This week was the National Bike Summit in Washington DC. It's where the cycling community can come together to learn how to get more people on bikes.I attended and so did several others from the region, many of which I had collaborated with or typed-to before, but some I had never met face-to-face. There were several from Kentucky, but it was surprising that out of over 500 attendees, only 3 were from the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area (Steve Magas, Ralph Mitchell and I)
What did we do? We listened to presentations on everything from making a Bike Friendly Community, Complete Streets Policy, and Safe Routes to School, to the National Parks Centennial Initiative and making off road trails part of the transportation system of a community.
There were some great speakers: Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Humana healthcare Chairman David Jones from Louisville, the Director of the National Park Service, and the Mayor of Washington DC. There were also "breakout" sessions with smaller presentations given by experts on many different issues in their respective fields.
With all of my new knowledge, I went up on the Capitol Hill and walked from office to office meeting with our congresspeople and their staffers with the others from Kentucky. It was great, they were all very kind and seemed to really get our message. In fact three Congresspeople agreed to join the Bike Caucus!
The biggest benefit was that we gave our Senators and Representatives a cure for some of our nation's biggest problems with a solution that reduces reliance on foreign oil, reduces air pollution and decreases road congestion all while promoting health and fitness which in turn reduces health care costs. We got a lot of support as livable communities with Bicycling and Pedestrian facilities are a win/win cause.
So now I'm fired up and ready to get some people riding bikes!
PS - You can add comments to anything written on our website- if it suits ya.
1 comment:
From Michael Dulin, Kentucky IMBA Rep:
Hey everyone -
Just a friendly reminder to please submit your comments and support for the expansion of trails at Mammoth Cave National Park. You can fill out the on-line survey at www.imba.com (top right section of the home page) or you can visit the Mammoth Cave website and submit comments via their survey page. (www.nps.gov/maca/parkmgmt/planning.htm)
If you would like to physically mail in your comments, I can email you a pdf copy of the "official" KyMBA letter and you can fill it out and send it to the Mammoth office. Got kids that ride? They count, too, so have them fill out a form and send it in with yours.
Comments are due by March 24th, so please act soon and don't forget to tell you friends and family to do the same.
Also, if you can find the time, we have a larger, national issue we need help with. IMBA, Bikes Belong and League of American Bicyclists are leading a charge to update some of the policies at the National Park Service to be more bicycle-inclusive. Again, there is an action-alert on the IMBA site that you can use or you can contact your Representatives in Washington and tell them that you support the National Park Centennial Challenge (HR 3094). I will post more info on the site as it comes available.
thanks everyone!!
Post a Comment