One Street News

April-May 2010

Vol. 3, Issue 4

1. Prescott College Bicycle Ambassadors Spark Change
2. European Connections
3. Resources Highlights – Cycling in New York
4. Hot Topics – Repealing Mandatory Helmet Laws

Prescott College Bicycle Ambassadors Spark Change

The Prescott College university course, The Bicycle: Vehicle for a Small Planet, is wrapping up this week with the students celebrating significant wins for bicycle advocacy. One Street’s executive director, Sue Knaup, taught the semester course, guiding the students through three elements:

1. Teaching others to ride safely
2. Teaching others to repair bicycles
3. Making the case for bicycling to officials 

In less than three months, the students in the course taught adults, high school students and elementary students safe riding and repair skills and convinced both elected and appointed officials at the City of Prescott to make real improvements for bicycling. In fact, because of their excellent advocacy efforts, Prescott will soon see our first “Except Bicycles” sign, giving bicyclists preferential treatment and setting the stage for high-quality bikeways in the future.  

Through their rigorous academic efforts in research, writing and presentations, these students have entered the bicycle advocacy movement as experts ready to make positive change through bicycles wherever they land in the world. They are the first wave of Prescott College Bicycle Ambassadors and will continue to assist the college with the Prescott College Bicycle Solutions campaign. And these students are already helping develop the course for next spring when we look forward to welcoming the next wave of Prescott College Bicycle Ambassadors to our movement.

You can connect with and support the work of the Ambassadors by joining the Prescott College Bicycle Ambassadors Facebook group. 

European Connections

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director 

In just a few days, I’ll be off on my big European adventure from May 11th through June 26th. Starting in Tczew, Poland, I’ll join leaders of bicycle advocacy organizations from all over Europe at the annual general meeting of the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF). During that gathering, I’m especially looking forward to offering One Street’s campaign planning workshop to help these leaders learn this important skill. They will learn how to rapidly focus the chaotic energy that results from the discovery of injustices that must be changed. By learning how to define the problem, solution and goals of their campaigns before taking action, these leaders can return to their countries ready to implement campaigns that take the shortest, most direct route to significant improvements for cycling. Find the overview of One Street’s campaign planning program here: http://www.onestreet.org/campaign-planning 

After Poland, I will spend ten days each in Budapest and Prague working with our local partners for our Social Bike Business program in each city. Looking at all the activities they have planned for me, I’m hoping ten days in each city will be enough... Then it’s off to Berlin and Bremen in Germany to spend time with bicycle advocates, including our fabulous Leo, our intern from 2008 & 2009, who is still helping One Street from his home in Berlin. After my long overdue visit with my precious Swedish friends on a farm south of Stockholm, I will wrap up my trip at the Velo-city conference in Copenhagen. Big on the agenda for the conference, is the ECF campaign to stop the dangerization of cycling through helmet promotions. I’ve been helping coordinate this campaign through One Street’s campaign services and all of us in the ECF Helmet Working Group are looking forward to distributing the important campaign materials to conference goers. Find out more about the campaign here: http://www.ecf.com/3500_1

Resources Highlights – Cycling in New York 

John Pucher, one of One Street’s founding Advisors, emailed us this week with a sneak peek of his latest publication: “Cycling in New York: Innovative Policies at the Urban Frontier.” This fascinating paper will not be officially published until later this summer, but John wanted One Street e-news readers to have a privileged, early read of this pre-print version. Most striking is that the four authors take a very harsh look at New York City’s bicycling policy, not allowing the city’s stunning advances of the last few years to overshadow the amount of work needed to repair the damage done by a century of flawed transportation and law enforcement policies. 

Hot Topics – Repealing Mandatory Helmet Laws 

As regular readers of One Street’s e-newsletter know, we work hard to dispel the illogical hysteria that surrounds the promotion of bicycle helmets. Our partners at the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) have taken courageous steps towards this goal through their campaign and their Helmet Working Group which we proudly participate in. The ECF Helmet Working Group has been instrumental in helping bicycle advocacy organizations successfully fight proposed mandatory helmet laws. But we have had our hearts broken several times when the laws passed in spite of the outcry against them. We have discussed theoretical ways to encourage local and national bicycle advocacy organizations to lead campaigns to repeal these toxic laws that label bicycling as dangerous and remove the responsibility for improving safety from officials. But without great models, these discussions have remained in theory, that is until just recently. 

A few weeks ago, another One Street Advisor, Tom Bertulis, delivered the exciting news of Mexico City’s repeal of their mandatory bicycle helmet law. Tom works for the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) in Mexico City and witnessed the process firsthand. From Tom’s account, we learned that Mexico City officials had followed the common, flawed assumption of many government officials that a bicycle helmet law would save lives. Instead, they found that most cyclists ignored the law, that their police officers could not enforce the law, and that the law was preventing the city from reaching their goal of a 5% bicycling mode share. The final straw was the city’s implementation of their long awaited bike share program. Not only was the helmet law diverting needed funding and focus from making street improvements that are necessary for the bike share program’s success, they faced the impossible task of providing new, undamaged helmets with the correct size and fit for every bike share rider. They wiped the law from the books instead, with admirable enthusiasm for the positive message this repeal sends to their city’s current and future cyclists.