Transcript
Speaker: Hello everyone. Welcome to Dwell Time, Canada's number one top podcast amongst transit advocates. My name is Dennis Agar. I'm the executive director of movement here in beautiful Vancouver, BC. And my cohost today is Emily Stremel. Uh, I am with Edmonton transit riders in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I'm delighted to be back on Dwell Time after my feature experience, uh,
Speaker: on a previous episode whose number I don't know. it went so well that we brought you back as co-host. Oh, I'm thrilled to be back. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited for our guest to be here as well.
Speaker: Yeah, we would love to introduce Anna Zivarts from Seattle, Washington. And yeah, we're so glad you're here. Yeah, it's great to be here. I'm so excited to get to talk to some my Canadian neighbors and friends and allies in this site for better transit.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. Ana's got a really long history in transit organizing and a few different organizations, of organizational affiliations. But anyway, we'll we'll do that in the the interview portion of the of the episode. Let's start with news.
Speaker: Now entering Wilberton, doors to my left.
Speaker: We've all brought like a piece of news from our local contacts. Maybe Emily, do you want to go first? Yeah. So I guess I have a couple pieces of news, not a lot of super major transit news. But one thing that's just came out in Edmonton, which is really cool, is the information about the housing accelerator fund numbers that Edmonton has been putting up. So Edmonton has been doing a lot of really good work building missing middle housing, building housing that is really serving
Speaker: demand in the city and building transit oriented development. And the status as of March 31st, 2026 of the target projected Edmonton has hit 33,768.
Speaker: housing supply growth target number that has been projected emmonton has hit thirty three thousand seven hundred and sixty eight So that is a really good number. And in that missing middle, the projection was 8,059 and we're over 13,000 there. So just really working on that missing middle.
Speaker: And yeah, that's just really awesome for transit use and just giving more options for people to not live in the suburbs or they need to be car dependent everywhere. So that's pretty cool. And kind of the other piece of prairie news, i was reading today that there is a study, InterVeterans Equity Research and Action in Cities team has gotten federal funding for their transit and public health study. So it's a study looking at how transit may improve health. Obviously, this is something that, you know, people who take transit, big transit advocates are always talking about, always pushing for. Even a five minute walk to a bus stop can be really life changing for somebody who needs the exercise as opposed to taking a car everywhere. So yeah, just that federal funding, the program's been going on for about 10 years, but that's out of, I believe, sois Saskatoon, Montreal, Victoria, and ah somewhere else.
Speaker: I'm sorry, whichever city I'm forgetting. Yeah. I have a question about the housing thing. Like for people that haven't been to Edmonton, like what is it? So Edmonton is is just smoking every other city in Canada in terms of building homes that are close to good transit that already exists. What does that actually look like? Like if you take if you take out a single family home from a lot that's like near good transit, what what could you do with it in Edmonton?
Speaker: ah You can do a lot. So our zoning bylaw, um renewal that happened a few years ago was really broad. It basically banished the concept of a a lot zoned for a single family home. So there is no longer a restriction on lots that any lot can now have a multi-family home on it. There's like a so small scale housing zone, but it can still have multiple homes on it. It can have basement suites, secondary suites, those sorts of things. There's a big, big culture
Speaker: going on of sort of alley above the garage type suites as secondary suites as well. So for example, there is a section of four single family homes that have been bought up and are being demolished in Garneau, which is one of our mature neighborhoods and 86 units will be going on those lots. Wow. so Yeah, that is the kind of scale of just accelerating growth. So that's from four homes to 86 homes in the same amount of space, which is really exciting.
Speaker: And people have this kind of impression of Edmonton that it's, you know, an Albertan city, it just sprawls. And to a certain degree, I think it might still be doing that. But also you have the option of living in a different housing typology, like within the core of the city. and I think that's really cool.
Speaker: the yeah The rebuild, or sorry, the building rate in terms of greenfield, so kind of outside our ring road, the Anthony Henday, and redevelopment within the mature area is actually almost 50-50 in terms of units built right now.
Speaker: Wow. So kind of 50% sprawl, 50% infill? Yeah. Wild. That's my news. Okay, cool. Ana, do you want to share what's going on in your community? Yeah, hi, and thanks again for having me.
Speaker: So I'm in Seattle, and we actually today had an executive order by our mayor, Mayor Wilson, around Vision Zero. You know, we'd had quite a few cyclist deaths in the last couple of months. And I think, um you know, being someone who bikes for transportation, our mayor really understands how this impacts the community. And so we went forward with this executive order. You know, a lot of it, I think, is...
Speaker: I mean, whatever. It's it's not groundbreaking. um But having a mayor that's willing to actually stand up and and say, OK, we're going to you know actually slow down cars. We're going to daylight intersections. We're going to do more automated enforcement.
Speaker: We're gonna try to encourage more schools to do you know school streets in front of their streets so there's not all that that congestion of parents doing you know dropup drop offs and pickups.
Speaker: The thing i actually was most excited about this is is there's a lot of things that the city doesn't have full control over that have to go through our state legislature. And so he laid out some of the city's legislative agenda for our state legislature session, which starts in January.
Speaker: The one in there that I'm particularly excited about, and i really hope the city puts some energy and resources into helping pass this, is we have a contractor limit. Basically, it's sort of a handout to consulting firms and and and and sort of construction companies where any project over a certain amount has to go out to bid. So our city and cities throughout the state of Washington are limited in what work they can do in-house, even if they have in-house crews. So if they want to go out, say, and rebuild an intersection or fix some sidewalk, if it's over a certain amount, and I think it's $150,000, I think that work has to go out to bid, which is almost every project now that is over that limit. So it slows down the process, right? And it makes projects way more expensive than they need to be. um
Speaker: But unfortunately, it's been a really hard piece of of legislation to get changed because there's a whole organized... you know, base of consulting companies that benefit greatly from all this work going out to bid and workers who work for those companies, right, who also want that work. And so, you know, pulling it back in house and having it done by city workers would be awesome for a lot of reasons. And and I really hope the city can can fight on that one.
Speaker: It's such an inside baseball thing, like procurement. yeah but Yeah. Like it can have such big repercussions. And it's so exciting, this like new generation of political leaders, it feels like they're actually taking that stuff seriously.
Speaker: I hope so. Yeah. And I hope, yeah, I hope we have, you know, she has, the city has, the coalition of advocates have enough juice to really make a ah change this this upcoming year. Because, it's you know, one of the reasons we can't have nice things is that you know they they They cost too much and they're too slow because of some of the rules.
Speaker: Totally. yeah I can also share too some BRT news from Seattle, this being a ah transit podcast. but we sort of Less positive news.
Speaker: The neighborhood I live in is a one of the more low-income neighborhoods in seattle definitely historically redlined has a lot of some of the highest density of of low car no car transit dependent households immigrant households and we have ah a bus line the seven that's one of the highest ridership routes in the city it's you know it's it's it's a local bus it's not the fastest but it runs really frequently and provides a real lifeline for our community and The city has been, you know, with federal funding, trying to upgrade certain lines to BRT. And so this line was sort of in the queue to get upgraded before the pandemic. It didn't happen. And and part of the reason it didn't happen is there was a lot of pushback from the community being like, well, we we would love BRT, but we don't want to lose our local bus service. We need these local stops. There's a lot of
Speaker: elders, you know people with groceries, people with kids need this local service. The city has just, or this sorry, the county transit agency has just announced that they want to sort of pull out this this plan from 2018 and approve it very quickly. they They announced a week ago they're doing community input this week so that they can have it finalized by the end of August, the community input. And it's like, August, come on, guys. oh What's the rush? This plant has been on ice for years and years.
Speaker: ah So we are really trying to make sure that they hear from community and understand that you know what might be a five or 10 minute walk for someone who is not disabled, not a senior, not carrying stuff becomes a much longer walk to a consolidated bus stop. And so we really need to you know think hard about the trade-offs with removing stops on ah on a line.
Speaker: For sure. Yeah, like there's, I noticed there's a difference between the way Seattle does rapid ride and Vancouver does rapid bus where we always, uh, if, if a route gets a new rapid bus, uh, route added on that corridor, the local bus stays and it might be less frequent than it was before. but at least there's that local route that offers service every, you know, like 300 meters between stops. And then the rapid bus that is more like 800 or a kilometer between stops.
Speaker: we're going to have to look at at what you do. Cause yeah, I've heard pushback from our folks here that are like, well, we can't run a local bus and a rapid bus on the same route. They'll bunch. I mean, really. No.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, we're Edmonton's doing BRT engagements as well. We don't have any BRT right now. And there's a couple sort of plans in the works and yeah, one of our, our busiest corridors are actually our busiest corridor called White Ave. There's like,
Speaker: I don't even know how many buses go along there. There's two frequent buses and they're always just like bunched up, bunched up, right. Because of cars, right? Like, yeah because there's so much traffic there, but they're really looking at getting some BRT in there as well. And it has been a lengthy consultant cycle, kind of, as you mentioned with that whole procurement thing, which has been pretty frustrating for us. But yeah, I, from my understanding, like the local routes are not off the table.
Speaker: if BRT comes in and yeah we would never advocate for that because the buses go the same speed. So why can't they share the lanes? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And I guess i guess it count depends on how you define bunching, because like so we've had for a long time that on Broadway in Vancouver, like one of the busiest bus routes in you know North America, we're always bragging about you know the 99B line, which is like a like a rapid ride route. It's it's limited stop, a stop about every kilometer.
Speaker: And it's shared with the nine, which does all the local stops. And, ah you know, there was a period before COVID where both routes were coming every three minutes. And, you know, sometimes you'd have a nine and a 99 come at roughly the same time, but they both do different jobs. So it's not, I wouldn't consider that. but That's not bunching. It's bunching when it's two of the same bus, right? Yeah. like Yeah, no. So this is helpful. One other really quick question for you guys. Do you have level boarding on your BRT buses? No. Our buses, that like, I guess what I'm describing, we don't call it BRT yet. um Like it's BRT light. So it's just like the same buses, the same sidewalks, the same everything. Just the stops are less, less or further apart.
Speaker: We don't have, like, we don't have BRT yet, like no BRT, but the what's in the works level boarding is definitely on the table. So, yeah. And I mean, some of our, like all of our trains and stuff have level boarding. That's been something there for quite a long time.
Speaker: I'm totally, if you hear anyone, i'm I'm trying to get more insight. We have a level boarding on, on one of our lines here, at least, and more, more input from people who use wheelchairs about, is it working? Is it faster? Could we get time savings from that instead of, you know, stop a woman?
Speaker: For real, because you don't need to spend the time waiting for the ramp to go down. the The bus is already just, it's like a subway or something. Yeah. And for folks, you know, some folks, especially folks learning, you know, how to use a mobility device, navigating up and down that ramp can be, you know, tricky, challenging, stressful. um And so not to have to do that could be, know, nice.
Speaker: Yeah. For a lot of reasons. So. like let's but you know more stops more infrastructure costs true yeah yeah um well okay i'll bring a little tidbit from vancouver to the news segment and actually it's it's about brt as well long-time listeners will have probably heard me talk about burnaby heights before it's a ah a neighborhood that's kind of an old streetcar suburb you know it's got shops on the main street and single family homes and apartments behind it. The business association there is really organized and really opposed to any kind thing that like will threaten their parking on the street. That's like their number one raison d'etre.
Speaker: And one of our first kind of big fights when movement started was to support the idea of BRT in that corridor. And really just uphold it when, you know, there was such a strong organized lobby against it that the merchants association, you know, went to the city and said, hey, you're you're talking about this BRT or TransLink is talking about this BRT, but you city of Burnaby should oppose it and you should suggest that it go on a different corridor.
Speaker: which would totally bypass like where people are, where people want to go. It would go through an industrial area, that kind of thing. And so we've had a few rounds of this over the years, but the most recent one is is actually last summer TransLink did a survey and it was like an all out mobilization for us. We need as many people to fill out the survey as possible and say they want the bus to go through the walkable area on Hastings with shops and and apartments and everything, as opposed to the industrial area.
Speaker: And they they sat on the results for like 10 months, I think, because it was kind of dicey. You know, they're trying to mend fences between the merchants and us. and and But both sides just drove so many people to this survey. Well, last month they released the results. It turns out 12,000 people filled out this survey. Wow.
Speaker: And I'm really happy to say that on balance, we we squeaked out a win. i think around 57% of respondents said they preferred the Hastings alignment, which I'm i'm thrilled about. i mean, I wasn't even, I thought we might get just below 50, it was an out and out win. Although in that particular neighborhood, they got 55% support. We which- Considering how much rhetoric there was, like really angry rhetoric about this idea, the fact that we still scored 45 in that neighborhood, I see that as kind of a win. And it's going to be really hard for TransLink to figure out what to do next you know in this environment. Like, good luck figuring it out. But I think...
Speaker: What I always try and point people to is a street in Toronto called St. Clair West. They have street cars running down the middle. It looks like a BRT. They have stations and everything, and they still have on street parking.
Speaker: I'm not I don't think anyone, you know, on the movement side really cares whether the parking stays or goes. What we're looking for is just BRT, like like having buses running down the middle with with stations and that kind of thing to make it way more reliable.
Speaker: And, you know, Toronto shows an example of doing that with keeping the parking and and everyone can be happy. And, you know, I hope I hope that their opposition is is what they say it is. And it's not like they're just saying they oppose parking, but it's something deeper.
Speaker: But we'll see, I guess, in the next step when we eventually TransLink shows us like designs and stuff. Very exciting. That's yeah, that's that's going to be some some excitement in Edmonton too soon. as we kind of move more towards dedicated bus lanes. so That is really cool. Yeah, we we're definitely kind of going down the BRT path here because it is cheaper per kilometer. Like we've never really done BRT before. And so it's a like, okay, we know we can get a lot more on the road quicker because of it, but there's definitely going to be some growing pains because we have a lot of these arterials with lots of shops on them that are also because we have so few freeways.
Speaker: the the arterials are moving a lot of cars. And so we're just asking those arterial streets to do too much, like be freeways and shopping streets and parking and like transit streets. And so it's going to, I think it's going to take more big pushing to like make sure it ends up being a good transit street. And also that will make it quieter, hopefully, um,
Speaker: So it'll make it a better pedestrian street, safer and more relaxing and all that stuff. And so you know those are things that the merchants would like, hopefully, you know once they see it. Hopefully. yeah I mean, how was it, Ana, were you there around at all? Because like on Madison, they kind of did the same thing. like That's roughly what we're looking for. um was that was that Was that contentious at all?
Speaker: I wasn't around when it was getting approved, so I don't know. I mean, I know the construction impacts were pretty intense, but a lot of that was because they were using the federal funding for this project that was you know it tied to the BRT to do all these you know sewer upgrades and other utility upgrades. And so it really did. As they rebuilt the curves, they also took advantage of the opportunity to fix a lot of things. And so it was ah a big process. and Yeah, unfortunately, with our BRT now, because our federal government has decided to walk away from transit, what we really need is that those sort of upgrades for our other BRT lines. But instead, because there's not that federal funding anymore, they're like, well, we'll just you know maybe paint some bus lanes, but we do we can't do a full rebuild, which is really what our infrastructure needs in so many places. Yeah, it it it feels like a lot of things are on hold down there. Yeah.
Speaker: ah Hold as a hope yeah hopeful way of framing it. I hope it's not just a, yeah, her reprise, but yeah. Yeah, we've um we got to be hopeful or else we wouldn't be in the business that we're in, right? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker: Please stand behind the yellow line and allow other passengers to exit.
Speaker: Well, maybe with that, we'll pivot over to the the interview part of the show. Ana, I'm so grateful that you're here. We met when you came to Vancouver. We hosted an event called Transits Next Top Funding Model.
Speaker: And you gave a really compelling keynote about like a lot of the event was about funding models and like a competition and kind of wonky economic stuff. And then you brought it home. you like You like, okay, this is why.
Speaker: we want transit funding. And I would love to hear maybe a bit from you about like, I know you've been on a million podcasts and you've answered a million questions about your background, but whatever you want to share and maybe tell us a bit about the non-driver concept and like like making it a thing. I feel like you're just, it wasn't a thing that people talked about before, or like a concept that was in Common Paralance, but it feels like you've done so much to make it a thing. Yeah, yeah. No, and that's sort of been the reason I've been, I mean, ah yeah the the focus of my work for the last number of years now. Yeah, so the the sort of history of of my work in this space and and and, you know, working on this concept and helping helping people use it as as they can use it for their work. I myself, you know, it comes from starting out being someone who couldn't drive, who can't drive because of my visual impairment that I was born with and
Speaker: um growing up in a place where, you know, all the adults around me drove, at least that's the narrative I had in my head. It's so funny. Now that I like think back at it, i was like, oh yeah, Mrs. Denny, the elderly neighbor across the street, like she didn't drive. We actually had to like get her mail every day and bring to her because she couldn't cross this like high speed rural road that we lived on. So like, you know, in my head, everyone drove, but that that wasn't actually true even then. But, you know, driving, like I live somewhere without transit and a more rural part of, you know, county and Washington state growing up.
Speaker: And it didn't have, you know, in my life models of people who, who didn't drive. ah you know, and, and, and we're able to live full lives and and be connected to community. And so I, I was like, I need to, when, when, i after failing the driving test, after driving a car up a tree, cause I still wanted to learn how to drive but and commit friends, she commits whatever we we tried. and it was bad. Um, yeah, Leslie was in a parking lot. Um, so we weren't going very fast, but I still was like, okay, this is a really bad idea for me to drive. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, I was like, okay, I'm going to leave. And i I sort of went left for college and then ended up after college in New York City. And really was that choice to move to New York City was because of their transit system. and Specifically because their transit system ran 24 hours a day. And I was like, I will live nowhere else. I need to be able to go where I want to go at 4.00 AM m and like, nobody can stop me. Right. And it was like, so that's, that's, that's the hard of why I ended up in New York for as long as I did.
Speaker: And then, you know, having a kid being in New York, it was incredibly expensive. I mean, Seattle's expensive, but New York was more expensive. Uh, and the housing pressure of being like, oh my gosh, how we can't, you know, quite make this work. and and wanting sort of to be closer to family. We moved back in to the West Coast in 2018. And i took a job with a disability organization at that point. And right away, my i like I noticed my coworkers couldn't drive. And I was like, whoa, I'm in Washington state and there's other people who don't drive. I really thought like, cause I hadn't been in Seattle really as a young person. I was like, wow, there is like a whole world of, you know, and in in this case it was other disabled people who couldn't drive.
Speaker: And it made me really curious and it really wanting to help tell some of these stories. I think part of it was because I wanted to be able to you know tell them to my former younger self, right? And and you know other young people who are out there that are like felt very alone in not being able to drive.
Speaker: and as i started to do that work at first it was focused just around disability and we started collecting these stories and then it became really clear that like it was hard to draw a line between whether someone wasn't a driver because of their disability or if it was like these other sort of confounding factors like maybe their disability they could drive but they couldn't afford a car because they you know, didn't have a job because of their disability. And we're like, do we count them or do you not count them?
Speaker: And then we had other folks who, you know, didn't want to drive and were able to, you know, set up their lives in a way that they didn't need to drive and wanted to be part of this project. And I was like, why, why do we need to create these lines between like what the disability community needs and what other people who need transit need. Like maybe, maybe we would have more political power with a bigger coalition. And so that's sort of where this non-driver frame came to be was like a, an organizing tool in some ways, like how do we have this common sense of who we are that we're linked together and that it's, it's still really sort of bringing to the the top or, or, or, you know, emphasizing the experiences of people who have the least choices. So that people who really, you know, can't drive or can't afford to drive.
Speaker: but also recognizing that that's a continuum and that there's people who, you know, maybe could afford a car, but they'd rather not. And then there's also people who just don't want to drive and, you know, want to live in a city and like they can be part of this coalition too.
Speaker: So that's the concept and and sort of how it evolved. And then as I started talking about it more and, you know, and and collecting more stories, it I found it worked really well. I mean, and clearly like, you know, there's,
Speaker: There's definitely people who like fall on the continuum of you know driver non-driver too. Like that's not a a strict binary either, but, um and and that's fine. um But non-driver as this sort of like political identity of people who want to change the world because it impacts our lives directly, um I find it very useful.
Speaker: It's so exciting to like the the way you describe it as an intentional move to build a bigger and broader coalition around something that that has been hard to get support for. Like, that's the stuff that really gets me going. Like, yeah like, how do we get those big coalitions? That's one of the like, I kind of come of it from like a climate angle. um But I see transit as something that can be supported by so many different elements of society beyond just like crunchy granola kind of environmentalists, you know, like you can get support from from industry in some places, you can get support from elders, you can get support from, you know, like people that care about congestion.
Speaker: Like, yeah you know, and and so this non-driver concept, I think, extends it even further and it centers the people that stand to benefit the most from like more transit investment.
Speaker: Totally. I'll just say, yeah, like in the transit world, we're always talking or or, you know, maybe not us, but the people in power are always talking about choice versus captive riders, even in places where, you know, i they're trying to move away from that language, that thought pattern still exists. And, you know, making transit better for everybody doesn't, you know, that doesn't hurt everybody, but making transit better just for the people that want something shiny, that can really impact the people that need it the most and they use it as the biggest lifeline. yeah So really making that coalition of people who want to use transit, like myself, you know, i have a driver's license, I have access to a car, I just hate driving. I was in a bad car accident and I'm pretty nervous when I drive now. So I just prefer not to. And I've managed to build my life around not driving, which has been very fortunate for me. But I'm absolutely happy to, you know, link arms with people who don't have any other options because I think it makes my city better and gives more options for people who also are approaching things from the climate angle or the disability angle or things like that. so
Speaker: Yeah. And I would say, I mean, one of the things that really like helped me understand this as as, you know, or broaden my understanding was hearing from you and so many people who, I mean, because someone who doesn't drive, i actually do have like weird nightmares about driving where I'm driving, you know, have to drive and I like drive off the road. So I do have anxiety around driving, but and I realized that many people who do drive and do have to drive are half driven, you know either from PTSD or you know a family member having a crash or just the like over you know um stress and overload of driving. Like it really is stressful and uncomfortable and anxiety producing provoking for for so many people. and And I think that's there's a lot of shame and stigma sometimes around expressing that. I think less so. And i what's exciting to me is having met so many young people who are like, yeah, driving is too stressful. I don't do it. because It gives me, you know.
Speaker: too stressful yeah and like yeah like that's that's so important that we we we recognize that and make that you know normalized um to to have that reaction driving because it is dangerous and it should be stressful and we sort of like tell people it's not yeah yeah totally agreed I mean in the past week on my bike i I cheat on transit in the summer and I bike a lot because yeah it's quite nice here but You know, the number of people I see running red lights or going the wrong way on one way streets or, you know, all of these other seemingly little traffic violations that people commit. It's like, no, you these should be these should be a bigger deal because they're putting people's lives at risk. And it's OK if you don't want that stress in your life.
Speaker: Yeah, it should be fine. You should be able to be a complete member of society without it My, um I don't actually have to tell this story to too many people, but my ah my partner, when we first started dating, had a motorcycle and I thought that was, he was in a band and had a motorcycle and I was like, oh my God, so sexy. And so then I was living in New York, he was living in Connecticut. So I would spend a lot of time on weekends in Connecticut and he didn't have a car, only had the motorcycle. So that's how we would get around.
Speaker: And it was, that's what made me so so, I mean, like being on the back of a motorcycle on like a highway in the US is terrifying because cars are like merging into you and it's like your leg right there. Right. And it, and it was like, wait, you we're sort of in a car. I mean, yes, we are a little bit more protected, but we're also just like mentally protected by having this sort of ah cage around us. Right. And so, and it really, it made me realize like sort of how, how we are trained to not feel that fear of going, you know,
Speaker: I'm going to, I don't know what it is in kilometers, but 70, 80 miles an hour down a freeway with other people who are maybe paying attention. Yeah. For sure. Well, um okay. I'm going to sneak in one more question and then Emily, I'll leave it i'll leave you to you. But I want to, you you took us part of the way through your story, the origins of the non-driver concept. And could you maybe tell us more about the organization that kind of sprung from that, the Non-Drivers Alliance and like,
Speaker: You know, how did you get it going? Trials, tribulations, that kind of thing? Yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's still still getting going. But I was doing this work within a ah a federally funded disability organization in Washington state. And it was really cool. I mean, like out of, you know, sort of the progressive work in the 60s and 70s, federal funding, you know existed to fund organizations doing advocacy and protection services throughout the U.S.
Speaker: In our current political environment, that funding was really threatened and there became a lot more restrictions on it. and so it got increasingly hard to do that work there. We also you know had always wanted to be able to do more direct political organizing and and you know because we were federally funded, that wasn't an option at all. And so last October, my colleague and i Cecilia Black, who we had both been sort of running what we called the Disability Mobility Initiative, that was the name of the program, doing disability and transportation and housing accessibility work.
Speaker: left and I launched Non-Drivers Alliance and in in October. And so it's been, you know, we launched as a C3, which again, so like that's sort of like ah the the less political nonprofit. Just this summer launched our c four branch and Cecilia is helping me run that piece. And that allows us to do political endorsements. So we actually, yesterday pulled together our first slate of of potential endorsees that we have to get approved through our our fiscal sponsor board but we're pretty excited it definitely feels like we're playing for real now we had a candidate questionnaire and people responded people who have never been seen engaged with us before you know there was something about like an endorsement and they're like yeah we'll answer your questions about what we think about transit writers on the boards and yeah so so that's that's the trajectory um
Speaker: You know, funding is is the challenge. And, you know, I've been lucky that I got the funding to be able to do this work full time for the last you know year. i think you know we will continue to try to figure out if that can that's feasible in the future. i mean, we can always do it as volunteer advocates, you know, on the side, but it's it's really nice to have, you know, to have it be paid work.
Speaker: I feel the exact same way. I'm in the same boat where it's like, how much longer am I going to be able to do this amazing thing for for money? Yeah, it is. It's pretty stressful. And yeah, and then the c four work, you know, and like it's really great. And I hope we can fundraise for that. We've fundraised a little bit, but like I haven't done that sort of fundraising before and it's different. And so, you know, it's much more like this political fundraising where you have to go to people, you know, with money and ask them, to believe in you, ah which, yeah, you know, hoping we can, we can sell it.
Speaker: That funding piece is like really, it's so challenging for advocates because we're not used to like so many people approach it from the, oh, we believe in this, not the, oh, we're really good at begging for money angle. So that's definitely something like ETR is completely volunteer. i have a day job as does the rest of the board and everyone else who works. with us, but yeah, like getting more used to building that capacity through the funding and asking for those donors and just finding the right people is such a, such a mindset shift and can be so hard for, for any organization i I'm learning. yeah I wish someone had the answers, but they don't. I wish they did. you know we were meeting with a potential funder this morning and they're like, well, what's your strategic plan? like I want to see your five-year vision. And I'm like, well, that really depends on whether we have funding for staff or don't. If we're a volunteer organization, what our capacity is is so different than if we have you know two full-time paid staff. and it's hard to, it's sort of heartbreaking to like create these projections of what we want and then not get funding.
Speaker: yeah Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, you should just make like, oh, this is this is if we had 10 million a year. This is our five year vision. Oh, my God. I can't even imagine what that would be like. That kind of sounds like fun, actually. That sounds like a fun exercise. I don't even know what what does 10 million dollars even get you in advocacy? I couldn't even tell you.
Speaker: i got like a sandwich. That's all we got. That's like 100 people. It'd huge. huge. be huge and huge Yeah. And I mean, you know, there are groups with that kind of funding, you know, we're we're a state that has a lot of and not, you know, in advocacy in these spaces. And it's like, you know, it is it is possible. But oh yeah, yeah. amazing Baby steps. yeah um But it does feel it is fun to get to do the start to do the C4 stuff, which was something we wanted to be able to do for for so long. and And really, you know, with Week Without Driving in particular, you know, be able to participate and not just so like, hey, will you participate? But like, hey, if you participate, we'll endorse you.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think I think it was Veronica O. Davis in a podcast. She was saying that, like, like that was that was her advice, was like to do the C4 stuff, basically become ah like ah a political action fund in a kind of way where you can like,
Speaker: like actually have money behind your endorsements. um And I was listening to her say that and i was like, oh my God, like that is so far from what happens in Canada. Like like we're barely clinging to life in and like a non-partisan organization that can't do endorsements, that kind of thing. And like it's it's like us and like one or two other organizations in the country. Like I wouldn't even know where to start to in terms of ah an organization that had like the legal framework is there. Like you can have an organization that does endorsements and that has money, but just like having that donor base, that's okay with that.
Speaker: It's just like non-existent here. No. And it's tricky. I mean, I, you know, I think what gets tricky then is you, you know, if you're going to donors and asking them to believe in you, they also kind of get a say too. And, and what you say, right. And even with yeah like the nonprofit funding, it's, you know, who are we taking money from and what are they going to ask us to do in return? And,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's fine because it's a foundation and they're that's not quite what's on the table. But you know when we're fundraising for sponsorships for a Week Without Driving, you know it's that's that's the deal. you know I know it's a negotiation and and we are, yeah. But that's that's life. I mean, that's how we have money to do this work. And yeah.
Speaker: We were talking about Week Without Driving and obviously the differences between the advocacy approach and political approach in Canada and the US. um Have you had any Canadians participate in Week Without Driving or the Non-Driver Alliance that you know of and sort of what's your experience been?
Speaker: Yeah. yeah um so i guess So the Non-Drivers Alliance, we are mostly Washington state focused, um though we did take on sort of the coordination of National International Week without driving for this last year. Ruth Rosas, who used to work at America Walks, came over to work for me to help sort of run that coalition. And so she is our our resident expert on all the groups that participate. I know we just had a ah global week without driving webinar in July and we had some folks from, I think it was Prince Edward Island. I'm going to have to like double check. So it was one of the maritime provinces that dissipated I've been doing stuff for a couple of years. So that was pretty cool. And I think there's been some folks from Ottawa who have also been active with EnviroCenter. So i have to I have to double check that. Oh, nice. Sweet.
Speaker: Yeah, so it does. I mean, we are, you know, it it started as a US, s it started as a like a Washington state centric, you know, of movement and then grew to be a US movement. And I think now, you know, we're talking with various folks, we have some folks in Australia, some folks in Europe, who are like, how can this be useful to us? And and we would like to make it useful for us. You know, a lot of the sort of data and materials we have are pretty US focused right around like, notagesism on drivers or just the way we're framing things.
Speaker: But I don't think that, you know, ideally it could be expanded because I think anywhere that's car dominant where there's a lot of sort of car centric infrastructure, where there's a lot of car dependence, it's a useful frame to sort of talk about the people who that system fails. And so, you know, I could imagine it not being so useful in places and, you know, one place that hasn't gotten very popular is New York City, right? For good reason. Yeah, there the avenue like what what Like everyone doesn't drive. Why is this the thing? And it's like, yeah, it's not, and it's not so useful for you.
Speaker: um But, you know, I think any there's so many places in the world and you know hearing from the advocates in Australia in particular, like it's very similar issues to you know what we face in a lot of the like Sprawlsville, U.S. places. yeah And so, yeah, I think it it translates pretty well.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I know Vancouver kind of has a reputation for being a pretty you know a place where transit is doing pretty well. But we've had some instances where we would you know with bring politicians on transit and they wouldn't know how to pay. was just kind of the basics of like stepping onto the vehicle was like It was clear that it was not a daily experience for them. You know what I mean?
Speaker: Oh yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. it's It's good for them. It's yeah. Good for them to be challenged to to try it. Obviously, again, you talked about how the whole, a lot of your work is just, just really getting going with your new organization.
Speaker: Are there any other groups that you are looking towards or seeing things from that have gotten really excited or that have ideas that you want to try or steal or co-opt or anything like that?
Speaker: I mean, in the US, one of sort of the organizations that I look to that I think is much more evolved just in their their organizing capacity and funding and is is Pittsburgh is for public transit and transit for all PA is their new sort of statewide organizing arm. And they have done a really wonderful job bringing together a community of transit users and bringing having disability be a part of that and not not excluded. And so they're definitely a group I look to, you know and and and I think their their model of organizing is really strong. so there's I would say they're one of my inspirations. Definitely, you know, and but I think there's yeah in Pennsylvania, like many parts of the US is facing huge, huge transit cuts. The state funding for a transit that then you know goes to the cities and the local jurisdictions is just being gutted. And so I hope that we get more transit rider and transit organizing because there are these fiscal cliffs that many of our transit agencies are facing and really um profound cuts. So yeah, I'm hoping we can we can see that you know starting to happen in more places around you know around the US as we face these. I mean, it didn't it's wild we're you know in this place where transit is serving such a critical need. Gas prices are so expensive. you know More people are are becoming non-drivers. because of that, because of our aging population. And then we are turning around and, know, gutting services.
Speaker: This doesn't, yeah. I think that like that model, like actually Edmonton is always kind of surprised when people are asking us about provincial and federal funding, because we don't get a lot of it actually from the province, the province, especially we get like basically none.
Speaker: So a lot of the transit here is held up by the tax levy. So yeah, that that's that's a model that is feasible. Obviously, there are user fees for transit, but they only cover about 45% of operating costs. And the remainder is covered largely by the city, especially for operations. Capital budgets can come a little bit more from the feds. And then there is some support for our low-income transit pass at the provincial level. But almost all the operations is actually covered at the city level.
Speaker: which is kind of interesting. Yeah. And are you guys allowed, like, I know in some jurisdictions, like there's limits, like the state puts limits on how much local jurisdictions are allowed to raise taxes to fund things like transit. And so that's been a limitation in a lot of places in the U S is like, there's these state, like you can only do a point, whatever percent, or you can only increase, you know, this, this tax by X percent a year. And so with caps, right. Yeah. Like ours is ours is just coming from the,
Speaker: base like property tax pool. It all goes to the pool and then council decides how to allocate it essentially based on, you know, what their beliefs were when they got voted in. So that's why we always say that the most important consultation happened already. And it was who got voted in running on these platforms of pro transit, pro urbanism, those sorts of things. Yeah, I think it's essentially all Canadian cities, really their only tool that they have control over is property tax.
Speaker: they can raise it kind of to their heart's content, but very few like cities or agencies have the ability to do anything beyond that. Like I know, i think Quebec transit agencies can introduce a vehicle levy, like an annual charge per car. um But that's, that's pretty, that's a pretty rare exception. Otherwise it's just like, like Emily said, like straight property taxes. Yeah.
Speaker: And the property taxation model can kind of be played with, but, um, You know, like we can't do land value tax in Alberta under under the province. all All that there is is just property tax. There was recently the announcement of a derelict tax class for residential properties, but the same thing can't be implemented for commercial properties, unfortunately, in the same way. So there are definitely limitations on the tools that cities can play with, but it's not like line by line item that has restrictions in terms of funding.
Speaker: I'm going to lay into transit funding nerdery right now, but I i got to put my kid to bed in like 10 minutes. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Emily, I really like your last question if you want to throw it out. Yeah, I guess the last question that I had written down was what would you say to someone who's looking to approach a problem in their community for the first time? Hmm.
Speaker: I mean, i think, you know, so much of our work is driven by people's direct personal experience, right? And that that personal storytelling is so important. I think it can feel somewhat vulnerable to put yourself out there as someone who's having an experience that is, you know, especially a experience that is seen as like, like there's classism or ableism around like not driving. And if you're sharing that, you're sort of, you know, being,
Speaker: looked down on already. But I think there's there's a power in and you know people understanding those experiences um because maybe they just don't see them because their lives are you know protected and and they're in you know some sort of world where that's not what they encounter. And so I do, you know and I guess i'm my background was communication. So i like this is sort of where i the angle I approach this work with is is that that communications piece, but then also the organizing piece, right, too, like, you know, you've got to be able to connect with other people who your story resonates with, who have similar stories, and build, you know, build that work together, because, you know, that' that's, that's how you have power. So yeah, that that organizing piece is also so important, and is, you know, hard as it can be to work in coalition and and work within you know volunteer groups and in a movement. like like that's it's it's It's work and sometimes it's not fun work. you know None of us can do this alone.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, the the whole storytelling thing is something that I really have taken that away from your book and your podcast. Like, it really feels like such an effective a thing that we honestly need to be doing more of. And I'm curious if you have any tips on like how best to like, like, because ultimately I want the stories we tell to kind of burrow their way into the minds of politicians and get them to remember it. Like, is there any Do you have any tips for fellow practitioners on like how to do the storytelling in a way that like sticks and like that kind of thing?
Speaker: You know, i one of my early jobs in and my 20s was working for the ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, LGBT HIV AIDS project. and And we were based in New York City.
Speaker: And the folks in there, you know, it was a legal, ACLU is a legal organization. And so they do lawsuits, right? And that's what they're sort of known for. But they, Also, both in selecting plaintiffs, but mostly in just like the storytelling that goes into like, you know, why this case matters. They really wanted to be very intentional about who they were picking for these stories. And at the time we were working on same-sex marriage and, you know, wanting to to tell stories and, you know, in a way that could win hearts and minds. And it was, and and so my boss is there and I think, yeah, my boss was Paul Cates and he, he was wonderful and I think really helped me sort of
Speaker: start to think strategically about this, like who, like if, if you know, finding those stories that are unexpected, where it's, you know, you have these stereotypes about what this story is going to be, or who this person is, who wants or needs this thing. And then you you know, in the storytelling, they share something about themselves or their experiences, or, you know, their views of the world that are are different and unexpected than I think that draws people in.
Speaker: So using that frame and some of this transit storytelling where, you know, I think if you get to know most people well enough, there will be something in there that you're like, wow, this is really cool and interesting. And I would not have guessed this about you and having that piece, you know, be part of the story that's told to to draw people in. So that's, that's sort of the the frame, how I came to to sort of do this work.
Speaker: with with people. I mean, that all being said, like that work then and this, you know, was was sensitive and and hard and, you know, people were being asked to really put themselves out there in a way that, you know, didn't come without, it came with risks. and So I always do view this as Like, you know, it is, it's a big ask when you're asking someone to help tell their story. And so you owe it to them both to, you know, do the best you possibly can with that story as an advocacy tool and also to, you know, not just take that story and use it without inviting them to also be part of
Speaker: the advocacy, right? and like And I think that's another thing that often happens is that we you know collect stories and then like use those stories for our power versus using you know that story collecting process as a power building tool in itself.
Speaker: Absolutely. Man, it has been so great to have you here with us today. i'm I'm really grateful for your time. And yeah, I don't know what else to say. I'm just really grateful. It's been lovely. I know I want to like, yeah, we should just have regular like check-ins and yeah chats cross-border transit chats because I think this is this is super interesting. Yeah, thank you for having me here. And yeah, yeah, keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker: Thank you. And thanks to Emily for coming in to co-host. Our usual co-host, Rodney, is, I think, actively taking down the pedestrianization of Church Street in Toronto because the season is over. Hopefully they'll be able to set it back up at some point again in the future. But yeah, thank you for coming in, Emily.
Speaker: Thank you so much for thinking of me. This is always so much fun. So I'm happy to be here anytime. I won't, you know, i won't take Rodney out for any nefarious purposes or anything, but I'm always happy to step in.
Speaker: Awesome. All right. This has been dwell time. Thanks everybody for listening. Bye. Bye.
Speaker: You've been listening to Dwell Time. This show is hosted by Rodney Chan and Dennis Hagar. Producer and editor is Carrie at Heaven Keir. Thank you for listening. Details about our social media and content mentioned are in the show notes.
Speaker: We would like to recognize that this show is written, recorded, and edited on the ancestral lands of First Nations peoples across Canada.
