Dear Atlanta City Council:
Bicycling requires resilience in this city. It’s a resilience born from aspiration; the same aspiration that urges citizens to rise up also dares us to expand our vision about how great this city could become should we lay the groundwork to make it so.
Cyclists put our lives on the line every day for that vision. Every day we make a choice to wrap our hands around handlebars instead of a steering wheel is a show of our commitment. We brave insults that come in the form of sexual harassment and curses from furious drivers forced to share a road; we brave insults that come in the form of disconnected and pothole-laden streets that puncture our tires and throw us off balance; and we brave insults from leadership that fails to go the distance in building the necessary infrastructure to make streets safe.
One child or adult dead is too many. Too many because that person who dared to pick up a bicycle–or a scooter, or a skateboard–instead of a car key is the type of individual you want living in this city. We are the brave and the hopeful. We believe in the future of this city and we understand that motion, in all its forms, is the key to health and creativity and is what keeps a body and a city alive.
When I was a Senior at Spelman in the Fall of ’96 I used to rollerblade through recently paved streets around campus and downtown at midnight when few cars were on the roads. Even though I had grown up visiting my dad’s family in Southwest Atlanta, it was the first time I could really explore Atlanta on my own. Like many students, I didn’t have a car but I found freedom in riding those rollerblades as far as I could. Safe streets invite curiosity.
I moved back to Atlanta in 2011 to open a business and hoped to explore in the same way on my bicycle. Years of cycling in cities like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and San Antonio gave me unfaltering confidence, which was necessary because I found Atlanta to be the most dangerous city I had ever cycled in.
When cyclists urge our city to invest in safe streets, we do so as participatory citizens and as pioneers. Bicycling is a choice that we make to be present in honor not just of a better body, but of a better city for all who live here now and in the future.
When you ask yourself at the end of the day, was I a good neighbor today? Was I a good ancestor today, think of us in the streets, the streets of a city you have the power to help shape, and ask if we all survived the ride today, our bodies intact, because of a cycle track, because of more sharrows and bike lanes, and because promoting leadership that values the health and safety of all its citizens whether we have the privilege of a car or not is what will help make this city great.
Photograph by Zach Wolfe
