Let you representative know today that you want better biking in Washington state.
Right now in the House of Representatives budget negotiations are in full swing to spend billions of additional dollars on transportation.
Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that little to no new money will go to walking and biking connections and programs to help children walk and bike to school with the safety they deserve.
Across America and around the world, leaders are prioritizing safer biking and walking because these investments are integral to building stronger economies, healthier communities, and transportation connections that work for you. Washington state leaders have the opportunity to prioritize these investments too, but they need to hear from you today.
This is real funding that will make a real difference toward providing everyone with the freedom to safely bike to get where they need to go. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity to invest for today’s children and generations to come.
At current funding levels, three of every four Safe Routes to School safety improvement applications go unfunded, leaving our most vulnerable most at risk. We’re asking legislators for $30 million per year with additional projects identified to jump-start these investments so people from 8 to 80 have safe connections to bike and walk.
This is our chance to make big things happen for biking and walking, but only if you speak up now.
We’re looking at what contributed to the success of the event by asking those who went. We really want to hear from those who didn’t attend to help us plan an even better gathering of advocates, business owners, elected officials, and professionals from planning to public health to education. So it’s your turn. Here are some of the factors we’re weighing for you to think about as you take this survey and let us know what would make you most likely to attend the Summit. Share this survey with your bicycling friends too.
[Tweet “2016 Washington state bike conference: Take the survey. #WABikeSummit”]
Location: Tying the Summit to legislative visits necessarily means holding it in Olympia every year, much like the National Bike Summit held annually in Washington, DC. Do we do this, or do we move it around the state to other Bicycle-Friendly Communities? (For the record, we’d only want to take this kind of conference business to towns that are measuring and working on their progress to become more bike-friendly. What we measure, matters.)
Transportation Advocacy Day: This year we scheduled the Summit to hold TAD as Day Two. Public employees attended professional CEU workshops, advocates lobbied their legislators and attended sessions on various topics. It would be possible to hold TAD on its own, as has been done for years since we founded it as Bicycle Lobby Day, and hold the Summit at a different time and location.
Length of the legislative session: In odd-numbered years it’s a long session, making it possible to hold a Summit in Olympia in mid-late March at a point when issues are starting to ripen — particularly the first forays into budget negotiations — and weather is turning toward spring. In even-numbered years it’s a short session. Tying the Summit schedule to the legislative schedule means meeting in mid-February.
Alternating locations: One possible configuration would be to hold the Summit in Olympia during the long sessions, coupled with TAD, as we did this year. In short sessions we could hold the Summit in another town, keeping to the same approximate timing of mid-late March or even early April, and hold TAD during session or consider other ideas for getting constituents together with legislators that could provide greater flexibility.
Topics and speakers: This year’s sessions provided a cross-section from around the state and inspiring speakers from the national stage. Forty-five towns and cities were represented with great stories of progress. (For a detailed list see the agenda.) We know many more stories are waiting to be told and many presentation and workshop formats can get you fired up to advocate for better bicycling in your town. You ask for us information on various topics daily, and we’re tracking those requests as our idea list for Summit topics.
Tell us what you want to learn about, speak about, or experience at the 2016 Washington Bike Summit.
Sponsors: We have to give another big thank-you to our 2015 sponsors, who made it possible for us to bring together such a great line-up of speakers.
Platinum Bike: Cascade Bicycle Club, Group Health
Gold Wheel: WSDOT
Silver Spoke: Raleigh, People for Bikes
Bronze Gear: Alta Planning, Foundation for Healthy Generations, Mithun, Ortleib, REI, SRAM, Transpo Group
Posted in Advocacy, Events, News | Comments Off on 2016 Washington Bike Summit: Where, When, Who, What
In the midst of #30DaysofBiking it seemed like a good time to share the tweets from #Errandonnee: winter errands by bike. That mid-March challenge provided great examples of things you can do by bike and some impressive pictures of hauling stuff: A bike carried on a bike, for example.
Check out the tweets and blog posts.
Your Turn
If you took part in #errandonnee 2015, what did it do for your bicycling habits?
Last year we followed up on the Inlander’s reporting about Paul Dannels’ stolen bike to try to help raise funds to replace the bike. A number of generous people stepped up and between your donations and some other sources Paul is back on two wheels.
When Paul got his bike in February he wrote,
“This past week I purchased a new bike. It is incredible to say the least. I could not have done this without your help; thank you so very much.”
He sent a photo with his Trek Domane 4.3 and said, “Needless to say I probably won’t be leaving this bike anywhere, makes me very sad to say that. I sure do love it and can’t stop riding or thinking about it. Thank you again so very much.”
We asked about some of his favorite routes and he sent pictures of a ride to the Bowl and Pitcher, in Riverside State Park. He reports,
“Life is great here in Spokane; we have been really spoiled with good weather so far this year. My new bike is incredible. I have been riding around 70 to 80 miles per week and rode my first 52-miler last weekend. I’m working my way up to do a couple of century rides this year.”
Aubrey L. White Parkway in Riverside State Park — a beautiful route for a bike ride along the Spokane River.
Another beautiful view of the Spokane River.
This whole experience also inspired Paul to ask, “I’m wondering if there is more I can do in the world of advocating for bike rights and laws in my area and thought you might be just the person to ask, I’d like to share and spread my passion for biking in our community.” We pointed him to volunteer opportunities like Spokefest and Spokane Summer Parkways and told him about the Spokane Bicycle Advisory Board meetings every third Tuesday, a great place to hear what’s happening in the city for better bicycling.
Paul will be in our booth at the Spokane Bike Swap this coming Sunday, April 12. Stop by to say hi and talk bikes.
Posted in Advocacy, News, Spokane | Comments Off on Paul’s Riding Again, Thanks to You
Jaime Brush with Isabella on a snowy bike ride, with Moscow Mountain in the background.
An Advocate’s Voice: Washington Bikes member Jaime Brush speaks up for the interests of people who bike in Pullman in many ways. She provided this update on her efforts, which demonstrate that stepping up and speaking up can make a real difference in your town.
For a town built on a topography of rolling hills, Pullman has made a big step in the direction of becoming a bicycle friendly community! Starting at the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, Mayor Glenn Johnson asked community members and organizations to submit suggestions for the City of Pullman and City Council to consider adopting. Having stirred up quite the attention around biking in Pullman, I couldn’t wait to read through all the submissions to see if any were bike-related.
Bikes outside Cafe Moro in downtown Pullman illustrate the need for bike parking.
After reading through a binder full of suggestions, I was most surprised and happy with the one from the Pullman School Board and the Superintendent of Pullman Schools (see An Advocate’s Voice Parts I and IIfor the background story; Part III is still in the making). Their one suggestion acknowledged the difficulty in reaching Pullman High School from downtown by biking or walking and requested that more walk/bike paths be provided to improve the connections.
Throughout the submissions, there was a clear emphasis on the theme of having walk/bike connections to Pullman High School. The Pullman Civic Trust listed this as their #1 suggestion, in addition to several other bike and trail-related goals. The League of Women Voters asked for walk/bike paths where cul-de-sacs are permitted. The Pullman Chamber of Commerce advocated for more bike infrastructure throughout Pullman, specifically downtown bike parking.
The next part of the process included a special retreat that was open to the public, where the Mayor, City Supervisor, and Councilmembers discussed the suggestions and narrowed them down to 15 goals that were eventually adopted. (Shout out to Councilmembers Francis Benjamin and Nathan Weller for speaking up for bike-related goals!)
A few weeks later, city department heads gave their input on the 15 proposed goals. The Superintendent of the Pullman Parks Department, Alan Davis, recommended changing the wording in the goal from creating bike parking in three distinct downtown locations to, instead, creating bike parking throughout the “downtown corridor.” This slight change in wording allows for input from the new Pullman Bicycle Task Force and citizens as to where the racks/lockers should be installed. After all, placing the new bike racks at destinations for people on bikes is key to the racks’ success.
Improve bicycle and pedestrian trails. Explore the implementation of appropriate recommendations in the WSU Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan. Enhance bicycle parking in the downtown corridor by installing bicycle racks, and possibly bicycle containers, at strategic locations. Encourage WSU to take the lead on developing a more comprehensive path map and funding options.
The page from the 2014 goals adopted by the City of Pullman showing Goal 5, Biking and Walking.
The next step in the process was deciding where the bicycle racks we’re going to be placed. The Pullman Bicycle Task Force was created. After several meetings and following the recommendations put out by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals in their Bicycle Parking Guidelines 2nd Edition, the Task Force was ready to give their siting recommendations to the City of Pullman.
Sportworks, headquartered in Woodinville, WA, created a custom bike rack for Pullman. The shape suggests the gently rolling Palouse hills
Sportworks, a Washington-based company that designs and manufactures bicycle products, specifically bike parking and transit racks, was able to provide Pullman with a custom-designed rack that mimics the rolling hills of the Palouse area.
This initial stage of installing bicycle parking around the city of Pullman has began and is already a success!
In conjunction with bike parking, an bicycle/pedestrian educational campaign is being developed; I’m working on it with the Pullman Police Department with the direction and help of Washington Bikes.
Why is bicycle parking important, anyway?
According to the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals’ Bicycle Parking Guidelines, 2nd Edition, “One of the most common obstacles for bicyclists is the lack of bicycle parking at their destination. At the most basic level, bicycle parking encourages people to ride, but it also has some specific benefits, even for non-cyclists”, such as:
Bicycle parking is good for business!
Designated, well-designated parking promotes a more orderly streetscape and preserves the pedestrian right of way.
Bicycle parking helps legitimize cycling as a transportation mode by providing parking opportunities equal to motorized modes.
What’s happening for better bicycling in your hometown? We’d like to share your advocate’s voice. Comment here, email your story with pictures to info@wabikes.org, or let us know if you’d like us to interview you and write the story.
Be sure to drop by the Washington Bikes booth to say hi and meet our executive director (and founder of Spokane Bikes) Barb Chamberlain and the great volunteers who will be there with her.* You can pick up a copy of our popular Washington Bike Laws pocket reference, a “Drive Aware” brochure to share with your non-bicycling friends who drive, and bike maps from around Washington state.
We’ll also have our pop-up retail store at your service:
Support bike advocacy with your tax-deductible donation or membership. (Why both? Some people like to consider themselves members, some people like to donate. All support welcome!)
Get made-in-Washington bicycle themed merchandise like the I Bike Spokane and I Bike WA items shown here.
Check the Spokane Bike Swap website for more details about the event and we hope to see you next weekend. Speaking of seeing you….
*Want to volunteer with us? Email Barb, barb@wabikes.org, if you’d like to help with set-up Friday afternoon, work a two-hour shift Saturday or Sunday, 9am-3pm, or help with teardown at the end of the event (which goes really fast).
Posted in Events, News, Spokane | Comments Off on Join Us: 2015 Spokane Bike Swap April 11-12
The car-free view up the North Cascades Highway. Josh Cohen photo.
Some years people on bicycles get an amazing experience: riding on the North Cascades Highway (USBR10) after snow has been cleared and before it’s opened to motorists in a kind of impromptu Open Streets event, often on a weekend. We’ve told you to watch for announcements so you can plan a quick getaway for exclusive access.
Tomorrow morning, April 3, is your only chance.
Washington State Dept. of Transportation has announced the highway opens tomorrow, April 3. If you want to ride ahead of vehicles you need to take Friday off (we won’t tell your boss) and beat the cars.
Some people show up at first light on Opening Day, hop the gate and take off to enjoy the highway before WSDOT opens it to motor vehicles. If you go: Watch out for sweepers, de-icing trucks and other equipment as WSDOT makes one last check of the highway before opening the gates at 10 a.m.
The road-clearing efforted started Monday, March 16. According to WSDOT staff, highway-clearing crews have typically worked Monday through Thursday, leaving cleared sections of the highway for recreational users on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. In years past, large amounts of snow and deep avalanches across the highway have required five to six weeks to clear, meaning four to six weekends for cyclists.
The past winter saw low snowfall totals, which made the highway easier to clear. WSDOT will accomplish it in just 19 days, including only two weekends, this year.
Westside riders were further handicapped because in December 2014 WSDOT had to close the west end of the highway, east of the Diablo Gate, to recreational use due to a rock slide and unstable hillside between mileposts 142 and 143. Work to secure that area took all winter and was just completed Tuesday, March 31. (See photos of that work on Flickr.)
People on bikes are allowed on the road year-round; if anyone turned road closure into an amazing fatbiking experience we’d love to have a blog post about that.
It’s unfortunate for riders that opportunities to use the highway as WSDOT cleared it were limited. But opening it quickly enables everyone to use the highway and lets you start planning your journeys along USBR 10.
Other Car-Free Experiences Await
This isn’t your last chance at special access on a challenging climb, though. While some roads into Mount Rainier National Park are also slated to open April 3, others remain closed. Keep your eye on the Mount Rainier road status page. In particular watch for Sunrise Road to open around June if you want a ride like this one: Car-Free Mount Rainier: Now’s the Time!
Thanks to Tom Pearce, WSDOT Communications, for telling us what’s happening with SR20.
USBR10
Check out our USBR 10 page, where you’ll find a map, information on the official designation as part of the US Bicycle Route System, and links to these and other posts:
Samantha Ollinger, Executive Director, Bike San Diego, was a featured speaker at the 2015 Washington Bike Summit. Image by Allison Don.
Guest blogger Samantha Ollinger, Executive Director of San Diego, gave the keynote address at breakfast on Day Two of the 2015 Washington Bike Summit. We added a couple of the tweets people shared during Sam’s remarks.
I had the thrill of speaking to a sold-out crowd of attendees committed to making Washington State more bike friendly at the recent Washington Bikes Summit. I wanted to also record some of my comments in written form so that those of you who missed the event can perhaps be inspired to be committed and stay the course to ensuring that your own community — in and beyond Washington State — is bike-friendly and a source of joy and pride to you.
Barb Chamberlain and I originally connected through the powerful medium of the internet when she somehow stumbled across my personal bike blog Brown Girl in the Lane several years ago. She was getting her feet wet in bike advocacy, and I personally had no real interest in advocacy (at the time) beyond ranting on my blog.
I had started the blog because someone on a local bike commuter forum complained about the dearth of local bike blogs and I figured I’d start one. The name of the blog was very deliberate — I wanted my audience to know that I was brown-skinned, I was female, and that I enjoyed puns (the name is a play on an old Boney M song, Brown Girl in the Ring).
I had just moved to San Diego with my husband (fulfilling his 16-year-old dream to live by the ocean so he could regularly surf). In San Diego we didn’t know a single person in the city. But I made a decision that I wanted to only befriend people who loved slow food and bicycling. And it is this decision that has opened up a whole new world, given me a whole new career and an engaging enough opportunity to stay in it longer than I would have otherwise.\
We had wound up in San Diego and during our journey to San Diego I had just undergone a fairly drastic personality change.
After a somewhat traumatic experience in my former home city of Philadelphia that shook my already introverted and withdrawn self to my very core, I convinced my husband to move across the country on a bicycle because I wanted to do something bold. I’m trained as an accountant and had carefully constructed my life to avoid human contact and most socialization — so this was a very bold idea for me to suggest. But I didn’t want to live a life of fear, worrying about things that may or may not happen.
So we sold everything we owned and replaced it with a bicycle, panniers, camping equipment and headed out West. Having never willingly ventured outside major cities by choice, I was very nervous oaboutf what to expect. In the post-9/11 world the fact that someone with my background (Indian — from Asia) could be mistaken for a potential terrorist was on the forefront of my mind. I had experienced fairly unpleasant encounters at airports and wasn’t eager to run into any citizen activists who could take a dislike to me upon sight. You know…the kind of activists I’d heard about on TV.
What I found riding through the country was something no media organization had bothered to inform me about. Our entire journey took us through communities that were filled with kind, humble people who willingly welcomed us into their communities, their homes, their yards (so we could pitch a tent) and willingly — and without us asking — invited us to share a meal, in exchange for sharing stories, experiences, hopes and dreams.
This was in the midst of the 2008 recession and a lot of communities were reeling from the housing collapse. But we experienced unbelievable amounts of kindness everywhere we went.
Prior to leaving Philadelphia, I was convinced that the entire countryside was filled with racist murderers who wanted nothing more than to lynch me. But the reality was much different. People were nice and compassionate and no one treated me differently because I looked different from the people they were typically accustomed to.
And it was during the course of that trip that I committed to offering myself to being of service in whatever community we’d wind up in to promote biking and walking. That community happened to be San Diego.
In Philly, I wasn’t much of a bike rider. My limit was 2 miles — on flat ground with no threat of inclement weather. I began to enjoy riding and actually fall in love with it on some of the longer trips my husband used to drag me out to on iffy trails (that have since been paved thanks to the Philadelphia Bike Coalition’s efforts). The clarity of thought and focus I get from long rides isn’t something I’ve been able to attain even through long silent meditation sessions. And that’s where the addiction to long rides began.
In San Diego — after taking a long time to get over the shock that despite the perfect weather, people preferred to be cooped up in their cars — I was consumed with one question: Why? Why aren’t people riding?
Over time I began to learn the answers. The barrier were many — freeways crisscrossing the city cutting neighborhoods from one another, urban canyons serving as another physical barrier along with mesas, valleys and other geographic formations — but at its core it was one issue that struck out over all the rest: the complete absence of political will to effect change to make San Diego’s transportation revolve around anything besides the automobile.
The story as Barb wrote was that I somehow was able to finagle mayoral candidates in our historically car-centric town to come out strongly in support of biking. But it wasn’t that easy.
What it was based on was a simple idea: What’s the harm in trying? What if you stayed persistent despite criticism, mockery, putdowns, and gave the dream your best shot? What if you focused on the small bits of encouragement — via bloggers located thousands of miles away, via strangers who shared one thing in common, our mutual love for bicycling — and tried to give it your best shot?
So that is the essential foundation of BikeSD: a member-supported, non-profit organization with an idea that seemed to be based on complete fantasy but now in three years has turned into a vision “that will probably never happen here.” Progress, as I see it. And an exciting journey to be travelling along.
The simple pleasure of a bike ride, every day. That’s 30 Days of Biking, an international challenge, and it’s time once again to make the pledge and plan to get rolling April 1 (no fooling).
The challenge: Whether you ride around your block, around town, or around the state, you just ride every day. Simple, right? For a little extra inspiration check our #BikeIt list and try a few things you haven’t done before.
Get Social and Win
If you go for it we want to give you a little something. Use the form at the bottom to request your “I Arrived by Bike” cards you can leave behind at local businesses to help them appreciate bicycling customers. (After all, bikes mean business — a message that helps recruit new allies to support better bike connections in your town.)
If you’re telling the world about your ride you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a coveted Washington Bikes coffee mug or other goodies.
“Rules”
Trying counts: No, you don’t have to complete all 30 days successfully to have a chance to win something from us.
Location and length don’t matter: Every ride counts. Indoors, outdoors, short, long.
Share to enter: Be sure we see the sharing: Tag your post with #30daysofbiking and #WAbikes and/or comment here with a link to your blog post or other item.
Sign up to enter: If you sign up below to get the “I Arrived by Bike” cards, put #30daysofbiking in the Comments field and you’re entered.
Blog to enter: Write a guest post for us with a progress report, story about an especially memorable ride, photo essay, video commentary — however you want to express the effects of committing to ride your bike every day.
Visit us to enter:
Seattlearea: Stop by our Pioneer Square store, take a selfie or a picture with one of our staff, and share that with us and others. While you’re there, check out our bike-themed gift shop and selection of bikey books; you probably deserve a little something for riding every day. (Especially good day to do this: April 2 #BikeLove Party.)
No matter how you accomplish it or how long you’ve been riding, 30 Days of Biking can give you new riding experiences and fresh perspectives on familiar routes.
While we were all busy putting the final touches on the Washington Bike Summit, KING 5 News did a story on bike education happening in Tumwater. They joined our Safety Education Program program in 2014 receiving bikes, training, and support to teach on bike safety skills to their middle school students. Check out their story.
On-bike programs like this are now happening in 40 school districts around the state. Thanks to the ongoing support of WSDOT’s Safe Routes to School Program, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the over-200 teachers who are part of this program, 16,000 middle school students get to have bike and pedestrian education in their P.E. classes each year. That is a lot of smiling faces.
“This past week I purchased a new bike. It is incredible to say the least. I could not have done this without your help; thank you so very much.”
This initial stage of installing bicycle parking around the city of Pullman has began and is already a success!
