Civil Rights
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For People of Color, Barriers to Biking Go Far Beyond Infrastructure, Study Shows
When most cities try to make biking a bigger part of their transportation systems, they use a standard checklist: comfortable biking networks, how-to-ride classes, traffic-law enforcement. The full list is sometimes called the “Five E’s.”
A first-of-its-kind survey conducted by Rutgers academics Charles Brown and James Sinclair shows that when you look at biking from the perspective of a Black or Latino American, the Five E’s are missing a lot.
April 18, 2017
The “Jaywalker” Brutalized By Sacramento Police Was Stopped for No Reason at All
When the line between a legally justifiable stop and outright harassment is so thin, it can easily become a pretext for racial profiling. That's what happened to Nandi Cain, Jr., who was beaten by Sacramento police during what officials called a jaywalking stop.
April 13, 2017
How Racial Discrimination Shaped Atlanta’s Transportation Mess
Racist fears hobbled transit in Atlanta two generations ago. Is the region finally learning from its mistakes?
February 8, 2017
Civic Groups Renew Call for Streets That Support Public Expression
After a larger than expected turnout for the Women's March over the weekend, Transportation Alternatives and other civic organizations reiterated their call for Mayor de Blasio to make major streets and public spaces more amenable to public demonstrations.
January 24, 2017
A Plea for de Blasio to Support Free Expression With Better Public Spaces
With New Yorkers aching to make themselves heard by the incoming president, a coalition of planning and advocacy groups wants Mayor de Blasio to improve public access to key streets and gathering places. Among other recommendations, the groups urge the mayor to turn Fifth Avenue and 14th Street into pedestrian and transit zones.
January 12, 2017
TA: Traffic Justice Must Align With Racial Justice
In a letter to members yesterday, Transportation Alternatives laid out a set of guiding principles for integrating racial justice into efforts to make NYC streets safe for walking and biking.
November 15, 2016
“Law-and-Order,” the Resilience of White Supremacy, and You
"Where do things stand now?" I asked Adonia Lugo as we organized potential discussion themes ahead of this Sunday's Untokening event.
November 10, 2016
Civil Rights Advocates Challenge Missouri DOT’s Discriminatory Spending
Missouri, like many other states, shifts transportation funds from cities to rural areas -- it collects most gas tax revenue from urban areas and spends it on roads in the hinterlands. And as in many other states, this amounts to a massive transfer of resources from the places where most people of color live.
September 7, 2016
Naomi Doerner on How Street Safety Advocates Can Support Racial Justice
When a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, shot and killed Philando Castile earlier this month, the encounter began with a traffic stop. The stop fit a pattern: Castile had been pulled over many times before -- 46 times in 13 years -- but few of those citations were for dangerous driving. More prevalent were stops for minor issues like vehicle defects or misplaced license plates -- the type of justifications that police are more likely to use when stopping black and Latino drivers throughout the country.
July 22, 2016