Latest / nondriver / Why Abby is Transitioning from Nonprofit Advocacy to a Career in Planning
Transcript
- Abby: My professor, he was telling everyone, wow, after reading Abby's assignment to this assessment is really interesting perspective that I never seen before because it's coming from blind person and when I do assessment, I do details of how bus is supposed to connect, how lines are supposed to happen, how signals, traffics. Crossing safety stuff all that together visual and non visual way. Welcome to Nondriver. Real stories of navigating our world from people who can't drive. I'm Devin Silvernail. And I'm Anna Zivarts And today we are joined with by Abby Griffith. Thanks for being here, Abby. Thank you for having me. Abby Griffith was born in Ethiopia, but grew up in rural Ridgefield, Washington. Which for folks who don't know Washington, I grew up here and I didn't know where Ridgefield was. It's just north of Vancouver, which is just north of Portland, Oregon. Abby is blind and relies on public transportation for day-to-day mobility. Abby currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and is working on a master's of urban and regional planning at Portland State University. Abby is a transportation advocate with a goal to become a transportation planner after finishing graduate school. So that's Abby. My first question for you, Abby, was if you could share a little bit about how being a non-driver has impacted your life. As you know, I grew up in Ridgefield, Washington. And until I actually went finished graduated from high school, I lived in Ridgefield and didn't have any transportation system. we had one thing it's called Connect and that bus system runs three times day. It was seven AM, twelve PM and then five PM, three times day. I don't know what they were thinking, but and even that was like over a mile away from my house. So there's n no way I could do anything. So I definitely was just going to school and come home and not doing anything, going out. shopping or socializing with my friends or sleepover nothing that kind of thing happened in in my teenager time because I my mom is single mother and we had only one car and she drives and we have seven siblings I have and I was oldest so I am trying to understand my mom was busy and not asking too much ride and sometimes she can't even give people ride because she was full time teacher. So it was very difficult. I feel like I miss out a lot growing up because I didn't have way to get around. that was a ridge field. And then I graduated from high school and I moved to Vancouver, Washington, where I wanted to go to college and I started going to community college, which was the best because I rented room from somebody where their house was right next to the bus number thirty f and that bus goes to school also cl community college. That was my best time. so then I graduated from community college and I was like, yeah, I wanna go to now get my bachelor's degree and I transport to WSU Vancouver and Washington State University for people who who are not familiar with WSU Vancouver, but yeah, the Washington State University where I transferred for my bachelor's degree was really difficult to get to from where I live. and sometimes I spend like almost three hours or over three hours if I miss my bus. getting one way. it was really like hard to do all the school homework and commute and you know, do anything. I literally spent my time just commuting and doing homework, nothing else. And finally I graduated from WSU Vancouver and then I was like, this is crazy. Why transportation is this hard? especially for people like me who who are blind and can't drive. we don't have good accessible transportation. and I started advocating for transportation thanks to an Z bird. I got involved in transportation advocacy type field and here I am today but definitely it impacted me so many different ways, not only school but like getting to doctors appointments or like grocery shopping. Thank God now I have delivery systems we can we can all use Uber or not Uber but Uber Eats DoorDash or Instacart to deliver, which costs a lot more, but at least I don't have to walk so many blocks to catch a bus, go do grocery shopping, carry groceries to to the bus and from bus to my house, and what can one person carry? If I buy enough food for two, three days, that's a lot of stuff for me to carry to my house. So it definitely made my life difficult, being a non-driver because it's diffic it made my life difficult because transportation system is not not planned to to serve everyone. And it's not completely ri reliable. Yeah. I so appreciate, you know, the the years of effort you put into getting where you need to go. I I visited you I visited your home in Ridgefield. I think you you introduced me to your mom and we went out there and it was so rural. Like there was a horse, like there was a pasture and and and you know, and and from a place I think I had to get a ride from my partner who like dropped me off at like a gas station in Ridgefield and Anyway, it was just it was so complicated to try to get there. now you live in Portland, Oregon, where there's much better transit access. But I I hear that like that Oregon is going through some really severe budget cuts and real real f challenges with funding trans transit and keeping buses running at the frequency they're running. do you wanna speak a little bit to your work before you went back to school for grad school? with Transit Rider organizing in Portland and and some of the challenges to fight for better transit service? Yeah. Also I want to mention that yes, we here in Oregon, especially Portland, we are going through a lot like a service cuts. I think they will be cutting at least twenty three different bus services this coming Sunday. So we are sad and Sunday we will be out there just being sad and bus riders like myself we all wear in black clothes been warning, you know, sadness in telling people our service is cut and now some people don't have bus service that they use to get to work. and and you know whatever they'll do. But yes, I before I started my master's degree in urban and regional planning last summer, last fall, I worked at a nonprofit organization called Oppo Environmental Justice Organ as Bus Riders Unite coordinator. And yeah, we advocate we advocated we are still advocating but we advocated for a better transit system and also you know fairless transit which we were not successful but so many transit riders here are low income and I mean the it is so difficult to like figure out how to pay and and especially when we don't have like a system that is super reliable. Here t a lot of people think, Portland transit system's good. It is good some places but there's a places sometimes it doesn't go the direction you wanna go. So you kinda have to sometimes you have to like do three buses to like three miles. one day I was going to go to this place to hang out with my friends. It was some hangout place and I was going there and it was like a little bit over three miles. I had to take three buses. You know, not only are you bringing your experience as someone who has relied on transit your, you know, your whole adult life. But also then as a transit organizer to your work now in grad school. So I think that's that's a unique perspective and and probably brings a lot to the table that many other folks in these in these transportation planning programs probably don't have that that experience or those experiences. Opo the organization I will worked was paused and the program I was leading was bus riders unite program. When they pass operation, I was like, we are not going to let bus riders unite program go away. So I make sure to just organize by myself as a volunteer to keep everyone together and finally we got lead organizer part-time to help me. a couple month ago, few months ago. His name's his name is Michael. And we still have a bus riders program. thanks to people who helped me to keep pushing. to keep it up. So yeah, that was exciting. So it sounds like you pushed them to keep it going. So that's I mean, that's the kind of people we need to be working in, in in transportation planning too now, right? People will push things forward. I'm curious, those budget cuts are are those are are y'all seeing that happening all over the place? Is that kind of because it's coming down from the federal level or is it just is it local to Oregon? Why is that happening? Yeah, the transportation budget is statewide transportation package that supposed to get passed last year and unfortunately it didn't pass. It was actually this year. And the package didn't pass for transportation and they lost funding. I feel like in a lot of ways Oregon is sort of this canary in coal mine for a lot of states in in where the way transportation funding is going where there's these huge deficits at the state level because of deferred maintenance and because of you know insufficient funding streams going in for everything, you know, roads too, but Oregon that really has the hit the fan. and I shouldn't be laughing about it 'cause it's really serious. And I mean, not only is there not, you know, pro funding for road expansion, highway expansion, and road maintenance, there's also, you know, like huge transit cuts happening and yeah I saw the Green Line is like ended serv like they're actually taking lines out of service, a light rail. is that correct? Yeah that's actually one of the buses services that will be cutted in this coming Sunday where we are going to go cry. but yeah Green Line is where actually where Portland State University students including myself, use and it will be gone. And are they still going through with that Columbia River like crossing big highway expansion thing or or hopefully they're also cutting that? That is still on the works. Yes. Yeah. No big questions around how any of it's gonna get paid for, I think. Yeah, and you when I remember you advocating bringing all advocates to advocate for a move ahead Washington transportation package and thanks to you and the people like you, yours got passed but Oregon package didn't get passed, so I think Abby you and I met actually when we were, gosh, working on that and and talking about 'cause at that point you were living in Vancouver, Washington and we were highlighting some sidewalks that were missing near transit stops. right outside of, you know, Vancouver and and Clark County, sort of suburban Clark County, where these dense, super busy arterial corridors, you know, with transit stops, with bus stops on them, you had to walk down these muddy pathways to get there. And of course there were also no audible signals, accessible pedestrian signals at the crossings and just, you know, at the same time our states are considering spending billions on a a bridge re bridge replacement, which is also really just a highway expansion project. So Real the need to highlight some different priorities and and and you know, start telling our stories as people who need those sidewalks and need that transit service. But it's really scary watch what's happening in Portland right now. I think watching from you know, your northern neighbor, those transit cuts I think will be coming to a lot of places soon if we don't f reprioritize how we're funding things in the transportation space. I want to talk about grad school a little bit and because I I feel like, you know, you and I, Abby, as we worked together previously, always talking about the need to have more people in the room when decisions are getting made who are disabled, who are blind, who have mobility disabilities, who rely on the bus. And, you know, so often, you know, to be in these spaces and to be at at transportation agencies and then planning departments, you need these degrees. I'm not someone who has any of the planning degrees. so it's so exciting when people that I've worked with, you know, take the leap and commit to to going back to school and to get those those credentials and to study more. Do you want to share a little bit about your decision to go back to school and then what it's been like? Honestly, I made my decision to go back to school because As I mentioned, I been advocating for like better transit and struggling to get around and I feel like I wonder because it's good to advocate, but my my mind's like, what if I just go to school and get my master's degree to become transportation planner. So I am studying urban and regional degree, but my focus is on transportation planning and been thinking about I want to become planner. Like, you know, we need people with disability in a planning field, which historically we don't have that. That is why we have so many accessibility issues and and you know transits not being reliable and people has to walk at least like sometimes five to ten blocks to get to the bus stop. If people with disability involved in that planning, I feel like they could say, hey, that's too far to walk to get to bus, like make buses not too far apart, bus stops not too far apart, things like that. So yeah, my decision to go back to school was instead of being just advocating, abrocating, because decision makers sometimes really hard, they pretend like they are listening, but they don't listen. So I feel like I wonder if I could find a way to be in the field where I can be more connected with decision makers different way could help our community. and I decided to go back to school and I actually never thought of urban regional planning. I was just looking for what can I do to find a way to figure out like a better transit system and I was just looking into university website but urban and regional planning degree popped out and I was like, wow, this is me. Are you thinking after grad school that you want to go maybe work for like a transportation agency? Like would you want to stay in Portland, work for TriMet? Or are you thinking maybe would you want to use that to go back into the advocacy kind of nonprofit advocacy world or maybe you go into policy. I am thinking about working for transportation agencies like you know, Portland Bureau Transportation or metro transportation related bigger organization organizations like PAT, ODAT, those kind of field hopefully try not to yeah I think those organizations and those cities and that yeah city like a PIBA or that like those have a more power. I don't know if I wanting to go either like rural planning because rural area already I grew up in rural area where I don't have a way to get around and that will be not good for me emotionally, mentally. It will be very hard for me to do my job in trying to get around and struggle anymore. So I definitely wanna stay in the in the city, and work for transportation agencies that has a more power. And I I will be actually interning to metro regional transportation city city of Portland next month. What has your experience been like as a person as a blind person, a person with disabilities in grad school? Do you have any Tips or suggestions, advice for other disabled people thinking about going back and and getting, you know, getting some of these degrees and navigating that space? Yeah, my experience, especially the degree I am pursuing, is really visual. So I really love a program because I know there's good future And I can do good things with my degree. I can advocate, I can make a positive change. But definitely for blind students, you have to advocate, you have to a lot of advocacy. Like it's not like any other student who come to class and sit through the lecture. and do homework and study. for us is do all those class advocate for accessible materials and documents and in like extra testing for exam and extra time for exams and assignments and you have to advocate for that. It's not already automatically happen. professors and even disability support services wait until you tell them so you kinda have to do that from your side but yeah it's really visual I am lucky to like be big advocate for myself visual things be described audio or get in accessible documents, put all that labor to get accessible materials to get get my staff working as planning student i have to go out on the field and assess like transit staff like transportation big transportation lines and things like that. So I have to have assistant come with me, describe all the layouts and things so I can do my assignments and practice my my planning, those kind of things really like heavily visual. I'm sure the person who's assisting you in those cases to learns so much about I just think there's so much so many assumptions about the build environment Because it's, I don't know, the way most of us perceive it is pretty visual. And what they get to learn by trying to actually describe verbally the way things are working. And then maybe realizing how things don't work when you try to describe things visually, right? I think must be is it I I'm curious, is it another student that provides that service or is it a professional, someone who's more of a professional accessibility person? It's another student they hired to be my assistant, they get but to answer your question actually my professor one of my professor public space class plus pro professor said that wow in the class he was telling everyone wow after reading abby's assignment to this assessment for pioneer school transit center and Rose Quarter Transit Center assessment Abis is really interesting perspectives that I never seen before because it's coming from blind person and you know when I do assessment I do details of how bus is supposed to connect, how lines are supposed to happen, how signals, traffics, crossing, safety stuff, all that. I put together non visual and non visual way. And he thought it was wow, it's eye opening how how I can show what accessibility is like supposed to be. That's the power of being in the room, right? I mean you just being part of that class, you've changed the perspective of a per professor. o of those other students, of the student that is your assistant. I mean, that's one person, right? That's that you did that. I mean, that's incredible. I so appreciate that you're putting in and I know how much I mean, it is so much effort for you especially to like fight always for those those access needs to get met and like that it's never handed to you or never even probably offered. You you are fighting and fighting. And so I really do yeah, like I think all of us benefit when When we have more people and more perspectives in the room, but knowing how how much you're working, you know, to be there, I really do appreciate, you know. No know that it's hard. and that you're sticking with it. And I, you know, can't wait to see where you end up with, you know, with an agency, hopefully, you know, leading an agency, hopefully someday, you know, from this perspective. I wanna share one example, just sort of circling back to what you were talking earlier. about the distance of bus stops. And I remember, I think when when we first started working together, when I came to visit you, we also went to your home in where you lived in Vancouver, Washington. And you were describing to me how long, 'cause you had moved somewhere that wasn't right on the bus 30. You were somewhere further and it was a like this long hill with a narrow sidewalk and how there was always trash cans in the way on that sidewalk and how it would take you like 15 minutes or so. you know, to get to that bus stop. I think it was around fifteen minutes. And and it was interesting 'cause we went there and and and I looked at the distance and in my head I was like, gosh, that's not very far. you know, for someone who's not blind or, you know, can can and doesn't have a mobility disability, it didn't feel like to me, if I was to see that beforehand, I would have thought, that's a close bus stop. That's an easy bus stop to get to. and in reality, like for you and and your access needs, it took It took a lot of time. It was a big chunk of, you know, 15 minutes is is a significant chunk of your day anytime you want to go somewhere. And it really has helped me now understand, you know, we're looking at some bus stop consolidation in my neighborhood. the transit agency is they proposed eliminating some stops. And I I really just I'm constantly reminded of, you know, what I learned from you in that situation and how how that distance really did take so much longer to travel. And it was not gonna be accessible if for the bus stop to be so far away. And I think, you know, the same thing will happen here if we eliminate bus stops and expect people to easily walk an extra what would be five minutes or ten minutes for someone who is a fast walker. That's not like that's not everyone. So anyway, I just want to thank you for helping me really like internalize that lesson when we started working together. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, definitely Anna, thank you so much for bringing up that because There's so many overgrown bushes and you have to like walk into the bushes. Even I'm not that tall, but bushes sticking out, so I was kind of dragging my hair and and scratching my fist. And I have to stop for that every every like maybe like 10, 15 feet and stuff, and I have to navigate the really tiny sidewalk and Listen for cars and whole tie stuff is just too many things to navigate. Yeah. It's blackberry season again here in the Pacific Northwest where all these blackberry vines start growing out and over and like dangling down and I don't see well enough to see them always. I get them in my face and it's like yeah, it's I wish people would trim black their blackberries. It's so annoying. Is it tomorrow right that you said that everyone is gonna be going out and w in wearing black and and mourning, you know, pro and protesting? Sunday. Sunday, twenty-third, yeah. Twenty third we'll we'll be out there. Like we will have list of buses that been cut, including Green Line you mentioned. And we will be just walking around, not everybody wearing block. hopefully we can't Change anything, but at least we can say, look, we are sad. Well, I mean, protest is a starting point, right? Like that is you know, it's a gateway for people when you're organizing, you know, this is an advocate, right? So in the future, like going forward, I'm sure this is going to be a fight for folks down in Portland. Is there any way that folks can get involved in, you know, trying to get funding to restore? service is there a campaign or an organization that's leading that? Including myself with bus riders and different organizations going to Capitol City, Salem, testify and all that stuff didn't help. But yes, people still trying to get more funding for especially transportation, but who knows? I think the whole through line of this show is that despite you know, what people can perceive as barriers for people who are non-drivers. you know, non-drivers overall, persevere, right? They find a way to make life keep moving forward. you know, and because of that, you know, we try to provide some sort of thought about how we can keep that spirit of hope alive. You know, despite all of the problems that are happening in Portland right now and really around transportation, I think everywhere in the country, is there something that you can look at that provides you a little bit of hope for non drivers that gives you that spark to keep going and and keep pushing for something better in Portland and really all over the place? I don't know. I think Not too sure it's gonna happen, but I'm honestly looking for autonomous vehicle sometime. I wonder that's something in the future could give us some other options. I'm not too sure that this is like, you know, sometimes people are like, I don't know how this is gonna work, but no what sometimes we gotta have. Some other options. It's like a Uber and Lyft, not nothing different. But this since it's gonna be driving by itself, I wonder it could be a little bit cheaper for our community. And and fingers crossed, try mat, find a way to bring our service back. there's no promise to bring them back any anytime soon or Who knows when is how long it's gonna take to add a new line or bring the one they are cutting now back. yeah, I almost wanna say I don't have any hope. Maybe I can try to give you some hope. what what I'll say is I'm really hopeful because I see y you going and and going for your degree. And keep pushing and again, like I said before, you've already changed the minds or the thought processes of people that you've worked with. You've you've helped Anna, and you've your professors and your fellow classmates. I think that's I'm looking forward to seeing what you're gonna do in Portland in the next couple of years. Definitely yeah, that's it, definitely. I do hope either Portland, hopefully Seattle, any bigger city I choose to work and transportation planning, I I do have a hope I can make positive change for sure. Yeah. I'll add to, I mean, I think just, you know, being visible and that's sort of what we're trying to do with this podcast, right? You know, both Devin and I are low vision and can't drive. You're blind, like the a lot of the folks we're we're highlighting on here can't drive for a whole host of different reasons. And just being you know, making sure that that we're we're present and that this these conversations are being discussed so that people know that we can't just have these systems that are where where people are expected to drive places 'cause that's failing all of us who who can't drive and don't drive. And so I don't know. I I'm hopeful that we are building some of this momentum and yeah, it's gonna be hard and and we're facing these fiscal cliffs and so many transit agencies around the country. We're seeing some real rollbacks and in federal funding and support for for transit. But the I I think there is sort of a a sea change in the conversation around non drivers and the visibility of people who can't and don't drive. And I I th that gives me hope. And so I know it can feel lonely sometimes or it can feel hopeless. It can feel like there's not enough of us to get the votes we need to to, you know, get the funding yet. But I I I do hope that bit by bit that changes and and just being present and reminding people we exist is is part of that. So thanks for, you know, being there, being in school, being with all these planners, you know, some of whom probably were there because they wanted to help cars go fast and like, you know, reminding them that that's not the only goal of designing transportation systems, right? So thank you. definitely, Anna. I just wanna say, yeah, there's a lot of hope. I think it was five years ago when you launched Week Without Driving Challenge. And since since you started Week Without Driving Challenge, actually a lot of policymakers aware of transit system they don't even know before. and a lot of a lot of them know it's there, even if they haven't taken challenge. They heard about it and they know it's there. They know they're aware of it and and most of some of them take challenge and experience it. So awareness there and hope is there. you're right. That is so corrupt. But holding space too for that grief, right? Of of losing all that transit access. I I mean, I I have a feeling we'll be there here too if we don't change some things and it's it's scary. I mean, we can't pretend that there aren't problems, right? And and that that's pu that's I think step one in making sure that we make positive change in the world. if there are no problems, there's nothing to make better, right? And so we're in this period right now where things are not great. when you're looking especially when you're looking at we were talking earlier before the podcast started about yeah, the line consolidation. in Anna's neighborhood, my old neighborhood in Seattle. and it's a neighborhood that desperately deserves and needs rapid transit and in and alternatives to driving for so many different reasons and though their heart is in the right place the agency is well I don't think that they're actually listening to their community, right? And so that is a down period But because of that, that may be bringing the community out, right? And that may be inspiring another person who is, you know, a 17-year-old kid and they can't leave their house because they can't get to the bus stop and they're gonna get pissed off. And and that rice righteous anger may may point us in the right direction, right? So that's what we gotta yeah, like that's right. We gotta hold space for that grief and then channel it into something. That I think we're all trying to do right. So that's that's always a good thing to have all of us together like this. All right. Well thank you, Abby. Thanks for taking time. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Nondriver. I'm Anna Zivarts And I'm Devin Silvernail. If today's conversation resonated with you, please subscribe and share the show with a friend. You can also leave us a review wherever you listen. It genuinely helps other people find the show. Nondriver is brought to you by the Nondrivers Alliance. Find more info at nondrivers.org. And this episode was produced by Devin. Want to get in touch? Email us at non driverpodcast at proton.me. We'll see you next week.