Anthony Siracusa is the guiding force behind Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop:
My dream is a city with flocks of bicycle commuters riding to work each morning.
I dream of schoolchildren riding with their parents in to school, bundling up against the chilly winter temperatures and enjoying the pleasant breeze across their noses in the fall and spring.
My dream includes bicycles lanes on Cooper St., Central Avenue, Third Street and Riverside Drive.
It is a dream where Memphians see bicycles not simply as a tool for the poor and disfranchised but as a means to save money and maintain a healthy way of life. It is a dream where all the citizens of our city see the simplicity of a bicycle as a way to transform crime, poverty and depression. Memphians will lobby the city council for increased spending on safe routes to school, free blinky lights for all Memphians to protect them during night rides, and demand an interconnected system of trails, greenways and bikepaths that allow all people to safely travel by bicycle to any destination in the Metropolitan area.
This dream is not so far-fetched — Memphis can follow the lead of cities in our own state: Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville.
My dream for Memphis is a city that is livable — with clean air, healthy bodies, interconnected neighborhoods free from the vestiges of segregation and Jim Crow, a city that prides itself on providing for its citizens rather than locking them up, a city that can boast thousands of bicycles commuters and dozens of bicycle shops all working to nurture a new way of life in our city.
My dream is shared by many, actualized by some, and in truth planted deep in the hearts of all. My dream goes on two wheels. My dream is that someday, you can too.
