Why Is Bicycle Transportation Not Essential?

3/30 Addenum from the League of American Bicyclists

On March 28^th the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) updated its guidance on the essential workforce to include:

• "Employees supporting personal and commercial transportation services – including taxis, delivery services, vehicle rental services, bicycle maintenance and car-sharing services, and transportation network providers;" and
• "Employees who repair and maintain vehicles, aircraft, rail equipment, marine vessels, bicycles, and the equipment and infrastructure that enables operations that encompass movement of cargo and passengers."

When the Governor and her health secretary issued an emergency executive order in response to COVID-19, they protected automobile servicing, repairs, and the part supply chain explicitly, making these services essential. Meanwhile, bicycle transportation was omitted; with New Mexico being one of only two states to not acknowledge that bicycle servicing is essential. Thus bicycle shops have closed down to protect their legal interests, have been visited by the state police, or been advised by the governor's office to shutter as non-essential. Those who depend on bicycling as essential transportation are left to their own devices. This is occurring even as Santa Fe and Albuquerque limit their mass transit resources.

"Currently New Mexico and Michigan appear to be the only states that have strict orders in place that do not provide an exception for bike shops. Local bike groups, PeopleForBikes, and others are working to create essential status in those states." Bicycle Industry and Retailer News

 As an advocate who has worked statewide and with Santa Fe and Los Alamos to establish bicycling as a transportation option equal to the family car, I have made numerous requests to the Governor's Office and the Health Secretary that bicycle repair shops and parts supply chains be considered as essential as auto maintenance. In return I have received nameless,faceless, anonymous emails from the "Joint Information Center" to the effect that the die has been cast and bicycling is not essential.

Whether intentionally or by accidental omission, the state of New Mexico is telegraphing that it does not consider bicycling to be an  essential transportation element. This should be noted by those who advocate for alternative transportation, indigent rights, public health, or green solutions to our climate problems. Indeed, as an article in the Monday Santa Fe New Mexican makes clear, preexisting comorbidities, especially those affecting cardiovascular or immunological health, can critically affect how successfully one fights the virus.

Until Governor Lujan Grisham and Health Secretary Kunkel acknowledge that bicycling is a transportation option equal to the family car and thus provide bicyclists needing mechanical assistance with the same protections given motorists during this crisis, we cannot assume that New Mexico takes bicycling as transportation or a public health resource seriously or that those who come to depend on the bicycle as an essential, affordable, and green transportation element find their needs even considered, not to mention protected.