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As public works employees put paint to pavement on Friday, advocates and officials celebrated Oakland’s most successful year yet in biking and walking infrastructure.

Leaders from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland joined Mayor Jean Quan to mark the installation of more than 18 miles of bike lanes and nearly 300 bike parking spots in 2011 alone.

Though it didn’t hit the organizations’ target of 30 miles by the end of 2011, the uptick in infrastructure has been a major victory for the Oakland Bikeways Campaign, a joint effort of the EEBC and WOBO. And city officials promised the next wave of sharrows and bike lanes should be on the ground by mid-2012.

“The bike lanes installed this year go a long way to fulfilling WOBO’s goal of connecting Oakland’s neighborhoods with safe, reliable and affordable transportation options,” Gloria Bruce, chair of the board at WOBO, said at the press conference. “Bicycling is fun, it’s healthy, and people want to do it. Despite the budget and other challenges, the City is moving forward quickly to build the network and we applaud them for that. Safe biking makes a big difference in people’s lives.”

“It’s not just putting down more miles, but miles that connect, and create a safe, continuous network that really gets you where you need to go and doesn’t drop you along the way,” Renee Rivera, executive director of EEBC, said. “We need to make Oakland a safe place to bike for everyone. We need to pay more attention to the eastern side of town, working with great partners like Cycles of Change and their earn-a-bike program, and bringing more infrastructure to the east side where it’s so badly needed.”

It’s worth noting that staff and volunteers from WOBO and EBBC worked on aspects of the Oakland Bikeways initiative at Alliance Winning Campaigns Training in 2008 and 2010 respectively. Jumpstart your 2012 campaigns by attending one of these workshops in your area. The first is coming up in a matter of weeks: Register now for the Winning Campaigns Training in Tucson, AZ, January 13-15th. The early bird rate — just $75 for Alliance members — ends on Friday.

Read more about last week’s celebration from the EBBC here.

Photo: Renee Rivera (left), executive director of the EBBC, with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. (Credit: Gene Anderson)

Walk Oakland Bike Oakland is delighted to introduce their very first Executive Director, Kassie Rohrbach. Kassie was one of the co-founders of Energy Action Coalition (EAC), a youth-led coalition of environmental and social justice groups. She helped grow EAC into a robust and effective organization for change. Kassie brings eight years of coalition-building, policy development, and organizational development to WOBO.  Kassie recently visited the staff at the Alliance DC office, and discussed her vision and goals for WOBO. We wish her success and know that she will keep the momentum moving forward for bicycling and walking in Oakland.

For more information about Kassie and WOBO please visit http://www.walkoaklandbikeoakland.org