Advocate Urges Cities To Serve More Diverse Biking Community

A bicycling advocate and book author says cities must do a better job of creating bike lanes and other biking amenities in non-white neighborhoods.

Milwaukee native Melody Hoffman is author of “Bikes Lanes Are White Lanes.” In the book, she argues bicycle advocacy in the United States has become a tool for gentrification, and that a lot of taxpayer spending on bike trails and lanes is in predominantly white areas.

“Cities that are really investing in the bicycling culture, they tend to put that money and those resources where the white middle-class educated people tend to live. So, other places in the city don’t get tapped,” said Hoffman, who was a speaker at the Wisconsin Bike Summit in Milwaukee last week.

She said Milwaukee is not as bad as some communities, but needs to create more bicycle-friendly streets in African-American and Latino neighborhoods.

She is urging city planners to bring neighborhood residents into the discussion and emphasize health benefits of bike riding.

Milwaukee and Madison have chapters of the group Black Girls Do Bike.