Even a decade ago, on the occasion of my 30th birthday, I was already arguably an aggrieved cyclist. For a long time now, my husband and I have been a one-car family, and with two jobs where we both have to be in person, that means I mostly bike or take the bus. It’s not easy.
And so back in 2013, I remember commenting (perhaps a bit stridently, in retrospect) to a group of friends gathered at my apartment that far too many drivers in St. Louis make commuting without a car incredibly stressful. My car-dependent associates mostly nodded empathetically, kindly sighing or perhaps taking another bite of ice cream cake to keep things moving.
But one friend very suddenly and shockingly lost it.
She was so upset at my share-the-road grumble that she stood up from the couch, yelled at me to get a car, insisted that when I am biking I am in her way — and then left the room furious, before a mutual friend intervened and gently took her home.
For a long time I chalked that mild (and eventually mended) drama up to a variety of factors, not least among them the idea that some celebratory alcohol was at play. But now, 10 jaded years later, my sense is that her reaction was not, in fact, a one-off. Rather, it was an individual embodiment of a simple cultural fact that I fear is truer now than it was even a decade ago: St. Louis is for drivers.
Yes, the drivers are the ones who really matter to most of those with power and influence in this town and region. And if you’re not inside a private automobile, you are, quite simply, utterly screwed.
During the week of my 40th birthday in March, this sobering reality was on my mind even more than usual. I had the day off from work, and I had some fun plans in place. But as it approached, my heart was with Janae Edmondson, who had just had both of her legs amputated after she came to St. Louis to compete in a volleyball tournament and dared to take a walk with her family downtown.
My heart was also with my coworker’s wife, Heyxel Jenkins, a new American whose life was dramatically changed this past fall after getting hit by a driver while bicycling home from work. She spent nearly a week in the hospital with a crushed ankle and broken pelvis. I thought of my friend Karl Mitchell and his son, who were hit this winter on their cargo bike despite having retreated to the sidewalk. And, of course, I was thinking about a young graduate of the Earn-A-Bike program at my employer, the nonprofit St. Louis BWorks, a child left on the side of the road to fend for himself after being hit by a driver while bicycling in a crosswalk. This 13-year-old was hit, and then abandoned, by a so-called adult with a license — apparently a license to do whatever the heck he wants, with impunity.
The St. Louis region has seen so many of its residents (and visitors, in the case of Edmondson) maimed or lost entirely — just over the course of a few short months. And so again, here I was on my 40th birthday, feeling hopeless about how we move forward.
Then I remembered that a friend had recently shared an attempt in another Midwestern city, Cleveland, to have local leaders rely on public transit for a week or so. She commented that she couldn’t imagine St. Louisans attempting such a car-free feat without “succumbing to despair.” But surely, I thought, I could get some buy-in on such a PR-friendly stunt.
When I threw the idea of a week without a car out there on the ol’ bird app, it seemed to go over OK. But one particular reaction, from the wise Aisha Sultan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, caught my attention. “Ask people to try it just for one day, Evie,” she wrote. “Let’s see how many takers you get.”
So I followed her advice and decided to start small, sending individual emails to nearly 50 St. Louis-area leaders. Linking them to a fuller explanation of what I was up to, I asked them to consider my modest request to go car-free for a day “because you care about traffic violence.”
“Will you commit to getting around our region without a car for *one single day* sometime this month — and sharing publicly what your experience was like and any ways in which it affects your thinking about traffic violence and the rights of children, and all people, to move around safely in their community?” I wrote.
“Those of us pushing for years for change are tired of all of the talk and promises. It’s time for results. I am asking you to walk/bike/transit a day in our shoes, experience the deep urgency and fear we do (especially those trying to help children survive and thrive), and then use your power to fix this ongoing traffic violence pandemic.”
In the days and weeks that followed, I heard from 16 area leaders (and eventually four others who reached out to me unprompted), which was mildly encouraging early on. But in the end? Only nine of nearly fifty area leaders made good on the challenge, even though they had a solid four weeks to get it done. Nine. At a time when this violent crisis could not be more pressing.
I am grateful for these nine folks, who range from a local school board member to my alderwoman to a St. Louis County council member. I am also grateful for their frank reflections about both the joys and the insane challenges of doing this thing for even one day — a thing so many people with fewer resources in our region have to do in order to simply survive every single day.
But overall, I came away from this haphazard little challenge of mine feeling discouraged, and also wary of easy promises.
It’s easy to say you will commit to a challenge in solidarity with and reverence for those whose lives have been irrevocably changed or outright stolen by traffic violence in St. Louis. It’s a lot harder to actually complete an intended or promised task — and a significant subset of those who expressed interest or plans to do so in March simply seem to have not gotten it done.
I get that people are busy. I also get that this task is harder and frankly more dangerous if you have children who must be carted safely from one location to another (as a longtime teacher of bike classes for children, I really do understand the concerns!). But perhaps the thing I will never get over is the complete lack of response from anyone I reached out to who is paid to be a leader of our street, highway or transit operations.
From the city streets department, to East-West Gateway Council of Governments, to the Missouri Department of Transportation, the silent message, to me, was resoundingly clear: We do not care.
I had well-meaning folks reach out about the car-free challenge, a couple of them suggesting that we extend it into May for National Bike Month. But my heart just wasn’t in that idea, if I’m being honest. National Bike Month is cool, and positive. This, in contrast (I thought), was supposed to be about solidarity and sitting with what we ask of those outside of automobiles to endure day in, day out. I can’t just flip a switch and turn this into a marketing tactic for adaptation by the shiny and savvy and powerful.
In the meantime, very little seems to change, except that traffic violence continues to drastically increase in our region and around America.
I will always find joy in my bus rides and bike commutes and walks around this city. There is still much to love here. And I will always seek to spread this joy to local kids and peers, who deserve to explore their communities safely and joyfully, like all of us.
But every day I am afraid we will not make it home. Every single day now. The situation has become demonstrably worse in the past 10 years. And for the most part, it feels like our leaders do not care enough to act with urgency and depth. I am tired of promises. We need change and results now.
Evie Hemphill is the programs director for St. Louis BWorks, which provides free bike and computer courses that inspire children ages 8 to 17 to pursue their dreams, care for the world around them and explore new possibilities through experiential learning.
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