About Ruth Miller

Ruth Miller is a transportation student, reporter, writer, activist in Oakland, California. She prefers two feet to four wheels.

Ruth's approach to urban planning stems as much from her childhood in a small but rapidly suburbanizing Georgia town as her data driven undergraduate degree from MIT. Put simply:

"The best solution isn't necessarily the one that has the better numbers. A plan with excellent engineering can still sit on a shelf if it doesn't have the support of the community it affects."

As an undergraduate at MIT, Ruth surveyed 22,000 households in rural/suburban Georgia about their public transportation preferences. Afterward, she designed a combination on-call/commuter service to meet the community preferences, while capitalizing on the community's dual status as both "urban" and "rural" by the definitions of different funding agencies.

Now living in Oakland, Ruth is a student of the University of California at Berkeley's Masters of City Planning Program. Outside of class, Ruth uses her audiences at the Oakland Local news site and San Francisco Streetsblog to shine a light on often progressive but occasionally stagnant city, county, and state transportation agencies.

When she's not translating esoteric zoning codes into English or live-tweeting public meetings, she's out walking.

Follow her at @mcplanner, or read more on her website, www.ruthfm.wordpress.com