Zoe Miller: Bringing Joy & Relationships to Visioning a Walkable Allen’s Corner
Every month PelotonLabs co-founder Liz Trice interviews a local community member. This month, Liz caught up with Zoe Miller, a public health planning professional who helped found the Friends of Allen’s Corner and the Moving Maine Network, a statewide coalition focused on improving transportation access.
Why did you start Friends of Allen’s Corner and what do you hope to accomplish?
I moved into my house ten years ago near Allen’s Corner – the intersection of Washington Ave. and Allen Ave., by Shaw’s Northgate Plaza. I liked a lot of things about the area, but we lack a place to gather and it’s a yucky suburban-style intersection, with four and five lanes of traffic across. It’s a very auto-centric intersection. But we also have a local bookstore, an ice cream shop, and a lot of people both on foot and on bikes going through. I wanted it to feel better for walking and biking, and to have places to get together.
I kept talking to other people who felt the same way. So last year I got together with neighbors to apply for a small grant from America Walks. We’re meeting monthly right now to get to know each other and develop a positive vision as a way to talk to decision-makers, developers, and property owners.
What do you envision being different for Allen’s Corner?
We’d love the traffic to be slower, the roadway to be narrower, and for it to feel safer and more pleasant for people to walk or bike or push a baby stroller. It’s one of the top crash locations in the city, and regardless of what the data says, it doesn’t feel good to bike or walk there. This is our home, and we want to feel safe walking two blocks to the store, yet right now the roadway favors the people driving through. So that requires a thoughtful design. We’d also love to have places for people to come together, maybe a cafe or community restaurant, and some kind of communal green space, a community center with activities for kids and adults. We’ve been meeting at the North Deering Congregational Church.
How can you change a big intersection to be more pedestrian and neighborhood friendly?
In the short term, we work with the city to slow traffic and make pedestrians feel safer with temporary paint and bollards. We can get input from a lot of people to create a compelling vision to share with city staff and elected leaders. If I had a magic wand… maybe it’s a roundabout; the new roundabout at USM is working well. But our goal is not to dictate the exact solution. We want to create shared goals and work together to make improvements.
What does Moving Maine do?
A few years ago, I helped start the Moving Maine Network as a statewide coalition focused on transportation access, particularly for people with the greatest needs: older adults, people with disabilities, people of color, people with low incomes. We envision a Maine where all people have access to transportation regardless of background, destination, or geography.
Last year we worked with GrowSmart Maine and Build Maine to advance legislation for safer streets and expanded funding for public transportation. We had two wins. LD1674 passed, which requires MaineDOT to evaluate how they set speed limits and identify ways to work with communities that want to slow down traffic. LD1559 gives a stronger voice to the Public Transit Advisory Council (which advises the MaineDOT) by making it meet more often and include more diverse membership.
We’re also pushing for more funding for public transportation and more coordination to make transportation solutions a reality. Our transportation system creates barriers to health, well-being, and a good quality of life and health. So we have to change it. Public health is intricately connected to transportation and our roads.
What inspires you when making change is tough?
For me, cultivating belonging is essential to meaningful social change. When public meetings get stressful or toxic, that’s the time to hit pause and make space for relationship building. When people have relationships with one another, things are much less likely to turn ugly. With Friends of Allen’s Corner, we’re taking time for people to build relationships.
Also, if you want to make change, you need to have allies and cheerleaders, and find ways to make it joyful. It’s not sustainable if you feel alone and discouraged.
How to get involved:
Friends of Allens’ Corner: Email group sign-up
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Allensfriends
Contact: allenscornerportland@gmail.com
Moving Maine Network: https://www.movingmaine.org/
Contact Zoe Miller: zmstrategies@gmail.com
