Bike advocacy across the border
Susie Stevens' visit to Victoria in 1998 energized cycling advocacy in the capital and the resulting momentum has been building ever since. Susie died under the wheels of a bus in St. Louis in 2003, shocking activists across the US where her legacy is even bigger.
Stevens helped create the Thunderhead Alliance, and served as its first Executive Director. Named for a Wyoming ranch where the organization first met, Thunderhead members are organized in local and state coalitions, spreading the gospel of human power across the continent.
Thunderhead members are among the most influential biking and walking advocates in the US. From San Francisco, where a local daily asked Is the bicycle coalition too powerful?; to the windy city, where the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation commands a multi-million dollar budget and runs some programs from the Mayor's office. Thunderhead also works to promote change on the ground.
Advocates have been quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) lobbying sympathetic politicians and working with like-minded organizations in the US. This has been occurring since the early 1990s, when modern cycling movements grew in response to emerging cultural trends and a welcome influx of new funding for infrastructure.
Participation in cycling spiked upwards as new generations of transportation cyclists emerged from 70s environmentalism and 80s obsessions with health and fitness. New legislation transferred federal gas tax proceeds to state and local governments, with orders to invest in cycling and walking. American cities – sicker than their Canadian cousins – had finally recognized the need to combat suburban sprawl and the increasing dependence on the automobile.
Thunderhead emerged to fill the need for a national grassroots organization to bring local advocates and expertise together. With Susie at the helm, Thunderhead entered the consciousness of the human-powered movement at the Pro Bike conference in Santa Barbara in 1998.
From there, cycling advocacy diversified and tapped into new and growing constituencies. Advocacy organizations became an essential feedback mechanism for government engineers designing and building the infrastructure. Increasingly, they are also infiltrating the ranks of the professional classes.
Susie's death hit hard. A beautiful dynamic leader, she inspired everyone she encountered. Several years after her death, she is still remembered at Thunderhead gatherings. Her mother, Nancy McKerrow, has taken on the role of sponsor, investing proceeds from an insurance settlement in bringing promising talent to conferences where they can learn more. She's also planting trees, another love of Susie's, and in the spring of 2007 a tree will be planted along the Galloping Goose, where Susie spent some riding time on visits to Victoria.
Thunderhead has become a powerhouse, with member organizations across the country, and is now closely knit with the National Center for Bicycling and Walking in Washington, DC. Its importance can be measured in the programs and projects that member organizations, and the Thunderhead leadership, have spawned.
Safe Routes to School, now a continent-wide initiative, can trace its success to Deb Hubsmith in Marin County, California. An early convert to the cause, Debbie served for many years as the Executive Director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.
There is Affordable Transportation for Affordable Housing : a couple of organizations are piloting programs to help low income people get back on their feet, literally. There's an Active Prescription campaign, aimed at linking the health community to active transportation. More mundane is the bean counting and number crunching that is establishing baseline information on the state of cycling and walking across the US. This data is critical for analyzing the success of projects and strategies.
Thunderhead's work plan now includes the Complete Streets campaign, an effort to force governments at all levels to adopt road design policies that accommodate all users, especially cyclists and pedestrians. Engineers, planners, and governments spent most of the last century building around the automobile. Thunderhead's efforts have resulted in at least nine states adopting complete streets policies that legislates routine accommodation for cyclists and pedestrians. More than 20 cities and counties have also adopted the approach.
While practically minded, Thunderhead has always embraced the wide spectrum of the alternative transportation community. Some members started in Critical Mass, the protest movement launched in San Francisco to show decision makers that cyclists count. A more pointed campaign later emerged in Colorado, where the I bike and I vote campaign showed cyclists to be an effective political force.
Interestingly, in San Francisco, the bicycle coalition has moved on from Critical Mass. While the event continues to draw significant participation, the SFBC has been promoting a more conciliatory campaign of coexistence. Less welcome have been a minority of cycling activists who promote a more stridently ideological approach that opposes infrastructure in favour of education alone. In many Thunderhead organizations, the anti bike-lane fringe has fallen silent while the success of more practical approaches has demonstrated its value across the continent.
Free trade in ideas has seeped across the border and the invisible hand of Thunderhead can be seen, if not easily recognized, in the evolution of infrastructure and programs in Canada. With the New Deal for Cities pumping gas money back into local governments across Canada, professional advocacy will be needed to make sure the money is spent wisely. Our volunteer advocacy groups need to evolve into stable, full-time leadership and consulting organizations
that will give voice to a constituency hungry for change.
Biking and walking in Madison
by John Luton
In early September I attended the Pro Walk – Pro Bike conference in Madison, state capital of Wisconsin. Every successful conference showcases the assets of the host city, and Madison has a lot to offer.
Madison is a university town and has a layout that favours biking and walking. It includes off-road trails with a stretch that parallels an active rail line, and some sections that run along waterfronts between two lakes. Bike parking is easily found at most destinations.
The on-road bike lanes system is extensive and a contra-flow lane, protected by concrete curbs, runs along University Avenue between the campus and downtown. It's a busy and appealing facility that gives cyclists an advantage on this one-way street.
No expense has been spared providing facilities for the thousands of cyclists who ride the streets of Madison. Some of that infrastructure, like a maze of off-road trails, is equally supportive of pedestrian travel.
That says less about runaway municipal spending and more about effective local advocacy organizations and sympathetic city administrators. Madison may be most successful at leveraging the funding available from US federal gas tax transfers to state and local governments. Alternative transportation programs have been in place since 1991 and Madison is among those communities making good use of the funding.
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