Local and State Advocacy
In the lead-up to our Bicycle Friendly State ranking release last week, we received a few updates on interesting advocacy campaigns that we wanted to share.
Oregon’s new transportation bill will dedicate over $125 million to biking and walking over the next 10 years, but includes a $15 tax on bikes that cost more than $200. In this post we look at the implications of this first-in-the-nation bike tax.
Each summer, kids flock to the Community Cycling Center’s shop with their bikes, imaginations, and goals to expand their geographic and personal horizons. Our Bike Camp program teaches safety, group riding technique, right of way, and basic, hands-on maintenance skills. But the biggest lesson is the empowerment kids receive from a summer adventure on two wheels.
As a community, we wanted to make an approachable event that gave bike riders from all backgrounds a chance to get together and celebrate. As an organization, we wanted an unpretentious gala that incorporated a bike ride where anyone could participate in without breaking a sweat.
Let’s face it: Bike advocates have it tough. Winning our goal of safer streets is a game played in multiple arenas, where different teams must come together and share in the ultimate victory — or defeat. Sure, bicycling may be a simple solution to many social problems, but, as Darla Letourneau explains so well, the problems that keep people from riding are… complex.
For Mychal Tetteh, the old adage proved true: Necessity is the mother of invention. Portland may be his hometown, but when he started as the Executive Director of the Community Cycling Center in 2013, he felt like he was working from a disjointed map, an incomplete playbook on how to make streets safer in his community. “As soon as I got the job, I wanted to know everything,” he recalled. “From a regional standpoint, I wanted more complete information. I wanted to know who all the stakeholders were, a categorical list of all the advocacy organizations and agencies and neighborhood institutions.” He quickly discovered he wasn’t alone.
Leah Shahum had a jarring realization in 2013. In the wake of a particularly fatal year for bicyclists and pedestrians in San Francisco, it became clear to her that the slow, piecemeal approach to create safer streets wasn’t moving nearly fast enough. It was time to redraw the lines of the debate, shift the cultural compass for the city, the public and advocates to no longer accept traffic deaths as tragedies out of their control. So, at the start of 2014, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition launched a Vision Zero campaign, calling for a reduction of all traffic deaths to zero in 10 years.
If we know anything about bicycling advocates, it’s that they’re an innovative bunch. At the National Bike Summit this year we are putting the spotlight on exciting new ideas for advocacy – our theme is Big Ideas. One of the ways we doing that is by collaborating with our partners at the crowdfunding platform ioby. ioby is a nation-wide, nonprofit crowdfunding platform that helps local leaders raise cash, in-kind donations, and volunteer power from their own communities.
Last week, the Congressional Bike Caucus hosted a briefing for Congressional staffers to discuss what’s next for bicycling and walking safety — and the event was standing room only. Many Congressional staffers were supportive of HR 3494, The Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act, and are interested in learning what’s coming next.
I used to think I was about as fearless and empowered as any cyclist out there. Then I rode with Cherokee Schill. When I was in Lexington, Kentucky recently for a Bicycle Friendly Community visit, I rode with Schill, a woman who’s been ticketed and even jailed for biking to work in the travel lane, rather than the shoulder, of a busy state highway.