Broad Street Belongs to the People
August 20, 2025
An Open Letter to the Representatives of the State of Louisiana vested in the Department of Transportation and Development:
We, the bicyclists of New Orleans who live, work, and travel along South and North Broad Street, address you not as petitioners seeking favors from above, but as a people demanding the right to shape the very streets beneath our wheels.
As a bike lane is being painted on South and North Broad from Gravier St. to Lafitte Ave., our demand is simple and rooted in the principles of community self-determination. We know too well how such “planning” is often conducted—behind closed doors, by a narrow caste of “professionals,” in service to private profit and automobile dominance. We declare, emphatically, that Broad must be planned for the people, not for the auto and fossil fuel oligarchy.
According to data from the League of American Bicyclists, the United States has reached yet another grim milestone. Bicyclist deaths rose from an already record-setting 1,117 in 2022 to 1,166 in 2024—a 5.5% increase in only two years. This is not an accident; it is the inevitable consequence of a transportation system engineered for the supremacy of the automobile over human life.
In New Orleans, the crisis is even more acute. As Axios has reported, our city leads all major U.S. metro areas in the rate of fatal bicyclist crashes. Between 2017 and 2021, there were on average 9.9 fatal bike crashes per million residents—more than three times the national average of 2.7 during that same period. The League of American Bicyclists, drawing on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, notes this represents an 11% increase from 2012–2016.
These numbers are not abstract; they are the ledger of lives lost to infrastructure that treats streets as corridors for profit and speed, not as the shared commons of the people. In light of this grim reality, our demands for South and North Broad are not for symbolic illusions of progress. We want to see:
Extended crosswalks to safeguard pedestrians and shorten the deadly gauntlet of wide car lanes.
A physically separated bike lane with a concrete barrier—not the painted line that doesn’t protect us, nor the false illusions of plastic posts, but fortifications that recognize that our lives are worth more than convenience for motorists.
Floating bus stops where transit boarding occurs in front of the bike lane, freeing cyclists from the perpetual obstruction of stopped buses in the bike lane and allowing all modes of transport to coexist without conflict.
We are compelled to make these demands because our daily reality is one of danger and dispossession. Cars idle in our lanes, trucks park in them, and impatient drivers weaponize their vehicles against our bodies by driving in them. This is not “shared space.” It is the domination granted to motor vehicles as a result of decades of lobbying by the oil industry—commodifying our streets and conditioning the population to believe the motor vehicle is the only viable means of commuting.
The Streets Are a Political Question
Let there be no illusions—our streets are not neutral channels of movement, but contested territory, shaped by the priorities of a minority that holds a concentration of wealth. For decades, public space has been surrendered to the tyranny of the private automobile—an instrument of oil profit, suburban sprawl, and social atomization—at the expense of human life, public health, and community connection.
Broad St. is a microcosm of this injustice, a corridor where the poorest and most vulnerable—Black, immigrant, and working-class residents—bear the highest risks. In unequivocal terms, this is the spatial expression of class rule: a city organized not for the producers of its wealth, but for the circulation of fossil fuel and automobile profits.
A safe street is not a luxury, nor a benevolence bestowed from above—it is a right. And in any society that calls itself democratic, planning must be done by the people and for the health of the planet, not in the interest of quarterly profits for the auto industry. The needs of human beings, and the health of the planet, must stand above the insatiable hunger for car dominance and market expansion.
A People's Vision for Broad St.
We envision a street where a parent rides their bicycle beside their child without fear of being crushed under the wheels of a speeding SUV. A bicyclist is not forced into the chaos of traffic because a delivery truck has claimed the bike lane.
Where a wheelchair user crosses the street without gambling their life against the tyranny of the signal clock. Where transit riders board safely and with dignity, without risking injury. Where the space belongs to the people—living proof that the future belongs to sustainable, collective transport, not to the corporations who profit from our car dependency.
This struggle is not simply about bicycle lanes—it is about the principle of cooperation over competition, about the right of the community to move together in harmony rather than be pitted against one another in the narrow pursuit of profit. The democratic process is not supposed to exclude us; rather, it engages directly with the people—residents, bicyclists, transit riders, and workers—in every stage of design and decision-making.
Our Struggle Will Continue
That which was decided on South and North Broad will echo across New Orleans. Will public space remain the domain of the automobile and its benefactors? Or will we reclaim the streets as a commons for the people and the planet?
Critical Mass Nola will not retreat into polite silence. We will continue to organize to ride together in numbers that cannot be ignored. Our movement will continue to demand our right to the road. We will disrupt traffic and stage die-ins to mark each life stolen by automobile violence. We will turn the streets of New Orleans into an arena of living protest until the needs of the people are met. Because the infrastructure, as it stands, will only allow bicyclist deaths to continue.
With Unwavering Resolve,
Critical Mass Organizing Committee