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Politics. Love it or hate it—if you’re going to get better bicycle facilities built where you live, you’ve got to play.
For some, the ability to be political just comes naturally, making connections and glad-handing endlessly. For others, they find the whole process repulsive, preferring to stay as far away as possible. Wherever you are on the spectrum of loving or hating your time at City Hall, we hope that you’ll be able to take some tips and apply them towards making your community better for bicycling.
Kudos to you guys for writing this article. It is timely and badly needed. I have sent the link onto our local advocacy group – http://www.bikecalgary.org – hopefully it will help people realize that we can all do our small (or big) part to get more bike infrastructure built.
keep up the great work!
@BikeBike – it was a pleasure writing the article. I would love to hear from readers on additional topics that Urban Velo can cover relating to politics, advocacy, and how the two come together.
I live in the middle of suburban sprawl. While one local community has earned bronze status from the LAB, most others continue to build out infrastructure for cars while ignoring the needs of cyclists. One local community’s police department has even started to target cyclists for running stop signs. I recently inquired why the city I live in, the largest in the area, does not include cyclist’s needs in any of their road “improvement” projects and was told that they are trying to get funding for a two year project to develop a bike master plan. Two years to develop a plan ??? It will be 10 years before we see a single line painted.
The bottom line is that there is NO political will in our area to provide any cover for cyclists on the road.