II. First Lap (1973-1975)

WABA was rolling in high gear when it began its first full calendar year. As chairman, Shaw poured time and energy into WABA. The other Board members were enthusiastic and hard working.

WABA representatives testified before a wide range of government bodies on numerous bicycle-related subjects. Shaw, who had a beard when he started WABA, shaved it off to appear respectable when testifying.

In 1973, WABA testified before the Regional Air Quality Planning Committee on D.C., Maryland, and Virginia air quality plans; before the D.C. Council in support of the request by the Department of Highways and Traffic for a bike route system; and before Congress in support of a provision in the Federal Highway Bill to spend highway trust funds on bicycle improvements. The following year, WABA testified before the Maryland General Assembly for bills to provide access to sidewalks and divided highways.

In spring 1973, WABA testified before the D.C. Zoning Commission which resulted in the Commission ordering the developers of a downtown building to substitute bicycle racks for some of its planned automobile parking spaces.

Ride On!! grew in size and sophistication. The two exclamation points in the name were dropped. It came out on a regular, bimonthly schedule (almost). The issues of 1973 were mimeographed sheets, stapled together, and contained news of the District, Virginia, Maryland, Congress, and federal agencies. National, and even international news of bicycling activities was extensively covered. The issues also contained legislative updates and notices of hearings. Each issue during 1973 ran ten to fourteen pages. The layout was careful, though the mimeographed pages had a crude look. Later, production switched to photo offset. The quality of the writing remained high, and articles often contained detailed legislative and policy analysis.

Much of the WABA activity calendar printed in Ride On!! was devoted to recreational bike riding. Bike rides in 1973 went to Arlington, Anacostia, Mount Vernon, Wolf Trap, and Rock Creek Park. WABA even organized one overnight bike hike along the Chesapeake Bay. During 1973, beer and pizza rides were advertised several times.

The age of the "be-in," "teach-in," and "love-in" had not yet passed. On April 7, 1973, WABA organized a Cherry Blossom Bike-In, complete with a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial.

WABA offered a number of services to members and the general public. WABA ran bike repair courses, wheel truing sessions, and ride leader skills rides. WABA held a televised, public service educational program at the Central Arlington County Library. WABA also ran a survey of its members to evaluate bikeshops. The results, published in Ride On!!, incorporated almost 500 comments to rate twenty-one shops.

WABA was accepted by many government officials who looked to the organization for assistance. Its members provided advice on racks and parking devices to the Montgomery County Director of Parking. WABA established an official Citizen Advisory Committee in Montgomery County. WABA was appointed to the Council of Governments Transportation Planning Citizens Advisory Committee. WABA representatives participated in a National Bicycle Symposium sponsored by the Departments of Interior and Transportation. Even EPA used WABA's research library.

WABA offered to help the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) with a guide for bicycle routes, but it is not clear if the offer was taken up. Ride On!! did run a set of principles to be used in judging proposals for "bikeways, routes, lanes, paths, and facilities improvements."

Acceptance did not come easy, but clear victories were achievable. An early success was getting sewer grates covered in the District. Also WABA conducted an all-out lobbying campaign against part of a D.C. Highway Department bikeway proposal. WABA wrote a letter to each member of the Council with a detailed analysis of the proposal.

As a result, the parking and bikepath provisions were passed, but the bike routes opposed by WABA were defeated. An article in Ride On!! crowed, "Lessons to be drawn here are that genuine progress on safer commuter biking in the District can come only when WABA and the Highway Department agree on plans. Department proposals opposed by WABA will fail."

That wasn't always the case, even though WABA could be a feisty contender. On June 5, 1974, WABA announced at a press conference that it would sue the District for "flagrantly and deliberately violating a federal order to build a pilot bikeway." The bikeway, ordered by the EPA under the Clean Air Act, would have extended from Key Bridge to Alabama Avenue, S.E., passing the White House and the Capitol. Under the EPA requirement, it was to be completed by May 1, 1974. The pilot bikeway was just the initial step of EPA's larger bicycle order which required metropolitan area governments to build 180 miles of bikeways by the summer of 1976.

The suit was handled by WABA counsel Joel Joseph, who later ran against Polly Shackleton for the first popularly elected Ward 3 seat on the District Council.

WABA was proud of its David versus Goliath contest. A cartoon on the front page of Ride On!! showing two men labeled "WABA" and "EPA" dragging up the courthouse steps a man labeled "D.C." Unfortunately, later that year, the court dismissed the suit. In November, the board hesitantly approved $100 to file an appeal. Preparation of the appeal proposal dragged on more than a year, and eventually the suit was lost.

Other WABA initiatives were also more impressive in the planning stage. In 1975, WABA member Ron Bass proposed a pilot project to lease bicycles. Jack Sebastian of BMA heard the proposal given at a WABA Board meeting, and he thought it had merit. Officials at the Shoreham Hotel were also contacted, and they expressed interest. The idea may have become a victim of squabbling among Board members and no funding source was ever found.

In 1975, the board also discussed making a movie on bicycle safety. One of WABA's more attention-grabbing activities was the "Great Commuter Race" on October 31, 1973. The race was jointly sponsored by the Metropolitan Coalition for Clean Air, the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis, and WABA. Bicycles and automobiles left eleven locations simultaneously from ten neighborhoods in the District and Arlington. All participants converged on the front steps of the District Building. The rules required vehicles to obey all traffic laws and park only in a "legitimate parking space." Ten of the eleven bicyclists won.

WABA continued its interest in federal action. In 1974, WABA members Steve Hudak and Bruce Myles learned that Project Independence Blueprint, a federal plan to make the U.S. selfsufficient in energy by 1985, did not mention bicycles. They organized a number of bicycle-related groups around the country as the National Bicycling Coalition. The coalition testified on December 11, 1974 before the U.S. Energy Resources Council on the energy saving potential of bicycles. WABA paid all expenses for the coalition, including printing and staff time.

Of course, when U.S. government decisions affected local bicyclists, WABA lobbied on the national level. In January 1975, the National Park Service tore up the inner drives along the Mall, replaced them with gravel, and called them "bikepaths." WABA supported a suit in U.S. District Court to block the plan. WABA also involved Maryland Congressman Gilbert Gude in the effort.

During WABA's first year, a bikeways plan in the D.C. budget was denied. However, through diligent lobbying by WABA members, District Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Natcher reversed himself, and the proposal went through.

WABA began to experience peculiar difficulties that came with being established. For example, WABA received calls intended for radio station WAVA. And once, WABA got a call from an investigator who was trying to dig up dirt about a WABA board member who worked for the Center of Auto Safety. Apparently, the investigator was trying to make the case that any board member of a bicycle advocacy organization was inherently anti-automobile.

During this period, three WABA projects were begun which remained central to WABA's activities, and even had farranging influence outside of WABA. They were the Legal Panel, the Helmet Study, and the Greater Washington Area Bicycle Atlas. The establishment of these projects and their nurturing to success was a testament to the creativity and hard work put in by the early WABA members.

The Atlas had its genesis in 1973 as a joint effort with the Potomac Area Council of American Youth Hostels. AYH put up two-thirds of the initial publication costs, with WABA providing the rest. The book was written by Alan Berkowitz, an Antioch College cooperative student working in the WABA office.

It was completed early the following year. The book described 42 cycling trails, complete with descriptions and detailed maps, and contained 128 pages. It covered trails in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, and the District. With a $2 cover price (with a fifty cent discount to WABA members), it was only expected to break even. It was meant to be a public service and an effort to encourage bicycling by making it easier for the public to find enjoyable, safe bicycling routes.

The first printing of 9,000 copies was sold out by spring of the following year. A second printing of 3,000 was planned, with the AYH share as $2600 and WABA paying $1200. That printing, too, sold out quickly.

Willis Jourdin, Jr., a Washington attorney and WABA board member, came up with the idea for the WABA Legal Panel "to defend and advocate bicyclists' rights without charge." Jourdin was another key figure in WABA's early directions. Shaw later described him as "kind of a father figure. He had a lot of insight, a lot of wisdom, a lot of energy. He made proposals. He could be counted on to then follow them through. Yet he was very friendly."

The idea behind the legal panel was to help bicyclists who had been unfairly treated by the police or other officials, to change laws or regulations which affect bicycling, and to advise bicyclists of their rights. Jourdin and Joseph were the first co-directors. Within a year, they were joined by John English, who was director of research of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws.

The first printing of the "Legal Docket" in the May-June 1974 Ride On!! listed eight cases. These included a bicyclist run off the road in Bethesda, a cyclist hit by a right- turning car and the cyclist was held responsible, and a bicyclist illegally ticked for riding on the sidewalk in Georgetown.

Shaw himself used the services of the legal panel for a successful $1,000 personal injury suit when he suffered kidney injury from a bicycle accident along the trolley tracks below the Whitehurst Freeway.

Jourdin also came up with the idea for a study of bicycle helmets. At the time, the racer's hairnet was the traditional helmet, even though it provided little protection. If bicycle helmets were rare, rarer still was credible information about them. Jourdin wanted to evaluate the safety of the helmets on the market; however, WABA could not afford to pay a laboratory to do the testing, and testing by a manufacturer would be unacceptable. He got in touch with the Snell Memorial Foundation of Sacramento, California, named after race car driver Pete Snell who died in an accident in which his substandard helmet may have even contributed to his injuries. The Snell Foundation, a volunteer organization, tested the safety of first racing helmets, then motorcycle helmets.

The Snell Foundation wrote back to WABA that there weren't enough bicycle helmets on the market worth testing, so there was no point in Snell getting involved. Undeterred, Jourdin decided to focus on testing the comfort of helmets, which was in the scope of WABA's ability. In late 1974, WABA received donations of helmets from American Safety, MSR, Bell, Cooper, Nestor, Johnson, Protec, Safetec, and Shoei.

About twenty WABA members responded to a notice in the December Ride On!! and became members of the helmet testing panel. They borrowed the helmets, wore them for two weeks of regular cycling activities. filled out a questionnaire, then took another helmet.

Early on, Shaw recognized that WABA could not carry on a full range of activities as a strictly volunteer organization. He drafted a grant proposal in early 1973 for $7,500, which he submitted to the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation of Washington. The purpose of the grant was to develop a research resource for bicycle commuters and transportation planners, which was essentially what WABA was doing without the grant. The money would pay for office supplies, office rent, and support staff.

The grant was approved in June 1973, with Shaw as the administrator. However, the grant was contingent on WABA receiving 501(c)(3) status from the Internal Revenue Service. Though WABA had little trouble filing for the status, early on some members were afraid this might cramp WABA's lobbying activities.

Effective April 1973, WABA raised the dues to $5 for regular membership. The board also instituted two new membership categories: sustaining for $15; and $25 for sponsoring. The dues increase had no negative effect on membership. By September 1973, 520 members were recorded. About this time, WABA also received a $250 grant from the Bicycle Institute of America.

WABA also raised $160 through donations made in the memory of Leo Decrescente, a bicyclist who died in an accident April 2, 1973. The motorist who hit Decrescente was charged with criminal negligence. Donations were expressly earmarked to promote legislation which would improve bicycle safety. This was the first of three funds which were eventually established by WABA in memory of bicyclists who died in accidents.

WABA's first years saw few financial problems. In September the treasurer reported that during WABA's first year, it had $1300 income, $1300 in expenses, and a deficit of $50 to pay for meeting rooms. The treasurer did not report the source of the $50.

That fall, the money started coming in and WABA could act like a real organization. In October 1973, the board approved $100 for WABA's first employee, Lucy Domin, to help with executing the Meyer Foundation grant. Domin, a senior at George Washington University, was to be paid at "a rate equivalent to minimum wage." The following month, with coffers bulging at $9,500, the WABA board appropriated $3,200 for publication of the Atlas, voted to open a checking account, approved hiring an intern from Antioch College, and approved a move to a new office at 1346 Connecticut Avenue, N.E., at $95 monthly rent.

The new office, a small room in the Dupont Circle Building, was a friendly home for WABA. Bicycles could be taken into the building. Also, it was home to other, low budget, public interest organizations run by kindred souls. Office hours were normal business hours, plus Thursday evenings 7:00-9:00 p.m., and Saturdays, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

The low-paid staff changed frequently. Domin worked as a part time staff member until the middle of May 1974. A full time employee, John Robeck, worked during the first part of that year. Robeck was a student at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, who was working through Antioch's cooperate work program. Their duties included office maintenance, answering telephone calls and correspondence, and office work. An answering machine, donated by Shaw, took calls when the office was closed.

Robeck was succeeded by Eric Neurath, who apparently did not remain long in the position, and was followed by Leslie Seeche about June 1974. Seeche, also an Antioch intern, was paid $65 a week. Later, Lance Ringel was hired as the Office Manager toward the end of 1974. In an example of "title creep" which recurred several times in WABA's history, he was elevated to the position of "Executive Director" by the time he left June 9, 1975.

Shaw ran for reelection as Chairman against Steve Hudak at the annual meeting in September 1973. Hudak, who had worked closely with Shaw from the beginning of WABA, was an organization mainstay. He was the first ongoing editor of Ride On!!, and had served as secretary during the first part of 1973. After losing the chairmanship, Hudak settled for becoming Vice Chairman. However, Shaw abruptly resigned at a board meeting March 27, 1974, and Hudak took over.

Recalls Shaw: "I had been busy at WABA for over two years. I felt a lot of specific tasks had been accomplished. I felt that the organization was viable. I felt that some of the things were on to new stages. I think I had done my bit and I hoped that the organization could continue... But primarily it was a matter of having devoted an awful lot of time and effort over a couple of years and feeling it was a chance to go on to other things." Shaw changed jobs shortly afterward and had less time to spend on WABA. Though he maintained ties with some of the members of the board, he had little formal role with the organization after he resigned.

Shaw's departure left a vacuum that could not immediately be filled. He had the vision to see a more bicycle-oriented transportation system and the ability to deal with those who could make that vision a reality. He was boundless with energy toward his cause. He would often work at the WABA office past midnight and on weekends. Many WABA members remember first hearing about WABA directly from Shaw, who would stand with a clipboard on bicycle routes passing out WABA leaflets. Some have suggested that he seemed to work full time for WABA.

He also had a rare creativity to solve problems and the raw gumption to carry out his plans.

Shaw was annoyed that there was no bike path leading from the 14th Street Bridge sidewalk down to the area of the Jefferson Memorial -- just grass and mud. When D.C. officials refused to do anything about it, he got fed up. He took a series of photographs of a bicyclist riding on the path on the Virginia side leading to the bridge, riding on the bridge, and falling down in the mud on the District side. He mounted the photos on posterboard and labeled them with big letters.

A high ranking official in the D.C. Traffic Department was scheduled to deliver an address to a national group of highway planners meeting at the Sheraton. Shaw took the poster and put it on an easel outside the room where the official was supposed to speak. A few hours later, Shaw checked and found the poster turned toward the wall. Shaw then reversed it. But by the end of the day, the poster and easel were gone.

Less than a month later, that official was reported to have gone to the 14th Street Bridge, asking questions about how to build a bikepath. Within a few more months. the path was built.

In order to bicycle to his girlfriend's house, Shaw rode north on Connecticut Avenue across the Rock Creek Bridge. Because the street narrowed there, he felt safer on the sidewalk, but he had to stop to lift the bike over the curb. Shaw asked the D.C. Traffic Department to install a curb ramp, but officials told him that in order to put in a curb ramp they had to do an engineering study to determine if it would block debris that flows along the curb in the rain.

One day, he awoke to find a big pot of tar outside his apartment. Shaw recalls that he got dressed in workclothes and, in broad daylight, "I grabbed a whole bunch of it, I carted it over to the bridge, I plopped it down and I made this big, fat, wide, smooth ramp up to the sidewalk. And I also got some yellow paint and I painted a big traffic stripe leading to the ramp.

"When it was finished, I turned around, and almost immediately, someone was wheeling her baby carriage up the ramp. The woman said, 'I was watching you from the window. Thank you.' And a couple of minutes after that, someone whizzed along on a bicycle, saw the thing, zipped up on the ramp, and away he went."

Since that time, the District has added a number of "official" curb ramps there. The one that Shaw built is still there -- and, in fact, has a new coat of tar.

About March 1975, Shaw moved out of the Washington area.

Only four issues of Ride On!! were published in 1975, with none coming out after July.

Despite the huge surplus of funds in 1973 and the growing membership roll, some members of the board heard warning bells over WABA's fiscal policies. As early as April 1974, treasurer Fendall Marbury warned that operating deficits were running $400 a month, and that WABA would be broke in a year. In January 1975, a new treasurer, Pat Schooley, sounded the same note. Schooley reported that the previous three-month income averaged $389.45 each month, but WABA expenditures averaged a monthly $791.98. At that rate, Schooley predicted, WABA could only continue about 9 months.

Another dangerous practice was not dropping members who failed to renew. Membership was supposedly 707 in June 1974, and office manager Lance Ringel reported in May 1975 that WABA's membership stood at 960, but that some would have to be dropped for non-payment. Despite the glowing membership report, membership recruitment became an increasing focus of the board.

In spring 1975, Ringle left as Executive Director to go back to school to study film making. As an interim measure, the office was left staffed by volunteers. However, important clerical work was not always done adequately.

The solution to WABA's financial problems seemed to be another grant. A second proposal was submitted to the Meyer Foundation in April 1975, but it was turned down several months later. At the July board meeting it was calculated that WABA needed about 1,000 more members to pay the salary of a part time worker. A motion was made during that meeting to close the office. However, the board decided to keep it open staffed with volunteers.

more>>

I. At the Starting Line (1972) 

II. First Lap (1973-1975) 

III. Falling Off...And Getting Back On (1976-1978) 

IV. Drafting (1979-1981) 

V. Breaking Away (1982-1984) 

VI. Rounding the Bend (1985-1987)

VII. The Final Stretch (1988-1992)

Prepared for the WABA 15th Anniversary Banquet Rayburn House Office Building October 15, 1987 by Michael Gessel