Transcript
Speaker: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Dwell Time. ah Sorry I was not there last episode, but I'm sure Emily and Dennis did amazing. um We have a special guest today, Jerome.
Speaker: Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit? Sure. Thanks, Rodney. Hello, everyone. I'm Jerome Horn. I currently live in Baltimore, Maryland, and I work for the local transit agency there, the Maryland Transit Administration, by day, by night. I like to say I'm you know a local advocate, community connector, community builder, someone who loves to bike around town, and i live car-free.
Speaker: Amazing. And then Dennis, sorry, for forgot. Usually we should like introduce the other comments first, but here you here's your time. My ego is bruised. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm okay though. Hi everyone. I'm Dennis. I'm in Vancouver and I do advocacy too. Perfect. Yeah. um So we'll start with our little news portion first. Now arriving at Baltimore Penn Station with connections to Amtrak, Light Rail Link, City Link Green, City Link Silver, and Local Link.
Speaker: I think it'd be cool to start with Jerome first to hear about something different first. Yeah, tell us your news item. Yeah, sure. ah go in local conversation in baltimore we recently had a there was a proposal that was put down by the boring company yes that boring company from that man who shall not be mentioned to build a tunnel underneath baltimore from our baltimore ravens american football stadium through our inner harbor to some other
Speaker: um really cool neighborhoods harbor east fells point ah for game day connectivity. Now, how serious this proposal was, we're not really sure whether or not it was intended to be Tesla's in a tunnel or pedestrian tunnel. There was a lot of back and forth about that, but it made the local paper and sparked quite a bit of discussion and just trying to get people to understand the realities of space and geometry and why Tesla's in a tunnel are probably not the best ah use of
Speaker: the not the best way to move people and not the the best use of limited resources and trains and buses, right, are still superior for moving lots of people in our city. So, you know, really interesting that that was revealed, that we probably kind of found out about this after the fact, but it is definitely not going to move forward. But, you know, just interesting that Baltimore was picked as a finalist by the Boring Company for consideration of such a project.
Speaker: I don't know how you can look at like, i don't know how you can look at like what's going on in Las Vegas with the existing Boring Company tunnels and think, oh, yeah, I want that in my community. Like that solves a problem I have because it just seems like it's it's slow. It's labor intensive. It's expensive. And it's like low capacity. Like what what could it possibly solve?
Speaker: Yeah, especially the whole like, it ruins the whole point, like the whole like, choke point of like the entrance and exit of it all. Like even, i think it kind of reminds me of like, I mean, just like a highway in general. and In Toronto, we have this expressway called the alllan Allen Expressway. And it was supposed to be this longer highway that connected ah multiple highways together and was supposed to go through downtown. But um Jane Jacobs was actually one of the people who helped stop this Spadina Expressway and also many other residents and community groups, including Chinatown as well. But so now it's just this like half built highway that's just like a stub. And I swear it creates more traffic than it solves because it just like suddenly ends at a random like...
Speaker: kind of major arterial and just dumps everyone out and it always backs up and there's actually a motion a council or to to like study like how do we actually kind of fix the kind of traffic mess at the end of this highway and a lot of i don't think retiming it or redoing the intersection or anything will really fix it like and one of the options is just shut down the whole highway and turn it into something else and that might be the way to go.
Speaker: but yeah, Jerome, like what, why, why do you think Maryland was kind of chosen as a finalist for this? And like, is, is I'm assuming there's like a lot of demand between this like sports stadium and like other parts of Baltimore. And are there like any like plans, like it existing bus services or any way to make that better instead of a kind of, you know, car tunnel? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I can't really speak to why we were chosen as a finalist. I think this was a negotiation and a deal between the the football team and the boring company. But, um you know, to your to your point, um clearly this is not the best way, especially on game days. where We have tens of thousands of people descending and leaving at the same times. not an efficient way to move people.
Speaker: um For context, these stadiums are very close to downtown Baltimore. So we have our sort of football stadium and baseball stadium right next to each other. And they are both served by our current light rail system.
Speaker: And so we are working on some some projects to modernize our light rail system and make it more efficient and upgrade its capacity and ability to run more frequency.
Speaker: So that should help in the coming years. And there are plenty of bus routes and and other ways that people can access the stadium. It's actually very walkable from many neighborhoods around the city as well. So they're actually, for as far as American stadiums go, they're actually not too bad in terms of their location and their connectivity.
Speaker: And so, you know, I think certainly people come from around, we have the inner harbor, this body of water in Baltimore. And I'm sure some people would like to be able to move a little faster from some of the outer reaches of that. But the best way to do that, once again, is with a combination of better buses, better trains. you know We have some maritime transit too. We have some water, what we call water taxis, which are like these main ferries. So you know I think there are improvements that we could make with those with our existing assets. to provide better game day connectivity and two other points of interest along the way.
Speaker: For sure. Water taxis always, or ferries, are always so interesting to me, especially ones that are integrated to the local agency. I know in Vancouver, right, TransLink also runs feries what it wait What do you call it? The sea bus, right? The sea bus, yeah.
Speaker: We've got a mix. We've got some ones that are not integrated. They're privately run, mostly tourist focused. And then we've got one that's run by a municipality. City of New West runs their own little ferry that has a separate fare system. so there's like a whole bunch of weird stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. And in Toronto, the city runs the like mainland to kind of islands ferry and it's like mostly recreational tourism. But there is talk about integrating it with our kind of payment system, transit payment system, presto.
Speaker: But there's also Waterfront Toronto also. Oh, I guess this is something i I can talk about locally. They created something called the East West Shuttle. So normally there's like the city run ferries and the like private water taxis, which are smaller and more flexible. You can kind of just take it whenever you want instead of the kind of set schedule from the city. But they all go from mainland to island. But this new East West Shuttle just goes like along the waterfront or it has a lot more interesting combinations you can take.
Speaker: I've been meaning to take it, but I just haven't. But because it's like a pilot, it like runs like every hour. And originally it was supposed to cost like, and it's like a smaller um kind of taxi like shuttle as well. and And the original cost was like $15. And like people were like, there was like discourse on like Blue Sky. Like no one's gonna take this that comes once an hour, cost $15. We can just like take the TTC for much cheaper and probably...
Speaker: maybe not faster, but like not worth it. But so then they actually did the kind of discounted thing where it's like now it's like $5 for until like August 15th. And I was like, oh no, like i have ride before August 15th. And then now they actually extended it to August 30th. So I still have a chance to get the discounted ride. Get over there.
Speaker: I'll try to report back. Like at that frequency and that price level, that's not transit. That's a... Yeah. Yeah. yeah And i kind of understand it's there. They're trying to pilot it. So i must I'll be excited to see like what comes of it if they think like, let's try to make it more frequent or if they're like, no, like that was a flop or then yeah.
Speaker: How about you, Dennis? What's what's cooking in Vancouver? We are in the throes of a municipal election, as are you, Rodney. All of Ontario and all of BC have their elections in the same month, October, every four years. It's starting to get heated. People are just starting to get back from ah from summer vacation.
Speaker: And so, yeah, it's getting weird. Maybe the big difference between Ontario and and BC is that we have never amalgamated anything. So we have, in TransLink's coverage area, 23 different jurisdictions having elections. So... it's you know For us in the advocacy side, it's it's a ah challenge to try and figure out like how to exert our influence right to like like get candidates to be more focused on transit. And we're doing what we can. We've you know we've picked off the top four municipalities, which I think are responsible for about 80% of the transit trips in the region.
Speaker: ah Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey. And ah we are getting candidates to do a pledge. We have polled our movementarians and we've asked them what are their biggest problems. And then we have reflected those in a series of pledge, like a pledge with a series of sub bullets that we want, you know, all the candidates to sign off on. And so we're, we're starting to get those responses. And, and hopefully, we'll be able to provide useful information to those movementarians about who signed the pledge, because we're nonpartisan in Canada, most organizations like ours, stay nonpartisan, don't endorse.
Speaker: But under that banner of not being partisan, we can still gather information from candidates about what they're willing to to sign off on and then share that outward so yeah it should it should uh continue to get spicier and spicier we have like just like all sorts of different situations across the region you know like you know in vancouver and burnaby and surrey they have municipal parties whereas other cities there's just a lot of independence and we don't have wards so you know each voter has to you know pick dozens of names off of a ballot like
Speaker: trying to we're trying to pull more people into the voter booth that otherwise might be put off by the whole thing with kind of a certain degree of simplicity of like here are the people that are that are signing our pledge and stuff so should be interesting Yeah, I know it's probably not an election year and in Baltimore, but yeah, like how, Jerome, like how's your experience been in like kind of leveraging elections?
Speaker: Like how do you organize around that in the American context? Is it also with pledges or surveys or? Yeah, certainly. we Actually, we do have a governor election coming up here. um But yeah, you know it's very similar. I'd say it depends on the locality and the city, but you know very much there.
Speaker: one of the things we've seen in the US in the last, I'd say, decade or so is that a majority, I think it's like close to 80% of transit ballot measures that have been put on the ballot during election years have passed. And so, you know, getting to that, there's definitely been a ton of advocacy outreach campaigns, petitions, you know, people going around, um you know, educating the public. And, you know, a lot of that has been led by advocacy groups, and you know, certain elected officials, of course, who are big proponents of transit have been really instrumental on that. And even transit agencies themselves. In fact, the first agency that I worked for when I lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, we successfully passed a ballot measure in 2016. And we had a really great sort of synergy where we had um sort of this coalition where we as the public agency and the government, you know our job was to educate the public, but we worked hand in hand with local advocates and they could go out and really you know sell the public on Why should I vote yes for this thing? right We weren't allowed from the agency standpoint to be like, vote for this thing and you'll get this. you know We could just say, this is what happens if it passes. If it doesn't pass, this is what happened. But there was a good partnership there with across elected officials, religious faith groups.
Speaker: advocacy organizations, everyone, you know the business, economic development, business chambers, you know really coming together to advocate for and and and kind of help people see the benefits of if we did have expanded transit. So you kind of see that happen all throughout different communities in the US when it comes to um elections and transit being on the ballot or just wanting to make sure we get ah transit friendly politicians in office.
Speaker: That's so awesome. And that like never happens here. Like a referendum for for transit is almost unheard of. But man, they have such a good track record, even in red states, like makes me wonder how it would go in Canada.
Speaker: Yeah, the the ballot measure system is always so interesting to me, like even beyond transit. And then also being able to like, kind of vote directly on like, sales tax increase of this increment to fund transit, for example.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a very interesting tool. don't know, we we were kind of briefly talking about elections and stuff. And and yeah, TTC Riders is also running, have has their pledge. And they think already have like thirty over 30 candidates who have signed on, which is really great. Nice.
Speaker: we were kind of talking about the TTC platform screen doors account, which is the profile is really cute. It's this like beaver with a construction helmet and like a wrench. ah And he, or I don't know, like this person manages to constantly like tweet about platform screen doors and has a bunch of analysis about it of how much,
Speaker: time and money has been wasted on delays caused by like things on the track or people on the track uh and also has done analysis a show like if you just do like these top five stations with these like most incidents like you can already like get a lot of the benefits and is always hounding every single politician about that online and kind of manages to bring the conversation back to platform screen doors every single time And it's actually a really interesting tactic to me because it seems to have worked. A lot of people like this person has been doing this for like a year or two and a lot of our politicians are actually starting to talk about it now and a lot more advocates are like more like it's been in the conversations in the past before but it's always been like it's too expensive. We have too many stations like
Speaker: we can't see it happening unless it's like part of a new line, which on Ontario line we'll have, which is good. But now we're seeing, yeah, some more like increased um kind of interest in it, which is really good to hear.
Speaker: And then I guess another. isn it i just wanted to, sorry to interject, but you know, sort of related to that, what's really fascinating right now in Washington, DC, the Metro rail there um They are now talking about upgrading the red line, which was actually the first line in that system to open, to full automation and platform screen door doors, retrofit. So kind of a similar situation of an an older system looking into a modern upgrade with you know those type of features.
Speaker: Yeah, like we already have, we just, we spent like years installing automatic train control on line one. So like, it's like platform screen door ready if we want to. So that's really exciting to hear for DC. And then I guess another cool thing I got to do around this election was um I got to work on, or not work, I got to like volunteer for someone's campaign.
Speaker: His name is Gabe Blanc. He kind of ran for University Rosedale. Unfortunately, he's dropped out now to support Mike Layton, who like decided last minute to run. And but I'm happy for everyone. Mike Layton is also a big transit supporter. But I got to do a really cool kind of policy campaign with him to speed up the 506 Carleton Streetcar. We did kind of did like a.
Speaker: ah policy like press conference launch and then we made a few videos about it got a lot of people talking about it like a lot of ah news media reporting about it and we got the message out there so well that um the existing councillor Diane Sachs actually put a motion into city council like a week after we did the launch to speed it up as well to ask staff to study options to speed it up and of course Gabe went to depute in support of it, but kind of got like interrogated by Diane Sachs. And she kind of tried to use it as a political win of trying to be like, ah no, it was like a really cool thing of like even though like someone didn't get elected, that like elections are a really interesting time to spread ideas or have kind of candidates feel pressure to start doing something as well. Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah. And I think both both of those things you shared are both ideas that don't really have a firm opponent, right? Like someone might oppose platform screen doors in the abstract because it costs too much and someone might oppose transit priority in the abstract because it like has negatives for for driving, but that hasn't really entered the conversation as much in Toronto. And it's really just like an opportunity for someone obnoxious on Twitter or for like a kind of a politician that comes from nowhere. to just like plant an idea in the discourse which is like a big role that like all of you advocates listening can do and then kind of the next phases of that is like okay who opposes this like why hasn't it happened like like the more strategic like thinking about the opposition part can come later and you can like you know start to really have some fun with like um, you know, identifying who your supporters are and, and kind of saying things that upset your opponents. Um, because you know, yeah, anyway, that's the next step, but that's an important thing. Honestly, like, like the, the biggest strategists say, like, you need to, if you're not upsetting someone, then your message isn't really. Next station stop he is West Baltimore with connections to CityLink pink, CityLink orange, CityLink blue, and local link. Not all doors will open.
Speaker: Please exit the train where you see a member of the crew. Yeah, I think we can move on to the next segment about talking more about Jerome and his experience with working both at transit agencies, but also kind of being like a professional advocate. It's really cool, ah both Dennis and Jerome being able to move ah around both and are kind of even better at what you do because you see it from multiple angles. So yeah, Jerome, do you want to tell us a little bit about how you got into transit originally and kind of what your kind of career has been like?
Speaker: Sure, and a land a long time ago back. now Yeah, well, my background is interesting. So I i always like start, I don't have a formal background in urban planning or policy. i actually, i have a Bachelor's of Arts in music education.
Speaker: That's the degree that I have. But, you know, I've always been interested in cities and trains since I was a little kid. Growing up here, I am originally from Baltimore. And, you know, we have our our cute little one line Baltimore Metro. But the best thing about that is our legacy trains. They have a a front window that you can see, you know, from from out sort of not quite like the Vancouver Sky train. It's fully automated. But, you know, you can go up to the front and and look and As a kid, I would always run up to that window and I'd get such a rush when the train transitioned from the elevated viaduct down into the tunnel. So it kind of started there. It was a combination of that, Thomas the Tank Engine, and probably Sim City that really got me hooked on urbanism back in the day.
Speaker: um But yeah, for whatever reason, middle school, I decided to do band, stayed in band in high school. And I said, you know what? want to go want to go be a music teacher. But all along the way, I was studying music, even after I got my degree, on the side, I was like paying attention to what was happening with different cities. And in fact, along the way, I met some folks who worked here for the transit system here in Baltimore. My family then moved down to Georgia. I met some folks who worked for MARTA, the transit system down there, and you know continued to stay in touch with those people over the years.
Speaker: And when I was 10 years old, I sent my first email. Now, this was back in 1998. I'm dating myself. um About 40% of the US had access to email at that at that time, I think. But that first email was to the CEO of the transit agency that I now work at, asking him, how can I get your job when I grow up?
Speaker: So yes, at age 10, I was thinking, oh man, I want to be a transit CEO. Anyway, fast forward many years later, get the degree in music and I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: actually don't want to teach. um But I ended up getting this job that moved me to Indianapolis, Indiana. um And it was still in music, but the local transit agency was holding a public meeting.
Speaker: And I went to that public meeting. was the first time I heard about BRT. And I was like, what is BRT? um And, you know, I was just really fascinated, made a friendship with one of the people who worked at the agency, we kept hanging out.
Speaker: And I was like, you know what, I actually, I think I want to switch careers, you know, I'm doing this music thing. But the reality is, I've always loved Cities in Transit. And I talk about it whenever I'm not doing music stuff.
Speaker: And so, um you know, kind of what what ended up happening is I ended up quitting this music advocacy job that I was doing in in Indianapolis. And I started working full time in the customer service call center of the local transit agency.
Speaker: And started applying for jobs all across the country that were like entry level jobs focused on community engagement or communications, because that was sort of my transferable skill set. it was like, all right, I don't have the technical background, but I know enough to be dangerous. So maybe public engagement, comms, that's the foot in the door.
Speaker: Eventually, i did end up getting a position after a bunch of no's. ah And it happened to be in Indianapolis at Indigo, where I started 10 years ago as an entry-level community engagement coordinator in transit.
Speaker: And the rest has sort of been history. Once I got the job, I was a sponge. I was like reading urban planning textbooks. I was watching lectures lectures on YouTube, you know, just nerding out about all this, you know urban planning and transit planning content because I didn't feel legitimate not having ah a degree or a piece of paper.
Speaker: And, you know, over the years, I've been really fortunate that I've just, I've made maybe some good decisions. There's been some luck, um but I've really, um absorbed a lot over the last decade of being in the field and has led me from going from the transit agency in Indianapolis to a short stint in the private sector to this working in professional transit advocacy at Transit Center in New York City, and then back to a transit agency here in Baltimore. And I'm happy to go into more details about some of those experiences, but that's sort of the the story arc.
Speaker: Yeah, that's super cool. And I think ah like another similarity between you and Dennis, I remember in our like previous ah episodes that Dennis kind of talked about one reason why he kind of went from working at TransLink to kind of starting movement is that through his job, he heard so much from the community, especially ah all these different requests and and comments and Dennis kind of being like, oh, like as a service planner, like I can't really make a lot of these changes. and And I think probably like you two from being in community engagement and starting the call center, like getting to hear from like riders directly really kind of informs you to be such a better kind of transit planner and and kind of see where the problems are, what people want the most. Yeah.
Speaker: Absolutely. you know that Before I officially got my first job at Indigo, working at the call center, I mean that was i learned so much right because I was hearing directly from riders, they're like, where's my bus? What's happening with this? Why can't I locate you know this resource? It was really a great education on understanding the pain points. and and the the issues from the perspective of our daily riders. And yeah, I think um me being a regular, writer having always been a regular rider myself, umt now living car free, today is officially five years living car free for me. whoa What a great way to celebrate, could go on a transit advocacy podcast. um
Speaker: But yeah, I think, you know, having that that lens to understand the perspective of riders, because we know that, you know, depending on the system or the agency or where you are, there's a lot of people who make decisions who don't actually ride the system at all, or they at least they only ride occasionally, and they don't really understand what are the daily issues that riders are going through, you know? They haven't stood out at the bus stop at night or in the cold or the blazing sun or been rained on or had the bus pass them by or just not show up at all. Right. And I think there's a lot of is this is so much you gain from being, you know, in, ah you know, fully immersed. and
Speaker: Listeners of a certain age certainly know what Numtod is if they're listening to this podcast. But if they're either younger or older than that, they might have no idea. And I would love if you could like introduce all those listeners to the concept and tell us like what role you played in that huge phenomenon.
Speaker: Numbtot, yes. Well, first we need to define what Facebook is. No kidding. So yes, Numbtot was a Facebook group. And well it still exists in some form. But Numbtot stands for New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens.
Speaker: And I did not start the group. Juliet Eldred started the group along with two other friends of hers when they were attending ah university in Chicago. And it kind of just started as a joke. This this group where they pass back memes back and forth talking about transportation or transit related things.
Speaker: And I remember I joined the group in its first year, I believe in 2017. And at the time I joined, i think there were about 5000 members. um And it eventually grew to over like 250,000 young people in their mostly 20s and 30s and some a little older from all around the world, really. um that were interested in cities and public transportation. The group actually grew so big that we ended up getting an endorsement from Bernie Sanders. There were Chicago Magazine, think, was it New York Times? We got a few like heavy hitter media articles published about the group. And then it was referenced in like industry presentations and things like that. So NumTalk, I really think,
Speaker: kind of ushered in the age of the social media urbanist. And we saw sort of, I think the rise of a lot of people who ended up eventually going to YouTube and creating their own podcast, coming out of that NumTalk group. And I'd say the other thing that was great about it is that there were all these spinoff groups that were formed for different cities.
Speaker: um And I remember there are a few Canadian ones and I tried to join almost all of them that I could. And I served as a moderator. So there was sort of these coveted moderator positions where we, you know, oversaw the group, tried to keep order and peace. We were able to ban people if they weren't behaving properly. But NumTop was really this, I think this beautiful thing that really brought awareness to a bunch of young people saying, oh hey, actually, you're not crazy for thinking, you know wondering what's wrong with my city? why is it this like you know Why isn't this the way I want it to be? it was really this great collecting melting pot for for people to discover that, hey, there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that think this stuff is cool and you know share ideas about how you can make your cities better or just throw out fun memes.
Speaker: It was incredible. I mean, I think we can trace back. There are a few things that have led us to this moment today where so many young people are interested in urbanism. um You know, YouTube, Urbanist YouTube is is one of the more recent ones, like Not Just Spikes and all that. But you go back further and you get to NumTot.
Speaker: and And that really brought millennials in on that. And beforehand, like SimCity, like you said earlier, you know, like all these kind of steps along the way that is just like drawing more people into this profession that like when I was in high school, I didn't even know what urban planning was. But like, like so many of us, we just figured out, oh, city building, like, this is the thing I have to do, because like I'm just obsessed with it. And so yeah, I just saw so much incredible conversation kind of like emerge organically out of namta and I'm taught an Elm taught, which is Expo Line memes for transit orient oriented teams, which is our local one and here in Vancouver. And that like, even the CEO of the transit agency knew about it. He was always making jokes about like, oh, those Elm tots.
Speaker: I like that got a huge laugh because he was much older and like everyone's like, what? How do you know this? Yeah, no, NumTod is definitely, you know, the group still exists. There are still people posting in the in the main group, but certainly, ah you know, it it really helped, I think, spark a movement. And that we are, you know, descendants of that and seeing the fruits of that manifest itself to this day through through this medium. So, you know, and Dennis, you said the um thing you said something really important, I think, to point out.
Speaker: I, as I mentioned, i don't have a a degree or background in urban planning. And similar, i didn't know that urban planning was a degree field until I was already in college, you know, getting my degree. Like I knew that civil engineering was a thing and i was like, oh, I don't really like math. But urban planning was just a mystery to me. And I've actually still find to this day that there are a number of people who don't realize what urban planning is or that it's a degree field that you can pursue. And so I definitely think that's something we still have. we can still work on getting more education and awareness at a early age about what urban planning is. Now arriving at New Carrollton. With connections to Amtrak, PG County Bus, and Washington Metro Rail Orange Line, not all doors will open. Please exit the train where you see a member of my crew. favorite, I love when agencies have like a flag.
Speaker: where like so then people will be like as a joke like what pride flag is that or like the one where should have like yeah or some of them were just like i think i've seen it from marta before it's just like like you never know like like someone in your life might be like gay or like lesbian or like even ride new jersey transit and it's like the flag that one got me that's so funny yeah Yeah, ah while you were gone, we were kind of talking about um the MARTA p pla Pride flag.
Speaker: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Oh, yeah, there's a whole group of systems. It was like MARTA, Houston Metro, New Jersey Transit that all have like these stripes. The Pride flags.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes. Somebody you know rides New Jersey Transit. Yes. No, we were just talking about that. Yeah, when you guys were talking about numtaught, like, that just, like, unlocked a part of my brain that I haven't thought about in a while. Like, I totally forgot. Like, people don't really talk about that much anymore. Like, I remember people used to, like, self-refer as, like, I'm a numtaught or, like you're a numtaught. But now it's, like, foamer or just, like, transit fan.
Speaker: But I do remember, like, being as, like... i did see, like, the... I was, like, part of the, like, numtaught group on Facebook when I was, like, in... like high school maybe uh yeah i was like i was gonna like ask and i but you already answered was like do like do people still like post there but i guess it's it's probably not as active before but it's probably um still going um toronto's one was called rocket riding memes for toronto oriented teens um love that but yeah it's it's really interesting to trace trace our roots in our history from like facebook group to I know like transit Twitter was a big thing. I mean, that's kind of where I think I got to know Jerome ah and then
Speaker: right Right. Like, I think we yeah I personally thought a lot about like YouTube's ah like, right, not just bikes and like that kind of sphere of people kind of getting people into urban planning. And but yeah, I think the numtaught thing was kind of like the OG thing that got a lot of especially young people really interested in in transit.
Speaker: um But yeah, no, I think a lot of people who work in transit that I know, like lot of them don't have a degree in transit planning or urban planning. Like I know like quite a lot of people who've like gone in to it through an organic way with another degree through another job. Um, so yeah, people listening, like you don't, you don't have to, there's many ways to get to work into transit or work getting into transit advocacy.
Speaker: And speaking of, uh, so how did you go from like Indigo to, um, what was it, the Transit Center? Yeah, Transit Center in New York. um Yeah, you know, I like to say that I i was always a transit advocate. Even when I was working at the agency, I sort of sometimes maybe acted like like I was an advocate um on the side.
Speaker: um You know, I, at a certain point, was, begin to grow a little frustrated with some of the constraints of just working for an agency. know, there are things you can do, there are things you can say, and there are things you definitely can't do and can't say when you are working at an agency.
Speaker: um And, you know, we fulfill a particular role at a government agency, you know, versus what the advocates can do. And I think for me, I just wanted to to approach, try to approach, how do we make our cities in transit better from a different angle?
Speaker: um and Transit Center was definitely a great opportunity and outlet to be able to do that, to be able to um maybe be a bit more vocal, right, and and bring some attention and, you know, maybe some deserved criticism to particular policies and people that needed it that maybe, you know, i couldn't quite do ah from my my perch just being at the agency.
Speaker: um And, ah you know, the way... sort of i'll be I'll be honest, i part of it was because of social media also that got me to Transit Center. And I say that, Rodney, you mentioned Transit Twitter.
Speaker: um you know I was was very active on Twitter a while ago. I'm still kind of active. I still have an account on that site for some reason, but know Blue Sky definitely migrated over. But yeah.
Speaker: You know, I really used it as a way to sort of bring attention to issues that were facing transit agencies, including some of the things that we were working through at Indigo in Indianapolis.
Speaker: um And I think I just tried to lead by example as well by talking about me writing the system and understanding, you know, as a writer, hey, I saw this problem today with our real time, you know, information. And guess guess what? I actually have the ability, the power to do something about it.
Speaker: because you know I work for the system. um So I would just often like post examples of things I saw. And I think that got the attention of the folks at Transit Center over time, because we were doing a lot in Indianapolis during the time I was there. We passed that ballot measure that I mentioned, but we also built a new downtown Transit Center, upgraded the fare payment system, did a bus system redesign, and built the nation's first battery electric BRT in the span of five years. So All of that um you know certainly attracted a lot of attention from not just the industry, but even advocates in other cities. so
Speaker: But ended up at Transit Center um as and you know focused a lot on transit leadership. people out there. talking about like what makes a good transit leader, right? Like what is a good transit CEO or just a person that works at an agency ah that is living up to the ideals that we think fulfill making the experience the best for our riders. And so that was fun getting to travel around the country, go to different conferences, work with advocacy groups around the nation on their campaigns,
Speaker: um and wrote really kind of keep tabs on not just what was happening in one city, but kind of what was happening in multiple cities, and then connecting different advocacy groups or different agency people together who were maybe facing similar challenges and going, so-and-so over here in Albuquerque is dealing with the same thing you're dealing with in Tampa.
Speaker: ah And you know it's just really a great way to to to help build community and help people see best practices from multiple places around the country and internationally as well, I want to point out. Definitely times where we'd be like, just look just look north to Canada. you know They spend twice per capita on bus service and look what happens.
Speaker: Well, Rodney's probably heard this a million times from me, but I think in every episode I mentioned it that that we're missing an organization like transit center. It's a, it's a big gap in Canada that there's not a national org that coordinates between local groups and, and tries to build capacity between them, bring funding to them. ah You know, there's transport action Canada, which is ah a great group of mostly volunteer based.
Speaker: And yeah, we just look South and see um such an amazing model for organizing capacity and, and, I wanted to ask you, Jerome, like having had that experience, like if someone listening is trying to get, you know, build rider power, like get their own kind of rider organization off the ground, do you have any thoughts on like how they can be successful?
Speaker: Yeah, I think the first thing is, you know, one, tell people to stay encouraged. um There's always other people that feel the same way. If if someone feels that transit could be better in their community, there's definitely other people that feel that way. So I think step one is like finding those people, right?
Speaker: It could be as simple as striking up a conversation with your fellow passengers on the bus or at the stop. um And, you know, Find more people like that and, you know, come together because that's that's usually the the first step there is you've got to build that group. And then, you know, I would say for people that are looking to build more capacity, um then, you know,
Speaker: Typically there are elected officials that some elected official cares about transportation or just making their community better or connecting people to jobs, something like that. You got to find out what is the thing that that elected official has that maybe if it's not directly transit, is it something that transit can help with or or is related to? um And seeking out those, those people in your local municipalities, whether it could be know a city counselor or city manager or different ways, every, every city and, and, and setup of governance is, is, you know, quite varied across both the U S and Canada. But typically um that, that would be my first step is find your fellow writers who feel the same way and then find a local elected official who um you can take your issue to. And I'd say you have to, for depending on where you are, like transit is a very specific issue.
Speaker: And sometimes for elected officials, right, they can't be single issue politicians. You have to figure out how to connect transit to other things they care about. Right. And there's plenty of connections between transit and public health. Right. Transit and jobs, transit and ah you know economic development. You could make so many different arguments for transit and housing.
Speaker: Right. For things that elected officials would care about. But I'd say start there. Yeah, I think that's, I think I've talked about this before, but I think that's why i like transit so much, even just for myself, like advocacy or like a future in working in it is that it's like that kind of centerpiece between everything. I mean, you've already mentioned like five things, but I can even think of more like social justice and climate justice and all these things. It's like such a
Speaker: by making transit better, you can like improve like so many different outcomes in people's lives. um Yeah, I think that's like super inspiring. And I'm glad that um Dennis was able to kind of kind of talked about how we need a similar kind of national organizing strategy of both knowledge sharing and ah funding and ah that we that we are kind of a little jealous of how robust your kind of advocacy system is But yeah, speaking of transit. Okay, we're doing something, something good. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's just an act of desperation having service being so much poorer, but I don't know. why You should take the win.
Speaker: Yeah. Were there any like, specific were there any wins you had or any specific campaigns that like you were memorable or that you kind of enjoyed working on the most? Like, was there anything that, yeah, that you want to talk about further there?
Speaker: Yeah, well, I think um one in particular that stands out to me, so ah Minnesota, there's an organization called Move Minnesota, and they're really active in Minneapolis, St. Paul.
Speaker: And the Twin Cities, as we refer to them, um you know, they were really successful at passing a local ballot measure that, I can't remember the exact specifics, but it definitely was going to bring in several, you know, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions a year to go to transit. And, you know,
Speaker: you know It was something that Transit Center was directly involved with, with sort of a coalition that wasn't just Move Minnesota, there were a few other groups. And um you know it was just great to see um the way the local advocates really, sort of similar to Indianapolis, built movement around not not just people who are interested in transit, right, but they worked with local faith leaders, right? They worked with, we have an organization called AARP, which, you know, focuses on like aging in place and older adults. um
Speaker: They talked about it from the housing standpoint, really it' sort of what we were just talking about, looking at all the other things that good transit does, and bringing in different groups of people um that would care. And so,
Speaker: I think it was just cool because that was a really big win and it has it's going to bring in, it's starting to bring a lot of additional revenue for transit in that, in those municipalities, which is going to allow them to really expand and improve bus service, build BRT, do some other, you know, facility improvements and other things to make, you know, riders' lives better. And so,
Speaker: um I just remember that one. But there's probably several other stories. You know, I think one other piece was sort of a based on a comm strategy. So Transit Center had a more recent report that the name, I'm blanking on the name of the report, but it was basically about how to talk about transit in a way that just resonates with the regular person.
Speaker: um And I think that is something that's also really key, like how we talk about these things, the language and words that we use does matter.
Speaker: um And focusing on um how do you, you know, we want to build a bigger tent. We want people to come into the fold and understand that transit and urbanism is a good thing and that it doesn't have to be partisan.
Speaker: um And I think that there are um that's definitely something that deserves more attention. It's just thought and care about how do you communicate about, for example, I'll give perfect example of something that I do.
Speaker: I like to say i want to take America from car required to car optional. Right. You'll never hear me say van cars. Yeah. right As much as ah in my spirit, and I love the War on Cars podcast, and I know that they're great. um As much as I feel banned cars in my spirit, right like that is just dead on arrival language. It's just not really going to be productive and get you anywhere. But if we talk about options and choices, and wouldn't it be great to have safer streets for everybody? Yeah.
Speaker: you know you You start to kind of change change change the approach a bit and invite people. We had to meet people where they are, right? And bring them along with us. We can't just whack them in the face and be like, I'm taking away your car keys. and you know One thing I try to get people to picture is is like $15,000 a year is how much the average cost of car ownership is in Canada these days. So car payments, insurance, gas, everything.
Speaker: um And maybe it's really hard for someone to imagine going from one car to zero, but for a family to go from two cars to one car, I think is a much easier thing for them to picture. Like if they lived just a little bit closer in and had access to better transit, or if the better transit was expanded and came out to reach them, all of a sudden they might not need that second car for the kid trips or to take grandma somewhere.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I'm just really trying to use, like like you said, use that language that people can identify with and connect with. We had a few young families in Indianapolis um decide to move in the corridor where our first BRT was built.
Speaker: And they went from... multiple cars down to one because they now knew that they could rely on this BRT service. They were also close to a really good trail.
Speaker: And so I think between, you know, better transit and probably a cargo bike or two, right, really starts to open up possibilities for people to imagine life with ah either no cars or less cars.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. i love Yeah. And that whole like benefit for everybody, whether you drive or take transit or live near a corridor that right is polluting or noisy.
Speaker: Yeah. Drawing that message back to how does this benefit everyone is is so important. um But yeah, from going back from ah transit center to now working again, like for a public transit agency, how has that transition been? And what what can you talk about? And what can you say?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I can say that certainly the transition back took a little bit of getting used to. um But I think there's been a lot of lessons learned. And one of the things that we used to talk about at Transit Center was something called the inside outside game.
Speaker: Basically, this idea that yeah know you've got people that work at the agencies um and we're humans, just like the advocates. And I think the inside-outside game really seeks to figure out how do we share information or how do we, um I like to say the advocates are are our our best frenemies, right?
Speaker: It is advantageous for agencies, government officials to be to to try to find common ground with the advocates and you know Vice versa, the advocates should seek to find common ground with their agencies if they can.
Speaker: um But one of the things I think i that has helped me and that I've gotten better at is no we we have some great local advocacy organizations in Baltimore.
Speaker: um And, you know, being able to just have casual conversations with them, maybe we'll hang out sometime, you know, off hours and just talk about, here's some of the challenges we're dealing with as an agency. And, you know, you as an advocate, you can go and do and say the things that maybe I can't do.
Speaker: um and trying to find like opportunities to work together. um you know Oftentimes, you know we'll tell people at public meetings, like we hear from the people who don't want projects. We don't hear enough from the people who do support things because if so um sometimes maybe a silent majority, it's like, yeah, we want better transit, but Maybe they don't take the time. And so I think you know working with those local advocates and going, hey, you know we want make sure we get get people out you know to say, hey, I actually want this new project. I want this new BRT line. I want this new LRT line to happen is really helpful.
Speaker: um And, you know, I think also just working to to educate, um helping advocates understand some of the constraints that we as an agency are under and some of the reasons why, you know, we can't just go build, you know, a new subway line that they that they really want. Like, what does it take to actually get to that subway line?
Speaker: Right. ah And i think there are issues that are political will. technical, financial, right? There are all these issues that when you're working at an agency that that um sometimes get, that that can be challenges or opportunities and in terms of you implementing new policies or building a new project or expansion. So I think the best thing um you know that that agency people can do is you know find local advocates and And help them understand just like what are some of the things you're dealing with and then figure out how you can use them to your advantage to help you advance, you know, whether it's a ah legislative priority or getting a policy that would help you, you know, make service better.
Speaker: um There's certainly a mutual exchange that can happen there. Yeah, that's so interesting because I've had a similar experience where, right, from being a user to a system, whether that's like bike share or like York Region Transit, ah now that I've worked in in both of those, from the outside in, it it's really easy to be like, oh, like, why don't you just do this? Why don't you do that? Like, why isn't there a bus stop here? And after like working there is like, there's like,
Speaker: over 200 reasons why we can't do X thing. There's so many different hurdles to jump through for what you would think is a kind of a simple fix. And obviously, theyre sometimes it is worth jumping through all those hoops to kind of get those things done.
Speaker: But then also, like, there's kind of a balance in between. And i would love to hear, like, Dennis's opinion on this as well. There are some issues, like for example, like bus lanes where like advocates will agree with like the TTC, like, yes, like we'll come and support bus lanes, we'll come speak to council to support these things. But then there's things that they kind of disagree with, like ah one big thing that a lot of both advocates but also academics and like technical experts want is for the TTC to switch on their streetcars to dual point switches instead of their kind of single point switches right now and that would allow the streetcars to move faster through intersections, be more reliable, safer and whatnot. but the TTC has seemed to be very resistant to this change or seem like it's kind of not something that they're able to do. And that's caused some sort of tension. So like, yeah, like, what do you think about when there's some of these like disagreements about like how, what's worth it, what's not worth it, what can actually make transit faster?
Speaker: And I don't, I'm not sure if sometimes it's just like resistance to change or there's like an actual thing that's like stopping them. Honestly, yeah, there's there's no hard and fast rule as to like what's the right campaign to take on. I think you you really have to just have an ear to the ground about your your local context and like figure out, um you know, how much will something cost? You know, where can I get the support base for? What's the landscape inside the agency? Like, I
Speaker: I find that inside every agency, there are people that really want to see positive change happen. And they're looking abroad. They're looking at other agencies to see what's successful there. Three door buses.
Speaker: Yeah, right? Like we're about to get three door, 40 foot buses. Pretty incredible, you know, straight from Poland. There are people at TransLink that are really excited about that and see the benefits. Like, it's clear there were some obstacles to overcome. They were like, oh, well, what if there's like a mailbox or a light post that's exactly located where that third door is? Are we going to have to reconfigure all these bus stops? And they thought about it and they decided on balance, this is a good thing to do.
Speaker: So yeah, there there' are always going to be allies. There are always going to be people that are closer to the advocacy side within an agency than not. And you just kind of have to like, that's really what this work is like. it is so like 10% technical, like the actual, like, what does a single point switch do and how does it help? And it's 90%, like, who are the personalities involved, elected staff?
Speaker: other advocates, potential coalition partners, potential opponents, and like see them all on a chessboard and figure out how you can make your way to the king on the other side. Yeah, 100%, I agree.
Speaker: Transit and pretty much everything, if you're part of a society, like everything you try to do is political. And I don't mean political in a partisan sense, but just political in the system of that we exist in, of trying to get things done. And Dennis, I think you're right on the mark of you have to understand The dynamics that are happening to the best of your extent, try to understand the dynamics that are happening inside the agency. They're happening at the political level um and outside because those all are factors.
Speaker: um a There's a recent book by Carter Lavin, Fight If You Want to Win. think that's it's called. But it's a book about transportation advocacy specifically.
Speaker: And one of the things he talks about is trying to pinpoint like things that you're going to decide to advocate for. Try to find things that are winnable. um And that that may take some digging and some homework.
Speaker: um But yeah, try to try to identify things that you think have a ah pathway to actually being implemented. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for, you know, the best automated metro system possible everywhere, right? But I think also we have to just be grounded in a little bit of like pragmatism of, okay, what is something that we know that's, you know, that that that is in the realm of financial or or or you know technical feasibility that's achievable um and get some smaller wins. And I think you get those smaller wins under your belt, it builds a case for the bigger things over time. And like incrementalism is not a bad thing too. I think sometimes people get caught up on the big flashy, we got to have this new you know subway line. um
Speaker: And while that would be great, right, I think let's find let's try to find the small things, too, that add up and make a big difference, whether it's bus stop improvements, right? Of course, Rodney, as you mentioned, you you never know how hard it could be to put in a new bench or a shelter because who owns that sidewalk? And is it the correct width? And can you get around it? But, um you know there are all sorts of things like that.
Speaker: You know, and I was going to add that you can you can try and do both at the same time. Like you can socialize the big ideas like platform screen doors on a kind of a slow track, knowing that it's going to take a while. And at the same time, you can fight for the the quicker wins. Like, let's just, you know, reprogram this signal at this one intersection and try and get those little like easy wins that cost nothing. Whereas the big long term project like man, um congestion pricing is a huge one here that like we don't talk about really at all. And, you know, it's not in the zeitgeist, um but it could be like we could be the ones that kind of just get the region to start talking about it again. It's like politically nuclear in this province. We don't have a single toll road in the entire province. But, you know, someone's got to inject it into the conversation and and we could be the ones to do that. Maybe start a congestion pricing account and how to single person. Yeah, no, because I think we talked about this before, but yeah, like seeing seeing um New York be able to implement that has been really, really ah inspiring and like actually made me realize, like okay, like this is actually within the realm of possibility in North America. I mean, in in Toronto, like we have this one, but like one toll, major toll road and everyone hates it. I grew up hating it. Like I still...
Speaker: kind of have like I feel conflicted like I know like it's a good thing but uh I hold up a lot of resentment um yeah against this uh 407 but I mean like any final thoughts anything we want to we missed or that um you wanted to talk about or kind of conclude I really liked that episode I have nothing to to add I guess one thing that i I did kind of think about while talking about this, like i was thinking about the whole like dual point switch and then right being part of a,
Speaker: election campaign is we we often talk about like advocates advocates working with or against the agency or working to convince a politician or whatnot. But I think one, shouldn't say funny because it's like a bad thing, but like one interesting thing is when like transit advocates or different transit groups have competing interests and how that goes about. Oh, it looks like Jerome, does do you have an example of that? Or like,
Speaker: ah Yes, no. Well, okay, I can start. Yeah, go yeah go ahead and start and I'll chime in. So one kind of piece of of drama that kind of started, think last year, was that one of our roads that kind of was on like the bus lane roster, Bathurst, there was a lot of discussion ah about, and for especially ah before FIFA, if we should put this bus lane in, and like TTC Riders as an organization was really for it.
Speaker: But there's this one advocate, his name is Steve Monroe, and like a lot of respect for him. Like he's like... like been an advocate longer than I've been alive. Like he runs this amazing website that like he writes about like every single board report and every single like service update and has been such a wealth of knowledge and has a really long history of advocacy. But he was kind of saying like, oh, these bus lanes won't really fix Bathurst. Like, um,
Speaker: that the TTC just needs to run operations better, like fix bunching and gapping. and And we're yeah, we agree. Like there's a lot of these other issues, but like bus lanes are something that like now, like we have the political opportunity for that now and it will help improve sometimes. And we can continue to work on these other things, but he didn't seem very convinced on that. So a lot of like anti-bus lane groups and businesses could kind of co-opt his voice and be like, see, we're not anti-transit. This transit advocate is also saying this thing.
Speaker: And then he also has the same opinion about like the whole dual point, single point switch thing where he's kind of like, oh, I don't know if it's, yeah, that that was kind of a big, I kind of had an argument with him on on Blue Sky and i I shouldn't have been as harsh, but I think being personally involved in this campaign and being like,
Speaker: Like obviously like changing every single switch in the system is going to cost a lot of money, but we're doing the strange thing where even when we're doing a lot of track replacements and replacing some intersections and stuff like that is the perfect time to make some of these improvements. But we are choosing not to. So yeah, i think there's some ah fighting, but I know in some other cities, they're like are more than one kind of transit group or kind of.
Speaker: Yeah, like Jerome, was there something you had in mind? Yeah, well, I think locally here in the greater Baltimore area, we we have multiple transit advocacy organizations. There's at least four main ones and maybe a fifth or sixth one. They're maybe not as organized. to have And yeah, it's a good it's a great problem to have. But one of the things that I've been impressed with them is they they formed something called the Transform like Maryland Transit Coalition.
Speaker: And, um you know, this is sort of an effort to, hey, we have all these different groups and some of them do have different priorities or competing priorities. How can we coalesce together and kind of come up with unified front? So I think that's an an interesting model to for for other people to look at if there are, if you're in a situation where there are multiple groups, because I think it's really helpful, right, to to get on a more unified front um from the advocacy standpoint. So you're not all coming out from different you know, having those competing visions
Speaker: you know, can can be it can definitely be problematic, right? Because if you want something actually get implemented um and you want it to be clear to if you're trying to work with elected officials or other people to get things done, they got to kind of know where to throw their energy and time behind. So, um and I'd say, you know, even even from an agency standpoint, we have, to the best of our ability, done a good job to maintain relationships with all of the advocacy groups. And at times we have brought them in um to talk with us.
Speaker: And I think that's a really great thing when we're able to do that um and and have, you know, those different groups at a table and and everyone kind of talk about like, you know, how do we all work together? You know, we all ultimately want the same things.
Speaker: um And, you know, I think those are probably some good examples of like if the agency is willing to bring in the advocacy groups and have conversations with them and the advocacy groups on their own are kind of working to form coalitions and and figure out areas of and of alignment, it can make that advocacy more powerful and effective.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's a really great place to end about collaboration, not even just between transit advocy advocacy groups, but also for transit agencies to kind of be bringing in ah people who care and are allies a lot of the time. so Okay, i gotta I'll say one more thing, and you can decide whether you want to keep this or not.
Speaker: and Related to this, you know one of the things that I do personally now is I host monthly happy hours here in Baltimore. We call them the Transit Friends Happy Hours. so And this was actually a happy hour that I inherited once I moved back to Baltimore. It was mostly like city and state transportation, like people who worked in the government coming together. but We sort of opened it up when I inherited it, and we...
Speaker: Now it's a combination of like agency, staff, and advocates that come together and just hang out. And it's you know there's nothing it's not scripted. There's nothing. It's just people having casual conversations.
Speaker: But there's a lot of power in that of just having people organically from different agencies, whether it's the transit agency or the city DOT or the state and local advocates or people who just think,
Speaker: transit is cool coming together to all be in the same place, just having their own organic side conversations. um I think it's really good to have that mix um because that you know helps break down some of those barriers. It helps kind of people understand where you know some of the challenges that might be are coming from the agency or government side and you know, some of the desires of the advocates. And so I think, ah you know, that's just something that we we try to do here locally that I think has been effective and just helping us all understand where we're coming from, at least in ah in an attempt to get on the same page.
Speaker: No, I'm really glad you brought that up. I would love to see that and in Toronto and in a lot more cities. ah Like it's it's just, that seems so powerful, not only with like kind of understanding each other better, breaking down those barriers, like you said, but I feel like these kind of one-to-one and like personal and like organic conversations, so much can come of it. Like I know a lot of people,
Speaker: my personal advocacy or or even just in general comes from these kind of unstructured conversations. Like it's it's hard when it's like at a city council or at a kind of tense, like public meeting is is always um something that can be even unproductive sometimes. So having all these kind of different ways to ah socialize between different groups and form ideas and understand is is something we should all be striving to do more of.
Speaker: Yeah, this this was really good. I'm yeah really happy with how this this turned out. Thank you so much, Jerome, for taking the time. And oh, before this ends, I wanted to because I've for our uh listeners who can't see uh jerome has his ring up ride the d shirt and he has his wall is plastered in like like legitimate not just like posters but like signs and stuff that are like real and i was like we should take it like that oh my god yeah exactly he's holding it up and like shaking it um no i want to take like uh i want to take up like i'm going to take a screenshot and then I feel like that would be like a cute thing to post online as well.
Speaker: and So everyone, everyone look, look at the Dennis. Can can we all, can you shuffle to your right? Yeah, there we go. And then I can take a screenshot of this.
Speaker: Okay. Smile. Smile. Okay. yeah out Okay. Thank you everyone for listening. Yeah. I know it's been a while, so we'll have like kind of to kind of release in a shorter time span, but yeah. Bye.
Speaker: Bye. Okay. but
Speaker: You've been listening to Dwell Time. This show is hosted by Rodney Chan and Dennis Hagar. Producer and editor is Carriette Heather 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.
