Interviews galore

This most recent week of school has brought a new challenge: finding people to interview. For History & Theory, I need to interview an official with involvement in the recently completed plan for extending the Portland Streetcar, and in Methods, I need to interview a tenant in East Portland. Both of these tasks are rather vague, particularly the second one, where it's pretty much all on me to find the appropriate people, ask the right questions, and draw some coherent, meaningful conclusions. This is challenging for me since I have never liked having to cold call people for something they may not want to do. I am not nearly as uncomfortable with the idea as I once was; between calling for a political campaign and recruiting families for the Family Activity Study, I am more experienced with that sort of thing now. The problem with this is that unlike those other tasks, I don't have a readily assembled list of people that are amenable to the task at hand.

Regarding the Streetcar, I started off with Portland Streetcar Inc., the non-profit the city contracted with to run and operate it. Unfortunately I quickly ran into a roadblock, the person there I was directed to talk to has already been interviewed by my other group members. I shifted gears this afternoon and emailed Metro, the regional planning organization that is involved with the potential project to extend the Portland Streetcar to the affluent suburb of Lake Oswego. Hopefully somebody there can make some time for me and offer a different perspective.

With the Methods interview, I need to interview a tenant, i.e. somebody renting in East Portland, about their views on active transportation (cycling and walking). East Portland is a huge chunk of the city, and renters make up about 40% of the population, so in theory most people qualify as interviewees. My solution is to try and get in contact with the head of a neighborhood organization in East Portland, and see if they could put me in contact with a renter that is active within the group. My thinking is that if they are active in their neighborhood, that they will see it as an opportunity to make their concerns regarding active transportation known. The sorts of questions I need to ask for this interview are less clear than the other one. Thankfully, the report on the interview is due in about four weeks and the professor should give us better guidance in the mean time.