Re-blog!

My most recent blog post was cleaned up, professionalized and posted on the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition blog. 

Check it out for some more nuanced discussion of how journalists report on bike-car crashes. 

I have a book coming out with the University of Nebraska Press. It has been a longtime coming. Three years to be precise (from dissertation defense to rehabbing it for publication). Editing a book is tedious, boring, and a risk to your self-confidence. You second guess your claims, your ideas, your writing–everything!

But this past week I have been crafting the book’s index (h/t to Dr. Elana Levine for guidance) and it has reenergized my belief in the book. It is an index that I am proud of because it represents the book that I always wished existed.

When the book comes out in July, I will have an accompanying website with images that didn’t make it into the book (note to new authors: any pictures you want published in a book, use an actual camera and not your phone).

For now, wouldn’t you love to see some of index entries? Great!

African American

bicycle advocates  (subcategories include: focused on equity, mainstream, working with city government)

bicyclists (black, Latino, racing, Somali, upwardly mobile)

creative class

gentrification

invisible cyclists

neighborhoods

transportation

youth

Over at the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition blog, I wrote up a summary of a local (Minneapolis) report on focus groups with underrepresented communities in the bike world.

These experiences are rarely heard in organized bicycling (read: mainstream bicycle advocacy) so I highly encourage you to read my summary and the full report.

Some key findings that emerged were sexual harassment, subtle racism, and lack of bike education are keeping people from riding. I was not surprised by the findings but am happy these experiences are recorded.

Perhaps this will help bicycle advocacy shift its thinking beyond the majority experience at the planning tables.

In the summer of 2015, I worked with Cycles for Change, a community bike shop in St. Paul, to engage community members in conversations about perceptions of and barriers to bicycling.

The result of these conversations includes a report released by Cycles for Change (Oct. 2015).

Report cover. Design by Stephanie Schultz

During the community conversations, we spoke with East African, African American, Karen, Eastern European, and Asian American community members. A wide range of ages were represented from youth to middle-aged adults. In this project, C4C actively engaged young people to make sure their experiences were included.

More information on the report can be found on C4C’s website. 

Thank you to the Bush Foundation and its Community Innovations grant that funded this project. 

Please pass this report on to those who would benefit from reading this.

As the primary author of the report, I welcome comments and feedback. I worked for many months with C4C on designing this community engagement project and am happy to speak to that as well.