4 Easy Steps to a Bike Friendly GA

Winter weather and icy roads may have pulled the rug out from under your usual riding habits (though this definitely isn’t true for some of you!), but you can still make a big difference in creating better bicycling for Georgia.

Below are four quick and simple steps you can take right now to help advance our mission of promoting bicycling and improving bicycling conditions throughout the state:

  1. Vote for Georgia Bikes in the Bicycling Magazine People’s Choice Award
     
  2. Join us March 18th for the 9th annual Ride to the Capitol (or see if there’s a Ride to City Hall happening near you in March)
     
  3. Ask your US Congressman to support HR 3978, the “New Opportunities for Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Financing Act of 2014.” You can do so in less than two minutes via this online Take Action form from the League of American Bicyclists.
     
  4. Become a member of Georgia Bikes – member dues allow us to hire a lobbyist at the state capitol to protect your right to the road and to fight for funding for safe, quality bike facilities statewide.

 Wasn’t that easy?

Thanks for taking a few minutes to support a bike friendly Georgia!

GA Bikes a finalist for Bicycling Magazine award – Vote by Feb. 6

We’re a contender! Your friendly statewide bicycle advocacy organization made the finals for Bicycling Magazine‘s 2014 People’s Choice Award.

Details and a link to vote for us here. Full press release below. Thanks for your vote!

Bicycling Magazine, the No. 1 source of information for cyclists, has partnered with the Alliance for Biking & Walking as the presenting sponsor of the 2014 Advocacy Awards, which will be presented March 3 in Washington D.C. The inaugural Bicycling Magazine People’s Choice Award has been created as part of this partnership. Voting begins today at Bicycling.com

The Alliance for Biking & Walking has held the Advocacy Awards since 2009 to recognize excellence in the bicycling and pedestrian movement. The sixth annual Advocacy Awards presented by Bicycling Magazine will shine a spotlight on the often invisible, behind-the-scenes advocacy work that has gone into making communities across North America better for biking and walking in the past year. 

 In the past, the awards have recognized 11 individuals, 18 organizations, and five businesses that have gone above and beyond to make biking and walking better. 

 “Bicycling Magazine and the Bicycling brand are committed to supporting cycling advocacy,” said Bicycling Editor-in-Chief Peter Flax. “Our commitment to the Alliance for Biking & Walking and the Advocacy Awards will help actively promote cycling at the community level by giving the leaders on the ground the recognition they deserve. We’re proud to join and lead this partnership.” 

 “The Alliance for Biking & Walking is thrilled to partner with Bicycling Magazine for the sixth annual Advocacy Awards,” said Jeffrey Miller, Alliance President/CEO. “Thousands of advocates across the continent are doing phenomenal work to improve biking in their communities, and we’re delighted to haveBicycling’s media prowess to help spread the word on these fantastic organizations, leaders, and businesses.” 

 The public will choose between 10 finalists by voting exclusively for the Bicycling Magazine People’s Choice Award on Bicycling.comVoting will run through Feb. 6 and the award will be presented to the winner at the 2014 Advocacy Awards ceremony. Voters can log on directly to: http://www.bicycling.com/peopleschoice14 to vote for their choice. 

 “We wanted to create the Bicycling Magazine People’s Choice Award to bring increased visibility to the work of the Alliance and to those across the country fighting every day for the safety of cyclists,” Flax said. 

 The 2014 nominees are: East Bay Bicycle Coalition (San Francisco), MassBike, Bike Cleveland, Active Transportation Alliance (Chicago), Bike Easy (New Orleans), Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (Palo Alto), Bicycle Transportation Alliance (Portland), Bike Delaware, Transportation Alternatives (New York City), Georgia Bikes. More information on each nominee can be found here: http://www.bicycling.com/peopleschoice14

Successful strategic planning retreat for Tifton advocates

As a service to new and emerging local advocacy organizations, we help groups focus their mission, vision, goals and objectives. We have helped advocates in Augusta, Columbus, Oconee County, Rome, and elsewhere, and we just completed a successful, full-scale planning retreat for the Tift Area Greenway Association. Over the course of a day and a half at a beautiful, remote lake cabin outside of Fitzgerald, GA, TAGA Board members discussed their shared vision for a healthy, safe, walkable, and bikeable Tift County. With a revised, concise mission statement in hand, we developed an achieveable but ambitious set of goals and objectives for the organization.

This is an enthusiastic, committed group to keep an eye on – great things are in store for Tifton and Tift County!

If your group would like to schedule a phone call, a workshop or a multi-day retreat to help focus its efforts, please feel free to contact us.

Exciting agenda announced for GA Trail Summit!

With a number of partner organizations from across the state, Georgia Bikes is proud to support the upcoming Georgia Trail Summit.

The Summit, being held in Athens April 11-12, will bring together trail advocates from a broad spectrum of user groups – kayaking, hiking, equestrian, and, of course, bicycling – to share best practices and success stories and to plan for more and better trails in Georgia.

Check out the unique and exciting agenda here (we’ll be conducting a mobile workshop on how to integrate multi-use paths with on-road bike facilities).

We hope to see you in Athens!

Complete Streets workshops a big success

Thanks to funding from FHWA’s Accelerating Safety Activities Program, Georgia Bikes coordinated a traveling workshop on the benefits and importance of Complete Streets conversions and refuge islands for improved bicyclist safety.

From 2011 to 2012, bicyclist fatalities rose more than 50% in Georgia. Urban arterial roads often pose significant risks to bicyclist safety due to high motor vehicle speeds and traffic volume, but proven design countermeasures  effectively address common safety issues and improve access for all roadway users.

With experts from the City of Atlanta, ALTA Planning+Design, and GDOT, Georgia Bikes shared case studies and design guidance for Complete Streets conversions and refuge islands, as well as additional recommendations from AASHTO and the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide.

Workshops were conducted in Atlanta, Augusta, Athens, Savannah and Columbus from July-November 2013. 

Presentations

This training supports the vision and goals of the state’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan, Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, and GDOT’s Complete Streets Design Policy adopted in 2012.