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To Fight Racism, Transit Has a Key Role

Black Lives Matter protests are showing how city leaders and transit agencies must reprioritize infrastructure investments, a public transit official argues.

A bus with a mural of Harriet Tubman on it arrives at a public viewing for George Floyd in Houston on June 8, 2020. 

A bus with a mural of Harriet Tubman on it arrives at a public viewing for George Floyd in Houston on June 8, 2020. 

Photographer: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images 

Darnell Grisby

One hot day in my hometown of Riverside, California, 25 years ago, I finally discerned the source of the clicking sound I often heard as I walked down the city’s sidewalks — it turned out to be people in nearby cars locking their doors at my approach. The drivers saw their vehicles as a source of freedom and a space of safety; they saw me, a young Black man on a sidewalk, as a threat. 

At that moment, I understood those cars not just as a polluter of my neighborhood, but as a social barrier as well. And I realized we would never see or understand one another in a community geared toward auto-oriented spaces.