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March
2005 |
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Gala, Conference Weekend Highlights Indiana's 'Gotta Roll With the Changes' Bikes and Peds: On the Map, but Uncounted |
Crossing That Bridge
"Chicago ... has brought together black and white, Asian and Hispanic, male and female, the young, the old, the disabled, gays and lesbians, Muslims, Christians and Jews, business leaders and neighborhood activists, bankers and trade unionists -- all have come together to mix and contend, to argue and to reason, to confront our problems and not merely to contain them." I read these words every now and then to remind me that it's important to give everyone a voice in what's going on in our communities. Today, I want to give that voice to the South Side and the black communities in Chicagoland. I have been asked to provide a regular column for Bike Traffic. As community liaison for the South Side of Chicago and the black community, my focus is to facilitate and encourage more participation on the South Side. Also because of my focus on the black community, my outreach happily takes me into the suburbs and other parts of the city. These are some of the primary projects I am working on and about which I will be reporting throughout the year. The Chicago Major Taylor Bike Society - A multi-cultural bike users group created in August 2004 to give a voice to South Side cyclist-related issues and to celebrate and encourage bicycling on the South Side. The Cal Sag Channel Trail -- CBF's Southland coordinator, Steve Buchtel, and I have been working as facilitators with the communities along the canal to make the popular dream of a continuous trail a reality for the South Side and inner ring southern suburbs. We support the idea that this trail could be the spine of a major multi-use trail network, ultimately connecting the Burnham Greenway from the Indiana border to the Centennial trail, which runs alongside the I&M canal. As CBF continues to explore relationships between cycling advocacy and other transportation options, I am looking for opportunities to support grassroots initiatives for building better communities. I'm developing a long-term vision of inclusive diversity that will involve bridging communities that are proactively facing and handling issues of race, class and, at times, gender -- community-building that could lead to Beverly, Morgan Park, Blue Island, Roseland and West Pullman all actively working together for better, healthier streets. I want to see the Austin community working together with Oak Park, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square for safe, bikeable and walkable neighborhoods. I see a far-outlying community like Park Forest bridge race and class issues to improve bicycle and pedestrian access to Chicago Heights along the Old Plank Road Trail. Those are some of the places on my radar. With your help, we can, in Mayor Washington's words, "confront our problems and not merely contain them." Keith Holt is the CBF's liaison to the South Side
and African American communities.
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About
three months into starting this position of community liaison with
the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, I found these words at
the