Let’s Celebrate 2024 Bike Advocacy Wins 🥳

[Bike Shop Girl]

I’ve asked this before on social and the replies always get lost.

What were your local advocacy wins? This could include bike buses, grants, infrastructure, politics, etc!

 

[MelCo]

Starting a Bike Bus to my kids’ school!

Lots of great new bike infrastructure in my neighborhood in Denver too, and proud to have helped fight some of the NIMBYs to make sure it went in as planned.

 

[esmhutcheson]

I entered the bike advocacy world! It’s giving me purpose & community. It started w. A grant (that I didn’t get) that said I’d do 3 things: start a neighborhood bike club (we meet every Tuesday evening 6:15-7 and kids bike around), start a bike bus (this has been the hardest- we go 1x month w. Others, more often just my fam, gottta start somewhere), and host a bike walk and roll event. The bike club has been big for giving me a sense of success. I’ve been attending city meetings re bike network and new BRT and now the city of San Antonio people know me. I applied for our MPOs walkability workshop for our neighborhood and the next one over (where my kids school is) and got it! And my kids school was selected to be the city’s pilot school for a new safe routes to school program. This all happened at the end of the year so hopefully 2025 will be big. My biggest lesson is just ask for what you want! All the city planners are super happy to have someone asking for bike lanes.

 

[rebelwithoutacar]

The nonprofit I volunteer with (I am currently board chair) had a big year! We hired our first paid position of executive director (previously a volunteer role by our org founder), won a $10K local grant for branding and marketing (new logo and website woohoo!!), advocated for a $20M RAISE grant award that our county was awarded and $2.1M in SS4A funding for our city, and participated in a lot of public input and safety audit projects resulting in lots of exciting improvements around town. We have really grown our community events, and I may end up working for the org part time eventually because I just love engaging with other people who are passionate about changing our infrastructure and improving transportation options. We’ll see what 2025 holds!

 

[smitty2k1]

DC banned right on red in the whole city. However there were some issues with funding it - a judge ruled that every intersection needs signage or some such thing, so for now there is no enforcement. Maybe in the future.

 

[cargodad]

Our bike bus grown over the last 3 years to the point that local city officials have gone on ride-alongs, and then in turn been open to hearing our voice to making the neighborhood more friendly for families and children cyclists.

An extremely personal win this led to, was me asking for, and getting, a 4-way stop put in at the end of my street, the lack of which has given me anxiety since my kids were born. Other wins include bike lane to the school, more 4-way stops/crosswalks in the neighborhood, etc.

 

[Barb Schwendtner]

I was glad to see the 93 mile Lamoille Valley rail trail in VT repaired after significant flood damage. While mostly recreational, it's getting a lot of people on bikes. https://vtdigger.org/2024/06/16/lam...tly-reopened-in-year-since-historic-flooding/