The Bottom-Up Revolution Is...Using Art To Advocate for Street Safety

Sarah Rose is an artist from Spokane, Washington, who uses her art to raise awareness about street safety and the protection of native insects. She is active in her city’s Local Conversation, Spokane Reimagined, and often speaks with local reporters and at city council meetings. She joins Tiffany on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to talk about how the intersection of advocacy and art is driving change in Spokane.

  • Tiffany Owens Reed 0:00

    Hi everybody. Welcome to the bottom up Revolution podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany Owens. Read This is the show where I talk to ordinary people who are working in a bottom up, grassroots fashion to improve their city, whether that's working on improving intersections in their city, if that's creating better biking infrastructure for children to be able to bike to school, whether that's running for public office, it's really exciting and inspiring to meet all the people I get to talk to and hear how they are bringing their unique strengths and talents to their city and working to make it a stronger, better, more beautiful place. I really hope this show helps you look at yourself and realize that you probably have something you can offer your town, even if you haven't even read all the strong towns books, or maybe still get a little bit confused when someone says municipal finance, or if you're not exactly sure exactly how to understand in and outs of transportation engineering, this show is the place for you. It's where we want you to hopefully be inspired by the people we've been gone to see that you probably have something to offer and there's plenty of room for you at the table. One of our core campaigns at strong towns is safe and productive streets. So through this campaign, we are working to help people see the connection between how our streets are designed and the productivity of our streets from like an economics perspective, but we also want to draw the connection between the design of our streets and how that affects not just what we're hearing about in the news with accidents and unnecessary damages and even fatalities, but how it just affects our experience, both as drivers and as pedestrians. We think it's time to rethink some of the norms that influence the design of our streets and really call for reform and so that they can actually be truly productive and safe spaces. Today's guest is active in that arena in her town. I'm really excited to bring her story to you. Sarah Rose is using art to raise awareness about street safety in her town of Spokane, Washington. She's also getting involved to advocate for her city, to make improvements and in certain areas around town. So as I mentioned, Sarah Rose is an artist and activist from Spokane, Washington. She paints pictures of bugs, riding motorcycles, sorry, riding bicycles and micro mobility devices. Maybe there's a motorcycle in there. I guess we'll find out as a way to invite people into the discussion of safe streets and how public land could better support native species. She's active in the local conversation group called Spokane reimagine she speaks of often at city council and talks with local reporters, and hopes to see her home city become a more walkable and bug friendly place for all we will definitely be linking to her website and to other links we can see her work in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. Sarah rose, welcome to the bottom of Revolution podcast.

    Sarah Rose 2:51

    Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. I'm really

    Tiffany Owens Reed 2:55

    looking forward to this conversation. I guess we can start off with you clarify whether or not you have drawn or painted, I'm not sure your exact medium. A bug on a motorcycle. I

    Sarah Rose 3:06

    haven't quite done a motorcycle yet. My goal is to first start with the acoustic and the E bike. Forms of micro mobility. Basically anything without that gas motor is what I'm looking at. But arthropods against automobiles is my main

    Tiffany Owens Reed 3:20

    Fair enough. I think we can get behind that. So let's talk about your work represents two loves, bugs and transportation. Let's start with bugs. Tell us where that interest and that fascination and curiosity came from. Can you share a bit of that story? Absolutely,

    Sarah Rose 3:37

    I am the youngest by about five years to two older boy scout brothers, and while we grew up in the suburbs, my mom always grew up on a farm and has kept a lovely garden, so I used to sit just a few steps in front of her in the dirt and move the bugs out of the way while she sowed seeds. So I suppose you could say I've always been invested in transportation for bugs.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 4:00

    Nice. How did this, how did this interest, like, did it ebb and flow over the years? Was it kind of always there? How did you just, like, growing up, like, how, how did you figure out kind of where to put this interest? And just through all those pivotal years, middle school and high school,

    Sarah Rose 4:16

    it definitely came and went. I can remember when other girls were bullying me quite a bit for liking bugs and not being scared of them. So to try and fit in, I suppressed it for a few years. But growing up, I just realized, like I will always love bugs from an art standpoint, from an engineering standpoint, the way they move and their similarities and differences to mammals just fascinate me.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 4:38

    I have my fair share of bug rescuing growing up. So I can relate to some degree, although I must confess that we're in a full on battle against flies and crane flies and strange flying objects that look like wasps and mosquitoes and flies. Obviously, it's bizarre, and the love stops at a certain point. That's just. Really fair, the rescue missions, the rescue missions, I saved those for the really pretty moths and the butterflies, but got it on the line somewhere. Let's talk about the transportation side. Can you share a little bit about just maybe like when you started to think about transportation, and how you became just more aware of of this issue and how it affects our daily lives in the cities where we live.

    Sarah Rose 5:22

    Absolutely I growing up, I can remember when my mom said it was just too unsafe to be riding our bikes out, and she wasn't wrong. When I was in sixth grade, I was a crossing guard, and one of my fellow crossing guards was actually bumped by an impatient parent of someone at the school. So there are a lot of instances of people that I knew being hit by cars or losing a loved one to being hit by a car, and I think that really opened my eyes to the bigger picture. Recently, I found not just bikes and strong towns, as well as 50 other urbanist channels, and I'm working on my own YouTube channel as we speak, excellent, but I think that and travel, just being able to see other options in person has been very influential. Do you

    Tiffany Owens Reed 6:03

    have a favorite place you've traveled that you feel like was really eye opening? I

    Sarah Rose 6:06

    mean, Amsterdam, obviously, is very eye opening for a lot of reasons. But I actually went to Ireland about 10 years ago when I was younger, and just went back for the first time, and to see some of the changes that they'd done to their pedestrianized streets was really interesting.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 6:20

    I'm dying to have a similar comparative journey to Paris just to see the transformation of the city under mayor, Mayor hidalgos work. I hope I said her name correctly, but I was there seven years ago, and just every time I see it and then in the news, I mean, I got to get back and see what this is like. I do remember being very shocked at the amount of traffic in Paris and just how like, especially because I have those wide boulevards, and just seem like, Man, this is a lot. Um, so tell us a little bit about how you came to decide, how you decided to sort of merge these two interests. And I guess as part of telling us that story, you can also share a little bit about yourself. About yourself as an artist, because, if I recall correctly, you told me you did not necessarily go to art school or any sort of like formal training for this. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about the art side too, and then how, how you came to merge your love of bugs with your love of transportation.

    Sarah Rose 7:17

    Sure, I have always been an artistic person. I've gone through a lot of different mediums. I settled on photography for quite a while, but I knew painting was really what I wanted to do in the long run. And I really wanted to paint bugs. I've always wanted to put bugs in a light that makes them look a little more charming and a little more friendly. And I was so intimidated by the amount of anatomy and what I didn't know about bugs. So I finally just decided the only way to learn is to start looking at them. And that's when I painted my first bug, the bike part. I just started seeing the parallels. You know, bikes get squashed and bugs get squashed, both physically and metaphorically, in terms of space, they're both great for the environment, and I think they're both really vulnerable groups that are often misunderstood.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 8:03

    Do you have a favorite bug?

    Sarah Rose 8:05

    That's a really tough question. I feel like I have so many favorite Super exotic bugs that are just cool to look at. But I think personally, the 10 line June beetle is a really cute one. They're like fuzzy, nocturnal beetles, and they sound like big Bombardier planes when they're coming in towards you. All right,

    Tiffany Owens Reed 8:23

    I'm definitely Google imaging this right now, we once had a pet praying mantis, which was kind of cool. They're pretty cool. Do you have a fun fact about bugs that you think people should know? I

    Sarah Rose 8:35

    think it's really interesting that bees, depending bumble bees, depending on what flower they're getting pollen from. They can change their pitch of their Bumble like the vibration changes the tone most efficiently get pollen out of the flower. And I heard that, and I was just like, wow, they're musicians too. That's so fantastic.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 8:55

    Oh, it's not to love, yeah. Tell me a little bit about your art also as part of your advocacy, and what are you hoping to accomplish through not just, you know, because you create these really fun pieces, but you're telling them you have them out in the community. What are you hoping to accomplish through

    Sarah Rose 9:10

    that? Really, I just want more people to engage in the conversation around the built environment as a whole. It's a really great way to get people into the conversation, because I can say, Do you like bugs? And if it's a no, do you like bikes, and maybe it's a yes, and then I can ask, do you currently ride, or do you feel safe riding in our community? And that can really open up a lot of conversation and talking points where people tell me about, you know, getting hit or almost getting hit, and someone that they know. So it's a great way to bring a lot of different aspects into one conversation. I'd

    Tiffany Owens Reed 9:43

    like to continue with that a little bit more so you sell your art at different markets and stuff, so you're face to face, not just online and stuff like that. Can you tell us a little bit more about like, some of the responses you've had or conversations or stories that you've heard as you've i. Helped people perhaps see the connection, the surprising connection between bugs and bikes, or just these conversations around transportation and biking in general. First I'd

    Sarah Rose 10:08

    like to say that my booth is just full of giggles. I would love to put a microphone on my market booth, because when people walk by, it's just so many like giddy voices, which is lovely. And then once we get into that harder conversation, it can get a little bit grim, but I do have a lot of people thanking me just for bringing it up and for continuing to do the advocacy that I do, which is really rewarding, that feels really nice to hear I have met like a family that moved here from the Ukraine, and they said they used to cycle every day with their two daughters, and unfortunately, it's just not a good choice in Spokane at the moment, my favorite is when people walk by and they see a bug, and they point at it, and they say, Oh, I know that bug. I have a story about that bug. And then it turns into a dad telling his teenage daughter who's never seen that bug in her life, this traumatic story from summer camp or something like that. And it can be, you know, also dark, because she's never seen that bug in her life. Does that mean they're going extinct that quickly? And that brings up a whole another aspect of the conversation about sustainability and preserving these native species, specifically

    Tiffany Owens Reed 11:14

    when you talk to people about issues related to safety and just the dynamics of space when it comes to other modes of transportation besides the car. I'm just curious, do people like push back, or do you find that most people agree with you? Or what's that like? You know,

    Sarah Rose 11:30

    they say to find your target market when you start selling something. And I found who my target market isn't, and it's usually people that drive really big trucks and come with a lot of masculine attitude to a local art market and their girlfriends come over like, Oh, honey, look at these bugs. Those are the only people that I have gotten a little bit of pushback from. Or people will start demanding, rather up front. You know, what would you do right now if you could do three things to just magically fix our streets? And I often have quite a few responses, like, I would add some street trees, I'd narrow the crossing distance, and I'd try to reduce car speeds, those would be my main three talking points. But it's been mostly overwhelming positive response. I

    Tiffany Owens Reed 12:10

    can imagine that when you're mentioning those three things, I wonder sometimes, I guess one of the things that fascinates me about the tension between drivers and cyclists is just how your expectation and your sense of what is owed to you changes the minute you're behind a steering wheel, and then when anyone suggests that perhaps the privileges you have become accustomed to should be modified Like the intense like protection of those norms, even though, when they get out of that car, they actually probably agree with the changes that you're recommending, right? And so just the very strange, it's not like it's like the car is one thing, but it's almost like the psychology of the car is a whole nother. And I think that's just so fascinating, how this machine has been designed in such a way to not only shape our sense of time and speed and distance and all of that, but to really shape like our sense of just where we are in the world as it relates to other human beings. And yeah,

    Sarah Rose 13:13

    the irony on that is huge, because the woman that came at me very assertively wanting to hear my talking points, we were on Main Avenue, which was currently closed to cars for a pedestrian art market. And so she was just so deep into they call it car brain, that she couldn't see the benefits of having no cars on the street right then, even though she was physically present, it definitely is a cultural thing which will take a long time to change.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 13:39

    I'm sure the ironies are never ending these conversations. So let's talk about your city a little bit. You're also really involved on the advocacy side. Can you tell us a bit more about your your city? Tell us a bit more about your city, and how would you describe like the transportation struggles unique to Spokane. Spokane

    Sarah Rose 14:00

    is a really great city. I'm a big fan. People don't know that we have a lot of great history around hydro, electric powered trolley cars, and that's kind of what our city was built on, was rail. And those original street cars, they were running as early as, I believe, 1890 and they were ripped out and lit on fire very ceremoniously in 1936 so just about 100 years ago now. So I don't think people understand that there was a Spokane pre car and that there are options alternative to the car. And I think it's really that lack of imagination that's holding us back. There's also a lot of old money that is being invested into marketing against Safe Streets campaigns and against things like road diets or reallocating lanes because they own a lot of parking lots and they're making a lot of money on car dealerships. So we do have that embedded. I don't want to call it corruption, but there's a little bit colluding, I might say, to keep us car dependent, unfortunately. But Spokane is beautiful. We get 100 70 days on average of sunshine every year. We're in the Pacific Northwest, but we're inland, so it's a lot drier, not a lot of rain. And unfortunately, the deaths happening by transit stops is really high, and I think that's discouraging, a lot of ridership as well.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 15:14

    I want to go into this a little bit deeper. So if you were to look at, if you were to try to help people who haven't been to Spokane understand like, look at your city. Look at the roads and stuff from a design perspective, what are some of the patterns you notice the most that either like, ah, fill you with rage, or maybe you're a better person than some of us. And instead of filling you with rage, they fill you with optimism for how things could be better. Take your pick. But I'm just curious if you're looking at like streets and stuff from a design perspective, what stands out to you? Sure,

    Sarah Rose 15:45

    I'll do a little bit of both here. It fills me with rage that we are so over paved. Spokane has an exorbitant amount of asphalt, and it's really hard to maintain that asphalt because we don't have the population for it. So we end up with these really wide roads. It's really big potholes that everybody complains about, and all they want are the potholes filled Meanwhile, people walking and taking the bicycle and taking the bus or getting killed. So that's really unfortunate. And at the same time, I'm filled with hope, because downtown, we have so many large parking lots, and all I see is potential for filling that in with walkable, mixed use communities, but it is really getting that money chain to stop, or to just reallocate our values as a city and what we want and our core, yeah. And

    Tiffany Owens Reed 16:29

    I feel like that is such a huge part of the puzzle with not just making those, you know, like, if you had that magic wand, and if you could just make the changes, you're like, Aha, parking lot, you shall become housing and part, you know, sometimes I fantasize with these things, but I think what you're getting at is like, it can't just be like, brute outcome, you know, like we somehow achieve the outcomes. Also, I feel like an ideal situation. You know, when you're doing advocacy around this conversation around this issue, you're helping people. You're helping people find the internal courage they need to examine like their biases and make those deeper value shifts around what they prioritize. And I think that's really where the lasting work comes from, is that culture shift and that value shift. But I can imagine that's very hard

    Sarah Rose 17:16

    work. It certainly can be.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 17:20

    So tell us a little bit about the what it's been like for you to get involved in these conversations around your city. Like, what was that like for you, going from kind of your own personal observations, and then investigating this as an artist and then deciding to actually become involved in your community? Can you share a bit of that story?

    Sarah Rose 17:40

    I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty intimidated when I started going to city council, even watching strong towns videos, knowing that I'm not a traffic engineer, but I think I understand the basics enough to go to city council and advocate for better engineering and not going to a lot of higher education. Being a young woman in the room and being an artist was pretty intimidating. Spokane is on the very eastern side of Washington state, so we are just on that Idaho border, and we do live in a very conservative state, so there's a lot of rhetoric that I don't agree with being said at city council. So it can be it takes a brave person to get up there in front of all those people who are your neighbors, and it should be a very safe space, but I don't. I don't blame anyone for not regularly attending and speaking up at city council, but for me, it's been so rewarding. I've gotten so much great feedback from people. I think I'm actually changing people's minds, like when it comes to the public side. I think most of our council members and our mayor and a ton of the city staff are very on board. It's really just that reallocation of budget, and again, the city values as a whole that need to shift in order to make these things a priority. Do

    Tiffany Owens Reed 18:50

    you remember your first meeting? What is what inspired you to go?

    Sarah Rose 18:54

    I had just gotten back from my trip to the Netherlands, and so I had seen it. I understood what needed to change. And I said, Okay, I have to go to city council now. And that first night, I showed up, and so many people had signed up to speak on an unrelated agenda item that the meeting went past 11pm and I turned to the girl next to me, and I said, Does this usually happen? And she said, No, it never goes this long. A warning that, you know, city council can get spicy and it can be exciting, and there can be a lot of different people that show up. So you never really know what you're gonna get. It could be a regular, mundane, boring meeting, but if there's a hot topic, like a lot of people will show up for something. So that's been cool to see. So

    Tiffany Owens Reed 19:37

    when you're showing up to these meetings, are they? Are they usually, because there's like a transportation topic on the agenda. Are you just kind of showing up no matter what, and and adding kind of your voice to it up to the conversation, even if it's not something explicitly being talked about. I

    Sarah Rose 19:51

    don't go every week anymore. I did for a little while just to kind of learn how the formula worked and to hear how other people were phrasing their. Opinions and their advice, I'd say for city council. Now, I mostly speak on transportation related things, but a few weeks ago, it was a town hall, so a little bit more of a relaxed vibe, and we were talking about public safety, and there were so many people getting up there and saying just very anti people experiencing houselessness things, and it was driving me mad, so I asked if I could sign up really quick, wrote down some notes, and I ended up getting, like, a snap applause, which people aren't supposed to clap or snap, but I got a lot of people snapping for me with what I said at city council, and I just thought that wasn't anything special that I said. I was just asking for empathy and if we could come up with more creative solutions on how to not just keep moving people around that are experiencing struggles, because that's been the mode for a long time in Spokane,

    Tiffany Owens Reed 20:45

    I want to ask you about how have what have you learned about kind of talking about this issue related to transportation and like public more pedestrian safety, and rethinking the values that shape our streets and the investment when you're in a context, this is something that we kind of talk about strong towns. It's like, how can we, how can we bridge those gaps that exist politically, when there might be more of a political association with, like, oh, people, you know, who love bikes or people who love trucks? You know, there can be these, like, quick, you know, kind of categorizations. And I'm just curious if you found ways to talk about biking or pedestrian safety or transportation investments that can navigate that tension or anticipate those knee jerk reactions or those labels. I guess maybe you're still in the process of figuring that out, but I'm just curious any reflections you would want to share

    Sarah Rose 21:41

    sure I, at heart, am a very data driven person. So for me, I started going up to city council, and I would lay out the numbers and the math, and I would say, Hey, you guys, this just economically makes sense to have safer streets. The people are dying. Here it is. And that did not resonate well with anybody. So I started taking different angles. I talked more about economics, and then I talked more about the personal values the use of space. What else could we be doing? But it really changed when I witnessed a horrible crash firsthand, and then I witnessed another one about two days later, and there were three more within that week that had happened in Spokane, and many of them were pedestrian fatalities or a cyclist, and a bunch of them happened at schools too. And when I got up there, and I said that to city council, and I I was very traumatized. It was very fresh for me, and I was quite emotional. I think the emotional aspect resonated so much more than any amount of data and numbers could have So really getting to the heart of the people that are being affected by this that it's not just some cyclist, it was someone's brother, it was my friend's best friend, like that's wild to have that close of a degree of separation from someone and to treat them like a number is wrong, but To see the whole damage that's being done by our roads, I think it's really important to pay respect to the people that are dying while it's taking bureaucracy so long to do bureaucracy things. Yeah,

    Tiffany Owens Reed 23:12

    you, you had mentioned this when we because we had a chance to talk before we actually started recording this, but about how one of the challenges to the conversation on safe streets and transportation, it's almost like this perception problem, where it's not like you're hearing about an entire school bus of kids dying in an accident every Friday, you know, or like when you hear about these horrible airplane crashes, it like really gets people's attention, but when people are Like, Oh yeah, I was one accident there and one accident, it's almost like a saturation challenge, where it's like, people's perception of this problem is so thin because they only think of it in like, one or two incidents, and that just creates this false perception that it's air quotes, not that big of a deal. Um, I'd be just like, free to share your thoughts on that, on that challenge and and how like, what do you think can help with raising more awareness of a how pervasive of a problem this is, or just generating more urgency about it?

    Sarah Rose 24:12

    I think in Spokane over saturation is such a good word to use, because we are averaging seven car crashes a day that emergency response vehicles are responding to. So there's a lot more than just that, and you can see it by the cars that drive around. Everyone's missing a window or dented in or something like that. But I really think for me, what was the hardest part after witnessing a pedestrian fatality was driving by later, and nothing was there. There was no evidence. All four lanes of traffic were still open, the bus stop was still just a sign, and the sidewalk still didn't connect to the crosswalk. And for me, I just wanted evidence, and I've put in two ghost bike memorials now, but I really want the city to take responsibility, and I proposed a resolution that we're working on with some council members. I'm calling it the vigil cones resolution. Essentially, I would just like a few white cones to be placed by the curb where someone has died in a traffic fatality to bring awareness and kind of hold the city accountable while they try to figure out what to do about that location, the one that I witnessed. It turns out our city council member 10 years ago, tried to get a crosswalk put in there. It's at a daycare and a community college that has a lot of international students that don't drive, and it's at a bus stop, and to know that it's already been 10 years and how many people have been traumatized or affected by that one location, and the city just gets to sweep it away when it's done and and let the road open back up. That's just not enough for me right now. Yeah,

    Tiffany Owens Reed 25:45

    how much of the conversation around improving these types of intersections? I'm just curious, as you're as you're having these conversations and showing up at Council and even just talking to ordinary people at the market. I know that strong talents has a really strong emphasis on design, like you can, you can design your way out of some of these, out of this level of risk and danger. What is that? What has it been like bringing that perspective to the conversation? Because I know you've talked about the data and the financial and the human cost, but when you mentioned like we can fix this through design, I'm just curious what what you've heard in response, or what what you're seeing. It's

    Sarah Rose 26:20

    been a bit frustrating because we adopted Vision Zero several years ago now, and it's just really an exclusive budget. A lot of our budget is going towards maintaining the current four lane strodes We have, instead of restriping them or adding bump outs, things like that. And granted, we are doing a few projects that are wonderful. We just got, like, our first set of protected bike lanes in in the past couple years, which is awesome, but when we have again, so much pavement to maintain and so many dangerous intersections to fix, we can't do concrete projects on all of them. So last summer, we really pushed for an adaptive design resolution to do the straw bales and paint kind of mode and just really get temporary, cheap projects out there. We were super excited. Had so much support from city council, and it's been what nine months. We have seven projects slated for the next year, seven in all of our city, and those are just cheap, quick projects that should take a few days to install at most. And that's been really disheartening, because there is a budget for it, and it feels like the city is either really over complicating these designs or just extremely timid to do anything tactical.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 27:32

    Yeah, that's it. That's such a huge challenge is translating information and knowledge into the right kind of action, at the right speed, at the right pace. So you started to tell us already about some of the projects that you're doing, and I'm assuming what the ones you were just mentioning are with your local strong towns conversation group, are there? Are there any other projects y'all are working on right now, or anything that you're hoping to see in the like in the future in terms of, yeah, just anything related to advocacy or better design, yeah.

    Sarah Rose 28:06

    So one that I'm looking at, especially in the strong towns cohort, when it comes to safe and productive streets, I selfishly wanted to ride my bike to the library, and I live near an elementary school, and I thought there has to be a safe route between here and there, when I looked at the map and then overlaid it with our crash data, heat maps and our fatality data. It's really upsetting that all of our elementary schools are surrounded by dangerous intersections and people dying on our streets, so I am looking into making some routes and doing some way finding projects between elementary schools and public libraries. I was super inspired by someone I met at the National gathering for strong towns in Cincinnati. His name is Craig, and he's up in Hamilton, Ontario. They have the butterfly Way Project, which are bike routes that encourage neighbors to plant a bunch of flowers along that route. I'm thinking of adding some solar lights, some signage and some paint, just to help people know this is the right way to the library, and then getting our local Bicycle Advisory Board and our very engaged cyclists in Spokane to help host some community rides. Very

    Tiffany Owens Reed 29:10

    cool. You've mentioned data a couple of times in this conversation, for anyone listening to this who wants to take action in the same topic in their town, but maybe they felt intimidated by data. I'm just wondering if you could give some like, beginner advice on like kinds of data to look for, or the kinds of data that's like, really important in this conversation. As an advocate,

    Sarah Rose 29:33

    I think for me, being someone that didn't spend a lot of time looking at data in school or crunching numbers or anything like that, again, I felt rather intimidated by these state government websites and navigating the maps and all of that. I think it's most important to just start where you're interested. And for me, that happened to be cyclist and pedestrian fatalities, and as soon as I could visualize that on a map and understand where those locations were happening, seeing the trends between multi. Multiple crashes at the same intersection, and then like those heat maps that really concentrate that data for you, that has been the most helpful to me, but it's also been the most helpful to illustrate to others where the problem is. Somebody posted on Reddit a wonderful map of our parking lots downtown, and when I shared that with people, they say, oh my gosh, I had no idea, and you wouldn't when you're walking around, because it just looks like one parking lot, two parking lots, but when you see it from an aerial view, it's huge. So I'd say, like, stick with what you enjoy looking into and researching, and anything you can find along that route might be helpful.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 30:36

    Yeah, I think that combination of data visualization but also human stories can be so powerful, because I think sometimes we can go too far, either direction, or, like, you're so caught up in the personal and the specific individual stories that you don't really get a sense of scope as to, like, how big this is, or what are the patterns, where is this happening? Like, but sometimes we can get so caught up in showing the scope and the data and like, Ah, look at how many parking lots that we forget to tell the human story. So I think it's really interesting that you're finding a way to to combine both.

    Sarah Rose 31:07

    And another thing on that is to look for gaps in data, because we put up a ghost bike Memorial this last year, only to find out that in I think it was 2013 another person was hit and killed at that same intersection. But unfortunately, the Washington crash map only went back so many years, so it was excluding all these data points to show these bigger patterns. So you might have to do a little bit more research and look through your county's media press release or the local Facebook news page to find out where some of these crashes are happening. The other map that I usually rely on, it says updated January of 2025 and yet they haven't put any fatalities for 2024 or this year in there yet. So there's so many missed opportunities for making a bigger statement.

    Tiffany Owens Reed 31:53

    Will you all be looking to capture data around these seven projects that you mentioned?

    Sarah Rose 31:58

    I hope so. Yeah, if the city will release more information on them and we can follow along with that, yeah,

    Tiffany Owens Reed 32:05

    yeah, that'd be really neat. All right, this has been such a great conversation. Sarah rose, I'm really glad you were able to come on and share your story with us, and hopefully people will click the links in the show notes and check out your fun and fantastic and whimsical artwork. So in closing, this is just a chance for you to tell us a little bit more about what you love about your city. So you can tell us a little bit more about Spokane. What do you love about it, and what are some local spots you like to recommend people check out when they come to visit.

    Sarah Rose 32:32

    This is my favorite part. I could talk about Spokane all day long. We are such a cool city. We have the largest urban waterfall in the entire United States, and that's in our downtown Riverfront Park. So it's very accessible to everyone. When you're there as a tourist, it's something to check out and spend all day looking at. And we have some gondolas that go over them, that you can ride on. I'd say my favorite locations. There's a wine bar called Pacific to Palouse, and that is actually where I have done my first mural. It's full of Washington native species, so that's a good one page. 42 bookstore is a wonderful used bookstore, which I also saw my artwork at, and then Zola on Main Avenue. It's great for live music, food and dancing, and it's also on this one block that is really special. I have a bonus, a book that's about Spokane called the one block revolution, and it's essentially six buildings that were purchased and revitalized into wonderful Co Op space, very artsy, very urbanist block in Spokane. And it's been wonderful to see that transform over my lifetime here and see what it can grow into

    Tiffany Owens Reed 33:36

    excellent Well, thank you again. Sarah rose to our listeners, if you're listening to this, thank you for joining us for another conversation again. Please check out the show notes to discover more about Sarah Rose's artwork, as well as links to the different places around town that she recommended and the strong towns group. Also, if you're listening to this, don't forget to use the link in our show notes the suggested guest form. We're always inviting people to nominate someone in their community who they think would make a great fit for the show. That's how we found out about Sarah rose. That's how we found out about lots of interesting people. So if there's someone in your city who you think is doing good work and this grassroots, bottom up fashion to improve your community, please, please, please, let us know. I'll be back next week with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.

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Podcast, Top Story 2Strong Townspodcast, The Bottom-Up Revolution, safe and productive streets, washington, arts Be the First to Comment