The Case for Bikes and Bike Share at ODU

Protected bike lane (cycle track) in Bogota, Colombia. From https://cbuscyclechic.wordpress.com.

In case you might have missed it last weekend, the regional public radio program With Good Reason highlighted bicycling last week in a episode called “Pedal Power.”  The first segment is an interview with Ralph Buehler, a Virginia Tech professor in Urban Affairs and Planning, who does a nice job laying out benefits of building bicycle infrastructure so that everyone can use a bicycle as a transportation option, and some of the reasons we have yet to do that in the U.S .

The episode also highlights the bike share program at Old Dominion University and explores the growing popularity of e-bikes, bicycles with electric motors that allow a wider range of people to use a bike for transportation in a wider array of contexts.

Bike Walk Award and Southside Family Ride

Bike Walk Rocks

This may be old news to those avid RTD readers among you, but our own Bike Walk RVA beat out eight competitors to win this year’s People’s Choice Award for Best Advocacy Organization in the U.S. from Bicycling Magazine and the Alliance for Biking and Walking!  Congrats to Bike Walk RVA!

If you read this blog you have some idea of what the organization has been up to that attracted the nomination in the first place, but the RTD report offers some highlights.  And clearly they have some strong support in this region and elsewhere, since the final victory was based on voting.

The competition included local and state-level organizations from Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Minneapolis, San Diego, Delaware, Georgia, not to mention the Cascade Bicycling Club in Seattle, where Bike Walk’s director Max Hepp-Buchanan got his start before begin lured to Richmond.

Southside Family Walk and Bike 

One of the things that Bike Walk RVA has done to earn this recognition is to start Bike Walk Academy, an 8-week training session meant to encourage and educate citizen advocates for bicycling and pedestrian issues.  This is a really valuable program because an advocacy organization is only as good as its supporters and local advocates.

The academy graduates have formed groups to work on issues in each region of the city.  The southside group has been meeting with residents and working on organizing local residents and getting better bike lanes and cross walks.  They are also holding a family bike and walk event for next weekend, on Sunday 3/29, 1:30 p.m.  See details below.