Robbyn Lewis on Transit, Democracy and Coalition Building
Episode Details
Transcript
Carfree herself, Baltimore Delegate Robbyn Lewis sees transit as a public good and a lynchpin of democracy. She talks with Andrea about how there’s more to it than simply painting the bus lanes, and how improving transit is absolutely a social justice issue. How do these things get addressed in today’s city? Delegate Lewis makes a great case for really understanding the tools of community engagement and coalition building. If you are looking for smart, bold, and progressive, climate-acting local leaders, start here.
Speaker 2
00:00
I am Andrea learn it, and welcome to living change a podcast, exploring unconventional, climate leadership. I talk to people who have converted their personal values into business and policy decisions and a load of different sectors. I believe that the more were visible about these changes. The more we chart the way for other leaders, wanting to create new social norms today, I am speaking with delegate, Robin Louis representing Baltimore's District 46 in the Maryland state. Slater. Hi Robin.
Speaker 2
00:34
Hey, how are you?
Speaker 1
00:37
Good is nice to meet you. I first came across Robin, through her work prioritizing the importance of safe and livable communities. Although, 30% of Baltimore residents, depend on public transit to live and work Robin is the only member of the Maryland general assembly who is car-free by choice through that choice. She actually knows the transit system, she's legislating on and that familiarity informed. Is her urgency and pursuing healthier, better funded and Equitable Transportation infrastructure? Robins dedicated bus lane legislation of 2019 laid the groundwork for faster, more reliable service, and so I wanted to start there.
Speaker 2
01:14
Dedicated bus lanes. Prioritize moving lots of people over moving individuals in a single vehicle and like, that's democracy to me the greatest good for the greatest number. Moving the most people, effectively and efficiently as way. More important than moving one.
Speaker 1
01:29
Person. Yes, yes. And I.
Speaker 2
01:31
Learned about dedicated bus lanes, traveling to other places where I saw them, like, in Vancouver and New York. And I learned that in Baltimore, a decision was made by the governor ER at the time in 2015 or so Governor, Larry Hogan and his Department of Transportation decided that in the aftermath of canceling, the red line Light Rail Project was a two billion dollar, massive infrastructure investment. In Baltimore City, and Baltimore region that would have been the largest investment in public infrastructure in Maryland. In like 100 years. Wow, he cancel that and not only denied Baltimore City, this Honestly, important economic catalytic for infrastructure project but reinforce the history of under Investments destruction of public transportation.
Speaker 1
02:28
So what does dedicated mean in terms of bus lanes?
Speaker 2
02:30
Yeah, so you don't just paint the lines. You have to enforce them. And what enforcement means, defining encroachment or impediment of the lanes as an offense, as you know, something that can be sanctioned, And yes, yes. So interfering with the bus lane, blocking the movement of a bus in a bus lane parking, your vehicle at a bus stop on a bus lane, those are offenses and those who qualify for enforcement or citation or some kind of penalty. And, so I introduced legislation after the Hogan Administration installed about five miles of dedicated bus lanes. In Baltimore City it took me literally too. Two pieces of legislation and four years to finally pass legislation that enabled, bustling enforcement the way we're doing it here in Maryland at specifically in Baltimore, which is the only jurisdiction with bus lanes. Right now the way we're enforcing or protecting our bus lanes is through automatic. Camera enforcement this takes Police out of the equation of enforcing a protecting the land, citing people who want hellenes and puts it in the domain of digital. Technology, we are using stationary automatic enforcement cameras which exists everywhere at once familiar with them, you have your red light camera, you have your speed camera. Those are stationary cameras that take pictures and calculate whether you're speeding, whether you run a red light, right? In this case, whether you are in a bus, Lane in the bus can't move because.
Speaker 1
04:08
Of you and it's just a matter of course. So it's not like the police have to come and rewrite and pull you over. And it's this whole it's just like what were used to now getting something in the mail that says, uh-huh, you all right? And then that, and then they're like, oh right like you it's, so I mean I am I know that there's a privacy kind of thing about all these public cameras but also when it comes to this sort of thing I am like yeah okay do it but I want to turn to the question of safe and easy bus access. Yes, everyone is trying to figure this out because it's connected to everything. You successfully helped pass a bill that requires the state to begin measuring and Reporting on. Non fatal. Crash injuries by race.
Speaker 2
04:47
Right? So all of this stuff is connected Improvement in transits, are a social justice issue, right? Protecting black and brown people moving through space, you know, in public space, is a social justice issue. So, you know, black person walking to a bus stop. Crossing an intersection to get to a bus stop and.
Speaker 1
05:09
Getting and looking for a bus stop. Yeah. It's all connected and.
Speaker 2
05:17
Fixing public transit is one of the most powerful ways that we can create a just Society repair, the harm of white supremacy and racism of the past, really just fix the transit system and all the other stuff will come to place the other ingredient in my thinking and in my Work, is that? I am a public health professional. So I am always thinking about population Level Health and how do we make the sort of shifts in land? Use built environment Health delivery, right? That will deliver the grids. Yeah, population and pedestrian. Safety is another one of those mechanisms for protecting and improving Public Health. I experienced issues around pedestrian safety because I am a pedestrian. We're all pedestrians at some point during our days. If you are a car-free like I am. Yes. We're more often a pedestrian and more often subject to the inequities and the dangers of moving around foot. But as a legislator policy maker and a public health, professional those things for me are inextricably entwined. So what do you do about it? Well, in addition to having been a Transit Advocate before I became a legislator, I was also really interested in built in Rent, and yes and streets public spaces, and accessibility and safety of moving around, public spaces to do some things outside of the do, the realm of legislating. Like, there's something that can't be fixed by a bill. Yes. And those are things that require Collective action. And I looked at this in my own Community. When I learned that there were many residents of the community where I live, who are as well. Now my constituents who were concerned about the experience of moving around two major arterials in our neighborhood, to Big busy streets, high volume, and high speed traffic, and that we're dangerous to move around to cross the street to live near. Yeah. It shouldn't surprise you to know that these high-speed arterial streets are causing so much harm and unhappiness. That they are the physical Vestige of the residential. Racial Red Line, red lines. Yeah.
Speaker 1
07:45
Surprise, surprise, with the same in Seattle, same in Seattle. It's.
Speaker 2
07:49
Everywhere. I mean, it was the tool. Let us put a highway down here and cut these people off. Yeah, I will stop them from coming to our park and sure enough it did and it's and it still does and it also kills people because he won't get hit by cars and who's getting hit, you know what's, so I started hearing complaints, not only from the college educated, you know, worldly, white neighbors, who ride bikes, but also from African American Legacy residents, older residents who lived in these trees, for a long time and had the same complaint. How often does that happen?
Speaker 1
08:25
Oh wait, we're going to emphasize this moment because I how often and this is the stuff that's really fun to talk to you about. It's like tell me how those came together because let us analyze it and figure out how To create more of it. So.
Speaker 2
08:38
What I did was I hired a couple of young neighbors to help me conduct a community survey we knocked over 400 doors. Wow, I do not like 200 or so people and ask them one question. And that question was this. If you could change one thing about your block your street, when you live, what would it be? He would think in Baltimore, that one thing would be crime, right? It was not for something. Like 80% of the respondents people, we spoke to said, get these cars off my street. Slow down these cars.
Speaker 1
09:20
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2
09:21
I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1
09:22
No. And this is not a.
Speaker 2
09:25
Randomized survey. Oh yeah, right. Right, right. Roll this right. Open the door. We knock doors for, I don't know, like, six weeks. That we managed to talk to. So this is a selective among people who happened to be there and talk. We want to talk to us. But I take that is still information and it is and it was great because it reinforced what I felt, hmm? And what the data suggests from other places, but no one had ever asked people in Baltimore city.
Speaker 1
09:56
Oh my gosh, the thing that you're reminding me of is this is just all you know that FTW for the win. Yeah. Every you know, everything that I kind of, you know, my bikes for climate. My plant based upon that everything that I do. I am just like listen right? If we get more people. People safely riding bikes. You who want to continue to drive your car down, the street will have less traffic to fight with, right? Like there's no, there's no, it's FTW, or there's no downside and you have to figure out how to tell that story and it sounds like you went and you got that and now you have even if its unscientific data, right? You have got this, the majority of these people we randomly walked up to send the, so I think there's something there.
Speaker 2
10:33
Exactly. And they're absolutely is, and we have to keep building on that. So I took that as sort of mandate to Build a framework for the community to act for the young wife hipsters and you know Miss. Mary's and everybody in between and I created a network of Coalition that's called a livable, streets Coalition love it. So that was the Coalition in the fall of 2019 and organize a series of meetings that brought folks across this historic racial divide, this physical barrier of these high. Speed roads, create a coalition that includes not only neighbors. But the school Community to elementary schools are part of the Coalition that includes nonprofits like the.
Speaker 1
11:23
AARP cool. They all.
Speaker 2
11:26
Saw that livable streets. I mean they have a national aging-in-place program that includes a I think they call it livable streets initiative because a street that's safe healthy and accessible for a senior citizen is also Haffley and accessible for new me real kids everybody. So they were like we have got a stake in what you're doing. They join the Coalition a couple of local nonprofits joined the end, and we also have sitting at the table with the Coalition the Baltimore City Department of Transportation Department planning and what we really want to do was create a space where residents could take action to transform the streets to make them livable. Oh.
Speaker 1
12:08
Great. So they could take it on.
Speaker 2
12:09
Themselves. Yeah. Yeah so and then covid hit we started having virtual meetings, but we took advantage of that to do some training of Coalition members and there are more than 200 people who are members of Coalition. We did a couple of Zoom training series on design thinking yeah and about 25 members on how to use design thinking to develop projects because that's what we want. We're going to do an intervention to slow down the traffic, or make the street more accessible, or whatever. And then, we also, I was so lucky the AARP. Seconded a transportation planner to the Coalition and that platter helped us design a project. Wow. So we have a project on paper, and we also have a Fiscal Agent, and we're going to be in the coming year. Bring that project that traffic-calming project to life and what's it folks Community the members of Coalition want to do is a traffic-calming project in front of one of our elementary schools, so it was Planning to a community quickly grew into a coalition which is now going to result. In some Transformations on our streets that will include black white young old Rich, poor across a historic racial divide. I mean.
Speaker 1
13:26
That's incredible. This is a no-brainer every other city in the u.s. The traffic down. I mean the people will tell you I bet you if.
Speaker 2
13:37
Someone had money for a survey I could really random.
Speaker 1
13:40
Yes, Lex.
Speaker 2
13:42
And bias out of the picture. I think people would tell us really interesting things and I think there was so much Common Ground. Yeah. There's a lot of work to do and I don't want to mislead you that this is easy. And that, no, no, no other. Here we go. Like yeah. Yeah. This is really. It's me doing it. It's me driving. Like I am the instrument of the people's will and all that is great but I still only have 24 hours in a day, right? As a delegate. And also I have a day job in.
Speaker 1
14:14
Maryland. Oh, do tell. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2
14:21
I was a full-time legislature for my first five years, and I am in my sixth year, and I was able to get a job in sort of in my field of Public Health, okay? I work as the sort of internship coordinator for Masters students at the school of Public Health at Hopkins. So I help Master students Public Health find internships, which is part of their academic requirement. They have got to do an internship while they're in the program. Wonderful. It's really much a 9 to 5 in an academic setting. That's it does allow me, you know, an income so that I can live as a legislator in Maryland. We are citizen legislators here part-time and paid accordingly, but it really is not a part-time job in the 21st century. It's really quite consuming and but paid out of like a part-time rate. So it's quite challenging stuffing. I like that giving your all giving. Her heart not really being able to cover your living expenses. Frankly, I was used up all my savings so but that means I have got responsibilities 925 at Hopkins and announcing that with my delegate work and all that.
Speaker 1
15:39
Robin, your embodying, the name of the podcast, you're living change through riding your bike, taking a bus and in both your legislative job and work helping Place students with internships. You're scaling climate.
Speaker 2
15:50
Influence. Write that down.
Speaker 1
15:52
That's my work. That My word friend. I mean, I am just like we have climate influence each of us and especially people in leadership. Lawmakers corporate leaders, Etc. We have climate leadership kind of climate influence that we can find identify and scale, and so I will say kudos to you because the social media taken time to do that, right? Is scaling climate influence and being visible riding your bike. So big kudos for that your photos on Twitter. Are you with your bike, right? And the things you're doing on Tick-Tock. Sometimes have a bike. It's just like, this is a social Norm for a leader, riding around town in, maybe a city where it's kind of unusual, maybe specifically for a person of color. Tell me about riding your bike around town and what that does both for your constituents and your?
Speaker 2
16:35
Peers. Yeah. So for my constituents, I have one starting from a, I have another, I will .
Speaker 1
16:40
Share okay, great. I was riding my bike one day and came.
Speaker 2
16:48
To an intersection. The light changed I had to wait for the light to change. So I am their son of straddling my bike waiting at the reception. And when the light was in my favor, as I am going across on my bike on the crosswalk, a vehicle comes perpendicular to me and I noticed the korma, a vehicle's not slowing down. It was an SUV, of course but look at the last minute I saw the driver look up and kind of you know, sudden break, right? And, so I was like, okay, I guess I can keep moving Yeah. But then for whatever reason, they lie to their pressure on the brake and the car just started rolling a little bit towards me. I think there may be looking at their phone, or they were fiddling with the radio, but they weren't paying attention. So I am like, hey, I was like, are you f****** crazy? Yes.
Speaker 1
17:47
Yes. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2
17:49
And then I saw the other end The crosswalk a couple a man and a woman also on their bikes and I thought oh my God those are probably constituents, and they just heard me screaming and.
Speaker 1
18:04
Cursing. Yeah, I am losing.
Speaker 2
18:07
Control in public right. Hard sake? I thought, oh God, maybe they won't know. They won't know. It's me. I know they're my constituents and hopefully they won't know what's right as I got closer than they said.
Speaker 1
18:20
Right on down. Oh my gosh, high five. I am not only. Did they.
Speaker 2
18:28
Know it was me. They thought it was great. That I was cursing at add SUV driver, and they saw someone standing up for them.
Speaker 1
18:38
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Speaker 2
19:26
On the side of my colleagues, I get a lot of teasing. Okay. From some folks, and I had a colleague just this morning, you know who's an older person used to driving and you know, takes delight and teasing me every time he sees me, he says, hey, how you do with those bike Lanes? What about those bus lanes? You go to raise the fine. You're going to raise the van. Most like, you know what, I am going to do. I am going to put you on the handlebar of my bike and ride you down the street. Hello.
Speaker 1
20:04
But at the.
Speaker 2
20:04
Same time when it comes to my colleagues, I am in very good company now. Great, five or ten years ago in this legislature. There was no sense of shared priority about investing in transit, which was how Governor Hogan really was able to get away with canceling, the red line. Now, there are about 70 members of the House and Senate, Of Maryland who has signed on as members of what we call a Transit caucus who are committed to investing in building and defending Transit as a priority in state policy. So I am in very good company.
Speaker 1
20:41
Can I ask you, do you have a sense of how many in that number also ride their bikes as Transportation any amount of time?
Speaker 2
20:49
And I am the only member whose car free. Okay, but I do have colleagues who use transit to get to work and who ride bikes But the beauty is that even for members of the transit caucus who might never set foot on a Baltimore city bus, they are committed to making sure that people who use the Baltimore city bus have the best service. Yeah.
Speaker 1
21:10
So I mean I could talk with you forever and because it's so interesting and you're doing amazing work and your examples are wonderful and should be heard by many more. So I will keep amplifying everything I see of yours but thinking of other people in your situation in local, Regional kind of lawmaking capacities. What have you learned about? Maybe and I will give you a couple topics. One is sort of social engagement or engagement with your constituents, on how to leverage that how to build that. What have you learned about bringing along, resistant peers? Give me a couple of ideas likes that you would get from your position. Say, well, I found that this works or it's really worth trying. Well, I.
Speaker 2
21:48
Think the best thing to do is in every part of life lead from strength. So, focus on the people who Support the issues you're working for you're fighting for, don't worry about nimbys.
Speaker 1
22:03
Thank you. I.
Speaker 2
22:04
Just we don't have time. The plan is melting. Yeah, focus on people. Who want what you want and bring more of those people together and you will discover what I have discovered over the last decade. Plus More people wanted the red line, then didn't want it. More people want walkable streets than don't want walkable streets. The hard part of this work is just identifying, the school and bringing them together and help them feel seen heard and Powerful. So that would be one bit of advice. The other thing I would say is deliver as quickly as you can Ryder. It's painting a crosswalk or something that people can feel and it's visible do that as quickly as you can. I think that's just a principle of Tactical urbanism. In isms and I would also say don't choose to go car free and then suffer the slings and arrows. You know you don't everybody can't be car for. You don't need to be never been as need to ride a bike, you know? But we all walk. Yeah. And so put your energy in activities and actions that you had that are in your heart and I will give you more.
Speaker 1
23:15
Energy, I love that. Now, I don't want to let you leave without asking you about the zero. Waste task force.
Speaker 2
23:20
So people of Brooklyn Curtis Bay I have been fighting to shut down a waste-to-energy incinerator in their neighborhood. That was built long before we came along, but it has negative Health and Social impacts. They want to shut down, they asked me as a legislator for help, there are all sorts of issues such as we make more ways than we can landfill. What do we do consideration? Is an option that has been chosen but the people I had gone. So I am like, what can I do? That's not a bill. The only major something. What can we do it? Bringing people together, build a coalition. So I decided and it because I know that I have a lot of colleagues in the legislature who are very environment, minded who were individually independently, introducing bills on Recycling and bills on you know landfills and all these other was like why are we come together? Maybe there's a platform we can build on that. Would address this particular community's desire to get rid of incineration? And our larger vision for a healthy Maryland, which is a zero-waste economy. So when we try to introduce a package of bills that yes, bring us closer. Yeah. And a couple of the bills did pass last year. Great will engage the community to write letters and testify in support of these bills. And we will just keep building political power around this vision. And if we can stick with it, over time, puzzle pieces, will come together and maybe some of us will grow into positions of leadership in different ways, and we will have set the foundation.
Speaker 1
24:59
Thank you. Delegate, Robin Lewis for sharing this, your leadership, and your inspiration, and your motivation, and your experience, and your background. And there are wonderful, stories. And thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a wonderful conversation.
Speaker 2
25:13
It's been wonderful for me too. I love meeting people who are interested in the stuff. It's really a joy to talk. You because you're interested in these issues and it's also really reassuring that as I am toiling and scrapping around and trying to do even just small incremental, things that it someone noticed and thinks that it's worthy. And so for that, I am grateful to you and thank you for your El Tres and I And also joining you on the podcast, and I am part of a community.
Speaker 1
25:55
You are and again, thank you. Thank you lead from strength and focus on activities and actions that are in your heart and that will give you more energy. That is such great advice for all of us. So many of us have the potential to lead in our Industries, corporate film politics and as a climate influencer, I am always pushing for action and results. So I appreciate Robin. Encouraging us to deliver on our initiatives as quickly as possible getting visible results helps Drive momentum and change snowballs. So is Robin says, let us find the people who want what we want. Not worry about those newbies and get to work. Identifying building and leveraging. Your leadership is something little may feel prepared to do but climate influence, can't wait. If your organization is ready to make the shift, reach out to me. I would love to help. Find me at www.learnsindhi.com. I am also easy to find on Twitter until it is no more and Linkedin. Living changes produced by large media. That's LA are J media. Thank you to everyone sending positive feedback and giving us ratings and reviews. They have been amazing. You have no idea how much that helps get this podcast on the radar of leaders who want to practice living change until next time paddle safely.
