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Entries tagged: Wisconsin

How many people can say that they turned $3,000 into $2 million? Kevin Hardman and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin can.

How’d they do it? With a little help from Advocacy Advance, the partnership of the Alliance and League of American Bicyclists that’s aimed at giving advocates, agency staff and public officials the tools and knowledge they need to tap into federal funding for biking and walking projects and programs.

The Bicycle Federation used a $3,000 Advocacy Advance Rapid Respond grant to support its campaign to restore dedicated bicycle and pedestrian funds cut from the state budget. They were successful. Instead of zeroing out the bicycle and pedestrian line in the budget, the state will spend $2 million over the next two years on bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Read all about it on the Advocacy Advance blog!

We’re more than two months into the 2 Mile Challenge for 2011 and the Alliance Gold Team has logged nearly 112,000 miles and replaced 14,700 car trips. To get to know the folks pedaling to promote local and state bike-ped advocacy, we’ve been profiling some of our Gold Team leaders, like Pete Beers in Virginia and Julie Viens in California.

This week, meet Chesla Seely-Anschutz. She’s been biking for so long she can’t even remember her first ride. For this Wisconsin resident, bicycling serves her wallet and her health. Here’s some of what she told us about why she joined the 2 Mile Challenge and the Alliance Gold Team:

“I live in a small town of just under 10,000 in the heart of Door County, Wisconsin. From my house, if you draw a 2-mile radius circle, it pretty much covers most of my town, Sturgeon Bay. So, it’s easy for me to bike instead of drive.

I have two part-time jobs, which I commute to each day. I take my bike most places I need to go. I live simply, but like biking and derive a good feeling from knowing that my little efforts are doing the environment some good. I also enjoy biking longer distances… putting on miles. Most people consider it exercise, but I don’t. I just enjoy biking. It’s my therapy!

Last year, I discovered the 2 Mile challenge on the Clif Bar website and signed up with the Gold Team. Even though the Red Team won, we sure gave them a run for the money! The 2MC has been fun for me to take part in and, this year, my husband and my youngest son are participating also.

Here in Door County there are lots of beautiful places and nice roads to bike, yet I’d like to see more bike lanes and paths, which would ultimately encourage more people to bike and be safe. I’m a member of a local advocacy group, Door County Silent Sports Alliance, and we’re, at present, working with the local officials on a county-wide bicycle plan.”

Join Pete, Julie and Chesla — Take the 2 Mile Challenge today!

When folks in Madison, Wisconsin, buy a Trek bicycle this month they’ll wheel out of the local shop with more than a simple receipt. Even before they hit the street, they’ll be card-carrying members of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin.

For free.

Sure, residents of the Badger State are a bit more inclined toward cycling than the rest of the nation, but Trek and a handful of enlightened retailers aim to spike the ranks of the state advocacy organization by picking up the tab for every buyer’s first-year bike fed membership. Kathryn Kingsbury, communications director, says the idea didn’t come from the federation; it originated with the folks at the Madison shop Machinery Row.

“We’ve been selling Bike Fed memberships for several years and weren’t really making the giant increases we had hoped for,” says Luke Bachelor-Clark, store manager at Machinery Row. “Right now we have a great opportunity in Wisconsin to improve cycling infrastructure. The Bike Federation is the group that will navigate the political scene and make things happen.  Their success rate will improve greatly if they can say they represent more people.  There are tens of thousands of people who are interested in better biking and just don’t know how to get involved and have their voices heard.”

So, this month, anybody who buys a Trek becomes a member of the bike fed, courtesy of the Wisconsin-based bicycle company. At Machinery Row, anybody who buys any bike before the end of the year gets a free membership, courtesy of the retailer, too. And the initiative is spreading: Earlier this week, Willy Bikes, another Madison retailer, committed to purchase a complimentary membership for any bike buyer through the end of July.

The heat is on the Bike Fed to inspire the complimentary members to renew once their free ride expires, but the partnership between retailers and advocates has the Bike Fed pumped. “We’re pretty cranked (excuse the pun),” Kingsbury writes on the group’s blog.

Read more about the initiative here.

The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin (BFW) celebrated a victory for cycling on November 19th, when the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors passed a measure to put bike racks on all Milwaukee buses. Milwaukee County will provide the local match for Milwaukee’s Bike Racks on Buses Program. The project will be in full swing this spring and completed by the fall of 2010.

BFW has been working with the Milwaukee County Transit System for nearly five years on various measures. The campaign for bike racks on buses has been running for two and a half years. According to Shea Schachameyer of BFW, “I view the campaign’s success as yet another example of the power of grassroots organizing; it was because of the broad base of support which the campaign attracted and the BFW’s ability to mobilize those supporters on a dime’s notice which has led the program to be implemented this spring.”

Read more on this victory from Shea here (http://www.bfw.org/advocacy/index.php?category_id=4027). To read more about the bike racks on buses program click here (http://www.bfw.org/advocacy/index.php?category_id=4170).

The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin is working with the Door County Silent Sports Alliance towards better bicycle planning and facilities throughout the Door County, a popular Midwest vacation area. According to the Bike Fed, they are “developing the first Comprehensive Bicycle Plan for Door County’s Town of Gibraltar. This plan will steer the development of bicycle facilities throughout the area and will help make Gibraltar safer and more accessible to cyclists for recreation and transportation.”

For more information on the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, click here.

For more information on the bicycle plan, click here.

The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin and the entire Wisconsin bicycle community is excited to report major legislative successes from this past month. According to the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, “On June 8th, Governor Doyle signed the “Dooring” legislation in to law. On June 29th, lobbying efforts from April became fully realized when the Governor signed the Wisconsin state budget. The budget contains Complete Streets legislation and an additional $5 million for bicycle infrastructure. The 2010-2011 Wisconsin state budget contains the first-ever state funded source for bicycle infrastructure.”

For more information, click here…

To learn more about WI’s new “dooring” legislation, click here…

Bicycling history was made in Wisconsin on April 27th and 28th as more than 450 bicycling enthusiasts from across the state attended the 2009 Wisconsin Bike Summit in Madison. The two-day event featured talks on advocacy, legislative training, and a “Ride on the Capitol” media event, where more than 200 bicyclists pedaled from Monona Terrace to the State Capitol to speak to their Legislators about the importance of bicycling in our communities.

For more information, click here…