State Representative Michael Stinziano - 2015 Ride of Silence

RepresentativeStinzianoSpeaking

The following is the full text from Representative Michael Stinziano's comments at the Ride of Silence. We thank Rep Stinziano for his presence at the event and for his work to protect Ohio's vulnerable road users.

I appreciate the invitation from Yay Bikes! to talk about the Ride of Silence and safety in our community. I am Representative Michael Stinziano and I am working within the Ohio House to improve safety for all road users.

In Ohio, an average of 1 person died or was seriously injured each day in bicycle-related crashes last year.

In just the Columbus region, there were 24 bicyclists involved in crashes, resulting in 21 serious injuries and three fatalities.

It is vital that drivers and bicyclists share the road. One death or injury is too many.

Research shows that one issue contributing to these crashes is speed. I recently introduced legislation to help combat the issue. If HB 107 is enacted into law, it will allow residents to petition a speed limit change for their own community. We feel that people lining in our diverse neighborhoods understand the traffic patterns they live with on a daily basis.

I am also co-sponsor of HB 154 which would require motorists to give bicyclists at least 3 feet when passing.

Safety is everyone's responsibility. Many of you know the faces representing these tragic deaths. This event honors our loved ones who have been harmed on Ohio roads and improves awareness for all road users.

Everyone has the right to be on and use Ohio's roads.

Out & About with Yay Bikes! — April 2015

Welcome to the monthly feature in which we round up all our events, earned media, program delivery, meetings and speaking engagements for the month. Behold, April:

Apr 1 = Open Houses for Connect Columbus

Apr 2 = Open House for Connect Columbus

Apr 2 =Infrastructure review ride of Long & Spring with 4 Yay Bikes! members

Apr 5 = Infrastructure review rideof Long & Spring with 15 Yay Bikes! members

Apr 8 = Annual Bike Expo @ Battelle

Apr 8 = Sharing "How We Roll" @ Pelotonia's Captains' night

Apr 9 = "Put a Lid on It" program training practitioners statewide about youth bike safety with the Ohio Department of Transportation and the American Academy of Pediatricians, Ohio Chapter

Apr 9 = ODOT News Release: "Ohio children to receive more than 9,000 helmets"

Apr 9 = ODOT video: "Put a Lid on It"

Apr 9 = Planning meeting for Central Ohio's 2015 Ride of Silence

Apr 10 = How We Roll ride for OSU students, faculty & staff

Apr 10 = Infrastructure review rideof Long & Spring with City of Columbus engineers

Apr 11 = Year of Yay! ride with 80 people

Apr 12 = How We Roll ride for OSU students, faculty & staff

Apr 13 = Meeting with Alex Smith of Columbus Public Health

Apr 13 = Big Give announcement

Apr 13–24 = Earn a Bike program delivery @ Great Western Academy

Apr 14 = Tabling at Cardinal Health's Pelotonia kick-off

Apr 14 = Regular meeting of United Way of Central Ohio's Home Impact Council, on which Catherine serves

Apr 15 = Inaugural meeting about curbing bike theft with Bike Snoop

Apr 15 = Board meeting of the Downtown Residents Association of Columbus, on which Catherine serves

Apr 16 = Meeting with Grange Insurance about promoting safe cycling

Apr 16 = Planning meeting for Central Ohio's 2015 Ride of Silence

Apr 16 = Speaking to Prof. Gulsah Akar’s OSU City & Regional Planning class on Nonmotorized Transportation

Apr 17–19 = GiveBackHack

Apr 18 = Pedal Instead @ OSU Spring Game

Apr 20 = Monthly Yay Bikes! board meeting

Apr 21 = Information sessions @ State Auto and Huntington National Bank about bike commuting

Apr 22 = Meeting with Liz Brown, Downtown Development Manager, City of Columbus Economic Development Division

Apr 23 = Meeting with Devin Carothers and Justine Boggs of Team Buckeye

Apr 23 = Public meeting for the COTA NexGen project

Apr 23 = Meeting with Whole Foods regarding Year of Yay! partnership

Apr 23 = Planning meeting for Central Ohio's 2015 Ride of Silence

Apr 25–26 = Training of 4 new How We Roll ride leaders

Apr 25 = Pedal Instead @ Columbus’s Earth Day celebration

Apr 25 = Keynote speech at Roots Camp Ohio on the topic of moving an advocacy agenda forward

Apr 27 = Information sessions @ Bricker & Eckler and Porter Wright about bike commuting

Apr 27 = Charrette for Connect Columbus

Apr 28 = Information sessions @ Huntington National Bank, State Auto and Bricker & Eckler about bike commuting

Apr 28 = Inaugural How We Roll Pelotonia RSI ride

Apr 28 =Yay Bikes! Member Champions night

Apr 29 = Planning meeting for Bike the Cbus

Apr 29 = Charrette for Connect Columbus

Apr 29 = Meeting with Larry Lewellen regarding How We Roll @ OSU

Apr 29 = Regular meeting of Columbus’s Bicycle Working Group, on which Catherine serves

Apr 30 = Planning meeting for Central Ohio's 2015 Ride of Silence

Apr 30 = Charrette for Connect Columbus

Out & About with Yay Bikes! — March 2015

catherine tiberi

Welcome to the monthly feature in which we round up all our events, earned media, meetings and speaking engagements for the month. Behold, March:

Mar 2 = Regular meeting of MORPC's Community Advisory Council, on which Catherine serves

Mar 2 = Getting to know you meeting with Columbus Outdoor Pursuits, Westerville Bicycle Club, Columbus Rides Bikesand COMBO

Mar 3 = Planning meeting for Central Ohio's 2015 Ride of Silence

Mar 4 = Meeting with Scott Ulrich, City of Columbus's new Bicycle Coordinator, Scott Ulrich

Mar 4 = Public meeting for the City of Columbus's proposed Summit/3rd and 4th upgrades

Mar 5 = Regular meeting of the Transportation Committee of Mayor Coleman's Green Team, on which Catherine serves

Mar 6 = Meeting with Alex Smith, Safe Routes to School Coordinator at Columbus Public Health

Mar 8 = Board retreat for Downtown Residents Association of Columbus, on which Catherine serves

Mar 10 = National Women's Bicycling Forum in Washington D.C.

Mar 11 = League of American Bicyclists' National Bike Summit in Washington D.C.

Mar 12 = Meetings with staff for Representatives Pat Tiberi, Steve Stivers and Joyce Beatty in their D.C. offices to advocate for bicycling infrastructure funding and for Vision Zero

Mar 15 = Participation in the Westerville Bicycle Club's Ohio Bike Swap Meet, courtesy members Jeff Gove and Steve Puhl, Jr

Mar 16 = Monthly board meeting for Yay Bikes!

Mar 16 = Presentation to the Westerville Bicycle Club, courtesy member Jeff Bannon

Mar 19 = Regularmeeting of Community Shares of Mid Ohio's Program Services Committee meeting, which Catherine chairs

Mar 20 = Conference call with How We Roll OSU planning team

Mar 23 = Monthly gathering of the Yay Bikes! Member Champions

Mar 25 = Regular meeting of the CoGo Strategy Group

Mar 25 = Regular meeting of Columbus' Bicycle Working Group (formerly the Bicycle Subcommittee of the Transportation & Pedestrian Commission), on which Catherine serves

Mar 25 = Inaugural planning meeting for Bike the Cbus 2015

Mar 26 = Planning meeting for City of Columbus's 2015 Bike to Work Day

Mar 29 =  Planning meeting for Central Ohio's 2015 Ride of Silence

Mar 30 = Regular meeting of MORPC's Community Advisory Council, on which Catherine serves

Mar 31 = Public meeting for Connect Columbus

Out & About with Yay Bikes! : February 2015

IMG_9269

Welcome to the monthly feature in which we round up all our events, earned media, meetings and speaking engagements for the month. Behold, February:

Feb 2 = Columbus Underground article: "Protected Bike Lane on Summit Just the Beginning, Says City & Cycling Advocacy"

Feb 2 = Columbus Dispatch article: "Transportation Insider: New markings to guide 4th Street cyclists"

Feb 3 & 25 = Yay Bikes!Member Champions Night (link to March's event)

Feb 5 = Annual Meeting of WTS Columbus (Women's Transportation Seminar)

Feb 12 = Regular meeting of Mayor Coleman's Green Team, on which Catherine serves

Feb 12 = Meeting of the CoGo Planning Team, on which Catherine serves, to strategize with the new Motivate CEO, Jay Walder

Feb 12 = Buckeye News Now video: "Bike lanes to be added off campus" (story @ 5:31–7:29)

Feb 13 = Meeting with Julie Walcoff of ODOT to plan for the National Safe Routes to School Conference in 2016 and other potential partnerships

Feb 16 = Meeting with Stuart Hunter, founder of roll:, to discuss Business Membership

Feb 18 = Regular board meeting of Downtown Residents Association of Columbus, at which Catherine was elected to the Board of Directors

Feb 20 = Meeting of City of Columbus engineers and project consultants to discuss proposed changes to 3rd/Summit & 4th Street designs

Feb 22 = Inaugural planning meeting for 2015's Ride of Silence

Feb 25 = Inaugural meeting of the Bike to Work Day Planning Group, on which Catherine & Meredith serve

Feb 25 = Regular meeting of the Bicycle Subcommittee of the Transportation & Pedestrian Commission, on which Catherine serves

Feb 26 = Meeting with Abby Rhodebeck, Outdoor Programs and Outreach Market Coordinator for REI to discuss Bike the Cbus sponsorship

Feb 27 = People for Bikes blog post: "Boston, Columbus, Detroit, Indy, Minneapolis, Houston, Denver & Seattle all Unveil Protected Lanes"

Winning at bicycle infrastructure: The true story of how a dream team, a touch of magic and Yay Bikes!’ special sauce made Columbus’s first protected bike lane happen

By now the news has been shared far and wide: Columbus’s first protected bike lane will soon be installed from Hudson to 11^th in the University District! Read the details here and here to boost your day with some YAY and more YAY! Both articles give a nod to the role Yay Bikes! played in helping nudge this project forward with our infrastructure review process:

 “Original plans called for a conventional bike lane, but the city reconsidered its position after engineers rode with representatives from Yay Bikes, a local advocacy and education group.”—Dispatch article

“The important thing about this, though…was the interactions between the department and Yay Bikes!—this is not engineers in a hermetically sealed room designing a project. Catherine and the folks at Yay Bikes were instrumental in making this what it is.”—Rick Tilton, Assistant Director, City of Columbus Department of Public Service

“I will say this, I like to ride my bike but I’ve always ridden on the trail system—I had never ridden on the street—and Yay Bikes! invited us to go out on a couple of different occasions and actually ride on the street with them. And, before the ride, I thought it was going to be really scary, but it turned out that drivers were very courteous, and it wasn’t frightening at all. You want to pay attention to what you’re doing, but it was just like you were in any other vehicle. At the time of Yay Bikes ride on Summit and Fourth, the protected lane was not a done deal… we were thinking about it, but it was still in the planning stages.”—Richard Ortman, Engineer, City of Columbus

But as much as we’d like to, obviously we can’t take all the credit for the new protected lane. So how do advocacy wins like this actually happen? To the extent that we can take credit for it, we at Yay Bikes! believe our advocacy philosophy played a role that I will detail below. Beyond that, let’s not underestimate the roles that leadership, timing and, frankly, magic play in creating the big advocacy wins that many groups fully claim. For example, at this precise moment in history, as the stars align within the U.S., Ohio and Central Ohio—the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Secretary Fox has issued a Mayor’s Challenge to improve bicycle safety; the Federal Highway Administration is committed like never before to promoting bicycle safety; the Ohio Department of Transportation is making bicycle safety projects, including exciting demonstration projects like this, a priority for the safety funding it distributes; Columbus’s Mayor Michael Coleman often states his intention to make Columbus one of the best bicycling cities in the country; Columbus’ Director of Public Service is investing heavily in a new relationship with us, the local bicycle advocacy organization; and Yay Bikes! is sufficiently successful to provide the level of expertise now in such high demand. Each of these players comprise the “dream team” that made this protected bike lane happen, and they all deserve a big fat standing O for their work.

But returning to how Yay Bikes! conducts the business of bicycle advocacy. As with all things Yay Bikes!, our cooperative advocacy philosophy flows from our core values of Kindness, Excellence & Integrity. Taking the case of this protected lane as an example, the following are our underlying assumptions and how they translate into our advocacy practices.

Assumptions + Practices

Everyone is more accommodating when they are treated with kindness.

We all want safe, functional streets. Even engineers who don’t yet see the value of accommodating bicyclists want streets that work. Our practice is to treat everyone with kindness and to be selective about who we permit to interface directly with project staff. Professionals should be shielded from those who would shame them or make their lives more difficult.

Everyone brings different, valuable expertise to the table.

It is critical that both advocates and professionals work in partnership to design roadways. Advocates (i.e., both paid staff and organization members) bring essential knowledge of road riding, while the project design team brings a wealth of professional expertise and experience. To capture the best of the expertise from both groups, our practices are to 1) lead the design team on a ride of the route to evaluate their proposed changes, 2) open participation in the commentary process to our membership, so that as many voice as possible are heard from and 3) trust the professionals to revise their plans as necessary to address both our concerns and the conditions they experienced on the ride.

Every roadway requires a different treatment.

There is no best type of infrastructure. We do not advocate for protected bike lanes or other such one-size-fits-all solutions. Our roads are all very different, and none were designed for bicycles. Our practice is to actually ride each roadway and work from the designs proposed by knowledgeable engineers to help determine its best possible retrofit.

There is no substitute for actually riding the roads.

We can’t say it enough — it is not sufficient to simply review maps. Because riding a bicycle is not an intellectual exercise, we must ride the roads with those who are charged with designing them so that they can experience it directly. And because these people are often not road riding cyclists, our job as advocates is to help them feel comfortable riding alongside traffic, and alleviate any fears they may have.

Now admittedly, the case of this protected lane featured a healthy dose of magic, in that all the players were on the same page and committed to going above and beyond to serve local cyclists. Advocacy can surely get a lot messier than that. But for the professionals who work with Yay Bikes!, at least a few things can be counted on regardless: you will be treated with kindness and respect, you will have a reasoned partner in determining the best treatment for each unique roadway condition, and you will be expected to get on your bikes. Now let's ride!

Out & About with Yay Bikes! : January 2015

Welcome to our new monthly feature, in which we round up all our events, earned media, meetings and speaking engagements for the month. Behold, January:

Jan 5 = Meeting with Transit Columbus's Elissa Schneider, re: Open Streets and other potential partnerships

Jan 5 = Meeting of MORPC's Community Advisory Committee, on which Catherine serves

Jan 6 = Meeting with Columbus City Council's new Public Service Chair Shannon Hardin, re: introducing him to our work

Jan 7 = Columbus Food League's Yay Bikes! fundraiser @ Grass Skirt Tiki Room

Jan 7 = Meeting with Greater Columbus Art Council's Ruby Harper, re: integrating art and bicycling

Jan 13 = Meeting with ODOT's Julie Walcoff and the Ohio AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) Foundation's Hayley Southworth, re: providing trainings for the 2015 "Put a Lid On It" campaign

Jan 14 = Presentation at Grandview Civic Welfare Club, re: Yay Bikes! programming

Jan 15 = Meeting with Bexley's Mayor Ben Kessler, Council Member Deneese Owen and Service Department Director Bill Dorman, re: serving Bexley's cyclists

Jan 27 = Meeting with City of Columbus Deparment of Public Service Director Tracie Davies & Deputy Director Jennifer Gallagher, re: Multimodal Thoroughfare Plan update and other city bike business

Jan 28 = Meeting of the Bicycle Subcommittee of the Transportation & Pedestrian Commission, on which Catherine serves

Jan 30 = Columbus Dispatch article: "University District to get first protected bike lane in Columbus"

Winning at safer streets, and at life: Our 2014 Advocacy in Review

When you support Yay Bikes!  >>>  Advocacy happens!

1 law passed 5 transportation committees served 2 street plan evaluation rides 31 local advocates engaged 29 news stories 11 speaking engagements

Yay Bikes! has a long history of bicycle advocacy, but in 2014 we upped our game by shepherding a 3' Passing Law in the City of Columbus and partnering with the Department of Public Service to help its engineers design better bicycle infrastructure. Our new street plan evaluation rides have transformed plans for 4th and 3rd/Summit Streets and provided a solid template for similar rides going forward. This month we'll be providing commentary regarding OSU's bicycle accommodations plan and we're in conversations about training engineers in other municipalities statewide. Please consider an end-of-year gift to help Yay Bikes! expand our impact through advocacy initiatives and other programming next year. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.   

~ From all of us at Yay Bikes! ~

Our public input methodology & how to get involved

Yay Bikes! members reviewing the proposed bicycle accommodations on 4th Street Downtown. Photo credit: MJ Reed

Of course anyone may feel free to provide their own feedback directly to the city, whether in writing or at their public input meetings! But when Yay Bikes! generates an official feedback on proposed infrastructure projects, this is how it'll go—because although our leadership is comprised of some damn impressive bicycle experts (ahem... if we do say so...!), we refuse to decide our advocacy positions from within a board room. We believe the process described below is more robust and participatory than you will find anywhere in the country, and we hope you will become a member so you can have your voice heard.

Notification of opportunities

Yay Bikes! will announce opportunities to provide input on proposed plans on this blog, on our Facebook page and in our newsletter. Link to us in several ways to ensure you get the message!

Review of proposed plan

Yay Bikes! staff and volunteer leadership review and discuss project design maps,  drafting notes for and planning a group ride of the corridor(s).

Group ride for Yay Bikes! members

All Yay Bikes! members are invited to a group ride on which we evaluate the proposed bicycle accommodations. Staff will review maps with the group one hour before we ride, then catalog input from participants during the ride.

Follow-up research

Yay Bikes! staff and volunteer leadership conduct follow-up research based on input from the larger group, from which a written draft of feedback and recommendations for city staff will be prepared. This report will include:

• What works well in the proposed design
• Specific areas of concern with the proposed design
• Potential solutions or mitigations

Engineers/city staff ride

Yay Bikes! staff present the report in a short presentation to engineers and city prior to a group ride of the corridors' proposed changes.

Final revision & submission

Yay Bikes! staff and volunteer leadership again revise their report based on  information from project staff and additional research, then formally submit it for consideration.

Publishing & promoting feedback

Yay Bikes! publishes its feedback to this blog and promotes both the process and its outcomes to various media outlets.

Participation in public discourse

Yay Bikes! staff and volunteer leadership participate, and organize others to participate, in the public discourse about the corridor being touched. This might include: providing testimony at public hearings, speaking to the press, writing letters to the editor, writing blog posts on the Yay Bikes! web site, posting items on Yay Bikes! social media outlets, encouraging communication from other bike friendly groups to their constituencies, attending public meetings, etc.

Rinse + Repeat

Become a GOOBI on the inaugural infrastructure commentary ride with Yay Bikes!

GOOBI: one who likes to Geek Out On Bicycle Infrastructure

Yay Bikes! has been asked by the City of Columbus, Department of Public Service to provide feedback regarding bicycle infrastructure proposed for 3rd and 4th Streets in downtown Columbus. To provide Public Service Director Davies and Deputy Director Gallagher with productive input on the designs, we are launching a new infrastructure ride crit series for our fellow GOOBIes,  through which we will ride the streets, imagine how the proposed changes will affect us as cyclists and deliver our commentary on a future ride with project staff. Here's how it will work this time around:

October 15, 6–7:30pm -- Interested Yay Bikes! members* are welcome ride with us to evaluate the proposed design and offer their thoughts about it. Registration is limited to 20 people, so let us know by Oct 14 that you'll be joining us!

Later in October -- Yay Bikes! leadership will again ride the route, this time with project staff, including engineers, and communicate the larger groups' feedback.

Sometime thereafter -- Yay Bikes! will publish a blog post about the experience and any outcomes from it.

Your patience is appreciated as we flesh out our infrastructure advocacy methodology. We hope to have fun with it, of course, and also to involve as many people in on-bike design commentary as possible. Our board and staff aren't the only bike experts in town, and we aren't going to act like we are. Our job is to coordinate the community's response to proposed infrastructure, not dictate it. Please join us!

*This opportunity is a benefit of Yay Bikes! membership, and is open exclusively to our members. Please join today to ride with us on the 15th!

Yay Columbus! Yay Safe Streets Ordinance! Yay Bikes!

What exactly does the Safe Streets Ordinance say?

• clarifies that a bicycle IS A VEHICLE,

• clarifies as the safe passing distance between a car and a bicycle as 3', and most larger vehicles and a bicycle as 6',

• adds a specific ban for motor vehicles in bike lanes, with some exceptions,

• clarifies the law to specifically prohibit motor vehicles from “right/left hooking” bicyclists,

• requires bicyclists to not text, and to yield to emergency vehicles,

• allows police officers, firefighters, parking enforcement officers, and special improvement district ambassadors to ride bicycles on sidewalks in the performance of official duties,

• allows the Public Service Director to to add bikeways and bicycle parking on streets,

• corrects conflicting language in the parking code,

• brings traffic code into compliance with portions of state laws, and

• adds gender inclusive language.

For more details, view 2014 Safe Streets Ordinance Fact Sheet or click to view the actual legislation.

Big thanks to Council Member Michelle Mills for sponsoring this legislation and shepherding it through the process to law, Council Members Zach Klein and Troy Miller for co-sponsoring, and Council Member Eileen Paley for meeting with Yay Bikes! leadership about this legislation back in 2012. Additional thanks to Leslie Strader, Policy Advisor from the Mayor Coleman's Office of Environmental Stewardship, and Randall Bowman, Assistant Director of Public Service for meeting regularly with bicycle advocates as this legislation was being crafted.

Thanks to the 31 Yay Bikes! members who attended the last two City Council Meetings and the Public Hearing in the last week to support passage of the Safe Streets Ordinance: Rahel Babb, John Bannon, Heather Bowden, Jane Boyer, Jay Cheplowitz, Ken Cohen, David Curran, Jack Decker, David Docktor, Bill Ferriot, Ray George, Catherine Girves, Jeff Gove, Gloria Hendricks, Rob Hendricks, Talon Hendricks, Trace Hendricks, David Hohmann, Cartik Kothari, Kai Landis, Keith Mayton, Duane McCoy, Nik Olah, Joe Powell, Steve Puhl, Jr., Oulanje Regan, Gary Schmidt, Barb Seckler, Scott Ulrich, Jim Williams, and Megan Zale.

Finally, our work on this would not have been possible without those of you who financially support Yay Bikes! You rock.

Yay Bikes! Yay Us! You YOU!!

Safe Streets Ordinance - Testimony of Catherine Girves

Good evening President Ginther, Environment Chair Mills, Co-Sponsor Klein and Miller and to the remaining honorable members of Columbus City Council. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you tonight. My name is Catherine Girves and I am the Executive Director of Yay Bikes! Tonight I am delighted and honored to be here representing the 517 members of Yay Bikes! Yes, Council Member Mills we have added 5 members since we were here last Tuesday. Yay Bikes! is thankful to Columbus City Council for consideration of 1182-2014 the proposed “Safe Streets Ordinance”. This ordinance showcases our City's commitment to peaceful streets for all users – transit riders and operators, motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

As a year round bicyclist, (yes I road here tonight in a skirt and heels), I can tell you from personal experience that bicycling is good for the physical and emotional health of individual riders. But what many don't realize is, that when people choose bicycling as a mode of transportation everyone in the community benefits:

• Commuter bicyclists protect the public health of the entire community by reducing carbon and other green house gas emissions protecting air quality for all, particularly our most vulnerable members of the community.
• Commuter bicyclists reduce dependence on fossil fuels protecting the environment, economy, and national security of the entire community.
• Like pedestrians, commuter bicyclists increase the safety and community cohesiveness of the neighborhoods we ride in, often functioning as informal block watches.
• And when people Discover Columbus by bike we see an economic impact. Yay Bikes! leads “How We Roll” rides teaching bicyclists to ride streets legally, visibly, and predictably. Immediately following, participants take a short test. When asked how likely participants are to return to places they were introduced to on these rides, 75%-77% respond they are very likely and an additional 20% report they are somewhat likely to return to those locations. When we conduct a 6 week follow up survey we find that 53.3% have already returned to a place they were initially introduced to on a “How We Roll” ride. When asked about favorite moments on these rides, 29% name a specific business, 26% name downtown Columbus and its sites, and 23% respond Experiencing Columbus and learning more about the community.

This Council's investment in the safety of bicyclists that travel our streets is an investment in the entire community.

Finally, investing in commuter bicyclists is an investment in social justice. Some of us who travel by bike, do it out of economic necessity. Protecting the safety of commuter bicyclists protects the safety of working class people traveling to work, school, shop, and back home to our families.

Thank you.

Letter to City of Columbus Supporting 3' Passing Law - January 31, 2013

Big THANKS to Patricia Kovacs, Cole Miller, and Rob Hendircks the initial leaders in Yay Bikes! to push for a 3 Foot Passing law in the City of Columbus.  Here is the letter following their initial meeting. 130131ThreeFootSupportLetter

Safe Streets Ordinance – Testimony of Rob Hendricks

Hello, Council Members. Thank you for your time. My name is Rob Hendricks and I live in Linden. I am a cyclist, my wife is a cyclist, my 13 year old son is a cyclist, and my 8 year old son is a cyclist. We don't just ride for fun, we ride for transportation. We learned early on that cars, trucks, and buses will try to squeeze past us on the road almost every chance they can get. On my commute to work, I have been forced off the road on a regular basis, I even had a school bus physically contact me in my shoulder, forcing me off the road. Just last week, my wife was forced off the road by a passing truck, going fast enough and close enough that the wind made her bike shudder, almost forcing her to completely lose control. Passing a safe passing law and educating the drivers about its existence will help us to return from work safely to our children. It will give us room for our family to get to our destination and return home safely together. Regardless of the comments in the Dispatch articles, we are not trying to outrace Lance Armstrong, we are Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, Brothers, and Sisters just trying to get from point A to point B.

Safe Streets Ordinance Hearing - Testimony of Catherine Girves

Good evening Council Member Mills. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Catherine Girves, I'm the Executive Director of Yay Bikes! and am honored to be here representing our 512 members.Yay Bikes! is thankful to you and the other members of Columbus City Council for consideration of 1182-2014 the proposed “Safe Streets Ordinance”. If adopted, this ordinance helps to clarify appropriate interactions between motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians – creating an even clearer commitment for safe and peaceful streets for all users. The Yay Bikes! Board of Directors is particularly pleased with the following components of this legislation:

• clarifying that a bicycle is a vehicle in the definition of vehicles and throughout the legislation,
• clarifying that the law explicitly prohibits motorists from “left or right hooking” bicyclists,
• clarifying that bicyclists are protected under the law from being doored by motorists, and
• affirming that motorists must pass cyclists at a safe distance and defining a safe distance as at least 3' for automobiles and 6' for most commercial vehicles

We are particularly appreciative of the many opportunities provided to Yay Bikes! and other advocates in the community of bicyclists to respond to earlier drafts of this legislation and for the thoughtful responses given to all comments. This legislation has clearly been influenced by those of us who ride the street on a daily basis. Thank you. We are here tonight to support this legislation and are excited about coming back to Chambers next week when Council is scheduled to take action on this proposed legislation. This ordinance is a wonderful step in the direction of creating peaceful streets for motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Thank you.