Blog Post

Perhaps, the one bright spot in the devastation of Hurricane Sandy was the sight of so many bicycles providing mobility options to hard hit New York City. With the Subway…

Earlier this week, I wrote about my trip down to Atlanta and my first night helping to organize and execute the Red, Bike and Green bike ride on Sweet Auburn Avenue. Well, after all the fanfare of Thursday night, Friday went by in a blaze. Saturday morning it was time to head off to the Georgia-lina Bike Summit in Augusta, Ga.

Statewide advocacy organizations Georgia Bikes and Palmetto Cycling Coalition in South Carolina decided to go in on a joint summit this year, extending the bike-friendliness across borders. The Summit was full of presentations and speeches from advocacy organizations, club leaders, businesses and local politicians about the importance of cycling and how to move this mode of transportation forward in the South. It was set to be a day filled with awesome bike knowledge.

With all great summits like this, there were so many great presentations and so little time to get to them all, so I scoped out the agenda and plotted my plan of attack.

Session on effective local advocacy? Check!

Presentation about Lionel Hampton MTB Park by ABC and IMBA-SORBA Atlanta? Check!

Economic Benefits of Cycling by Alta Planning + Design? Check!

Lunchtime keynote by Jeff Miller from the Alliance of Biking & Walking? Will there be brownies and sweet tea? Yes! Well check!

Women’s Cycling forum? Check, check and check!

This was going to be a busy day. I had my notes app on my tablet, iPhone camera and Hootsuite twitter account ready.

I am delighted to announce that Caron Whitaker has accepted a position as Vice President of Government Relations, starting on December 1. Caron has a tremendous track record of effective…

Guest post from Mary Lauran Hall, America Bikes America Bikes, the national coalition of bicycling organizations dedicated to improving bicycling conditions in the U.S. through federal policy and investments, today…

The Bicycle Friendly Community program is so much more than giving out awards. There’s a greater goal behind our work: helping communities to become places where anyone can ride a…

Healthy employees, lower healthcare costs, decreased absenteeism, and more productivity — these are the hallmarks of a company that embraces bicycling. So it’s makes good business sense that more and…

Last week, we introduced you to Ken McLeod, our new legal expert here at the League. But he’s not the only new face in our office. With Katie Omberg focused…

We’ve all heard that Virginia is for lovers. Well, word on the street is the commonwealth’s capitol, Richmond, is for bike lovers! So we were delighted to welcome Richmond as a Bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community in our latest round of BFC awards last month.

To better understand how Richmond has become bike-friendly, we interviewed Champe Burnley of Virginia Bicycle Federation and Jakob Helmboldt, Richmond’s Pedestrian, Bicycles and Trails Coordinator. Here’s what they told us…

Cyclist at the 2012 Heart of Virginia Bicycle Festival

Describe bicycle culture in Richmond and how it has developed.

Richmond has long had a strong competitive cycling community with some notable riders coming out of the city. It has been the home of nationally recognized races like the Tour of America, Tour du Pont and Tour de Trump. There’s also a large and engaged mountain biking community, due in large part to the tremendous amount of public open space and natural areas, especially along the James River. In the past decade, the formal organization of mountain bike advocates and official trail building crews on city staff has resulted in the building of a network of sustainable singletrack in the heart of the city, drawing cyclists from around the state, and playing host to Xterra and other competitive events. The presence of Virginia Commonwealth University, with a very eclectic student body, in the heart of the city has resulted in explosive growth in student bicycle use. As a result, Richmond has a very strong bike culture that has grown organically, as demonstrated by our 2.2 percent commuter mode split; the highest in the state despite minimal bike infrastructure.

How has the broader community responded?

As more emphasis is being placed on making Richmond truly bike-friendly, the community has responded with overwhelmingly positive support from across all demographics. The Richmond Times Dispatch, the paper of record in Richmond, has run numerous articles in support of these initiatives and hosted a Public Square forum on the topic, which was widely attended by a very diverse cross section of the city and regional residents.

Why did Richmond think it important to apply for Bicycle Friendly Community designation?

In May 2010, Mayor Dwight Jones convened the Pedestrian, Bicycle and Trails Planning Commission, a largely citizen-led group, to develop recommendations on how the city could become more bike-friendly and use bicycling as a means to address issues of sustainability, economic development, transportation options, safety, and healthy lifestyles. As a result, Richmond has been working toward those goals ever since. BFC status provides two key things: recognition of the city’s efforts, both internally and externally, to create a community that is recognized in the U.S. as one that is embracing bicycling for it myriad benefits, and, more importantly, developing a baseline to work diligently to advance bike-related initiatives. The BFC program gives us feedback on what is deficient, and though we, the stakeholders, are already well aware of those issues, it validates and advocates for our initiatives. The BFC program also prompts further discussion and consideration of specific initiatives or improvements so we are continually giving consideration to what we should shoot for and prioritize in our efforts.

Georgena Terry is a pioneer and a visionary. The founder of the first company to manufacture and market bikes built specifically for women, she challenged the very structure and design…

Before returning to D.C. this fall, I lived — and became a bike advocate — in Atlanta. Late last month, I Megabus-ed 12 hours south to help the Atlanta Bicycle…