Friends,
Since its founding in late 2019, the Providence Streets Coalition has been building collective power to change our city’s mobility infrastructure. We go so much farther when we go together! But at the same time, we also want to let individual voices shine through. So often, the story of one person’s lived experience within a flawed system – especially one as opaque, technical, and bureaucratic as transportation – will humanize and illuminate a problem like nothing else can.
“Street Stories” – inspired by platforms like Humans of New York – was born in the fall of 2020, a time unlike any other in our history. Overlapping crises of public health, systemic racism, and climate change suddenly thrust urban public spaces into the spotlight, and forced us to reckon, reimagine, and reconsider the very ground beneath our feet. We were thoroughly shaken, and are just beginning to find solid footing again.
Over the last three years, the 33 individual stories of mobility, safety, and identity presented here were collected and shared one at a time. Now, we’re bringing them all together. The result is a gorgeously comprehensive gathering of the people of Providence – how we move through our city, and our ideas and hopes for change.
Order your copy by donating here. Minimum suggested donation of $10. If you give more, you will subsidize free copies that we will give to City Councilors and City planning staff, RIPTA board members, RIDOT, and other decision-makers to help humanize the impacts of their policies.
This publication is also a time capsule of our struggles with the pandemic and the State of Rhode Island’s cruel and failed attempt at breaking up Kennedy Plaza into a “multi-hub bus system,” as well as an unprecedented build-out of our urban trail network under Mayor Elorza.
I will always look back on this time with a bizarre mixture of horror and gratitude, isolation and community, revolution and stagnation. What I can say with certainty is that it’s been an honor to lead this Coalition, to collect these stories, and to make change alongside you.
Onwards,
Liza Burkin
Founder & Lead Organizer, Providence Streets Coalition