How to Start a Bike Advocacy Group that Enhances the Accessibility and Strength of Your Town
Want to better your community but don’t know where to start? Enter It’s the Little Things: a weekly Strong Towns podcast that gives you the wisdom and encouragement you need to take the small yet powerful actions that can make your city or town stronger.
It’s the Little Things features Strong Towns Community Builder Jacob Moses in conversation with various guests who have taken action in their own places and in their own ways.
Of all the interests that get people into the Strong Towns movement, cycling is undoubtedly one of the most common. And rightfully so: it’s a popular pastime and low-cost mode of transportation that benefits both the users and our cities, including a boost in business, recreation, and neighborhood connectivity.
Yet as anyone who’s explored his or her city on bike has discovered, our cities usually aren’t designed for cyclists. Instead, they’re designed around the car, pushing housing away from our business centers and other destinations for the day’s needs.
So what can cyclists do about it? What role can they play in making cycling a more accessible mode of transportation—beyond their daily ride around the suburban block?
Your perception of cycling advocacy may be dominated by a few common, well-intended strategies, such as annual Bike-to-Work Days and tweets showing yet another delivery truck parked in the bike lane. Helpful reminders of the progress that needs to be made, these things may nonetheless elicit little change beyond a few extra retweets.
But as you’ll learn from this episode’s guest—Strong Towns writer Aubrey Byron—strong citizens can achieve more when they combine their skills, efforts, and passions together to start advocacy organizations.
Aubrey, in addition to writing dope article after dope article at Strong Towns, is President of the Monthly Cycle: a St.Louis-based bike advocacy group dedicated to fostering an inclusive bicycling community for women and gender non-binary St. Louisans.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to start your own bike advocacy group, including how to act on the idea, spread your vision for a more bike-friendly town, and have an impact on bike policy in your place.
(Top photo via London Cycling Campaign.)
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