One Street News

 

September 2009

 

Vol. 2, Issue 9

  1. Social Bike Business Opportunities in Las Vegas & New Orleans
  2. Hot Topics – Interbike in Las Vegas
  3. Resources Highlights – Cycling Amsterdamsestraatweg

Social Bike Business Opportunities in Las Vegas & New Orleans

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

I spent most of last week with Las Vegas and North Las Vegas locals discussing One Street’s Social Bike Business program and learning from them about their troubled cities. I chose to go to Las Vegas for these meetings last week because the Interbike bicycle industry trade show was also there. Interbike donates booth space to One Street for our advocacy efforts. This is a huge help to One Street for spreading our message to the bike industry. Thank you Interbike! I also enjoy connecting with some of my favorite people at the show; some I’ve been working with since my first trip to Interbike when I was just a shop rat back in 1990.

 

But it was my meetings with local leaders in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas that made the trip an outstanding success. I learned that distressed neighborhoods in these two cities are very poorly served by bikeways and bike shops and that there is a severe anti-bicycle culture in the business arena. On the other hand, the local leaders I met with are eager to increase bicycling in their neighborhoods and they understand the health and social benefits bicycling offers their residents. In fact, many of the residents of these neighborhoods are already walking and biking for many of their trips. One school that works with these local leaders had dozens of bikes in their racks.

 

In the coming months I will be working with these locals to develop the best first steps towards establishing a Social Bike Business program for Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. At this point, it looks like health and wellness through bicycling as well as our job training courses are the most intriguing aspects of the program for these local leaders. And that’s an excellent place to start!

 

I’ve also been discussing the program with local leaders in New Orleans over the past several months. So far, two established organizations have stepped up to help lead the charge. We’re working out the details now.

 

Stay tuned. I’ll be providing updates from these two newest local Social Bike Business programs as well as from our three established programs in Los Angeles, Prague and Budapest which are already providing valuable insight for Las Vegas and New Orleans. For more information, visit our Social Bike Business page.

Hot Topics – Interbike in Las Vegas

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

I’ve enjoyed some very lively discussions with Interbike attendees over these past several weeks regarding Interbike’s chosen location of a city as hostile to bicycling as Las Vegas. Multi-lane speedways and a culture that sees bikes as an eyesore outside of businesses feed this hostility. Even show security officials treat show attendees and their bikes like obscenities, often confiscating bikes and at least once wielding a saw to cut an attendee’s bike in half because they couldn’t cut the lock. Out on the streets, drivers lean on their horns as they pass at high speed within inches of cyclists. And at least one show attendee was killed while bicycling in traffic in recent years.

If Las Vegas is this hostile to Interbike attendees, what’s it like for city residents? Everywhere I look in Las Vegas I see workers on beat up old bikes carefully picking their way along sidewalks or back roads. In my outreach for One Street’s Social Bike Business program I’ve found local residents and organization leaders eager to see improvements for bicycling.

 

The question raised by show attendees boils down to this: Is Las Vegas inappropriate for Interbike because of its hostility or are we (Interbike attendees and organizers) missing an opportunity to assist a struggling city to become more bicycle friendly?

 

Interbike and the Bikes Belong Coalition recently announced their donation of $50,000 to go toward the striping of a bike lane near a school west of downtown Las Vegas. Some of the show attendees I’ve been speaking with were thrilled to hear this, others were appalled by the meagerness of the donation in a city that needs so much. I’m with both groups. This bike lane won’t do much, but this gesture is exactly what we need to show local officials that all of us, Interbike attendees and organizers, are ready to help them shift their city and its culture to one that honors bicycling for all of its community benefits.

What do you think? Are you offended by the Interbike show being in such a bicycle-hostile city? Or, are you inspired by this opportunity? Email me your thoughts at: sue{at}onestreet.org

Resources Highlights – Cycling Amsterdamsestraatweg

And to round out this month’s e-newsletter, we bring you a virtual bike ride along a very special complete street: Cycling Amsterdamsestraatweg, Utrecht, Netherlands