AS PROTESTS GO, few are as good-natured as these led by Bike Grid Now, a Chicago-based group of cyclists. On one held early within the morning of October twenty sixth, three dozen or so cyclists gathered exterior the Loop, Chicago’s downtown, earlier than biking collectively to Daley Plaza, subsequent to City Hall. Riding varied kinds of bicycles—from the fundamental bikes of town’s “Divvy” rent scheme to electrical ones with youngster seats—they cycled across the block, spreading throughout all three lanes, earlier than pausing exterior the doorway to dam automotive site visitors. After a police officer, who was additionally on a bicycle, politely informed them that they’d 5 minutes earlier than he must arrest them, they rang their bells and chanted calls for for bike lanes. A couple of minutes later the group, made up largely of 30-something white professionals, dispersed to their jobs within the close by places of work.
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Such protests now occur in Chicago virtually weekly. The Windy City has not less than half a dozen teams demanding extra security for cyclists. In September, on “World Car Free Day”, a number of hundred cyclists staged a “die in”, blocking an eight-lane freeway that runs alongside Lake Michigan. An even bigger group has cycled across the Jane Byrne interchange, a freeway junction that’s usually amongst America’s most congested roads (and off-limits to cyclists). Similar protests have been held in cities together with Oakland in California, Portland in Oregon and Miami, Florida.
Bike activism is hardly new. The freeway trespass was organised by Critical Mass, a motion that emerged in San Francisco 30 years in the past. Yet the tempo has accelerated, largely due to traits unleashed by covid-19. Though official information recommend fewer individuals are biking to work (and solely round 0.5% of Americans achieve this) than earlier than the pandemic, reversing what had been a protracted, sluggish rise, that’s in all probability as a result of extra are working from house. In actuality, extra cyclists are in all probability on America’s roads than ever. Bicycle gross sales have soared—electrical bikes outsold electrical automobiles final 12 months—and municipal cycle-hire schemes in New York, Chicago and elsewhere recorded extra customers than ever this previous summer season.
As extra individuals are getting on bikes, they’re additionally realising how unsafe many American streets are. Though bike lanes are proliferating in lots of cities, they’re nonetheless not often protected or enforced. The rise in protest is “because of tragedies”, says Courtney Cobbs, an activist in Chicago. In June Elizabeth Grace Shambrook, a three-year-old lady, was killed when her mom was knocked off her bike by a lorry driver who ignored her as she tried to get spherical a van parked illegally in a motorbike lane.
In 2020, 1,260 folks nationwide have been killed in crashes on bikes, a 44% improve on a decade earlier than, based on the National Safety Council, a non-profit group. Some of that improve could also be as a result of extra bikes are on the roads, nevertheless it additionally appears doubtless that individuals are driving extra dangerously, too. Last 12 months virtually 43,000 folks have been killed in automotive crashes of all kinds, the very best determine since 2005.
Christina Whitehouse, who arrange a web site, Bike Lane Uprising, to report individuals who park in Chicago’s bike lanes, says the location has been inundated with such experiences. But she thinks cyclists are making not less than just a little headway in forcing change. The metropolis has, for instance, put concrete limitations in some bike lanes to cease drivers from coming into them. Ms Whitehouse says officers did this in response to protests. “There are so many bikers who are becoming single-issue voters,” she says. They could also be beginning a virtuous cycle. ■
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