How We Work & Why
Developing a new program
Way2Go is new to Tompkins County, with few similar programs elsewhere. During our first year, we asked questions, tabled at public events, piloted workshops and trainings, participated in related community gatherings, and did a lot of listening and learning.
What we heard and saw corresponded with more formal research on Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) around transportation. This inspired us to adopt more diverse approaches to educational change, and incorporate Community-Based Social Marketing projects into our plans (see more below).
What we've seen and heard
While we worked directly with a diverse, 17-member Community Team, we also found people eager to talk about transportation wherever we went, including on buses, on the street, and at various community meetings and events. We looked at people's real life options for getting around and how they make those decisions. We started identifying where transportation education can make the most difference, and where other resources or changes are needed.
Here are some of the things we affirmed or discovered:
- People lack information. Many people in Tompkins County lack information on at least some transportation options and resources available and how to access them.
- People's cars cost more than they think. People tend to scoff at "average car cost" statistics, but are surprised when they add up their actual total costs to own and use their vehicle.
- People's options vary widely. Transportation options vary dramatically by people's location, physical ability or disability, economic resources, and other factors.
- Transportation habits are hard to change. It takes more than one workshop for most people to try something new or change ingrained ways of getting around.
- People do what they see. People often try out or use new transportation alternatives as a result of what their neighbors, friends and family are doing.
- Small issues can be big barriers. Sometimes small, solvable problems can become big barriers to transportation, such as lacking key facts, familiarity or confidence with certain options.
- Education can't solve everything. Community education can improve transportation outcomes in many, but not all, situations. For certain transportation gaps, broader and deeper changes are needed.
- Positive solutions are related. Many of the same transportation services and choices that provide greater transportation access to more people also cut pollution and carbon emissions. In addition, the viability of different alternatives to driving alone are often interrelated, as are transportation solutions and solutions to other environmental concerns, housing issues and other contemporary challenges.
Using a diversity of approaches
These observations led us to diversify our efforts, which include providing self-serve information via our website and educational materials; gathering transportation feedback and suggestions; giving workshops and trainings; working directly with employers; and developing collaborative, community-based projects that work over time to make changes in particular places and communities.
Location-specific, longer-term and peer-led community change is a common approach among grassroots community organizing efforts. We also found such an approach affirmed by recent research on transportation behavior change, summarized by a Transport Canada article on Community-Based Social Marketing:
"A growing body of research shows that community-based social marketing (CBSM) is highly effective, and has been successfully used to encourage people to adopt active and sustainable transportation habits.
"Community-based social marketing has been shown to be much more effective in promoting active and sustainable transportation than mass marketing."
See also: Tools for Change.
