Senior Transportation Planner | Passionate about human-centered design + systemic reform
Inclusivity. It's a non-negotiable when upholding ethical planning standards (that goes for any people-oriented activity, really). A community should have full representation when it comes to decision-making, and that includes all kinds of bodies, cultures, and gender. There's a documented spectrum of engagement practices in local government (the IAP2 spectrum, for example). In a profession that is trending more diverse and inclusive, prevailing wisdom suggests the more we collaborate and defer to empowering the full breadth of people, the more beloved our community designs and programs become. For bike transportation, we observe men are far overrepresented in *who* takes the risk of pedaling alongside car traffic (picture the typical bike lane). Men on solo trips, commute trips, on man-vs-elements trips. Women who make up at least half of our population and make many essential trips that benefit our society often report barriers that men may not. To tilt the scales back in favor of women who are interested/determined to travel on a bike, it's important to collaborate with, and sometimes defer to, women like Allison. I'm so excited to hear about Allison's lessons in developing her ever-deeper knowledge of bikeway design and experiences of her own as a person navigating our landscape by bike. 🚲
This year I had the incredible honor of being featured by Piece of the Pi, a charity supporting women in STEM founded by my incredible friend Ainsley Ramsey. Today is the final day of her fundraiser when she will be reciting over 1k digits of pi from memory. If you haven't yet, please consider donating to her cause! https://lnkd.in/e86wDB5n
