In Portland, we’re a little scared of anger. Have you heard about the fights in New York over bike lanes? They’re vicious—Park Slope residents are filing lawsuits!—and unproductive in the way that angrily ramming horns just gives everyone a headache.
But the recent city meetings over Portland’s plan to make N. Williams safer for the 3,000 cyclists who use the street daily has been very heated in the good kind of way. The kind of way that lets off serious steam that’s been building for a long, long time.
But actually, I don’t know anything. I’m on the street almost every day, taking the quickest and flattest bike route to Northeast. But I’m one of “those people”: the twentysomething, middle-class, white girl who just moved here a few years ago, whose destination on Williams usually involves either a latte or alcohol.
I have rights on Williams (namely, the right to use the street on bike, foot, or bus without risking death), but the best thing I can do is admit that I’m personally clueless when it comes the weighty, personal issues of racial discrimination and gentrification in North Portland.
Instead, I called up Debora Leopold Hutchins, an African American, avid cyclist, and chair of the North Williams project stakeholder committee, and asked her to tell it to me straight.
Hutchins leads a women’s cycling group, but personally she doesn’t feel safe biking on Williams, due to all the traffic and wide-swinging car doors.
“When I got into this project, I saw this as a safety issue,” says Hutchins. “When I talked to people from the community, I realized it was a much deeper issue.”
Hutchins was one of the strongest voices asking the city to slow down the Williams revamp (they were scheduled to choose a design by this June), feeling that the process, like numerous projects historically in the area, was moving so fast that neighbors didn’t have time to get involved.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation made the right move: They put the process on hold and took Hutchins’ advice to solicit more input from the neighborhood, especially from people of color.
“The community wants to be heard, the community wants to be part of the process,” says Hutchins.
Basically, as far as I see it, the city put in more than the usual ounce of effort into incorporating public input. And cracking open the discussion just a bit wound up opening a big can of worms—long-festering-issue “worms,” some of which have little to do with bikes, cars, or parking, and everything to do with discrimination.
This isn’t the ideal project for laying gentrification concerns on the table, but what is? There should have been intensive public discussions around developments like the urban renewal-subsidized Albert Apartments on Williams. But there weren’t. So now we’re opening up these issues with bike lanes.
If Hutchins is happy with the process, and we both feel safe enough to bike on Williams in the future, then this will all have been good. Even the angry parts.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Word and time limits aside, would you care to delve into these “much deeper issues.” All I got was racial discrimination and gentrification. Both these issues required a “twenty something, middle class, white girl ” to get it straight(because verbs are earthy and colloquial when the subject matter is race/class in P-town’s boroughs) from a “African-American cyclist” who presumably has deeper roots and authority on local issues than her naive inquisitor from a local Zine.
I honestly hope the hyped up identity cues were tinged with a little light-heartedness. Otherwise this reads like a teaser for a 70’s movie or TV pilot about two unlikely partners from different backgrounds innocently teamed up to improve bike safety when SHIT GOT REAL.
Seriously though, outright hostility, or anger as you call it, might be better than the ever present passive aggressiveness and snark that pervade this city. But please explain how anger didn’t rear it’s cathartic head in other race/class related issues in this city. How has it significantly manifested itself in this issue compared to others.
Why do the proposed reforms make people mad? Wouldn’t it be better to identify a non-cyclist with local credentials to interview? Just going off your description of Hutchins, she seems like somebody who could easily lines up with your worldview as well as other recent, progressive transplants … despite incidentally being black.
@Tits McGee – I think Hutchins is a good person to talk with about these issues not because she’s “incidentally black” but more because she is a long-time resident of the neighborhood and the chair of the North Williams Project Stakeholder Committee. That means she intimately understands both the historic issues in the neighborhood and the current wonky details of the project.
Not fair! You added more context about Hutchins and the “Williams revamp” that wasn’t in the print edition (paragraph 8, “Hutchins was one of the strongest voices …”), potentially after my comment.
Otherwise “incidentally black” was over the line. But, to me, the way you contrasted yourself with Hutchins had an awkward feel.
@Tits,
The print version and online version of this article (as well as many articles!) are different. But online versions of article are never altered after the time they’re posted, unless we note it in the bottom as a correction. That would be a serious ethical problem.
I’d love to hear what people would think if some infrastructure change threatened to bring more minorities to Lake Oswego and a bunch of soccer mom’s got together to protest “those people” coming into their neighborhood. I mean it isn’t like they hate them, they just don’t want the neighborhood to “change”.
asdfsdf
The disgusting irony buried deep in this article is more indicative of problems relating to gentrification than anything discussed within.
Case in point: “(I) admit that I’m personally clueless when it comes the weighty, personal issues of racial discrimination and gentrification (Instead), I called up (an) African American.”
How fucking Portland can we get? The idea of distanced activism, fetishized minority culture and, in more ways than one, even ADDRESSING the issue of bicycles in a deteriorating post-metropolis in which freeways and Black neighborhoods alike are neglected so that trust-fund “art district” scum can write their little articles and call up their token friends,… is racist.
There are two types of racism, dumb racism and insulting racism. The KKK member who fears that Snoop Dogg is turning his white daughter into a hooker, there is little to no hope for that “type” of racism, and it exists mostly outside of Portland. The worse, second type of racism is the head-patting, euphemism-laden “I know what’s best for my Black neighbor” BULLSHIT that permeates the majority of all local media, including the Portland Mercury.
How about hiring a Black chick to write the column? I mean, it’s a glorfied blog that echos the thoughts of everyone between Belmont / 35th and Belmont / 12th, why not expand to cater to the rest of Portland.
Have fun at your next art show held in whatever renovated crackhouse your parents paid for.
Also, and sorry for the double comment, but I’m sure one “Black cyclist”‘s opinion of gentrification represents the entirety of the whole race.
Suggestion: canvas the neighborhood, door-to-door, and see what the residents think. Lots of them. As in, something statistically significant.
BTW I just asked MY Black friend what she thinks of this shit, and she agrees. So I’ll see your token and raise you a token AND logic.
😉
Racial issues? Are you kidding me? I thought we were talking about “cyclist” rights which is a laughable topic in and of itself. I didn’t know cyclists were facing such oppression that their “right to bike” is being infringed upon. I say if you want to ride your bicycle to get around, that’s great as long as you do so in accordance to traffic laws. But realize that some streets and/or entire routes may not be safe for you to do so. I don’t think that every street should be “bike friendly” just because a handful of cyclists want it to be. Find an alternate route.
We have plenty of bike safe streets in that neighborhood. I have been riding in that area for years and never NEEDED to endanger myself on Williams. I am a native Portlander and all the whining is coming from these hipster transplants is enough to lose my temper. The solution is simple: create another bike route (like I did) parallel to williams through the neighborhood. Nobody cared to know what I thought when they tore down the Cupie cone by my childhood home for ANOTHER Starbucks, or when they renamed the street I grew up on to reflect on a leader that means nothing to me. I believe there is racism and gentrification in this city and it’s directed at the lower class white community. Everyone is so afraid that we bend over backwards so we don’t look like racists but we just end up wasting time and money, and if your white and make less than $50,000 a year then we don’t get a say. I say let the cyclists find a different path if there afraid and put the money that would have been spent on self centered cyclists and put it into the schools or businesses in the area. I am a cyclist and I still think this is a waste of time and money.
What’s more important than bike lanes and gentrification? Fixing your crumbling and outdated infrastructure. What good are bike lanes when the bridge you’re peddling on falls into the Willamette? What’s more green than riding your bike to the coffee shop? Fixing gridlock and hour-plus commute times to travel less than 10 miles. How about addressing the city’s out of control gang problems – 60+ shootings this year, and counting. How about addressing the heroin, crack and meth problems?
Ride your bike through the real ‘hood and see if bike lanes are on your mind. Of course, it’s all a moot point in terms of bike lanes – who is going to choose to ride their bike past 2 week old garbage and compost piles? Or take a walk for that matter.. This city will soon stink as bad as it looks, and people like you are a huge part of the problem – only concerned with your tiny little world, and your pathetic needs and wants. Learn how to ride a bike, as sparrow said above – take an alternate route. Or are you too afraid to venture off the beaten path? You’re right, you are one of “those”. One of the transplants to this city who won’t stop until the situation you helped create is beyond repair – and then you’ll move on to your next ‘project’ town. FOAD hipster scum.