Happy to hear from you, and I read your article.
I have more to say about the issues in your article below, but first let me try to stick to this one incident about the event happening in the bike lanes.
(FYI — I was thinking this was San Antonio Road in Mountain View (that’s the only San Antonio street I frequent).
I’m not sure if your reference to Grail Family Services implies that they are the folks with an event going on in the bike lane — or if, rather, you are citing your contact with them as an EXAMPLE of an organization in this area of town, and some attitudes and situations that may be involved
Certainly the comments you made about GFS having confusion with bike lanes & not seeing a benefit for them from bike lanes is relevant either way.
Having read your article, I’m left with wondering what happened between May 2019 (when you wrote the article) and now, when there are bike lanes present?
Your article talks in detail about the needs of this community and why a bike lane in this area would be difficult, and could be a hardship.
Did the city, SVBC, or the community come up with alternatives that you think would work better than the bike lane option that was chosen by the city?
Were folks from the community local to San Antonio involved in the process?
Would you advocate for not keeping the bike lane there?
Do you think talking to the [church or organization] using the bike lanes for an event is grossly inconsiderate?
It seems like a nice thing that you’ve introduced yourself to GFS and started to build a relationship.
All of the considerations you list in your article are broadly things I’m aware of and care about — and yet I also want bike lanes to be available, free of glass, free of things and garbage, free of cars. smotthly paved etc. Which includes free of event booths, in this case.
If you are willing to say more about what you think would be cultural humility and social justice in this case, please do.
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Just a couple of comments on the broader issue (not related to San Antonio neighborhood):
1. I live on Senter Road, and I **love** the improvements to the bike lanes that have been made in the last year or so. AND since I live here I am also very much aware that RV's with people living in them were displaced to make these changes. I do not know where those people went, but I am aware of this as a very steep cost to the people who lived in these vehicles.
I bring this up as another EXAMPLE of a negative cost to “improved” bike lanes.
I’m not saying it is good, I’m saying it is another situation with a cost to people living with extremely limited resources.
I would guess thare are other cases as well where there are negative impacts.
2. While I’m joyful that the bike lanes are SO much better, I’m also anxious to get as MUCH “improvement” as possible out of this. I’m impatient with the cars that drive where they are not supposed to be (possibly because they don’t understand the new markings) -- I’m impatient with the glass all over parts of the bike lanes — I’m impatient with the piles of branches (I do mean PILES).
In general, I feel a desire to defend the new bike lanes, and have the changes be as “good” as possible relative tot he new designated use (for bikes)
3. Finally, I’d like to touch back on the cars parked in bike lanes which I’ve personally reported to the police: The situation differs from the conditions on San Antonio in significant ways AND YET it is also a situation where there is a strong perceived need to park there. I am quite sure the people who park there, and the business they are visiting, would not want that area to be a “no parking” zone, which it now is, because of the bike lane.
In other words, I think this case also involves my acting in ways that are “anti-community”.
There’s a way that I understand reporting cars to the police as being an act of high controversy and as something that creates (or escalates) conflict.
I am objecting to the cars’ presence.
There is a big practical problem created for the cars’ owners and the business, and no other work-around has been created, so they park in the bike lane.
This also applies to the UPS trucks etc — they are parked in my lane in order to meet real practical needs.
This may differ in some forms from the issues in your article about San Antionio, but is doesn’t differ entirely.
Moria
“The opposite of division is not unity — it is collaboration” —Dar Williams (from live concert in Hawthorne Barn, May 26, 2018, and Twenty Summers concert, Nov 8, 2018)
"The Biggest Pandemic: Twice as many people died in 2020 of heart disease (690,882) as from COVID-19 (345,323). This doesn't even include another 159,150 who died from stroke and another 106,106 from diabetes (mostly type 2), which have the same risk factors as heart disease. While Covid-19 is an airborne disease, and cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes are predominantly lifestyle and food-borne diseases, it would be wise for the CDC and HHS to put at least as much effort into preventing these chronic conditions as Covid-19." --Dean Ornish, M.D. | Founder & President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute; Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCSF, quoted from
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234