BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — In Buffalo’s Jefferson Avenue community creators of a brand-new bike shop are hoping that it brings a broader mission of mobility in a community that has lacked equity.
“That’s our priority is ensuring that we are giving people the freedom to move fairly, fearlessly and freely in their communities,” Jalonda Hill, founder & president, Colored Girls Bike Too.
Friday is the grand opening of the organization's community bike shop featuring a mobility bank.
“Folks will come in and purchase bikes inexpensively though, so we want to make sure that accessibility — is like why we're here — we don’t want to be here and then folks can't even afford the bicycle or the mobility options we have,” Hill remarked.
This bicycle shop on Jefferson Avenue is just a block away from where ten members of our community were killed at the Tops store in a racist mass shooting last year. It's in an area of the east side's Cold Springs neighborhood where many don't drive.
“A lot of people don't have vehicles, so we utilize various forms of transportation whether it's tricycles, whether if its mountain bikes, road bikes, wheelchairs We have a lot of people with wheelchairs here. They utilize their wheelchairs with carts attached to it, because of the inaccessibility of having a vehicle,” Shautell Douglas, Colored Girls Bike Too.
The shop offers direct access for community members to buy bicycles, bike helmets, or have their bikes repaired.
“So we are getting around on bikes to get to the grocery stores, to get to the libraries, to get to the places that we need to go. We are basically providing support to make sure our community is supported,” explained Shyana Broughton, Colored Girls Bike Too. “We're looking for changes. We're looking for the positive.”
But the bike shop is only phase one of a much larger future community project with hopes to create a travel hub and wellness center and work with the city to improve infrastructure along Jefferson Avenue.
“It's nice to have a bicycle shop in a community, but what's a nice bicycle shop if the infrastructure around it is falling apart? We’re also advocating for better streets, safer streets because the traffic violence rates for people of color is super high and we've got to bring that down and we've got to create safer streets,” Hill described.
