Will@peter It occurs to me that one of the people I admire most in online space is @alpert , who parlayed his curiosity and interest in urbanism & municipal improvement into a local movement through mostly blogging and creating space for discussion. Not cost free, there were relentless trolls and real financial expenses along the way, but you look back and the DMV has changed for the better as a result.
@peter @alpert I think I’ve achieved a margin of success on building bike infrastructure because I’m present and available online, but also get attacked and harassed periodically by being there. I’ve certainly made friends IRL and online-only as a result. But if I’m honest, in the full measure of it, I’m not sure how a fair evaluation of being myself online works out in the end. There’s an alternate reality as an anon shitposter that could also work.
David Alpert@peter @Will I think your online presence has been very valuable for increasing advocate trust in the agency. At least I once told Jeff Marootian and Dena Iverson, when they were running DDOT, that letting you tweet and whoever was the other person who often did (my brain is foggy today) was really valuable and they should appreciate it.
@Will @peter I used an example of you just tweeting something like “here’s our warehouse with a bunch of concrete things we’re going to put down to separate a bike lane.” It just let people realize “hey these agency people actually have expertise”. This wasn’t some huge scoop, just a day in the life of a competent bike facility planner.