A Ride Through History

 One of my passions—obsessions, perhaps—is learning the history, especially African-American and colonial, I wasn’t taught in school.

I got to thinking about that when I realized that next month is African American history month—and the sixtieth anniversary of at least two important parts of that history are coming up.

One of them is the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The other is the assassination of Malcolm X.

About Malcolm:  He was completely misrepresented, if he was mentioned at all.  I first realized as much when I read his autobiography. (That, I believe, motivated me to learn as much as I can about the history I wasn’t taught.) It seems that educators—and the culture generally—has misunderstood and misused “by any means necessary” to paint Malcolm as a maniac with homicide in his heart. He was changing even as he told his story to Alex Haley, his collaborator on his autobiography and, I believe, would have repudiated some of the things he said then—let alone in his earlier speeches—had he lived longer. But even the portrait that emerged from his autobiography and his speeches made him heroic to me because one of his underlying messages was that people have to free themselves from whatever enslaves them, whether it’s an exploitative system, an addictive substance or William Blake’s “mind forg’d manacles.”

Speaking of enslavement:  The March from Selma to Montgomery occurred just a few weeks before the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War’s end. (Anyone who tells you that the war wasn’t about slavery is ignorant or dishonest.) But a century later, Blacks—and poor Whites—weren’t free of their shackles.  Moreover, they were paying a tax, if you will, on those restraints they bore. But they we’re fighting—and often paying with blood and flesh—to fight them, and their imposers, off. That is about as far from the picture of the Civil Rights movement textbooks and the media painted for us: a sunny diorama of Martin intoning “I have a dream” and well-intentioned people chanting “We shall overcome,” all of it sepia-tinged to make White liberals of the time look heroic and those of today feel good about themselves for admiring them.

All right, I’ll get off my soapbox. (Standing on it while wearing cleats is precarious!) There will be a number of commemorations, including a marches. And, the other day, a bike ride followed the route.

Congestion Relief=Crash Relief?

 Streetsblog is an excellent source of information about road and transit conditions, and city policies. One thing that makes it so good is that most of the posts are written from the perspective of people who actually walk, cycle and drive the city’s streets and ride its buses and trains. That, I believe, accounts for why I enjoy, and feel affirmed by, reading it: Streetsblog’s editors and contributors understand (and offer the data to confirm) that creating a safe, sustainable and affordable city isn’t a zero-sum game between the safety of cyclists and pedestrians and the interests of drivers. Rather, they support and explain the principle that when cyclists and pedestrians are safer, motorists can move about more efficiently—and safely.

As Gersh Kuntman reported, the first twelve days of congestion pricing in midtown and lower Manhattan—the most densely populated and commercially active part of New York City—has cut the number of crashes and injuries by half compared to the same time period last year.

That period included ten business days and a weekend, as it did last year. While that laudable decrease came after an “outlier” year in 2024, this year’s statistics nonetheless show a 48 percent drop in crashes and 27 percent decrease in injuries from 2023. Moreover, the 2025 numbers are even lower than those of the corresponding periods of 2021 and 2022, which were affected by the COVID pandemic.

Photo and photoshop by Gertz Kuntzman

The explanation, according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority Policy and External Relations Chief John J. McCarthy, is basic math. “Seems logical that fewer vehicles, less gridlock and calmer traffic flow in the congestion relief zone would lead to a decrease in crashes and injuries,” he said.

And less-congested and safer streets are better for everyone who interacts with them, says Ben Furnas, Transportation Alternatives’ Executive Director. “One less crash can mean that a parent gets home to their kid, a worker reaches their job safely or a cyclist arrives unharmed,” he explained. (Italics mine.)

So, it turns out—as the title of Gertzman’s post announces—that the congestion-relief zone, as the area affected by congestion pricing is called, is actually a crash-relief zone. That sounds like a “win-win” situation.

The Driver Struck A Pillar—And Ran

 Every community has its “pillars”: People who lead, who show what is possible and give—of their time and, often, their own resources.

When such a “pillar” passes away, the community mourns. And when the death is particularly tragic, the grief is all the more palpable.

Cycling communities are no different. Granted, their numbers may be smaller and their pillars may not be as widely known, but the deaths of their leaders, as often as not, touch people outside of their networks—especially if the death was caused by someone else’s carelessness or indifference.

Photo courtesy of Mike Lucero for the Albuquerque Journal.

So it was for Chuck Malagodi. He was known, not only for his tireless advocacy, but also for the ways he used bicycles and bicycling to contribute to his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

During the 25 years he ran the city’s outdoor recreation program, he created the Free Bikes 4 Kids program and turned a library into Esperanza Community Bike Shop, where “kids could learn to be mechanics, kids could just have a space to hang out and be safe,” according to his daughter Angelina. It was “a community center,” she explained.

Oh, and Malagodi created a bicycle safety curriculum for elementary and junior high students. That makes his death tragically ironic:  A driver struck him less than a mile from his home and took off.

That, after he’d spent a Saturday afternoon fixing up bicycles to give to children. His friend Mike Lucero offered him a ride home. “I’ll ride my bike,” Chuck demurred.

In addition to his daughter and wife, Chuck Malagodi leaves behind hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of children who received bikes and bike safety training from him, and kids and adults he introduced to the joys of cycling and other outdoor activities. And, one can assume that most, if not all, had family, friends, neighbors, classmates and co-workers.

If and when the driver of the pickup truck is caught, I want more than a punishment. I want that driver to understand, to feel, the hole he/she/they tore, not only in Albuquerque’s cycling and outdoor recreation communities, but in whatever other communities—families, networks of friends, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces—of which they are part.