During this year’s Chicago Bike Week and Bike Challenge, we have an additional challenge for you: Get informed! Bike Week is a perfect time to inform yourself about the role biking plays in mobility and racial justice.
How can we ensure that our streets and public spaces feel safe and are safe for everyone? How can we ensure that our advocacy efforts for better biking center the voices of Black and Brown people and those who have experienced violence on our streets? How can our transportation systems better support and uplift the needs of those who have been historically marginalized and oppressed by systemic racism, white supremacy, and inequity?
How can each of us as individuals do our part?
One place to start is by listening to and learning from those who have been leading the fight for mobility and racial justice for many years. The Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC) created an anti-racist and mobility justice resource list that we highly recommend.
Using TCC’s list and suggestions from Active Trans staff, below are several recommended books, articles, and podcasts/videos on biking and mobility justice to get you started:
Books: Choose a book and dive in! Ask a friend or family member to read it with you. If you’re in a book club, add one of these books to your upcoming reading list.
- Bicycle Race by Dr. Adonia Lugo
- Bikequity: Money, Class, and Bicycling edited by Elly Blue
- Bike Lanes are White Lanes by Melody Hoffman
- Bicycle Justice and Urban Transformation, multiple authors
- Back in the Frame by Jools Walker
- Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes by Mimi Sheller
Articles & Reports: During Chicago Bike Week, challenge yourself to read a new article on mobility justice every day. Better yet, turn it into a habit. Keep reading, learning, and informing yourself even beyond Bike Week.
- Untokening 1.0 — Principles of mobility justice
- Untokening – Mobility justice & COVID
- Untokening mobility: Beyond pavement, paint and place
- ‘Safe streets’ are not safe for Black lives by Dr. Destiny Thomas
- Why we must talk about race when we talk about bikes by Tamika Butler
- Confronting power and privilege by Tamika Butler
- Stop killing us: A real life nightmare by Tamika Butler
- Whose streets? Black streets by Amina Yasin
- PoC leaders demand anti-racism from transportation community by Streetsblog
- Oakland’s Warren Logan on pursuing racial equity within a mobility framework by Courtney Cobbs
- Ahmaud Arbery’s death, mobility justice, and the open streets debate by Courtney Cobbs
- The tale of two truths: Transportation and nuance in the time of COVID-19 by Ariel Ward
- Coronavirus is not fuel for urbanist fantasies by Alissa Walker
- Bike advocacy’s blind spot by Tanvi Misra
- Bicycle equity: Fairness and justice in bicycle planning and design by Hilary Angus
- Race, ethnicity, class, and protected bike lanes: An idea book for fairer cities, PeopleForBikes
- Biking while Black by Elizabeth Rusch
- Poor and Black ‘invisible cyclists’ need to be part of post-pandemic transport planning too by Dr. Julian Agyeman
- Cyclista zine
Videos & Podcasts: Take a lunch break and watch or listen to one of these informative talks.
- Untokening: Transformative talks series
- Cities in the time of COVID-19: How do we respond to anti-Black racism in urbanist practices and conversations?
- Talk policy to me: Episode 305: Talking anti-racist transportation policy
- Planning while Black: A powerful call for racial equity
- Interview with Melody Hoffman, author of Bike Lanes are White Lanes
- Fighting for transportation justice
- Bridging the divide: Connecting people to opportunity
Take a look at more of our resources for Chicago Bike Week.
Photo courtesy of WTTW.