- BikeCNY
- The Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council (SMTC)
- New York Bicycle Coalition (state)
- Transportation Alternatives (NYC)
- Congressional Bike Caucus
- League of American Bicyclists
A Piece of Heartening News!
More OCC members are participating in OCC sponsored rides, logging impressive mileage! Consider that in the last few years, the top 25 riders (the ones who showed up for the most rides and consequently received an award at the annual banquet meeting) completed at least 1,000 miles in scheduled rides, and, in a few cases, more than 2,500 miles.
Ride More!
Whether you rode 100 or 5,000 miles last year, please consider riding on a special week, from May 16 to May 20. It is Bike-to-Work week; Bike-to-Work Day is Friday May 20, and May is the Bike Month. If you can go to work on a bicycle, do so. If you haven’t done it, give it a try. If it is impractical because of distance, lack of appropriate routes, or whatever, do an errand on the bicycle. The important thing is to have as many people riding bicycles during that week as possible, and this is why:
- It will help to demonstrate to the general public that bicycling is not a fringe sport;
- Motorists will get accustomed to bicyclists and become comfortable having bicycle and cars share the road;
- Kids usually like to ride bicycles and can get motivated to ride more when they see people doing the same; and
- Seeing you or others on the road, your non-bicycling spouse/relative/friend/coworker might want to start biking too.
Don’t forget to check their Website for cycling related activities planned for the month of May (http://www.bikemonth.com/). The Website contains info on bicycle advocacy and education, including the League’s Bicycle Friendly Community Program. If you can, get involved. In any case, be informed!
Thanks for your work to improve bicycling in Central New York. The state of cycling in Syracuse reminds me very much of that of NYC in the early 1990s. One goal that might galvanize people and yield measurable results is a simple set of truly protected bike path exes crossing at the Syracuse University/SUNY ESF campus. The roughly north-south axis would run from Destiny Mall to the Onondaga Nation and the roughly east-west axis would run from Lemoyne College to the Gifford Zoo. From there small connectors could grow to link the MOST, schools and libraries, and Amtrak station, etc.
A clear and large project with economic benefits like the Syracuse SNEW (my cardinal direction pun on the famous snow accumulation here) would in fact be easier to achieve than incremental progress through piddling disconnected segments and would harmonize with larger state and national goals.
Thank you again for your advocacy and encouragement!
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