With a Little Help from Advocates, Facebook “Likes” Bike Trails

Posted: 02/08/2012

Last week, volunteers working with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition announced that the social network giant Facebook agreed to provide the funding for bike trails around its new office park in Silicon Valley.

Many of Facebook’s employees are young and transplanted from areas with excellent cycling. Nearly 47 percent of the employees use alternative transportation to get to work. Yet, when Facebook moved into the new space in Palo Alto, the company didn’t realize the difficulties in biking to the campus. Newer cyclists, they realized, might be intimidated by the need to cross highways and ride in traffic.

Andrew Boone (in the video on the right), a member of the SVBC, and a team of fellow volunteers met with Facebook regularly to encourage them to make changes. Their strategy? To show Facebook that improving the infrastructure was good for both the community and the company. It would solve their future parking issues, as well as make it safer for people to bike or walk to work.

What made the partnership even sweeter was Facebook’s idea to help fundraise to complete a bike path near the campus and winding through Silicon Valley. “Facebook plans to help advocate for other companies spending money on bike paths,” Boone said. This support could prove beneficial when the small volunteer team goes to other companies to ask for their support.

But the work is not done. Boone hopes their strategy to understand Facebook’s wants and needs and find solutions that make both groups happy will work with the city council as the council moves forward in building the new bike lanes. Using basic principles of advocacy, the small team of volunteers were able to educate the social networking company and inspire people to join their team.

Boone and his team would not have been able to move this far forward if not for the support of the SVBC. Corrine Winter, President and Executive Director of the SVBC, says her favorite part of the process was “empowering local advocates to make a significant difference in the community.”

That support, and the ability to lend a stronger voice and far reaching network, will help to move this campaign forward in the next few months.