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Entries tagged: Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition

The Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) has partnered up with the City of Mountain View to offer a new resource to Spanish-speaking members of the community — a class about bicycle safety.

“We feel it is of critical importance to engage daily cyclists and encourage safe riding skills,” says SVBC Deputy Director Colin Heyne. “Many members of the Latin American immigrant community here ride a bike to work because they have no other choice.”

The City of Mountain View identified the need for the classes several months ago and approached SVBC for support. The classes will be taught by a certified instructor who will discuss riding in traffic safely and with confidence.

So far, the main challenge has been getting the word out to the Spanish speaking community. SVBC has engaged volunteers to pass out flyers, as Spanish speakers do not frequent the Coalition’s website.

“We hope that this first attempt at a class makes an impact, and that we can learn from the challenges we encounter to make it better next time,” Colin says.

A Spanish version of SVBC’s Share the Road Guidelines can be accessed in the Alliance’s Resource Library. Do you have Spanish-language resources you’d like to share? Email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thanks to a recent grant from the Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is about to rev up its educational efforts with a new program set to roll out this October. In alignment with International Walk to School Day on October 5th, SVBC is planning a brand new effort aimed to get children active.

While the new program is still in the initial planning stages, the Alliance was lucky to get a sneak peak of what’s in store for children at one lucky elementary school. Kicking off with an initial bicycle education day, the month-long program will continue with once-a-week group commutes, via walking bus or bikepool. I’m new to the concept of group commutes, so I asked Colin Heyne, Deputy Director of the SVBC, what they’re all about.

“The group passes by houses and other designated pickup spots along the [route], and a student joins the group,” Heyne explained. “It’s like a musical where one person starts marching down the street, singing, and is eventually joined by the whole scrappy Brooklyn neighborhood, except less spontaneous.”

SVBC also plans to prepare environmental lessons to go along with each week’s commute, to be taught either by a SVBC employee or a regular classroom teacher.

SVBC is not new to youth bicycle education efforts. The organization has previously organized bike rodeos and, most recently, teamed with Specialized Bicycles to host a bicycle education day and rodeo at a local elementary school. For the new program, the candidate elementary school has yet to be selected. Past experience has shown that this process could prove difficult without the support of the principal and parents. SVBC is currently reaching out to the elementary school where the organization has previously worked.

“We feel if we can establish a replicable model there, it will be easier to spread the project to other schools,” Heyne said.

In addition to promoting activity amongst children, SVBC believes the program will achieve several objectives, including supporting Safe Routes to School, increasing parent participation in children’s health, encouraging good behaviors that can continue into adulthood, and connected the dots between active transportation and environmental stewardship.

Heyne promises updates about the program in SVBC’s weekly e-bulletin, so be sure to check out SVBC’s website and subscribe to the organization e-bulletin here.

It started in 2005 as a single patch of sod on a metered parking space in California.

That’s when the creative minds at Rebar, an art and design company in San Francisco, realized the absurdity that so much public space is gobbled up by the movement and storage of private vehicles. So they decided to put a single parking space to a different use, as a temporary park.

“Our original PARK stood for two hours — the term of the lease offered on the face of the parking meter,” the group explains on its website. “When the meter expired, we rolled up the sod, packed away the bench and the tree, and gave the block a good sweep, and left. A few weeks later, as a single iconic photo of the intervention (above) traveled across the web, Rebar began receiving requests to create the PARK(ing) project in other cities. Rather than replicate the same installation, we decided to promote it as an “open-source” project, and created a how-to manual to empower people to create their own parks without the active participation of Rebar. And thus ‘PARK(ing) Day’ was born.”

In just a few years, it’s taken off. Park(ing) Day has grown into a global event that challenges people to rethink the way roads are used and reinforces the need for broad-based changes to urban infrastructure. This year, on September 17th, plenty of Alliance organizations took part in the creative, temporary redesign of their communities’ streets.

In the Steel City, Bike Pittsburgh pimped out the pavement by creating an urban lounge, complete with wooden furniture and a fancy throw rug, where cyclists could kick back and hang out. BikePGH didn’t just have its own space, though. Some volunteers also offered a bike tour of the more than two dozens oases across the city. Check out pictures from the ride here.

Out west, in California, the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition got comfortable next to the curb, too. “Couches, tables and chairs, potted plants, hammocks, and sod adorned the streets of San José as places where people normally dump their abandoned cars were converted to places for people to meet and mingle. Some were lured by SVBC’s offer of a $100 Sports Basement gift certificate, though most probably wanted to see the city made a bit more welcoming to humans for a couple of hours.” More from the SVBC blog here.

And up in the Northeast, Boston’s Livable Streets saw the Park(ing) Day tradition expand into double-digit participation: “Boston saw its first spot in 2008. In 2009 there were five spots in Boston and Cambridge, and this year it was expanded to 10 spots across Boston, Brookline and Cambridge. It was a huge success, and there’s a lot of energy and enthusiasm to expand to more spots next year.” Get the full story in Livable Streets’ newsletter.

How did you spend your Park(ing) Day?

The Sierra Club swooned at the high-tech features. The local chapter of the Green Building Council took a field trip to see it. But the new eco-enhanced terminal at the San Jose International Airport forgot one important aspect of sustainability.

Over the past several years, officials have poured nearly $2 billion into renovations aimed at making the travel hub a model of environmental responsibility. They installed more than three acres of solar panels and a super-efficient ventilation system. But, ironically, they left out one vital component of going green: bike access.

In fact, when the new terminal opened a local cyclist pedaled over to check it out and discovered a troubling sign banning bikes from Airport Boulevard. That prohibition didn’t fly with the advocates at the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

“It is unlawful to prohibit bicycles on public roadways,” the group points out in its latest newsletter. “Cyclists need access to public facilities, and in this situation, access to the airport, in case travelers want to get there via bike. More importantly, the airport is a huge employer and many of its employees may want to ride their bikes to work.”

Corinne Winter, SVBC’s executive director, says the Coalition started working the issue as soon as the signs went up. “There were several others that have been removed,” Winter says. “We aren’t happy with how the airport circulation element was designed in the first place. We didn’t feel there were enough bicycle accommodations and now, apparently, they agree that it isn’t safe there because they’re tossing these signs up. So this might lead to a larger discussion.”

To put some weight behind that conversation, SVBC started an online petition, urging the removal of the “no bikes” signs. Add your signature in the next few days; Winter says the Coalition is taking it to decisionmakers as soon as this week.

The 2009 Stanford football season kept Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) volunteers very busy. According to SVBC a season total of 7,500 bicycles were parked over the course of seven home games.

“SVBC would like to thank Ellen Fletcher for once again leading this effort, unhindered by challenges like late games and last minute scheduling.”

See the SVBC website for the game-by-game breakdown and a list of the season’s most dedicated volunteers.

On Tuesday November 17th, the City of San Jose adopted its first comprehensive bike plan with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) playing a strong role in its release.

SVBC, the Department of Transportation, various community organizations, and the general public have long been anticipating the plan which includes a Cal Train bike share program, a cycle track, a doubling of existing bike lanes, new safety signals, bike lockers, and an overall increase in bicycle ridership and safety. The City ultimately hopes to achieve a five percent increase in cycling and a Gold-level Bicycle Friendly ranking from the League of American Bicyclists by 2020.

Corinne Winter, executive director of SVBC said, “We need to ensure that hard commitments and funding streams follow. To turn this plan into a reality, the City will have to put dollars behind developing these bike facilities.” 

SVBC has been an active voice in the planning process and continues to strongly support the plan. They will continue to be persistent in urging financing as well as the implementation of any experimental suggestions in order to expedite the plan in an efficient manner.  To find out more about SVBC’s involvement and track the plan’s progress, visit bikesiliconvalley.org and/or sanjoseca.gov