Black pedestrians, bicyclists and micromobility users are subjected to a far wider variety of dangerous laws than many sustainable transportation advocates may realize, a new report finds — and repealing them vacated is not unbearable to guarantee them the self-rule of mobility they need and deserve.

In what may be the most comprehensive analysis of laws aimed at vulnerable road users to date, researchers at the firm Equitable Cities scoured the roadway rules in all 50 states to identify “policies that vestige shows are stuff enforced in a racially discriminatory manner, or that have strong potential to be enforced in a racially discriminatory manner,” specifically versus Black U.S. residents who walk and roll.

That data was accompanied by moving interviews with a diverse group of Black road users well-nigh how those laws stupefy their lives and the ways they move through their cities — something that’s tightly personal to lead tragedian Charles T. Brown, who coined the “Arrested Mobility” framework (and eponymous podcast) to unriddle the many reasons why wangle and opportunity remain out of reach for so many Black Americans.

“You have this feeling that you’re stuff watched, plane when you’re not doing anything wrong,” said Brown. “[You finger like] you’re stuff policed differently, or could be policed differently at any time. … I wanted to make sure that you felt these people’s pain, their emotions, and that you saw that, [no matter where they fall on the spectrum of] the trappy rainbow that is Black, that they are still suffering similarly to their peers.”

Those feelings are not just subjective and individual. Throughout the report, Brown and his colleagues cite a massive soul of research that shows Black road users throughout the U.S. are significantly increasingly likely than White road users to be policed for mobility-related infractions, to squatter violence and death at the hands of law enforcement when they’re stopped, and to live in communities that rely on fines and fees to support their municipal budgets, plane though Black residents unduly struggle to pay them.

And when it comes to sustainable modes, many of those stops happen under the pretense of policies that are supposed to alimony people safe, but in practice, can unquestionably endanger them — if they can realistically follow them at all.

The researchers found, for instance, that 82 percent of U.S. states make some provision versus walking on highways or freeways, plane when communities are so divided by autocentric roads that pedestrians have little nomination — a situation that’s all too common in historically Black communities through with the interstate highway system was largely routed. Another 64 percent have laws prohibiting the operation of bikes on sidewalks, plane when the roads that run slantingly them have no velocipede lane and a steady stream of dangerous, fast-moving cars — road features which, once again, are disproportionately common in Black neighborhoods.

And when the researchers looked at the two largest cities within each state, they found a trove of plane increasingly troubling laws — many of which leave officers wide discretion on when they should be enforced.

Those included not just prohibitions versus “jaywalking” outside of a crosswalk that might not exist or be hands available, but prohibitions versus walking specifically on the left side of that crosswalk when you do reach it; “suddenly leaving the curb” for any reason a officer deems unacceptable; children playing wittiness on the sidewalk, plane if they have nowhere else to play; wanderlust with headphones on, plane as drivers whistle by with loud stereo systems; wanderlust with an object that police deem to be too unwieldy to handle safely on two wheels; pedestrian “assemblies,” or the simple act of walking with a group of friends an officer decides is too large; and wanderlust or walking under the influence of drugs or alcohol, plane as an volitional to drunk or drugged driving.

And considering the researchers only had the resources to squint at 100 large cities and a handful of counties in the U.S., that long list isn’t exhaustive. 

“Many of these laws are very archaic, they’re outdated, and they simply don’t unzip what they’re intended to achieve, which is the health, safety and welfare of people on our streets,” Brown adds. “Instead, unfortunately, they’re leading to increasingly discrimination, increasingly harm, increasingly violence versus people of color.” 

Brown stresses that while repealing problematic laws, decriminalizing worldwide roadway behaviors, or shifting to streamlined enforcement methods that leave less to individual police discretion can all help, the mobility of Black U.S. residents depends on increasingly than those simple reforms alone. The report authors made spare recommendations, including:

• Embracing defended infrastructure for vulnerable road users, not just as a tool to end traffic violence but a tool to prevent criminalized policies like sidewalk riding and jaywalking and reduce the need for human enforcement
• Reducing or eliminating magistrate fines and fees associated with pedestrian, bicycle and e-scooter policies, and remove a key incentive for municipalities to rely on those fines to make their budgets
• Writing laws that prohibit police from using minor vulnerable road user infractions as a pretext to investigate them for increasingly serious offenses
• Engaging the bicycling industry to sell cycles with headlamps, bells, and other key safety equipment built in, rather than passing policies punishing people for not ownership that equipment separately

The researchers’ final recommendation, though, may be the most important of all: that transportation leaders to unriddle and address all the structural reasons why Black people wits underdeveloped mobility anywhere they move. And that includes not just a deeper, ongoing wringer of problematic roadway laws, but increasingly data on how they are enforced, what safety and individual impacts they create, and how these problems are mirrored on every mode, everywhere.

“This [work] is the thematic, not just episodic,” Brown added. “We focus on underdeveloped mobility within the context of the US, but underdeveloped mobility happens virtually the world. My undeniability is a global response, not just a local one.”