Hello friends,

I have big news. Tonight I will be speaking at my local municipality to advocate for trams and other things for the first time. It all started with a funny video about traffic calming from some orange guy, and a few years later I’m part of multiple groups advocating for a better city with less cars, I also became a “climate mayor” for my city (doesn’t give me any advantages except people take you more serious).

I live in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the fifth biggest city of the Netherlands. It is in my opinion one of the most car centric cities of our country and while many people want to see it changed, the municipality does not yet have the balls to actually take any real drastic measures. It became once again obvious when they released their “masterplan for mobility” which lines out how the city wants to change the city up to 2050. It contains a few good things, but is still quite car oriented and does not nearly go far enough for improving the city. It also completely refuses to mention the possibility of trams ever coming to our city, saying they are not “innovative” enough, and flat out says that the goals for reduction in green house gasses set by the municipality will not be reached due to lack of support with no further explanation.

Many groups in the city are not satisfied enough with this masterplan so tonight during the meeting, many people will speak to the city council to speak their displeasure. Including me.

I am really excited and am so proud of myself for finally taking this step. I also really want to thank this community. I feel it is less active then on reddit. But without all you guys I would have probably never taken this step <3