Being an advocate or activist can feel so, so exhausting. You phone and email and call. You show up for the events. You donate and volunteer. Change is slow, progress incremental, sometimes you feel as if you’re going backward rather than forward, or taking the long way around the mulberry bush.

Or maybe you’ve never done any of these things and you’ve decided that you’re going to take action and make a difference. Where to start? Anywhere, really. I’m going to step through a variety of things you can learn and do, one chunk at a time. (Why read my writing on this? Refer to note at bottom.)

Sure, you can accelerate this and stack them up. Will that burn you out? Are you the type to bike or walk straight up a steep hill, or are you going to climb a bit at a time? Pace yourself because you need to be in this for the long haul, and a very long haul it is.

It would be screamingly obvious to start with some kind of activist resolution in January but here’s the thing: You can start any time. Every single day is the first day of a whole new year of 365 days. Happy New Year!

You can take action at any level you’re interested in and willing to engage with, from a local school to Congress. This post tackles the state level to get grounding that’s helpful context for change at the local level where you walk and ride every day. It will also come in handy when you contact a congressional office.

Mindset notes: I could write a whole post just on this, and maybe I will. Do some personal homework first, some internal examination with a big helping of honesty.

Characteristics you’ll find helpful:

• Patience
• Commitment
• Persistence
• Diplomacy (if everyone already agreed with you there’d be no need for your efforts)
• Enough courage to show up
• Appreciation for what people do even if it isn’t as much as or exactly what you’d hoped for
• A welcoming attitude for potential allies
• Willingness to learn (and to admit!) what you don’t know

Characteristics you won’t find helpful over the long haul:

• Anger (You may feel angry inside, sure, but being an angry advocate doesn’t win over people who disagree with you, and it isn’t good for your personal health to stay in the red zone)
• Entitlement
• Ego or self-importance: Be happy because there’s a win whether or not your name is on it
• “Everything bagel” advocacy: You probably care about lots of topics. Are you going to email and show up every day, at every city council or legislative committee meeting, on every single one of these? Sorry to be the one to tell you that you’re going to lose effectiveness. Pick a few and count on other people to work on the other topics, at least publicly, so you can focus and build consistency and reputation.

“You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

State legislatures go into session in January the majority of the 50 states (per Ballotpedia). Even if yours doesn’t start until March or April you can start legislative contacts any time. Doing some homework about state-level policy, funding, and advocacy efforts will help you prepare. Things to check on:

Advocacy organizations: Does your state have an organization advocating for active transportation? Poke around and find out. It may be a bike-focused organization, maybe one working for trails, maybe an entity like Disability Rights Washington that has been speaking up for accessible active transportation so everyone can have transportation freedom. If they’re out there, take advantage of the work they’ve been doing, plug in, engage.

• Join them if you don’t already belong; they’re working for your interests.
• Ask about their legislative agenda. Review it and ask questions.
• Do they hold any kind of advocacy events in your town or in the capital? Are you able to participate?
• Ask them what they know about your state representatives and senators. Champions? Opponents? Never paid any attention to this topic before? Are they on the transportation committee or one that deals with appropriations? Very useful seats!
• Think about how your personal story connects to the topic(s) on the list. Pedal Love has some great resources on effective storytelling for policy change. Doing this will help you remember what you’re learning and your ability to tell a story will make you a more effective advocate when you call, meet, or write.

Find out what your state is doing now: You can actually contact state employees for information! The Federal Highway Administration requires your state to have a state bicycle/pedestrian coordinator. How much of their time is devoted to this varies state to state. In some states they’re “the only” and this is one of several responsibilities. In other states they’re full-time on this, and in still others they’re in luck because they have colleagues, support, maybe even a role in recommending how funds are spent.

Wait, though. Before you email them with “Tell me all the things”, check the website. It’s so easy to do this and yet in my day job doing this kind of work at a state transportation agency my colleagues and I get emails asking things that are answered right there on the web, accessible using the same device they used to write the email. You want those taxpayer-funded employees to spend most of their time doing things to make conditions better, so be judicious in how you ask for information.

Maybe they’re already compiling it and you just need to find it. Do they have an overview of activities in your state, or any kind of email newsletter you can sign up for? Annual reports of some kind? A plan they should be working to implement? Once you’ve reviewed what’s available you have some context for your questions. That advocacy organization may also have done some analysis; ask them.

Some of the things you want to know:

• How does your state compare to other states on funding levels?
• How does your state compare to other states on traffic safety?
  • You’ll learn the term “vulnerable road user”, referring to people made vulnerable when they walk, bike or roll due to a lack of complete, connected, comfortable networks that give the same door-to-door experience that drivers take for granted. Every state is required to produce a Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment. Find your state’s and read it.
  • You’ll find national comparisons on these stats in places beyond your state DOT. Among the sources:
    • Smart Growth America’s “Dangerous by Design” publication analyzes pedestrian data.
    • The League of American Bicyclists puts out rankings and scorecards on Bicycle Friendly States.
• Does your state apply analysis based on equity or environmental justice indicators? This could be done to direct funding toward places that have been disinvested from in the past or could highlight disproportionate numbers of serious and fatal crashes in certain neighborhoods. If you know you live in a state where the word “equity” isn’t going to produce results, ask if they do any kind of demographic or geographic analysis of crash data. If your state isn’t doing it the advocacy organization or a national group may be doing it.
  • If you haven’t yet encountered the term “redlining” read up on it. Kea Wilson on Streetsblog covers research on the connection between redlining, health and pedestrian safety. To go deep read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
• Does your state provide funding to local governments for improvements? How do they compare to other states in this? This may be state or federal funds or both. How is your city, county, or tribal government doing in applying for and receiving these grants?
• Is the state leaving money on the table? Some states don’t take full advantage of the federal funds available to them for pedestrian/bicyclist projects. They turn those funds back and other states (like mine) that are on top of things get to do more. You’re going to be asking why that is. Spoiler alert: Political culture is going to play a big role in this answer. You’re helping shift that by caring enough to ask.

You now have a pretty good understanding of how your state stacks up, how at least some of the funding is handled, and who the players are. You’ve connected with other advocates and activists so you can focus your efforts where they’ll do the most good. Your voice as a constituent is powerful. Use it.

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Note: If you’re a regular reader you may already know my bio. This is JIC you don’t. These fairly brief summaries rely on my lifelong career in public policy that started with holding elected office and my journey from volunteer bike advocate to advocacy professional running a statewide nonprofit to leadership in this realm within a state department of transportation. In other words, I could write a lot of TL;DR on these topics. Some of this is “I wish I’d known”, some of it is “I wish others would”. It isn’t everything by a long stretch.