May
2010

CycleMAYnia takes the stage

• Nearly a year in planning, the South Coast’s month of events called "CycleMAYnia" is about to shower the world of bicycling upon us. There are events nearly every day of the month of May, and sometimes several in succession.
• The event list below only hints at the richness and variety of the bicycle experiences about to wash over us. Just go to www.cyclemaynia.org to find event descriptions, costs, times, locations, and other information.
• Many people have been involved in crafting the Cycle-MAYnia overview and individual events. One person however, Kent Epperson, took the lead when he brought San Luis Obispo people here to describe their bike event structure last fall.
• What happens this month depends on your participation, so choose what you wish, and bike on!
• Harvest Cycle ** Kidical Mass ** Bike Tune Up and Ride for Kids ** Cycle Chic Bike Fashion Show ** Burner Bike Ride ** Bike Moves ** Mesa Spring Festival ** Bike-to-Bikestation Day ** Wave on your Bike Day ** UCSB Bike to Work Day ** Bike Bazaar ** Handmade Bike Show ** Tweed Ride ** Bike to School Day ** Bike from Work Day ** Re-Cycled Jewelry Workshop ** Bike Touring in France and California ** Gran Reventon de Bici Centro ** Tour de Tent ** Santa Barbara Criterium ** Downtown Ice Cream Ride ** SBCC Students Ride ** Bachelors on Bikes Auction ** Film Fest ** Insomnia Full Moon Ride ** Pedaleando Hacia las Estrellas ** Navigating Urban Roadways ** WheelHouse Cargo Cat ** Scavenger Hunt

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Cycling survey for women and girls

• The Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals is seeking comments from women and girls on cycling issues. The survey takes 15 minutes, and the results will help determine what is needed to encourage women to bicycle more often. Just go to:
• www.surveymonkey.com/s/womencycling
• before May 15th. Learn about the APBP at www.apbp.org.

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Mark Sapp wins Car Free grand prize

• Santa Barbara Car Free program had raffle prizes for those who came car-free to the Earth Day celebration. The Grand Prize winner was Mark Sapp, a Bicycle Coalition supporter since 2001. He won Amtrak Coast Starlight train tickets for two to Seattle.
• Mark and his wife Nancy Mulholland are already looking forward to enjoying the "roomette" accommodation, fresh dining car cuisine, and wi-fi on their way to visit relatives in the Seattle area. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving couple.

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Santa Barbara’s Earth Day is environmental success



Over 1000 bicycles were valet parked over the two days, overflowing our enclosed parking area at Alameda Park. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• Over 31,000 people came to the 40th annual Earth Day celebration in Santa Barbara over two days April 17-18th. Hosted by the Community Environmental Council, the event was the nineteenth in which our Bicycle Coalition participated.
• Earth Day 1992 was our first event after we were founded in mid-1991. We offered bike check-ups, info and bike displays for three years. Then in 1994, we added valet bike parking.
• Again this year, we had information tables, free bike check-ups, and a large valet bike parking area that served to promote the upcoming CycleMAYnia month of bicycling events.
• This year, we were fortunate to use 15 Goleta Valley Cycling Club racks. Thanks to the GVCC for providing them, and to Bob McFarland for delivery. By offering bike parking, we mitigated traffic congestion and encouraged people to discover how good responsible and active transportation can be.
• We signed up nine new Bicycle Coalition members, ran a survey about improving bicycling (see article below), and completed 145 free bike check-ups. Our thanks go to mechanics Wilson Hubbell, Geoff Grow, Baron Corpuz, and the Santa Barbara Middle School Bike Monkeys. Christine Bourgeois staffed a bike education table, while Ralph Fertig worked our information booth. Without the help of those plus many other bike volunteers, Earth Day could have not reached out so widely to our community.

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Bicycle Coalition kicks off membership drive
by Michael Chiacos

• Bicycle use and culture is exploding in Santa Barbara! Census data show a 60% increase in commuter bicyclists over 1990. Our own counts show a 16% increase in bicyclists over the last 4 years. Bici Centro has cranked into full gear and is helping thousands of bicyclists while serving as a hub for bicycle culture. CycleMAYnia is about to kick off with 33 events in the month of May, everything from a Cycle Chic Fashion Show, to a Cargo Cat ride, Bike Bazaar, Bachelors on Bikes Auction, and many more.
• However, one thing remains constant, for the last 10 years, Bicycle Coalition membership has hovered around 200 members. We are using CycleMAYnia to launch our 2010 Membership Drive, where we boldly seek 100 new members. Board members are competing to ask our friends, acquaintances, and bikers on the street to see who can bring in the most new members.
• We are asking you to help us! Special membership flyers will be available at Cycle-MAYnia events, take a stack to give to your friends. Members get great discounts at bike shops, Quick Release, and add power to our advocacy and outreach efforts. We also have new online membership capability at www.bicicentro.org. Whoever brings in the most new members will win a $100 gift certificate to Bici Centro. Please take a moment now to think of your many bicyclist friends that aren’t yet members and contact them to help us reach our goal!

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Cycling Roundtable brings groups together



The city’s Dru van Hengel solicits ideas about improving bicycling, as Sarah Grant writes them down. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• On April 15th, a group of 24 individuals gathered in Santa Barbara to consider the good, the bad, and possible improvements in our entire bicycling culture. They represented bike shops, mountain bikers, competitive cyclists, transportation bicyclists, government staff, ride organizers, and advocates.
• It was organized by Carson Blume. A number of questions were posed to the group by Dru van Hengel, like "What is good about our bike community? What is bad? What threats exist? What might an ideal bicycle-friendly community look like? What might be the benefits of it?"
• While nothing was decided, all agreed that the gathering was an excellent exercise and should lead to future cross-communication because we have so many common interests.

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Women and bicycling

• Last October, Scientific American published an article by Linda Baker that said to boost urban bicycling, figure out what women want.
• Getting people out of cars and onto bicycles has long vexed environmentally conscious planners. In the US, twice as many men make cycling trips as women. In Germany and the Netherlands, the ratio is nearly equal. Because women are more averse to risk than men, it translates into an increased demand for safe bike infrastructure as a prerequisite, especially for travel to practical urban destinations. While men typically take the most direct route, women choose a longer trip if it includes quiet "bike boulevards" or paths separate from traffic. New York and Portland are installing new separated facilities as a way to broaden the cycling demographic. Why not here? Read the article here.

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Traffic Solutions’ Bike Commute Challenge

• It’s not too late to sign up for a team in the Commute Bike Challenge to win great prizes. The Challenge is a competition that runs for all of May, with five member teams making round-trips by bike instead of car. Each day, team members log their rides on the Challenge website. At the end of May, the team with the highest number of eligible days wins the grand prize, and other top teams receive additional prizes.
• You can create your own team from co-workers or friends, or join an existing team if they allow it. Each team of five must have at least two "converts" who are either bicyclists who have not participated in previous Team Bike or Commuter Challenges, or someone who has not biked more than once a week on average this year.
• Further details and registration here.

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LCI training seminar coming July 23-25th

• An opportunity to become a League Certified Instructor (LCI) is coming to Santa Barbara in July. With certification, you will qualify to teach bicycle safety education in the US. The instructor for this three-day course is Chris Quint from Long Beach.
• We need at least 10 participants to hold the seminar. In order to qualify, you have to take our Street Skills class (see below) or another League of American Bicyclists (LAB) "Traffic Skills 101" class.
• The training seminar costs $200. Thanks to the Goleta Valley Cycling Club, however, two scholarships are available if the person agrees to teach a school bike rodeo. Contact Eva Inbar at 964-0472 or eva_inbar@cox.net about them. Registration is required at least a month before the seminar. For general seminar details, contact Christine Bourgeois at 899-3728 or cbarreb@gmail.com. To learn about the LAB education programs, go to www.bikeleague.org.

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Skills class May 20-22nd



Street Skills participants listen to safety instructions during their Saturday class ride. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• Every other month, we offer our Street Skills for Cyclists Class, and the next one is on May 20th and 22nd. You’ll build confidence as you learn how to cope better with traffic in an urban setting. The class will help you foresee and avoid accidents, be visible day and night, position yourself in traffic, cross freeway bridges, equip your bike, and lots more including on-road riding on Saturday.
• The class will be held at the Granada Garage Bikestation, 1219 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara. Online info and online registration at www.sbbike.org/skills/apply.html. Email your questions to streetskills@sbbike.org.

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Coalition now offers online memberships

• It has taken us over two years to craft an online means of joining our Bicycle Coalition, maintaining membership information, and paying via credit card. However, it is now operational.
• Potential members can now join via our Bici Centro site www.bicicentro.org/join. Once a member, you can later login to renew or update contact information like address or phone number. We will not sell or give that information to any other organization without your permission.

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Wet Willy Sez

• Wilson Hubbell’s "Wet Willy" was off bike touring in Portugal instead of writing another column, but promises to return in June.

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Earth Day visitors want more bike lanes

• At our Earth Day information booth, we offered visitors a survey, essentially asking them what would improve local bicycling conditions the most? They voted with five "bike bucks" that they deposited in five designated boxes, or wrote some other action and put it in the "Other" box.
• The results are shown in the graph, indicating that more bike lanes on city streets are the highest priority with 33% of all votes.
• In 2008, an identical survey was run at Earth Day. "More bike lanes" was likewise the top improvement then, but it garnered a larger 36% of all votes. In addition, "Maintain streets better" moved up 3%, and "Slowing speeding motorists" declined by 4%.
• Perhaps the most significant change between 2008 and 2010 was that "Other" write-in votes increased from 7% to 15%. This may come from a greater recognition of the myriad challenges that people on bicycles face, coupled with a desire to tell our elected officials what they need.
• Extra write-in items that had more than one vote are, in decreasing vote numbers:
• More bike paths and new cycle tracks
• Bicyclist-friendly planning and oversight
• Education of motorists, bicyclists, police
• Maintain paths and lanes
• Extra bike racks on MTD buses
• Bike lanes on Milpas Street
• Maintain Modoc Street bike lanes
• Promote bike to school and "bike trains"
• Enforce cell phone and sidewalk biking laws
• More biking events.
• There were 24 other write-in suggestions that had one vote each. Among those were:
• A bike-sharing program
• Lighting along Beachway
• Subsidize Bici Centro
• More bulb-outs
• Spanish language bicycling classes
• Fewer red curbs
• Trim trees, shrubs overhanging bike lanes
• Bike lanes on Anacapa, Santa Barbara Streets
• Better bike storage on Amtrak trains
• Cite delivery trucks parked in bike lanes.
• Overall, it gives us a lot to consider in upcoming community bicycling programs and projects, from governments, individuals and businesses. Thanks to all who voted.

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Portland leads the way to sustainability
by Ralph Fertig

• Recently, the Portland OR City Council unanimously voted to fund $600 million for its Bicycle Master Plan. It includes 700 miles of new bikeways.
• City Commissioner Nick Fish said, "This will make bicycling a cornerstone of Portland’s sustainable transportation system. As a father of a 6 year old, this is particularly exciting for me."
• Critics say the city can’t afford to spend $600 million on bike infrastructure. However Mayor Sam Adams said that the city can’t afford not to invest in the ambitious plan, saying it would be virtually impossible to meet the city’s livability and environmental goals without it.
• After the vote, the Mayor then immediately announced $20 million funding to kick start the city’s program.
• Portland is a city of 600,000. Today it has 6% of its workers commuting by bike to jobs and through their ambitious Bicycle Master Plan, they intend to make bicycling 25% of all trips by 2030.
• By comparison, the city of Santa Barbara has 5.2% people commuting to their jobs. We have one sixth the population of Portland. So the obvious question is whether $100 million would increase our bicycling trip share to 25% to reach Santa Barbara’s livability and environmental goals too?

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Carpinteria seeks bike-friendly status

• Carpinteria may be applying for Bicycle Friendly Community status from the League of American Bicyclists. City councilmember Kathleen Reddington has asked the city manager to consider applying.
• The 2000 US Census showed that 2.3% of Carpinteria workers biked to their jobs. Out of seven cities in our county at the time, they were second only to Santa Barbara, and had nearly eight times the US average of 0.4%. Just filling out the application will let the city know how far they have gone in providing good and safe conditions for their residents who choose to bicycle.

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Willie wows audiences



Willie Weir, right, with Bicycle Coalition president Ralph Fertig after the UCSB performance. Photo by Robert Bernstein.

• Adventure Cyclist Willie Weir gave two unmatched story telling performances in Santa Barbara and UCSB on April 20th and 22nd to delighted audiences. People laughed and teared as they followed Willie’s biking the world with both joyous and heart-wrenching adventures. Robert Bernstein wrote afterwards, "The bicycle is so ‘innocent’ it can bring out the worst in people, but most of the time it brings out the very best in people!"
• About 60 turned out at UCSB, and 140 in Santa Barbara where the Library’s Faulkner Gallery was filled. Willie is an exceptional person who not only bestowed his world-class performances on us for free, with voluntary entrance donations going to our Bicycle Coalition, but he also gave us $5 out of every copy of his book Travels with Willie that he sold and signed afterwards.
• If you missed the performances, you can still buy his excellent book and have him sign it at his website www.willieweir.com.

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Bici Centro activities

• Our Bici Centro community bike program is expanding their services. Below are hours for various groups. Info at www.bicicentro.org or phone 617-3255.
• Monday, volunteers only, 4:00-8:00 PM
• Tuesday, youth only, 3:00-6:00 PM
• Tuesday, "Learn Your Bike" classes, 7:00-9:00 PM
• Wednesday, Spanish-speaking only, 4:00-7:00 PM
• Thursday, open shop 4:00-7:00 PM
• Friday, Mechanics Modules, 7:00-9:00 PM
• Saturday, open shop 1:00-7:00 PM

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Coalition asks Caltrans to fund planning

• Caltrans has a program called "Community-Based Transportation Planning" that funds planning for transportation projects.
• In March and April we urged Caltrans to fund proposals submitted by both the County and City of Santa Barbara.
• The County applied for a planning grant for the Hollister Avenue transportation corridor and the Santa Claus Lane area.
• In part we wrote, "The Hollister corridor can better accommodate mobility and accessibility to the many destinations along it. A possible bike/ped bridge over Highway 101 would greatly facilitate trips on foot and bicycle, shortening them by over a mile and improving public safety by avoiding on/off freeway ramps at the two alternative bridges. Destinations like the Page Youth Center, shops along Hollister, and San Marcos High School could become more accessible."
• Separately, the City of Santa Barbara wants to update its Bicycle Master Plan.
• We wrote, "The City of Santa Barbara’s Bicycle Master Plan, written in 1998, has served to propel the city’s bicycle commuting from 3.2% in 1990 to 5.2% in 2008, according to US Census Bureau data. Many of the Bicycle Master Plan recommendations for facility improvements have been accomplished by the city over the past decade or two, and it’s time to update the Plan to accommodate increasing demand and ethnographic changes. We heartily encourage you to fund the City’s request for a Community-Based Transportation Planning grant to reach out to current and potential bicycling members of our community, especially Hispanics and others who perhaps have been under-represented in the past."
• We hope that both jurisdictions receive Caltrans support for their planning. It will be a few months until we hear the results.

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How the WheelHouse won a silver award



Erik Wright and Evan Minogue tend to their bike business at the WheelHouse. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• The WheelHouse bike shop in Santa Barbara was incorrectly described in last month’s newsletter as having won a Bronze Level award as a Bicycle Friendly Business. They did better than that—it was Silver Level that was awarded by the League of American Bicyclists last March.
• Owner Erik Wright described what they do to deserve the award. Their five employees all bike to work. They support our Bicycle Coalition, Bici Centro and CycleMAYnia. Bike-in films are shown there during the summer, and they offer bike parking for the Saturday Farmers’ Market that takes place across the street from their shop. Their emphasis is on bicycles and accessories for everyday travel and transport of goods.
• Wright did say that they possibly got a lower rating because they have no employee showers, there are no adjacent bike paths or lanes, and they have no identified person to help workers commute.
• Overall, congratulations to the WheelHouse that joins UCSB as one of two Santa Barbara county Bicycle Friendly Business.

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April Coalition meeting topics

• Our April 6th monthly Bicycle Coalition meeting was held at Rusty’s Pizza in Santa Barbara, with 17 people talking about these topics:
• Ralph Fertig described the upcoming presentations by Willie Weir.
• J.C. Simmons talked about cycling and advocacy in the Thousand Oaks area, including their school system bike safety instruction.
• Byron Beck showed photos and talked about the Seattle community bike program.
• Baron Corpuz announced that he will be opening BikeStop 3.0 in Victoria Court in Santa Barbara.
• Lori La Riva talked about opportunities for CycleMAYnia events.
• Ralph Fertig described how Isla Vista will close a street and create a bikepath through Estero Park.
• Jim Cadenhead introduced himself. He’s from LA, active in community bike programs there, and moving to Santa Barbara to open a new bike shop.
• Christine Bourgeois described our ongoing bike education programs.

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We thank our active members

• Please thank and support these Bicycle Coalition business members:
• Bicycle Bob’s, Santa Barbara
• Nett & Champion Insurance Services, Santa Barbara
• Pedal Power Bicycles, Santa Maria
• Dr J’s Bicycle Shop, Solvang
• Hazard’s Cyclesport, Santa Barbara
• Chris King Precision Components, Portland, Oregon
• Santa Barbara Pedicabs, Santa Barbara
• Santa Barbara Bike Repair, Santa Barbara
• WheelHouse, Santa Barbara
• Santa Barbara Bikes To-Go, Santa Barbara
• Tailwinds Bicycle Club, Santa Maria
• We welcome these new members: Stan Roden, Karen Blakeman, Brad Laister. Eric Lohela, Patti Lobenberg, Michelle Kendall, Jill Murray, Mark Schaedler and Teresa Fanucchi.
• We appreciate those who renewed their memberships: Grant House, Ed Easton, Bill Strauss, Curtis Ridling, Keith Coffman-Grey, Burt Romotsky, Nathan Pfaff, Rosie Dyste, Alex & June Pujo, David Lawson, Diane Wondolowski, Greg Janee, Nicola Gordon, Kim & Peter Shingle, Arlene Allen, Howard Howe, Michael Kwan, Chris Sobell and Carol Tokar.