Thank you to our Safety Education Trainers!

This blog post was submitted by our SRTS Training Coordinator Seth Schromen-Wawrin.

In mid April, our Safe Routes to School Bike and Pedestrian Safety Education Program finished the last training for our current grant. In the last 14 months, we conducted 25 trainings all over Washington State. This was possible due to the amazing talent and dedication of Eileen Hyatt and Katie Ferguson.

Eileen Hyatt

Eileen Hyatt has been a member of the Bike Alliance since the 1990s and is currently a board member. She lives in Spokane where she has pioneered teaching bicycle safety skills in schools in Washington State. Katie is a former Americorp intern for the Bike Alliance. She has an unfaltering enthusiasm for teaching bicycling skills. 

Together, this duo faired snowy mountain passes, long lonely drives to remote sections of the state, teaching outside in sleet and the blistering sun, and came back smiling. Teachers unanimously raved about their high quality teaching and knowledge. As one teacher said, “it is so great to have this training taught by someone experienced working with students.”

Katie Ferguson

The training is a two-day training on how to teach the Bike and Pedestrian Safety Education curriculum to middle school students. The training “opened up my eyes and will keep kids safe and having fun,” one participant commented.

Most of the participants in the trainings were physical education instructors, yet the proficiency with riding was very varied. Often participants would come back from a road ride stating that this was the first time they felt safe riding with traffic. Through the skill and dedication of Eileen and Katie, we are growing safe, confident, and comfortable bike riders all over the state.

They trained 141 physical education teachers at 27 districts in 18 counties. This first statewide class of Bike and Pedestrian Safety Education teachers will continue teaching the curriculum in the years to come. About 15,000 students will go through the curriculum every year. Fifteen thousand students from two trainers. That is an impact!

Tacoma, Snohomish join the ranks of Bicycle Friendly Communities

The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) announced its 2012 round of new and renewing Bicycle Friendly Communities and the Washington communities of Tacoma and Snohomish joined the ranks at the bronze level.  Port Townsend improved its ranking from bronze to silver and Vancouver retained its bronze status.

Washington is currently ranked as the most Bicycle Friendly State by LAB’s Bicycle Friendly America program.  Ten of our communities are now ranked as Bicycle Friendly Communities with Seattle holding the only gold award.  Seventeen state businesses have earned a Bicycle Friendly Business designation and the University of Washington holds a silver ranking as a Bicycle Friendly University.  

The Bicycle Friendly America program provides incentives, hands-on assistance, and award recognition for communities, universities and businesses that actively support bicycling, and ranks states annually based on their level of bike-friendliness. Learn more about it here.

Bike to Work Day: Drop by our Energizer Station in Pioneer Square!

Friday, May 18 is Bike to Work Day and the Bicycle Alliance of Washington is hosting an energizer station from 7 – 9 AM for bike commuters in our Pioneer Square neighborhood.

Drop by to get your copy of the hot-off-the-press 2012 Seattle Bike Map, coffee courtesy of Zeitgeist, and some sweet treats thanks to Sugar Bakery & Cafe.  The good folks from Back Alley Bike Repair will be on hand to do bike safety checks, and we are generously giving out high fives and other goodies.

Look for our energizer table in front of our office at 314 First Avenue South.

Try Bike-and-Bus for Bike to Work Week!

Have you shied away from biking to work because your commute seems too long or a little too hilly?  Consider a bike-and-bus trip!  You can bus to work and bike home, or you can bus through a difficult segment and bike the rest.  Our friends at King County Metro and Sound Transit are offering a great promotional deal (as in FREE) on bike-and-bus trips during the week of May 14-18 in King County.  Here's their announcement:

King County Metro and Sound Transit encourage people to try bike-and-bus trips during Bike Month. During the week of May 14-18, any cyclist loading a bike on a Metro bus or ST Express bus operated in King County will ride free. ST Express routes included are: 540, 542, 545, 550, 554, 555, 556 and 560.

Each bus has three spaces on its bike rack, which are available on a first come/first served basis. If the bus bike rack is full, cyclists should be prepared to wait for the next bus or consider leaving their bike parked in a bike rack at a transit facility. Bike lockers are also available at many Metro and Sound Transit facilities.

Metro has display bike racks available at five locations around the county for new cyclists who want to try loading their bike in a pressure-free environment. Practice racks are available at North Seattle Community College, the University of Washington, Bellevue College, Alki Bike and Board in West Seattle and at the offices of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington in Pioneer Square. Detailed information on hours and locations can be found at http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bike/rackfaq.html

GiveBIG=BigSUCCESS!!

Bicycle Alliance of Washington is delighted to announce our BigSUCCESS during the GiveBIG campaign. Our first year participating in the one day online philanthropic event we raised $6,720 from 63 donors, surpassing our goal of raising $4,000 from 40 donors! 

Our entire staff kept the momentum going as we updated our supporters on Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail. Thank you to our staff and Board members for their generous contributions, many of which came in as challenges to raise more money from multiple Bicycle Alliance donors. We are still awaiting news from The Seattle Foundation about how many dollars we received from the “stretch” pool and from employer matching funds. 

We thank Seattle Foundation and all the sponsors of GiveBIG for supporting such a well-received charitable event.  Overall giving more than doubled from 2011 with a total $7.43 million in contributions raised and more than 37,800 individual online gifts. 

GiveBIG attracted donations from all 50 states and 23 foreign countries.

Farewell to my job at the Bicycle Alliance, but not Goodbye

After three years as our Office Manager and Membership Coordinator, Donna Govro is moving on.  She looks back on her time with the Bicycle Alliance with some fond memories.

I have decided to leave my job at the Bicycle Alliance to pursue other interests of an entrepreneurial nature.  It’s with mixed feelings that I say goodbye, as the Bicycle Alliance has not only been an employer to me but an organization that supports my views on bicycling as a way to promote a healthy lifestyle. 

From the very beginning, I knew that the Bicycle Alliance was not going to be a typical, quiet office job.  After only a few weeks on the job, I volunteered to participate in the Gay Pride parade and found myself in the office practicing the hand signals to the tune of the pop song “YMCA” and then bicycling down 2^nd Avenue next to my new boss on his folding bike dressed in a clown costume.  Then there was the Tour de Fat bicycle event where everyone donned zany costumes.   We had volunteers dressed as the “Lunch Ladies” serving beer and the President of the Bicycle Alliance wearing a beer tap vest and beer cap construction helmet as he carried the cash to the safe!  Or on a more serious time when everyone in the office pedaled to Golden Gardens park one brisk, sunny morning to plant a memorial Susie Tree.  There were many times that I traveled to various events during the work day or on weekends not by bus or car but by bicycle, giving me an even greater appreciation for our mission.

Looking back, I am sure that these are the things that I will miss the fun and quirky times.  I might even some day miss the administration and organization that it took to support them.   But most of all I think that I will miss my co-workers and the volunteers.  I also have to say thank you to everyone at the Bicycle Alliance, the staff, volunteers, members and the board.  Through my association with the Bicycle Alliance I have learned many things, but mostly that I can bicycle anywhere I please. 

USBRS: Build it. Bike it. Be a Part of it.

Thanks to Scott Chilberg for assistance with this post.

Imagine an interstate highway system for bicycles…officially recognized and signed bike routes that crisscross our country, connecting urban centers, parks, landmarks and other popular destinations, and traveling through some of the most spectacular scenery this country has to offer.

This is no pipe dream, friends.  I’m talking about the US Bicycle Route System (USBRS), an ambitious project led by the Adventure Cycling Association.  Presently, more than 40 states are working on U.S. Bicycle Routes. Last year, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials approved six new U.S. Bicycle Routes : USBR 1 in Maine and New Hampshire, USBR 20 in Michigan, and USBR 8, 95, 97, and 87 in Alaska — the first official U.S. Bicycle Routes to be established since 1982. Several more approvals are expected in the upcoming month.

The Bicycle Alliance of Washington is partnering with Adventure Cycling to create the routes in our state that will be part of the USBRS.  Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is working with us on this effort and we hope to have our first officially recognized US bike route--USBR 10 across the northern tier of the state--in a few years.

Adventure Cycling is doing a fundraising campaign for the USBRS during the month of May.  We are participating as Team Washington and we hope you will make a donation to our team.  Twenty percent of the money that we raise as Team Washington will come back to support the local effort.

Use this link to our fundraising page to make a contribution to the USBRS and Team Washington today.  Everyone who makes a donation to our team will be eligible for a drawing for some cool gifts, including a Share the Road jersey.

Build it. Bike it. Be a part of it.