Bicycles and Historic Preservation
We love our city, our culture, and our historic Creole architecture. Yet when conversations about preservation arise, one essential truth is often omitted. Our streets are not merely framed by history, they are suffocated by multi-ton steel contraptions that disfigure the very aesthetic we claim to protect.
The auto and fossil fuel industries have so thoroughly indoctrinated us with their ideology that we struggle to imagine a New Orleans where streets are not treated as endless parking lots. What should be common ground for community life has been surrendered to the private storage of machines.
The ubiquity of automobiles does not simply obscure the architectural beauty of our neighborhoods; it erodes the fabric of community itself. Public space that could be devoted to expanded sidewalks, vibrant pedestrian corridors, and outdoor cafés is instead sacrificed to the tyranny of the car.
The dangers are not abstract. On July 18, 2025, a driver recklessly peeled out in the French Quarter and struck a police officer. Such incidents are not anomalies but symptoms of a deeper structural problem. Motor vehicles undermine both the safety and the historic character of the Quarter. For this reason, we call for strict limitations on automobile access in the Vieux Carré. (The details of this proposal can be found in Plan Vieux Carré).
Bicycles, by contrast, embody elegance and harmony with the urban landscape. They complement the historic aesthetic, allow riders to pause and patronize small businesses, emit no pollution, and bring a tranquility that automobiles can never provide. Cities themselves are not inherently noisy—cars are.
The bicycle is not merely a mode of transportation; it is a political solution to the crises of urban life. To embrace it, we must liberate ourselves from the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry, whose commercial spectacles and lobbying campaigns have dictated the design of our streets for decades.
Our path forward is clear—we must build grassroots power and pedal toward a greener, more humane future. By reclaiming our streets, we can redirect the course of our city, returning power to the hands of our communities and stripping it from the billionaires who manipulate the political system with their wealth.
—Eric Gabourel
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