WABA Quick Release

Posts Tagged ‘outreach’

Hop on your bikes and head down to the National Mall to join WABA and thousands of local residents in celebrating Earth Day 2012.  As always, we’ll be treated to top-notch musical performances, prominent speakers and celebrity appearances, interactive exhibits, and demonstrations.

Not only is the event free, but so is the bike valet! WABA is proud to provide  ample, safe, and accessible bike valet services throughout the event.

Find us from 11am-7pm at  the SW corner of the mall panel between 12th & 13th. We’ll have bike maps, stickers, safety information, and smiles – AND we’ll keep a watchful eye on your bike while you’re enjoying the festivities.

Find out more about the 2012 Earth Day Rally on the National Mall 

This post is part of WABA’s Women on Bikes program, an ongoing campaign to create a community, share resources, and develop strategies for getting more women on bikes. To read about the project so far, click here to check out the WABA blog. To learn more and sign up to receive emails about this project, click here.

By Kiera Zitelman & Laura Jean Shane, WABA’s Women’s Bicycling Interns 

WABA is proud to introduce our new Women’s Bicycling Outreach and Advocacy campaign, Women on Bikes.

It’s a fact: Women in our region bike less than men. We learned from the Women’s Forum last winter that WABA needs to step up and do something about it. So we’ve been hard at work developing a plan. With spring in the air and bike month on the way, now is the time to get moving. Now is the time to bring together the women in your life that say, “I’m interested in biking , but…”

Women on Bikes is WABA’s new approach to women’s bike outreach and for this to work we need your help. Our goal is to help women who bike for recreation/fitness to become transportational bicyclists and we plan to do it by bringing women together. We want to reach out to you, your best friend, your aunt, your co-worker, your favorite women of all ages and experience levels–whether they already bike or have only thought about biking.  We’re asking you to become our Bike SpokesWomen. To us, a Bike SpokesWoman is a bicyclist who sees the benefits of more women on bikes and wants to step up and help make it happen.

This campaign will truly be only as successful as our ability to get new faces in the room or in the bike lanes! That’s where Bike SpokesWomen come in. You can be a bike buddy and mentor, and you can turn a recreational rider into a city rider by bringing her along for the ride to our events and to bike rides and outings throughout the region.

How to Get Involved

So we’re asking two favors of you, our Bike SpokesWomen:

1. We need you to sign up for our email updates. You can do that here.
2. And we need you to bring one woman–just one!–to a Women on Bikes event. You can use our handy Tell-A-Friend tool to start the conversation.

The Women on Bikes campaign consists of educational meet-ups, bike classes, and friendly rides that will seek to address the concerns of new transportational bicyclists. These FREE events will present opportunities to turn the interested but concerned riders in your life into confident, effective street riders.

Women on Bikes Events

The action begins this weekend:

On Saturday, April 7th, we are hosting our first Women on Bikes Meet-up, a conversation about bikes. We want you—our friends and cyclists—to bring along a woman you know who wants to ride and who has questions and concerns. The event is designed to present useful information in a fun and social setting.

Sign up for Women on Bikes email updates to learn how to register for this and future events.

Become a BikeSpokesWomen now!

Then pass along the invitation.

Laura Jean Shane is a spring 2012 Women’s Bicycle Outreach & Advocacy Intern. She  came to WABA as a former sports medicine professional and current Masters of Public Health student at GWU. A devotee of RAGBRAI, she moved to DC last year and cannot imagine getting around any other way.

Kiera Zitelman is a spring 2012 Women’s Bicycle Outreach & Advocacy Intern. She has gotten around the DC area by bike for years since growing up in Silver Spring. As an environmental science and policy student at UMD, she uses her bike to navigate campus every day and ride the Anacostia Tributary trails near College Park on the weekends.

Last year, one of WABA’s most popular and influential outreach activities was our East of the River Mobile Bike Shop series.  In the spring and summer of 2011, we partnered with DC bike co-op The Bike House to repair bikes in parts of the District where residents lack easy access to a local bike shop.

In 2012, we plan to host a mobile bike shop each month throughout the Spring and Summer, and we need the help, hard work, and talent of local mechanics willing to provide technical support for cyclists in need.  WABA seeks interested organizations and individuals with the mechanical expertise to replace cables, patch tubes, replace brake pads, and provide general repair services at these outdoor community gatherings.

If you are an organization interested in taking on this year’s mobile bike shop series, please review the following RFP and submit a brief proposal to mobilebikeshop@waba.org by April 6th.  And if you are a mechanically-inclined individual interested in volunteering, send us an email with your skills and availability.

Mobile Bike Shop RFP

And we wish all the best to our friends and 2011 partners from The Bike House as they focus their mechanical skills on serving Petworth and Bloomingdale cyclists at Annie’s Ace Hardware at 1240 Upshur Street, NW and at the Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market at 1st & R Streets, NW. For more information on their work visit www.thebikehouse.org.

This post is part of the WABA Women Bicycling Project, an ongoing campaign to create a community, share resources and develop strategies for getting more women on bikes.  To read about the project so far, check out Quick Release, the WABA blog. To learn more and sign up to receive emails about this project, click here.

At long last, we are proud to present the audio recording of our Regional Women’s Forum, held last December.

WABA’s Women’s Forum Audio – December 12, 2011

This is the uncut audio from the event, and to help you identify the speakers, here is a list of the women who were on the panel:

Panel moderator

Jesse Cohn, WABA’s Women’s Bicycling  Advocacy & Outreach Intern

Panelists

Veronica Davis, Black Women Bike DC
Heather Deutsch, DDOT
Tracy Hadden-Loh, Rails-To-Trails
Ellen Jones, DC Bicycle Advisory Council
Katie Knight, Revolution Cycles
Finnuola Quinn, Alta Planning & Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling
Kate Ryan, WTOP news
Elizabeth Sherwood, BicycleSPACE
Katie Sihler, goDCgo

Sign up to receive emails about this project here.

Here at WABA, we are still thinking very much about this topic and the bigger questions it raises, as well as how it relates to the ideas that WABA talked about at our Regional Bike Summit in November. We will have some new projects here soon that will help further the conversation and keep the wheels turning. With that in mind, we would like to introduce our new Women’s Bicycling Advocacy & Outreach Interns: Keira Zitelman and Laura Jean Shane! We are very happy to have them both and we will have more details on their projects for the spring in the coming weeks.

One idea that came up again and again during the planning for the forum and afterwards was that this is not a gender-based problem. There is a large proportion of the general public (as high as 60%) who define themselves as “interested in cycling” but with significant reservations–about safety, about buying a bike, about infrastructure, about sweatiness and showers–and this group includes men and women, the old and the young, and people of every description and demographic.

These are the people who are on the cusp of taking up cycling for transportation, and at the core of our Women’s Bicycling Advocacy & Outreach project is the desire to determine what an organization with WABA’s reach and resources can do to convince women (and men) to take the plunge.

You can join the conversation by signing up to receive emails about our Women’s Bicycling Advocacy & Outreach project and by posting on this thread on the Washington Area Bike Forum.

WABA’s “Got Lights?” project gives away 1,000 free sets of front and rear lights (provided by DDOT) and will continue all year in various locations throughout the District.  We are committed to giving each and every light set to cyclists who are riding without lights when we find them. If you already have lights on your bike, please consider helping us put these lights on the bikes that need them. Call 202-518-0524 x200 or email bikeambassador@waba.org to help out! This post was written by WABA member and volunteer DC Bike Ambassador Jason Clock.

The Dark Ages

Daylight Savings Time ended on November 6th, and since then WABA has been waiting for their bike light sets to be paid for/arrive (as a volunteer, information isn’t always easy to come by). The first few weeks after the time change are statistically some of the worst to be a pedestrian (or a bicyclist), as the number of crashes jumps up.

But for most bicyclists, evening commutes stay dark well into the late winter/early spring, so even though WABA’s lights only arrived last week, the need for lights on bikes hasn’t gone away. This is definitely the time of year when many cyclists are not visible due to lack of lights and reflective clothing.

Bike Lights For the Lightless

WABA’s goal is to target cyclists “riding dark”, i.e. people who don’t have any lights on their bike at all. Whether it’s due to a lack of knowledge about the laws requiring lights, an inability to afford them, not knowing where to buy them, or just plain forgetfulness, these people are the ones who are the most vulnerable.

So when the DC Bike Ambassadors were asked to sign up for the Bike Light Blitz–riding around with a bag of light sets and handing them out with a smile and a “Got Bike? Get WABA” business card, I was happy to help out. Here’s my timeline of the evening.

• 6:00 PM: I arrived at WABA HQ in Adams Morgan and grabbed a bag of bike lights. 15 white front lights and 15 red rear lights in the “knog” style, single-piece lights with a silicon strap that loops around handlebars, seat posts, or pretty much anything else.

• 6:10 PM: I decked out my bike with a few light sets to draw attention and designated a pocket each for front lights, rear lights, and WABA cards. Joined by the rest of the Bike Light Blitzers, I headed out. We were allowed to pick our own routes, and I chose to head towards downtown, riding along the 15th street cycle track with an eye out for “stealth riders” to start blitzing. I quickly encountered a few “False IDs”–riders with rear red lights but no front white lights. I told them that a front light is not only good for visibility, but is required by law when riding at night.

• 
  6:30 PM: Feeling like a bike messenger, I pushed hard to chase down one stealth rider after another, standing on the pedals and hoping for a red light that would give me a few seconds to pull up alongside and enlighten them. The adrenaline rush helped break the ice, since most riders were a little suspicious at first. “I am just going across the street,” complained one single-speed cyclist–decked out in dark clothing on a black bike. “How much?” asked another rider. “No trick here,” I assured him, “I’m just shedding some light on the stealth riders of the District.” My pun went unnoticed, but the bike lights were appreciated.

• 6:45 PM: I fully expected that the morning’s rain would keep the number of cyclists low in the evening, but I was shocked to find myself out of light sets in just 35 minutes!  I was surprised by how many cyclists did not have lights.  Many of them also wore dark clothing which certainly did not help visibility. And worst of all, most people didn’t even realize they were putting themselves in unnecessary danger.

A Brighter Future

I have to say I had a blast helping out with the Bike Light Blitz, and I plan to grab a few more bike light sets to keep on hand for when I come across stealth riders on my normal commute.  And, after counting dark cyclists while walking my dog, I might stash a few sets in my coat pockets for those times when I’m on foot, too.

You Can Help Too

Become a volunteer Bike Ambassador and help spread the word about bikes to your community, workplace and friends. We educate cyclists and motorists about safe cycling and have a good time doing it. You can contact Daniel Hoagland, WABA’s Bike Ambassador Coordinator by emailing bikeambassador@waba.org

Thank you to WABA & DDOT for making free bike lights possible!

WABA will be hitting the streets tonight to begin our “Got Lights?” program for 2012, giving away 1,000 free sets of front and rear lights (provided by DDOT). The program is designed to target bicyclists riding after dark without lights. This post is a personal story from Gina Arlotto, who handles WABA’s Planning and Organizational Development, about teaching her kids about bike safety and the importance of having lights (and other safety equipment) on bikes.

WABA's branded bike lights for the Got Lights? giveaway

One Parent’s Perspective

It will come as no surprise to you to learn that kids really don’t like being told what to do. And they dislike it even more when they hit adolescence. Trust me, having to repeat the same lessons (pick your battles!) a million times gets old from a parent’s perspective, too.

Happily, teaching and practicing safe bicycling habits is one of those battles that we pick. It’s how I combat the anxiety I feel about them riding to school alone every day. I know they have the skills to control what they can–by following the rules of the road, by signaling, by stopping at stop signs and red lights–and the proper safety equipment. And I hope they can handle what they can’t control, especially the drivers commuting through our neighborhood without regard for bicyclists.  My kids know that following the rules of the road and having the proper bike safety equipment is not only the law, it’s also the safest way to ride.

My son (15) has taken many of my lessons to heart, but he takes the Metro to school (and as a teenage boy, will be a safety work-in-progress for some time regardless). I usually ride with my daughter (9) to school before I head into work, so I am able to observe her bike behavior closely.

A Bike Safety Prodigy

But for my 12-year-old daughter MaryGrace, it is imperative that she follow our safe cycling rules as she rides the 10 blocks to Stuart Hobson Middle School alongside car commuters. If you’re at all familiar with middle schoolers, you know they especially don’t like being told what to do, and my daughter is no exception. For a long time, I couldn’t be sure if all our lessons on bike safety were sinking in.

Thankfully, I periodically get reports from neighbors complimenting her for stopping at red lights and riding safely around the neighborhood. And if I needed any more reassurance, I only have to think of her response when I praised her on a long ride about how well she was doing. “Mom, I’m a bike safety prodigy,” she said with all the attitude of a typical 7th grade girl. Nevertheless, I could tell she was proud of herself.

Bike lights as critical bike safety equipment is a common theme in our house. We installed lights on the kids’ bikes before they rode them for the first time, so the conversation mostly consists of reminding the kids to turn the lights on, even during the daylight hours. When we’re out and about on Capitol Hill we see a lot of bicyclists riding around without lights, and my kids are often the first to point them out.  “Wow. That’s not safe,” they say, “You can’t even see them!”

Needless to say, I was thrilled when, a few weeks ago, I came home to find MaryGrace out on the sidewalk installing a set of lights on her friend’s new bike. When MaryGrace saw the bike, she said the first thing she told her friend was that she needed a set of lights.  After school let out they rode to our house and, after rummaging around in my husband’s basement work bench, fortunately located a spare set.  Not content to just give the lights to her friend to mount on the bike later, MaryGrace had grabbed a screwdriver and they worked together to get everything attached for the now-dark ride home. A “bike safety prodigy” indeed!

Visibility is Your First Priority

All of this is to say that if a slightly stubborn (but always adorable) 12-year-old middle school girl can recognize the importance of a set of bike lights, then you probably should too. And to any other parents out there, sometimes you really do have to repeat an important lesson a million times before it sticks. If you’re very lucky, you’ll be there when it does.

WABA’s “Got Lights?” project begins today and will continue in various locations throughout the District until we’ve given away all 1000 sets.  We are committed to giving each and every light set to cyclists who are riding without lights when we find them. If you already have lights on your bike, please consider helping us put these lights on the bikes that need them. Call 202-518-0524 or email advocacy@waba.org to help out!

Last Saturday we celebrated the 500+ bicyclists who resolved to ride responsibly throughout 2012.  The Resolution to Ride Responsibly is a year-long commitment to be a responsible bicyclist, to respect the rights of all road users, to yield to pedestrians and to do your part to make our roadways safe places.

Once again we invited our members and supporters to join us for an easy, fun ride to demonstrate these commitments. And this year, the weather cooperated fully, providing us with an incredibly warm January morning!

More than 60 bicyclists from all over the region joined us for the ride, a jaunty 6.5-mile ride through some of the District’s most vibrant neighborhoods.  As a group we discussed the importance of respectful and predictable riding behaviors, and showed that groups of bicyclists belong on the roads along the way. We enjoyed each other’s company and talked about what unites us all, our sincere appreciation for bicycles.

In the past few months, WABA has been receiving more questions about taxis and how to better educate taxi drivers on safe driving near bicyclists and bicycle infrastructure. Educating the District’s 8000+ taxicab operators is a daunting task, made more difficult by both communication and logistical issues. Last November, with the help of DDOT, WABA’s Bike Ambassador attended a meeting of the DC Taxicab Commission and presented on bicyclists’ concerns and discussed potential opportunities to work with the Commission and drivers on alleviating these issues and improving our access to taxicab operators.

More recently, WABA submitted the following testimony on the proposed taxicab industry reform law.  Essentially, our testimony seeks to create an opportunity to ensure that bicycling is addressed in licensure and training standards, and that the goal of the legislation be broadened to include roadway safety generally, rather than simply regulation of the driver-passenger relationship.

Realistically, the particular standards that District taxi drivers will need to meet, as well as the educational and training elements that will be required of them, will most likely be set through a series of rulemakings–not through this legislation directly.  So while it is important that the legislation make clear that the interests of roadway users in general, and cyclists in particular, are relevant and important to the development of these rules, it is as important that cyclists be ready and willing to participate in the Commission’s rulemaking process that will ultimately set these standards.

WABA will continue to work on this issue and seek the necessary resources to develop a more robust and region-wide outreach and education program directed toward taxi drivers.  Meanwhile, we encourage those interested in this issue to CLICK HERE to sign up for alerts on the issue, and to support the development of this program.

Taxicab Legislation Testimony

Last Thursday, The Bike Rack offered a new educational opportunity to its customers and we were happy to help out. Our Bike Commuting Seminar has been one of the services that we offer to are employers looking to show the benefits of biking and physical activity to their employees.  Traditionally, we have held the class as a “brown bag” lunchtime education session for employees, complete with a slideshow, folding bike demonstration, free maps and guides for attendees, and a discounted WABA membership offer.

But The Bike Rack wanted to offer the class not to its employees but to its customers–giving non-commuter cyclists a chance to ask questions and current bike commuters an opportunity to expose their friends to the idea in comfortable environment. We worked with them to be able to provide the class for free, and as a result, we may have created some new bike commuters! More than 20 curious bicyclists packed the bike shop and helped themselves to free wine and pizza provided by local pizzeria Pizza No. 17.

We want to thank Chuck and the rest of The Bike Rack staff for inviting us out to the shop and for giving us the opportunity to expand our bike education offerings, and for providing such a great event space!

But one class isn’t enough…we want to extend this opportunity to other bike shops throughout the region. We want to give you the opportunity to bring your friends out so they can learn about bike commuting in a fun, easy way. So let your local bike shop know that you would be happy to see a class offered there. Let them know that they can get in touch with us to set it up.

And of course, our Bike Commuter Seminars are still available to employers as a great way to encourage bicycle commuting, provide a little education to your employees and make some headway on that “Bicycle Friendly Business” application…

Contact info for Bike Commuter Seminars:
Daniel Hoagland
202-518-0524 x200
daniel@waba.org