Picking an “easy” fight as a bike or transit advocate

We need big changes, but easier victories for car-free communities are also worth winning!

Oct 31, 2023

Car dominance in North America can be pretty depressing for a mobility advocate who wants the world to be a better place to walk, roll or ride – but there is a silver lining. The good news about the state of the world is that there are tons of ways to improve it and every victory is important. You can pick a fight because it’s an integral part of your complex multi-phase overarching strategy, OR you can pick a fight just because you want a low-effort win. Both are valid and the overall political movement needs every victory it can get. Yes, we need new subway lines opening up in metro areas across the country, and we also need a LOT of parklets to get built.

You are in control, so you can pick your fight based on how easy (or hard) you think it’ll be. If you want to go after something easy– go for it! When trying to evaluate whether or not a goal is easy, consider its size, cost, novelty, and the number of jurisdictions it impacts. Also, “zero-sum” efforts are harder than ones where everyone wins or at least where nobody clearly loses.

Of course, “easy” is a relative word based on your strength and ability. What might be difficult for you now might be easy for a different entity, or it might be easier for you later once you’ve bulked up your political power and know-how. Difficult bike & transit efforts are things like building a new high-speed rail line or a protected bike lane network or removing a freeway. But there are also tons of worthwhile, easier, low-intensity campaigns you can wage to make your community a better place to walk, roll or ride. Here’s a list of attributes that make for an “easier” effort you can wage in your community:

Quick-to-implement 2. Simple & non-invasive 3. Part of “Business as usual” 3. Hyper-local, Lots of visible winners 4. Low-cost 5. Popular in the jurisdiction

While you don’t need to be able to check all of these boxes, the more of these your solution is, the easier it’ll be to win. Some examples of “easy-to-win” efforts are:

Infrastructure

Getting a specific bench or bus shelter built (or fixed). Your area already has some form of budget and process for doing this, but you need to be the squeaky wheel!
Getting a parking spot turned into a parklet for the cafe/restaurant that’s in front of it. This is easy if the cafe/restaurant is on board and very hard if they aren’t. You can ask around to find a cafe to partner with on this effort. Will be easier if the partner is a popular eatery.
Converting a “slip-lane” into a mini-plaza. This can be easy if you have the right one. Look for a slip lane in a commercial area, near an eatery, and that doesn’t have a bus route through it. Start with conversion via installing one or two big planters and setting up some outdoor dining space. Full redesign can come later.
Not every political battle is an epic struggle. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of getting a small increase for the bus stop maintenance budget.

Policy

Policies that require studies or reporting are easier to win than policies that have regulations or more “carrots” and “sticks”. Reports and studies are toothless and nearly zero cost policies, which means they aren’t that powerful but also makes them easier political “lifts.” They are worth doing if you can use them to aim your city in the right direction.

For example, getting your City Council to require your local Department of Public Works to provide a quarterly report on the number of traffic calming infrastructure improvements they have installed will give you and the council vital information about how much (or little) your city is actually doing to make streets safer for all.

Reports and studies are a tool, and are useless on their own, but powerful when they are put to work. Before pushing for a study or report, have a clear vision of how you will use this new tool for your follow up campaigning.

Budget

Budget fights are inherently hard. You are literally asking for money, and unless it’s from the Federal Government, your budget is limited so you winning a budget increase means someone else is getting a budget decrease. However, while budget fights are difficult, you can still move the needle with a low-effort and unsophisticated campaign.

For example, a sophisticated budget fight can involve coordinated inside/outside game, tight messaging, and deep budgetary analysis of where the money should come from and where it should go to.

However, you as the outside agitator can set up a budgetary demand that’s literally just “More funding for _____” and not elaborate if you don’t want to. Yes, it’s sloppy and a bit unprofessional– but if you get 2,000 people to sign a 1-line petition to your Mayor and City Council that simply says, “We the undersigned want more funding for bus stop benches,” you are going to do better than if you didn’t campaign at all. And you probably will even win more than if you have a sophisticated list of demands but only got 50 people to sign on.

In politics, “done is better than perfect.” You might have grand visions for how you’d like your community to be better, but if the weight of those plans keep you from taking action, then go ahead and aim for something easier. A victory is a victory, and maybe it’ll help make your bigger visions more possible. Or maybe you’ll just be able to be a little happier knowing you made a part of the world a little bit better.

If you wanna win, you gotta fight: training for activists

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