We still exist!

Hey all! My name is Kiera. If you don’t remember me or this email list, that’s OK! I am the founder of Washtenaw Mobility Initiative (or WaMI). If you’re getting this email, you’ve probably heard from me in-person or via email at some point in the last year about this. For personal reasons, I took a hiatus from organizing WaMI but now I’m back! There’s dozens of new transportation and urban planning proposals and projects coming in the next few years just from AAATA, Ypsilanti, and Ann Arbor, not to mention the rest of the county! Now is the perfect time for an advocacy group like WaMI to establish itself.

Help wanted!

I can’t make WaMI happen on my own, so we are recruiting! Below is an list of just some of the board positions I am looking to fill in WaMI.

• Operations – Handles scheduling and logistics for WaMI meetings and events
• Campaign/Project Managers – In charge of the fine details for campaigns and projects from initial design to execution and debreif
• Liaisons – Follows the actions of city governments, represents WaMI at council and commission meetings, and reports current events and proposals to the WaMI board
• Data Collectors – Designs and executes qualitative (i.e. door-to-door conversations) and quantitative data collection projects. This includes acquiring permits to do the data collection when necessary.
• Communications Managers – Handles email and social media campaigns.
• Financial Officer – Manages WaMI finances if/when we start taking donations or applying for grants

For now I will serve as chair although that could change in the future. I am aiming for the first year to be pretty low-commitment. About one or two meetings per month via Zoom. Right now these positions are open to anyone. One person can take on multiple roles. Eventually we will move to an election-based system for appointing people to the board.

No experience is necessary. Just a general enthusiasm for our mission!

If you are interested in joining the WaMI board, reach out at contact@gowashtenaw.org

What’s next?

Below are just some of the projects we could engage in this year.

• Evaluation of ongoing and proposed projects in Washtenaw county, municipal governments, and the state government and strategically choosing specific proposals to back and promote.
• Building a transit rider and bike commuter advocacy network
• Guerilla urbanism projects – implementing safety devices into our road networks ourselves, while following local, county, and state regulations regarding design.
• Door to door advocacy and data collection about road diets and why they are a positive change for communities. This will lead into door to door advocacy to increase public transit ridership and bike ridership as the infrastructure becomes safer and faster.
• Creating a problem point map identifying and documenting very specific issues with road design and construction detours/blockages for buses, cyclists, and pedestrians,
• Limited mobility advocacy – Identifying failures of public policy regarding transit infrastructure that either forces people with limited mobility to use cars or limits their ability to get around the county due to lack of accessible options.
• Poke the state government regarding what happened to the MI Train regional rail project between Ann Arbor and Detroit.

What is Washtenaw Mobility Initiative again?

We are a mobility advocacy organization based on Strong Towns that advocates for our cities and infrastructure to be built for people, not cars. This doesn’t mean ridding our cities of cars, but rather building out fast, viable, and safe alternatives to car transportation where cars are used as a tool, and are not the default mode of transportation. We want to promote the freedom of mobility in all its forms: walking, biking, driving, buses, light rail, and trains.

We recognize that mobility is a highly intersectional issue, involving housing accessibility, healthcare accessibility, urban planning, zoning, and police reform. We cannot achieve truly safe and human-scale cities without ensuring everyone is equitably liberated by that vision.