Broad Bias: Planning for Cars, Not Communities
Critical Mass Nola riding down North Broad Street. The newly painted bike lane can be seen painted in front of the Whole Foods parking lot. Instead of a concrete buffer it simply has a painted stripe, merely a suggestion for motor vehicles not to drive in it.
As we rode down the corridor of South and North Broad Street last Friday evening, little felt different. What did stand out, however, was the recurring sight of cars parked in the bike lanes. The painted strip on Broad may be advertised as bike infrastructure, but in practice it functions as nothing more than a suggestion.
This is no accident. Urban planners are either trained within a paradigm that enshrines the automobile as the sole legitimate mode of transport, or they are directly influenced by the lobbying power of the fossil fuel and auto industries. In either case, our streets are commodified spaces, designed to maximize the circulation of motor vehicles rather than to serve the collective needs of the people.
What masquerades as “multi-modal” accommodation—an unprotected painted line here, a token crosswalk there—is merely a symbolic gesture. The urban fabric of New Orleans, like most American cities, is engineered to privilege combustion engines, which in turn externalize their costs onto the public in the form of carbon dioxide, particulate pollution, microplastics from tires, constant noise, and the trash of a car-centered society. Worst of all, automobiles perpetuate traffic violence—the daily toll of injury and death inflicted on those who dare to navigate the city without a car.
As cyclists, we refuse to passively accept the social and ecological violence motor vehicles impose on our lives. We envision streets that are truly public, accessible equitably to all road users—pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders alike. The first concrete step toward this vision is the creation of a connected grid of protected, separated bike lanes across New Orleans.
Critical Mass Nola will continue to ride, resist, and reclaim space until that vision is realized. Join us every last Friday of the month at 6pm in the French Market as we take to the streets to demand our collective right to the road.
Another World Is Possible,
Eric Gabourel
Read our Open Letter Here.