Pedalpalooza bike parade, Bakersfield California
Parade America is this Saturday in Nampa! We’d like to have as many people on bicycles and walkers as possible to help promote bicycling and walking and the EXERGY Women’s Cycling Tour (May 24-28) and Nampa Bike & Walk Week (June 4-9)
Weather is expected to be great and we’ve made preparations so all you have to do is get your best parade wave ready and show up to have a good time for a couple of hours. Oh – and please read these instructions!
1) The name of our entry is “EXERGY TOUR” and we’re # 31 (just look for all the bikes!).
Line up area is on Colorado between Amity and 12th at 10:00 a.m.
Parade begins at 11 a.m.
Route is a loop down 12th, east on 7th, back to the start, total of 2.5 miles.
We’ll probably be done by 12 or 12:30.
2) Helmets are required for all cyclists (Parade rules)
3) Decorate your bicycle! Make it as red, white, and blue, as you can! If you’re walking, wear patriotic colors
4) We’ll have posters and zip ties to attach to your bikes or carry.
5) Walkers are especially welcome – we’ll need people to hand out brochures and treats as we go along and that’s a bit hard to do on a bicycle!
6) If you have a bicycle trailer or kid trailer bring it to help carry the give-aways (as well as your kids!).
7) Don’t forget: a hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, comfortable shoes.
Let’s remind Nampa how much fun and freedom there is in cycling and walking and get them pumped up to host the most amazing world class cycling event this valley has ever seen!!
See you on Saturday!
2 way separated bike lane, Downtown Vancouver, B.C.
I was in Vancouver, B.C. over my spring break. Vancouver is a city where cars, buses (big ones), people walking and people disabled, families with strollers in tow, and people riding bicycles all seem to be getting along in the same space, on the same streets, and getting where they need to go. It looks a bit chaotic at first glance, but as you are waiting at the bustling intersection for the light to change you realize everyone seems to be getting where they need to go and everyone seems to be getting along.
Someone said to me the other day…”why do people ride bicycles on Orchard? It’s just not wide enough for both bikes and cars!”. This caused me to ponder…just how wide would it have to be to make everyone happy? Oh sure, there are engineering rules and standards. I think our Nampa Bicycle & Pedestrian Master plan guidelines say that we want sidewalks to be 5 feet wide and the state says we need 5 feet before we can mark something as a bike lane. But we have lots of places in Nampa where the sidewalks are skinny, nonexistent, and streets with no bike lanes, no signage.
We have a choice. We can wait until it’s all perfect (which is going to take a great deal of money and time). Or, we can choose to practice what we learned in kindergarten….we can share. Pretty idealistic, I know. Call me crazy. My point is that perhaps it’s time for us to shift our expectations and our thinking. It’s time, in short, to “think outside the car”. All of the roads will never be perfect, wide enough, or marked with enough signage or stripes. There will always be limited funds and tough decisions to be made. We can despair and use it as an excuse to gripe about the “other guy” using too much of “my space”…..people on bicycles or slow pedestrians or people in cars who pass us dangerously close. We can wish the roads were wider or that other types of users would just go away. Or, we can choose to respect the fact that we’re all privileged to be using the same space and we’re all trying to get somewhere. It’s called courtesy.
The photo above is a lovely example of special spaces marked for everyone. Let’s not wait for that to happen in Nampa. Let’s build a culture of sharing the road and “thinking outside the car”. It costs less money and it really could work. All it would take is making an effort to think about others.