Advocacy 101: How to take on MoDOT and win--or at least, not lose (Part I)

This article is part of MoBikeFed's Advocacy 101 series, with tips and best practices for bicycle and pedestrian advocacy.

Part I:

MoDOT is building or 'improving' a road or highway in your town.

You would like MoDOT to include bicycle and/or pedestrian accommodations as part of this project.

Waiting for MoDOT, by zaskem on FlickR

How do you do it?

There are a triangle of inputs into MoDOT's decision-making:

1. Traffic engineers, "engineering judgment" & policy
2. Local politicians
3. Citizens

Usually when you start, MoDOT is able to say that 1, 2, & 3 are ALL against you. They have taken surveys of public opinion.  Of course the general public doesn't ever think much about bike/ped access, so they might not have mentioned it much.  And in any large survey, some people will be in favor of any particular idea (incuding bike/ped access) while others will be against.  So even the one point you think MIGHT be in your favor isn't--yet.

So now you get your neighbors & maybe the bicycle club or bicycle advocacy org to generate, say, a couple hundred emails and phone calls in support.

So now MoDOT says, great, you've got some of #3 but #2 and #1 are still against you.

Keep in mind that MoDOT is trying to take into account "public opinion" (whatever that is) as a whole, and so they know that in one sense, having 20 or 50 or 100 or 1000 people write in on a certain issue is a lot, but in another sense it is only a very small percentage of all 6 million Missourians or some hundreds or thousands of people in your neighborhood or town.

So you've taken a step in the right direction--but you're not there yet.

Then you work with your local city council & get some of the local politicians on board. If you've already gotten a lot of people to speak up in favor of your project this is going to be easier than you thought--because politicians do listen to citizens, especially citizens who vote.

So you work to develop local political support. After some work, maybe the city council even makes a formal statement of support for your project.

Now suddenly from MoDOT's viewpoint it is 2 to 1 in YOUR favor.

You don't always get your objective in this situation (there is still that pesky budget thing . . . ). But the balance of power has shifted and now their is more support for your position than opposition.

That's what you are shooting for in this process.

Of the three legs of the triangle, the most powerful by far is the local politician. MoDOT listens to local politicians. They are "the boss" to MoDOT--insofar as MoDOT does have a boss outside the agency. So you need to get at least one local politician--preferably more--on your side and advocating your case with MoDOT. 

It is important to understand the local politicians cannot make MoDOT do anything. No one can, except MoDOT itself. However, local elected political leaders have influence--and far more influence, and a different kind, than ordinary citizens.

The triangle of inputs into MoDOT decision making is a great example of Power Mapping, which explains how to effectively build relationships to move your advocacy agenda forward

Click here for more Advocacy 101 articles

Photo credit: Waiting for MoDOT by zaskem on FlickR, under a Creative Commons license.