This article is the fourteenth in a series profiling the varied and amazing nominees for the 2009 Alice B. Toeclips Awards, which will be presented to five winners at the Alice Awards & Auction on March 7th. We won’t be able to profile everyone, so read the nominees’ descriptions online. This profile was written by BTA correspondent John McLaren.
Paige Townsend has been unstinting in her efforts to promote the transit, bicycling, walking and 
skateboarding in Southern Oregon, where she serves as a Senior Planner for the Rogue Valley Transportation District (RVTD). She has made particularly notable contributions to the region’s Safe Routes to School (SR2S) program.
As Senior Planner, she keeps track of new residential and commercial construction development in the Rogue Valley and recommends specific improvements such as minimizing building setbacks from the street (which makes the street a more interesting, safe place to walk), providing pedestrian walkways, locating convenient bicycle parking and reducing auto parking to provide better access for other modes.
She helps coordinate the annual Ashland Community Bike Swap, which raises money for the BTA bike safety courses in Ashland and Talent that have reached thousands of kids in the valley. This year, the Bike Swap will be held from noon to 2 p.m. on May 9th.
Townsend lived car-free for four years while in Eugene attending the University of Oregon, where she “gained an appreciation for Eugene’s land use policy and the local transit system and convenient bicycle network.”
She moved to the Rogue Valley in 2003 as part of a UO assistance program for rural areas and began an internship at RVTD as a Transportation Demand Management Planner. While Medford has a long way to go to become as bicycle friendly as Eugene, she still enjoys riding a bike to destinations near her house and shares rides to work each week. Her efforts are focused on multi-modal education and advocacy in hopes that one day the Rogue Valley can be more car-free and comfortable.
She coordinated the first Car Free Day street closure in Ashland in 2005 with Ashland Bike and Pedestrian Commissioner Trace Harding. Townsend hopes this annual event “fosters a positive culture around walking, biking, skateboarding so it can be seen in a better light.” After learning that skateboarding has as high if not higher use than cycling in some areas, she created a five-day skateboard camp for youth that provides traffic and helmet safety information (camp details will be posted on the RVTD’s skateboard page soon).
The Transportation Options Group of Oregon recognized Townsend for her work in establishing the Bike First Project, in which 15 lucky participants received a Breezer commuter bicycle with all the bells and whistles, and in exchange pledged to use a bike as their primary source of transportation. Together with local bike shop owner Chris Haynes, Townsend (at that time using her maiden name, West) made this happen with an $8,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration.
“One of the goals of the Bike First Rogue Valley program is to compare the ‘ride-ability’ of each community,” said Townsend. “Each city has areas conducive to bicycling, and other spots that are not. Pathway and roadway conditions, auto speed, traffic, and how [bicyclists] are treated by other road users are ride-ability factors. My hope is that the program will make all road users more respectful of each other to increase safety and improve conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists so that others can choose to bike first.” RVTD is now looking at offering a similar type of program next year.
Townsend has done a tremendous amount of work for the Rogue Valley’s Safe Routes to School Program, with the result that the program has grown from one to 10 schools in just 3 years. She developed school-specific walking and biking programs, implemented a regional Safe Routes Action Plan, secured funding for engineering improvements, helped establish and equip bike rodeos, and organized the Rogue Valley’s Walk & Bike to School Day in October.
Townsend also participates in bike to work challenges and community events to show her ongoing support for cycling as transportation. She coordinated the area’s first “Ride with the Leaders” as part of National Bike to Work Week, during which the mayors of four Rogue Valley cities and a Jackson County commissioner took a three-mile bike ride through downtown Medford, neighborhood schools, and a stretch of the Bear Creek Greenway.
