Last month Anne Lusk (Harvard School of Public Health) posted an article on CityLab entitled “You Can’t Design Bike-Friendly Cities Without Considering Race and Class.” Word! To sum up her argument: Put more bike lanes where people are riding because ‘the single biggest group of Americans who bike to work live in households that earn less than $10,000 yearly.‘
Since opening we’ve been doing a lot of work on bikes that have 7 speed freewheels and 8 speed cassettes. If there’s a disc brake in the equation, then it is most likely mechanical. These bikes are being ridden for transportation not recreation or fitness. The concerns of these customers don’t start with ‘we need more protected bike lanes’; it’s more like: ‘I need a good place to lock up my bike so I don’t have another one stolen.’
So, yeah, planners, think about the people who are really riding instead of those we are trying to entice to give up their cars. (Psst: Those people will be fine no matter what!)