Mia Birk’s book, “Joyride: Pedaling toward a Healthier Planet,” is a how-to manual for creating a first-class bicycle community. Both City Council and city staff would benefit from reading Birk as a way to put Fort Collins even more in the lead in this national movement.

Birk recounts a perfect storm of events when she became bicycle coordinator in Portland in 1993. Congress had just funded the first six-year federal transportation package that included a small allocation for “transportation enhancements.”
“Enhancements” were meant to fund transit, bicycling and walking facilities as Congress
attempted to counter the “roads only” policies of state departments of transportation. This enabled states and cities like Fort Collins and Portland to write bicycle plans and to hire bicycle coordinators.

In Portland in 1990, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, or BTA, had been founded, and was to become one of the most active advocacy groups in the nation. Earl Blumenauer, now Congressman from Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District and founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, was Portland’s Commissioner of Public Utilities. With Blumenauer’s support and with the backing of the BTA, Birk set out to make Portland, a city of 500,000 people, a friendlier place to ride a bicycle.

As she explains in “Joyride,”Birk had a series of revelations during the first years of her job that opened her eyes to the challenges she faced. Despite enjoying great support in the bicycle community, she noted that “if I spend my time preachin’ to the gospel choir, the bicycle revolution isn’t going to spread very far.” Additionally, when Portland’s traffic engineers suggested that rather than stripe bicycle lanes, they get the police to enforce the law to encourage more cyclists, she noted “the police won’t even talk to me (as bicycle coordinator),” let alone enforce the rules of the road to protect cyclists.

Another revelation came after her third bike-to-work day,when Birk asked herself, “is this helping to get more people out riding? Is my time best spent running events like his, or working on bikeway projects?” The answer, she found, was that she needed to mobilize the non-bicyclists in town, build bike paths and lanes and to become more of a catalyst in bringing people together to change the culture in order to get reluctant cyclists on their bikes. “It’s not enough to adopt a Bicycle Plan, she wrote, “we’ve got to retrain all the humans involved, both inside and outside government.”

So Birk began with neighborhood meetings at Denny’s. Then she met with the Lions Club. Once she was fully under way, she was meeting with “business groups, ethnic groups, neighborhood associations, school groups, churches” and, as she explains it, “pretty much anyone who” would listen in a series of 60 meetings across Portland.

The results of Birk’s work are impressive to the degree that “Joyride”should be required reading for anyone who wants to see bicycle ridership double in Fort Collins.

Well, our transportation planners have heard the call to arms. Monday evening, August 9th the City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee will hear three proposals that will make cycling (and walking) in Fort Collins safer and more fun. Join us to hear all about these projects:

1) A Bike Box at West Plum and Shields: Correct, the Plum St. that leads from University Village on West Plum onto Campus. The one where the bike lane disappears at Shields and bikes are often clipped by south-turning motorists coming off of Plum.

Photo courtesy Stephen Rees’s blog

2) A Sidewalk on Lincoln Ave. to walk to Odell Brewing: Now that’s a no brainer. No longer will you have to walk in the bike lane to get from Buckingham to Odell Brewing.

3) Bike Lanes or shared lanes with “sharrows” on Mountain Ave. from Meldrum to Riverside in Old Town. This one has been a long time in coming but finally the planners are recommending sharrows along this stretch. There is no space for a bike lane and there is angled parking all along here with the relative dangers inherent for cyclists. The ONLY safe way to ride this stretch of Mountain is to take the lane and practice vehicular cycling. The sharrows will make it clear to motorists that we have a right to be there.

So come out for the fun at 6 p.m. Monday evening as the BAC hears about these proposals. Have a comment about the proposals? Come and share your thoughts or ideas or concerns. What about back in angled parking all along Mountain to really make this a safe street for bicycles? Public comment is heard at the beginning of the meeting from about 6 to 6:15 p.m.

The meeting will be held in the Community Room at 215 Mason St. Enter on the north side of the building.

Can’t make it but still want to comment? Send your public comment to Click For Email. We treat that as a part of the public record for the meeting.

For the second year the Fort Collins Bike Co-op is looking for volunteers to work on the Fort Collins Urban Assault Ride! The event takes place on Sunday, July 18.

Here’s your chance to get a ring-side seat at a wacky event, log some volunteer hours and help the Bike Co-op at the same time. The Co-op will get a substantial cash donation for providing the volunteers. All volunteers will receive a t-shirt, food, drinks and beer (21 and older).

If you are interested, willing and able to commit to work this event, please register on line at www.urbanassaultride.com/ftcollins/volunteer/npo.  When filling out the online form please be sure to put Fort Collins Bike Co-op in the “Non-profit Name” field so we get credit for your participation.

This vintage soft t-shirt is available in royal blue and kelly green in both men’s and women’s fits, and has a sweet bike illustration on front. The shirts will also be available for sale at The Wright Life.

If you’re diggin’ the Akinz style, you should know that ordering $50 worth of gear will earn you a FREE Bike To Work Day shirt! And, if you order online between now and 6/23, you’ll have the option to select “deliver by bike” as your shipping option!

*Note: Bike delivery area is limited between Vine and Harmony, and Taft Hill and Timberline. See below for clarification.

The Bike Co-op held its final listening session on Wednesday, May 5th.  This meeting served to summarize citizens’ comments made during eight previous sessions held throughout the City and to prioritize action items for referral to City Planners, Transportation Planners and citizen’s boards and commissions.

There was unanimous consent to offer the following recommendation:

“The community should take steps to improve bicycle safety and efficiency through a comprehensive bicycle safety education program and through enhanced engineering efforts.  The education should target motorists, cyclist, K-12 children, and CSU students while the engineering enhancements should include:

1. The creation of bicycle boulevards ( like Vine, Swallow, Stover, Canyon, Stuart, etc.) for efficient long distance movement of bikes between and among “activity centers,” across town and between existing corridors, including the Mason Trail, the Powerline Trail, the Poudre Trail and the Spring Creek Trail;

2. Installation of  additional signal actuation devices at stop lights, including the use of default modes to facilitate bicycle travel;

3.  The use of sharrows (shared lane arrows) and improved “Share the Road” signs that include the secondary sign “Bikes use full lane.”

Although the group reviewed approx. 120 recommendations gathered from the Listening Sessions, 17 additional items emerged as priorities for the City, including:

• More grade separated crossings at intersections and along major trails;
• Increase bike/ped accessibility on and across College in “mid-town”
• Add/improve bicycle lanes along North Shields, North College, Gregory, Lemay and others
• Decrease speed limits near campus to 25 mph
• Add “scramble intersections” (also called diagonal crossings and nicknamed the “Barnes Dance”) for Henry Barnes, an innovative traffic engineer at College and Mountain, Laurel and College, and Shields and Elizabeth for bikes and pedestrians
• Add lighting on trails for safety (including use of motion detectors with lights)
• Utilize more PR campaigns such as the “Coexist” campaign
• Target scofflaw cyclists for education
• Improve east-west access to, from and between the Mason and Powerline trails
• Consistent law enforcement
• Create more bicycle boulevards

While many of these ideas are familiar and easy to imagine, a few suggestions will likely raise eyebrows as they are quite innovative.

The idea of  “scramble” crossings, for example will “require some thought,” said Rick Price, Chairman of the BAC and a proponent of such crossings.  “Scramble” crossings are also known as diagonal crossings.  They require all motor vehicle traffic to stop while pedestrians and cyclists may cross anywhere in the four-way intersection.  “Just stand and watch the bicycles and pedestrians negotiating for crossing space at Laurel or Elizabeth some day,” said Price, “and you’ll see how useful diagonal crossings might be there.”

Citizens wishing to comment on the above or those who wish to express further concerns should send them via e-mail to the Bicycle Advisory Committee:  Click For Email

Arrive at the north end of the CSU Oval on Monday, April 19th at 3:00pm to ride through campus on your favorite form of alternative transportation.

Be sure to throw on your most fabulous costume to show your support for The Green University. The parade will begin at 3:10pm on the Oval and end at 3:50pm at Newton’s Corner (the sculpture at Pitkin and Center). Students, faculty and staff are invited and helmets are required.

Also, be sure to show your support for the Bike Co-op’s Safe Cycling Program which will be on hand earlier in the day, mentoring students on how to do an ABC Quick Check on their bikes with hands-on tube changes and demos on how to do quick barrel adjustments on their brakes and derailleurs!

If you’d be willing to show off your skills as a tube or tire changer, email Rick Price: Click For Email

Image Credit: Flickr.com – barteverts

Now, the train presents special frustrations for motorists as well, but at least they can cross the tracks without worrying that they might suddenly get a close up view of the pavement.

The City of Fort Collins encourages bikers to access the downtown area via less trafficked streets, like Mason St., Howes St., Remington St., Mathews St.,  Laporte Ave. to Walnut, Mountain Ave., Oak St., Olive St. and Magnolia. However, using these streets also means that you’re probably going to encounter some train tracks.

Always be sure to carefully cross railroad tracks at a 90 degree angle as the tracks can be slippery and bumpy. For those with skinny road tires, there is also a danger that the tire can get stuck in the gap beside the track, and dump the biker onto the street.

A recent article on Treehugger.com detailed the way that Seattle’s DOT has found to minimize this problem (at least until a bike path that doesn’t cross train tracks can be built), and there are hopes that other municipalities might soon take notice.

Although this might make you think that bikes and train tracks are destined to be enemies forever, consider the fact that bicycles have been outfitted to travel on top of the old unused railroad tracks around the country. Check out the site of RailBike.com, a a rail bike tour company in Oregon for more info on this unique recreational opportunity.

Another great source for railroad biking is Dick Bentley, who also sells plans ($25) to make one yourself.