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At the 2008 National Bike Summit advocacy leaders from across the country came up with a campaign that could raise the visibility of cycling in cities from coast to coast: Gas-Free Fridays.

Jumping on the concept, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition quickly launched the program, setting up Energizer Stations on major thoroughfares on consecutive Fridays to give residents an incentive to abandon the gas pump and pedal to work.

“We do it in July to play off of Independence Day — being patriotic by riding bicycles and lessening our country’s dependency on oil,” says Kate McCarthy, SFBC’s membership and volunteer director.

With the oil spill in the Gulf and President Barack Obama’s call for a “national mission” to wean Americans off of gasoline, SFBC hopes Gas-Free Fridays will spread to other cities this summer. So they’re making it easy for advocacy leaders to start a campaign in their community by sharing SFBC resources, like Energize Station checklists and model fliers.

According to McCarthy, the visible initiative is worth the effort.

“There are no hard numbers for participation with Gas-Free Fridays, but a couple hundred pass each Energizer Station each of the four Fridays, so on varying routes, that’s about 800 to 1,000 people, which is great,” she says. “We know that in San Francisco over the past three years, while there has been no on-ground bicycle improvements, bicycling increased by a whopping 53 percent, indicating that our encouragement campaigns are hugely successful.”

It’s been a boon for membership, too. The SFBC hooks as many as 10 new memberships at each Energizer Station. “Also the anecdotal evidence is great; riders stopping by and telling us they decided to ride because they heard about it on the news or because they heard about our stations from a friend,” McCarthy says.

To get more information and fire up this campaign in your community, check out SFBC’s campaign site, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or download the resources from the Alliance library.