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New League Staff: Meet Chris Vaughan
Introducing Chris Vaughan, the League’s new Bicycle Friendly America Program Coordinator! An educator, poet, and advocate for sustainable transportation, Chris’s journey into bike advocacy began with a grassroots effort to make his Minneapolis neighborhood streets safer for families like his own. From his studies at Stanford to his years as an ESL/multilingual teacher and school administrator, Chris is passionate about making communities more inclusive, human-centered, and livable for everyone. Bringing a wonderful mix of technical skills and storytelling talent to the team, we’re thrilled to have Chris join us in building a Bicycle Friendly America for all. Keep reading to learn more about our newest team member!
What’s your first memory of riding a bike?
I remember learning how to ride a bike with training wheels on my street in Western Massachusetts and wobbling around a lot!
What does your bike journey look like? What got you into biking as an adult?
Bikes have been a deeply important part of my life. I cut my teeth riding a mountain bike all around my town growing up, and loved exploring the local trails.
While I biked a little in college, my adult bike journey began seriously when I moved to Milwaukee to volunteer with AmeriCorps during my first year out of college. I bought a mountain bike from a small shop down the street from my apartment. I had no car, so I got around the city mainly on the bus system and with this bike. I happened to live across the street from the Oak Leaf Trail, so that was my primary “on-ramp” to exploring the city by bike. Later, while living in Boston, I began bike commuting on the, uh, sometimes unfriendly streets of that city. I also got into doing long rides and bought my first road bike. Now living car-free in Minneapolis, where I moved in 2012, I got into year-round commuting (studded tires in the winter!), biking for general transportation, and hauling my kids around on the back of a cargo bike.
Some recreational riding highlights include completing RAGBRAI 2018 with three friends, competing as the bicycle leg in several half-iron relay triathlons with teacher friends, as well as some multi-day New England journeys with my friends Seth and Nate.
Tell us a bit about your background. How did you get into transportation advocacy, and what excites you about joining the League?
While I’d had a longtime interest in urbanism and multi-modal transportation, my sustainable transportation advocacy got a kick-start in 2021 when my young twins and I experienced two dire near-misses while crossing Lyndale Avenue, a dangerous county-owned arterial that runs through my neighborhood in Minneapolis. I became (a very small, but committed!) part of an organizing effort that pushed the county to do a 4:3 “road diet” pilot, which substantially lowered crashes for all street users and ultimately became permanent. As I sensed a growing passion for this, I was accepted to the 2023 Walking College Fellowship through America Walks. From that, I have been teaming up with a neighbor and friend to co-lead safe walking and rolling initiatives at our children’s school and through our neighborhood association.
What are some of your favorite routes and trails to explore?
These days, all the routes around the Twin Cities! In addition to excellent and growing urban bike infrastructure, we have an extensive set of trails in the broader region that enable longer rides.
What bike are you riding now?
I ride three bikes these days:
- A Surly Cross-check which has been much overhauled to make it more upright, comfortable, and commuting-oriented,
- A road bike for longer recreational rides,
- And an e-cargo bike with my 6-year-old twins on the back — it’s my family’s “car”!
