Sarah Goodyear, 2 February 2010, StreetsBlog - New York

The other day, we wrote a post in hopes of starting a conversation about the way certain groups of people who ride bicycles -- notably, immigrants who ride to work and for work -- tend to get overlooked by bicycle advocacy groups and planners. The post (which grew out of an item by Streetsblog Network member Honking in Traffic) got a lot of responses, including a few from people who thought we were stating the obvious or being patronizing. (On Twitter, @feedmeshow put it this way: "Wealthy white person notices that some ride of necessity, as opp. lifestyle choice." Ouch.)

What seems clear is that there needs to be more discussion on the topic, not less. Many people sent along some great resources that could help to further a productive conversation, and it seemed worthwhile to collect some of that feedback in a separate post.

We learned about an outreach program in Los Angeles called Ciudad de Luces, a project of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition whose mission is "to increase working-class Latino immigrant bicyclists’ safety and empower them to educate and spread bicycle safety information and advocacy to their communities." They're due to publish a Spanish-language cycling guide in March and are working with grassroots groups like CARACEN (the Central American Resource Center). A few readers also referenced an article in Bicycling magazine on the topic.

Read more . . .