It might not seem like it at first, but this post is actually a love letter. It may get a little sappy, so…..sorry in advance?

​

It’s a minor miracle Open Streets will be wrapping up our fifth year of existence this Sunday. I’m not a religious person, but miracle does seem like the right word. At various points over the last five years, we’ve been told to go home because we were causing traffic Armageddon, that we’d need $250,000 for police costs alone, that we should leave streets alone and do our ‘bike thing’ in parks (that was a former Mayor). We’ve had to scrimp and save every year, never feeling comfortable with our financial footing. We’ve been told by the public sector that we should seek funding from private sponsors and told by private foundations that we should look to the city for funds. We’ve heard a lot more ‘no’s than we have ‘yes’s. That can get demoralizing after a while. Lots of non-profits and new enterprises fold in similar circumstances, and yet Open Streets carries on. As we wrap up our fifth year, I’ve been finding myself wondering ‘what keeps us going?’

​

To be clear, I don’t mean to complain. Anytime you start something new, you’re ordering yourself up a big helping of work. When that new thing is a mass recreation program that reimagines how we use the largest single piece of public infrastructure our cities have, there’s going to be a large side order of resistance to go along with that work. Now, I’ve always had an appetite for work (my grade 8 math teacher would be surprised to hear that), so I’m certainly not complaining about how hard, how much work, getting to five years has been. But as I mentioned, the fact we keep fighting the same battles every year can get demoralizing.

​

I was recently asked, given my experience and learning over the past past five years, what is the one quality someone starting a new open streets program needs to have? Given all that work and rejection, my first thought was determination. Our organizing team (Jeff, Emily, Michelle and Alyssa, all of whom have written blogs for previous Open Streets Pulses) is certainly a determined bunch. We don’t take no for an answer, and as a result, people, groups and organizations that were dead set opposed to us in 2014 are in 2018 some of our biggest champions. So determination (or stubbornness if you want to be less charitable) is a key quality for sure. But on reflection, I don’t think that’s the right answer.