I'm angry because I care
For the past five years, I've lived in cities where I did not intend to stay forever. These were great places to live, and I believe my enjoyment of them was greater because I knew my stay would be finite. But for the same reason, I was not invested in these places. I didn’t do any of the work to embed myself in the community, to try and make it better, even to learn about it, to care about it. Because I was just going to leave within a few years.
Last fall my spouse and I moved back to Denver, a place we’re pretty sure we want to live for a long time. I wrote about this previously, but moving back home during a time when Denver had some of the worst air quality in the world — when there was a thick brown cloud obscuring the mountains on the drive in, when it was unsafe to be outside on some days because the air pollution was so bad — was not exactly the welcome we had imagined.
More than any emotion, the thing I’ve felt most about this city since moving back is frustration. I’m frustrated by how many people drive enormous trucks or SUVs with no apparent need to use that kind of vehicle. I’m frustrated at how woefully incomplete our sidewalk network is, at how few bike lanes we have, at our weak and thready bus system. I am frustrated by the neighbors in our building who seem to spend an average of three days every week up in the mountains, because I know there are thousands more like them who have moved to Denver not for the city itself, but for the access it gives them to the wilderness and winter sports west of us.
All of these things probably frustrate me because I have a keen interest in my city being a prosperous, equitable, and healthy place to live for many years to come. I want us to be better than we are. I want dense neighborhoods where people can comfortably afford to live and work. I want a network of bike lanes to rival Amsterdam. I want to go down the street without choking on car exhaust.
Most of all, I want other Denverites to want these things too. There is a profound dissonance in the fact that so many people move to this area because they enjoy an active lifestyle in the outdoors, and yet they seem happy to travel exclusively by car. That most Denver locals and transplants loudly value the preservation of nature (in large part so they can keep enjoying it) but threaten that nature every day by driving polluting vehicles. That so many people seem okay with things as they are.
I recognize that I’m coming from a specific perspective: For one thing, I do not like driving and I avoid it whenever possible. For another, I’ve lived in a European city and seen firsthand how rad it is to use a safe, reliable bus system to get everywhere I need. Most Americans born west of the Mississippi have never experienced really good transit. That’s sad! I am okay with hunkering down for the long haul while people gradually learn just how cool it is to be conveyed from point to point by vehicles you are not operating.
But there’s more at stake than just the cultural norms of my city. Denver and other urban centers along the Front Range rely heavily on snowmelt from the Rockies to get water. Rising temperatures are steadily diminishing snowpack in the Mountain West, and could eventually cause snow to vanish from our peaks entirely for years at a time. Unless things change, rapidly and radically, it’s possible that this area will become uninhabitable in my lifetime. I’m only being a tiny bit dramatic when I say that buses and bike lanes are a life-or-death issue, here!
For a couple months now I’ve been immersing myself in the corners of the internet that deal with transportation policy and advocacy. While I haven’t yet taken any actions that I would normally consider newsletter-worthy, I’ve learned a few things and joined the mailing lists of a couple organizations that I think are worth sharing, particularly if you also live in the area and also want it to remain habitable for a long time.
I’ve begun following Denver Streets Partnership, a coalition of local organizations advocating for people-friendly streets in Denver. I’ve subscribed to their mailing list and signed a bunch of things on their website. I think they’re doing good, sustained, effective work to push for better streets in multiple areas (transit, walking, cycling, accessibility, etc.) and I hope to involve myself more deeply in their advocacy efforts.
I’ve been reading Better Buses, Better Cities: How to Plan, Run, and Win the Fight for Effective Transit by Steven Higashide. (Shoutout to Elisabeth for the recommendation!) It’s written as a sort of field guide for people who work in government, transit agencies, or advocacy organizations, but it’s arming me with facts that I can use if and when I decide to take my gripes to a local elected official.
I am plugging into more and more outlets that will connect me to news about the city and the state’s transit agendas. I’m exploring RTD’s interactive System Optimization Plan and leaving my little comments (which boil down to: more buses more often, please). I’m still very frustrated, and sometimes anxiety about all the things that urgently need to change keeps me up at night, but the more I learn the more comfort I can take in the knowledge that many, many other people are already hard at work on these issues. I don’t need to start a movement, I just need to join one.
Some recommended content
- Good news in the Land Back movement: More than 500 acres of land on the northern California Coast have been reclaimed by a group of 10 Indigenous tribes.
- I always enjoy Climate Town's funny, informative videos, but this 20-minute roast of the suburbs was especially up my alley.
- Easy(ish) sustainable choices: Just say no to gas stoves and gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers.