When Something Simple Isn’t Simple

I live in a small town.

People need rides.

That sounds like a pretty simple problem to solve.

Get a vehicle. Hire some drivers. Charge a reasonable fare. Get people where they need to go.

Except it isn’t that simple.

I have spent months exploring transportation in and around Hibbing, Minnesota. I’ve looked at public transit. Fixed routes. Taxi service. On-demand transportation. Partnerships. Municipal involvement. Membership models.

I’ve talked with communities, transportation providers, government agencies, insurance people and people who simply need a ride.

The need isn’t imaginary.

People need transportation to work, appointments, stores, restaurants, social activities and all the ordinary places people go when they have reliable transportation.

And I wanted to build something that could benefit them and benefit me.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that.

I want to create something useful. I also want my work, time, ideas and risk to create income for me.

Both can be true.

Then I ran into something that sounds ridiculously simple.

Insurance.

Not avoiding insurance.

Not trying to find a loophole around commercial insurance.

I want to buy commercial insurance.

That distinction matters.

I can design routes.

I can calculate fares.

I can research vehicles.

I can create driver requirements.

I can build budgets.

I can work with municipalities.

I can research regulations.

I can change the entire business model when new information tells me the old one isn’t going to work.

But I cannot force an insurance company to sell a commercial passenger-transportation policy in a market it doesn’t want to serve.

And suddenly a problem that looks like:

People need rides.

becomes:

People need rides, someone is willing to provide them, people are willing to pay for them—but one piece of the infrastructure may prevent the entire thing from operating.

That is frustrating.

FACE IT !!!

This is where my own framework gets tested.

It’s easy to talk about FACE IT !!! when I’m looking backward at something I’ve already survived.

It’s different when I’m standing right in the middle of it.

Focus.

What am I actually trying to accomplish?

Transportation.

Not proving that my original idea was right.

Not protecting a particular business model.

Transportation.

Accountable.

What belongs to me?

Doing the research.

Making the calls.

Running the numbers.

Understanding the rules.

Being honest about what works and what doesn’t.

What doesn’t belong to me?

Whether an insurance carrier decides rural Minnesota represents enough business for them.

That distinction matters.

Communicate.

Ask better questions.

Instead of:

Why won’t anyone insure this?

I can ask:

What structure can actually be insured?

That’s a very different conversation.

Engage.

Stay in the problem long enough to understand it.

I started with transit.

Then I explored taxi service.

Then municipal partnerships.

Then another possibility appeared: What would transportation look like as a membership club?

Not because I am trying to disguise a taxi company or avoid commercial insurance.

Quite the opposite.

I want to know exactly what it is, what rules apply to it and what insurance it requires.

If that model doesn’t work, I learn something and move again.

Space to Grow.

This one can be uncomfortable.

Growth sometimes means admitting:

I don’t know yet.

I don’t know what the final version of this transportation idea will look like.

That’s different from saying it can’t be done.

Small towns create a particular kind of frustration.

We aren’t necessarily too small to have the problem.

Sometimes we’re just too small to make solving the problem attractive to someone outside the community.

That’s an important difference.

The person standing outside the grocery store without a ride doesn’t have a smaller transportation problem because they live in a smaller town.

The employee trying to get to work doesn’t have a smaller problem.

The older adult who doesn’t drive doesn’t have a smaller problem.

The person without a vehicle doesn’t have a smaller life.

The numbers are simply smaller.

And sometimes entire systems are built around numbers.

So today, I’m frustrated.

I’m allowing myself to say that without turning frustration into defeat.

Frustration is information.

Something isn’t working.

FACE IT !!! doesn’t require me to pretend I’m happy about it.

It gives me somewhere to go from it.

I can be frustrated and curious.

Frustrated and persistent.

Frustrated and willing to change the model.

Frustrated and still unwilling to create something unsafe just because people desperately need it.

And maybe that’s the part of this story that extends far beyond transportation.

Sometimes you know what you want to do.

You know why you want to do it.

It could help you.

It could help other people.

You’ve done your homework.

You’ve shown up.

You’ve made the calls.

And then something that seems like it should be the simplest piece becomes the thing standing between you and the goal.

That doesn’t automatically mean:

Stop.

Sometimes it means:

FACE IT.

What is actually stopping me?

What part can I control?

What part can’t I control?

What haven’t I tried?

What am I willing to change?

And what am I unwilling to compromise just to make it happen?

Today, I don’t have the final answer for small-town transportation.

I have the next question.

For now, that’s enough.

Every breath is another chance and another choice.

— Kim D. Heye
FACE IT !!! You’re Human