Transcript exported from the video version of this episode - Note that it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:17:07
Carter Lavin
I had a session with the activists in Connecticut who wanted a protected bike lane on their street, and they were saying, you know, for them, the big issue is the mayor could not give less of a cry about what they had to say. And it's like, okay, well, so they know what they want. But in the end, the issues of the mayor doesn't care.

00:00:17:08 - 00:00:20:02
Carter Lavin
So let's talk about how you get a mayor to care here.

00:00:20:02 - 00:00:47:27
John Simmerman
Hi everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that is Carter Lavin from Oakland, California. And we are talking about what it takes to get engaged as a community member, as an activist, as an advocate, and as some of the training services that he provides for folks across the country. So without further ado, let's get to it with Carter Levin.

00:00:47:29 - 00:00:52:16
John Simmerman
Carter Lavin, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.

00:00:52:18 - 00:01:00:23
Carter Lavin
You're so good to be here on the podcast. And I love a lot of the work that you do, and After Times is such a good framework. Exciting to talk with folks about it.

00:01:00:26 - 00:01:10:16
John Simmerman
Fantastic. Well, hey, I love to have my guests to sort of introduce themselves, so I'll turn the floor over to you and do just like a 30 seconds to introduction. Who is Carter.

00:01:10:18 - 00:01:31:02
Carter Lavin
Store? So I'm Carter Levin. Nice to meet you all. I train transportation activists, folks who are working on bike issues, pedestrian issues, bus issues, train issues, things like that. I'm a big believer that if you want to win, you got to fight. And a lot of times, I think transportation activists say it should be easier to get around town.

00:01:31:08 - 00:01:43:17
Carter Lavin
Or why doesn't this rail line exists already? And the answer is because you haven't fought hard enough. And so I train people to fight for it. And I'm excited to talk with you about how we make more towns after towns.

00:01:43:20 - 00:01:47:29
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great. What's sort of your background?

00:01:48:01 - 00:02:13:22
Carter Lavin
So I've been an active activist for over 17 years on a wide variety of issues. One of the biggest ones was in the solar industry here in California, where really got a lot of deep experience doing a lot of lobbying and advocacy work on something that should make a lot of sense. It's one of those things it's like this happen much like industry and safety is one of those ways.

00:02:13:23 - 00:02:38:20
Carter Lavin
Why do we have to fight for this type of thing, right? And you really just learn that whole like, yeah, unfortunately, everything in the world is deeply political, right? Whether you like it or not, doesn't matter. You still to get engaged. And so there is, you know, lots of issues there. And then as side projects, I would be taking on efforts like trying to get a bus only lane on the Bay Bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco.

00:02:38:22 - 00:03:12:17
Carter Lavin
We got a law passed through the state Senate, which then ultimately go through but know those types of side projects I've helped friends run for. City council was elected to delegate to the California Democratic Party so basically like have fought lots of fights, won several, lost several. Learned a lot and really want to help people when they're fight because there's there's a million things that could be fixed and communities across the country and so whether we're talking about Springfield Massachusetts or Springfield Illinois or any of the other Springfields in the world, like I want them to win.

00:03:12:17 - 00:03:19:25
Carter Lavin
I want them to be more active towns. And that means helping the people in those towns who also want that and be more successful.

00:03:19:28 - 00:03:29:00
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. Now, I grew up not far from you on a ranch just north of Sacramento. Are you originally from the Oakland area?

00:03:29:02 - 00:03:59:08
Carter Lavin
No. So I'm originally a mid-Atlantic map. So Montclair, New Jersey, Bethesda, Maryland. Ardmore, Pennsylvania. So these are all kind of like in our suburbs where of major cities where you have that like, oh, I could get to the big city because there's trains, because of resources or, you know, because you can buy ground. But so I had a lot of that suburban urban experience growing up and really firsthand felt like the freedom of mobility was a big thing for me.

00:03:59:09 - 00:04:18:18
Carter Lavin
You know, of of course, I get on my bike and I'm 13. How big is my world? How small is my world? I moved out to California about 11 years ago and yeah, never, never moving out of unless unless something really catastrophic happened. But it's my home.

00:04:18:21 - 00:04:42:13
John Simmerman
Okay, cool. That's. That's great. And so. So you were active in in sort of that solar industry and really trying to move that along and bring it to a level of of prominence in California, which congratulations. I mean, the state of California is further along than any other state in regards, I believe. I mean, that's my outsider's perspective.

00:04:42:13 - 00:04:49:23
John Simmerman
I'm certainly not an expert on that. But it seems like California is much further along than many other states in that regard.

00:04:49:25 - 00:05:12:28
Carter Lavin
Well, and it's a big example of I think a lot of times people say, well, of course, it would be because, you know, it's California hippie dippy liberal, whatever. It's like actually, Texas has a really good renewable energy state as well. And New Jersey is as well and Germany is and all these different places because at the end of the day, it's about politics, it's about political will and it's about fighting for it.

00:05:13:01 - 00:05:29:15
Carter Lavin
And I think this is one of those things where, you know, whether people are in Austin or San Antonio or what have you, and they say, Oh, well, I love a bike lane, but we're not we're not Amsterdam know, we're not even attracted to like, well, so in fact, those places weren't those places either. You have to do that work.

00:05:29:15 - 00:05:53:01
Carter Lavin
And I think one thing that I've seen from my clean energy experience and I've seen being a transportation activist for years as well, is a lot of times people get confused when they say, well, this policy or this change makes so much sense and would save lives. It would be so easy. Why doesn't that happen? It's like, yeah, you there's a couple of steps between here and there.

00:05:53:03 - 00:06:13:12
John Simmerman
Right, Right. Well, what's the interesting, too, is and I get this all the time on the podcast in from viewers who are watching the podcast on YouTube, as well as people who are listening and they, you know, leave a comment or send an email and say, I'm inspired. I want to do something. I want to change. What do I do now?

00:06:13:20 - 00:06:47:27
John Simmerman
And usually my answer is, is you have to start at your block level. You have to start talking to your neighbors and start engaging. You're taking it a step further in in terms of what you're saying, because you're also, you know, saying, hey, you also need to kind of understand how the game works and get some, you know, information and some education on what it means to be an advocate for and an activist for these issues that are, you know, important to you.

00:06:48:04 - 00:07:34:19
John Simmerman
You know, whether it's it's the issue of, you know, hey, we have some pretty shitty bike lanes now and we need to change something. And, you know, and I noticed on that tweet there that there's a little bit of a of a shame and blame, you know, sort of attached to that. But at the same time, we know that Twitter can sort of devolve into a spiral of negativity, of shaming and blaming, and nothing ever changes because then you get entrenched people in in in camps in and they dig in to walk us through how you actually, you know, get you know, you maybe tone down the rhetoric a little bit of of fighting and

00:07:34:19 - 00:07:52:18
John Simmerman
towards the level of, hey, we need to first be able to educate and enhance awareness of our community so that we can broaden the base of support for change because we know the status quo is going to fight back and we're going to have, you know, a NIMBY sort of approach to it.

00:07:52:18 - 00:08:13:17
Carter Lavin
So yeah, and I think that's yeah, and that's a great question. I think to your point about kind of getting started, the first step to getting started is literally do anything. And that's, you know, the good news about everything being so messed up is that almost anything you do is a step in the right direction. And so it is really about what is the thing you want to do.

00:08:13:19 - 00:08:34:11
Carter Lavin
The other part, though, is it becomes easier and less scary kind of if you know what you're doing, if you say, okay, well, I got to talk to my neighbor because they know I want to speedbump. They're also on the street. But what neighbor do I talk to or how do I talk to them? And you know, about and we'll talk about this in a second.

00:08:34:11 - 00:08:55:16
Carter Lavin
But a big thing is knowing how to engage with the neighbor. You're saying, oh, well, you know, it could be sellers and I don't like a lot about them, so that's fine, too. Spill is also not want to get hit by a flipping car that you just have to get agreement on that. And so, for example, now once you have kind of your idea, articulate it'd you know, you're not you're not proposing to these folks.

00:08:55:16 - 00:09:23:25
Carter Lavin
You're not saying, hey, let's get married. You're saying, hey, do you agree with this sentence? Maybe these three sentences, maybe these four sentences, that's fine. And then a key part is making it easy for people to then say yes. So, for example, I've been part of this effort in Oakland to get safer streets. And we you know, these are a stack of a bunch of fliers that I put out and help guide the community, which you just a kind of a simple message, save streets, save lives.

00:09:23:27 - 00:09:44:10
Carter Lavin
People can scan the code and add their name to the petition and has a little bit of language about what we're asking for. And then the key part about this particular image is a lot of times people feel very alone. They say, Oh, I'm the only one who cares. I'm the only one who wants to do anything that's wrong.

00:09:44:15 - 00:10:15:25
Carter Lavin
That's not true. People care all the time. A big part is your job as the activist. Your job as the kind of initiator is make it very, very, very easy for people to help you and to for people to work with you. So you can't just say, hey, here's a petition, please like and subscribe and for a little while you can and people will do that and you can say, Hey, here's the petition, here's the bus, the digital file, please print it out and pass along.

00:10:15:28 - 00:10:34:19
Carter Lavin
And some people will do that. But if you say to someone here is a stack of fliers, please hand this out to people when you see them. And it's even a nice rubber band like this is something when you're passing out fliers or talking to a friend and they say, Oh, that's a great idea. You say, Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

00:10:34:19 - 00:11:01:00
Carter Lavin
Here's with Will you take ten fliers to pass to other people and yeah, then you have to give it to them. You know, make it easy for people to help you is a really key step for getting more help. And I think to your point also about like rhetoric and learning, I think one reason why I have such faith in the kind of active towns movement is millions of people want what we want.

00:11:01:01 - 00:11:27:18
Carter Lavin
Millions of people want you want, you know, the person listening in on this like you are not alone. None of us are alone. It's just about how do we navigate that properly? So. You brought up a great tweet earlier, if you don't mind bringing that image back up. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a wonderful example of, like, what a lot of Internet activism can be, how it can start, and what can kind of snowball from there.

00:11:27:20 - 00:11:46:20
Carter Lavin
And so this is a this is a scene that happens all the time all across America. And this is a person, Dr. Bike, who's a great person, just basically saying, Hey, I almost got hit by this bus while biking. I'm in this bike lane. The bike lanes pretty crummy and it's only a matter of time before they kill someone.

00:11:46:23 - 00:12:10:19
Carter Lavin
And they do a great job tagging the bus company. So that bus, you know, social media person, intern, whoever says, oh, this is good. You know, like, that's not good, you know, And that got a lot of likes, library tweets, a lot of activity. And the thing I just did is hopped in and tagged the mayor of the town because the mayor is the one who can say, yeah, let's get some protection there.

00:12:10:22 - 00:12:31:01
Carter Lavin
That's the person who has that power. And it's not that much harder for them when the mayor sees it and other people chime in to say, okay, well, maybe let's make a petition. Like, look, 54 people like this. This seems to have some legs. You know, someone wants to say, hey, mayor of Tucson, let's put physical protection on this bike.

00:12:31:01 - 00:13:08:03
Carter Lavin
Lane. How many people do you think you can get to sign that petition? 100. 200,000? I don't know. But translating it offline and talking real world helps it because I think you're right about the like the rhetoric in social media in America these days has a propensity towards dramatic sudden escalation, to put it gently. And a key part is when you say, hey, I'm just talking about this, I'm talking about this mile, what do you think about this mile?

00:13:08:03 - 00:13:35:17
Carter Lavin
We're not saying ban cars and reimagine all of American society such that yadda, yadda, yadda, even though that might be your ultimate goal, even though it might not be. But you're saying, look, we're just talking about this. It's sort of like, you know, when you're you know, when like when you're dating in the dating world, you don't say, hey, let's get married and have 2.5 kids and, like, live together in this house for 20 years.

00:13:35:20 - 00:13:57:24
Carter Lavin
You say you're having a cup of coffee or a drink, even like I'm not even going to specify coffee. I'm not I'm not going to specify what drink? Just like you mean beverage. Yeah. And like, I think a lot of activism, you really have to break it down to like, hey, this street should be safer, right? And people, that's a harder thing to disagree with.

00:13:57:27 - 00:14:26:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know, I think one of the interesting things, too, is helping people understand how their community actually works. And so, like, for instance, in the case of of Tucson here, I don't even know whether Tucson's a strong mayor system or not or whether it's or whether the mayor is one vote of of, you know, the entire city council.

00:14:26:04 - 00:14:53:15
John Simmerman
But it is helpful to know, I mean, usually whether the mayor is a strong mayor system or not, they're usually the figurehead because they're usually the one politician that is is voted in by the population at large like it is here in Austin. It's a weak mayor system. So the mayor is is the only city council member, member of council who is voted on, you know, by the entire population at large across all the districts.

00:14:53:18 - 00:15:06:21
John Simmerman
But my point is, is understanding, you know, that structure of, you know, political structure in your own neighborhoods and do you even know who your representative is of your own district if you are broken up into districts?

00:15:06:23 - 00:15:32:21
Carter Lavin
And it's also one of those things where I think I think sometimes people can get a little in their heads, especially because a lot of the kind of active towns folks I think, come to to us from more of an engineering background of like it's important to be very, very correct because very bad things happen when you're not very correct in the engineering world, in the political world, like let's say let's say it's not the mayor, let's say, oh, that's actually a county road, whatever.

00:15:32:21 - 00:15:49:20
Carter Lavin
But you got 500 people to sign a petition and you presented to the mayor and the mayor says, oh, actually go yell at the person and sweet to be not the sweet to see is say, okay, cool, I won't take these 500 people. Go yell at that person. And a lot of times the mayor might say, Oh, I would totally agree.

00:15:49:20 - 00:16:17:03
Carter Lavin
But you know, that's not up to me. That's up to them. And you say, Great. Join us then as we go. It sounds like you agree. So you endorse this. That helps us even larger. And I think one thing that happens when you know how to do it right, you know, there's a little bit of when you get the runaround, politically speaking, and, you know, regardless of town or county or whatever, and someone says, oh, I'm I would love to, but I can't.

00:16:17:03 - 00:16:35:24
Carter Lavin
That's someone else. You say, Great, You said you'd love to. Can we call you as an endorser? And in theory, as they said, that's an easy thing. And then when you go to the county person, you say, look, everyone, even the mayor, everyone wants this thing. You have a million things to do in a day. Just make this one of those things.

00:16:35:27 - 00:16:57:03
Carter Lavin
And so there's less you know, I'm like, when you're running for office where it is very forgiving if you mess up and you're like door knocking in the wrong district, like the politicians need to be very right. And the candidates for you as an activist, you know, you're saying, look, we need to solve this problem. This problem is big, and I'm going to present it to anyone who would remotely listen.

00:16:57:06 - 00:17:19:00
Carter Lavin
And if you start smaller and local or you will get routed to the right person, like if you call Joe Biden and say, Hey, Joe Biden, I would like this fix like he's probably not going to respond to your call and he's not going to write you there. But if you say, hey, public works department, whatever, like they will put you to the right place.

00:17:19:00 - 00:17:21:28
Carter Lavin
It's like the front desk at the hotel type of thing.

00:17:22:00 - 00:17:50:04
John Simmerman
I'm glad you mentioned, you know, the quote unquote, responsibility in the ownership of said public realm, the street, the road, etc., because that's one of the misperceptions that we often have as a as public joke public. We're like, oh, that that space outside of my door. That's all just kind of the city. The reality is, is that strode that we might be looking at out there might actually be a state owned highway property.

00:17:50:06 - 00:18:18:16
John Simmerman
And so the jurisdiction over that and the control over that, the city literally their hands might be tied behind their back and in in in being able to deal with that particular piece of infrastructure because it's actually owned and operated by the state. And if the state and the city don't have a good working relationship and on the same page with that that dot state dot, it'd be like, yeah, we don't care.

00:18:18:16 - 00:18:28:17
John Simmerman
We're all we're going to prioritize the movement of motor vehicles over the the health and wellness and safety of of your people now in California.

00:18:28:18 - 00:18:35:12
Carter Lavin
You know you live in Austin Texas. Yeah yeah that's a very awesome tax requirements heard but I know.

00:18:35:13 - 00:18:51:29
John Simmerman
Yeah did you I don't know if you saw but the scene you just released their freeways without futures report for 2023 and it was alphabetical so number two on the list was in fact I-35 in Austin Texas in downtown.

00:18:52:02 - 00:19:17:28
Carter Lavin
And I think to your point, so, you know, the mayor might say, oh, can't do that. It's like, you know, you could do literally every other street and you're like, okay, cool. Maybe that's not the one. Okay, what about the five parallel streets to that? Can we get four of them? Can we have three of that? Like and I think one of those things that happens so often in politics and so often in life is, you know, people focus on what they can't do.

00:19:18:00 - 00:19:36:24
Carter Lavin
Oh, you know, I wish I could fix that. And I think a really important thing as activists and advocates is to say, okay, fine, you can't do that. But what if you made it? The streets leading up to that big strode into cul de sacs. So at least there's fewer less traffic going on to that strode and, you know, greater safety there.

00:19:36:24 - 00:19:58:20
Carter Lavin
Like, you know, I think recognizing, you know, anyone who's had siblings knows the whole like, oh, yeah, don't don't hit your brother and say, fine, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you like, fine, you can't touch. Let's throw touch everything else. Like what? You don't have the story but you could do you could double the sidewalks or something like what can you do?

00:19:58:22 - 00:20:28:26
John Simmerman
The other thing that I tried to emphasize too, is there is power in us coming together as a community. And you know, in ultimately, if your representatives aren't representing the interests of the populace, of the constituency, you vote them out. That's part of what this means. And, you know, and that brings us around to this graph that you you sent over is taking look at voter turnout.

00:20:28:26 - 00:20:46:19
John Simmerman
And so when you're looking at the people who the voter age turnout across countries and and we do have an international audience so I know quite a few of you are going to be interested in this. Walk us through this. And why did you feel compelled that we need to like, talk about this?

00:20:46:21 - 00:21:12:28
Carter Lavin
Yeah, I think a big thing people often feel, whether that's on social media or in general, is, oh, everyone thinks this, everyone thinks that everyone loves their cars, everyone hates their whatever. And it's like, well, one, there is no everyone, like the concept of everyone is a huge lie. And even in the Netherlands, you know, there's 25% of people didn't vote in a recent election.

00:21:12:28 - 00:21:46:05
Carter Lavin
And that's a huge chunk of people. And you say, well, oh, the Green Party, you know, they're not going. It's like, well, 25% of people would be a very dominant political force. And, you know, in the United States, where it's about 40% of people didn't vote, 40% of people would more than swing almost every single election. And so a lot of times political ads and political efforts are about getting voters, people who tend to vote to, like change sides.

00:21:46:08 - 00:22:11:06
Carter Lavin
The big thing is, can you get people who are irregular voters or nonvoters engaged? And when you think like, but they don't vote, they don't care. It's like, well, they don't vote and they don't care because politicians aren't offering them anything worth getting. And, you know, if you say, well, why should a person on the bus vote for such and such for president, you say, well, their stance is your bus is going to be on time and we're going to make that work.

00:22:11:06 - 00:22:35:21
Carter Lavin
It's like, well, it's a lot of people on busses are going to vote, you know, affairs. So you make it easier for people if you make it really cerebral or not really sort of you make it very tangible. So instead of saying, let's do this international trade policy and a bunch of acronyms and all this stuff, you're like, Let's make it so you can cross the street and that your grandma can cross the street and your kids can cross the street and that they'll be safe.

00:22:35:24 - 00:22:58:19
Carter Lavin
Yeah, Would you like that? And like that's and I think there's a way like getting people into the electorate because I think those who want active towns and might feel hopeless about parking tenders and say, oh, all those parking offenders, it's like, well, fun fact, those parking designers aren't the majority of people. The vast majority of people have never heard of the concept of an active town.

00:22:58:21 - 00:23:12:22
Carter Lavin
And even if you explain it to them 12 times, still wouldn't probably get it. But you said, Hey, isn't it nice when you can cross the street and not get hit by car? And they would say, Yeah. And you said, Cool. I have this petition that says, you know, make our Town one where people can cross the street.

00:23:12:22 - 00:23:37:06
Carter Lavin
Better not get hit by cars. Would you sign it? You're like, Yeah, okay, cool. Then you show to a politician, Here's a thousand people, here's to that. Whatever the number is, you know, that politician is once wants to serve their community, wants to get reelected. And, you know, they've figured out what they think about health care. They figured out what they think about guns or schools or like any of the top big issue taxes.

00:23:37:06 - 00:24:05:27
Carter Lavin
They figure that crossing the street is currently not a huge political divide among the big parties. It is a like a nonpartisan issue, which is a wonderful thing. All you have to do that is say, hey, a lot of people want this. Can you do it? And then your mayor, who might be a completely opposite of you across the political spectrum on every other issue, but they say, yeah, okay, that's a that we can do that's not like a whatever thing.

00:24:05:29 - 00:24:25:22
Carter Lavin
And just helping you kind of figure out where the conversation stopping had. And I think a big part is you're not, as I said before, you're not looking for perfect alignment, you're looking for alignment on a few things and you make sure those things get done. And so, you know, that happens across the aisle in the United States.

00:24:25:22 - 00:24:52:14
Carter Lavin
We use that metaphor across political parties and just saying like, how do we, you know, who are these, you know, 25% of the people in Australia, in the Netherlands who didn't vote, why didn't they vote? What do they care about and how do you get them to be interested in something? And if you say this will materially impact your life in a way that like wages or taxes, you know, feels really obscure, people just feel like they're being screwed anyway.

00:24:52:17 - 00:24:59:14
Carter Lavin
But if you say, look, you want some speed on farms, so let's talk about that. I think there's some opportunities there.

00:24:59:16 - 00:25:29:26
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's interesting to you mentioned, you know, you know, there's that perception that, oh, everybody believes this or everybody, you know, is is is going to get behind this other thing or this is what they believe. And I have to laugh a little bit because Paris just recently had an a vote to kick out scooters, electric scooters. And it was like a 90% to get rid of them to boot them out.

00:25:30:03 - 00:25:47:07
John Simmerman
But then when you actually looked at the number of people who voted, it's less than 10% of the Paris population actually voted. So yeah, you get 90% of the people who were motivated to kick the the scooters out because they think it was literally just a vote on that. I don't know if they're.

00:25:47:09 - 00:26:15:28
Carter Lavin
On the ballot. And it's also one of those things where, you know, if you wanted to try to trigger something like that in your community, that's the other way. Like, yeah, yeah, we we in California do a lot of ballot proposition voting stuff where basically people can put things on the ballot and it's based off of, you know, how many signatures could you get and you know, there but the threshold is set by last year's election.

00:26:16:00 - 00:26:31:04
Carter Lavin
And so if last year was the election year where 2% of people voted, you said, okay, this is the big time to get the like, let's, you know, ban non-emergency vehicles in the downtown square or whatever. And if that election is the third Thursday on the third.

00:26:31:08 - 00:26:35:05
John Simmerman
Oh, you mean know. So you could cater to this guy just hanging out in the street?

00:26:35:09 - 00:26:50:14
Carter Lavin
Yeah, exactly. No. And this is a big party is also like so this is me a couple months back on Grand Avenue in Oakland, and I forgot why they shut down the street. I, I think like occasionally the police in Oakland just shut down large thoroughfares.

00:26:50:15 - 00:26:53:25
John Simmerman
Well, I thought you were protesters. I thought you were just taking the street.

00:26:53:27 - 00:27:14:22
Carter Lavin
It was they just they just shut down the street. And I have a hammock and I was like, cool, They're going to shut down street. I'm going to have this family take a photo. And if they can't, it is Grand Avenue. It is one of the big arterials of our city. And it was so close that some guy could just set up a hammock and hang out there for like I was like maybe 30 minutes or something and the world would collapse.

00:27:14:22 - 00:27:35:15
Carter Lavin
It's like, okay, clearly we can reimagine our roads a lot more. And I think one of those big things for advocates is after towns across the country who feel like, where do I start? One thing is like, do something fun. That is a street takeover. You know, if you say, look, you know, every every block party is an active towns protest.

00:27:35:15 - 00:27:53:28
Carter Lavin
You know, every every jazz fest in the street. So if you say, look, can we just shut down Main Street from first to second Street on 4th of July? Guess what? The 4th of July parade where they shut down the road. That's an act of towns parade. That's a march. It's a lot of other things are happening, too.

00:27:54:01 - 00:28:11:19
Carter Lavin
But if you just started circulating a petition saying, hey, isn't this nice? And shouldn't this shouldn't we be able to, like, liberate our cities for more pleasure and more play and more whatever? You know, there's a lot of people be like, Oh, yeah, this was fine. Oh, okay, I'll just drive on Broadway, not Main Street, whatever. It's like, cool.

00:28:11:19 - 00:28:26:10
Carter Lavin
Like, you don't need to ask for everything all at once. You ask for a little bit and of bit, you know, eventually it adds up. But yeah, like, it's so great. You know, there's a lot of space in cities.

00:28:26:13 - 00:28:52:10
John Simmerman
Well, what's interesting too, is, you know, I love, you know, parking day. I love, you know, open streets events. I love parades because it does reinforce that concept of, oh, yeah, streets are public spaces and they can be used for other things other than just level of service of of cramming as many motor vehicles through it quickly as possible.

00:28:52:13 - 00:29:11:28
Carter Lavin
Well, and a big part of that is saying like and I think those are moments where we've kind of where we win the culture war, so to speak, on like, hey, it's good to liberate your streets. You know, Mardi Gras is the biggest active camp towns convention in the world. You know, like this, the city shuts down. There's not a lot of drive.

00:29:12:04 - 00:29:33:09
Carter Lavin
It's like people are walking everywhere or they're stumbling places. But that is a that is a person focus of that. And the big thing is you can't just like one that's great in its own right. But if you want to, like, move past Mardi Gras, move past the festival, move past South by Southwest, there's a part where you say, okay, I'm going to make a petition.

00:29:33:09 - 00:29:51:24
Carter Lavin
I'll make a little flier that just says, you know what, this aspect more often are we want to do this every Sunday or something. And when you're at that festival, say to people like, hey, this was great, you know, here's a flier. Wouldn't this be so cool if this was a more regular thing? Wouldn't this be so nice if it was that?

00:29:51:27 - 00:30:20:21
Carter Lavin
And just get people when they're having that moment say, yeah, this is cool. And I think one thing that's like really promising about kind of active towns and this type of political work is you're, you're kind of instantly building constituencies and people very at a certain moments become very radicalized groups. You know, you talk to a person who is just crossing a dangerous street, you say, hey, do you want a better crosswalk?

00:30:20:28 - 00:30:39:06
Carter Lavin
And they'll say, Yeah, And if you, you know, give them a flier, get them to sign a thing, they'll do it then. But 5 minutes ago or 5 minutes from them in that, you know, that was just like a deeply traumatic moment. But they've just kind of rolled with and you have to interrupt the person at that moment say, hey, this could be different.

00:30:39:09 - 00:31:07:16
Carter Lavin
You know, like, I think humans have a great ability to adjust to new normals, which is sometimes great, sometimes really, really bad. But, you know, being being able to intercept people at that moment where they're like, oh, you know what? I was like right now at this, you say, Cool, can you add your name there? And I think it's one of those things that, you know, people's political identity don't does not shift all that often in the day.

00:31:07:16 - 00:31:32:08
Carter Lavin
Like if you're a union member, you're not going to like, leave the union for 20 minutes and then come back in an hour. If you're a CEO, you're not going to be like, well, now for 5 minutes. I'm really pro taxing everything. Like it's you're kind of like set on your stuff. But, you know, the second someone like another gigantic, you know, for 350 to get into their Walmart and they get out of the car and they feel like someone else is forward x 350 is about to hit them.

00:31:32:08 - 00:31:54:03
Carter Lavin
They say, you know, this should really be a speed bump here. It's like when they're driving, they don't think that's at that moment. You're like, cool. You sign them at that moment, but get them engaged. That is a moment of like potential radicalization. That's a moment where their hearts are open to this being possibility. And so capitalizing on that is really important.

00:31:54:03 - 00:32:11:10
Carter Lavin
You know, it's like like if you're if you're an advertiser, you want to advertise all the time and get people paying attention. You know, if you're if you're just, you know, DoorDash or whatever, you hit people off really hard at 11 and say, hey, lunch is coming out. This is this is the time you're open to the side.

00:32:11:12 - 00:32:36:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. It's interesting to you had mentioned, you know, the the the fact that humans do have the ability to adapt and change with the times, but with with with Carr Brain of the status quo, sometimes it's a little difficult for for them to to make that change and make that shift as was exemplified by poor Jill here.

00:32:36:24 - 00:33:02:08
Carter Lavin
Yeah. And it's and it's such a good it's such a good example And I love this tweet and the fact they went viral and all like everything around it because it's such a great example of nothing is obvious. You just absolutely cannot assume that people are not like there's all these jokes and all these wonderful memes like, Hey, you just ran smack dab into the point and got can cause like you.

00:33:02:08 - 00:33:26:29
Carter Lavin
So you hit the point that you just totally missed at the same time. And that's our role as communicators, as advocates, as activists to say, you know, this is Jill saying very seriously she's like, this didn't work and everyone else in the world like, you know, this thought they did work. This is what working looks like. And it is really important to help people understand what does success look like, What are we actually looking for and why that works out.

00:33:27:01 - 00:33:48:03
Carter Lavin
And it's one of those things where, you know, I and I live in Oakland and a city council member who I'm a huge fan of. About two years ago, a person was killed biking and there was someone said, Oh, if only there was a protected bike lane, I wouldn't have happened. And the city council member said, How would that change things?

00:33:48:06 - 00:34:26:10
Carter Lavin
And, you know, there's a lot of people who are like, What are you talking about? But it's like, Well, you have to say, that's a great question. Let me explain how that works. And it's when there's a wall of concrete, cars drive slower and like you, just like in the world of politics, which is fun fact, everything we're all doing all the time, you you have to explain and you have to assume good faith sometimes and really help walk people through it, because you're watching, you know, after towns, you're listening to this dear listener and your your mayor probably is not unless they are, in which case you're mayor.

00:34:26:10 - 00:34:51:13
Carter Lavin
Super cool keeping cool mayor. But like you're getting this like impromptu college degree in this subject, master's degree. That is not normal. That's not typical. That's wonderful. You have this wonderful expertise and, you know, things like bollards, you know, you know, this technology slip lane, things like that. No one else has any idea what you're talking about. And you just have to say, Oh, yeah, here's why.

00:34:51:15 - 00:35:09:27
Carter Lavin
You know, those weird right turn lanes, here's why they're bad and here's what you can do. And here's 20 examples. And in our town, here's three of the examples like, Oh, I just never thought about. It's like, yeah, because it's infrastructure. We don't think about infrastructure because it's like it's That's right. Yeah, yeah.

00:35:10:00 - 00:35:23:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. Well, and to your point yeah, the average citizen doesn't want to become an expert in the technology and the design and the engineering behind what makes a safe street. They just want to save street. Yeah.

00:35:23:28 - 00:35:46:08
Carter Lavin
And it's. And they don't need to. And your job is not to help them do that. Your job is to say, hey, it can be done. And so if someone says, oh, you know, I, you know, I really hate when X, Y, Z happens, you say, oh, well, there's like 20 different engineering solutions for that. But it's good to know that you don't like when X, Y, Z happens.

00:35:46:11 - 00:36:09:07
Carter Lavin
But and this is a thing that city governments get wrong a lot. Watch my language. They get it wrong a lot where they say to people in their community where they say, Hey, we'd like to make this road safer. What do you think? And then people say all sorts of things. What they should say is we are making the road safer.

00:36:09:09 - 00:36:33:18
Carter Lavin
Here's three ways we're going to do it. We are going to implement this in two months because this is very quick to do and it's going to be a one year pilot, two year pilot, five year pilot, and we'll get feedback. But before we implement this, what do you want? And it's just a big difference because at the end of the day, as you talk about let people adjust to the new normal, well, people just want is not like they don't want to be disrupted.

00:36:33:18 - 00:36:56:01
Carter Lavin
They want to live their lives, which, you know, great. And so you say cool, let's just like switch everything today. Like there's the wonderful picture of Denmark or some country where they the one day where everyone switch what side of the road they drive on and, you know, isn't that sweet? Yes, it is. They're like, we're going to roll this out as a six month pilot and every other day switch back and forth.

00:36:56:01 - 00:37:19:06
Carter Lavin
People are like, no, just either do it or don't do it. And just, you know, like in California, the biggest complaint about the high speed rail is it takes so long, like, you know, the kind of the cost doesn't make any sense to people like 500 billion or whatever, but it does not mean stuff to people. And if you said, cool, what do we need to do to finish this high speed rail in three years?

00:37:19:08 - 00:37:25:05
Carter Lavin
We're going to do that. The only. Okay, fine. I just. Just do it. Yeah.

00:37:25:05 - 00:37:27:23
John Simmerman
Stop talking about it. Just do it.

00:37:27:25 - 00:37:55:11
Carter Lavin
No. And I think that's something that, like in a world where this might come as a huge shock. So there are some problems in the world, and some of them take a really long time to fix and are really complicated. Roads are not one of those things. Like I you know, there's a slick way in by the so thing where I'm most likely to die actually got closed down this week because there's just some road construction on it and they closed down it.

00:37:55:17 - 00:38:13:26
Carter Lavin
They just said, okay, let's put up some big plastic barriers. We have some construction crew. We just did it. I knew it. I could go close down. I felt like protesters do this all the time. They close down freeways not for the point of closing down freeways to say freeways are bad. They tend to do it about other things.

00:38:13:28 - 00:38:28:04
Carter Lavin
But it shows you can close down three, two ways. It's not that hard. It takes maybe, you know, 100 people if it's just the people or a couple of people and some Jersey barriers like. But these implementations very quick, you know.

00:38:28:07 - 00:38:39:05
John Simmerman
Some and sometimes Mother Nature can help. You know, 1989, the the big earthquake took down the Embarcadero Freeway. And what happens, people are.

00:38:39:06 - 00:38:59:20
Carter Lavin
Just you know, and it's one of those things where, you know, we talk about a lot in our kind of nerdy, wonky community about induced demand. And there's also demand destruction. The other the other way is true. And so if you say, well, how do we make sure people get around safer, buy bikes or electric wheelchairs or what have you?

00:38:59:20 - 00:39:28:17
Carter Lavin
So, okay, well, let's make that easier. And what about car? It's like, well, if we make it easier, if we make that harder, people's switch, like people don't disappear into the ether. They figure out different solutions. Like humanity is very clever. We're very creative. And, you know, like there's it's our role as an actress and activist advocates and activists to present solutions and highlight the intensity of the problem and how serious we want done.

00:39:28:19 - 00:39:29:24
Carter Lavin
You know, it's like one of those things.

00:39:29:28 - 00:39:59:21
John Simmerman
And that's and that's actually what you're kind of doing. So I'll transition over to your Web site here and talk a little bit about the fact that, yes, there is a subset of the listenership and the viewership that is tuning into the Active Towns podcast and the active towns channel that, you know, at most maybe what you're going to do is, you know, talk about this with your neighbor, but some of you might want to take that next step and become more of an engaged activist and act as an advocate.

00:39:59:24 - 00:40:10:27
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about the training that you are trying to do to help move that along and help make that a little bit of an easier process.

00:40:10:29 - 00:40:31:01
Carter Lavin
Yeah. And so I do a couple of things. One, I have a kind of free once a month training on a topic. So I recently did a kind of beginner's guide to getting your bike lane. I do How to Overcome the Opposition. It's just a big like, Hey, let's talk, let's get more thinking about this. And those are free and open to the public.

00:40:31:03 - 00:40:53:15
Carter Lavin
But I also do one on one or small group trainings. Zoom our long conversation where we talk people through like, what are they trying to do? What what, what do they want to do? So now I had a session with a activist in Connecticut who wanted a protected bike lane on their street, and they were saying, you know, for them, the big issue is the mayor could not give less of a cry about what they have to say.

00:40:53:17 - 00:41:10:08
Carter Lavin
And it's like, okay, well, so they know what they want. But in the end, the issues of mayor doesn't care. So let's talk about how you get them to care and, you know, what's how do you get more people engaged? How do you two talk about this? And I had a session with a person who want to speak about that.

00:41:10:08 - 00:41:31:00
Carter Lavin
We were articulating, you know, is it a speed bump? Is it something else like a kind of a greater road closure? The big thing they hit on it was they said, look, I feel really uncomfortable talking to my neighbors about this. So like, I feel very uncomfortable talking to a stranger about this. And most of our session was like, here's how you get comfortable talking to a stranger.

00:41:31:00 - 00:41:48:23
Carter Lavin
Like you are doing these people a huge favor and I think a big part for me, which I'm trying to do, is help people articulate their vision, how people articulate what they want, and then break it down into digestible things. So I'm not here to say, here's what you should do, here's who you should be, who's where you should want.

00:41:48:25 - 00:42:08:29
Carter Lavin
Yeah, I'm here to say, Oh, you want to have a car free plaza in your city, You know, every is a cool do. Do you think it would be easier if it was just every day a car free thing? Like why just Friday? Why not Tuesday? Let's talk about that. Because I think a lot of times it can be very lonely in this world where you say, Oh, I'm the only one who cares.

00:42:08:29 - 00:42:26:20
Carter Lavin
And so any time I bring up this idea, my partner rolls their eyes and my friends say, Oh, here we go again. And I'm like, okay, now let's sit down. Tell me your idea. Tell me your you know, we should just have free shuttles to the park and, you know, barbecue bus to the park and, you know, band cars.

00:42:26:27 - 00:42:49:25
Carter Lavin
It's like, okay, if that's what you want, you could win that. Here's what that would take. Here's a way that might be an path to victory. Here is an easier it might be an easier goal. But these are all learnable skills. These are all teachable skills. No one comes into the world knowing all this stuff. You learn it through experience, you run it through people talking to you, you learn through books.

00:42:49:27 - 00:43:09:03
Carter Lavin
And I have a lot of life doing that. And so for someone who says, you know, Hey, I'm in Kent, I'm in one of the many wonderful cantons of America, and I really want to get a bus pulled out, how the heck do I do that? It's like, great, that's a great goal. Let's talk.

00:43:09:05 - 00:43:41:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. And so part of part of what you're doing is is helping with this. And this is sponsor and activist and this is your map from one of the recent trainings that you've done. So you've you starting to, you know, get people tuning in from around the country and even somebody up in Alaska. Good deal. Talk a little bit about, you know, the types of people who are tuning in and joining in on these webinars.

00:43:41:05 - 00:44:07:27
Carter Lavin
Yeah, I think Yeah. And there's there's a lot of folks from kind of all over who've been tuning in to the big group ones which I think is wonderful and a lot of times it's folks who say, Hey, there is a bike coalition of my county, but what I really want is this one hyper specific thing, and there, you know, they're so busy fighting the Death Star, they like, you know, I need these stormtroopers out of my house kind of thing.

00:44:07:29 - 00:44:33:19
Carter Lavin
And just one of those like, yeah, you can win that fight. That is, you don't need like you don't need, I guess the Jedi that keep going as metaphorically, you don't need big headquarters to send in air support to this. Like this is something that you could do yourself. And so I think there's a lot of folks who are stepping in but are like, Oh, yeah, I tried this thing or I'm really frustrated or, you know, there are a lot of advocacy groups that are all volunteer run.

00:44:33:19 - 00:44:50:13
Carter Lavin
And so, you know, they kind of talk with each other and it's sort of this just greater need to cross-pollinate, you know, as someone who now talks to lots of activists about this stuff, who has worked with a lot of activists on a lot of issues, there's just learnings and lessons that I can kind of help cross get through.

00:44:50:15 - 00:45:14:23
Carter Lavin
And a big part is helping people kind of recognize that they are so they are advocates that this is a quote unquote job title. This is a skill set. This is not just, oh, they want this thing, they want this different world. And how do you learn about that? You're not you know, it's like if you say, hey, let's let's get a bunch of doodles together, we're going to talk about painting.

00:45:14:23 - 00:45:34:16
Carter Lavin
Like, that's just a helpful thing to really articulate that and, you know, for that matter and the sponsoring part, you know, there are some people in the world who don't have a lot of free time, but they have a lot more money than they have free. And they still share this vision. And, you know, maybe they say, okay, well, I'm not going to go knock on the door.

00:45:34:24 - 00:46:07:24
Carter Lavin
I'm not going to go pass out a flier. No interest in that stuff. But hey, Carter, here's some money. I saw you have this person in Manhattan, Kansas, go give that person a couple of free sessions. And it's like, great. You know, I know people across the country who are looking to kind of hone these skills. And, you know, I think it's one of those things where, you know, it's not if it's not like people need kind of 1 to 4 sessions to really get started in going and kind of get into trouble in their own right and they kind of get stuck on a new thing.

00:46:07:26 - 00:46:26:15
Carter Lavin
So it is like, Hey, let's get you started. Let's help you get that translate from that. Oh, you know, would be great is to okay, now I have a campaign, I have a plan. I'm going to go about doing that. And so that person just needs a little, little shout out of the nasal support, a little like, you know, it's dangerous out there.

00:46:26:15 - 00:46:44:27
Carter Lavin
Here's your story. Here's your math. Good luck. You know, that's what I'm here to do, help people. And when they email, you say, hey, I love this act times saying, what am I supposed to do? Yeah, you're doing the right thing. Like, go talk to a neighbor for the story, talk to more people. But the other part is like, you know, there's a lot of wonderful books you can read.

00:46:45:00 - 00:46:50:15
Carter Lavin
You can also talk to me. I'm here and you know, we're here to help people with that. Yeah.

00:46:50:18 - 00:47:14:24
John Simmerman
And the other thing I try to emphasize, too, is that it's one thing to like, you know, get that momentum rolling, grow the people who are under the tent and, you know, and feel like, oh, okay, we're starting to communicate as a community. And now we've got some leadership, you know, stepping in and committing to saying, hey, we're going to do this, we're going to start prioritizing change here.

00:47:14:27 - 00:47:39:18
John Simmerman
The next step is hold them accountable. And so here it says that the entire Oakland City Council is making road safety a budget priority for this year. And it goes on to talk a little bit about that. But I also saw in a recent tweet from you that, you know, the mayor just hasn't is, you know, isn't sticking behind, you know, even just getting a simple protected bike lane done.

00:47:39:20 - 00:47:42:06
Carter Lavin
So that's Bessemer, Berkeley. So.

00:47:42:07 - 00:47:48:23
John Simmerman
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm I'm missing I'm missing the other. I'm crossing the wires here.

00:47:48:27 - 00:48:11:09
Carter Lavin
Here. Yeah, but it's a huge thing. And we'll talk about bag as a whole thing. No, but it's one thing, I think also for, like, transportation for our community to recognize is that we're not asking for really controversial stuff. And as long as we ask it with a loud voice, it is easier. And so Oakland, you know, over 30 people were killed by cars last year in Oakland.

00:48:11:11 - 00:48:34:05
Carter Lavin
There's been a lot of news coverage. There's been a lot of community vigils and there's been this effort with over 1600 petition signers. Over 20 groups have signed on to this, including the Nurses Association, the Teachers Association and something like that. It's such an easy slam dunk as a politician. Say, I save lives. You know, I don't have to wait for the federal government to pass on like gun control or anything more.

00:48:34:12 - 00:48:52:12
Carter Lavin
I don't have to wait for outside whoever to do whatever. We save lives. We did a bunch of speed bumps. You know, All we did was a thousand speed bumps in Oakland. There's probably better solutions than that. But like, that would work. And they just you know, our role as activists is to say, here's a thing that you can do.

00:48:52:12 - 00:49:16:19
Carter Lavin
Here's a win and it matters. And they've all said this is our intention and, you know, we're going to deliver the letter and the petition to kind of really say great job, good intention, You got to follow through. You know, it's it's kind of like January 1st. Good job, good New Year's resolutions, like, man, go to bed at ten at 10 p.m. and, you know, eating your vegetables is great.

00:49:16:21 - 00:49:41:01
Carter Lavin
All right. Let's let's make sure you do that. Like if you to actually follow through. That's the key part. Because know, we don't need promises. We need concrete as a just a nation. And that's a big part. And I think to your point about and so I have a lot of hope for Oakland. It's a great city and I think a lot of our politicians are open to that change to take Berkeley as an example.

00:49:41:03 - 00:50:06:01
Carter Lavin
So the mayor of Berkeley. Yeah, like that's there's a bike lane, proposed bike lane thing and it's one of those possible moments where if the mayor and the council have the opportunity to say, look, this is really important, you know, there's a couple of question marks left, but we are going to move heaven and Earth to make sure this is done by July 4th.

00:50:06:03 - 00:50:27:29
Carter Lavin
Happy Independence Day, car free. And, you know, oil Independence Day. But you could say this is complicated and I commit to solving this problem by this date and that's great. And instead they just punted, which is and they said, oh, well, we're going to work on that. It's like, yeah, that's a if I said, if you ask how you're going to do the dishes, I said, Yeah, yeah, I'll do them.

00:50:28:02 - 00:50:45:06
Carter Lavin
Okay, When, when are you going to do the dishes? And if I said I'm going to do them tomorrow, I have a block and I put on my calendar like, okay, now I can leave that. And it's a key thing for activists now because see, like when is someone saying, Yeah, yeah, you know, cool your jets, don't worry, I got this.

00:50:45:14 - 00:51:15:04
Carter Lavin
And when are they saying I want to go from 10 a.m. to 1030. It's on my calendar. And does it. I like it when a politician doesn't do that when they say yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you say B.S. like what's going on. Like, so I, I don't live in Berkeley. So technically the mayor of Berkeley couldn't care less about what I have to say, but he is running to be my state senator and the city, one of the city council members in Oakland who is one of the people who said traffic violence is a serious problem.

00:51:15:04 - 00:51:40:03
Carter Lavin
I'm going to address it. He is also running to be my state senator. And as I think it's really important that it's fine to make people upset. You know, as the mayor of Berkeley, I don't know what level it thinks about me, but like, you know, I kind of like poked him a little bit saying like, hey, you know, publicly, like, why would I vote for someone who can't even get this done?

00:51:40:03 - 00:51:59:03
Carter Lavin
This is a pretty easy thing to do. Why? Why should I vote for him? You know, maybe it's because maybe as your answer to that. But right now, I haven't heard one. And helping people recognize like you're allowed to say to a politician, I didn't like that thing you did. I want you to do better. I have choices.

00:51:59:05 - 00:52:17:15
Carter Lavin
I'm going to I'm going to find someone who will treat me right. You know, it's much like in the dating world, if you're on like a first date or a second date with someone and they say some weird thing, like, nah, I'm, I could do better. And it's, I think, very important for, you know, we talk about the rhetoric escalating a lot.

00:52:17:15 - 00:52:44:10
Carter Lavin
It's it's important to recognize when you do have the opportunity to do better. So, for example, this mayor is running to be my state senator. So he in theory, is more open than other times. If he wasn't running then mayor, you'd be like, okay, I don't care. You don't live in my town, who cares? And as activists and advocates recognizing that there are Windows opportunity that arise as Windows that we can open ourselves.

00:52:44:12 - 00:53:04:24
Carter Lavin
And that's just kind of knowing how to look for that, knowing how to make that happen and use those moments is really key. And, you know, also like playing a delegate, you know, I just to take this micro example, you know, you could say, Oh, I am committing to getting this done in August and this is important and yada, yada, yada.

00:53:05:00 - 00:53:18:02
Carter Lavin
So okay, cool. Well, we'll see what happens in August. Maybe I will. Like if he pulls it off by August, maybe I'll just run like windows. But I'm not saying you're the worst person in the world. Yeah.

00:53:18:05 - 00:53:48:25
John Simmerman
Well, I think this is this is actually a really important thing to to point out and is that as a a member of the society, as a voter, you have a vote, you do have some influence. And you can also use your network as a quasi bully pulpit and be able to spread the message and to be able to call people out on, you know, stuff that, you know, hey, this shouldn't be that hard.

00:53:48:27 - 00:53:54:24
John Simmerman
And, you know, now you're running for state office. Why should I, you know, vote for you?

00:53:54:26 - 00:54:16:24
Carter Lavin
And knowing how to hold like what to hold someone accountable for. So you're in Austin, Texas. There's things you know, you have a weak mayor system, as you're saying, and there's stuff that like your mayor can't stop. Highway expansion like that is not they don't it's not one of the tools they have. There are a lot of other tools that they have to do all sorts of other things.

00:54:16:27 - 00:54:32:28
Carter Lavin
And you're and you saying to them, I'm going to judge you based off of the tools that you have the ability to use and that you didn't do that one that shows that you are very engaged in informed voter and to kind of reminds us that they do have more power than they want it. So like when they say.

00:54:33:01 - 00:55:02:28
John Simmerman
I'm glad, I'm glad you said that, too, because that's kind of what is happening here in Austin. Is that a fairly large, you know, amount of the constituency of the city council and the mayor is piping up to say this is a problem? You know, we don't want to start just to run, run roughshod through the city, and we want to see something that is a better solution, whether it's completely torn down and removed and rerouted or whether it's buried.

00:55:02:28 - 00:55:41:04
John Simmerman
And we reconnect the city. And so city council has gotten that message. And so they're starting to exert some power back and some push back towards the state, you know, the state. D.O.T. It's not to say that they're going to be successful because the state has a great deal of power, but at least they are for the most part, not all members of the city council, but the vast majority of them are are pushing back and are are basically saying the right things from the perspective of the vast majority of the population.

00:55:41:06 - 00:56:15:08
John Simmerman
In when I say the vast majority of the population, what I'm really saying is that in election after election after election here in the city of Austin, the electorate has voted for bonds to basically to tax themselves, to be able to build out a safer, more equitable, more welcoming streetscape and environment, to try to encourage more transit use and try to encourage more people to be able to walk and bike because it's perceived as being a positive quality of life measure, which it is.

00:56:15:11 - 00:56:37:00
Carter Lavin
Oh well, and this is a thing that, you know, that is the joke of like the hardest words to ever say or I'm sorry, but some of the easiest, worst ever say is, oh, you know what they should do? They should do this. And and and if you're the mayor, you know, and this is when you don't have power to implement the thing, it's really easy.

00:56:37:00 - 00:56:57:28
Carter Lavin
The people do have power. And I recognize the irony of me saying this without saying this, but I think that activists in Austin who would be voting, who are voting for these bonds, who are saying, saying, okay, hey, city council, what great. Keep trying to stop that freeway. In the meantime, where's the bus? Only way. Where the bus only lanes in our community.

00:56:58:04 - 00:57:20:20
Carter Lavin
Community. And they might say, oh, well, okay, okay. Sorry. Texas vote is not allowing us to do it. You say, okay, well, here are the roads that the City of Awesome fully owns itself. Here are the ones that make a grid around the Department of Transportation in Texas, which Austin's the state capital. Like, what if we made the Capitol grounds a concrete plaza for the 12 blocks?

00:57:20:21 - 00:57:22:24
Carter Lavin
Or, like, just you do do the.

00:57:22:24 - 00:57:25:00
John Simmerman
Things you want to know? The irony.

00:57:25:02 - 00:57:25:25
Carter Lavin
Yeah.

00:57:25:27 - 00:57:31:20
John Simmerman
That's literally what they did. But on the other side of the state capitol is they turned it into a pedestrian plaza.

00:57:31:22 - 00:57:54:01
Carter Lavin
Great. That's what you get. And you say, This is so wonderful, this is so wonderful. And you say, how do you like your petitioning there and that But like it's, you know, do the things you can do. That's, I think, the big part about liberation, where people say, oh, what I really want is this, you know, solar pong, coke pong future where it's all whatever it's like, great, that's okay.

00:57:54:08 - 00:58:16:00
Carter Lavin
What is the stuff that you can take from here to there? And yeah, so it is incrementalism and that's frustrating. And maybe you take a slightly larger step or you take a small step. Now that makes the next larger step possible. But you got to take that step and you can't be satisfied with someone who says, Oh yeah, I agree with you, but I'm not going to do anything about it.

00:58:16:00 - 00:58:39:07
Carter Lavin
It's like, okay, well, get someone in this office who will do something about it. And the thing about traffic safety and active towns is there's a million solutions. Like, you know, if we say, look, South by Southwest is great, how do we have it three times a year? And more festivals and we close down more downtown in Bogota and like or how do we take over I-35 and put South by Southwest on the freeway one day and have like a big ole, whatever?

00:58:39:07 - 00:58:45:29
Carter Lavin
It's like, what can you do then creatively? And there's a million answers on that, which is very cool. Yeah.

00:58:46:01 - 00:59:21:21
John Simmerman
So we're basically two white dudes, you know, talking about these things. How do we, you know, do a better job of trying to really activate and get members of the community that, you know, can become activists and become advocates to really represent the nature, the true spirit of of the community in any any wisdom in terms of, you know, how, you know, people can sort of find their voice to be able to to represent their communities a little better.

00:59:21:24 - 00:59:42:01
Carter Lavin
Yeah, I mean, that's an extremely important question. And I think a big part is making it easy for people to get involved and help out. And that's not just saying, hey, here's the stack of fliers which give them a stack of fliers, but asking for something that a lot of people will want. So, you know, here in Oakland, it's an extremely diverse city, lots going on.

00:59:42:04 - 01:00:05:29
Carter Lavin
So the proposal that I'm pushing on is getting $20 million for safer street funding. Not saying any particular project, not saying any particular solution, just straight should be safer. Let's get some more money for that. And that makes it easier for groups and historically ignored and overlooked parts of the city to speak up and say, Hey, that funding should come to ask me, say, great, yes, we need this.

01:00:05:29 - 01:00:31:05
Carter Lavin
The answer is everything. Like, I think a lot of times, you know, there's there's a huge history in America of racism, in particular racist urban policy. You know, freeways are white man's roads, a black man's home historically. And it's really important to recognize that there is very well-founded mistrust of any time someone says, hey, you know how we should read, you know, change up community, you know what we should do?

01:00:31:05 - 01:00:52:28
Carter Lavin
We should do X, Y and Z. And that mistrust is there because most historic changes have hurt existing populations have hurt and marginalized, already marginalized people. And so coming in and being okay saying, hey, I have this idea. I would like us to be not hit by cars. Can we talk about how to make this work for you all?

01:00:53:01 - 01:01:12:09
Carter Lavin
And that's such an important way to build bridges across communities and different ability levels. You know, folks who are in wheelchairs versus people who are blind have different needs and kind of coming in with an understanding of, hey, I have a lot of energy. I have a lot of enthusiasm and maybe more resources and more free time than other folks.

01:01:12:11 - 01:01:35:01
Carter Lavin
But you don't necessarily have the best solution, but you have a lot of the resources to come in and say, Hey, I would like to apply these resources to solutions you would like. Let's talk. I think a lot of times activists who come from privileged communities who have privileged backgrounds can get really frustrated when they say, Oh, I'm doing this thing to help out other people and why aren't they helping out more?

01:01:35:07 - 01:01:55:22
Carter Lavin
Well, you have a lot of free time. Yeah. If you're if you're watching actor sounds like you have a lot of free time, you have resources, you have flexibility, and that's wonderful. I'm not saying, you know, that's bad or anything. You're just, you know, when you're talking to people who are whose bosses later, they're really pissed off. Their bosses leave their kids because they need their boss to be on time so they can get to their work.

01:01:55:24 - 01:02:12:21
Carter Lavin
And so you can't say, Well, I hosted a webinar for 2 hours at 7 p.m. and why did they tune in? You have to say, I'm going to go and I'm going to wait on that bus. I'm going to go sit on that bus with some fliers. I'm going to talk to people. And that might feel uncomfortable. That might be a new thing.

01:02:12:24 - 01:02:32:09
Carter Lavin
So why? That's how we do it. And it's the other part is you're not doing anyone any favors. You know, it's our liberations are collectively bound up with each other. Like literally, you cannot win anything worth winning by yourself. You're going to only be able to with other people. So if you want your bus to be on time, you also need everyone else's bus to be on time.

01:02:32:09 - 01:02:50:00
Carter Lavin
You need everyone else who gets on that bus right to be on time. And so, yeah, you your job is to be that well-meaning nerd who wants to just chitchat with people and say, Hey, let's about crosswalks. And they'll be like, okay. Or they'll say, Why the hell should I talk to you? Or you said, That's a great point.

01:02:50:02 - 01:03:11:19
Carter Lavin
I'm here and I have this thing I would love to talk to you. And they might say, Buzz off. You say, okay, I'm going to talk to 20 other people on the spot. Like, you're right, you're allowed to not be universally popular, which I am saying to this crowd also into this mirror of the camera, which, you know, I need to hear occasionally, but like it's you're not going to someone's not going to be happy, that's fine.

01:03:11:21 - 01:03:33:22
Carter Lavin
You know, your goal is to get a lot of people on your side and what your side is, is beside. But a lot of people want and it's you know, it's really important to ask the right question because I think if you gave most people in America a magic wand and say you got to change one transportation related policy, they would say, oh, can we just like fly in a lot more buildings and make a lot more parking lots?

01:03:33:25 - 01:03:57:26
Carter Lavin
And it's like, yeah, that was American history. It was that. And you said, okay, besides that, what I'm hearing is you are too easy to get to downtown, right? Yeah. You said, Well, how about these five solutions? Would that make your life easier? And you find the what? And so, you know, if you think of yourself as like the waiter over to the restaurant, you're saying like, okay, I here's the menu, here's what I got.

01:03:57:26 - 01:04:29:18
Carter Lavin
I'm not going to sell that. I'm not going to be pushing those solutions. Those solutions are terrible. But here are some solutions. I'd be happy with any of these things. What do you want? And people say, Oh, baseball, that's great. Let's talk about baseball, about. But you know, you're not. And I think also like coming in with the humility of you're just some person, you're just doing something, you're making some friends, you're going to step on toes and kind of coming in with that knowledge, like, hey, it's cool.

01:04:29:18 - 01:04:42:16
Carter Lavin
Is is going to make it easier. And you like to be a little hard for some ego driven people, but it's not impossible. These are all learnable skills. And so I'm happy to chat with more people on those details.

01:04:42:18 - 01:05:08:21
John Simmerman
Love it. Love it. So Carter Levin, Carter Levin, Ecom folks, if you are interested in getting some more information, becoming more engaged in your community, becoming an activist, becoming an advocate, being more successful at it. Look it up again. Carter, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been an absolute joy, joy and honor.

01:05:08:23 - 01:05:11:28
Carter Lavin
Thank you. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for.

01:05:12:00 - 01:05:26:02
John Simmerman
He Thank you all so much for tuning. And I hope you enjoyed this episode with Carter Levin and got a few nuggets of wisdom. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel.

01:05:26:02 - 01:05:48:26
John Simmerman
Just hit that subscription button down below and bring the notifications bell to customize your notification preferences. I'll be back soon with another episode. So until then, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, Health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active tones. Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super Thanks.

01:05:48:28 - 01:05:59:24
John Simmerman
As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.