Everyone who’s involved in cycling advocacy, especially in places like the Bay Area where advocacy has become powerful, must take the time to read and understand Adonia Lugo’s Unsolicited Advice for Vision Zero, which challenges advocates to think about how their behaviors contribute to the identification of bike infrastructure with whiteness. Conflict amongst advocates over the Telegraph Avenue design in Temescal demonstrates the point.
I just returned from a bike tour in Italy (wonderful!), and was struck by the way the image of the bicycle is used. Perhaps the #1 t-shirt sold in tourist shops in Tuscany is a fake sketch of a bicycle supposedly drawn by Leonardo. I think the reason tourists buy that shirt is that the bicycle is relatable, and the drawing connects to their personal experience of travel. I think those shared experiences can help us develop shared understanding across cultural gaps.
After Amazon finally decided who would win its HQ2 sweepstakes (psych! It’s just two offices we were going to open anyway), there has been some talk about the pedestrian and bike improvements, particularly near the Crystal City site. But comparing this quarter-mile airport corridor to the High Line is absurd, and Amazon should have to pay for it.
This weekend I joined up with some folks from OakDOT at the Scraper Bike Team’s “Pothole City” ride. I always want to take opportunities to learn about cycling cultures, and to visit parts of the city I don’t know as well. And fortuitously, earlier in the week OakDOT had just approved a radical road diet project on 90th Avenue, based on the Scraper’s preferred design. It involves a protected two-way bike lane running down the center of the road, painted orange, and potentially incorporating street murals.
One of Adonia Lugo’s criticisms of the U.S. bike advocacy movement is its focus on Northern European solutions, and implicitly, Northern European thinking and values. I happen to be traveling in southern Europe right now, where biking has a much different social meaning.
Our first stop was in Barcelona, a city which urbanists love to talk about. One thing urbanists don’t tend to mention is that cycling rates are fairly low; about 2% mode share, despite years of investment in infrastructure.
Nakari from Rich City Rides posted this story of a black cyclist in Seaside Heights, NJ, getting handcuffed and arrested for obstruction of justice. The video doesn’t show the beginning of the interaction, but the claim it makes (which I see no reason to dispute) is that he was stopped for not having a bell on his bike. No other explanation for the arrest is offered.
