Tag: Black Lives Matter

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Goodbye 2020

There are no easy ways to describe 2020 as it comes to a close. In the past weeks writers have been philosophizing,  analyzing, probing for meaning and grasping for lessons going forward. In Asbury Park we can learn from the mistakes made during these months during the pandemic. We’ve had false starts, beginning with rolling out a neighborhood Slow Streets program without enough community input, and quickly dismantling it. We made the great step of prioritizing people by implementing an Open Streets plan on Cookman Ave (with the hope of making it permanent), allowing foot traffic, outdoor dining and retail on the street between Thursdays and Monday mornings. Then a we sent a conflicting message that cars rule, advertising free holiday parking and welcoming drivers back.  Asbury Park social justice advocates are working to limit police interaction in mental health calls and traffic enforcement. And Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition is continually working with city leaders to make city streets safer and more livable, especially for the most vulnerable. None of it will be easy, and we are grateful for community support.

Onward to 2021.

Goodbye to 2020, a Truly Unimaginable Year for Sustainable Transportation

By Kea Wilson

Black Lives Matter Plaza, created by the Government of the District of Columbia, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Photo: Ted Eytan via Creative Commons

Let’s pause for a second and imagine that we could go back in time to Dec. 31, 2019, and tell sustainable transportation advocates what this year held in store for our movement.

Imagine how those hypothetical advocates would react if you told them that, within a few months, roughly two-thirds of all car traffic would abruptly vanish from U.S. streets.

Imagine what our former selves would say you if you told them that such a rapture would prompt countless cities across the country to transform roadways that used to be dedicated exclusively to private vehicles into places to play, move, eat, shop, learn, and more.

Then imagine their faces if you told them that countless other cities would do nothing at all, even as those wide-empty streets encouraged the drivers who remained to speed out of control — forcing per-mile car crash rates to a terrifying, 15-year high.

Read this great article:

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/12/30/goodbye-to-2020-a-truly-unimaginable-year-for-sustainable-transportation/

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The Bicycle Is An Emblem Of Freedom And A Vehicle Of Protest

The bicycle has been an active player in social justice activism for decades, and the inequity in the treatment of people riding bikes has been documented through history. Adolf Hitler’s in 1933 criminalized cycling unions. In 1989 demonstrators in China poured into Tiananmen Square on bicycles, and then flattened frames and wheels were left behind after tanks moved in.

During Black Lives Matter protests bikes are being confiscated. When a curfew is enforced people walking and on bikes are targeted, while people in cars are permitted to drive. A disturbing recent twist has emerged, and as advocates for police on bikes in Asbury Park, we are horrified by images of bicycles being used by police in some cities as weapons against protesters.

As APCSC continues to advocate for safe bicycling infrastructure, we know that a rise in real estate values often accompanies biking and walking improvements. Although it is not causal, there is a reluctance on the part of residents to embrace bicycling and walking improvements for fear of gentrification.  We must be energized to address affordable housing and retain residents while creating safe environment for people to move about the city. There are millions of every day bike riders and walkers – people who don’t own cars – who deserve better, equitable access to jobs and school. “Invisible riders” is a term describing the marginalization of black, brown, female, and working-class cyclists, illustrating that t

freedom of movement for everyone.

 

The Bicycle As A Vehicle Of Protest

By Jody Rosen June 10, 2020

In fact, you could say that Black Lives Matter is a moral crusade about freedom of movement and who is at liberty to go where. For generations, police departments have patrolled African-American neighborhoods like occupying armies, surveilling and circumscribing the movements of residents, who are treated as interlopers even on their home turf. The mobility of black people is additionally restricted by a system that construes their mere presence in many public spaces as trespassing, a de-facto crime, punishable by imprisonment or even death.

Tensions over freedom of movement are ratcheted up during times of civil unrest. In the past two weeks, the streets of American cities have become ferociously contested terrain. Protesters chant “Whose streets? Our streets!”; police impose their authority with weapons and barricades.