I am really excited about today because I get to sit down and I'm gonna learn a lot.
I've been involved in transportation for probably about 20 years.
The first 10 years as a volunteer with the Sierra Club, largely focused on transportation and how it overlapped with climate interest.
When I ran for City Council the first time about 10 years ago, it was the first time I really started to understand how our transportation system, just like all the other systems, has massive inequalities and how different communities are impacted in different ways by the transportation system.
And I continue to learn about that every single day as I move forward.
And when you're in that space, you look around the communities in this country and around the world for people that seem to understand that and get it right.
And Tamika Butler is one of those amazing folks.
And so I am so thrilled that she came to Seattle and is going to share some of her wisdom.
Tamika is the Director of Equity and Inclusion.
at Tool Design, and apparently she has a bunch of other titles, too, but I'll let her introduce herself.
I want to really quickly do a quick shout out to Transportation Choices Coalition, who did a lot of work to fill the room today and get to meet up here, so thank you, TCC.
I also want to thank Seattle Department of Transportation, who is a big organization that does a lot of work.
And frankly, they're doing some amazing work trying to make our system more equitable.
And so thank you to all the folks from SDOT who are here for the amazing work you do within the system and for helping organize today's event.
With that, I am going to sit down until the very end and hand it over to Mika to run the show.
Thank you all.
Thank you so much, Councilmember.
It's such an honor to be here, and I also want to share my thanks with SDOT and Transportation Choices.
When you all invited me, I had that same feeling, especially just ten minutes before this started, when it was fairly empty, and I was like, It's going to be super low key, super chill.
And then I looked up again and I noticed the empty chair in the back.
But other than the cased chair, many of the seats were full.
So thank you everybody for spending a little bit of of your lunch with Regina and me today.
We'll try to make it interesting.
I'm going to talk for just like five minutes, hopefully.
Sometimes I struggle.
But I'm going to talk very briefly and then Regina and I are going to have a little bit of a conversation.
When everyone walked in, you had cards on your chairs and pens.
So if you have questions that you came in having, you can start writing them down now.
If things come up as we're talking, write them down.
Folks will be collecting.
So please don't hesitate.
We're trying to leave as much time as possible for questions.
And then the only other group I want to thank is the Tool Design Seattle office.
They hosted me yesterday.
I came up a day early.
We had a fantastic, just three of us, had a fantastic dinner in the sunshine.
And for like a brief 12 hours, I was like, I could live in Seattle.
And then I woke up this morning.
But thank you to the Tool Design Seattle office.
And I apologize in advance because some of the things I'll say today you guys already heard yesterday.
So just be surprised and pretend like it's fresh for the first time.
I like to share this picture of my wife, Kelly, and my child, Atay, every time to just kind of foundationally set the premise before we talk about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I like to set this premise for a couple of reasons.
First, I'm just a person.
We're all just people.
I think sometimes there's this idea that there are experts on a topic.
and that they have some refined air.
But I'm just a person who does this work every day because I really care about my wife and kid and want them to just be able to get from point A to point B in an as equitable way as possible.
As I shared with our Seattle office yesterday, I also share this picture because often when I give talks about equity and inclusion, and especially if I go a little hard, I always have white folks come up to me after and ask why I don't like white people.
And I always ask them, why don't you like black people?
they often say something about having black friends and so I've just started including a picture of my white wife because like I married her, it trumps friends.
My wife is also Canadian so she's super white.
And very nice.
So I've just exceeded there.
And then the other reason I like to share this picture is because I think the other thing that happens for white people or for men or for people who don't have a disability or for people who aren't queer, whatever, if you're not in the other group for whatever the conversation is, one of two things happens.
Either you talk a lot and you take up a lot of space, but I think that's actually pretty rare.
I think what happens more is that folks feel like I'm here to listen and I'm just going to sit back.
Like, I don't have a role to play.
I don't see color.
I don't have culture.
I'm not the other.
So I'm just, like, I don't know what my role is, but my role is to just kind of sit back and listen and do nothing.
And so I share this picture of my wife and my son to say, That Atay is a young man of mixed race, but we are raising him as a black man.
We had many conversations in our very queer progressive family on if we would raise him with gender neutral pronouns.
And ultimately what we decided is that that would be irresponsible because the world is going to see him as a black man.
And so he needs to know what that means.
And though we're both women, I am somebody, based on my representation and the way I dress, that people often think I am a black man when they see me.
And so I know firsthand how dangerous it is to be a black man in America.
And so we don't want him to be confused about that.
And also we want him to have, you know, black boy joy.
And so we want to bring all of that.
Now, if one day he grows up and tells us that that is not the case, we will support and love him.
But we have a responsibility for him to know what it is to be a black man in this country.
But that is not my job solely as the black parent.
I can't be the parent who's in charge of those things only.
Once this decision was made that we were going to have a child and we spent a shitload of money on it, we both needed to agree that we were going to raise him together.
And so when white folks are like, what's my role in this, I always think about my wife.
She has to do her own work.
Sometimes that means I can be there and I can support her.
Sometimes that means I have to say to her, I hear what you're going through, but I need you to go find a white friend to talk to that about.
Because it's not my burden to do that work for you.
And so all of us who show up in this room, we're all people, we all inhabit multiple identities, but whenever we start to think about this work, All I ask is that everyone remember that we all have a role to play, and it's not going to work if one person just sits back and says, well, that's their work to do.
And so often in our organizations, in our communities, we rely on the people of color to do all of the work for us.
And as I always say to Kelly, I can't raise a Tay on my own.
And she's really stepped up to the challenge.
She has really done everything she can and continues to do.
And she makes mistakes, and she gets it wrong, just as I do as a parent.
But that never makes her disengage or stop.
And so I ask that you all enter the space in that same way.
So a little bit about Tool Design.
I am the Director of Equity and Inclusion for Tool Design for a whopping three months.
I'm also the Director of California Planning.
So we have offices all over the country.
And about a year ago, we started this internal effort.
What I love about Tool Design, and one of the reasons I went there, is we are a woman-led company.
And a majority of the people and leadership positions running practice areas are women.
And we have really figured it out when it comes to women.
But at some point, our founder and CEO, Jennifer Toole, looked around and realized that we were a really white company.
I always invite people to go to our website and look at our staff page.
We have beautiful headshots of everybody on staff, and it's also a very white company, with a few chocolate chips in the middle of the sugar cookie.
And to Jennifer's credit, she looked around, she realized that, and in the same way we were intentional on gender, she's like, let's figure this out.
And so we started an initiative to increase our diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to really examine what we were doing well and what we could do better.
And when we started that process, we did a survey of all of our staff, and this is something one of our staff members said.
And I think you can change out.
That it's not just important for the future success of our company, but for our industry, for our cities, for our country, like really tackling these issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, race, all of the isms are really important to our success.
At Tool, the other thing we did is articulate a mission statement.
This is a very long mission statement, but what I like about it is so often people say they want to do something, but they don't actually want to articulate that and put it in writing.
And so when I go around the country and I do these trainings with our staff, we have internal trainings, one of the things we ask everybody at the end is to think about one thing they want to start doing, one thing they want to stop doing, and one thing they want to do more of.
And we ask people to write that down.
They don't have to give it to anybody.
They don't have to show anybody.
But I think you would be surprised by sometimes when you write things down and actually articulate a commitment to something, and then What many folks in the company have started doing is sharing it with a buddy at the company, because then once you make it public and you say you're gonna do something, you have to be held accountable to do it.
These are a few cities where we have offices.
We also have offices in Edmonton and Toronto, and you don't see Los Angeles up there, or Oakland up there, but these are just, or Oakland is there, but these are just a few of the cities, and I think why this is important is we're working in totally different communities.
And oftentimes one of the questions people say to me is like, come up with an equity toolbox.
And something you have to think about is no matter what community you're in, it's different.
The dynamics are different, the demographics are different, and there's no one size fits all effort.
And so part of doing this work right is being willing to look at what's different and approach what's different and do that work in a way that fits that specific community.
So, when I was asked to do this talk, I was asked to share a little bit about the exciting stuff that's going on in California.
And I was surprised to be asked that question, because what I often hear is that people, specifically in the Pacific Northwest, but really everywhere, are just like, oh, my God, Californians are so arrogant.
And that is 100% true.
I'm actually a Nebraskan, so I can say this, and yes, black people live in Nebraska.
So I am from Nebraska, and one of the things that has been so interesting for me is how definitively people in California feel that everything they're doing is better.
And like, some things are better, like our basketball teams.
But not like everything, right?
But I was specifically asked to just, before we jump into questions, give a brief primer on Measure M, our transportation ballot measure that passed in the same election as the Trump election.
And what was really interesting about that were, as a country, we were perhaps going in another direction.
In L.A. County, we actually voted on a number of things and decided tax ourselves in a number of ways.
So Measure M was a transportation ballot measure.
Measure A was a park equity measure.
We passed a measure, JJJ, which was all around transit-oriented development.
And then we passed several measures around helping folks experiencing homelessness and building housing around homelessness.
So as a region, we had made a very definitive decision that no matter what was happening elsewhere in the country, we were gonna do what we could to provide for other Angelenos.
So I guess in that way we were better.
But this report in the middle, Measures Matter, is a report ran by the Peer Institute out of USC.
which is specifically about how you can integrate equity into the implementation of measures.
And they use this parks measure and this transportation measure as a way to talk about it.
And so what was Measure M?
Measure M was a sales tax that will never sunset, that will provide a lot of money for transportation in Los Angeles county-wide going forward.
And so folks who don't know L.A., well, L.A.
is a city, but it's also a county and it's a county We are 88 cities and unincorporated areas.
So it's a fairly large county, I think like the fifth biggest economy in the world.
So it's a huge region and this is a lot of money.
And this is a picture of me with the mayor.
We were all over to get this thing passed.
This is on Halloween.
We were at a transit stop passing out M&Ms to people.
and trying to encourage them to vote for Measure M. Why this measure was so transformative is because for the first time, it explicitly talked about active transportation, and it was the first time the region had did a bottom-up strategy, where they actually went to local, we call them COGs, Council of Governments, and asked the COGs to do community engagement at the local level, and then built the policy from the ground up, and figured out how they were gonna split the income.
But the other measure that passed at the same time was Measure A. And Measure A is a parcel tax, but the difference with this one, it was also bottom-up, but this one was truly community-led.
And I say that to mean that what the county did in this one is they actually hired community-based organizations to lead the outreach process as they were building up what the measure would say.
And so different community groups that represented the different supervisor districts, and we have five, they were hired and they were given funds to do community meetings.
And in the meetings, they talked to folks about what a measure would be, what it would include, and then specifically said, in your region, what projects do you wanna see on parks?
Simultaneously, What the county was doing was creating this map of our park poor communities.
So the communities in red have a very high park need, and the communities in green have a very low park need, which means they just have more access to parks and open space.
And so then the campaign became, how do we turn the red areas to green?
And after the measure was passed, what you saw is you already had a ton of community-based organizations but also community members already supporting what was happening because they knew that they had been engaged from the very beginning.
And that meant that some of the projects that they had explicitly mentioned were on a list of projects that would be completed once this was passed.
And then the last piece is just so what's happened since we had this transformative election where we all decided that equity mattered?
Our five board supervisors have started to integrate equity into pretty much everything they're doing.
It's not unanimously five, there's really like two or three.
But that's, you know, they are the most powerful supervisors and they're really pushing to make sure that there's an equity framework in everything we do.
And the reason I say framework and not lens is because a lens is something you can just put on and take off.
And as community-based groups, I was at community groups when this stuff was happening, we weren't just hoping for a lens that they could like, you know, when you're at the eye doctor and they're like, this one or this one, this one or this one.
We didn't want just the equity lens to be like, nope, nope, maybe, nope.
So we actually wanted them to incorporate this equity framework, which was something that was a little bit more permanent.
Metro, which is our regional MTA, and the folks who sit on the Metro board are actually all five of those supervisors, and then a few other folks who are appointed from throughout the region.
they formed what they called a policy advisory council.
And this council was community-based organizations, private interest, government representatives.
And this policy council, which was very much led by Therese McMillan, who used to work for the Obama administration and now has moved on to the Bay Area, she brought folks together.
And essentially, this PAC was advising on everything from our long-range transportation plan, Metro has just decided to hire a chief diversity officer and the PAC has actually been commenting on the job announcement.
The PAC has been great because they've been able to offer their opinion on a lot of things.
I think what we've really seen is tricky and why USC published that report on implementation is that there was so much energy in getting stuff passed, but implementation is where it's really tough.
And part of what makes implementation tough is tracking the money.
So we have all of this money, but where is it going?
And in California, we also passed a statewide gas tax that is gonna bring a ton of money to everywhere in the state, but also LA.
And so now that we have all of these multiple sources of money coming together, it's become a little murkier for folks to figure out where that money is going, and how it's being spent, and what equity actually means.
The other thing, in a region as large as L.A., equity means different things to so many different people, and so it's been really hard to kind of like nail down that definition.
And then Metro is out there, as you can see on the bottom, Metro has put together this equity platform that they're really trying to lay over everything they do, but they've done that before hiring the chief diversity officer.
And then like, is the diversity officer in charge of equity?
Are they not in charge of equity?
And there's been talk that it's gonna be the chief equity officer, but there's just all of these moving parts that make implementation, and especially for folks who are tracking it and who care about it, that that lack of transparency is just getting thicker and thicker.
Congestion pricing I know is something that's on people's mind here.
It's also something that's happening in L.A.
Metro has just released their first RFP and they've made equity front and center.
But what does that mean?
Is it equity in where the money goes?
Is it equity in how the prices are set?
Is it equitable to do it at all in a region?
Where housing affordability and the disparity between the have and the have-nots continues to grow?
As low-income folks of color have been pushed further out to areas that aren't serviced by public transportation, is it really fair to then charge them to get back to the job centers?
So all of these things are starting to percolate.
And then the last thing, our county has started a chief sustainability office.
that I think a lot of people think of in the environmental frame, but they have really embedded equity into all of the things they're doing.
So whether or not they're talking about water, whether or not they're talking about parks, our transportation, Equity is the common theme, and they've really started with talking about equity and incorporating what that means for indigenous folks and really the basis of how L.A.
County ever came to be.
And so it is something that, again, the county is trying to talk about and trying to do more of, but the implementation is still a little bit up in the air.
And then this is the quote I just always end with, and especially as we go into conversation.
So often, so many of us come to this work, and by this work, I mean transportation work, saying, well, we're transportation planners, we're engineers, that's what we're here to talk about.
But when we have meetings, or when we're working on a project, the people who we say we're there to serve aren't just there for transportation.
They're coming to that space with so many other issues and so many other things on their mind.
And so we have to start thinking about this work, not just a single issue work, but how is this work tied to other aspects of work?
I think that's why a lot of us have started talking more about mobility justice.
How do we make this work just and how do we tie it to these larger issues, social issues that are going on and realize that multiple types of oppression are tied to one another.
And so I will end there, I will leave my contact information up, but hopefully we can just move into conversation.
Thanks.
Thank you, Tamika.
Does everybody hear me okay on this mic?
Okay, great.
So what we're going to do now is move into some questions.
I wanted to reintroduce myself.
My name is Regina.
I'm with Transportation Choices Coalition.
I'll be moderating this conversation today with Tamika.
So now's a good time, if you haven't yet, start to write your questions on those white cards that were passed around the room.
Somebody shortly will be collecting those, and I'll be able to ask them to Tamika.
I've got a couple of questions first as you hear the conversation and hopefully that will help inspire some of your own questions later on.
So, Tamika, I actually wanted to start with what you were talking about earlier regarding equity implementation during the measure planning process.
So based on your current role with TOOL, From what you've seen and what your experience was before TOOL, what are some of the effective ways from California that are not only engaging communities of color to participate in planning efforts, but shifting the practice to resource black and brown and other marginalized community members as experts on the planning team?
That's a big one to start.
I'm going hard right now.
So I think that part of, is there feedback?
Should we share?
We're working this out as we go.
We're working this out as we go.
So basically, I think that a couple of things.
Something you said there was community engagement.
And I think that's like a first fundamental step.
I think that often folks want to do equity work.
But in doing equity work, we've ghettoized that to just outreach.
So, as long as we're doing outreach, we've done equity.
And we have to start conceptualizing a world in which equity is part of everything we do, not just the outreach.
I think the other piece is we have to realize that outreach and engagement are not the same thing, right?
And too often, the communities who we're trying to help, or we say we're trying to help, they are experiencing outreach, which is just us coming and reaching out and saying, this is what we're going to do.
You go with that, great, because we already decided, which is very different than engagement.
And actually, and even, you know, I get it.
As someone who works at a private consulting firm now, I get it intimately.
There are timelines.
There are budgets.
You have to spend this money by this time.
So there might be things you come to the meeting with and say, like, this is what we're going to do, because this is what we have to do, but is there anything in that plan that is open for engagement, open for changes, open for your mind to be different.
And, you know, something we've been talking about in our trainings that we've been doing from office to office is we've been talking about white supremacy, which I think is really hard for a lot of people to talk about because they think white supremacy equals white supremacists.
And white supremacy is this way of thinking And one of the traits that is often in white supremacy is this idea that there's only one right way to do things, right?
And that is something that many of us benefit from, right?
Like, I benefit from that aspect of white supremacy, because if I can learn the right way to do it, then I succeed.
And that's really hard when you're doing true community engagement.
Because true community engagement is acknowledging that there might not be one right way to do things.
And when we have manuals and things that tell us this is the only way to accomplish that, breaking out of that paradigm is hard.
And I think, you know, just one example I'll share In L.A.
we worked on this project, the Metro Blue Line project, when I was at the L.A.
County Bicycle Coalition.
And if you just Google L.A. Metro Blue Line, it brings up a webpage that has our final report and all of these different things.
And why that project was so transformative is because the Blue Line is our oldest rail line, and it goes from downtown L.A.
to downtown Long Beach.
And on that path, it goes through a number of high-density communities of color.
And those communities include things that people have heard of like Watts, right?
And as it goes through these communities, our job working with fair and peers was to do a walk audit of every station.
a first mile, last mile walk audit, and then to come up with ideas of what improvements we think needed to be there, and then do one pop-up community event and kind of get community feedback on the ideas we had come up with.
And that process, I think, was really hard for Metro, was really hard for Fare and Peers, because at the bike coalition, we ended up bringing together a diverse coalition of a bunch of different community-based organizations, and we paid them for their time, which I think is a best practice.
It should go without saying, but like, pay people.
And we brought them together, and all of those groups weren't transportation groups.
right?
So they weren't all approaching it from a transportation lens.
So when we were talking about the intercept survey about why don't you use the train, there were people who were like, yo, we're an immigrants' rights group, so we want one of the options to be because you're afraid of ICE.
And when Metro was like, oh, we're a transportation agency, like, we're not asking that question.
We had to work together to get there.
And I think in the end, it was a process where we were all able to grow from it.
Metro was able to learn that you can't put advertisements on the side of buses that say summer of the blue line with music notes and food, but then tell us because of the funding there's no budget for DJs and food.
Well, like, don't put that on the advertisements, not our problem.
We need DJs and food, right?
So small things like that, that I think just the process of having all of those groups go together and being able to push back and have open dialogue.
I give Metro a lot of credit.
I give fair and peers a lot of credit.
And frankly, I give the community groups the most credit for not just saying, we're going to learn their language and meet them where they are.
We're going to bring them along and teach them where we are.
And that Metro equity framework was actually only created after that blue line process.
where Metro was like, oh, this is how we should do things.
And so I think that's a good example of just going into the project with what your expectations might be, but trying to create space for everybody to grow in the process.
Yeah, thank you for that example, too.
So as many of you in the room probably know, Seattle just announced it is starting to look into congestion pricing.
And there was a report released, was it this morning or yesterday?
Yeah, yesterday.
OK.
Where is LA on this policy?
And how are equity concerns being addressed?
I saw that bullet point.
So, congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing is really tough for me personally.
Not for Tamika Butler, the transportation advocate, because I think that you will get booed out of the room if you are a transportation advocate and you're like, I don't know about congestion pricing.
Because it seems to make so much sense, like it seems to be a no-brainer.
And, you know, in L.A., the CEO of Metro, his big thing is, like, this is not just about, you know, I want to do this because I want to do this.
Like, if we're worried about traffic, this is how we're going to fix it.
And not only that, if we do this, the income it will generate will allow us to have free transit for everyone.
and will allow us to accelerate a number of projects, will allow us to have more biking and walking infrastructure.
So his argument is really that it's also not just about fixing traffic, it's about the benefits of what we're going to be able to provide people once we get this money.
I am moved by that argument.
He is a black man.
Like, I know him.
I know he cares about equity.
But I think the reality is, for me, congestion pricing is one of those issues that too often is viewed just as a transportation issue.
And you can't think about congestion pricing without thinking about housing affordability.
You can't think about congestion pricing without thinking about housing—you know, people experiencing homelessness and people who have insecure housing.
You can't think about congestion pricing without thinking about minimum wage.
Congestion pricing is so tied to all of these other social issues because the folks who are going to be most heavily impacted are the folks who have the furthest commutes.
And the folks who have the furthest commutes are often low-income folks and folks of color.
And that is especially true as this urbanist movement is coming back of young folks with perhaps more means moving into urban centers.
And I think that's especially true in a lot of L.A.
cities.
I think that's true here in Seattle when you think about the tech industry.
And the issues that that brings, it may create jobs, but who is it creating jobs for?
And what is that doing to the overall economy?
And so, in LA, where we're at is that we have released this RFP, Metro has released this RFP.
They've made one whole task in the RFP about equity.
They said very publicly to anyone who listens that the group who wins or This proposal is going to be based on how they talk about how they're going to address equity.
And there's this group in Oakland and San Jose called Transform, this community-based organization, and they've written this report that I've brought, Pricing Roads, Advancing Equity, and it's a pretty good piece.
I think people who read it might find some things here and there that they might not agree with, but it's a great place to start if you're thinking about equity and congestion pricing.
And then the other thing I would say is that we need to be thinking about this not just in our individual cities, but how transformative would it be if groups in Oakland got together with groups in L.A., got together with groups in Seattle.
Like, instead of all trying to figure it out on our own, I think we all really have to start thinking about the fact that there are some similarities in our western cities, and there are some things that we're all experiencing.
And that I'm not quite ready to say congestion pricing is the answer.
I think it probably is, but not unless we do it well.
And as a black person in America, I have just seen too often that the best ideas often don't benefit my people.
And that often my people aren't at the table when those ideas are being conceptualized.
And then afterwards, we like to talk about the unintended consequences of the policy decisions we've made, but I would argue that the consequences are completely intended.
And so I just want us to be clear about how we don't continue the historical injustices of planning against certain communities.
And that we really think about this because when we think about equity, what we've been trying to do is retrofit it.
We've been trying to retrofit equity onto policies that are already existing.
And congestion pricing really gives us a chance to rather than retrofit, do it from the beginning.
Because retrofitting often doesn't work.
Thank you.
So I think what we can do now, I'm just doing a time check.
Maybe we can start collecting some questions.
I'll have one more question to ask Tamika.
If you have questions, hand them down from the rows, or if you're on that side of the room, hand them to Kodisha on the other side.
So hand them this way, or hand them that way if you're on that side of the room.
OK.
Thank you.
In the meantime, I wanted to ask another question.
What is one of the biggest challenges you face in developing transportation policies with an equity lens?
One of the biggest challenges is just that everyone wants to do the work and they want to have the results without actually doing the work.
And so something I shared with the folks in our office yesterday, I shared this story about my wife where my wife is a partner at a law firm.
She's a lawyer.
I don't know if I mentioned it.
She's white.
And one of the things when I've really struggled in work, she always says, okay, how are you gonna fix it, right?
And so she always wants to get to the solution of how to fix it.
And what I've really had to push back on her is getting straight to the solution of how you fix it is such a position of privilege, right?
Because folks with privilege are able to identify something that is a problem and just fix it.
And I think many of us who don't have privilege have been in countless situations where we can identify a situation that is unfair or unjust, but we don't have the power and we don't have the privilege to affect it.
So we have to just sit in the discomfort of knowing something is wrong.
As a gay person, I had to sit in the discomfort of knowing it was wrong that I couldn't get legally married until the folks with power who were the Supreme Court of all non-queer people decided to allow me to have that right.
So I couldn't just get to the place where I fixed it.
Eventually, the queer community organized and we did it.
To a certain extent, we have to sit in that discomfort.
And I think that one of the hardest parts of doing equity work in the transportation world is that folks don't like discomfort.
And we are a profession of people who want to just fix it.
We want to just make the commute better.
We want to just put in the bike lane.
We want to just fix the timing on the signals.
And to do true equity work, sometimes you have to first understand what is inequitable and that's uncomfortable, and no one wants to sit in that.
And so maybe that's like too soft of an answer, but I think that's one of the parts that's made it hardest.
Oh, more.
All right.
So now we get to the fun part where Tameka will answer some audience questions that we just collected right now.
There's some really great ones already on the top that I'm going to just start rolling through.
We just want to just go through them.
All right.
So this first one is, how can our streets be redesigned to promote mobility justice?
so many ways.
So I think just so we can get through more questions, I'll try to have shorter answers.
How can our streets be redesigned to support mobility justice?
Again, I would first start before we try to do the work externally with doing the work generally is a profession, and I would say we would include more people in the process.
So how can we have streets that promote more justice, having the people who plan the streets and who design them, having more of those folks who have a different view of what is accessible.
And what is just, be part of that discussion.
And I think that's a huge, huge piece of it.
Understanding the difference between diversity and inclusion.
Understanding that it's not enough to just have those exotic, diverse faces at the table, but actually you have to listen to those people and allow them to impact the decisions.
Let someone with a disability actually be part of determining what is accessible and not accessible.
I think that would be a huge, huge first step.
You know, that makes me kind of think, now I'm kind of streamlining to something else, but how do agencies and people who are doing community outreach and saying they want to engage the community but don't know how, how can they make space or give up power in order for those voices to arise within the planning process?
Yeah, I think that's so tricky because sometimes to make change, we have to individually lose something.
And the framework I've been using is that's the difference for me between an ally and an accomplice.
So when folks are trying to think, how can I do this work and how can I do this work better, I always think, get from that place of being an ally to getting to a place of being an accomplice.
So what is an ally?
I think in popular culture, an ally is the person who Every time someone is oppressed, you write a new status update that's like, I support you, right?
But an ally is actually someone who takes an action.
And so the example I use that I think helps makes it tangible for people is if you're an ally and there is a woman or a person of color who speaks up in the staff meeting and says something you agree with, after the meeting, you send that person an email or you pull them aside and you say, I know everybody's not receptive, but I really appreciate that you did that.
That's an ally, like you've actually done something to be part of that space with that person.
But an accomplice is willing to risk something.
So an accomplice doesn't just safely send the email or have the one-on-one conversation after where no one else has to know you've done it.
And so you don't have to risk people not liking you or thinking that you're too radical or too aggressive.
That person gets, every time they say something, an accomplice is the person who, in the meeting, raises their hand and says, I just want you to know, I appreciate that you said that, I agree.
And so I think when people are trying to create space, it's not feeling bad for the privilege you have or the access you have or the power you have, it's using it to be an accomplice.
It's using it to make sure you're maybe taking a little bit of a risk, putting yourself out there and making sure that you're providing more than just allyship, but actually doing something and risking something in the work you're doing.
Many people get confused on the difference between equity and equality.
Some transportation solutions have focused on an equality framework rather than equity.
Can you provide further guidance or thoughts on this?
Equity is hard.
Equity is hard, and particularly in a political context, because if you are someone who holds an elected office or an appointed office, it is really difficult to be in a position where you say, we've had enough.
Give it to those guys over there.
be fine.
My constituents will understand.
They like me.
It's really hard to do that.
And I think that's why equity often gets defaulted to equality, right?
And I think particularly what we often see is people lead a conversation with equity and then it quickly devolves into geographic equality where we just want to give a little bit to everyone.
And I think I think that's the difference between the two, to the point of the question, is it's not giving the same to everyone.
It's actually making the hard decisions to say, like, there are some places that have historically not gotten a lot, and they're going to get more.
And they're going to get more because it's the right thing to do.
Now, it is really easy for me to say that as a private sector planner or as a person who works at a community-based organization.
And I think something I get asked a lot when I do these talks is if I will run for office.
I think some people really believe in me and want me to run for office.
I think other people are just like, you are articulate and black.
Like, you should run for office.
But the reason I always say no to that is because I know that would be harder if I was in that position.
So it's really great for me to sit here and be like, quality is not enough, do equity, but then turn to the council member and say, good luck with that.
How can I support you?
And I do think as individuals, how can we support council members or people who are willing to be brave and do that work?
I think we have to show up.
It's just like Yelp.
Like, the people who write Yelp reviews are pissed off.
They're always pissed off, right?
Because when something goes wrong, you're more apt to say something.
And I think that's also something I've had to learn as a person of color in this space.
I am really good at calling out white people.
I am really good at calling out men or people who aren't queer.
But what is even more radical is when they do something right.
And maybe it's not enough, but it's still right.
And going to that person and saying, yo, like, I know that was risky.
Thank you.
I know there's going to be this really heated meeting, and I'm going to show up.
And I'm going to show up for you, and I'm going to go hard for you, because you're not as far along as I would want.
But you've done this thing, and it's really important.
And I think sometimes we have to remember, it takes more than just criticism to get to where we want to be.
So this card is kind of cryptic, but I also kind of want to answer, too.
So it says, new mobility and equity.
Driving cars.
Or self-driving cars.
Thoughts?
Wow.
One, I appreciate your briefness.
Is there more of a question?
Cool, cool, cool.
So we wrote this blog at Tool Design.
Our communications team actually had a very similar request for me.
They were like, OK, AOC made this statement about how tech companies are giving data to police departments, and it's disproportionately identifying women of color.
And then there was this other study that said that Uber and Lyft are better than taxis, but black and brown folks still have their rides canceled more often, and it takes longer to get them.
And, you know, self-driving cars, write a blog.
And so, it was a very similar question.
But what the blog ultimately talked about is that technology isn't going to save us.
I'm all there for technology.
I went to Stanford Law School, so I clearly have a lot of friends in the Bay Area who went to law school but then started their own company or did their own thing.
And so I truly believe there are people in emerging mobility in the tech industry who are trying to do what's right and doing it because they really care.
I also think that is an industry that is super white.
super maldominated, and so when studies come out that say autonomous vehicles can't recognize darker color skinned, I'm not surprised.
Because the people sitting around writing the algorithms to make the autonomous vehicle, there aren't those folks in the room.
When I read a study that says that, like, the soap dispenser or the faucet that is automatic, like literally the science in the way the sensor works.
It is harder to see darker skin than lighter skin.
I remember telling this to my wife and she's like, are you fucking kidding me?
Those things never work.
It would work less if I was black?
Oh no, we need to fix that, right?
So like, I think the reality is that emerging technology is important, especially when you think of scooters.
I live in a predominantly black neighborhood, and I see kids and moms.
We have buses that never come on time in our neighborhood.
And so it is really effective to be able to pick up a scooter that you know will always be there and go to the next stop or get to where you need to be.
So I don't want to write these things off as not helping folks.
I do want to acknowledge that the folks who are currently designing many of these emerging technologies are not always thinking about folks of color, and especially if their ultimate goal is to just get acquired and make money, they're not necessarily thinking of us.
And then I also want to acknowledge that many of these new technologies are providing solutions.
It is easier as Tamika to catch a Lyft than it is to catch a cab.
So I want to acknowledge that that's true, but also say that when we think of things like scooters, especially in places like this where there are helmet laws, those things are being enforced at a different rate.
And so I just want us to not think that just because there's some new new, that equity doesn't matter.
It has to be incorporated into all of this work.
How do you specifically recruit to diversify your staff?
We've updated job descriptions, requirements, recruiting new places, present at community colleges.
How do we get people of color to apply for our transportation jobs?
So this is one of the struggles we're also having at Tool Design.
We recently started a policy that for any position from intern to super senior level, if we're interviewing folks, you have to interview at least one person of color.
Some folks who understand sports and football.
call this the Rooney rule, right?
Like the NFL did this.
Before you hire any new coach, you have to interview at least one candidate of color.
I think that's an important first step, but this last season in the NFL, like all the black coaches, almost all the black coaches were fired.
And in every new hire, it was almost always, I think there was one new hire that was a person of color, but every other position was a white person.
And so for me, this is a two-fold thing, and this should sound like a reoccurring theme for me.
Before we're just expecting results, we have to do that internal work.
So as a person of color who has chosen to work at a majority white company, I love my job.
I encourage everybody to work at Tool Design.
I think it's super dope, and I'm having a great time.
But I also have to acknowledge that everybody is not me, right?
Like, everybody is not Tamika Butler, who grew up in a very white state, who went to a very white law school, and has learned how to, like, code switch and navigate in these different situations.
So I think too often our focus is on hiring, when our focus should actually be on, we can hire all these folks of color, but then if they get here, and we are just wiling out with peak whiteness, it's gonna feel really uncomfortable.
We can really try hard to hire a bunch of trans folks, but if every time they use the bathroom it's uncomfortable because everyone's looking at them and no one's ever talked about it and we've never figured out what we're gonna do, what's that gonna look like?
We can say we wanna hire as many working mothers as possible, but then if we don't have a place where they can pump when it's time to go back for work, And everyone knows they're in the glass conference room that they've just hung paper up in.
That is really awkward, right?
So I think too often we focus on hiring without thinking about what happens after those folks get there.
So I think the first thing is to ask yourself, are we a place where folks who are different could even thrive?
And if the answer to that is no, then maybe spend some energy there while you're also trying to get diverse folks into the door.
I think we just have to be ready for the idea that this might take longer.
This might take longer and it might take longer because it's been a long time since we've actually tried.
And so it is showing up at different places.
It is changing job descriptions.
But it's actually being really, really intentional.
And too often in the professional world, we wait until we're hungry to go hunting.
That's probably a bad example.
But if we wait until we're hungry to go hunting, we're gonna look for that person to join our hunting team who knows how to do it, who's done it before, who's been in a very similar situation, who is gonna deliver immediate results.
And if we're not working on it all the time consistently, only when we really need somebody, then the default is gonna be to go to the person who's just like everybody else who we can just plug in.
So you made a comment earlier about a best practice, which is compensating CBOs and community members in the planning process.
This question is, can you think of other good ways to resource community-based organizations when designing new mobility pilots and permits?
For example, scooters.
So something that Metro did in LA that we were all really, really excited about is they put out an RFP for there to be a training for CBOs on how to join the bench and how to be able to better participate in these government calls for work.
But part of the RFP was also training Metro staff.
on how to better work with community-based organizations, and for me that was the real key.
I think too often we're expecting folks to meet us at our table.
We're like, how do we get more people to the table?
And at some point we have to be like, this is the wrong table.
They already have a table, or a stoop, or whatever it is, and we have to go to them.
And so I think one of the ways One of the best practices is first figuring out what's already happening in the community and then what are we going to do that's culturally competent, linguistically appropriate, like what are we going to do to meet them where they are and like how are we as the professionals going to be the ones who are forced to code switch instead of expecting them to do it.
Okay, so we're going to start wrapping up in a little bit.
I have one more question here that I'm going to ask.
Sorry we couldn't get to all of them today.
As transit improves, both thinking about BRT and light rail, improves land values, sorry, as transit improves land values go up, causing displacement of low income tenants and homeowners.
What are the best strategies for transit agencies to reduce displacement associated with transit investments?
This is a tough one to be the last one.
I think we're out of time, guys, sorry.
So I think one of the things that I've been talking about a lot, especially in our current political landscape, that has made this equity work so hard, to go back to an earlier question, is that we have just divided ourselves into what's right and what's wrong, right?
We can't talk about racism because racism is wrong, Not being—you know, not experiencing or not being someone who has racist thoughts is right, and so there's no way to talk about it, because it's just right or wrong.
And I think it's the same thing with gentrification and displacement.
Like, we've decided gentrification and displacement is wrong, and so it just fits in this one box, and it makes it hard to talk about.
Now, I'm not saying that it's not wrong.
I think it's 100 percent wrong.
I think it's been wrong since we gentrified and displaced indigenous folks in this country, right?
But this idea that gentrification and displacement is new, that's what's wrong, because we are a country founded on gentrification and displacement.
Like, that's how folks have increased wealth and power, by gentrifying and displacing people.
The reason I think we have to have a little bit more compassion in the conversations is because one of my first jobs after retiring from being a lawyer, because that was a mistake— was working at this organization that was millennial-focused.
So we focused on economic justice issues impacting millennials.
So I happen to know a lot of really random stats about millennials.
And one of them is that the millennial generation is the first generation that is going to be worse off than our parents' generation, right?
Like, we're not trying to—like, the dream for millennials is not to have a house with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence.
It's to not have debt.
Like, that's the dream.
We're waiting longer to get married, to buy houses, if we can even ever have a house.
And so, for me, what makes gentrification and displacement so hard is that we're often othering, frankly, white folks and saying that they're gentrifiers and displacers and they're wrong.
Now, sure, colonizers, always wrong.
And again, there's something tied in there.
But I am a gentrifier as a black person who said, I want my black kid to grow up around other black people.
And so I moved to a black neighborhood with my white wife and our jobs that make our joint household income way too high to say publicly.
So we are gentrifiers.
And I think that's what's tough, that there's not this clear area.
I think the way transit organizations have to start thinking about it is first to realize, as gentrification and displacement happens, it is no longer helpful for us to hear from you that this is not your area, that this is not your work, right?
Like, if your transportation planner or transportation engineer says like, you know, I'm not a housing person, I can't talk about transportation, All right, I can't talk about gentrification, then you're the wrong planner.
Bye.
Next.
You have to just start identifying that this is your issue.
The reason it is your issue is because as people get gentrified and pushed out, and that's both residents and business owners, it becomes your problem because they are going to a place that is going to need to be serviced by the transit agency.
So this idea that there's no budget to deal with this is just wild to me, because at some point you're going to have to create a budget to deal with the people who you've helped gentrify and displace.
And so I think the real first step is acknowledging that this is a transportation issue, and that it's not an easy issue, that many of us who are just trying to live, especially in these western cities where it is just not affordable, we're all part of it.
And to start being part of the solution, we have to start talking about it, and we have to start talking about it in a way that exhibits some sort of compassion, but also acknowledges that our history and our country is built on gentrifying and displacing certain people and continuing to systematically cut them off from wealth and resources.
And if we don't talk about transportation's role in that, then we're never going to be able to solve the problem.
What an answer.
Thank you.
All right.
So we're going to wrap up.
I think we've got some final comments from Mike.
Are you going to come up here?
Thank you.
Yeah, so to stay in touch with Tamika, you should email her at tbutler, that's T-B-U-T-L-E-R, at tooldesign.com.
And that's tool with an E at the end.
T-O-O-L-E-D-E-S-I-G-N.com.
And she'll be passing out cards after the event, too.
All right.
I want to start by giving a big round of applause to Regina for doing an amazing work.
Thank you.
We are so lucky to have an organization like Transportation Choices Coalition in our community doing this work, and it was just awesome to hear the questions and comments.
I want to thank all the folks in the audience today.
A full room listening to someone talk for an hour, the rapt attention coming out of it was really cool.
You all clearly care about what's being discussed, so thank you all for being here.