You Have More Power Than You Think You Do: A Case Study In Getting Shit Done
I don't live in a walkable city.
I live in a mid-sized Texas town that only realizes that there are people who don't drive when TXDoT gives them money for active transportation infrastructure.
People constantly tell me that you just cannot walk or ride a bike in this city. It's impossible!
I do it anyway, because I firmly believe that solarpunk is a useless aesthetic if you aren't living it as best you can. We don't need technology to solve our problems we need will.
Also I do volunteer work on the political side of the local animal shelter and so I find myself at city hall several times a year and there's no bike rack.
Or rather there wasn't a bike rack.
I complained to someone, politely, informing them that I am doing this volunteer work and I don't have any safe place to lock my bike and that locking it to a handrail is inconvenient for everyone and also hideous.
A few months later a single staple-style bike rack was installed at city hall. It's not much, but I got sent a photo of someone else who got to use it before I did, clearly there was a need, if small.
Then I turned my gaze to the local grocery store, which had a bike rack, but the bike rack was terrible. It was too short for modern tire sizes, it was placed too close to the wall so one side was useless, and it was generally pretty cramped.
It took some time, but an advocate friend told me to contact the property owner instead of banging my head against the wall contacting HEB itself, and so I sent another polite complaint with a photo, explaining why it wasn't a very good bike rack and it would be really cool if we had a different one with better placement.
And about two months later, we have new staple-style racks at the grocery store, properly placed for maximum parking.
It's not a new bike lane. It's not a removal of parking minimums. It's not infill development or an active transportation advisory board.
They're just bike racks.
But that's the beauty of it. I, a person with an email address, some basic "how to be firm but polite while making an argument" skills, and a willingness to work out who to contact, fixed two problems for the local community. Trust me, I have had people wait on me to unlock my bike so they could have the "good spot." I was not the only person annoyed at the old rack.
It can be done. You're not powerless. Solarpunk doesn't have to be a wishful aesthetic.
Technology will not save us.
We have to save us.
Unfortunately so much of making the world a better place is horrible boring networking and contacting and small municipal solutions and Going Outside and Being a Person out in the real world. It’s unglamorous and unsexy and oftentimes unfun. But that’s what it means to love.
