Quarterly Newsletter and News Articles

The following is by Bruce Adib-Yazdi, who was a key player in developing the Springfield Bicycle Plan.

I would encourage all advocates to work with the city you live in to develop a city Bicycle Plan. The implementation of which could take 20-50 years, and the results of which would end up being safer ways to use your feet (bike or walk) to transport yourself, and ultimately increase quality of life in that area.

It's not easy work. And the plan needs constant maintenance and updating due to changing conditions and traffic patterns.

Here is a 10 step plan toward that effort. (PLEASE NOTICE STEP 10, which is the most important one.) Along every step of the way, there is work that needs to occur to educate the cycling community (through awareness, safety classes, and attitude adjustments) in these efforts as well.

1 - Develop a 'feel good', grass roots community wide planning effort that results in a long range planning document including sections on Transportation and Parks and Green Space. (both of which have implications for bike / ped issues, and should have those items addressed) Transportation and Parks are independent, but linked. Don't let people confuse (or use interchangeably) recreation and transportation.

2 - City Government adopts the plan - which at this point is very vague and nebulous, but feels good.

3 - City Government makes small attempts to fulfill the plan.

4 - Individuals address city government at annual appropriation meetings to remind them what they said they were going to do in the plan and why. (Increase in Quality of Life, which is what people and businesses MOVING to the area look for - thus you increase quality growth patterns fro the city. Now this is an ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT issue.)

5 - City government says 'You think this is important, why don't you work in an advisory role with our staff'. Or maybe individuals ask what they can do to help.

6 - Individuals work on city boards and help generate various committees to influence direction of efforts. (It does not hurt to find out who the city staff advocates are. But they can not always push a particular issue - they need public input / direction - although they can help immensely in implementation.)

7 - More detailed plans are developed, and eventually adopted. This is where a master plan is developed complete with inventory of existing conditions, opportunities, barriers and improvements necessary to correct them to be suitable for on-street cycling. (This will take the help of all involved - cycling advocates, safety advocates, health care advocates, transportation planning, neighborhood planning, MPO, MoDOT, County Government, etc.)

8 - Funding sources identified. (This is a biggie. Rationale has to be to help reduce traffic, increase safety, increase QOL, and give citizens choices)

9 - Plans start getting implemented.

10 - Our CHILDREN and GRANDCHILDREN enjoy the benefit of our work.

Related:

News: Transportation Enhancements comes to House vote Thurs, September 4th

News: California dedicates 1/3 of safety money to Safe Routes to Schools

permanent link to article: "How to develop a Bike Plan"
posted by Brent Hugh at 6:21 PM |comment on this article

Mike Weiss of Bike Shark Bicycle Company (and the Missouri Bicycle Racing Association) attended the League of American Bicyclist's National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C., March 16-18, 2005. Here is Mike's report:

Here is a summary of the Bike Summit trip from my perspective- I was flown in by Gary Soquist, the bicycle advocacy staffer for Quality Bicycle Products, a prominent Bicycle Industry component and accessory supplier and by Bikes Belong, the industrys cycling advocacy group. The goal was to have a retailer from Missouri present in addition to the advocacy element.

My trip was comprised of a day of seminars that were designed to inform us about the impact of having a political lobby and to inform us on the impact of the transportation bill.

The two seminars I attended were on the impact of a PAC and how the bike industry needs to advocate for itself in Congress on a national level in addition to local if we want inclusion. The necessity of getting an audience and also in raising money to enable this process was stressed.

Shimano, Bicycling Magazine, and BicycleResearch.com gave a presentation showing the connection between rush hour traffic volume and the impact of having less than 10 percent of all school age children getting to school NOT on their own power. The consequences are: 1/3 of all morning and afternoon traffic being school related, a decrease in family activity, the absence of a child/teenagers acceptance ofnon-motorized transportation, theinstilling of sedentary play, and an impact on longer life issues relating to the association of transportation with enjoyment, play, and health. The side effects of this are of course gridlock, the decreasing of the newest generations life expectancy and the advent of childhood obesity and diabetes. In order to overcome the perception that riding on streets isnt safe or convenient there HAS to be programs for infrastructure, information, and safety.

Bicycling Magazines editor showed the studied impact of the Bike Town program in which several hundred non-cyclists were given bikes and asked to try living more car-free. The pooled data was a strong statement in favor the ability of non-cyclists to adopt pattern of living less reliant on motorized transport, and of course exposed a population of non-cyclists to the other obvious benefits of increased activity.

We attended a luncheon in which the Secretary of Transportation Mineta said some very positive things about the Safe Routes to SchoolAct, Fair Share For Cycling, the Bicycle Safety Act, the Complete Streets Act, and the ISTEA program in general. He seemed to be well informed about the issues of fuel depletion, the benefits of cycling on our country, and in the need for it to be legislated.

The following day myself and Russ Willis from the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation went to visit our Senators and Congressmen on the Hill. We had appointments with Russ Carnahan, Kit Bond, and Ken Hulshoff. We also had plenty of time to visit the offices of Senator Talent, and State Reps Clay and Graves.

The agenda was to simply gauge their respective postions for or against the ISTEA bill in general, and to introduce the other bicycle bills so that they could be educated to their necessity and impact. We were able to have a good meeting with a staff member for Senator Bond who seemed receptive to the message. Congressman Carnahan met with us in person and was also aware and positive. Other meetings were not so good. We left information and postion papers with the Missouri offices with whom we did not have scheduled meetings. My hope would have been to have our elected officials a bit more animated and prepared for a visit by actual constituents who had traveled to see them- and not dismissed by the staffers and front line office workers as we were by the offices of Talent and Graves. We were both very pleased with the reception and reaction by Sen. Bond and Congressman Carnahan.

In general my impression was that on a national level it IS important to have contact with our States politicians- although I am not sure how much of our positive reception will actually manifest itself into votes. I think that the other industries that benefit from transportation funding have incredibly strong lobbies in Washington and that the cycling industry needs to get involved and not rely on the work of passionate local advocacy groups. When dollars, jobs, and votes are brought together the elected officials seem to pay a bit more attention. There are 72 bicycle stores in Missouri, almost 1,000 employees, and almost a 100 million dollars in sales excluding the volume of bicycles sold by big box retailers. As gas approaches $3 per gallon hopefully the constituency will recognize that cycling is more than sport and recreation and an actual means to improve economy and lifestyle.

Related:

News: House clears six-year TEA-21 renewal bill

News: California dedicates 1/3 of safety money to Safe Routes to Schools

permanent link to article: "Report from the National Bike Summit--Washington, D.C."
posted by Brent Hugh at 6:51 PM |comment on this article