Two of my recent bike-related experiences came together this weekend, when Naj K. Smith of Rich City Rides (who I met leading a ride last week) got arrested in Oakland for leading a ride on First Fridays with his sound system trailer. The bike and sound system were confiscated, and he was handcuffed and spent the night in jail. He made bail but the bike is still impounded.
I was going to go check out the new Dirt World bike park up in Richmond, but on my way there, I was fortunate enough to run into a group of cyclists with a sound system blasting a Jackson 5 remix. This turned out to be the weekly “Self-Care Sunday” social ride from Rich City Rides, and they were on their way to the Berkeley Kite Festival. I altered my plans to join them on the ride through town and along the Ohlone Greenway.
Oakland is working on updating its Bicycle Master Plan. Since the last update in 2007, a lot has changed in Oakland, but I think the two most important changes affecting this plan aren’t related to cyclists or even cycling infrastructure. What’s really different is that Oakland has consolidated various different agencies into a new Department of Transportation, and also created a new Department of Race and Equity. The structural changes have led to a very different (and better) community engagement process for the new bike plan.
In 2016, Oakland created a new Department of Race and Equity, charged with creating “a city where our diversity is maintained, racial disparities have been eliminated and racial equity has been achieved.” In Oakland, that’s a big ask. But the creation of the office is, I think, an honest attempt to look for ways to improve the situation. The department has just released its first Equity Indicators Report, and as you might expect, Oakland fails on a number of important indicators related to equity.
Heading out for a fun ride yesterday, I ran into the Oakland Rideout at Oakland Technical High. Sponsored by Marshawn Lynch, this was a super-social ride from his Beast Mode store downtown, up to my neighborhood. The event included a beautiful demonstration of the transformation of public space, as a sideshow of BMX and motocross bikes, and Lime scooters took over Broadway.
One of the topics at the Oakland BPAC was an update on bike share progress. As part of the 2017 East Bay roll-out, Motivate created a “Bike Share 4 All” program which allows low-income individuals to obtain an annual bike share membership for $5 (instead of the regular cost of $150). But Motivate has refused to place bike share stations in Deep East, despite using the Scraper Bike Team’s style as marketing for their service. The exclusive rights we granted Motivate are a give-away of public space to private interest.
