TransportationCamp West: Notes from “where next for TransportationCamp?”
I led a Sunday afternoon session, called “Where Next for TransportationCamp?”. Interesting crowd, more skewed towards policy and advocacy than hackers or techs. I have some thoughts to add, but for now here are my rough notes from the session (which you can also find in a google doc). — fkh
Where next? Beyond TransportationCamp…
A discussion.
Where next? Beyond TransportationCamp…
A discussion.
CAMPAIGN/ADVOCACY
Regional coalition.
Building a broader membership base.
Bay Area: East Bay under-represented.
Uniting advocates into a single group?
Issues
System fragmentation > group fragmentation.
Ideas
— Opportunities under SB 375 / 2013 plan / other funding channels — role for organized ridership.
— Need to engage users across modes, move from fragmented groups.
— Ways for people to engage rapidly on the topics they care about. Possible tool for this: Salsa. Decentralized control to segment the lists, focus message.
— Clearing house for regional advocacy issues - if you want to know about X go here… Could be Wordpress/google docs.
— What role should the Metropolitan Planning Organizations be playing? Integrate with MTC/others. MPOs need citizen advocacy. Needs them AND advocacy groups.
Talk to Rob / sign up on the list to stay involved w/ integrated regional advocacy.
TOPICS
Hackathon ← a bunch of programmers get together and build something
—build it agile / identify deliverables.
—advertise as a hackathon = different selection of people.
—don’t want to lose the policy angle?
—have a hack day?
Barnraising with geeks.
—BUT the tech side need to listen as well - can’t just be geeks telling other people stuff.
Watch out about making it too technical → don’t want to scare people away.
Freight → engaging with the freight lobby.
What about everything but transit?
Curing the disease vs treating the symptons — solving big probs.
Avoid being too much in the transportation silo → LU/Transportation connection.
Resilience.
More cross-pollination. Watch out for self-selecting topics. Getting the cross-cutting concerns.
This model can scale — look at BarCamp Block, 900 people.
PEOPLE
Who should be here?
— Metropolitan Planning Organizations
— Public health
— Social justice
— Transit justice.
— Environmental groups / Environmental justice.
—Elected officials.
—— Staff of agencies have to make their arguments to the electeds, so we need to hear from the electeds.
— More people of color.
— Some bike advocacy groups missing
— Transportation users
— Students / universities (spring break?). Unis have a lot to offer.
— ITS people.
— National media
— What about people outside Bay Area? Regional focus, national focus, local focus → way to fix specific geographic issues.
— People with money — investors/foundations.
This can be a conduit to get people talking — HUD, enviro groups, SC.
Connecting with Streetsblog/bloggers/media.
Housing — couch surfing, host a transportationcamp attendee. make it easier for people to attend.
(Technical) language barriers between different groups?
How did we find out?
—Gov 2.0
—SB
— SB
— Fwd email from OP
— Forgotten - prob SB
— Word of mouth - friend, prob a SB reader
— Gov 2.0
— Leaflet from TRB
— Twitter
— Railvolution
— Gov 2.0
— Looking at open source > OpenPlans
— Email from co-worker > SF Public Health
— Gov 2.0
— Gov 2.0 / facebook.
Decentralized invitation process → could be more effective
Reaching out to other human language groups.
Car-centric giveaway?
Car-centric talks at Ignite.
EVENTS
What do we do inbetween camps? Ongoing dialog.
Again and how often?
—Do it whenever! Do it bigger! (people didn’t sign up because of the waiting list)
—Bigger gives more potential.
Target tech companies.
Build projects
Is bigger actually better?
Scales of economy vs being too big and losing functionality (cf. TRB)
Community-driven → doing it during the week would be harder for many people
What is the TransportationCamp equivalent of a tech user group?
—Find organizations that want to sponsor/support because they have interest in the topic.
Resources — keeping in touch, connecting with app makers.
Desired outcomes from TransportationCamp
—Meet people.
—Meet people in related groups
—Liked a rolling open source event
—Get the notes online → have dedicated note takers in all sessions
—Ways to continue the conversation.
Outcomes that lead to action.
Other cities ./ countries!
— DC
—— connect with TRB
— Chicago
— Detroit!
— Atlanta
— Austin
— Philly.
— Beriut
— Tel Aviv
— Dublin.
— Jo’burg
— Albuquerque
— Paris
— Seoul.
