and recollecting experiences, it- I remember many times, i- you know, uh, as a transit professional being in front of, you know, uh, boards o- of elected officials, and then there’s a lot of people in the transit- Mm-hmm. … space that are professionals that are speaking and presenting and sometimes getting technical, right? Like, when you start getting technical, and, and it might be trying to provide all the facts and the information to these elected officials, but sometimes those presentations or interactions are lacking having people from the public or from- Mm-hmm. … uh, an advocacy group speaking on behalf of the public. Because something that you said that, that had really stuck in my head is that, you know, they’re, they’re elected officials. They’re there to make a popular decision, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know,

I’ve seen it where sometimes elected officials are voting on a, uh, on a item that is a little bo- a little bit, you know, uh, not too popular, or they don’t wanna show their take on a, a given matter. They leave the room.

Yeah. And they’re not there to vote, and then sometimes they, they, they play tricks like this because- Mm-hmm. … you know, they wanna elect what’s popular. And something that you said is, you know, make it easy for them- Yeah. … being able to bring those people that are going to be speaking and presenting, you know, why these things are important for them and, and why they’re important for the community, and almost, like, staging it in a way so you have better success. You have actually a strategy. Mm-hmm. Um, so i- in your experience with these campaigns in different, uh, you know, advocacy, uh, in different communities, uh, I wanted to ask if you could share, um, a story, uh, you know, maybe about the, uh, Bay Bridge bus lane campaign. And tell us a little bit about that strategy and how you were able to get that momentum but also the, the people to speak to their elected officials and, and help, uh, you know, make this happen.Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot in there, and I think one thing that is really helpful for folks always to keep in mind in the transit space is, you know, popularity is a thing that you build. That is not an inherent part of the world, you know, it wasn’t, in the beginning of time, cars were popular and trains weren’t. Like, that’s not how that happens. You know, it i- these are very changeable facts of our reality, and we just have to do the work changing it. And so, uh, 2019, to bring back to the Bay Bridge bus, uh, lane proposal, um, they bring up, brought up. You know, in 2019, um, in the Bay Area, my, uh, state assembly member at the time, now Attorney General Rob Bonta, you know, put out a call on Facebook saying, “Hey, I’m getting ready to write policy for the year ahead.

You know, what, what ideas do you folks have?” And I put out a kind of wonky proposal, but basically saying that the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland is really crowded and needs … There’s a lot of bus service on it, and it should have a dedicated bus-only lane going across the bridge. And pretty much immediately after I commented with that and I said there, you know, there should be a state law requiring these agencies to get together and figure out how to do that. Um, pretty much immediately, there was a, a

BART, a train, um, or a BART director, Rebecca Saltzman, who chimed in saying like, yep, that, you know, BART at the time was pretty much at capacity in the Transbay Tunnel, and that if we were going to get more people between the East Bay and San Francisco or San Francisco and the East Bay, you know, we need to up our game for transit on the bridge. And certain, uh, Assembly Member Rob Bonta said, “Sounds like a good idea. Tell me more.” You know, get, start, you know, start getting ideas, like, the details together. That’s, you know, kind of like, yeah, okay. Sounds interesting. What’s the next steps?

So then I had to reach out to a bunch of folks and be like, “Hey, so how do you write a policy?” All these kind of things. But, you know, start basically getting other people on board with this idea. So one thing we did was we wrote the kind of coalition letter. We started making a petition. We started asking all these city councils in the East Bay saying, “Hey, would you support this? Uh, would you support a bill from the state requiring these other folks to do a thing that’s pro-transit?” And people would say, “Yeah, sure.” So we got all these city resolutions passed, all these things happening. And then, you know, really helping show, to your point, that not that this was not saying that people weren’t talking about this issue and then I came along and now they are, but it’s something that there’s a lot of things that anyone wants. You know, whether it’s the two of you, you have a lot of things that you want in this day. There’s any, a lot of things a transit agency wants, and, you know, you might have 100 priorities. And one big thing that advocates are able to do is say, “Ooh, we like this priority, and we’re going to get a lot of people paying attention to this. We’re going to get a lot of focus on this.” And now all of a sudden, priority number 98 for someone else becomes priority number five. You know, it goes way up there on the list.

Because, at the end of the day, one great thing advocates can do in a way that transit agencies or people in the business have a little bit harder time doing is, you know, we can shine the light on the topic, and we can fight the fight around it. That at the end of the day, it is a slight- it can be a slightly uncomfortable place for a transit agency to say,

“We want this space on this road, or we want this bus depot, or we want this thing, and we are going to…” You know, when someone says, “Oh, that’s a bad idea,” or that, you know, that we’re going to say, “No, you’re wrong.” And here’s all this organizing around it. You know, you could do a lot of presenting this idea, but there’s this line that I think a lot of times people in the professional space get a little uncomfortable as they approach, which is the part where they kind of do the hard sale, where they say, “Okay, so we need you to sign onto this thing and tell this politician that you support it.”

And so as advocates, we can say, “High city council, I want, I need you to do this exact thing. I need you to introduce this policy. I wrote the policy. Here you go.” And, you know, advocates just have a lot more freedom in that because, well, for a lot of reasons. We could talk about that more. Um, and so for the Bay Bridge, we got a bunch of cities passing resolutions in support. Um, the transit agencies passed resolutions in support. The Highway Authority was not particularly thrilled. Um, so we had a lot of conversations around that, got a g- bunch of news coverage. Um, then, uh, COVID happened. Uh, this was, you know, this was 2020.

COVID happened, still exists, you know, no one’s cured that. Um, so that threw things for a loop. The bill ended up going around for about two, three years. In one place that we got it to, though, that I was really excited about, you know, is one of the agencies said, when the, uh, road agency said that the bus lane wasn’t needed because they’re going to do all these other transit improvements on the approaches that would make it so that the bus would, there wouldn’t be congestion.

And so we changed the bill and we worked with them and we said, “Okay, how about we make the bill saying that bus service along the corridor, which is the bridge and its approaches, needs to be of a certain quality?” You know, buses have to travel in a certain time frame, and if it doesn’t get that, if that standard isn’t met, then we need to start getting a bus-only lane. And, you know, basically saying, “Okay, sure, if you’re right, then you don’t have to do anything. But if we’re right, then we get the bus-only lane.” And that got their opposition removed. They said, “Okay, no, we think we’re right. So yeah, sure, you can pass your meaningless…”

You know, they thought it would be a meaningless bill, uh, ’cause what we’re riding just kind of affirms these goals. Um, you know, then 20, a couple other things happened in

California state politics. So, while the bill passed one of the houses of legislature, it didn’t, it got held in the other. So, there is not yet a bus-only lane on the Bay Bridge, but in the process of it, we, one, kind of built an organi- organization, um, that to this day continues to fight and win all sorts things. So, kind of if it weren’t for that in- initial fight, a lot of that other advocacy wouldn’t have of other happened. So…. sometimes you lose, still worth fighting good fights even if you lose, ’cause you often build a good thing. And then, you know, we did shift a lot of the conversation around bus-only lanes on the approaches and, you know, helping people think about the space a lot more. Um, and then as the, kind of, ongoing pandemic continues to change travel patterns, like, a lot has changed around the, like, pr- you know, at the time, it was an extremely pressing need. Now the transit agencies are more, uh, needing money so they can ke- keep running service.

Thank you for sharing, uh, you know, that story. And- and, you know, something that- that I was thinking as- as you were explaining and- and saying those things is that- that a lot of agencies also are starting with, uh, route, uh, redesign initiatives and kind of, like, re-engineering their system- Mm-hmm. … looking holistically at it, because they have not touched a lot of, you know, public transit systems, mostly like the small, mid-size, they have not really touched their routes and their service in years. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, they just kept it the way it was. A- and I think that’s part of not fighting the fight, right? Like, you know, as a public transit professional and- and being in that capacity, I feel that transit professionals know what will be the next step to enhance the transit service and just make it better for those people that we serve, right? Because, you know- Yeah. … you as a transit professional are connected with those riders and you understand about, you know, the people that you’re serving and- and- and the value of- of transit and mobility. You talk about, uh, how for you, you know, as a young person, being able to get around, get freedom, for you- you said something, you said, “Transit is freedom.” Mm-hmm. And I think people in this industry, we understand that, right? But then being able to connect that bridge, being able to, uh, fight the fight, a- a- for those people that use the service and- and the people that would be able to use it because of the- of the fight, uh, that- that is fought is- is great and important.

Yeah, and a part about this that I think is really helpful to always keep in mind is that continuous improvement, and that I think transit agencies and professionals are very focused on continuously improving, you know, their software, their internal processes, things like that. But there’s this whole external world that they get involved with, and I think it’s so helpful for people in the business to think about saying, “Okay, well, where does their jurisdiction end?” It still impacts them. So my favorite example of this comes up all the time, which is, you know, here in the Bay Area, there’s a crew of people that, um, you know, right now there’s thousands of bus stops that don’t have benches. And there’s a kind of jurisdictional who’s responsible, it’s the local jurisdictions, not the bus agencies, and so they just don’t have benches. And so there’s a crew of people in the Bay Area that now for about two years or so have built, hand-built and installed over a hundred benches, bus stops throughout, uh, at this count, a couple- a couple of different counties in the region. And it’s one of those things where, you know, a bus agency, big one, small one, all sorts, you know, might not think, they might say, “Look, our responsibility is making sure there’s a pole that says bus sign and telling the cities what we like.” But when transit agencies say, “Hey folks, here is the map of every bus stop, and wouldn’t you know it, here’s all the ones that don’t have a bench, and here’s all the ones that don’t have shade, and all these things,” you know, that now starts to become something that it’s easier for a city council member to say, “Oh, I didn’t realize that my district doesn’t have all these benches, and it’s that other district that does. We should be fighting for it.” And I think part of the stuff for, as you’re talking about, like, for these transit agencies and these people in the business is there’s so many different ways to improve service, there’s so many different things to fix, and when you’re on the inside of this process, you know, you’re- you might have your hands filled with, like, making sure the buses are on time or doing their thing. You say, “Oh, well, I’m just dealing with these constraints, you know, the bus is late, but that’s not my fault, traffic’s bad.” Well, yeah, you could say I want a bus bold out or a bus-only lane or, you know, take- take your queue jump or any of these things, um, you say, “Yeah, but that’s not my jurisdiction. I can’t, you know,

I can ask them, but I can only ask so much and they’ll ignore me.” Constituents, activists, they can say, “Yeah, and I’ll ask a lot I’ll ask a lot firmer and we’ll make a whole deal and we’ll confront the politicians who say no.” You know, other people just have that greater freedom to do it, to kind of push harder, to be more aggressive about it, and so it’s really important for the transit agencies to have that connection with the people on the outside, these advocates, feed them information, you know, buy them a cup of coffee. Say, “Hey, let’s talk about these routes and why this stuff is there.” And- and a key part about this is also rec- you know, as a transit agency, you’re often the person who gets yelled at. Whether or not the thing is your fault, you are often the person that gets yelled at, uh, for anything transit related. Oh, someone had a bad ins- you know, situation on the bus or your bus was late. It’s like, “Yeah, my bus was late ’cause some jerk parked in- in the bus lane, you know, that’s not our fault.” So yeah, but you’re the one who’s getting called. And so, transit agencies, you know, when they as just the staffers who are doing this on their free time or on their coffee break, and when they start connecting with members of the community who are not just riders who might have a complaint, but are people who are open to being advocates and organizers who are open really putting in the time and effort to do something about it, now you’re starting to make real partnerships and to really helping out. And it could be things as simple as just saying, “Hey, by the way, the city council is voting on this bus lane proposal that we’ve asked them about, can you make sure that there’s a lot of people speaking out about that?” You know, that’s- that’s one thing. Another thing is saying, “Hey, and by the way, here’s, you know, if you ever need to print out some flyers, we have some printers that you can borrow or here, uh, you know, in my personal pocket, here’s a $500 donation just to your printing costs.” You know, any of that stuff helps. Um, and so I think that’s really kind of an important part for, you know, a lot of your listeners. Like, you don’t have to be the one…… passing out the flyer, doing the thing, but you do need to be connected to the people who would be open to it.

And, and I think that relationship is, is very important with those, uh, advocates, right? Like, being able to, to also educate them and feed some information. Like you said, they might not know the solutions. Uh, you know, that they, they don’t know, you know, what, you know, transit services scheduling is like- Mm-hmm. … and d- different constraints, and that you cannot really have half a bus. Like, you have to put a, a, a whole nother bus, and you know, like-

Mm-hmm. … there’s stuff that people don’t get when they’re asking for certain things. Uh, but, you know, uh, I wanna ask you a little bit more, uh, you know, about that relationship, eh, between the agency staff and advocates. Mm-hmm. And I say this because I think the, you know, transit agencies, even when they go and build projects, you know, they’re under a government structure. So-

Mm-hmm. … they’re already filtered. You know? Like, there’s already, like, the officials and people that oversee transportation- Mm-hmm. … that have a vision for it, and transit professionals might have a vision for transit, but they’re limited in, I- in what they could say publicly, and even the ideas they can present. Mm-hmm. So, I think that having that advocate group is, is critical, because they, they become, you know, like you said, those that can say the things that you might not be able to say, uh, yourself. But what would be some tips and some, uh, pitfalls to look out when it comes to that relationship? Yeah. I think the main thing to be aware of is just doing it on your own time, that at the end of the day, in an unofficial capacity, you can go to a car-free happy hour, or a transit supporters, or an urbanist club, things like that. And, you know, you could say, “Oh, yeah, I don’t represent the transit agency. I’m off the clock,” but, yeah, what’s the deal with that then? Um, the other part is, it’s easier to talk about process than, more than as a specific project. You know, so someone might say, “You know, the five route, really terrible and you guys need to fix it.” You know, you might say, like, “I’m not gonna talk about routes in general. What I will say is, you know, right now we get, you know, sales taxes are down, so our funding’s really low, so we have to really squeeze service, and it’s becoming this whole issue. And the five happens to be where this…” Or, you know, and, “Some routes are just gonna have a harder time than others, and so what we really need is a lot more money coming in from the county level.” Or, “Yeah, you know, it’s really, really a huge shame when there’s school pickup things and happens by the bus stop. It’d be nice if there were a bus-only lane here.”

You know, when you’re talking kind of in these more generalities that an advocate is able to, you know, figure out what you’re talking about, that helps them understand. You know, and the other part about this is recognizing that, you know, in your community, there might not be a full-fledged advocacy group dedicated to this. You know, what you might be dealing with is the riders who are really passionate, who complain a lot to you, and you might find them, on a personal level, just really annoying, because they are the people who are calling you and they have all sorts of ideas. That’s actually a great asset. These are people who are very active, and they’re calling… Your issue is that they’re bugging you, and you’re not all-powerful, that you’re like, “Yes, I wish I also had a magic wand and could fix this.” Talk to them about where the problems actually are, and, you know, if they’re, depending on their personality types, they might be like, “Oh, thank you so much for letting me know. I know not to yell at you.” At the end of the day, it’s, if you, you know, we talk about public servants. You know, it’s not the public servant’s fault that the transit agency is underfunded. Um, that just might be who the member of the public sees, and so they have this conversation. And so, having these unofficial conversations, meeting up for a cup of coffee, doing it off of company property or, you know, agency property, we’re having a beer during on the weekend, that kind of stuff. You know, maybe you’re

Signal chat so it’s encrypted. But just kind of having the conversation and feeling each other out. You know, not, doing not every rider is worth… Not, not every person is worth investing all that effort into that type of stuff.

Some might say, “Cool, those all sound like excuses, I’m gonna keep yelling at you.” Like, don’t… You know, at the end of the day, you’re making this relationship, and you’re not gonna always be happy with them, they’re not always gonna be happy with you, but you’ll, you know, share a same goal and get that information out together. Um, and you know, I think the other part about this too is recognizing that, for an advocate, a $200, $300, like, some relatively low-ish num- amount of money that could come from people’s personal paycheck or what have you, makes a world of difference. You know, the, at the end of the day, a transit agency is not going to be writing a huge sponsorship check for an advocacy group. But, the last thing that you ever want is to do all this work and have the advocate say, “Great, I’m ready to print out flyers. We designed a thing, but man, we don’t have the money to do color-printed flyers to staple up at every bus stop or tape up at every phone sign.

I guess we’re just not gonna do it.” You know, if you’re like, “Look, I can ask around the office and see if people just out of their own personal pocketbooks, or friends of friends, or whatever can chip in.” But you know, money is a real thing, and advocates are doing it for free on their own time as well, uh, a lot of this time. And so, helping out with that is a big one. You know, I once got a call, uh, from, uh… Actually, never mind. Uh, we’ll just cut that part. That was like a… That story’s a weird story. Uh, never mind. But, yeah, I think for a big part, for people who are on the inside, it’s just recognizing that sometimes you have to, you have to be the person who makes the first outreach and sees what happens. And, you know, maybe you do a talk, maybe you do a this, or maybe it’s just, you get a cocktail or a cup of tea, or just go for a walk and just get to know someone, see what happens.

Uh, for those people who are on the outside, Carter, I, I realize that, you know, government can be really complex. Uh, you, you mentioned earlier, uh, how many different levels there, there could be to your local government, you know, city, there’s the county, and MPO. Uh, how, how do you encourage advocates to begin to understand this complexity? Like, when they, they want to advocate for a bench at a bus stop or, uh, you know, more shelters at their bus stops, uh, w- where do you, where do you tell them to go? Yeah, uh, so when you’re talking to someone, they say, “Well, I can’t,” and you say, “Okay, who does? Who does have that jurisdiction?” And then write that down. Uh, basically just keep asking people, keep poking. Uh, you know, I’m, I’m a chatty person, I’m a pokey person, so this works for me. Other people, you know, you could look this all up.

I find that very boring. I have a much easier time saying, “Okay, well, I’ll chat with the persons who I do know,” and I say,

“So who does have the power here? Who, who should I talk to?” And you just keep asking and keep moving your way up, and eventually someone will say, you’ll kind of flesh this out. But if you think about it as you’re, you know, exploring this map and you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know who has jurisdiction,” s- someone does know that. And if you get to the point where you’re like, “Well, no one seems to know who does,” then like, okay, well, then maybe you have permission. Maybe there is no one in charge. Congratulations, you get to do a thing. Uh, and then if you do that and someone says,

“Hey, you can’t do that,” you say, “Okay, well, who says?” Um, so, you know, not being afraid, or, you know, be afraid but do it anyway. You know, being brave to just have the conversation to say,

“I care about this thing and I don’t know.” And I think to your point, earlier to bring it back to Levi’s point about the, like, comfort in talking about the technical, um, be comfortable not knowing. Be comfortable saying to a stranger, “Hey, I want this thing and I don’t know exactly how to go about doing it, but I know you’re involved somehow. Talk to me about that.” And see what they say, because in theory they’re also in this because they over- they care overall.

And if you do this in a nice and kind and open-hearted way, like, you’ll get good responses. If you do it in a jerk way, you’ll probably get jerk responses. So, you know, be, be mindful of that. Um, but at the end of the day, a lot of the times, like, your local city elected official, they’ll know who’s to point to. You know, people are generally pretty good at saying, “Oh, I am not in charge of that. Yeah, that problem? That’s here not because of me. Talk to this other person.” And the other person will say, “Oh, that’s not my fault. The first person actually has this responsibility.” And it’s not that they’re wrong, it’s that they’re both right, that a lot of times there is this, like, overlapping jurisdictional stuff, that the bus agency picks where the bus stops are, but the advocate, or, you know, but the city council decides how to fund the bus stops kind of thing, um, you know, what amenities are there. And so, you as the advocate are the one who’s able to say, “Okay, everyone, let’s all get together, let’s all figure this out.” Um, and the more that you do that figuring out work, the, uh, easier time everyone’s gonna have.

Yeah, you’re right. It can get pretty messy, uh, with government and those jurisd- jurisdictional boundaries can, uh, be quite overlapping at times. Carter, I’m sure that there are some future advocates or, or maybe active, uh, advocates w- that are listening to this podcast and, you know, they, they want to learn more, they wanna get better at the craft. What type of advice do you have for them, uh, so that they can make that continuous improvement on, on their end?

Yeah, I think a big part is consider that what you’re doing is a practice, that you are doing something to improve upon. I think this is something that really helps advocates just get better is saying oh, go well. How next one better? Like, thinking about advocacy as a skill, as a practice, as a sport, as, you know, whatever, as something to be improved upon is gonna take, make lives a lot better. And also doing it from a place that’s not, oh, what’s perfect advocacy? It’s what is, what is good? How do we make it better? Okay, just keep going, keep going, keep going.

Because you can get started. There’s nothing stopping you, anyone right now who’s listening to this, from creating a petition that says the thing that you want and like, “Oh, the people in our neighborhood want this bus stop,” or,

“The people in my city, in this jurisdiction, we want this thing.” Nothing stops you from writing that out, getting that printed out, and starting circulating, getting 1,000 people doing it. You have all, you know, the thing that’s holding you back is all the other constraints in your life. But you don’t need permission. You don’t need a permit.

You don’t need any of that stuff. You can just do things. So go do things, and think about how that went. Think about, oh, how could I do this better and keep going? And realize that there are people all around you who know how to do stuff or have tried or who are figuring this out as well, and so talk with them. Swap notes. Say, “Hey, here’s a draft petition. What do you think about this? How could this be better?

Uh, we have this idea. Is this the right idea for the transit agency or is it a different problem altogether?” Keep asking, keep learning, keep pushing. You know, and at the end of the day, I’m here. I wrote a book, uh, If You Want to Win, You Got to Fight: A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy, so that’s, you know, 24/7, 365, y- you know, that’s available for you. Uh, you can get it from Island Press. Um,

I’m also around at carterlavin.com to, uh, uh, people can book sessions, we can talk through their specific things that they’re working on. But a big part is start coming up with a plan, like, really, you know, think of it as a fight. It’s not, you’re not just shouting into the void, although that is fun sometimes. But, okay, how do we do this? And it’s, in, in recognizing, I think the other part is that your victory is possible. You know, you’re not asking to get the earth to rotate the other way. Like, the thing that you want is possible. It might have a lot of other things associated with it that are hard-… but it’s still possible. And so the more that you can chart this out, and the more that you reject your magical thinking of saying, “Well, if we just do this thing, then everyone in the world will come on out and, you know, we’ll win.” It’s like, “No, that won’t happen.” You know, you say, “Okay, we wanna host a rally. Okay, who are we inviting? How are we getting to them? Are we sending them an email or a text? Well, obviously both. Okay, are we also calling them? Are their friends gonna call them?” Like, it’s this kind of excellence that people bring into their engineering or other aspects of their life. Bring it into your political life, and you’ll be shocked by how much you get done. And, you know, there’s no one, there’s no one out there to give you a promotion or say you’re doing it wrong, or who, even if they say you’re doing it wrong, they can’t stop you. So go, go do it. Maybe not, you’re not gonna do it perfectly the first time. You know, my first big fight, I def-, I didn’t win. I won some other things though. And keep trying. Keep getting better. Keep working at it. At the end of the day, we’re on team make the world a better place for a lot of people, and that’s, that’s worth fighting for.

That, that’s a great piece of advice. Thank you, uh, for saying that. And also for, thank you for joining us today at this episode of Stop Requested. Uh, this is gonna be a two-parted episode, so this is part one. And we’ll have a second episode a little bit after, uh, your book is out, uh, just to continue the conversation on advocacy. Uh, so again, uh, Carter, thank you for joining us today. It’s been a great episode. Uh, I’m pretty sure our listeners appreciate your perspective and, and some of your advice. And just, uh, I,

I know you were mentioning earlier, but if, could you remind our listeners where they can get in touch with you and learn a little bit more about you and, and your book? Yeah. So you can get the book at Island Press, um, or wherever people get books. It’s called

If You Want To Win, You’ve Got to Fight: A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy. Um, so please pick up a copy, or ask your local library to get some copies. Um, and if you wanna talk directly, you can find my information at carterlavin.com. Uh, happy to talk with folks across North America, uh, and help folks fight for the thing that they wanna fight for and win it.

Excellent. Thank you. And thank you to all of our listeners for following and for listening to this episode. We’ll, see you during the next. Thank you for having me on. This was great. Thanks, uh, folks.