Can You Legally DIY a Crosswalk?

Carlee Alm-LaBar 0:13

A lot of tactical urbanism starts with a pretty ordinary frustration. People see a small problem in their neighborhood, realize the fix might not be that complicated, and decide to try something themselves. That can get something useful on the ground quickly, but it also forces a conversation about who gets to change public space and under what conditions. That's the subject of Sarah Herschender's October 8 Vox article, what if making your neighborhood safer means breaking the rules? She looks at residents taking on small public space projects themselves, and what happens when those efforts run into the rules cities use to manage safety, access, and liability. So today, we're asking, how do we make room for small experiments without giving up the safeguards that public institutions are responsible for?

Welcome to Upzoned, a podcast from Strong Towns, where we look beyond the headline at the systems, trade-offs, and assumptions shaping our cities and towns. My name is Carlee. I'm the chief of staff here at Strong Towns, and I've got two great guests with me today. So first, joining us from Portland, Oregon, is Rob Galanakis, a software engineer and small business owner, and he's part of the Strong Towns PDX Local Conversations Muscle Crew, which I can't wait to learn more about. Which is the group's expanded team of advisors and super volunteers. He's been involved with the group since the beginning, and has played a big role in its tactical urbanism policy advocacy, along with plenty of hands-on work around Portland. Welcome, Rob, and tell me if I got your last name right.

Rob Galanakis 1:52

Thanks for having me. You did you did so well. I've heard it all different types over 40 years, so you did great.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 1:52

Oh well, welcome. We're really happy to have you. We're also thrilled to join us from Pittsburgh. We have Melany Alliston, a principal engineer at Mott MacDonald. Over nearly four decades in civil engineering, Melany has worked on multimodal street design and on projects that move from temporary demonstrations into permanent construction. Melany, thanks so much for being with us.

Melany Alliston 2:21

Well, thanks for having me back again.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 2:21

Yeah, Melany's always a great trooper to join us. Join us when we call. So we're really grateful to you, Rob. I'm going to start with you on the questions as a tactical urbanism. I'm going to call you an expert because I know the work of Strong Towns PDX is really amazing. What stood out to you when you read the article?

Rob Galanakis 2:31

It was great. It was all the stuff we've wrestled with. It touched on the absurdity of cities not allowing folks to install certain things. It touched on liability and different types of liabilities and who's responsible for what liability. I thought a lot about discussions we have about perceived safety versus actual safety, and how the industry sees things one way and neighbors see things the other way. It really touched. You know, we've been in discussions. We've been doing this work for a few years, and in serious discussions with our transportation department and city council for a couple years, and it really, really touched on all that, and it was great to hear about these other cities we've looked to and talked to advocates from Nashville with their benches and LA with its crosswalks. It was it was a great article.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 3:17

Yeah, it really I have to agree. I the article is about a month old now from when we're recording, and I read it and thought, oh, this something that we have to talk about on Upzoned because we hear this from advocates every day. But I'm really excited, Melany. You know, you come at it from the practitioner side as a civil engineer, and how did how did you feel when you read it? Were you were you excited about the folks out there on the street being empowered, or did your nerve did you get a little bit nervous too?

Melany Alliston 3:54

A little of both. my first reaction was they're not wrong. It is frustrating. I've I've also been in the position for a very long time of trying to find funding and get permits to build things, and the design review process takes forever. And so I completely understand the frustration. I feel it many a time myself. And I think there are things that cities can do and can add to their, standards, their ordinances, and things like that could facilitate a little quicker process, and not having people die in the same spot again.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 4:58

Right. Right. I know you've helped us a lot, Melany, with our crash analysis work, and the phrase that always sticks with me that we use is no one should have to be the second person to die on a dangerous street, you know. And so these folks, the citizens that they profiled that were kind of taking that action, it's really compelling. It's it's when you've had a tragedy in your community. It's people want to do something and they want to make sure it doesn't happen again. In reading the article and in thinking through your work, and maybe Rob, I'll start with you. If you've had these conversations in your community, how can cities think about or how do you guys advocate for the size of the project as a way to say, "Hey, this small enough. We can do this. This quick. This a half day job for us. Like, let us just do it." Is and then what's like? Oh no, that should go through more of a formal review.

Do you have a way that you have that discussion and approach that with your community?

Rob Galanakis 6:01

We do. One of the things that we've been sort of formalizing, at least how we treat these projects as advocates, is, and I mentioned this in the open, the difference between perceived safety and actual safety. And the engineering profession and the transportation department are understandably focused on actual safety, right? Is this you know? There's the system of warrants, which folks listening may or may not be familiar with, but it's sort of like how do we quasi objectively make sure this safe? And we don't want to put crosswalks across four lanes of traffic without a median because this unsafe. And they've learned things, and those things are true, and I try. You know, we try to defer to our transportation department. But the other thing that's really important is perceived safety, which is just how do folks feel traveling around their environment, and that is going to be different than actual safety.

So, folks, you may need a crosswalk on, an intersection of two neighborhood streets, which will not meet warrants, but may be really important to helping folks move around their neighborhood. And we have a group called City Club in Portland. I guess they're they're all over the U.S. but it's like advocacy group, and they are not advocacy group, but a membership group, and they do these in-depth studies every few years. These research projects, and I was on the group that just we're just about finishing up our Vision Zero research project, which is an analysis not of we're not we're not transportation researchers, but is very much about like why has Portland failed in achieving its Vision Zero goals, which is pretty much the story of almost every American city that has a Vision Zero program. And the main thing is, we need to get people out of their cars. We need to get them taking transit, walking, and biking more.

And when we look at in Portland, we actually have a relatively high density. We have a lot of conditions that should lead us to having much better traffic safety results, but we don't. And the real reason there is our drive alone mode share continues to be about 80% of folks traveling around the city. You can't have a safe system if we have 80% of people driving alone to work and places they need to go, so we see this difference between let us focus on the perceived safety, right? That's great for us because we're coming from the community, we're dealing with people who are living in the community.

We're painting a crosswalk, and then people are like, "Oh, can you also paint a crosswalk over here?" We have a much better connection to the things that are bothering folks in their community and are generally going to be safe, and then you can focus on the higher priority things: transit lines, neighborhood collectors, and arterials, signals, things like that. That we're happy, we'd be happy for the transportation department to do that if they will really acknowledge the importance of perceived safety in achieving these overall safety goals, and we focus on that as tactical urbanists.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 9:01

That's great. You know, I think something that you kind of hinted around at that Melany, I want to ask you: Let when you work with your city clients, how do you balance the risk of trying something or suggesting that they try something versus the risk of leaving a problem alone. Like, how do you, because a lot of the a lot of times there is fear in the local government of making a change because there's a lack of confidence that oh that is going to actually make it safer, or there's just a lack of trust or whatever they may need to make the decision. So how do you help? How do you help your clients and your local governments you work with think through those decisions and judgment calls?

Melany Alliston 9:58

Well, I'd like to take one little step back for a minute, to Rob, you talked about the difference between actual safety and perceived safety, and how folks are the agency folks are working with actual safety. But I would argue that in a lot of cases, we've had the MUTCD for 20 or 30 years, and we've been using it. And there are unintended consequences of those warrants. You know, for example, there are warrants for traffic signals, and there are ways that you set the timing, which in a lot of places will end up at a very crowded arterial with a four or five minute full cycle, and so somebody who's waiting to cross at the pedestrian signal gets really tired of waiting and will, engage in bad behavior.

And so I think what we're doing with, SS4A and some of the other safety initiatives that have come down from the federal government in the last few years is they are beginning to understand about those unintended consequences that the regulations sometimes don't do what we think they're going to do, and so that's part of the argument. When I talk to people, is let's not think about the books and the standards and things for a minute here, and think about what really happened, why it happened, and what we can do to make that better in a more controlled way. The other thing we do a lot of in a lot of places is pilot projects. So selling something to somebody as a one week, two month, three month quick turnaround pilot or demonstration project. Let's just do this little thing for a couple of weeks and see if it works. And then, if it works, maybe we leave it in place longer term.

We build it with some a little bit less temporary materials, and then we go and find the money and hire the engineer that has to design it. And so, and coming from the bicycle and pedestrian design world, a lot of times you never had the money to build that dream facility that you wanted to end up with, and so there was always an interim design or a paint and flex post design that was a placeholder until you found the money for the real thing, and we can apply that same philosophy to this kind of stuff.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 12:47

Absolutely, Rob. Have you guys ever done a project where you've been able to maybe do a pilot that the city then took that and kind of made it into something more permanent?

Rob Galanakis 13:02

Ah. Yeah, there are folks who have done this. It predates the Strong Towns chapter, but we have a pretty famous protected bikeway called Naito along our waterfront. And basically, this came out of some more radical advocates who dropped, like hay bales or cones. They basically created their own bicycle lane. The certainterests in the city were really upset with it. Who are upset about any type of limitation on car access? They went to city council. They went to the transportation department and they worked. And like the next version was a summer pilot, right? And they just piloted for the summer and protect it, and it was just really popular. And eventually, the city was like, "Yeah, we're just going to turn this into a permanent bikeway." And it's awesome. It's one of the most ridden bikeways in Portland, but it definitely came out of this pilot process.

And initially, it was folks, pushing the city, not asking permission for the pilot, and then the city was like, "Okay, I, I see the merit here," and then it just became a shoo-in to go ahead and do it.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 13:57

Yeah, it's interesting to me because I feel like when you're on this spectrum of tactical urbanism, or maybe it's it's one of those two by two grids because sometimes you have very supportive cities that recognize the roles that the advocates can play in advancing these projects, and other times they're not. And then you have kind of the riskiness maybe or the Dramatic nature of the urbanism, the tactical urbanism itself, right? Like so, cutting off maybe a street lane to create a bike lane, as you said, was pretty radical. But ultimately, the results created something really great for Portland. So it's there's there's a. It's hard to kind of make these judgment calls of what's going to work and that sort of thing.

You know, Rob, you mentioned this earlier, and I'm curious, Melany, in your work, how do you use the how do you use the residents to help identify things that maybe a formal process might miss, or help you identify the needs in creating pilot projects, or other things that help support street safety goals, et cetera. Like, how did how did the residents themselves get a voice in that?

Melany Alliston 15:41

Well, I think the first step is a lot of lot of engineering projects. You have a public engagement process, right? That's required by your funding source and things like that. But it doesn't start till your 30% design is done. You've already selected a preferred alternative and you're moving on. Well, what I have done in the past is, at the very beginning of the project, in the planning stages, start off with a listening session. Do not walk into the room with preconceived notions. Ask people, where what's given you heartburn? What do you have? You know, what street do you have trouble crossing every time you want to take a walk? And kind of suss out what their concerns are first, and then start putting pen to paper with alternatives that can help address those concerns. It has the added benefit too, as you get further into the process of looking at different alternatives for different things.

If you continue that engagement, then people are helping decide on what trade-offs are acceptable to them, so they take a much greater ownership of the public process and their role in it as well.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 17:04

So listen first and then draw things.

Melany Alliston 17:07

Right, absolutely.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 17:07

Melany, you guys have done pilot projects as part of your engineering work. How does the public process look different if you're maybe just doing a pilot, or is your pilot are your pilots generally always a part of something larger?

Melany Alliston 17:07

Yeah, they're not always a part of something larger. And in fact, a lot of the new SS4A funding that cities and counties are getting comes with a demonstration project requirement, and so some of it can be purely demonstration. Some of those things can be days or a week or two long. They don't have to be long term, but it again I think starts with this the same listening process. It works really well when you have people who object to like taking away parking and things like that. Well, let's just try it for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. And so it a lot of times can be easier to convince the public to do something when you put it out there and oh, it's not that bad, right?

Carlee Alm-LaBar 18:11

Right, and then it can also build support for maybe the more permanent or more expensive changes when the when the short term pilot or the smaller scale pilot is successful. Rob, I'm curious what you've learned about the types of projects when Strong Towns PDX goes to do something where you really need the city's support and involvement, or the things that you're like, what, we can do this, and they'll just find out about it later. Do you have ways for like potential listening advocates to think through that?

Rob Galanakis 19:00

We go sort of back and forth. I give the city credit for wanting to work with us and do its best, but the reality is they're not. They're they're starting from like way in the negative. So every few months we'll be we some folks are really passionate about building benches for bus stops, and we put a couple of them out. And then the city was interested in working with us, and we almost had our MOU memorandum of understanding to do it. And then they gave it to someone to review, and they were like, "Oh no, actually, it needs to adhere to all these things." And I was like, okay, well, now we need to redesign, and it was just six months of nonsense for someone to approve it, and it wouldn't have made a difference, if that person didn't look at it, everything would have been fine. So we have to balance that because ultimately we. We don't. In the article said, like we don't want a permanent class of volunteer crosswalk painters.

You know, someone in the article says something like that because we don't. We don't want to have to do this all the time either. So we always have to balance asking the city for permission and trying to work with them on adjusting existing permits and creating new classifications of permits and changing ordinances, we have to work with them with that to actually just going ahead and doing the stuff. We've, it's it's just a huge waiting around for the city is hugely deflationary to enthusiasm, and in Portland as well, we have a dry season and a wet season, so if we want to paint, we have like four months where we can paint. And if we do our outreach, we won't. We've learned like don't try to collaborate with the city in March or April because we'll just be waiting with them all summer. So like, do our collaboration in the fall so we're ready to do more guerrilla things by the summer.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 20:42

Wow, that's amazing that you guys have. it makes a lot of sense, but a calendar by which you work with the city, really incredible. The there was a phrase in the article that I was that really stuck out to me that they that they used the author used that was, civic paralysis, and this idea that like there's the city's not doing anything on a particular issue, and the activists aren't aren't doing anything because they're kind of waiting for the city to tell them they can, or waiting for maybe the city to respond to something they say that they're going to do. I would ask maybe Melany, and then I'd love Rob for you to weigh in.

What's your advice for people that are feeling that way that they are in this, whether they are work for city government or whether they just love their place and want to make a difference, when you find those people who are like, my city can't do anything, my city can't get off, off square one to move forward, do you have any thoughts or advice based on your experience of how to not lose hope?

Melany Alliston 22:07

I think it's really talking, continue the conversation with them, talk to them bad ideas off them, find somebody who can be an advocate within that organization, and is willing to listen and keep talking about finding ways to do it, and the more that you, as somebody advocating for this, can do to keep costs down, to keep the time spent down, to minimize the amount of actual physical construction and funding that's needed, it's great. But also, within that agency, one of the things that I've done in the past is talk with agencies about how to find money to do these things in different ways. And so, if you need to build a curb extension to shorten a crosswalk, yeah, that'll cost you 20 or 30 or $40,000, but you might find stormwater money because you can put a bio retention in it.

You might find some ADA money to rebuild non-compliant curb ramps, and so all of a sudden you bring together three or four different sources, and you have enough money to build your project. And so the person in the agency is the one who knows the system, and through this continual flow of ideas back and forth can help bring it to fruition, perhaps in a more creative way.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 23:55

That's great, Rob. Any thoughts on you must work with advocates every now and then who are feeling that civic paralysis, or maybe you even feel it yourself sometimes? Any thoughts?

Rob Galanakis 23:55

Yeah, that's really interesting because, and just to back up a second, even the term tactical urbanism, there's not a clear definition of it. It means different things to different people, and I have found it helpful as it's become more popular to think of a split. So tactical urbanism. When we started to look at other cities with tactical urbanism programs, we realized now when folks talk about tactical urbanism, they're often talking about a quick build program within a department of transportation, street painting, murals, quick. And in Portland, we have been pretty progressive, and we've had a really progressive transportation department. We've had a quick build program for quite a long time. We've had intersection painting and street murals for quite a long time, and we realize what we're talking about.

Is something else which now you'll see called guerrilla urbanism, which is really to stress the fact that this unsanctioned activities, and obviously you can't have a guerrilla urbanism program. It's it's a tautology, but what it really comes down to is people want to put things in the right of way. We need a transportation. We need our transportation departments around the country to figure out how to open things up so we are allowing residents to put stuff in the right of way, whether that's a bulb out or a crosswalk or flexi post or. traffic circles, whatever it is. So, the person that is experiencing civic burnout, if they can go through the tact, if your city has a tactical or quasi tactical urbanism program, and they can go through that stuff. And Melany, your point about like bringing together funders and stuff is great, and I've seen great projects work out that way.

And it is the type of thing we need for like long term, really constructive change. But in order to keep folks engaged, because I deal with folks not just in advocacy like transportation advocacy spaces. I was a PTA president at my elementary school for three years. I'm in my neighborhood association, so I deal with a lot of people who are like not in this space. But my daughter's friend is in sixth grade. She was just hit by a car last month and broke her ankle. And her mom was, now really interested in this stuff and testified in front of city council and stuff like this. But when folks have these acute concerns and they want to be involved. I what I tell them is like pick up a paintbrush and do it. Just don't post about it on social media.

The one time Strong Town's PDX got in trouble was like were just posting too much of what were doing on social media, and it's really popular because like people like watching folks paint crosswalks and walk through freshly painted crosswalks, but eventually the city was like that. You know they got wind of it or whatever it was, and they had a problem with it. But all the things we've done, which we didn't post about on social media, have been left alone or in some cases incorporated. We have Simpsons fans may know this, but Matt Groening is from Portland, and the characters in The Simpsons are named after Streets in Portland. I hope I got that right. But now there's this like reflection where we're taking Streets in Portland making them about Simpsons characters.

So we have the North Northwest Flanders Greenway, and someone painted Ned Flanders heads on the greenways instead of sharrows for wayfinding because it can be a little tricky to keep track of where it goes. And then the city did some improvements to the greenway and put down green thermoplastic paint, and they like left cutouts around the Flanders heads on the greenway. So anyway, that was the thing like we didn't post about, but it was done and incorporated. So anyway, to get back to the civic burnout thing, I'd say if yeah, someone who's frustrated, blowing off that frustration feeling, and again, that's a thing that I thought the article conveyed really well was like it gives you a sense of agency and control, even if you're going to paint a crosswalk or a curb or whatever it is, and it's going to be like deteriorated in a year or so and it'll go away.

It still makes you feel like you did something constructive and you have some agency, and that I have seen firsthand is the a really powerful like bulwark against burnout.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 28:49

Yeah, I think there's a phrase that I sometimes use: "Nothing succeeds like success." And when folks have a win, it just helps so much. And I am sure that the that Ned Flanders story is so great because I'm sure that your whole Strong Towns PDX like was like yes, this so cool. You know, leave leaving that there. That's really a cool story. We have a couple of questions from a member, Aaron, who posted them in on the Commons, which is our member platform, so I'm going to share a couple of them. He had several, but there's one that I thought was an interesting way to frame this discussion, you know. And it I think follows on Rob your point really well about what Portland's done with a tactical urbanism program versus guerrilla urbanism, but should the goal? And you don't have to accept Aaron's framing, but should the goal be cities doing tactical urbanism faster, or cities making room for residents to keep doing it?

I'm curious, really, if either of you want. To grab that,

Melany Alliston 30:02

I think the answer is yes. Although it probably wouldn't be called the tactical urbanism program, but I think that finding ways for people to build the stuff the way the city wants it built. So having some details in their standard library for some of these tactical urbanism projects that come up all the time, but also allowing the community to get involved in it by finding ways to do it. You know, for example, if we need a crosswalk on this street near the school, it's usually trafficky. Let's lend a police detail for a weekend to and let the folks get involved in doing it. So, and supply the materials that we want used and things like that. So there's there are things that they could do to help. Yes.

Rob Galanakis 31:03

Yeah. Nashville has a really fascinating program, and it was touched on at the end of the article. So they have one of the, or maybe the only program that really is a formal process for residents to put things in the public right of way. So they submit plans and they get approved. It's not like an engineering stamp approval, but it's like here's what we want to do. And you, they, the.if I remember correctly, they basically sell the materials to the people doing the project. And it's it was running for a year or two, but as the article mentioned, it's run into problems now, and basically they got a new director of their transportation department who has insisted on like three. If you have a year-long pilot project, you need insurance that's going to run 365 days instead of just when you install it, just as a way to kill the program. And my answer to the original question would be would be both.

We need our DOTS to do stuff faster, but because of the growth Ponzi scheme and all the stuff Strong Towns talks about, we don't have a situation where we can we have the municipal budgets or municipal labor to expect our DOTS to backfill 80 years of poor choices that have embedded dominance of cars in our cities. So I think this really allyship between DOTS and cities and folks in finances and neighbors and advocates of saying what is the most important stuff for you to spend your money on? I'm not going to be like building a traffic signal anytime soon. What's the most important stuff for you to spend your money on? And then, like, what are the things that we can do well that aren't going to cost you money because we have time and a lot less treasure than taxes pay for, but we have treasure enough for a few buckets of paint and some rollers. So I think it's really a, and the answer is we need both.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 33:09

What does good follow through from the city look like without turning resident projects into unfunded maintenance? So if there's just this, I think the fear maybe is that if cities just kind of have a blank check to allow for tactical urbanism, are there a bunch of half painted crosswalks and things like that ultimately long term down the road create a even more difficult maintenance issue for the city? And how do you balance that? How do you balance that? How do you encourage that ongoing maintenance in a sustainable way?

Rob Galanakis 33:19

It's a thing we have thought about a lot. That was when we got like brought into the city for to discuss stern discussion about that illicit crosswalk. That was exactly it. There, oh well, liability issues and all this stuff. We were like, come on, guys! No one's ever been sued for someone like slipping and falling and an illegal crosswalk. It's just so. What's the real problem? And ultimately, the director of operations, who's who's been really constructive and helpful with us, was like, "It's maintenance. We, if it goes down on the ground, people expect us to maintain it, and we're already behind on maintenance. We can't do it." We're like, okay, that's that's legitimate. Yeah, I think the position I hold, and I know a lot of other folks hold, is the status. I think is a totally legitimate, understandable concern.

The flip side is this status quo is we already have a ton of crosswalks and infrastructure that is in disrepair, and we also have people that feel frustrated and are dying in our streets, and we can't get out of cars. So, like, I'm okay. I'm okay rolling the dice on a few years of increasing our unfunded maintenance liabilities because the situation is so dire. Anyway, I don't think adding whatever 15 crosswalks or whatever people are realistically going to do in a year is going to change the like fundamental calculus that Strong Towns has helped expose that we're just so far underwater anyway. This not really a problem,

Carlee Alm-LaBar 35:11

Melany. I'd love to give you maybe the last word before we move on to the down zone. What haven't we covered that you think we should we should add to this dialog? You know, when cities are what should cities be thinking of when they're making room for these small experiments, or what if there's a someone from City Hall that's listening today, like what would you encourage them to think about and to not maybe not get discouraged about these guerrilla urbanists out there trying to make their place better?

Melany Alliston 35:53

Well, I think again it's thinking about ways that the city could facilitate, and so again, some details to show people how to do this. Like Rob, you mentioned the Tennessee program that sold them the materials they wanted used, things like that. You know, I completely agree with you, Rob, that the maintenance cost really shouldn't be an issue. tactical urbanism groups are not going out there and painting a crosswalk on every single leg of every single intersection throughout your city. They're painting the one where somebody got hurt, and so I, that's really not in my mind, a great argument for not doing it. The other thing is to think about, I see a lot of folks, particularly local traffic engineers, who want to say, if it doesn't, if it's not in the MUTCD, we can't do it.

And but the what the real concern is if it's not in the MUTCD we might get sued, but cities and towns typically have limits on their liability when something happens in their jurisdiction, and so whether you get sued because somebody got hurt because there was no crosswalk, or you get sued because somebody painted a crosswalk and it wasn't quite right. Which lawsuit's going to be bigger? Nobody can tell, but a lawsuit's a lawsuit, no matter what the reason. You could get sued on either end.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 37:40

Right. I'm. I'm so glad that you brought that point up, Melany. Because we talked, we talk a lot about that at Strong Towns and trying to kind of dislodge that thinking of fear of being sued as a reason for not taking action. Because there, there is just that cost of not taking action, also you know. So I certainly appreciate that, Rob. I'm I'm gonna give you the last word on the article by asking you to respond to one of the sentences that really just stuck out to me in the in the article, and that was that for many municipalities, getting rid of the useful changes proves far easier than simply implementing in them in the first place, and that just meaning when you do have the municipalities who go and power wash the painted crosswalk or get rid of the pick up the bus benches that have been built and put down. You know, have you guys had that happen, and how did you how did you overcome it?

Or have you given other people therapy that have gone through that?

Rob Galanakis 38:22

So I have great news for Guerrilla Urbanists everywhere. It's way more work for city to remove the project than for you to put it in, it can take a city an entire day for a power washing crew to remove a crosswalk that took folks like two or three hours volunteers to paint. The city cannot fight a guerrilla war against guerrilla urbanists if folks are sufficiently motivated. Yeah, eventually. like we saw, sort of happen in L.A. police and courts may get involved. But the reality is, benches, can be picked up and moved relatively easily. But once we start talking about putting stuff in the street, it gets really expensive for the city to fight this. And the impression we got is like the city sort of knows this, right? They're going to work with us, or we're going to have to keep doing it. And eventually, like we saw in L.A. this a this a losing battle. The city does not win the court.

They don't win the streets in terms of the cost to take. To remove this stuff, and they certainly don't win the court of public opinion when they're like, "Yeah, we're going to arrest this person that's painting crosswalks where someone was, a kid was hit." It's just not going to happen. So, I would say that's something. Maybe that's the one thing I think the article gets a little wrong or frames it not quite the right way, and it's sort of some of the best news that we can take hard in. Is this a fight that it's a it's a winning battle for us, and it's huge leverage we can make with our cities to, and it gives us hope that we can make our built environment better.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 40:28

That's amazing. Thank you for that. That's that's great. It is it is almost funny to think about kind of the city chasing after the advocates, and it gives you hope for what's possible if you just keep doing the work. So before we sign off, of course, we have to do the down zone. So I'd love maybe Rob will start with you to tell everybody what you're what you're working on.

Rob Galanakis 41:05

Yeah, so I have a cool project I'm working on. I have two kids, and my younger just left elementary school and is now in middle school, so I have a lot more time on my hands suddenly. So, in addition to more advocacy work, I decided to use some of that on sort of a vanity project, and that vanity project is an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Les Miserables for performers and audiences entirely on bicycle. This a very Portland thing. We have a really great, like, quirky, weird bicycling culture here. We have already some like bike theater troops. This a little different. So we're hoping to pilot this summer, doing like a very short five or six song performance, work out the kinks in all sorts of ways, and then next year, next summer, hoping to do a longer, maybe hour and a half, two hour performance.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 41:50

That makes me want to come to Portland for a visit just to see it. That sounds incredible. That sounds incredible. Melany, how about you? And for those who are first time listeners, our down zone is where we allow our guests to take anything that they're working on, listening to, reading, and just kind of share something different. So, Melany, what have you been up to lately?

Melany Alliston 42:27

So, my mine is not all that different from what I do on a day to day basis, but I am now responsible for care and feeding of an 87 year old mother who still drives to work every day.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 42:37

Wow.

Melany Alliston 42:43

And so I do a lot of thinking about how to keep her safe, how to educate her about she grew up in the country, lived all her life in the country where there are no pedestrians. So kind of where we live in the more urban area, keeping the pedestrians and cyclists around her safe by educating her on how to how to navigate and things like that. So that's that's kind of where I spend my free time.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 43:09

Yeah, important work and what a what a blessing to be able to care for your mom. That's very awesome.

Well, mine. I just I just returned. I was very fortunate. I was in Central Europe on vacation for about a week, and had the opportunity. One of the things I like to do when I go to a new place for vacation is read a novel that is based in that place because then I get a little bit immersed. And so, one of the places were in is Slovakia, and I am midway through the hot summer of 1968, which is a novel, and I am going to, of course, butcher the pronunciation, but Willem Klimisek, and it has been it's such a neat way to explore a country to kind of be reading an immersive work of literature that kind of takes you back to the place, and so highly recommend it to kind of contextualize a place that I wasn't very familiar with before I traveled. So it's been it's it's really great. Well, thank you guys both, Rob and Melany, so much for being on Upzoned today.

I enjoyed the discussion, and tactical urbanism and guerrilla urbanism is a subject that's really near and dear to my heart. So it was fun to talk to two experts and learn a little bit, and also get kind of the different perspectives from the engineering side and the actual on the ground side. So, thank you guys both so much for coming on today.

Rob Galanakis 44:36

Thank you for having us.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 44:36

Oh, you're welcome.

Melany Alliston 44:36

Thank you.

Carlee Alm-LaBar 44:36

And to our listeners, if you want to keep the conversation going or add a question of your own, we do have a thread open in the comments. So head to commons.strongtowns.org, and we'll continue the discussion there. And we'll be back, of course, next week with. A new topic in a new group, and as always, take care of yourselves and take care of your places. Thank you.

This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at strongtowns.org/membership tonight.

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