residents to get active by walking and rid-
ing a bike, and I felt that to be effective I
needed to get out on a bike myself.
In the summer, I started doing rec-
reational rides on some of the trails in
Cleveland. I realized that if I could go out
on weeknight evenings and do five-mile
rides, it shouldn’t be that hard to bike to
work. Biking progressed from a recreation-
al option to more of a lifestyle and trans-
portation choice. By the middle of that
summer, I was doing 30- or 40-mile trips.
How did RTC’s Urban Pathways
Initiative (UPI) help shape your
voice for the biking community?
In 2009 and 2010, UPI provided funding
and technical assistance to help connect
urban trail programs around the country,
so we could learn from each other. For
example, how are organizations overcom-
ing safety barriers, either perceived or
real, that keep people from using trails?
Here in Cleveland, UPI helped us gain
national exposure for a lot of the programs
we were doing around the Morgana Run
Trail in Slavic Village, such as our summer
bike camp program for kids. The campers
used the trail to get to places they’d never
been before, and they were doing it on a
trail in their own community.
UPI also helped draw attention—locally
and nationally—to the benefits of urban
trails, especially in a neighborhood like
Slavic Village, which was hit hard by fore-
closures. You have a lot of empty buildings,
and then you have this gem that helps
people get to the grocery store and to work.
It goes through industrial, commercial,
business and residential areas; it can serve
the diverse needs of the community.
What events have helped to improve
the climate for biking in Cleveland?
In June 2012, shortly after I started with
Bike Cleveland, we passed a city ordi-
nance that included a mandatory three-
foot margin for motorists to pass bikes.
The next year, we launched Cleveland’s
first public bicycle awareness campaign,
encouraging motorists and cyclists to
share the road. The campaign message
was, “We’re in this together.”
Why do you think this work is
critical to the future of Cleveland?
For Cleveland to be competitive, we need
to create options for both the people who
live in the city and those who want to
move here. We need to get people in and
out of the city by car, but that can’t be the
only transportation option.
Bike Cleveland works pretty closely
with a number of businesses that have told
us of their desire to be competitive and
stay in Cleveland. To achieve this, they
need to attract creative, smart people, and
we need to help them by developing com-
munity assets that draw those people in.
Across Cleveland, 25 percent of
residents don’t have access to cars. If you
build a street that functions for cars but
not bikes, you are not serving all your
citizens. And that’s an equity issue. Low-
income neighborhoods aren’t getting
access to biking facilities as quickly as
other communities, and that affects their
health and their ability to be active.
What are things that anyone—and
particularly young people—can do
to help the bike community where
they live?
The first and most important: Get on a
bike! If you are afraid to go out on your
own, find a group. Many people start out
with a large group until they get comfort-
able riding on the street in smaller groups
or on their own.
Second: Join your local advocacy
group. If we all work together, we can
build a bike-friendly community.
Amy Kapp is the editor-in-chief of
Rails to Trails
magazine.
Bike Cleveland also hosted a two-day
workshop across the region to educate
local police about bicycle and pedestrian
safety. Twenty-five police officers came
to hear about accident statistics and the
most common violations of law that
result in bicycle and pedestrian accidents.
The workshop marked a shift from cre-
ating policy to creating public aware-
ness and then to educating the police
to enforce the policies. The policies are
good, but you can’t just leave it at that.
What are some of the highlights of
the city’s emerging bike culture?
There’s been an increase in the number of
people commuting to work by bike. I think
the latest report by the League of American
Bicyclists says that Cleveland is the nation’s
fifth-fastest-growing city in terms of the
number of bicycle commuters.
And we are seeing not just more,
but better, bike facilities. Ray’s Indoor
Mountain Bike Park draws people from
all over the region. We have a velodrome
for bike racing. We have some great trails
that have really helped build a recre-
ational culture. There are more plans for
dedicated bike lanes. Over the past three
years, we’ve seen a great growth in the
culture of bicycling.
As a young person passionate
about biking for transportation,
and as executive director of Bike
Cleveland, what is your vision for
the city?
There is a lot of potential in Cleveland
for creating a connected network of
bicycling facilities. We have a lot of unde-
rused roadways. I’d like to see Cleveland
capitalize on that capacity and create an
environment that makes people feel safe
on these routes and encourages them to
make the choice to get on a bike.
If you look at other cities that are
moving the needle in terms of getting
people out of cars and onto bikes, they
provide three things: one, quality facilities
and protected bike lanes; two, a bike-
share program that offers good, equitable
access to bicycles; and three, program-
ming to help support the bicycle culture.
Brian Fyfe
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