🧵 A phenomenon keeps happening both online & in person that angers, saddens, & devalues me. So I'm attempting to explain why it has this effect & what I'd hope people would do instead.
When I arrived at UC Davis to prepare to start grad school in summer 2019, I found the first of many damaging ableisms - the cycle racks were not accessible to the types of cycles I ride. Yet I'd be cited & my bike impounded if I didn't park there. 1/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
Like many disabled people, I have a very limited low income, I'm policed around how I can earn, I have elevated expenses due to my disabilities, and medical insurance largely does not cover those expenses. I cannot afford to have my paid-for recumbent bike cited, impounded, and sold.
So I did what we're trained to do - assume that the UC Davis Student Disability Center is there to help disabled students. 2/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
"Oh! We didn't know bike racks could be inaccessible", said the Platinum Bike-Friendly university 30 years post-ADA. I asked if they'd sign an "amicus" letter to the campus department responsible for the racks. No, they would not. 3/?
Then I contacted that dept myself and was ignored.
Then I contacted my union and was blown off.
Then I formed UC Access Now because I was getting nowhere with any of this and wanted to solve this and other things that make our public university inaccessible for more than just myself. (There were many more issues than just inaccessible cycle racks although those were the catalyst.) 4/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
Within the first month of my first quarter, I could no longer ride my paid-for bikes to school. Not only could I not always get the one space that might be accessible (the end), but the stress of trying to make it work was hurting my hands, which was hurting my ability to do academic work.
Cycling was one of the few forms of exercise that was accessible to me and worked for me. Now I was further injured.
Then the pandemic hit and things got worse. It all worsened my health and I not only lost fitness by gained mass. My balance got worse. Which made it so I no longer fit my paid-for bikes. 6/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
I was content to use my paid-for bikes. I had no burning desire to spend what is about 1 year's worth of income for me buying a cycle to accommodate the damage UC Davis' systemic ableism had done to my body.
But the way folks online & offline react to my new expensive cycle is to have incredible curiosity about my mobility aid while rolling their eyes when I try to explain why I needed it and what needs to change so this doesn't happen to others. 7/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
I'm asking you to contemplate what it feels like for folks to ignore you when you talk about the inaccessibility that cost your $$$, your health, your ability to ride your paid-for bikes, and even a lot of your academic experience, but to get really excited and ask lots of questions about the quadricycle that system forced you into having to buy if you wanted to keep riding. 8/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
For people to over & over get into the minutiae of cycle parts and have loads of energy for that, but not have the patience or empathy when a disabled cyclist is telling you why she had to get it and how there's a need for us to get active to change this.
There's more interest in the equipment I was forced into buying than there is in how this public university routinely fences out disabled people, harms us, reduces our quality of life, shortens our lives, and sometimes even kills us. It's using your tax $ and mine to do that.
So do I think it's wrong to be excited about cool cycles? No! I get excited over cool cycles too.
How would I like to be engaged with? I would like folks to acknowledge that the quad isn't about me having money to burn & just wanting n+1 cycles. I needed that $ and was forced to spend it.
I need folks to hear that. And contemplate how they'd feel if they'd been treated that way (continuing right through to now). 11/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
Talk to me, relate to me, don't make me feel like it's cool for the university I paid for to ignore my "special" needs because what you'd really like to talk about and ask me questions about is some equipment I was forced into debt to buy. 12/? #Cycling#UCAccessNow#BikeTooter#Urbanism
Let's enjoy our cool cycles! But let's ALSO support each other & join to keep hammering on UC and any other ableist institution about this.
UC has been resisting @ucaccessnow 's work and burying credit for ideas they do adopt for 4 yrs now. They have rationed a few accessible racks. But we need massive pressure from abled cyclists & urbanists and academics to get UC to respond.
C) Please do contact UC Davis Chancellor Gary May, UC President Michael Drake, and the UC Board of Regents to ask them to move on the Demandifesto Action Steps.
UC Access Now used to have a handy campaign tool to do this, but I was paying for it out of pocket & ran out of $ to do so.
UC Davis' Gary May loves social media - so feel free to fill his socials.
chancellor@ucdavis.edu
@justafrog Yup. They did not offer an exemption from the rule.
After months of emails, (my personal) protest, pushing...they offered to build new rationed spaces with each quarter...depending on which building I had classes in. A spectacularly wasteful "solution" and one that leaves all others out.
I told them to make sure all new racks are accessible and to go back and replace the old ones as they got budget for it. All the new building racks have been the same inaccessible ones so far.
@meganL Why are they so invested in those specific racks?
Looking at the sat pics, they sure have a LOT of space for parking cars. Any pretense they need to be super space efficient with bicycles is clearly laughable.
The only option left is that they've got some irrational hatred for accessibility standards.
Ableism makes them very invested in viewing disabled people as a "cost" and "risk" instead of members of the public they serve, members that pay taxes, tuition, and fees. So their default is "No" whenever disabled people ask for anything.
(2) You are right that despite their "Platinum Bike-Friendly" rating from LAB, they're car-centric. They're prioritizing space for cars. #UCAccessNow
@justafrog The dept that does cars also does racks. They are required to fund themselves from car fees, which is fairer to those who do not use cars, but it also makes it so that they are going to prioritize cars over any other form of transportation.
@justafrog Let League of American Bicyclists know about it. The consulted me (on behalf of UC Access Now) and other disabled cyclists in trying to improve their standards, but it was very little improvement. As long as UC Davis says they tried something for "inclusion", it seems they can stay at Platinum level.
"We firmly believe that Equity & Accessibility are the essential lenses through which all other BFA work must be viewed in order to achieve a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone."
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