Blog Post

If you need a healthy helping of bicycle and pedestrian policy insight to get through the holiday season, you’ve come to the right place. Advocacy Advance, our partnership with the League of American Bicyclists, released a series of reports and webinars this year to help advocates and public officials in the U.S. maximize investment in bicycling and walking. Missed a few sessions or reports? We’ve got you covered. Here’s the full list of reports and sessions from 2014.

We’ve talked a lot about the increase in bicycling and pedestrian fatalities over the last year, but we’ve never really had an answer as to why. Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington State wants to know what the causes are, and what current transportation design and policy practices might be contributing. And when Members of Congress have a question like that, they turn to the Government Accounting Office to answer it. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. Often called the “congressional watchdog,” GAO studies are considered non-partisan and thorough. Congress often uses these reports as a basis for legislative and policy change.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition (ABC) is a model for organizations working in cities that are not traditionally known as bikeable or bike-friendly and are working to kick-start a cultural shift in order to effect city-wide transportation system change. “Our approach has been to make latent demand visible to agencies and elected officials through community-building, inclusive events like open streets, beginner-friendly rides and classes, and socials,” says Rebecca Serna, Executive Director of the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition. “As our numbers for these have grown, we’ve continued to emphasize that participation demonstrates demand for shift in infrastructure priorities towards more bikeable, walkable projects and communities.”

“We need a mayor like that!” That’s the sentiment heard from many people after Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto concluded his remarks at the 2014 National Bike Summit. Moments earlier, Mayor Peduto had announced to the 800 bicycling advocates in attendance that he was appointing Bike Pittsburgh (BikePGH) Executive Director Scott Bricker to his region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization. (You can see the video here at minute 5:30.) That appointment means that bicyclists have a seat at the table for important regional transportation planning and funding decisions.

As part of the Advocacy Advance partnership between the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking and Walking, we travel around the country and talk to people about how to fund bicycling and walking projects. We get to see what happening all over and pick up on the exciting trends and common challenges. Sometimes the challenges are technical in nature; just as often, they are political.

For those of you who have ever worked to get a trail, greenway, bike path or sidewalk built, you know that it is no easy task. But of all the obstacles our community faces, the one that poses the greatest threat to trails comes from elected officials who claim that investing in biking and walking infrastructure is a frivolous use of public funds. In recent years, biking and walking infrastructure has become a popular target for some federal lawmakers looking to gain political points by highlighting their fiscal conservatism. The perceived political wisdom was that their constituents felt the same way—that federal funds should not be spent on biking and walking.

Thanks to the generous support from the SRAM Cycling Fund and REI, Advocacy Advance offers Rapid Response Grants to help state and local advocacy organizations to win, increase, and preserve public funding for biking and walking in their communities. In 2014, Advocacy Advance supported 18 biking and walking advocacy organizations with our standard Rapid Response Grants, as well as an additional three “Big Idea” campaigns announced last month. While many of these Rapid Response campaigns are still underway and with some Rapid Response Grant funds still available, here are the highlights and lessons learned from completed Rapid Response campaigns in 2014.

As we look for solutions to close the gender gap on bicycling, Women Bike has partnered with Specialized to take a deep dive into the world of bike retail. We are seeking to uncover the best practices shops are employing to both attract and retain women customers.

What does your bike give you? Better health? A convenient — and fun — way to get around town? The sheer joy of feeling like a kid again? Today, on #GivingTuesday, take a moment to GIVE BACK to bicycling. Help the League in our mission to build a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone. We asked some of our fellow staff members: What does your bike give to you? Here are their responses…

This week Advocacy Advance released its newest report, “Leveraging Health Funding for Active Transportation Investments,” (PDF) and held a webinar to talk about the new report. The report and webinar review the recent round of CDC awards in the area of prevention and provide examples of partnerships where transportation and health have worked together. This fall the CDC awarded 193 awards totaling nearly $212 million to state, local, or tribal public health departments, and non-profit organizations or coalitions for projects that addresses prevention and wellness. Specifically, the funding programs aims to reduce the prevalence of obesity and to reduce the rates of death and disability due to diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Active transportation has an important role to play as one of the solutions to create healthy communities.