Quarterly Newsletter and News Articles

The following is by Bruce Adib-Yazdi, who was a key player in developing the Springfield Bicycle Plan.

I would encourage all advocates to work with the city you live in to develop a city Bicycle Plan. The implementation of which could take 20-50 years, and the results of which would end up being safer ways to use your feet (bike or walk) to transport yourself, and ultimately increase quality of life in that area.

It's not easy work. And the plan needs constant maintenance and updating due to changing conditions and traffic patterns.

Here is a 10 step plan toward that effort. (PLEASE NOTICE STEP 10, which is the most important one.) Along every step of the way, there is work that needs to occur to educate the cycling community (through awareness, safety classes, and attitude adjustments) in these efforts as well.

1 - Develop a 'feel good', grass roots community wide planning effort that results in a long range planning document including sections on Transportation and Parks and Green Space. (both of which have implications for bike / ped issues, and should have those items addressed) Transportation and Parks are independent, but linked. Don't let people confuse (or use interchangeably) recreation and transportation.

2 - City Government adopts the plan - which at this point is very vague and nebulous, but feels good.

3 - City Government makes small attempts to fulfill the plan.

4 - Individuals address city government at annual appropriation meetings to remind them what they said they were going to do in the plan and why. (Increase in Quality of Life, which is what people and businesses MOVING to the area look for - thus you increase quality growth patterns fro the city. Now this is an ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT issue.)

5 - City government says 'You think this is important, why don't you work in an advisory role with our staff'. Or maybe individuals ask what they can do to help.

6 - Individuals work on city boards and help generate various committees to influence direction of efforts. (It does not hurt to find out who the city staff advocates are. But they can not always push a particular issue - they need public input / direction - although they can help immensely in implementation.)

7 - More detailed plans are developed, and eventually adopted. This is where a master plan is developed complete with inventory of existing conditions, opportunities, barriers and improvements necessary to correct them to be suitable for on-street cycling. (This will take the help of all involved - cycling advocates, safety advocates, health care advocates, transportation planning, neighborhood planning, MPO, MoDOT, County Government, etc.)

8 - Funding sources identified. (This is a biggie. Rationale has to be to help reduce traffic, increase safety, increase QOL, and give citizens choices)

9 - Plans start getting implemented.

10 - Our CHILDREN and GRANDCHILDREN enjoy the benefit of our work.

Related:

News: Transportation Enhancements comes to House vote Thurs, September 4th

News: California dedicates 1/3 of safety money to Safe Routes to Schools

permanent link to article: "How to develop a Bike Plan"
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