Future Bike

About a third of the room threw a hand into the air when Adonia Lugo, Equity Initiatives Manager at the League of American Bicyclists requested, “Raise your hand if you think that you will be uncomfortable with some of the things said or discussed today.” Lugo went on to alert everyone they would likely uncomfortable at some point in the day, but that it would be a sign of progress. But really, it’s what everyone in the room had signed up for willingly.

Future Bike: At the Intersection of Mobility and Identity, was a half-day forum organized by the League of American Bicyclists’ Women Bike and Equity Initiative programs. The over one hundred planners, activists and community leaders who gathered to participate reflected much greater diversity of age, gender, race and ethnicity than at the Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference which had ended just an hour before.

Many had also attended Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place while others flew or drove into Pittsburgh specifically for the one-day program. The forum invited participants to engage in tough conversations around how to involve and be led by new and previously overlooked stakeholders, and how to genuinely integrate those new perspectives to redefine and grow the bike movement.

The vision of the event organizers was evident in the choice of the keynote speaker, James Rojas. A planner and architect, Rojas made a name for himself by breaking all existing rules of community engagement in city planning. In his breakout, Creative Biking Outreach Strategies: A Workshop with James Rojas, he led one of his signature sessions. “What is your favorite childhood memory?” was the first question asked. According to Rojas, planning is too often about words when it should be about creativity and play. Then each group of adults was surrounded with toys and playthings and asked to build their ideal neighborhood. Using this method, everyone generated ideas on planning worth listening to.

In a session called Future Messaging presenters Monica Garrison, founder of Black Girls Do Bike; Rebecca Susman, BikePGH Membership and Outreach Coordinator; and Echo Rivera who authors the blog Echo in the City, brought together a cohesive presentation about how to bring people into cycling. Through the creation of jerseys and logos, Garrison quickly learned that black women who ride have been yearning for images of bikers that looked like them. Boiled down, all three presenters had success in engaging new audiences through the use of pictures, comics, representation, and humor.

So what will the future of the bike movement look like? For biking to ever become mainstream, it must diversify. If the vision is an America where biking is mainstream and people self-identify as bikers as much as they do air-breathers, the movement must diversify for that vision to become a reality.

“The first step is to take the concept of equity and inclusivity seriously,” said Chema Hernandez Gil, a community organizer for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and Future Bike presenter. “It needs to be more than just a talking point but it’s going to require money and time and energy to get it there. And it’s going to make the movement much stronger in the long run.” –Ngani Ndimbie

How Parking Almost Killed The Cincinnati Bikeway

All was well for the construction of Cincinnati’s first protected bike lane, a 2.2-mile route on Central Parkway, until a familiar foe of alternative transportation reared its ugly head. Parking.

The Central Parkway Bikeway was seriously threatened when after more than a year of planning, a property owner along the route contacted council members to complain about losing parking on weekdays between 7 and 9 AM. This all despite open houses from officials, letters of notice sent to property owners, a $500,000 federal grant and a unanimous 9-0 vote approving the project from a previous city council. Somehow this wasn’t enough.

Frank Henson, President of Queen City Bike, says the complaint caught him completely off guard, noting, “this project had been vetted over a two-year process.” Cycling advocate, Bob Schwartz, echoed Henson’s sentiment, saying he was “dumbfounded” upon news of the parking complaint.

However, Senior City Planner with the City of Cincinnati Department of Transportation Melissa McVay says she knew going in that “this would be a challenging project,” though she reiterated the exhaustive process the city went through to prepare residents and business owners alike for construction.

“I think it always comes back to a basic fear of change,” she continues. “People feel comfortable with the status quo, and it can be really difficult for people to imagine how a change that might inconvenience them a little bit personally could also be game-changing in a really positive way for the broader community.”

That fear of change prompted a hearing to offer an alternative that would save the parking. The plan from Vice Mayor David Mann called for moving the route off-street at a cost of $110,000 and 15 trees—all to save a mere 10 hours of parking weekly. Rather than dragging the bikeway into a drawn out debate, or worse, risking its death, cycling advocates agreed to the changes.

“Eight days before the final approval it appeared that, without the alternate plan, the Central Parkway Bikeway Project would be terminated,” says Henson. Naturally Queen City Bike and the Cincinnati Cycling Club decided to endorse the alternative. “This project is more than 23,000-plus feet of bikeway and the change is only 500 feet.”

Derek Bauman, Chair of Cincinnatians For Progress, also threw his support behind the alternative. Not out of concern for a few parking spaces, mind you, but because he has seen how the current administration in Cincinnati treats alternative transportation projects. Earlier this year, the Cincinnati Streetcar had made national headlines when the same administration came close to canceling the long-planned project. Bauman’s organization is largely credited with providing the momentum to save the streetcar. When the bikeway was threatened, he threw his muscle behind it.

“Myself and a number of rail transit advocates joined with the bike community to lobby our elected officials, pack council meetings, write letters to the editor and support the project via social media,” Bauman explains. “In the end we were successful, and Cincinnati now has its first protected bike lane.”

Advocates ultimately count the Central Parkway Bikeway as a success. Horror stories of congestion have gone unrealized. Riders like Bob Schwartz and his wife use it regularly to connect to Over-The-Rhine’s Findlay Market. Best of all, new riders are coming out with their bikes.

“Every few days I get an email from someone telling me that they used to be too afraid to ride their bike to work,” says McVay. “But now with the new protected bike lanes, they felt like they could give it a try. Hearing that makes it all worth it.” –Joe Baur