Local Motion is leading a grassroots organizing campaign in partnership with key Columbia neighborhoods. The campaign is designed to identify and lift up the voices of leaders and advocates from within neighborhoods whose residents face transportation barriers.
These leaders give voice to their neighbors’ perspectives and ideas so that they can influence important, upcoming transportation infrastructure and policy decisions.
We are working alongside residents of Columbia’s five Vision Zero priority neighborhoods, which are areas with high rates of poverty, people of color, households without vehicles, crime, unemployment, stress, and poor housing.
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING GOALS
- Go to community gathering places to speak with neighbors and learn about their transportation needs and barriers.
- Build trust and relationships with underrepresented populations to create momentum that will lead to more connections with these groups in the future, ensuring Local Motion’s advocacy represents the entire community.
- Identify neighborhood leaders who are engaged in their neighborhoods and partner with them through training, stipends, and co-creating solutions to transportation barriers.
- Strengthen our membership with lower-income people and people of color who rely on walking, biking, and transit for transportation.
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING SUCCESSES
- Inventoried walking, biking, and transit infrastructure within Vision Zero priority neighborhoods.
- Created a coalition of neighborhood leaders who live and work within the Vision Zero priority neighborhoods.
- Hosted walkability audits within each of the Vision Zero priority neighborhoods, bringing together residents, leaders, and city staff.