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“Our streets, our streets”
The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have made crystal clear that simply being not racist is not enough; we must be anti-racist. People are banding together to end police killings of Black people in this country and call for justice. Justice is more than survival. Full justice requires us to dismantle inequities and disparities in health, wealth, education, and yes, transportation.
We cannot have mobility justice without racial justice. We are an organization dedicated to reclaiming Atlanta’s streets as safe, inclusive, and thriving spaces for people to ride, walk, and roll. We talk a lot about re-envisioning streets as inclusive public spaces. Seeing our streets militarized is the antithesis of what public space should be about. Safe streets involve more than bike lanes and traffic calming. They are streets where everyone is free from persecution and violence. Safety and inclusivity mean Black people can walk our streets without fearing an assault on their lives or their dignity.
While we don’t have all the answers, we aim to make our values unequivocally clear and put social and racial justice at the center of our work. We strive to dismantle white supremacy in local transportation processes and within our own organization. We’re more determined than ever to center and apply the Untokening’s Principles of Mobility Justice.
Our vision for the future of street planning is one where communities have leadership of the process, especially Black people, people in low-income communities, and people of color who have been left out of transportation decision-making or actively harmed through transportation projects for too long.
It’s time to say more. It’s time to do more. We will continue to deepen our work with communities to support mobility needs. We will keep advocating against traffic stops as a tool for preventing traffic deaths, and we’ll add police accountability to our street safety strategies. We will keep advocating for the City of Atlanta’s Vision Zero program to adopt policies that advance equity and racial justice. And we will raise concerns when we see policy decisions that don’t center racial justice.
We will also elevate and support the people and organizations on the front line of racial justice work in Atlanta. Here are a few organizations we encourage you to follow and to support:
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