[Carfreeliving] On New Orleans, race, class, and bicycling

[Dave Snyder]

This is a post from Audrey Warren of the (New Orleans) Metro Bicycle 
Coalition I thought you should read:

Sep 03, 2005

Listserv post from Audrey Warren of New Orleans Metro Bicycle 
Coalition regarding Hurricane Katrina:


Hello All,

Just checking in. We are pretty sure that everyone on the New Orleans 
Metro Bicycle Coalition board got out safely, myself included, but 
not without a deep sadness in our hearts. If anyone has any questions 
about specific people and their whereabouts, they can contact me 
directly at audreykwarren at yahoo.com

There are a thousand different ways to look at what has happened, but 
since this is an organization of bike/ped advocates, I wanted to give 
a perspective that is relevant to this group. It's a long posting, 
but I hope you will indulge me. I've got a lot on my mind.

There's a tricky question on the US census longform that asks if your 
household has access to a car. I live by myself and haven't owned a 
car for years, but I can't honestly say that I don't have access to a 
car. I have a friends and family who I can (and do) call on anytime 
to borrow their car. I have money to take a taxi or rent a car 
whenever I need it. I have chosen to live without a car, but have 
access to all of the privileges that would go with ownership, just 
none of the hassle. It was never a question as to whether I would get 
out of the city. We had reservations at a hotel in Dallas by Friday 
night.

Perhaps the largest issue that we have struggled with in the 
formation of the New Orleans Metro Bicycle Coalition is connecting 
with the population of folks that depend on their bicycle as their 
only mode of transportation, people who are honestly just barely 
scraping by. We all know that it is notoriously difficult to get 
numbers on cyclists, much less get an accurate sense of the 
demographics, but I would say that easily more than half the 
bicyclists on the road in New Orleans are riding not because of some 
ideology or health goal, but because they are broke and even bus fare 
is beyond their means.

The vast majority of the people who were left behind had no way out. 
When you are watching these images on the television, I challenge you 
to see them as the unseen, marginalized faces of bicycling - the 
folks that ride everyday, but never find their way to our membership 
lists, or speak at the Bike Summit, or subscribe to The Ride. Part of 
the horror of this event is that we as a nation have turned our back 
on the poor, and that in most urban areas, poverty and race are 
inextricably linked.

For me, advocating for bicycle and pedestrian rights is about social 
justice, and the 900 lb gorilla in the corner is that the complexion 
of our movement is largely white, middle class. I would like to hear 
a conversation in the bike/aped advocacy movement that really 
addresses these issues so that we as a collective can work to put our 
own house in order.

If you would like to help out with the tragedy, please consider 
working in your own organizations to strengthen your ties with 
communities of color, and connect with people who are struggling with 
poverty every day. With all of the madness that is being broadcast on 
the television, it is difficult to know what to do, and I offer this 
as a meaningful way to channel your desire to help. Reaching out 
beyond our historic base is not trivial - or easy - but we can't 
claim that we're just an upstart grassroots movement anymore without 
enough resources to do it right. If we in New Orleans had made it a 
priority to address the needs of those who can't afford a car, we 
would never have seen the devastating images of those that were left 
behind.

-audrey

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Audrey Warren
New Orleans Metro Bicycle Coalition
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