Site Search:
Excerpt from
WORLDCHANGING: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
Edited by Alex Steffen, Forward by Al Gore, Design by Sagmeister Inc.
Straphangers Campaign:
Sometimes the best strategy for changing a city is to focus on a single issue rather than trying to change the overall structure of planning. Single-issue campaigns can be fulcrums for broader social change. These have been very successful for local-scale issues like getting bike lanes in city streets, and regional-scale issues like establishing urban growth areas.
One of the most interesting single-issue organizations is the Straphangers Campaign. Founded in 1979 by the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), the Straphangers Campaign is widely
credited with turning the New Your City subway system around, leading to a massive increase in daily ridership, with all of the associated social justice, economic development, and environmental benefits that
flow from having a widely used transit system. Straphangers make change through confrontational, grassroots campaigns that mobilize regular New Yorkers to demand reforms to the management and funding of transit.
Some of their campaign slogans have become famous: "With livestock it's called animal cruelty. With people it's called a morning commute." And on Thanksgiving, "If you want our thanks, fix the
subway." The staff of NYPIRG have come to be highly regarded as "content experts" on transportation policy, but the real source of their power is their ability to turn out large numbers of people and gain media attention. They've marched across the Brooklyn Bridge; they've issued report cards for every transit line; they've put posters up in bus stops; they've met with politicians running for office; they've written letters to the editor. All of these standard methods of grassroots advocacy, harnessed to a strategically chosen campaign that is changing city planning. GM
>From page 260
WORLDCHANGE is the winner of the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature.
To learn more about WORLDCHANGING visit www.worldchanging.org
To purchase this unique must-have book visit www.worldchanging.com/book