Social Justice & Cycling; Bike Lanes & Equity; Wilderness Trails = Free?

by Tom

People who benefit from separate bike/pedestrian lanes:

  • The disabled
  • The elderly
  • The young
  • Women
  • The poor
  • Recent immigrants (esp. Latinos)
  • Minorities (esp. Latinos)
  • Anyone that cannot travel by motorized vehicles
  • Anyone that chooses not to travel by motorized vehicles
  • Anyone that feels anxiety sharing the road with motorized vehicles (everyone! except males in their teens and twenties)

Importance of Education

  • Cyclist Education: Important for all the groups listed above (but esp. children)
  • Motorist Education & Law Enforcement: Crucial that motorists understand the rights of cyclists and that these rights are inforced

Separate Cycling Facilities

  • Urban cycle tracks: bike-only, on-road lanes, protected from motorized traffic
  • On-street bike lanes: bike-only, on-road lanes, NOT protected from motorized traffic (cheaper but less safe)
  • Combined bus-bike lanes: Extra-wide. Common in Northern Europe.
  • Off-road, bike-only paths
  • Shared-use paths: often in parks
  • Bicycle Streets: bikes get priority over cars; car use limited (common in Europe)
  • Bicycle Boulevards: motorists are reminded to share the road with bikes (becoming common in the U.S.)
  • Traffic-calmed residential streets: traffic-calming features (speed bumps, bump-outs, cobblestones, etc.) make the streets inherently safer for cyclists
  • Bike boxes, advance stop lines, special bicycle traffic signals, special marking and coloration of bike lanes, and various other intersection modifications are also an integral part of the overall cycling network
    infrastructure (common in European cities)

Organizations studying/teaching about/advocating for Cycling Justice:

From the NYTimes:

Wilderness trails constitute a rare space in America marked by economic diversity. Lawyers and construction workers get bitten by the same mosquitoes and sip from the same streams; there are none of the usual signals about socioeconomic status, for most hikers are in shorts and a T-shirt, and enveloped by an aroma that would make a skunk queasy.

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