Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists

Last week CAZBike prez Bob Beane, along with Global Bikes co-owner Brandee Lepak, and PortaPedal’s Al Capello attended LAB’s 2014 National Bike Summit in Washington D.C…

AZ meetings on The Hill
Visited all 9 Representative offices and Senator Flake’s. We could not get an appointment in McCain’s office, but we will try to do that here in Phoenix within the next 7-14 days.

Of the 10 office visits, we had 5 actual meeting to discuss the bills. Nobody flat out turned us down, but nobody committed to either sponsor or vote for them, and all committed to presenting key points to their Senator/Representative.
Interestingly, we found out that Kyrsten Sinema is a triathlete and was actually at Brandee Lepak’s Global Bikes shop back here in AZ the week before our visit to kick-off an event. Here are the people we met and with whom we discussed the bills and bicyclist concerns anywhere from 5-20 minutes:

1. Senator Jeff Flake’s Office – Michael Nelson, Legislative Correspondent. 
2. Representative Matt Salmon’s Office –Lliam Norrison, Legislative Assistant
3. Representative Kyrsten Sinema’s Office – Michael Brownlie, Legislative Director
4. Representative David Schweikert’s Office – Beau Brunson, Legislative Director
5. Representative Paul Gosar’s Office – Trevor Pearson, Legislative Aide

I believe that the consensus of the three of us who made these visits is that we have a lot of work to do in AZ aligning support from tourism, business and healthcare in order to make political gains. We believe that this, combined with more frequent visits to Congressional offices and, better yet, asking these folks to attend bicycling events (as honored guests) is how we will make progress toward more support for more favorable treatment in federal legislation and budgets.
We believe that the cities in Arizona are on board (we have 9 BFCs and two honorable mentions, which represent most of the largest communities in the state). It is the state legislature, federal representatives and ADOT that need more impetus to change. The Summit was helpful in prioritizing opportunities for our limited resources.

Monday, March 3 Sessions
Keynote Speakers – Phillip Darnton, Executive Director, Bicycle Association of Great Britain, and Andy Clarke, President, League of American Bicyclists

How to be successful in bicycling advocacy…

• Focus programs
• Work with the willing (rather than wasting energy on those who are not)
• Talk to people who want to listen

Keys to success

• Get a mayor (and city council or county supervisor) on board (most successes come from local leaders of change)
• Continuity of effort and communication
• Work on building resources: People, organizations, sources of funding, etc.
• Emphasize route networks and connectivity (broken and incomplete routes/networks don’t encourage people to ride)
• Have a long term strategy/plan/goal to provide a framework for shorter term projects and “asks” and to help maintain priority perspective
• Train children to ride at ages 8-12. This is the critical time when persons incorporate bicycling into their lives…or not
• Women need to feel safe bicycling…they determine whether children ride, or not, which affects the next generation’s view of bicycling

Tuesday, March 4 Sessions
Opening Plenary Mayor’s Perceptions on Bicycling: Benefits, Challenges and Opportunities

Panelists included Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Representative Albio Sires (D-NJ), Texas Senator Rodney Ellis and Pittsburgh Mayor, Bill Peduto

• Mayors can be a major ally as they are highly motivated to have vibrant, economically successful communities
• Developers are also interested…car parking lowers return on investment of real estate projects. Bike-in and walk-in retail is economically attractive
• Advocate for “multi-modal” and “quality of life”…the “one less car” approach is a losing argument and doesn’t win supporters
• We are facing a likely 30% cut in transportation funding over the next 10 years…it’s more important than ever to build alliances (other modes, health care organizations, retailers, community planners, developers, etc.)
• The country needs a national bike strategy/policy framework…be a part of developing and supporting that

March 4, 9:30 am breakout sessions Rural State Success Stories
Improving bicycling in “Rural” states often requires different strategies and tactics than in more urban areas…
 Panelists: Dick Norford, Executive Director, Bicycle South Central Pennsylvania Shane Marshall, Deputy Director, Utah DOT Melinda Barnes, Executive Director, Bike Walk Montana Martin Shukert, RDG Planning and Design

• Solicit community priorities and opinions, first, to see where support might come from. Then, look for projects that can tap into that support.
• In smaller communities, identify key destinations first (library, community/retail center, schools) then explore connecting route options (e.g Hay Kansas Bicycle Master Plan)
• Pick a project that is grant-eligible and pursue a specific goal (e.g. a trail-building grant from the Alliance for Biking and Walking for a Montana trail project to a local lake)
• Engage local businesses and tourism officials in support for projects that will draw visitors and economic benefit (e.g. In Utah, this developed broad support for a DOT shift to an “active transportation” policy that supports bicycling infrastructure INCLUDING off-road paths in some areas)
• Emphasize “quality of life” benefits that support tourism and property values
• Work through others (e.g. engaged with a mountain bike group to connect with an effort to provide MTB access for inner city kids…this created support for bicycling and related infrastructure funding)

Below is Brandee Lepak’s reports from the 2014 National Bike Summit. Brandee is owner of Global Bikes, she attended along with Coalition president Bob Beane, and PortaPedal’s Al Capello…

Thank you for allowing me to be one of the representatives for Arizona. The trip was amazing and I was very proud to be one of three attendees from our state. At the summit I attended two of the break out sessions and spoke at a third.

The first session was called Bike Advocacy as a Political Platform. The panel consisted of local level elected officials who used their bicycle advocacy to get elected and used their positions to change the conversation about transportation. By attending this session, I learned how important it is to involve our political leaders in our cycling community. A guy asked the question of Dave Cieslewicz, the former Mayor of Madison, WI, “How can we influence politicians to be on our side?” He answered frankly, “Get me money, get me votes and get me in front of people/potential voters.” I host several cycling related events throughout the year and could easily involve politicians in my events. This was an “Ah-Ha” moment for me and I realized how much easier it would be to encourage them to vote on the side of the cycling community if they were involved in the process the entire time.

Arizona is should be such a powerful player in the Nation, but it seems like we are falling short on a collective goal. I wish that we had a state wide summit to bring us all together, so we could share our mission year after year.

The next session was Retailers Best Practices for Advocacy, this session brought retailers together from across the US to discuss how they have worked with advocates to improve bicycling in their communities. I actually was one of the presenters on this panel and I discussed the relationship between the MBAA and Global Bikes. We have always been a sponsor of the Mountain Bike Association of Arizona, but noticed the organization was on the decline about five years ago. Deciding to take an active role in our community and to help this organization thrive well into the future, I decided to get on the board and focus my efforts on creating a sustainable organization for years to come. I discussed how our organization requires our racers who are competing for the podium to do at least four hours of trail work. You quite simply cannot be a Champion in Arizona unless you give back. Apparently, that stunned the room because several people approached me after the event to ask questions about this policy. I also presented graphs showing the increase in trail work hours over the last three years. In conclusion, I discussed the importance of seeing the MBAA survive and thrive and what that meant to me as a business owner. If the MBAA would have failed… we would have lost our largest trail advocacy organization and the State Championship Race Series. Yes, competitors could have stepped up to take over the series, but would their focus have been on trails and youth development like the MBAA’s was? I didn’t believe that would be the case, so I decided to throw time, money and my resources at this organization to help it get back on it’s feet.
It was a pleasure to discuss and showcase the success of the MBAA on a national level. Sharing the great work of Arizonians and their commitment to our state made me so proud.

The last session I attended was Rapid-Fire Victory: 10 Advocacy Wins from Around the Country. This session featured 10 fast-paced mini-presentations on remarkable campaigns from across the United States. From billion-dollar ballot measures to state legislative change, learn how state and local advocates have won dollars for bicycling. Some of this presentation was the same as the first session, but still interesting. Advocates from around the US discussed their best practices. Each non profit that had a success story also told the story about how they leveraged relationships with their local officials to reach success. That seemed to be the most overwhelming call to action for me on this trip… we have to involve our politicians more and we need a stronger untied voice in the cycling community. This session made me realize that we need to focus on putting together a ‘Dream Team’ for next year. I think that we need to hand pick who we need to see at the summit in 2015. I think that we need a well rounded representation from businesses, transportation and other advocacy organizations.

Day on the Hill… When I was handed the packet with 11 leave behinds… I never thought we would be able to deliver them all. We only had two appointments scheduled, but we decided to stop by all of the offices anyway to drop off our packets. Surprisingly, we were able to meetings with staffers from many of the offices. I think we were all surprised by how many of the Representatives were actually into cycling! Kyrsten Sinema, is actually an Ironman athlete. We could easily tie her into our local events and I am sure that would guarantee a meeting in 2015. If she has the opportunity to reach voters and is able to see the collective goals of our community, I am sure she will support our initiatives. Jeff Flake’s office also met with us and was very receptive to our requests to co-sponsor the bills that we were requesting. His staff was familiar with our community and was eager to share our message with him. We pointed out how cycling creates ‘Livable Communities’ and makes our city more desirable to large companies like Apple, Orbital and Intel if their highly educated workforce could see themselves living in our cities. Cycling does that! Conclusion By the end of the day, our bodies hurts from walking on the marble floors, but yet we were excited to be a part of this amazing system. We paused to take a moment to let what we were doing really wash over us. We need more than three in 2015!

Thank you again form this incredible opportunity!

Brandee Lepak

Last week CAZBike prez Bob Beane, along with Global Bikes co-owner Brandee Lepak, and PortaPedal’s Al Capello attended LAB’s 2014 National Bike Summit in Washington D.C…

Report #1, Monday, March 3
Keynote Speakers – Phillip Darnton, Executive Director, Bicycle Association of Great Britain, and Andy Clarke, President, League of American Bicyclists

How to be successful in bicycling advocacy…

• Focus programs
• Work with the willing (rather than wasting energy on those who are not)
• Talk to people who want to listen

Keys to success

• Get a mayor (and city council or county supervisor) on board (most successes come from local leaders of change)
• Continuity of effort and communication
• Work on building resources: People, organizations, sources of funding, etc.
• Emphasize route networks and connectivity (broken and incomplete routes/networks don’t encourage people to ride)
• Have a long term strategy/plan/goal to provide a framework for shorter term projects and “asks” and to help maintain priority perspective
• Train children to ride at ages 8-12. This is the critical time when persons incorporate bicycling into their lives…or not
• Women need to feel safe bicycling…they determine whether children ride, or not, which affects the next generation’s view of bicycling