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Entries tagged: Advocacy Advance Grant

In Fall 2010, Advocacy Advance awarded the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation a $30,000 grant to create a local advocacy organization in the Greater Kansas City MO/KS region. A year and a half later, BikeWalkKC has over 200 members, a $90,000 budget, 2.5 FT equivalent staff (including this year’s Alliance Advocacy Awards Advocate of the Year winner, Eric Rogers), a strong education program, and many campaign successes.

Kansas City is dedicating $500,000 per year for five years for its share of the regional Katy Trail, a corridor that is part of the Jackson County Commuter Rail-with-Trail plan. In 2011, Kansas City achieved Bronze status from the League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly Communities program and its City Council adopted a Complete Streets Resolution, along with nine other communities covering 48% of the metro population. BikeWalkKC launched a Regional Funding Cooperation campaign and is working with a coalition of regional Parks and Recs directors on enabling state legislation to fund regional trails and bike routes. Additionally, a Blue Cross and Blue Shield-sponsored bike share program will start in Kansas City this summer and the organization’s CMAQ-funded Education program has served over 2,000 people in eight monthly classes with LCI instruction, school programs in low income and minority neighborhoods, and corporate lunch-and-learns.

BikeWalkKC certainly hit the ground running. Ongoing support from a statewide organization, working off of a clear, collaborative vision, addressing the technical steps for starting a new advocacy organization, and building local partnerships are the recipe for success in Kansas City – one that many Alliance member organizations have and can continue to learn from.

The Bicycle Coalition of Maine, a recipient of a Fall 2010 Advocacy Advance Innovation Grant, completed its “Community Spokes Grassroots Advocacy” proposal this past month.  BCM used the $18,000 award to launch a series of one-day advocacy trainings. Modeled after the Alliance’s Winning Campaign Training approach, these workshops train Community Spokes to carry our successful campaigns in their local communities.

BCM has already seen its new Community Spokes in action. Craig Saddlemire, a participant of the November training, created a joint bike/ped committee for the twin cities of Lewiston-Auburn and met with the newly elected mayors of the cities to advocate for better biking. When BCM organized for the successful Cardin-Cochran Amendment campaign in March, Craig created a local delegation, including a local bike shop owner, transportation planner and public health advocate, to make in-district meetings.

The Advocacy Advance grant, and the additional $33,000 in matching funds leveraged by BCM, gave the resources and focus to develop a strategic program the Coalition has dreamed of for years. The first Community Spokes training was followed by multiple Mutual Aid Calls on topics such as “What does the MDOT do and how can it help you?” and a second training is planned for June 19.

Bicycle Coalition of Maine’s Community Spokes curriculum and Toolkit can be used by other Alliance members interested in facilitating advocacy campaign trainings in their communities.

As Carolyn wrote earlier this week, bike share systems are all the buzz among big city transportation officials as an effective, economical and even attractive means to increase mobility in their bustling urban cores. Not to be outdone by the likes of New York City and San Francisco, advocates in Kansas City — recipients of a 2010 Advocacy Advance Grant — have added Missouri to that growing list.

Yesterday, the City of Kansas City passed a resolution permitting the establishment of BikeShareKC and committing to increase the number of bike lanes along BikeShareKC routes.

The new B-cycle system is a joint effort of BikeWalkKC and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City. According to the press release: “BikeWalkKC is partnering with Blue KC to bring bike share to Kansas City as a healthy low-cost transportation option. Blue KC will take the lead in driving development of BikeShareKC by enlisting other leaders in the business community to commit to sponsorships, advertising deals and/or augmenting their employee wellness offering by subsidizing memberships.”

BikeWalkKC and Blue KC aim to have 20 stations with 200 bikes up and running by summer 2012. Bikes will be available nine months of the year, with annual memberships that entitle users to unlimited 30-45 minutes trips around the city. The stations will even be equipped with a smartphone app that will allow riders to determine the availability of bikes anywhere in the system. Plus, using B-Cycle technology, riders will be able to track their miles traveled, calories burned and pounds of carbon dioxide saved.

“BikeShareKC will bridge the awkward distances that are too far to walk but too short to drive,” Eric Rogers, executive director of BikeWalkKC said. “It will also expand the reach of the transit system by providing new options for the ‘last mile.’ And it will help clear the air while giving Kansas Citians a new option for being healthy and active.”

“BikeShareKC offers a much needed alternative form of transportation around Kansas City, while also promoting physical activity to its residents,” added David Gentile, President and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.

Read the full press release here.

The California Bicycle Coalition (CBC), a recipient of a Fall 2010 Advocacy Advance Grant, completed its $30,000 “Leveraging the Bike Power of the Golden State” Start-up Grant proposal in December. The grant funds, which were matched three-fold, helped relaunch the organization, hire a second full-time staff, support key advocacy initiatives and explore membership models for a statewide organization in a state that has 15 professional-staffed bicycle advocacy groups.

CBC successfully advocated for a reform of the Caltrans California Traffic Controls Devices Committee – which controls what signs, signals, and stripes are allowed on California’s roads – to require two representatives of non-motorized transportation sit on the committee. This restructuring will help ensure that complete streets standards are upheld throughout the state.

Despite statewide outreach and advocacy for a three-foot passing bill that was passed through the legislature, the governor vetoed the bill this past fall. The California Bicycle Coalition plans to continue their Give Me 3 campaign and run the bill again this year to ensure that California drivers give bicyclists at least 3 feet of space when passing from behind. Additional ongoing CBC campaigns and projects include high-speed rail access for bikes, institutionalizing cycling education in California schools, and planning a social equity and bicycling summit in 2012.

In November, CBC organized the California Bike Summit in L.A. The summit brought together bike advocates from the nonprofit, public and private sectors to help set the statewide bicycling agenda for 2012 and beyond. The summit program also strengthened the capacity of participants through workshops devoted to sharing best practices, successes, and lessons learned.

California Bicycle Coalition joins more than two dozen other organizations that have used Advocacy Advance grant funding to spur development and carry out successful bicycle and pedestrian campaigns. Check back in coming weeks for information about this year’s funding cycle.

Last month, Livable Memphis, a recipient of a Fall 2010 Advocacy Advance Grant, completed its “Overton-Broad Connector” Innovation Grant proposal. The advocates used their $25,000 award to introduce two model innovations to the Memphis community.

The New Face for an Old Broad event in November 2010 took the Better Blocks concept to a new level by temporarily reprogramming a street to show how bicycle and pedestrian facilities can encourage economic development. Three blocks of the Broad Avenue commercial district were turned into a DIY weekend festival. Local schools painted crosswalks, vacant storefronts were cleaned out and turned into pop-up shops and cafes, local artists created murals. The temporary redesign of the streetscape, including painted protected bike lines, have remained untouched for more than a year because they follow code standards and the local community has been pleased with the increase of business.

The grant also supported Livable Memphis’s advocacy efforts to complete the Overton-Broad Connector. The park trail segment will serve as the only pedestrian entrance to Overton Park from the east and increase access to mixed-income communities. Livable Memphis completed the design concept and is working to raise additional funds needed to complete the cycle track.

Going above and beyond the matching grant requirement, Livable Memphis raised more than $100,000 in sponsorships, donations, grants, event proceeds, and membership dues for its efforts. The advocates’ work has received additional financial support from Bikes Belong, Tennessee Recreational Trails Program, and HUS Sustainable Communities grant program.

In addition, Livable Memphis introduced updates to Memphis pedestrian ordinances regarding ADA access and crosswalk right-of-ways, which passed City Council, and developed a new “fines and fees” ordinance that will bring violation charges regarding bicycles and pedestrians up to the standard of their peer cities.

We’ve added added materials to our Online Resource Library that Livable Memphis used in its advocacy and feel would be useful for other Alliance member organizations:

• Sample Request for Proposal for Professional Design Services and instructions for submitting a Letter of Interest
• Traffic Volume Count Study Methods

Livable Memphis joins the more than two dozen other organizations that have used Advocacy Advance grant funding to spur development and carry out successful bicycle and pedestrian campaigns. Check back in coming weeks for information about next year’s funding cycle.

In 2009, during the very first round of Advocacy Advance Grant awards, the Alliance bolstered an innovative effort by Transportation Alternatives to bring together stakeholders for safer streets in New York City. The result was a comprehensive, hard-hitting and widely read report that took the media by storm and laid out specific recommendations for improvement. Just last month, that report led to a major victory.

According to T.A., Executive Order: A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety is a key reason Mayor Michael Bloomberg just signed a new law that will throw open the previously closed doors on vital, actionable traffic data. As T.A. explains in the March edition of Streetbeat, “the best advocates don’t believe in armchairs,” so their 2009 report was “hefty with actionable recommendations to improve the system.” One of the most important suggestions was aimed at the police department: Release all traffic safety data, including crashes, contributing factors and summonses. With support from the Alliance Advocacy Advance Grant, they used that springboard to launch a legislative campaign that included the Saving Lives Through Better Information Bill, a measure that addressed that public data deficiency. Last month, the bill was passed by the City Council and signed by the Mayor.

“The Saving Lives Through Better Information bill was T.A.‘s brainchild because we understand enforcement will only get better with better data,” T.A. explains in Streetbeat. “Because of T.A. advocacy, soon each month every NYPD precinct will publish online:

• Locations of every crash, pinpointing dangerous locations
• Number of crashes, fatalities and injuries of motor vehicle drivers and passengers, cyclists and pedestrians
• Contributing factors (like unsafe speed or red light running) that caused each crash, creating a priority list for summonsing efforts
• Summonses issued, indicating whether precincts are responding to problems

This summer will come with access to a wealth of information that before was hidden—all in real data you can take right to your precinct Community Council and ask what for.”

Click here to read more about T.A.’s innovative campaigns. Learn more about Advocacy Advance grants here. 

Thanks in part to Advocacy Advance Grants from the Alliance for Biking & Walking, two statewide organizations recently announced the hiring of new, full-time executive directors. And they’re both familiar faces.

Out on the west coast, Dave Snyder took the helm of the California Bicycle Coalition this month. Dave has a long history of bike-ped success, including growing the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition into a political powerhouse with thousands of engaged members and starting several nonprofits aimed at environmentally sustainable and socially just transportation options in the Bay Area. Dave’s got a long history with the Alliance, too — not only has he led a number of our Winning Campaigns Trainings, but also served as our director of program development back when we were still called the Thunderhead Alliance.

The veteran advocate will be the CBC’s first ED in four years, thanks to a $30,000 Startup/Capacity Grant from the Alliance’s Advocacy Advance program. According to the CBC: Snyder will lead efforts to secure substantial long-term funding, strengthen relationships with bike industry allies and the local bike advocacy community, and increase California’s influence in national bike advocacy.

“The recent midterm elections signaled a sea-change for the national transportation agenda,” CBC president, Chris Morfas, said in the group’s most recent newsletter “Fifteen years of gains for bicycling nationwide are now under serious threat. This couldn’t be a better time for us to have someone with Dave’s skills.”

On the other side of the country, Georgette Yaindl is leaving her ocean paradise and returning to her roots. Her hiring as the first executive director for Bike Walk Connecticut is also being funded, in part, by a $15,000 Advocacy Advance Grant from the Alliance.

According to Bike Walk Connecticut: “Yaindl is returning to Connecticut where she worked for many years, including as the first Executive Director of the Connecticut Bicycle Coalition. She left the CBC in 2000 to work for the Hawaii Bicycling League as its Community Liaison. In 2007, she graduated from the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law and focused her practice in Hawaii in the areas of environmental, and labor and employment law. Bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge to the position of Executive Director, Georgette also has a lifelong passion for biking and walking, and wants to help re-establish Connecticut’s identity as a center for innovative transportation technology.”

“Dorothy was right,” Georgette says. “There is no place like home. I am stoked knowing I shall soon be back in the mix helping improve the health and vitality of our residents and communities via the simple yet revolutionary acts of bicycling and walking. Aloha!”

Read more from the CBC and Bike Walk Connecticut.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the exciting transformation of the Broad Avenue Arts District in Memphis, Tennessee. With a little help from an Alliance Advocacy Advance Grant, the folks at Livable Memphis are helping to revive the struggling street by making it a vibrant bike-ped corridor connecting parks and extending a popular greenway.

In late November, they kicked off the project with one heck of a party. I promised to pass along pictures, and they’re worth the wait. Yep, that’s Jeremy Grandstaff, Alliance Member Services Director, pedaling a tandem in the bicycle parade with Banner trotting to keep up. Click here for more pictures.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about my field trip to Vienna, Virginia, to help the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling launch their Guide to Public Road Design and Bicycling Accommodations. It’s an incredibly useful resource for advocate across the country; it demystifies the complicated road design process for folks who don’t have an advanced degree in engineering.

But it’s also a great example of the impact of Advocacy Advance — a partnership between the Alliance and the League of American Bicyclists. As I mentioned in the post, the folks at FABB were among the first recipients of an Advocacy Advance Grant, and they turned a small nugget of money into advocacy gold.

Well, just a few days after my trip to Vienna, another Advocacy Advance recipient marked a major milestone, too.

Established in 2000, the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance quickly built a winning foundation. In less than a decade, they created and grew the Discover Hartford Bicycling and Walking Tour into an annual event that draws 1,000 participants. They cultivated local Bike to Work events and successfully advocated for a three-foot passing law at the Connecticut state legislature. By 2009, they were ready to take the next step. They were ready to go statewide.

To assist that transition, the Alliance awarded the CCBA a $15,000 Advocacy Advance Startup/Capacity Building Grant in November 2009. In just one year, they’ve made tremendous progress.

On April 2, the CCBA took on a new name: Bike Walk Connecticut. With that title change, they also came up with a vibrant, colorful and creative new logo. This summer, they launched their search for an executive director and started gathering furniture to set up a formal office. Then, just this month, they hosted their first statewide summit — with great success. According to BWC’s latest newsletter:

On November 13th, 150 people who want a bike- and walk-friendly Connecticut gathered at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain to attend Bike Walk Connecticut’s first statewide summit… Speakers included state legislators, a DOT bureau chief, doctors, lawyers, planners and law-enforcement officials… Mary Collins, award-winning author of ‘American Idle: A Journey through our Sedentary Culture’ opened the summit recounting why she wrote the book and what she learned about the causes and effects of inactivity on individuals and society as a whole. Tim Blumenthal, president of the Bikes Belong Coalition, closed the event explaining what’s happening on the federal level and why it’s so important that all of us who care about a bike- and walk-friendly Connecticut let our local, state and federal elected officials know what we want.”

Way to go, Bike Walk Connecticut!

Check out pictures here. 

Last week, on the very same morning, we celebrated the past, present and future of the Advocacy Advance initiative.

When I arrived at the Patrick Henry Library on Thursday morning, I was still putting the finishing touches on the Alliance’s press release announcing SRAM’s continued support (to the tune of $1.2 million) of Advocacy Advance — a partnership between the Alliance and the League of American Bicyclists.

But the reason for my Virginia field trip was to congratulate the recipients of one of the very first Advocacy Advance Grants. Last year, the Alliance awarded the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling a $9,600 grant to create a new handbook on the complex subject of road design. The folks at FABB took the challenge and knocked it out of the park.

A perfect example of the intent of Advocacy Advance, the Guide for Reviewing Public Road Design and Bicycling Accommodations is simple to read, nice to look at and absolutely essential to any advocate working for better bicycling infrastructure. It demystifies the complicated process and gives folks who don’t have an engineering degree the knowledge they need to get engaged in the process that shapes their streets.

For the public launch of the guide, a diverse group of advocates and officials braved a downpour to celebrate. Bruce Wright and Fionnuala Quinn (pictured above), the two FABB advocates who played the lead role in the creation of the guide, had plenty of people to thank, from members of their own organization to transportation planners at the county and state level. But every one of the speakers turned the tables and praised Wright and Quinn for compiling such a valuable resource for bike advocates across the country.

Shane Farthing, the executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, said his copy of the guide is already dog-eared and well-worn. In fact, he said, it was one of the first things he read when he took the top job at WABA. But it’s not just advocates who are pouring over its contents. Doug Miller, from the Virginia Department of Transportation, said he took a stack of guides to a VDOT district meeting and it made quite the impression on his colleagues, too.

Andy Clarke, president of the League, noted that FABB, a small volunteer group, had to compete against the proposals of numerous big-city organizations with sizable staffs and budgets to receive the Advocacy Advance Grant. But the Guide to Road Design, Clarke said, has had perhaps the biggest impact of any grant awarded thus far. “The stuff that makes life better for bicyclists is done at the local level,” he said. “And this will be really useful.”

In fact, the guide is proving so useful — and in-demand — that FABB is working on a template that would allow your organization to use the information and structure of the guide and simply tweak some of the contents to fit your city, state or region.

In the meantime, if you haven’t read it yet, click here to download the guide from our Resource Library. For pictures of the event, check out the Alliance Flickr page.

Last week, we introduced you to Elizabeth Stampe, the first executive director of Walk San Francisco.

Well, the Idaho Pedestrian and Bicycle Alliance, an organization that got its start in 2009, is also celebrating its first staff hire. Meet Whitney Rearick, a former anti-poverty activist with a penchant for “nerdy” instruments.

Where are you from and how did you end up in Boise, Idaho?

I was born and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire, and headed to Utah as a VISTA volunteer after college, where I stayed for 8 years. I dabbled with the east coast again in graduate school, but missed the west, and Idaho called with a job with Mercy Housing Idaho.

I understand you’ve worked for a number of nonprofits in Idaho and Utah; what kind of advocacy work have you done in the past?

I’m fortunate to have worked for a variety of do-good organizations. I lobbied the legislature and organized around tenant rights and affordable housing for an anti-poverty organization in Utah and built low-income housing in Massachusetts and Idaho. In my four years as the campus planner at Boise State University, I helped find ways to make the campus more sustainable. More recently, with Winter Wildlands Alliance, I advocated for different kinds of nonmotorized users — backcountry skiers and snowshoers — in an effort to preserve nonmotorized winter trails.

I know you’re a bike commuter — what drew you to the bike-ped movement?

I can’t remember a time when a bike wasn’t my main mode of transportation, and a source of much fun and friendship. There are so many ways to be a cyclist or walker — in the hills, on the roads, as a social event, to commute, in races and scavenger hunts. It’s an exciting time to be part of the movement. Planning departments are finally understanding the role of pedestrians and cyclists to community livability, and I see the bike-ped movement as a major source of community transformation.

The IPBA is still a relatively new organization; what are some of the challenges of being the group’s first ED?

It’s hard to ask folks to donate money to become a member of your organization without having some successes under your belt — but, on the other hand, it’s hard to build statewide successes without money or a solid member network. Fortunately, our board has gotten a good head start on both, and the Alliance [Advocacy Advance] grant has helped tremendously. It’s the reason IPBA was able to hire me.

What are your top goals for the IPBA for the remainder of 2010 and going into 2011?

Right now we’re focusing on raising money and building a network.  One way we’ll get the word out about IPBA will be through a campaign for a three feet to pass bill.  We’ll also be building the groundwork for our longer-term plan to create a statewide complete streets policy.

  What’s your favorite place to walk or ride in Idaho?

Boise has a glorious greenbelt along the river that goes right through town. There’s something new to see along it every day. In my many years riding the greenbelt, I’ve seen the gamut: picnicking families, dozing students, marching bands, historical reenactors, polite protestors, a giant puppet penguin, mass baptisms, teenagers bobbing the river in innertubes, people in waders fishing for trout, along with otter, mink, fuzzy young geese and birds of every size and type.

I understand that you ride a bike that has a bit some sentimental value… ???

My mom rode a 10-speed Motobecane to her job at Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1970’s and 1980’s. After she passed it along to me, I commuted on it in Boston, and now Boise.  A few years ago, after a particularly humiliating wreck (never, ever dangle shopping bags from your handlebars while riding a curvy path!), I needed a new fork, and a friend who used to work in a bike shop sent me what he called the “Matisse fork,” which is covered with small dabs of every color of touch-up paint.

At the Alliance Leadership Retreat every two years we have a Talent Show; what’s one of your hidden talents?

I play the nerdiest musical instruments. I grew up playing the viola, and took up trombone in high school. About 15 years ago, after admiring a pearl white, used accordion emblazoned with the name “Ginger,” a friend bought it for me, and I recently took up ukulele. I have a jaw harp and a nose flute in a drawer somewhere. Of all of these, the viola is the only one I’m any good at, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

Keep up with the IPBA on their website — or “Like” them on Facebook.

On November 5, the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB) (Fairfax County, VA) held a workshop in Sterling, VA to test materials they developed for a new engineering for advocates handbook.  According to FABB, “A small but interested audience showed up to learn how they could better comment to public officials on the design of bicycling facilities during the engineering process.  One of the things that we found was that there seemed to be demand from new advocates to learn about the very basic steps in accessing the process so we have gone back to add additional diagrams and explanations to the handbook to better address this need.”

The engineering for advocates handbook is a project funded by an Alliance for Biking & Walking Advocacy Advance Grant. For more information about this project, please visit http://www.fabb-bikes.org/index.html

http://www.fabb-bikes.org/resources.html

Transportation Alternatives (T.A.)has published two extensive reports on traffic safety and enforcement, quantitatively tallying the level of lawless driving and documenting the failure to create deterrence from dangerous driving on New York City streets.  Executive Order:  A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety examines the broken system of enforcement of traffic crimes, describing the deadly consequences of dangerous driving, the lack of moving violation enforcement, and the loopholes in traffic crime prosecution. Using sampling data and yearly totals of NYPD summonsing activity, Executive Order presents staggering statistics that reveal how often dangerous drivers evade enforcement and delay justice.  The report was released to wide acclaim, with coverage by every major New York City news organization and both Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commenting on its findings.  A follow-up study, From Chaos to Compliance:  How the NYPD Can Grasp New York City’s Traffic Safety Problem develops the methodology for measuring the state of New York streets, and employs these techniques to prove the pervasiveness of traffic law violations. 

T.A. has also launched an advocacy campaign, based on the comprehensive recommendations of over 30 experts in Traffic Safety and Law Enforcement, to change government policy towards street safety and create true deterrents to dangerous driving in New York City. In the coming months, T.A. will push the NYPD to adopt these methods to understand how best to approach the problems of dangerous driving. These reports and efforts were made possible in part by an Alliance for Biking & Walking Advocacy Advance Grant.

Download the reports:

Executive Order: A Mayoral Strategy for Traffic Safety

and

From Chaos to Compliance: How the NYPD Can Grasp New York City’s Traffic Safety Problem