We are fed up.  Fed up with driving from one soulless big-box store to the next.  Fed up with being overweight despite watching our diets.  Fed up with not knowing our neighbors. 

We want to change things but where do we start? 

I am fond of a phrase popularized by Booker T. Washington, that goes: “Drop your bucket where you are!”  This is not really about buckets; it’s about being overwhelmed, feeling disenfranchised, and finally making the decision to stop thinking about the problem and start doing.  Right here.  Right now.

We want a town where we feel connected to the community, where people respect each other, where walking and riding a bike are normal activities, not so anomalous that we feel like we are committing an act of defiance every time we put on our sneakers.   So should we all move to Portland or Amsterdam? Is this a “love it or leave it” situation? 

Hell, no.  We need to drop our buckets right here, and get to work.   With all of the energy that we expend talking and thinking and reading about change, we have the energy to make change happen.  Thanks to people like Leigh Ann at the Rutgers Voorhees Transportation Center, we also have the resources.  We could start today, or we could put it off until next month, next year, or blame someone else for the change not occuring…Or we could recognize that it is up to us to effect change.

Now, I’m not saying that changing from a car-culture to a human-scale culture is an easy thing, or that it will happen all at once.  Not only do we have to influence the hearts and minds of our neighbors (and do it in a loving way), we also have to provide reasonable alternatives to a lifetime of ingrained transportation habits.

That is why all of these pieces of the puzzle must be addressed, from bike lanes to bike parking, from biking education to changing school board policy, from greenways, to safe crosswalks for pedestrians, from installing sidewalks where there were none to providing fun events for residents and visitors. 

Yes, it sounds like a lot.  But you’d be amazed how fast things change once you just drop your bucket and start.  I am excited to have received so much encouragement, interest and offers of help.  Members of this group have offered their organizational skills, their knowledge, and their time.  I truly believe that a group working together can produce a much better outcome than one person working alone, no matter how skilled that person may be. 

To end, I would like to offer you this video link, which, on the surface, is about closing a street in Manhattan and creating a pedestrian plaza. But underneath, this short video speaks volumes about changing old habits, and how that may be easier than we ever thought possible.  Enjoy:   http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010189.html

Stella