Welcome to the Alliance's weekly roundup of state & local biking & walking advocacy news. Every week, we crawl the blogs of our member organizations and bring you the most interesting tidbits.
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Editor's note: Our RSS reader was out of commission on Friday, thus this Monday morning roundup. We'll be back to Friday roundups at the end of the week.
BIKING & WALKING MEAN BUSINESS
Walking and biking advocates love talking up the economic benefits of people powered transportation. And it's no wonder: what business owner wouldn't want to support measures that bring more customers strolling and rolling by? Take a look at some of the ways some of our members are engaging the business community in advocacy for more walkable, bikeable streets.
In New York City, Transportation Alternatives runs a bike friendly business program and has worked to grow several bike friendly business districts in the city. TA's programs have served as examples for several other organizations' work in this area.
This week, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition announced the city's first bike-friendly business district (BFBD) in Yerba Buena. Hooray! Over 30 companies in the area will offer discounts to customers who arrive by bike, high-quality bike parking, and/or support infrastructure campaigns or bike-related events.
Meanwhile in Chicago, Lakeview and West Town have launched bike friendly business district programs. These two BFBDs will be the first of their kind in the Windy City.
When it comes to walkability, WalkBoston works directly with businesses to educate leaders about the economic benefits of walking. WalkBoston is always ready to help business owners advocate for better walking, and their annual Walker's Choice Award honors business' efforts to create walkable places.
The Washington Area Bicyclist Association introduces a new member of their business membership program: Alex Khachaturian of Slate Properties.
INFRASTRUCTURE NEWS
Here's why Nicole and her family want protected bike lanes in Minneapolis.
Boston Cyclists Union pushes for protected bike lanes on the Arborway.
30 miles of Philadelphia's Circuit trail network have been built since January of 2012.
New buffered bike lanes are on the ground in Richardson, Texas.
A new plan for Foster Avenue in Portland, OR will make the corridor better for biking and walking.
Progress is underway on Delaware's Wilimgton - New Castle Greenway, a walking and biking path.
THE BIG PICTURE
Chicago's Active Transportation Alliance commissioned an analysis showing that the city sees 125,000 daily bike trips. Of those, only 26,000 are work trips. These numbers point at the ongoing difficulty of estimating active transportation modeshare using American Communities Survey data, which only counts work trips.
Congrats to BikeWalkKC for receiving a chunk of funding for a full-blown Safe Routes to School program.
Here's how one former vehicular cyclist learned to stop worrying and love the bike lane.
Police in Kenmore, WA give cyclists a heads up that they will issue tickets to bikers who don't stop at stop signs.
How a bike lanes gets made in NYC.
Biking and walking are super duper efficient means of transportation!
ADVOCACY AVENUE
The Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition received a Stanford Community Partnership Award for their Vision Zero work as part of the Roadway Safety Solutions Team.
BikeWalkLee encourages their metropolitan planning organization to adopt a land use plan that would facilitate multimodal transportation.
Seniors and teens in Brookline, MA are working together to make their neighborhood safer for walking. And they got to wield radar guns in the process. Score!
WABA supports a new plan for DC that would add 200 new miles of bike lanes, including 72 miles of protected bike lanes.
LEGISLATION LANE
Families for Safe Streets call on New York state Senate leadership to introduce a bill that would allow New York City to lower its speed limit.
A bill that would ban the use of handheld cell phones while driving just passed the state Senate in Rhode Island and awaits consideration in the House.
New York advocates push for legislation to add a bike and pedestrian safety component to the state's driver's ed curriculum.
Following an alarmingly violent attack on a bicyclist in Atlanta, Georgia advocates call on lawmakers to enact a vulnerable user's law.
The city council in Greenville, NC voted to bring a one cent sales tax measure to voters in November. If passed, the funds will support biking and walking projects as well as road projects.
The Oregon Department of Transportation awarded $8.8 million to biking and walking projects.
Delaware Governor Markell signed a bill to make bicycling the officiall state sport, after intense lobbying from these elementary school kids (really!).
GET A JOB
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is hiring a part-time volunteer coordinator.
Pittsburgh is hiring a Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator.
TRAILER
This German robot traces bicyclists' paths on a map -- so leaders can see where bike lanes are most needed. I don't understand it, but I still want it.
