Thread by @sahrasulaiman

When you do a lengthy thread replete w/ stories on how/where gang issues fit into the safe/open/slow streets discussion and someone immediately tells you there's no need to read it because the real problem is cars, did you really happen

For those that didn't see the #carsplaining in response to a question raised in the thread. It was real and it was not spectacular.

I've been writing for a transportation outlet for the past 8.5 years. I promise you I've heard about cars before. But all those years in this field have taught me that it doesn't know much about the other barriers to accessing the public space (& which also push people to drive).

The spate of four shootings within five hours last Friday, or the shooting up of a grocery store parking lot on the 16th, for example, are all things that make biking and walking unthinkable for a lot of families and for young men of color, in particular. [Which means more 🚗]

That grocery store shooting, btw, was just blocks from where Woon Frazier was killed in a horrific hit-and-run two years ago. la.streetsblog.org/2018/04/11/22-…

It begs the question: What is the good of putting in a bike lane for people to cut back on car trips if they can't make bike trips to their local amenities because of gang and policing issues?

Does it mean we shouldn't do bike advocacy or think about #slowstreets/#openstreets in historically disenfranchised communities? [as so many advocates of privilege seem to interpret even the raising of this question to mean]

No. It just means you're not doing enough. To make a very clumsy metaphor, if both your tires are flat, you have no brakes, and your bike is locked to the rack, just greasing your chain isn't going to make it easier for you to ride off into the sunset.

Anyways. Please peep the thread about gang activity and how it constitutes a barrier to access to the public space/shapes biking/walking here in L.A.

[Just saw I missed including connector tweets explaining that Woon's death had (rightly) been taken up as a cause by advocates demanding a bike lane, but also that advocates had been less sensitive to the other issues in the community] la.streetsblog.org/2019/04/06/a-y…

[One of the white guys calling for Justice for Woon at a rally in South Central, for ex., actually introduced himself to me by way of essentially telling me he thought that my writing about equity and justice was worthless and annoying.]

I get that people that don’t have this experience don’t necessarily know how to process all this, but I just stopped by to check in on someone I know near one of those shooting sites to see if they were ok.

Turns out they were one of the people that had been shot at. Not this past Friday, but a week or two ago, just across the street from his apartment.

“There’s been a lotta shootings around here. But BL, he just dodged it, god bless,” the neighbor I had also met before told me. Then he shrugged and said, “It’s summer.”