Commuter Clot canceled

Can't say me didn't try!

I tried attending Commuter Clot (which is what I call the Critical Mass event in Cincinnati) today, but after I arrived on Fountain Square, only one other person showed up. When we realized nobody else was coming, we left, because we knew it was canceled because of the weather.

The event's MySpace page, however, made no mention of this cancellation.

I'm not peeved at Commuter Clot, because waiting there wasn't the difficult part. The hard part was getting to and from the event on a bike. Throughout Bellevue and Newport, here's what it was like: Roads that a bicyclist would otherwise be safe to use were not cleared of snow. Other roads - where the traffic is too heavy to bike - were. However, on these other roads, the sidewalks had not been cleared.

So the only conveyances that weren't covered with tightly packed, bumpy snow and ice were roadways that are too crowded to bike. As a result, on the way home, it took about an hour to walk the bike 4 blocks between Newport and Bellevue.

It's ironic that I discovered this on the way to and from an event designed to encourage better biking amenities.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think the way the roads were treated today was an intentionally classist effort to favor cars over bicyclists (as cyclists are less likely to be able to afford a car).

Hell, who are we kidding? It's classism. No point in living in denial this time (though inevitably someone will).

Bellevue and Newport, after all, have right-wing city governments that in recent years have seldom passed up an opportunity to discriminate against the poor. Bellevue, for instance, has been operating a program to pay apartment building owners to convert their buildings into single-family houses. Why? Because some city officials hate people who can only afford an apartment.

If a city is willing to actively attempt to drive poor residents out in this manner, why would we be surprised if the city clears roads used only by cars but lets ice pile up on roads that bikes use?

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