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Building a platform that accelerates the construction of protected bike lanes and car-free streets worldwide by connecting citizens, advocacy groups, cities, an

Building a platform that accelerates the construction of protected bike lanes and car-free streets worldwide by connecting citizens, advocacy groups, cities, and urban planners: https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai/status/1570534189497483265 https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai/status/15705341894974832... (Backstory: Started a Twitter account in July (twitter.com/@betterstreetsai) posting DALL-E-generated street transformations, it immediately took off, got lots of press, etc. and made me realize how huge the demand for this stuff is.) Feel free to send me a DM on Twitter if you're interested in helping!

chaps 4y ago
Hm, have you talked with the bike lane uprising folk? I think you'll find that these problems are way, way more political than they seem. Good luck, though.
- zachkatz 4y ago
  I've run large bike lane/car-free streets campaigns before [1] and have talked with a bunch of activists from groups all over the country, so I have a good deal of experience here. You're right that these problems are political—in fact, they're entirely political!—but the reason they're so political is because there's no existing platform for capturing latent + kinetic demand, so electeds (even the ones who want better streets—we've heard from many of them on Twitter) have absolutely no idea how much political support they have—and they need that support to take bold action. We're solving that problem! [1] https://bikeportland.org/2020/04/24/grassroots-push-emerges-for-quick-and-cheap-bike-lanes-on-se-hawthorne-313976 https://bikeportland.org/2020/04/24/grassroots-push-emerges-..., https://bikeportland.org/2020/05/20/its-official-pbot-considering-bike-lanes-on-hawthorne-blvd-315086 https://bikeportland.org/2020/05/20/its-official-pbot-consid..., https://bikeportland.org/2021/02/02/support-builds-for-bike-lanes-on-hawthorne-as-community-awaits-key-report-from-pbot-325557 https://bikeportland.org/2021/02/02/support-builds-for-bike-...
  - chaps 4y ago
    FWIW, I consider bikelane uprising an org/platform that's capturing that sort of latent/kinetic demand you're talking about, which they've been able to take their work to electeds, who in-turn take action on creating new bike lanes, fixing road damage, raising accountability for companies that park in bike lanes, etc. The emotion they work from is discrete anger and frustration, which tends to ignite action from a bunch of folk to make calls to electeds and such. If you can find a way to bring out that raw feeling on top of what I personally feel as nostalgia for the future in what you're building, it can almost definitely lead into some great stuff. Just don't forget about the politics :)
    - zachkatz 4y ago
      Yep, absolutely! Our plan is to integrate existing local advocacy orgs into the platform—so we automatically benefit from their political connections + bandwidth, while they benefit from our tools + reach. Perfect win/win to Get Stuff Done.
slekker 4y ago
NotJustBikes channel on youtube would love this stuff
- zachkatz 4y ago
  He's definitely seen the account, we made one of his hometown ("Fake London," Ontario) and he retweeted it: https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai/status/1554173619873452032 https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai/status/15541736198734520...
dr_dshiv 4y ago
DALL-E also can transform American suburban shopping centers into mixed-use urban attractors. https://aixd.substack.com https://aixd.substack.com
cdaringe 4y ago
Volts podcast had the dude who did bike lanes in east bay area on. It was an interesting interview, directly relevant to this space

chaps 4y ago

Hm, have you talked with the bike lane uprising folk? I think you'll find that these problems are way, way more political than they seem. Good luck, though.

zachkatz 4y ago
I've run large bike lane/car-free streets campaigns before [1] and have talked with a bunch of activists from groups all over the country, so I have a good deal of experience here. You're right that these problems are political—in fact, they're entirely political!—but the reason they're so political is because there's no existing platform for capturing latent + kinetic demand, so electeds (even the ones who want better streets—we've heard from many of them on Twitter) have absolutely no idea how much political support they have—and they need that support to take bold action. We're solving that problem! [1] https://bikeportland.org/2020/04/24/grassroots-push-emerges-for-quick-and-cheap-bike-lanes-on-se-hawthorne-313976 https://bikeportland.org/2020/04/24/grassroots-push-emerges-..., https://bikeportland.org/2020/05/20/its-official-pbot-considering-bike-lanes-on-hawthorne-blvd-315086 https://bikeportland.org/2020/05/20/its-official-pbot-consid..., https://bikeportland.org/2021/02/02/support-builds-for-bike-lanes-on-hawthorne-as-community-awaits-key-report-from-pbot-325557 https://bikeportland.org/2021/02/02/support-builds-for-bike-...
- chaps 4y ago
  FWIW, I consider bikelane uprising an org/platform that's capturing that sort of latent/kinetic demand you're talking about, which they've been able to take their work to electeds, who in-turn take action on creating new bike lanes, fixing road damage, raising accountability for companies that park in bike lanes, etc. The emotion they work from is discrete anger and frustration, which tends to ignite action from a bunch of folk to make calls to electeds and such. If you can find a way to bring out that raw feeling on top of what I personally feel as nostalgia for the future in what you're building, it can almost definitely lead into some great stuff. Just don't forget about the politics :)
  - zachkatz 4y ago
    Yep, absolutely! Our plan is to integrate existing local advocacy orgs into the platform—so we automatically benefit from their political connections + bandwidth, while they benefit from our tools + reach. Perfect win/win to Get Stuff Done.

slekker 4y ago

NotJustBikes channel on youtube would love this stuff

zachkatz 4y ago
He's definitely seen the account, we made one of his hometown ("Fake London," Ontario) and he retweeted it: https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai/status/1554173619873452032 https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai/status/15541736198734520...

dr_dshiv 4y ago

DALL-E also can transform American suburban shopping centers into mixed-use urban attractors. https://aixd.substack.com https://aixd.substack.com

cdaringe 4y ago

Volts podcast had the dude who did bike lanes in east bay area on. It was an interesting interview, directly relevant to this space