Why the 9th Street bikeway became a debate over race, power, and space

The recent fight over the 9th Street bikeway, a critical piece in the Eastern Downtown Protected Bike Lane, boiled over into another conversation over race, power, and space in the District of Columbia. The conversation, like previous ones, should leave no one feeling like a winner.

9th Street will continue to be unsafe for cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers. Historically Black churches like Shiloh Baptist and New Bethel and their congregants will likely continue to feel like outsiders in their historic neighborhoods. The keeping of the current status quo is all the more unfortunate because this debate isn’t particularly about bike lanes. It is about the power of “no.” It is a debate over displacement and change.

The battle over bike lanes has always been political

The fight over the 9th Street bikeway begins and ends with the John A. Wilson Building. In 2017, planning for a north-south protected bikeway was completed, with a portion of it running down 9th Street NW. As bike lane projects in other parts of the city went forward, 9th Street was held up. Projects being held or altered up due to well-connected or powerful residents, elected or appointed officials are an unfortunate aspect of the way the United States does infrastructure projects.

An ornery group of Dupont Circle residents have been gearing up for a fight about the proposed 16th Street bus lanes for reasons that sound eerily similar to the concerns voiced by churches along 9th Street. But there is a crucial difference – the voices of opposition along 16th Street are wealthy and overwhelmingly white.

Along 9th Street, the voices are religious and Black. Opposition along 9th Street had a public champion in the city’s female Black mayor and her senior advisor. They have framed their argument in terms of the exercise of religious freedom, not simple qualms over the availability of parking. From the outset, the opposition was preparing for a dialogue on race and power instead of parking, one proponents were clearly not prepared to have.

Late last year, after reports that the mayor was holding up the bikeway surfaced, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1) took action. Nadeau and her colleagues—Jack Evans, Charles Allen, Mary Cheh, David Grosso, Robert White, and Anita Bonds, planned to co-introduce emergency legislation that would finally advance the 9th Street project. Coincidentally, legislative champions of the 9th Street bikeway reflected the forces of new neighbors coming to supplant old power structures. a majority of the seven white members of the Council and their allies were prepared to stand up to the Black mayor and churches

When it came time for the emergency legislation to come up during a March 3 legislative hearing, it was clear that it would fail. A sufficient number of Black members of the Council, would not support forwarding the legislation. Nadeau pulled the bill and the 9th Street project remains held up.

There are many sides to a story

It is important to examine the optics of the effort to unstick the 9th Street bikeway because entirely too often we find ourselves talking past one another. For opponents of bike lanes the bike lane isn’t the issue – it’s the presence of the people who will frequent those bike lanes. It is the skin color of the people who will ride down 9th Street. It is fear of what those people mean for their continued existence in a place.

If five white members of the Council can succeed in pushing through a bike lane, then what else might they push through? Opposition to something so mundane is rooted in fears of change, rational and irrational, but most importantly it is based in a recognition that power is slipping from a once dominant community’s grasp. If saying “no” to something that improves safety means that Black religious leaders along 9th Street keep power then so be it. But should religious and elected leaders choose to place their flag on this hill they should be expected to bear some responsibility for the next life disrupted by a speeding driver.

My feeling is that if DC is going to prioritize Sunday parking for majority out of state drivers over the safety & lives of our residents,
This will end badly 4 All

After Withdrawal Of Bill, Contentious Shaw Bike Lane Project Appears Indefinitely On Hold https://t.co/q6k3IzSXxS

— Gabe Klein (@gabe_klein) March 4, 2020

On the other end, advocates who believe that it is acceptable to vilify church leaders or residents in other parts of the city as enablers of vehicular violence, or backwards, are corrosive. There is a tone-deafness that says loudly, “We don’t want to deal with the tough stuff right now, we just want to charge ahead with what we want,” overlooking the fact that for many residents, memories of interlopers dictating the governance of the District isn’t that far away.

Folks like my grandmother, who lived through direct rule from the House Committee on the District of Columbia until she was 28, are still alive. She was 19 when she gained the right to vote for president. My mother was just 24 when Congress firmly asserted itself over the federal district. In my conversations with them, their understanding of the weak grip Black people have had on power in the District is clear. While it isn’t so strange for me to hear people talk about bike lanes or improved school buildings or changes in parking as symbols of loss, many advocates find these concerns absurd.

What some see as benign improvements to the public square others see as investments made solely because newer, wealthier, and whiter people have moved into their neighborhoods. Why is safety important now? Where was the city when children and elderly residents were being maimed and killed by cars?

Instead of dealing with these questions, some advocates stoop to shame and ridicule. Referring to congregants at the churches along 9th Street as “out-of-state” drivers affirms the deepest fears of many, that their concerns and voices are being swept away.

The erasure, intentional or not, of people’s real concerns is wrong and counterproductive. As I recently wrote, advocates have an obligation when doing good work to rise above the ridiculous, and to stick to advocating for processes and outcomes that respect and give dignity to our city’s diverse communities. When we allow ourselves to diminish the people who make pilgrimages to church, or the people who fear parking behind their homes because of the threat of crime we make the case that we are in fact usurpers remaking the space in our image. If we believe what we say when we call for a broad coalition for safe streets then referring to people who are neighbors, if only for a Sunday, as out-of-staters or churches of little significance should be unacceptable.

When efforts to revive the stalled 9th Street bikeway project failed again. There was a great deal of discussion about equity, gentrification and displacement from the dais. But those aren’t conversations that should be happening in the midst of a debate over a bikeway. They are not conversations we should be having under the false notion that changes to parking inhibit free religious expression. They are not conversations that should be had when we are asking people to make trade offs or accept change. They are conversations that should be happening constantly, led by people who can be honest about the complexities of power and race. Diversity and inclusivity in a country where we have never truly reckoned with race is hard, but hard is not impossible.

If DC is going to live up to its values, embracing every unique part of our city, we have to do the hard work. Our failure to do so risks leaving a city that is more dangerous, less diverse, cut off to future generations, and less great than the one we have today.