Safe Routes road trip reveals statewide success stories

One of the joys of my job is interacting with folks all over Oregon who are working away in their own little corners of the state to bring bike safety education to children. Last week I had the opportunity to travel with Scott Bricker to two of the cities where our bike safety classes and Safe Routes to School relationships are thriving. I also had the pleasure of meeting some loyal and generous supporters of the BTA’s programs.

In Eugene we met with Connie Bloom of Lane Transit District, Marcia Maffei of Commuter Solutions and Chris Watchie. Eugene has many exciting programs in place but the free bus fares for students as a component of the Smart Ways to School program happened to be in the newspaper that day. How exciting to hear about the innovative ways the community works together to provide useful and efficient solutions! We also discussed the possibility of working with them to bring a Bike Town model of bike safety education, especially since bicycling is so strongly supported in the planning process at the city level. Maybe there’s a partnership in the future, and ain’t it a thrill that Portland isn’t the only cycle-centric city around!

To that extent we also met with Susan Stumpf and Jerry Welch from GEARs and learned of the good work they are doing, as well. Rural cycling issues are foremost on their minds, but support for bike safety education – as usual – is a favored form of advocacy in that little cyclists grow up to be big cyclists someday. The uber friendly folks at Green Gear (Bike Friday) fall in the same category in terms of their support for BTA programs. When we met with them and toured their impressive facility it became apparent that the dirty little secret to supporting youth cycling is that we’re creating larger numbers of cyclists AND advocates for more responsible choices that include cycling for environmental reasons. It’s a big picture issue that we all agreed on – do your best to create healthy habits in the young ones and maybe they will, in turn, save the world!

So on to Grants Pass where my travel friend slinked off to a legislative meeting while I pounded a coffee and pondered all the big ideas swirling in my head. Then on to Ashland where we apparently brought with us a gift from Portland – much needed rain.

In Ashland I finally had the opportunity to meet our two amazing instructors – Egon Dubois and Kat Smith – who proudly carry the bike safety torch and bravely go to new places with the ongoing BTA theme of ‘innovation’. Egon couldn’t talk enough about those crazy skateboarding kids and the need for skateboard safety education and encouragement. Hmmm. Well, yeah, that definitely ties into Safe Routes to School, so we’ll see where this goes. I, for one, love to push the envelope and am more than happy to do what I can without forgetting the ‘B’ part of BTA.

We all met with a long time friend and supporter, Annie Hoy from Ashland Food Coop who strongly recommended we build our relationship with the coop (wink wink, nudge nudge), suggested other relationships to build and perked up at the idea of growing our bike safety program to include schools in Central Point. That was my focus for the day as I traveled the Rogue Valley.

From there it was on to United Bicycle Institute to tour that incredible facility and twist Ron Sutphin’s arm to inject energy into this whole bike-safety-in-Central-Point issue. Ron provided us with great ideas and agreed to do what he can. He also provided us with a ride to our car (thanks Ron!) since a little early morning mix up had kept us off our bikes, on foot, and perpetually late.

We scrambled to Medford for a quick check in with Ralph Browning, a city traffic engineer, who took the time to explain to me a most remarkable accomplishment. Most cities find the engineering component of Safe Routes to School to be nearly insurmountable. However Medford two years ago passed a bond levee with funds directed to infrastructure improvements around schools – better sidewalks. All schools are getting better sidewalks. Holy walk and bike to school! That’s awesome! Come on everyone – let’s make these kinds of improvements happen everywhere!

Next on the list was a meeting with Corporal Lou Fulmer at the Central Point Police Department where low and behold bike safety is about to happen and it’s almost shameful to suggest we had a lot to do with it! Corporal Fulmer, Sgt. Jeff Britton and their chief are all so ready to get kids on bikes during school that it would be a crime to not make it happen! The excitement of that meeting is what drove me to where I am now – knee deep in a couple of grant applications due basically now, but if awarded would provide the new bike fleet that is necessary. Keep your fingers crossed!

Finally, we were off to the Ashland Bike and Pedestrian Commission meeting where I met several key members of the community as well as a young guy, a freshman in high school, who was attending the meeting for a Boy Scout thing. That was super cool, as was the light-hearted yet incredibly purposeful and motivated group of folks working to keep Ashland at the top of the bike-friendly cities list. They have supported our bike safety education classes for years, and now I know why. They’ve got it together!

I’m energized to visit other areas of Oregon and love my job even more now. Please, if you aren’t yet involved in supporting Safe Routes to School or bike safety education, find a way. And if you are, my sincerest thank you and deepest gratitude for making my job a little bit easier and far more fulfilling!