Future Bike Recap: Elephants and Robots

For half a day on Thursday, September 11, the Future Bike conference took over a few rooms of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh. Many attendees had also been a part of Pro Walk Pro Bike Pro Place, the biennial junket for planners, advocates, and other bike/ped professionals that had just wrapped up in the same center. Others were bike-interested Pittsburghers who didn’t attend PWPBPP but had something to share. 

What if each bicycle user had the right to build her/his own vision of a better future for bicycling? What if each bicycle user could speak up on his/her own behalf?

The Future Bike organizing committee put a lot of thought into creating a space where different approaches to bicycling could be given equal weight. It might not seem like it to outsiders, but those of us who have been involved with bike advocacy for years know that the bike movement is not without its factions. We wanted Future Bike to look beyond the lingering reaction to vehicular cycling, or the dominance of Copenhagen-scented cycle tracks in bike ideas.

What if each bicycle user had the right to build her/his own vision of a better future for bicycling? What if each bicycle user could speak up on his/her own behalf?

We decided that one starting point toward a more equitable discussion about the future bike movement was to ask people to name some barriers to participation they had experienced or witnessed in bicycle advocacy.

What was each Future Bike attendee’s “elephant in the room”? 

At the same time, we asked people to think about what their Future Bike vision would be, if the elephant in the room could be recognized and we could move beyond it. This statement would be recorded on a sheet with a robot. 

As people headed off to their first panels, we collected their elephants and hung them on the wall of our meeting room. Hours later, when we re-grouped, we collected some of the robots. 

Taking a look at the elephants in the room, are you surprised to see what’s written there? Or is it something you too have known and wished we could move beyond in the bike movement?

What is your vision for a bicycling future?

Stay tuned for more Future Bike coverage this week!