“I commuted from Columbia to a company in Macon, MO for 17 years. I was hired at an entry level and worked my way into senior management. We got a new General Manager who reorganized the corporate structure and as a result I was laid off - 17 years gone in a morning! I was lucky enough to find a new job one week after I got let go. After 17 years of commuting my plan was immediate - get a bike and ride it to work."
"So that is what I did."
"Before my first day I looked up PedNet and started donating monthly. You advocate for something that helped save me from some troubling times - you helped get me reconnected to nature and off the 1 hour commute. I took a temporary pay cut during COVID-19. But I still gave and will continue to give monthly to PedNet to say thanks for your work and help further the cause.”
Dawn Zuterberg
Dawn is a pillar in the community as an advocate for people with disabilities. She wants to make sure that people with disabilities are able to get where they want to go safely and comfortably. We’re honored to work with her as a Local Motion member and now as a Neighborhood Leader.
Commuting by wheelchair is Dawn’s main form of transportation. While Dawn mainly uses her wheelchair to get around town, she also uses other forms of transportation like Para-transit, and the city buses to get around Columbia. Dawn says that in her perfect transit system, those who work during the third shift would be able to get to work and back home, and that there would also be Sunday bus service. Dawn also believes that Columbia should create one large bus system, and that it would be awesome if all three colleges could come together to make improvements for the good of Columbia.
Felecia Jackson-Qualls
"I’ve been here in Columbia, well moved here in 1999. I was going through some hardships at the time when I decided to move here. I had family here I would come and visit. I decided something moved me, I came here Thanksgiving to visit my father. He retired here from the Post Office. I used to come visit him before moving here, and I had a stepbrother here as well. And something moved me and said, “You know, I need to make the move to Columbia, it will work for me. I didn’t have any fear or anything like that. No hesitancy as far as moving here, it just happened as a flow. And at the time, I was going through a divorce, and I moved here with my 8 year old son. I just needed a change in pace in life. I just, you know had had it with the big city stuff that was going on, and decided to move to Columbia and I have done very well since I’ve moved here. It was something that I had to get adjusted to because I was a big city girl, but Columbia really calmed me down. And it helped me figure out some things with the smallness. I liked the fact that it’s a family oriented city, it had good schools, and a quality of life that I was looking forward to for my son and I."
"I’ve always been into social work, and worked with children most of my life in education. I’ve done several jobs since I’ve been here in Columbia, which were good fitting jobs but you know when you want to elevate yourself you move on to something different, something better. Things moved so quickly for me that I was able to stabilize my life here in Columbia. So I consider myself well blessed since I’ve been here. As far as Job Point, I didn’t know about it. I just happened to be somewhere and I heard a gentleman talking about it, and I asked him about it because I was looking for another job. So I started at Job Point as a coach, which I love because I love working with people, encouraging people, and building people up. And to be a coach, put me in a space that I love being in because I enjoy working with and helping people. So I started here as a coach, and applied for a position as a recruiter and miraculously got the job. I’ve been in this position for 6 years now, and basically what I do is I recruit throughout mid-Missouri for all trades in the program that we have here at Job Point. This job is all tricks of the trade, it is not just recruiting people. It’s working with people of all walks of life, the homeless, people with disabilities, people who are coming to reinvent themselves, and many more. It fits me as a person with my personality, because I enjoy building people and encouraging them. I also do a lot of job fairs, presentations, and enrollment. I have a lot of hats with this job and it suits me because I’m a people person builder."
"You know, I always want to get involved with my community. And this job has helped me really get involved in the community, because I deal with a lot of resources and a lot of people on committees. A while back, I was at a transportation meeting, when I first started this job, and I was thrown by the issues that Columbia had when it comes to transportation, because I'm comparing myself living in Milwaukee. And that kind of threw my antennas up. So then, I mean, I think I only went to one or two of those meetings, and I didn't go anymore until like two or three years later. And then somehow, somebody got in contact with me from PedNet. And I'm like, “Oh, this is transportation”, and of course, my interest was there. I wanted to see what this was about and what can I do to help our community make transportation better. In Columbia, I want to be a part of a stamp that puts something back into the community. So, I’ve always had an interest in seeing Columbia have better transportation especially when it comes to the transit system. I was very excited to be asked to be a part of the Neighborhood Leaders because I wanted to learn more. What were your interests? What policies about transportation were you all strategizing about to make things better? How can I share this with other members here in Columbia and at Job Point? I wanted to be a part of that. Being involved and wanting to make something better is a part of being a people builder."
Sophia Smith
“In my mother’s culture and my grandmother’s culture they always fed people and helped them. It’s a generational love kind of thing that passed down. I started my not-for-profit in 2009 at my old church, United Community Cathedral. Everything that I do is out of my own expense, I’ve never had government grants. In 2015 we shut down, and I moved up north. In 2016, I became a north neighbor leader through Columbia strategic planning. When I moved up there, there was a lot of kids scattered and nobody cared about their cares. Me being the person that always wants to help someone, I started going to my neighborhood meetings and never missed one. I came to advocate for the children and the families out there. I kept feeding the kids, I would have Halloween events, Easter events, and more. All I knew, is that I have to feed them and not ask questions. I just have a love for them, even though I’ve now moved. But when we had the Neighborhood Bike Event it was wonderful. They were glad you all came with the bikes because nobody’s ever done that. They’ve never had anyone show up with their stuff and let them participate, except for whenever I bring things."
"That’s why I wanted to get involved with Local Motion. I think that the lower income neighborhoods are really being looked over not being cared for, they are not even being thought about. It’s just like a forgotten thought. I knew that getting involved would help me make a difference up North.”
Jack Gardiner
"Looking at my time in Tucson, I didn’t take the bus as much only because it was easy enough for me to ride my bike. I lived about four miles from campus. And you know, any serious bicyclist knows that that's not much of a commute. The issue there was they didn't have a trail system like Columbia has. Instead they had some bicycle pedways on city streets. And while I was in Tucson, texting was just becoming a thing. And biking in those pedways went from being okay, to being sort of dangerous on some of the streets because people were so distracted from their texting, that they were not paying attention. On some of the roads I had to cross four streets that were probably just as busy as Providence to get to work. Each one of those was an adventure, and it was still worth it. But you weren't in protected bike lanes, and so it was more difficult.
Speedway is one of the main arteries that runs through Tucson east to west. There are no protected bike lanes on Speedway, but people are going 40-45 miles an hour. So you're riding out there with no barriers between you and a vehicle. So technically, I could take them. But I didn't want to, because I felt too vulnerable out there. So, I would take a path through the neighborhoods, because it was much better. It was much safer. Taking my chances going through the neighborhoods that had lighter traffic density, as opposed to riding in that “dedicated” bike lane, where there was nothing between me and the car. You wouldn’t really see people in those unprotected bike lanes. Where you would see bikers in Tucson were these bike paths running along the river. There they were much nicer. You weren't on the street, you were in an area dedicated to just bikes.
Here in Columbia there's a bike lane on Scott Blvd but they're going 45-50 mph down there and they're always speeding. Technically there is a bike lane there but I don't feel safe. So I do the wrong thing, and ride on the sidewalk. I know a driver has to hop a curb to run me over. They're gonna damage their car getting to me. As a bicyclist it's all about shaving risk, and minimizing my risk in a situation. So where there are bike lanes, and they're protected, you just feel a lot better about being in them. I think protected bike lanes in Columbia would be a good idea. People would feel safe to actually ride on them."
Christopher Nichols
"Currently I get around Columbia driving. I used to use public transportation a lot when I was younger. I really used the city bus quite a bit.
The bus routes should be more where people need them. I feel like the bus routes are kind of messed up here. I stopped using the bus because you have to get on two or three different buses just to get to where you’re trying to get to go. I live on the North side but I used to live on the south side, and the bus routes on the south ain’t good. The only route on the north side is the orange route. I think that the bus routes are the best way Columbia could improve their transportation. Like I know that it needs to go up by Bethany over there off Scott Blvd, there needs to be a route over there.
I mean I don’t know, I haven’t rode the city bus in a while but I have nothing against it."
Matthia Rickets
"Job Point offers transportation, if it’s not Job Point it’s usually my dad, or sometimes friends. That’s mainly how I get around. I live on Country Hill off of Scott Blvd. I used to be able to take the bus because the bus used to come to the end of my street, but they changed the bus routes so they don’t go there no more. It just goes up to the Park De Ville Walmart, and that’s it. That’s like a mile away from where I live.
I wish that I really had easy access to the bus because I think that that is the most simplest way to do it. I mean there are other ways to do it but I think that the bus would get rid of a vast majority of the problems because it's not only helping me, but it’s helping a bunch of other people. Because when the bus was coming through there it’s not like I was the only one at the bus stop. There were other people there. People trying to get to their jobs and stuff like that, but now that it’s gone it’s kind of like limited everyone in that area’s transportation. And there’s a lot of places that don't have sidewalks but should have sidewalks. There’s a sidewalk that goes from my street all the way to Simmons Bank and then it just stops (off Scott Blvd). If there was a sidewalk that went from the Petro Mart all the way to Hyvee (Scott to Broadway) then that would be perfect. Because then there’s a crosswalk right there and you’d be walking on a sidewalk rather than the shoulder. It just doesn’t make any sense why there isn’t a sidewalk.
I think that transportation equity would look best through the bus, more open and more routes and expanding on the current routes. Nobody wants to walk 2 to 3 miles to get to the nearest bus stop everyday, so I think bigger routes and expanding on the routes will help."
Take Action
We need you at the City Council vote!
Monday, August 16, 2021 7 p.m. Meeting Start Columbia City Hall