Georgia Bikes is hiring: Now accepting applications for full-time safety education programs manager

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Georgia Bikes is hiring: Now accepting applications for full-time safety education programs manager

The safety education programs manager is primarily responsible for directly overseeing bicycle and pedestrian safety educational programs for Georgia Bikes. This includes managing our grant with the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS), which emphasizes hosting youth and adult safety events, training law enforcement officers, distributing educational materials, and assisting the Georgia Bikes executive director with activities that support the growth and development of advocacy and safety throughout Georgia.

Job Description and Application Instructions

Georgia Bikes announces annual Bike-Walk-Live Summit in Decatur October 3-5

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Georgia Bikes’ annual conference, the Georgia Bike-Walk-Live Summit, returns to the metro area this fall. Coming to Decatur October 3-5, the Bike-Walk-Live Summit brings together all types of road and trail users and practitioners for informative educational sessions and new opportunities to work together to make Georgia’s roads, paths, and trails as safe and accessible as possible.


The Georgia Bike-Walk-Live Summit folds in the Georgia Outdoor Recreation and Trails Summit in 2024. This year represents the first official summit partnership between Georgia Bikes and the Georgia Outdoor Recreation Coalition.


“Trust for Public Land and the Georgia Outdoor Recreation Coalition are excited to integrate the Trail Summit into the Bike-Walk-Live Summit,” said George Dusenbury, Vice President of the Southern Region and the Georgia State Director at Trust for Public Land. “Pooling resources with our long-time partner Georgia Bikes will result in a more robust Summit and an even better experience for participants.”


As always, this year’s summit will offer a variety of learning opportunities, from informative plenary sessions to engaging and active mobile workshops, that highlight and improve on what makes Georgia bikeable, walkable, and livable, from complete streets and greenways to trails for walking, biking, rolling, and paddling.


“Georgia Bikes is thrilled to host this year’s Bike-Walk-Live Summit in downtown Decatur,” said Georgia Bikes’ Executive Director John Devine, AICP, said. “The Georgia Bike-Walk-Live Summit provides traffic engineers, professional planners, and active transportation activists and enthusiasts with an opportunity to learn best practices for their communities and celebrate everything that makes Georgia bikeable, walkable, and liveable.”


Previous summit sessions have included:

Bike-Walk Law 101: How to Deal with Aggressive Drivers

Want To Take an Ambitious Leap for a Regional Trail Concept? You’ve Come to the Right Place.

Design Collaboration on Urban Trails

The Accessible Trail Marking Project

Water Trails Planning and Programming

Youth Partners in Creating Change to Our Streets

Be Safe, Be Seen: How to Run (Or Not Hit a Runner) At Any Time of Day!


Sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information about sponsoring this year’s Georgia Bike-Walk-Live Summit, contact justin@georgiabikes.org. Additional details, schedules, and registration will be available soon at georgiabikes.org.


What: Georgia Bikes’ 2024 Georgia Bike-Walk-Live Summit

Where: Courtyard by Marriott, Decatur, GA

When: October 3rd-5th, 2024 


For more information on Georgia Bikes, please visit www.georgiabikes.org or follow Georgia Bikes on Facebook and Instagram. 


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MACORTS (Athens Region) Metropolitan Transportation Plan 2050 Update in Process

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Metropolitan planning organizations (MPO) are federally designated to administer transportation planning and facilitate federal and state transportation investments within the region for all urban areas with over 50,000 residents. Every five years, MPOs are required to update their Metropolitan Transportation Plan, which covers a 20-year planning horizon and provides MPOs the opportunity to assess the existing transportation network, estimate future demands, and identify needs and future investments. 

The public input process is an important part of the MTP update that provides the project team with context about on-the-ground conditions and the needs of people who regularly use the region’s transportation infrastructure. Having an MTP that accurately reflects the needs of all who use the transportation system, no matter what mode they use, is a crucial step to building more complete, accessible, and safe roadways.

Below is our letter to the project team, our responses to survey questions, and details on how to participate. 

The public input survey is open through March 31 – don’t miss your opportunity to protect people who bike, walk, or roll in your community! 

Complete the Survey Today!

New Mission and Vision

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Georgia Bikes Announces Newly Adopted Mission and Vision

 

Through our work in policy and infrastructure advocacy, education, and direct assistance to local partners, Georgia Bikes has made the state a safer and more enjoyable place for bicycling since 2005.

 

Yet Georgia’s roads remain too dangerous, and not only for those of us who ride bicycles. People traveling outside of a car are more likely than drivers to experience traffic violence, so Georgia Bikes has officially added to our areas of impact by adopting new mission and vision statements. We’ve broadened our work to include both bicycle and pedestrian travel (including people who use mobility devices) and a recognition that safe, equitable transportation is essential to human dignity and quality of life for everyone statewide. Our formally expanded mission will guide the organization to “advance safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation and recreation as vital components of a thriving, livable Georgia.” Through this updated mission, we will work to achieve our new vision: “A Georgia where everyone has access to safe and enjoyable biking, walking, rolling, and transit.” 

 

The national Governors Highway Safety Association recently highlighted an alarming trend: fatalities among people walking are rapidly increasing across America, last year reaching their highest numbers since 1981. According to the report, Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State, deaths have risen by 77% since 2010 and now account for nearly one-fifth of all roadway fatalities nationwide. Recent years have seen a sharper uptick, with fatalities of people walking rising from 6,324 in 2019 to 7,508 in 2022 – a 19% jump in just three years. 

 

Danger is growing even more rapidly for Georgia’s pedestrians: fatalities in our state rose 40% from 2019 to 2022, climbing from 239 to 335 lives lost, a rate of increase more than doubling the national figure.

 

According to Georgia Bikes Executive Director, John Devine, AICP, “Georgia Bikes’ new mission and vision statements reflect the need to address the root causes of fatalities among vulnerable road users: roadway design and transportation policies that historically have prioritized motor vehicles while endangering people who bike, walk, or roll. With this broader mission and updated vision, we look forward to transforming transportation in our state and working toward a Georgia where everyone, no matter how they get around, is confident that they can do so safely and comfortably.”

 

Georgia Bikes remains as committed to our bicycling work as ever, and we will always fight for safe and enjoyable cycling. As illustrated by the League of American Bicyclists’ 2022 report card, bicycling conditions in Georgia – ranked 46 of 50 among states in cyclist fatalities – must be improved. Our recent work shows our commitment: we won substantial improvements in state law governing how motorists pass cyclists, we successfully applied to create a major federal/state partnership to fund Georgia’s first-ever Active Transportation Plan, and we’re now offering more Safe Cycling and Bicycle-Friendly Driver programming than ever before. 

 

“The future of advocacy – and transportation, itself – is multimodal,” Devine said. “Georgia Bikes is committed to creating a safer, more equitable, and more sustainable state for all road users.”

GEORGIA BIKES ANNOUNCES $3M RURAL STATEWIDE ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION PLAN

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Georgia Bikes is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to develop and implement a Rural Statewide Active Transportation Plan. Funded by a $2.4 million Transportation Alternatives award from the Federal Highway Administration and $600,000 in GDOT matching funds, this will be the first phase of a robust statewide plan for bicycle and pedestrian transportation. The $3M grant award is the result of a successful application by project sponsor Georgia Bikes, the statewide nonprofit working to improve bicycling and walking.

“The Active Transportation Plan – the first of its kind in our state – will confront one of Georgia’s most serious roadway concerns: the disproportionate number of fatalities and injuries among people walking and bicycling,” said John Devine, AICP, Georgia Bikes Executive Director. “While this plan addresses issues related to rural travel, the project will also define a broader planning framework that GDOT will be able to extend to the rest of the state in future phases, as well as an in-depth examination of state-level policies related to bicycling and walking.”

According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data from 2020, Georgia is the eighth-most dangerous state for pedestrians, with a fatality rate of 2.61 per 100,000 residents. Additionally, the state ranks 46th for bicycle commuter safety with 23.2 fatalities per 10,000 bike commuters. The Rural Statewide Active Transportation Plan will take steps to make walking and biking safer for people on Georgia’s roadways.

Data show the dangers of walking and bicycling on state routes, and the plan will seek to eliminate vulnerable road user fatalities along Georgia’s state-owned roadways. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association’s report issued in February 2023, Georgia saw a 4.35% increase in pedestrian fatalities from 2021 to 2022. Georgia’s most recent Bicycle-Friendly State report card, issued by the League of American Bicyclists in 2022, noted that “54% of cyclists killed in Georgia were killed on state DOT-owned roadways since 2015… Addressing safety on state-owned roadways is key to improving bicyclist safety in the state.” This partnership with GDOT is the first step in a proactive approach to combating vulnerable road user fatalities on Georgia’s state-owned roads and beyond.

The Rural Statewide Active Transportation Plan will generate input from people who already bike and walk in rural areas as well as individuals who would consider doing so if dedicated infrastructure existed. The public engagement process, along with creation and analysis of datasets relating to safety and demographics, will identify needs and opportunities unique to rural areas.

Further, the project will catalog gaps in funding sources and availability, and provide a thorough review of other states’ best practices for designing, funding, and building active transportation projects.

“This plan will establish a vision and implementation strategy to improve the safety and comfort levels of rural road users who haven’t benefited enough from the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure that’s so popular in denser areas of Georgia,” Devine said. “It will map out a safe, connective network for rural roadway users, whether they walk, roll, or bike, and it will ensure safer roads for all Georgians.”

For more information about the grant award for Georgia’s Rural Statewide Active Transportation Plan, contact John Devine, AICP, Georgia Bikes Executive Director at jd@georgiabikes.org. To learn more about Georgia Bikes, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Download a PDF of This Press Release

“I think I just hit you”

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Justin Bristol: After being hit in 2014, I’m using my personal experience to make Georgia safer


In 2014, I left my job and packed up my van to spend the summer in Savannah and ride my bike full time. I was training for my last collegiate racing season and riding three to five hours almost every day.


Being on the road for nearly twenty hours every week meant two things: one was that I probably needed to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist when I got back home, and the second was that I was getting passed by a lot of cars.


I was riding to a bike shop one day that July. I don’t remember the route that I took to get to Victory Drive that morning, but I do remember trying to spend the least amount of time possible on that busy four-lane road.


Then I remember being in the dirt.


I’m lucky that I walked away from the crash without any injuries. I’m even luckier, though, that I get to work to prevent these events from happening to other people.


Through our education programs at Georgia Bikes, I work regularly with law enforcement departments to make Georgia’s roads safer for everyone. The continuing education courses that we offer to these local agencies take a detailed look at Georgia’s cycling laws (including the recently updated three-foot passing law), crash data, and best practices for crash reporting. Plus, I’m able to use a redacted version of my own crash report to share my experiences and discuss options for an improved response to the crash that day.


Your support this Giving Tuesday means that we can continue and grow these programs. With your donations, we can help children and adults who ride bikes learn strategies to stay safe on the road and how to choose safe routes. Your gifts help us offer more Bicycle-Friendly Driver classes to a diverse audience ranging from new, young drivers to professional drivers. Most importantly, we can offer more law enforcement classes to help police officers protect you on the road.


Donate now at: www.georgiabikes.org/donate-to-georgia-bikes/