“What policies could you try to work on? You could try to stop new fossil fuel developments in your state or work to shut down coal and natural gas plants that already exist. […] On the local scale, you could work to support public transit or protected bike lanes.”
-Leah Cardamore Stokes, “A Field Guide for Transformation,” from “All We Can Save”

“Never underestimate the anger directed at bicyclists. They ride too fast, terrorizing pedestrians. They ride too slow, dangerously obstructing drivers. They don’t wear helmets or reflective bike gear, jeopardizing themselves. They look ridiculous riding around in those helmets and reflective bike gear, more like Mad Max marauders than human beings. They shouldn’t ride in streets, which are hostile, car-only zones. They shouldn’t have their own lanes because there aren’t enough of them to take away space from cars. Yet there are so many of them that they’re running down pedestrians and therefore shouldn’t ride on sidewalks”
– from Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution,
by Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow

The attitude toward cyclists and people advocating to, you know, not die, is something worth studying. And, there have been studies about how the dehumanization of cyclists encourages aggressive driver and studies on how drivers pass cyclists more closely — putting them at risk — when they are wearing helmets. We can even skip the studies and take a look around at policy and behavior in Greater Hartford, how some folks firmly refusing to leave outmoded and ineffectual beliefs of the last century behind will not install even the most basic of bike lanes when they could easily do so, using language like “balancing” when what they’re doing is appeasing those who believe they should be able to store private property in the public right-of-way. They’re saying that the actual safety of some people is not as valuable as the convenience of others.

I’ve been advised not to lead with bike lane advocacy because it can come off as gentrifying, but to that I say “so what?!” There are a few individuals who think any kind of change is gentrification. They’d rather live surrounded by piles of sidewalk mattresses and litter galore than address municipal waste collection because they believe having a healthy and clean environment means they’ll lose out somehow. What does this say about someone’s sense of worth, that they would accept squalor instead of asking for both dignity and for the continued ability to live in their home? We can have both. The people who already live here and bike here do use the few bike lanes that we have; failing to meet their safety needs is not the flex some think it is.

Both of these extremes — one prevalent in the suburbs and then one that comes up in Hartford itself — are reflections of having a scarcity mentality. They’ve been taught that there’s not enough to go around, that they need to fight for scraps. The message they’ve accepted is that to get ahead, they can and should take from others. It’s rooted in fear, and perhaps straight up greed. They can’t comprehend sharing or collaboration, only taking and guarding something jealously.

If you look at almost every single street in Hartford — I can name the exceptions on one hand — there is an abundance of space. My own was just repaved. The City of Hartford missed an opportunity to narrow a completely residential one-way street that is three lanes wide. One of those lanes could have been disappeared and made into wider sidewalk on one or both sides, or we could’ve had a low budget bike lane striped on one side as there is no need for parking on both sides of the road, and it’s long been no parking allowed on one side. Narrower lanes make for slower speeds. That means fewer serious crashes. While I’m not pushing hard for changes on my own street — we got a speed hump and that has made a huge difference — I see so many others that have excess lane width.

One of those is on Laurel Street between Park and Capitol, where the road is straight, flat, and too wide. It’s a prime candidate for a buffered bike lane, or if someone has the energy to find money, physical road narrowing and creation of more appropriate sidewalks on both sides.

It’s not gentrification to want people to be okay.

The photo at the top of this post was taken in a park. The cyclist said “take my picture, take my picture” as he passed, so I did.

He’s riding on a path where cars are not supposed to go.

How you feel riding in this space is different from how you feel when out on an unprotected road. Your posture changes. Your breathing changes. You aren’t trying to navigate things like a bus crossing in front of you because we won’t make bus lanes. You aren’t having to be vigilant about the many drivers who won’t see you because they are not looking — either they’re playing on their phones, distracted by a child in the backseat, or simply not turning their head to acknowledge who else might be around. Someone’s whim to ignore a red light doesn’t threaten your life.

If you crash into someone in this space — a park where cars are not supposed to be — they’re on foot or biking or scootering. Those are all people traveling at low speeds and not inside literal tons of metal and plastic, which means that injury types tend to be less serious. Fussing about cyclist vs. pedestrian crashes as if they are anywhere on the same level as car vs. cyclist/pedestrian/scooter/other mobility device shows a lack of understanding of basic physics.

The person in the picture? He was having a good time.
People biking through parks and on bike paths usually are.

So, I am going to push for bike lanes and multi-use paths because protecting neighbors is important, but so is allowing them to experience joy.

Climate Possibilities is a new series about climate mitigation, along with resilience, resistance, and restoration. It’s about human habitat preservation. It’s about loving nature and planet Earth, and demanding the kind of change that gives future generations the opportunity for vibrant lives. Doomers will be eaten alive, figuratively. All photographs are taken in Hartford, Connecticut unless stated otherwise.