Although I hadn’t even met them yet, my biker soul was galvanized in the 1990s by the people involved with BEST.
I was in my early 20s and just finding my way in life. From afar, I noticed a community of people working together creatively. They made me aware that all the lone cyclists quietly braving the unfriendly streets, taking responsibility for their carbon emissions, needed to hear each other’s voices. We needed each other and solidarity. At that time, the Alternative Transportation Centre, OCB, and the Spoken Word were bike love in action that supported people in practical ways. Over the years there have been many projects: Off Ramp; Go Green Choices; Bike Month; Commuter Challenge; Bicycle Valet; Living Streets; Seniors on the Move. These have been carbon-reducing transportation programs, and they have also been social programs.
With Covid illuminating the cracks in our systems of care and economy, with governments failing to take adequate measures to address our climate crisis, it’s necessary for each of us to take responsibility to do what we can to help. So I decided it is OK to bring “responding to this moment” to all my work and make it personal. My motto for 2021 is “This is the Year We Work Together to Do the Impossible”. I hear enough echoes of the same feeling from friends, and voices on the Internet, that I know people are ready for change. I don’t know how it’s going to unfold, but I know it requires being there for each other.
Words of wisdom were shared by a few of the BESTies who worked with us over the past 30 years. Thanks for sharing your stories and wisdom Ray Straatsma + John Whistler + Andy Telfer + Richard Campbell + Cheeying Ho + Dave Thompson + Tamim Raad + Kari Hewitt + Gavin Davidson + Paul Bogaert + Carmen Mills.
Working on system change is what BEST has been doing since its inception. BEST has worked (for 30 years!) as a collaborative partner in programs of education and encouragement and better engineering for car-free transportation - and yet we still see the fossil fuel pollution and car congestion clogging our streets. Is it time for something stronger? When do we demand our governments stop subsidizing fossil fuels and wasting time and money on an old energy paradigm? How can we shift to using our resources to retrain workers and mitigate the damage of the approaching storm?
Covid has clarified that we need social justice and equality to cultivate peace and security if we are to effectively curtail climate change. That means being present, listening with compassion, and actively caring for all the people in our lives, whether we see them at the kitchen table, at the boardroom table, in video-conferencing rectangles, at the grocery store, or on the road.
Perhaps time is not linear, but rather cyclical, and we have opportunities to revisit the essential truths of our lives as we cycle periodically through portals of possibility. Think of the seasons and the rotation of the Earth as we travel around our solar system through space – and perhaps it's not so far-fetched. With this image in mind, my wish for BEST’s 30th birthday is to revisit the roots: the people power, the common cause, the relationships forged through shared purpose and action. Revisiting this past involves community organizing with the people we know and love and spending time listening to each other's stories. Only a culture of care can sustain us through the challenges ahead. BEST, for your 30th year, may you engage in creative soul-searching and speaking from the heart, drawing each other close to reflect and shine on together for the next 30 years.
This blog post is written by Amy Biker Walker. Amy is a lifelong cyclist, co-founder of Momentum magazine, and leisurely, big-picture visionary. Currently, she pilots Makemobile.ca – a cargo bike/mobile art studio – to make creative community connections.
