Dr Jane Delgado, National Alliance for Hispanic Health
We had a great 2018 National Bike Summit. Some people at the summit asked if we should be doing more. More in regards to working for $20 an hour or stopping the prison industrial complex.
Some people asked does our work have an equity component.
People who don’t have the freedom of movement, are oppressed people. The first thing the United States did when they stopped enslaving Black people in 1865 was prevent Black people from having the freedom to move around on the public street through the Black Codes.
That policy continued into Jim Crow and then Red Lining. Black people through policies were actively prevented from doing the very basic acts of walking on the street and having accessible transportation options for jobs, even things like grocery stores were excluded from Black communities. You still see these policies today.
If people can’t walk home without the police terrorizing them, if they can’t access jobs, because transportation is inaccessible and infrequent, if their parents have to get up 3 hours early to get them to school, if people who have disabilities cannot get around in a dignified manner, we as a society have nothing.
The work of transportation advocacy is the work.
Our work allows for people to go to marches, to go to meetings, and to go to the grocery store.
Our work is not about riding a bicycle in the park.
This is about people getting around in a dignified and comfortable manner. This is about every community having the best and most comfortable options for the oldest and the youngest members. This is about people with disabilities. This is about people of all genders being able to walk home comfortable. This is about streets designed that have as Jane Jacob said “eyes on the street” so regardless of the time of day or night no one is alone.
Transportation work is intersectional, it has no choice, but to be.