Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
Because we are in spooky season, because it gets dark at 2 PM, because I’ve been listening to too much PJ Harvey, it’s time to revisit fear.
There’s fear of the dark. We’re cautioned to attach lights to our bodies, wear light colors, blah blah blah, make concessions that are designed to keep pedestrian/cyclist as Other, if you ask me. And obviously, you’re asking because you’re sitting (or standing, maybe hovering) here reading this.
A lot of this is how I feel about helmets. Wear the helmet. Don’t. Whatever. Don’t expect that this is going to prevent a dangerous road user from colliding with you while he’s Tinder swiping behind the wheel.
If someone’s vision (as in what the eye doctor has evaluated) is otherwise fine, then the situation is that someone is driving too fast for conditions — condition being low visibility, whether that’s caused by a snow squall, heavy downpour, or darkness rivaling my soul.
A thing I think about a lot: the level of hostility (anxiety leaking out in the shape of anger) toward pedestrians/cyclists who wear dark clothing and/or don’t use lights. Besides the obvious error — that angsty person (usually but not always a motorist) did see the Goth they’re complaining about — there’s this hypocrisy about cars. How is it that someone can see a dark car without lights on but not a bicycle? Are they less visible than if lights were on? Yes. Are they invisible? No. The trick is that if you are going slowly enough, you have time to react appropriately. People don’t like to be told to slow down or to give driving their full attention.
Is it safer to wear more vibrant things?
I like the haunted house/raver effect of secret reflective material, so I’ll wear it sometimes. I’ll also wear a bra because illusion is everything. Those who would notice are the ones who would have noticed anyway.
Drivers in Connecticut have struck and killed pedestrians and cyclists wearing hi-vis vests, light-colored clothing, using lights, etc. This has been a much smaller number than those who were killed whilst in dark garb or without lights, but do we have any data on what percentage of all pedestrians wear hi-vis vs. lower-vis clothing?
Would it be more useful to have adequate street lighting (which is timed appropriately) at crosswalks? What I mean by timed appropriately: there isn’t a bizarre delay every fall for when the street lights come on. Who designs this stuff? Are they not thinking people might need lights for their evening commute? At major intersections, I take to using the flashlight on my phone and aiming it at whichever direction seems mostly likely for someone to drive at me from. Someone got all up in my face about that one time because he thought I was video recording him. This feels dumb. All of this feels dumb. How much of this visibility stuff would be a non-issue if road design were better in the first place? Make it harder for people to turn right on red without stopping first. Kill slip lanes. Make it more of a challenge for people to drive high speeds in residential areas.
Instead, it comes down to these silly half-measures.
As we slide from Pumpkin Spice to Minty Malaise and into Full Blown Depression Season, the assumption is that people have stopped roving about after sunset, perhaps confined to their couches watching Seinfeld again while they online shop their way into the numbness that’ll help them survive until March. And cyclists? They descend back into the Earth. Iced coffee in December? Of course! Sweatshirt with shorts in a blizzard? It’s New England! A person riding a bike after Labor Day? Impossible!
Also impossible? A woman choosing to walk home alone at night and feeling safe doing so.
I’ve written about this before, but it’s something I could write about every single week and people would still come at me with the same concerns.
Feeling safe (comfort) and being safe (safety) are not the same.
Those who benefit from your fear don’t want you to make that distinction. They would have smaller budgets. They would cease being elected to office. They would sell fewer security widgets.
Before I get into this more, I’ll say that I think people should be both comfortable and safe while moving about in the world, whether they are sober, high as hell, dressed modestly, walking down the road in their panties (I’ve observed this multiple times), alone, with a group, alert, distracted, whatevs. And when people are comfortable, they’re going to do that activity more often, and having more people out and about is a good thing.
While I enjoy the aesthetic of the neon lighting under the Parkville railroad bridge, the previous lighting was sufficient. You could see where you were walking. That’s enough. Studies do not support the belief that better lighting reduces crime. Yet, people confidently announce that it does — perhaps because it’s just assumed, because it seems like common knowledge. It seems like it makes sense. That’s until you start to think about it. I looked at numbers on the HartfordData site and about 30% of the muggings (street robberies) in the last year happened during daylight. (I chose that type of crime to look at because it tends to be more random than an assault, and if the concern is being attacked by a stranger, than this is the thing to zero in on) The majority of those nighttime muggings were in areas that are well-lit.
I get why there’s the quickness to assume that more lighting means better personal safety. You, innocent potential victim, can see what’s around you and skirt danger. But you know what else lighting does? It helps the person seeking to do crimes see what’s in front of them.
Years ago, when I had a car, it was stolen. It was parked in a large residential lot, as close as possible to the house, under the brightest light in the lot. That’s purely anecdotal, but the experience taught me a valuable lesson: don’t assume lights deter crime.
Women are statistically less likely than men to be the victims of random violence on the street. Significantly less likely. Where women are more likely to encounter violence: domestic situations.
I have had many friends and acquaintances offer me rides home at night, assuming it would be safer for me.
I have never had friends or acquaintances ask if a person I was dating was being respectful of me.
Not holding a grudge or anything about that — just saying that we have all the data, but people continue to be socialized to believe that it’s strangers, not spouses, who are most dangerous to women.
Less likely to encounter random violence does not mean that it can’t happen. Does it make sense to limit your movement outdoors? I know I’m wrong for expecting people to behave rationally. Look at all the other risks people take regularly: driving cars after (or while) drinking, not masking in public indoor spaces during an ongoing pandemic . . . so, just saying that it’s interesting where folks draw the line. My personal experience might not match someone else’s.
Most of the time, when I’m walking somewhere at night, it’s alone. (Because I don’t travel with a posse. I also don’t go to the bathroom with a small group. Sorry, I missed that day of finishing school.) Usually, it’s to get to and from a specific place. Sometimes, it’s just because I want to get out because evening strolls can be nice. What I’ve noticed is that during the day, people will come up to me to ask for change, info about when the bus is coming, to tell me stories. . . whatever. At night, I am almost never approached. There are fewer people out, but I think folks just sort of know not to fuck around like that. If someone says anything, it’s to tell me that they are behind me so that they don’t scare me. Yes, people do that. It’s a courtesy.
The other thing that happens is that I startle the other person because they weren’t paying as much attention or weren’t expecting someone there. (I don’t give the “approaching” warning because I am not courteous) This is followed by a head nod and silent understanding that now we move along and nobody bothers anyone else.
Just like some motorists seem to resent having to pay attention to the task at hand, there are people who seem equally annoyed that they should probably be alert to what’s going on around them while moving around in public.
Somehow, though, there is still this fear of the boogeyman in the bush — because people are just going to hide in shrubs waiting around for someone to pass? Say it aloud. Doesn’t that seem bizarre and silly? (Note: one time I did have the experience of happening upon two inebriated, giddy women who sprung out of a roadside ditch, clearly enjoying each others’ company and not expecting someone to be walking by at the moment they emerged. This was hysterical, not scary.)
Other versions of the predator waiting in the bushes includes the man who has crawled underneath the vehicle, lying in wait to grab your ankles. If you’re a woman, you’ve probably been treated to warnings about this kind of thing. Those warnings have probably been sent by an aunt as a meme. Likely it told you also not to have a ponytail because these strangers who have all the time in the world are gonna grab you by your hair.
We know that having more people biking makes cycling safer. Having more people walking at night adds similar safety. More witnesses. The ongoing issue is that few people want to volunteer to help make conditions better for others by putting themselves at any additional risk.
This brings us up to date.
I went out riding through Hartford’s “North End” (Blue Hills, Northeast, Upper Albany neighborhoods) and when I reached Keney Park, realized I forgot my phone. Or, I’d hoped I’d forgotten it and not lost it somewhere along the way. At that moment, I had a choice to make: go home, or continue rolling as planned even if it meant possibly flatting out somewhere and having no way to call for assistance, and even if I could get a helpful stranger to let me borrow their phone, the only two numbers I know were landlines the owners disconnected 5+ years ago.
I kept going. I knew the terrain, and there were no terrible hills where I wanted to go. If Something Bad Happened, I could walk the bike home or put it on a bus, or if it were something else, I could ask a stranger for assistance or wait until someone found me. It’s easy to forget that these are options. I rode around, reminding myself that up until a a few years ago I did not have a cell phone and I managed.
But the other thing here, the thing that needs to be said, is that I did something quite a lot of people of a certain demographic in this area refuse to do: go into a particular part of the city. This was not by any means my first time there. Not my first time there alone. There’s nothing inherently scary about it. And if we’re going to be honest, I wouldn’t have even worried about “what if I got a flat tire” if I did not have that happen to me in that area before. . . and what I did then was walk my bike home. It was an annoying, long walk, but doable. I’ve also simply walked home from Keney Park other days after I arrived by bus.
So let me tell you what it’s actually like: not super eventful.
Sorry to disappoint.
That doesn’t mean I was bored.
I rolled into Keney Park at the Ridgefield entrance, stopping at the top of a hill to drink water and text a friend — which is when I realized I was phoneless. People were doing whatever they usually do in parks. Didn’t see the disc golf area being used. Kept rolling. Gave side-eye to someone who was idling a U-Haul van. Maybe it was legit, but I see that and think “here’s someone about to leave mattresses and shit in the park.”
Decided not to choose violence. Kept going.
Rode onto Love Lane and up through the Waverly section, enjoying a leaf-covered path and seeing nobody on that stretch. Either the City of Hartford’s DPW finally cleaned up the piles of debris that had been there for years, or, the leaves hid the messes.
I crossed over Tower Avenue and continued on the bike path, where I could hear crickets. I stopped for awhile, watching the leaves fall down. Got moving again when the mosquitoes took notice of me. Toward the end of this secluded path I passed one person walking. He had a camera.
Back on the part of the park open to cars, I watched people drive stupidly fast and hoped they were all paying enough attention to not drive into me. I continued into an area where the road was gated and was able to relax again. I saw turkeys walking through the woods. A little ways ahead, which was somewhat secluded due to the car-free zone, someone was siting on a bench near his bike. We chatted for a minute. He was hoping to see fox and deer. We had a nice, non-creepy, non-threatening conversation. It was normal. Unsurprising.
Exiting the park, I rode down Barbour Street, turned onto a side street. Another guy gave a nice, normal greeting along the lines of “nice day for a bike ride. enjoy yourself.” It was completely fine. There were no gross comments. Nobody tried to intimidate me. Guns were not blazing. Nobody asked me to join their gang.
This has more-or-less been the way I experience this part of the city. People on foot either ignore me or are friendly. People driving are often inconsiderate, much as they are outside of Hartford or in my own neighborhood.
Getting hungry, I rode back on Woodland Street, using the sidewalk until I was past the hospital because I do not have time for the insane shit people pull behind the wheel near medical facilities. Someone should study driver behavior within two or three blocks of hospitals. The rest of the ride was thankfully uneventful.
When we talk about safety we need to do a better job acknowledging why if we’re feeling fearful, that is. Are we racist? Are we not racist but the type who absorb others’ anxieties as The Truth? Did we have a traumatic experience and are now hypervigilant in similar environments? Do we only know a place through news reports? What is our worldview — do we believe most people are to be treated with suspicion and that others exist to snatch something that belongs to us?
I’m sharing any of this at all because I am tired of blanket statements about women being fearful.
I’m not by any means an expert, but I do move around in public spaces (as opposed to private vehicle) 99% of the time these days, and I know what my experiences have been. When I’ve said “no thank you” to someone asking for money, I’ve almost always been given a polite response, usually a “god bless” because most folks do know what no means. When someone wasn’t nice, it’s not like they shanked me — just called me a bitch, which I’ve been called plenty of times online and it’s not something I find terribly upsetting. The other day when someone was using drugs near me at a bus stop (the bus was taking forever, stuck in a downtown event detour), I was uncomfortable but not scared. We had a conversation after. He asked me for nothing. It was mostly me asking him how hard it was to secure bikes on the bus rack. The few times on other days when a vibe was off, I moved along to another bus stop, but I did not use that as an excuse to go spend 30% of my income on a car so I could drive 1.8 miles to work. Most of my regular trips are within four miles of home. When I chose where to live years ago, I absolutely factored in whether or not I felt comfortable with the people who would be my neighbors. This doesn’t mean I’m inviting everyone into my living room or telling strangers my secrets, but I can walk to the store without assuming that everyone I pass is out to get me.
WHAT NEXT
BiCi Co. West is holding a bike drive on November 5, 2022, collecting used bikes that will be repaired by youth in a training program. Contact Michael for details: 860-960-1914
Car-Free Diaries: Week 47
Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
Because we are in spooky season, because it gets dark at 2 PM, because I’ve been listening to too much PJ Harvey, it’s time to revisit fear.
There’s fear of the dark. We’re cautioned to attach lights to our bodies, wear light colors, blah blah blah, make concessions that are designed to keep pedestrian/cyclist as Other, if you ask me. And obviously, you’re asking because you’re sitting (or standing, maybe hovering) here reading this.
A lot of this is how I feel about helmets. Wear the helmet. Don’t. Whatever. Don’t expect that this is going to prevent a dangerous road user from colliding with you while he’s Tinder swiping behind the wheel.
If someone’s vision (as in what the eye doctor has evaluated) is otherwise fine, then the situation is that someone is driving too fast for conditions — condition being low visibility, whether that’s caused by a snow squall, heavy downpour, or darkness rivaling my soul.
A thing I think about a lot: the level of hostility (anxiety leaking out in the shape of anger) toward pedestrians/cyclists who wear dark clothing and/or don’t use lights. Besides the obvious error — that angsty person (usually but not always a motorist) did see the Goth they’re complaining about — there’s this hypocrisy about cars. How is it that someone can see a dark car without lights on but not a bicycle? Are they less visible than if lights were on? Yes. Are they invisible? No. The trick is that if you are going slowly enough, you have time to react appropriately. People don’t like to be told to slow down or to give driving their full attention.
Is it safer to wear more vibrant things?
I like the haunted house/raver effect of secret reflective material, so I’ll wear it sometimes. I’ll also wear a bra because illusion is everything. Those who would notice are the ones who would have noticed anyway.
Drivers in Connecticut have struck and killed pedestrians and cyclists wearing hi-vis vests, light-colored clothing, using lights, etc. This has been a much smaller number than those who were killed whilst in dark garb or without lights, but do we have any data on what percentage of all pedestrians wear hi-vis vs. lower-vis clothing?
Would it be more useful to have adequate street lighting (which is timed appropriately) at crosswalks? What I mean by timed appropriately: there isn’t a bizarre delay every fall for when the street lights come on. Who designs this stuff? Are they not thinking people might need lights for their evening commute? At major intersections, I take to using the flashlight on my phone and aiming it at whichever direction seems mostly likely for someone to drive at me from. Someone got all up in my face about that one time because he thought I was video recording him. This feels dumb. All of this feels dumb. How much of this visibility stuff would be a non-issue if road design were better in the first place? Make it harder for people to turn right on red without stopping first. Kill slip lanes. Make it more of a challenge for people to drive high speeds in residential areas.
Instead, it comes down to these silly half-measures.
As we slide from Pumpkin Spice to Minty Malaise and into Full Blown Depression Season, the assumption is that people have stopped roving about after sunset, perhaps confined to their couches watching Seinfeld again while they online shop their way into the numbness that’ll help them survive until March. And cyclists? They descend back into the Earth. Iced coffee in December? Of course! Sweatshirt with shorts in a blizzard? It’s New England! A person riding a bike after Labor Day? Impossible!
Also impossible? A woman choosing to walk home alone at night and feeling safe doing so.
I’ve written about this before, but it’s something I could write about every single week and people would still come at me with the same concerns.
Feeling safe (comfort) and being safe (safety) are not the same.
Those who benefit from your fear don’t want you to make that distinction. They would have smaller budgets. They would cease being elected to office. They would sell fewer security widgets.
Before I get into this more, I’ll say that I think people should be both comfortable and safe while moving about in the world, whether they are sober, high as hell, dressed modestly, walking down the road in their panties (I’ve observed this multiple times), alone, with a group, alert, distracted, whatevs. And when people are comfortable, they’re going to do that activity more often, and having more people out and about is a good thing.
While I enjoy the aesthetic of the neon lighting under the Parkville railroad bridge, the previous lighting was sufficient. You could see where you were walking. That’s enough. Studies do not support the belief that better lighting reduces crime. Yet, people confidently announce that it does — perhaps because it’s just assumed, because it seems like common knowledge. It seems like it makes sense. That’s until you start to think about it. I looked at numbers on the HartfordData site and about 30% of the muggings (street robberies) in the last year happened during daylight. (I chose that type of crime to look at because it tends to be more random than an assault, and if the concern is being attacked by a stranger, than this is the thing to zero in on) The majority of those nighttime muggings were in areas that are well-lit.
I get why there’s the quickness to assume that more lighting means better personal safety. You, innocent potential victim, can see what’s around you and skirt danger. But you know what else lighting does? It helps the person seeking to do crimes see what’s in front of them.
Years ago, when I had a car, it was stolen. It was parked in a large residential lot, as close as possible to the house, under the brightest light in the lot. That’s purely anecdotal, but the experience taught me a valuable lesson: don’t assume lights deter crime.
Women are statistically less likely than men to be the victims of random violence on the street. Significantly less likely. Where women are more likely to encounter violence: domestic situations.
I have had many friends and acquaintances offer me rides home at night, assuming it would be safer for me.
I have never had friends or acquaintances ask if a person I was dating was being respectful of me.
Not holding a grudge or anything about that — just saying that we have all the data, but people continue to be socialized to believe that it’s strangers, not spouses, who are most dangerous to women.
Less likely to encounter random violence does not mean that it can’t happen. Does it make sense to limit your movement outdoors? I know I’m wrong for expecting people to behave rationally. Look at all the other risks people take regularly: driving cars after (or while) drinking, not masking in public indoor spaces during an ongoing pandemic . . . so, just saying that it’s interesting where folks draw the line. My personal experience might not match someone else’s.
Most of the time, when I’m walking somewhere at night, it’s alone. (Because I don’t travel with a posse. I also don’t go to the bathroom with a small group. Sorry, I missed that day of finishing school.) Usually, it’s to get to and from a specific place. Sometimes, it’s just because I want to get out because evening strolls can be nice. What I’ve noticed is that during the day, people will come up to me to ask for change, info about when the bus is coming, to tell me stories. . . whatever. At night, I am almost never approached. There are fewer people out, but I think folks just sort of know not to fuck around like that. If someone says anything, it’s to tell me that they are behind me so that they don’t scare me. Yes, people do that. It’s a courtesy.
The other thing that happens is that I startle the other person because they weren’t paying as much attention or weren’t expecting someone there. (I don’t give the “approaching” warning because I am not courteous) This is followed by a head nod and silent understanding that now we move along and nobody bothers anyone else.
Just like some motorists seem to resent having to pay attention to the task at hand, there are people who seem equally annoyed that they should probably be alert to what’s going on around them while moving around in public.
Somehow, though, there is still this fear of the boogeyman in the bush — because people are just going to hide in shrubs waiting around for someone to pass? Say it aloud. Doesn’t that seem bizarre and silly? (Note: one time I did have the experience of happening upon two inebriated, giddy women who sprung out of a roadside ditch, clearly enjoying each others’ company and not expecting someone to be walking by at the moment they emerged. This was hysterical, not scary.)
Other versions of the predator waiting in the bushes includes the man who has crawled underneath the vehicle, lying in wait to grab your ankles. If you’re a woman, you’ve probably been treated to warnings about this kind of thing. Those warnings have probably been sent by an aunt as a meme. Likely it told you also not to have a ponytail because these strangers who have all the time in the world are gonna grab you by your hair.
We know that having more people biking makes cycling safer. Having more people walking at night adds similar safety. More witnesses. The ongoing issue is that few people want to volunteer to help make conditions better for others by putting themselves at any additional risk.
This brings us up to date.
I went out riding through Hartford’s “North End” (Blue Hills, Northeast, Upper Albany neighborhoods) and when I reached Keney Park, realized I forgot my phone. Or, I’d hoped I’d forgotten it and not lost it somewhere along the way. At that moment, I had a choice to make: go home, or continue rolling as planned even if it meant possibly flatting out somewhere and having no way to call for assistance, and even if I could get a helpful stranger to let me borrow their phone, the only two numbers I know were landlines the owners disconnected 5+ years ago.
I kept going. I knew the terrain, and there were no terrible hills where I wanted to go. If Something Bad Happened, I could walk the bike home or put it on a bus, or if it were something else, I could ask a stranger for assistance or wait until someone found me. It’s easy to forget that these are options. I rode around, reminding myself that up until a a few years ago I did not have a cell phone and I managed.
But the other thing here, the thing that needs to be said, is that I did something quite a lot of people of a certain demographic in this area refuse to do: go into a particular part of the city. This was not by any means my first time there. Not my first time there alone. There’s nothing inherently scary about it. And if we’re going to be honest, I wouldn’t have even worried about “what if I got a flat tire” if I did not have that happen to me in that area before. . . and what I did then was walk my bike home. It was an annoying, long walk, but doable. I’ve also simply walked home from Keney Park other days after I arrived by bus.
So let me tell you what it’s actually like: not super eventful.
Sorry to disappoint.
That doesn’t mean I was bored.
I rolled into Keney Park at the Ridgefield entrance, stopping at the top of a hill to drink water and text a friend — which is when I realized I was phoneless. People were doing whatever they usually do in parks. Didn’t see the disc golf area being used. Kept rolling. Gave side-eye to someone who was idling a U-Haul van. Maybe it was legit, but I see that and think “here’s someone about to leave mattresses and shit in the park.”
Decided not to choose violence. Kept going.
Rode onto Love Lane and up through the Waverly section, enjoying a leaf-covered path and seeing nobody on that stretch. Either the City of Hartford’s DPW finally cleaned up the piles of debris that had been there for years, or, the leaves hid the messes.
I crossed over Tower Avenue and continued on the bike path, where I could hear crickets. I stopped for awhile, watching the leaves fall down. Got moving again when the mosquitoes took notice of me. Toward the end of this secluded path I passed one person walking. He had a camera.
Back on the part of the park open to cars, I watched people drive stupidly fast and hoped they were all paying enough attention to not drive into me. I continued into an area where the road was gated and was able to relax again. I saw turkeys walking through the woods. A little ways ahead, which was somewhat secluded due to the car-free zone, someone was siting on a bench near his bike. We chatted for a minute. He was hoping to see fox and deer. We had a nice, non-creepy, non-threatening conversation. It was normal. Unsurprising.
Exiting the park, I rode down Barbour Street, turned onto a side street. Another guy gave a nice, normal greeting along the lines of “nice day for a bike ride. enjoy yourself.” It was completely fine. There were no gross comments. Nobody tried to intimidate me. Guns were not blazing. Nobody asked me to join their gang.
This has more-or-less been the way I experience this part of the city. People on foot either ignore me or are friendly. People driving are often inconsiderate, much as they are outside of Hartford or in my own neighborhood.
Getting hungry, I rode back on Woodland Street, using the sidewalk until I was past the hospital because I do not have time for the insane shit people pull behind the wheel near medical facilities. Someone should study driver behavior within two or three blocks of hospitals. The rest of the ride was thankfully uneventful.
When we talk about safety we need to do a better job acknowledging why if we’re feeling fearful, that is. Are we racist? Are we not racist but the type who absorb others’ anxieties as The Truth? Did we have a traumatic experience and are now hypervigilant in similar environments? Do we only know a place through news reports? What is our worldview — do we believe most people are to be treated with suspicion and that others exist to snatch something that belongs to us?
I’m sharing any of this at all because I am tired of blanket statements about women being fearful.
I’m not by any means an expert, but I do move around in public spaces (as opposed to private vehicle) 99% of the time these days, and I know what my experiences have been. When I’ve said “no thank you” to someone asking for money, I’ve almost always been given a polite response, usually a “god bless” because most folks do know what no means. When someone wasn’t nice, it’s not like they shanked me — just called me a bitch, which I’ve been called plenty of times online and it’s not something I find terribly upsetting. The other day when someone was using drugs near me at a bus stop (the bus was taking forever, stuck in a downtown event detour), I was uncomfortable but not scared. We had a conversation after. He asked me for nothing. It was mostly me asking him how hard it was to secure bikes on the bus rack. The few times on other days when a vibe was off, I moved along to another bus stop, but I did not use that as an excuse to go spend 30% of my income on a car so I could drive 1.8 miles to work. Most of my regular trips are within four miles of home. When I chose where to live years ago, I absolutely factored in whether or not I felt comfortable with the people who would be my neighbors. This doesn’t mean I’m inviting everyone into my living room or telling strangers my secrets, but I can walk to the store without assuming that everyone I pass is out to get me.
WHAT NEXT
BiCi Co. West is holding a bike drive on November 5, 2022, collecting used bikes that will be repaired by youth in a training program. Contact Michael for details: 860-960-1914
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