National Bike Summit
Did you hear the one about the squirrels that brought every transit system in America to a grinding halt? Or the Tennessee squirrel sanctuary that stopped every sidewalk, crosswalk and bike lane from being built, anywhere in the country? That’s right, my fellow cyclists — we are now on the same level as squirrels in the eyes of 50 influential “think tanks” and lobbying organizations here in Washington DC.
Kicking bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit users out of federal transportation programs is the solution to an insolvent Highway Trust Fund — according to a coalition of 50 traditionally conservative think-tanks and policy groups. In a sign-on letter issued yesterday, this influential and well-connected group proposed eliminating funding for all non-motorized and transit projects and programs rather than raising the gas tax to bail out the chronically insolvent Highway Trust Fund.
National Bike Month isn’t just about riding to work. Bike to Work Day is just one event in May — what about those 30 other days? Janet Lafleur seized the opportunity, and teamed up with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition to organize a Bike to Shop Day in the region during Bike Month in 2014. Her Big Idea, which she’ll be speaking more about at the 2015 National Bike Summit, is to expand Bike To Shop Day. We spoke with Lafleur about how Bike to Shop Day came to be and where she’s set her sights for the future.
The 2015 National Bike Summit is the largest annual gathering of bike advocates — and it’s the time of year when we share our message with congressional leaders and staff. Face-to-face meetings are hugely important, and we know it works. If you’re headed to the Summit and are looking to learn more of the basics, or even a refresher, we’re holding two webinars on “what to know before you go.”
Pioneered by Northeastern University Professor Peter Furth and others, Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) analysis has brought to the forefront a means to identify barriers to riding for people with a low tolerance for traffic. It’s a Big Idea that’s taking root across the country and we’re excited to hear more on this timely topic from Tim Blagden, Executive Director of the Bike-Walk Alliance of New Hampshire, at the 2015 National Bike Summit in March.
For many in the bike movement, Portland has an almost mythical status — earning the distinction of being the closest we’ve come in the United States to a major metropolitan cycling uptopia. But Portlandia faces the same challenges as the rest of urban America, including the burgeoning need to bring biking to the suburbs.
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.
At first glance, Ellen Dunham-Jones doesn’t seem to fit the part. A car-free architect. An urban designer with a focus on sustainability. A creative thinker with a passion for problem solving. Even her colleagues, she admits with a laugh, have asked her incredulously: “What are you doing out in the ‘burbs?!” Dunham-Jones is one of the nation’s leading experts on “Retrofitting Suburbia” — in fact, she wrote the book on the topic. But she thinks outside the (big) box (stores).
We’re excited to announce the featured speaker at the opening plenary of the 2015 National Bike Summit: Maya Rockeymoore, the President of Center for Global Policy Solutions and director of Leadership for Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Rockeymoore is an expert in equity in policy, specifically in health care. As a part of her responsibilities as director of Leadership for Healthy Communities, Rockeymoore is dedicated to helping state and local elected and appointed officials advance policies that support healthy eating, active living, and childhood obesity prevention. At the Summit, Rockeymoore will be discussing targeted universalism in policy and how that relates to transportation equity.