National Night Out and a Bike Train

Reminder: Tomorrow (Wednesday, August 5, 2015) is the first Wednesday of the month, which means San Jose Bike Train rolls 8 AM out of Diridon Station, with a pickup shortly after at Bel Bacio Caffe in Little Italy. Leave a comment here, on Twitter, or at Facebook if you plan to join this ride. I generally try to Glympse this ride too.

Tonight, you can find me at the Blackford Neighorhood Action Committee National Night Out community building event at Starbird Park in West San Jose, CA. The annual National Night Out campaign seeks to promote police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, better places to live.

Civic engagement comes more naturally on foot or on bike than for those who whiz across town in a car. You travel at a human pace, so you can engage more naturally with those around you. You’re more exposed, so you want a safer community. When you drive, other people are obstacles. Walking humanizes those obstacles and makes everyone a little more neighborly. Cyclists tend to fall somewhere in the middle but, I hope, more towards the humanizing walking pace.

Events like National Night Out, block parties, and Open Streets improve the perception of personal safety. Instead of walking alone down a creepy dark street, you have a critical mass of people all around you in a lively neighborhood.

San Jose Bike Train also began partly to address personal safety issues when I heard people feared some of the scary-seeming people on the Guadalupe River Trail. Ride in a group and overcome those fears. See you tomorrow!

2 Comments

  1. I often chat with people while riding. Sometimes for a couple miles, sometimes for five or ten, sometimes for a block.

    I can’t ever remember a conversation with another driver in a car.

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