Blog
The National Bike Summit unites the voices of bike advocates on Capitol Hill, highlighting critical issues and creating relationships with members of Congress that have a direct impact on biking in your community. And we know the Summit gets results: Last year, we pushed for Congress to tell the U.S. Department of Transportation to set a national goal to reduce bicyclist fatalities. Before the end of 2014, they did exactly that. We won, thanks to hundreds of participants at the National Bike Summit.
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National Bike Month is so much more than 31 days in May. It’s a celebration of bikes; an impetus to get rolling again; a gateway to riding more often; a time to evangelize the beauty of bikes; and much, much more. Since 1956, May has been recognized as National Bike Month, and the League has sponsored this celebration of bicycling for decades as we advance the movement to build a bicycle-friendly America for everyone.
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We’re so excited to once again feature women-owned and/or run businesses and entrepreneurs at our National Forum on Women & Bicycling pop-up shop. This year, Yvonne Bambrick will be selling her new book, The Urban Cycling Survival Guide, which was released on March 1! We caught up with Bambrick to discuss her own urban cycling story, her unique take on bicycling, and her thoughts on closing the gender gap in bicycling. If you haven’t registered for the Forum yet, click here and join us in Washington, D.C., next week!
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The 2015 National Bike Summit is all about Big Ideas. It takes plenty of experimentation and support to get there.
That’s where ioby comes in. The national, non-profit crowdfunding platform is helping us connect strong community ideas with fundraising dollars.
“ioby supports projects that make neighborhoods stronger, healthier and more sustainable, so working with bike advocates is a natural synergy,” says Ethany Uttech of ioby. “And we are excited to connect and share resources with a broader network of bike advocates at the 2015 Summit.”
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Ahead of the 2015 National Bike Summit, we’ve been holding Twitter chats with presenters to hear more about their work and ideas. Today we chatted with Leah Shahum, Director of the Vision Zero Network, about the road safety concept. In short: The only acceptable number of traffic deaths is zero.
Shahum is one of our “thought leaders” at the Summit this year, and she’ll be talking more about her work at the event. If you aren’t already registered, click here!
When the League of American Bicyclists began the Women Bike program, our goal was to organize and elevate the conversation on how to get more women on bikes. Since its inception, we’ve granted more than $30,000 to community programs focused on women’s bicycling outreach and encouragement. We have convened four separate national events bringing together women leaders in the bike movement to share ideas and best practices and highlighted the best speakers in the country advocating for increased women’s participation in bicycling.
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Ahead of the 2015 National Bike Summit, we’ve been holding Twitter chats with presenters to hear more about their work and ideas. Last Friday, we chatted with Naomi Doerner, of the Alliance for Biking & Walking, and Simran Noor, of the Center for Social Inclusion, about transportation inequity.
Their conversation at the Summit is focused on the people and policies successfully addressing the root causes of inequity. In addition to Doerner and Noor, Dara Baldwin of the National Disability Rights Network will discussing the topic during the Summit. If you aren’t already registered, click here!
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Bicyclists are “freeloaders” on the federal transportation program.
That’s a claim we’ve been hearing for years. We’ve been blamed for everything from collapsing bridges to a bankrupt Highway Trust Fund. The scale of bicycle and pedestrian spending in that federal transportation program has been consistently and deliberately misrepresented by people that want to kick us out of the program all together.
They’ve been trying for years — and we have always been able to rebuff them and preserve a critical source of funding for better biking and walking. Well, they are back and they are armed with new misinformation — and this time we are being treated on a par with squirrels. Seriously, squirrels.
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The League’s Board of Directors serves a critical role in guiding the organization to a sustainable and vibrant future. The Board is made up of both board-appointed and member-elected seats — and you elected three candidates to fill the available seats.
Join us in congratulating John Siemiatkoski, board chair, and Matt Moore, who will continue their tenure on the board, both winning re-election, and Jennifer Laurita, who will join the board for the first time, rounding out the three available seats.
“Thank you to everyone who voted for me and supported my election,” Laurita said. “I am extremely honored to be able to serve on the Board and am eagerly looking forward to working with the other Board members, League staff, and members to fulfill the League’s mission of engaging all communities to build a bicycle friendly America.”
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R.T. Rybak is proud of his home city. He has reason to be: Minneapolis helped pioneer bikesharing in the United States, it’s got a booming bike community, it’s a Gold-level Bicycle Friendly Community and much more. Rybak served as Mayor of Minneapolis from 2002 to 2014, helping oversee and push many of the bike efforts in the midwest city. He’s moderating a panel discussion with a handful of mayors from cities across the country at the 2015 National Bike Summit next month. We caught up with him to talk more about his time as mayor, what he sees as the challenges facing future elected officials, and how his competitive streak is not just an engine for trash talk, but a powerful tool for elected officials’ to embrace when doing this work.
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