Purple People Host a Community Fest

The chances we have to shape a $400 investment on the East Side are few and far between. Nobody disputes that. We have waited for corridor improvements, been skipped for transit improvements, watched lots sit vacant. 36 people gathered at Cups and Cheers to talk about the Purple Line and consider what that investment would mean to our side of town if it could be designed in a way that helped and didn't hurt. We were convening in order to hear “The good,” “the bad,” and the “utterly unknown.” One thing for certain: this conversation should not be the last. In order for us to get a Purple Line that would actually work for businesses and community, we'll need to stay at the table.  We had 10 businesses attend and 36 attendees total. This was not a project update with technical staff. It was not a rally. Politicians sat at our tables to listen and contribute and question. The bulk of the agenda was discussion. At our tables we heard from businesses  about their concerns, we heard from transit riders, community members, and advocates. We'll follow this news item with the takeaways and the notes from each table. Some really good ideas emerged and more will be needed.

These  were constructive and eye-opening conversations. And we have much yet to talk about with businesses to understand the kind of mitigation support we would need going forward.

Here's how one of our community members summed up in an email today: 

“I think one of the things that many of us – as citizens and as community organizations - are struggling with is that (1) we all know that the East Side really, really needs higher quality transit with more frequency of service, more reliability, more safety, and better stations and better station access.  But at the same time (2) not too many people are happy with the way MetroTransit is handling the design details so far. And let’s face it, we know from experience in many meetings that MetroTransit engineers are less than gifted in listening to and being sympathetic about issues raised in community meetings.  For so many reasons all along the corridor, the reason that the citizen-advocacy group 'The Purple People' was formed is to try to bring community voices into MetroTransit’s design process and to really push on MetroTransit to get them to design this project in a way that works for our neighborhoods, not in a way that hurts our neighborhoods.”