How we can make a difference

Mark Blacknell, WABA Board President and Patch author of Clarendon Cycles, wrote a nice article on the Fairfax Bike Summit, Making a Difference, One Cyclist at a Time. He focused on the talk by FABB's Fionnuala Quinn, Growing Cycling in Fairfax.

Getting safe cycling into school system education, getting transportation departments to build safe roads — that’s all important. But it often requires a lot of time, patience and the cooperation of large groups to accomplish. So what difference can one person make? Ms. Quinn had the answer for that question, distributing a flier that suggested actions that individuals can take to grow cycling. I'd thought — and written — about a lot of these ideas, but it was fantastic to see them all distilled into one sheet of paper.

The ideas from Fionnuala's talk:

• Be a role model by biking to the store/work/school
• Be a bike buddy to a family member, neighbor, co-worker
• Organize an informal ride group
• Pay attention to local planning and transportation decisions
• Submit bike parking suggestions in local business comment boxes
• Attend public meetings & speak up
• Support your local, regional and national bike advocacy organizations
• Let elected officials know that you care about bike infrastructure
• Let schools know that you care about safe biking & bike education
• Learn local biking rules and regulations
• Especially support teens in your life to stick with biking
• Expect good design and give thoughtful input on the built world
• Be a self-appointed Fairfax Bike Ambassador

FABB represented at Velo-City Conference

Velo-City Global 2012 "is the world’s premier international cycling planning conference. The four day event offers delegates from around the world a chance to share best practices for creating and sustaining cycling-friendly cities, where bicycles are valued as part of daily transport and recreation."

FABB's Fionnuala Quinn's paper entitled "How to Speak to Engineers: Creating a Guide for Bike Advocates" was selected by the conference organizers. The talk is based in part on her work producing the Guide for Reviewing Public Road Design and Bicycling Accommodations for Virginia Bicycling Advocates. Her talk was scheduled to be given yesterday, and we hope it went well. Once we have a copy of we'll post it here.

Blacksburg Cycle Chic

FABB's Fionnuala Quinn will be a featured speaker at what sounds like a great bike event in Blacksburg on Tuesday, May 1—Blacksburg Cycle Chic Commuter Celebration & Fashion Show! Fionnuala will be discussing the Women Cycling Project and empowering women to bicycle.

Elly Blue of Taking the Lane is one of the other featured speakers. Besides writing Taking the Lane, Elly's writings appear in Grist, BikePortland, Momentum, and others.

Blacksburg Cycle Chic is a great way to kick off Bike Month. I just wish it were closer to Fairfax.

Women Cycling Forum report

Jenifer Madden, a vice chair of the Fairfax Co Transportation Advisory Commission and a friend of FABB, attended the National Women Cycling Forum and filled a report on her blog The Durable Human:

Riding my bike to a meeting the other day, I suddenly realized how happy I felt. Being so close to nature was wonderful, amid crimson cardinals darting through the underbrush and the sound of rushing creeks, but there was more to it than that. I had an exhilarating sense of freedom.

Apparently, that’s not a new feeling for women who bike. In fact, we have enjoyed that special kind of autonomy since the late 1800s, when the bicycle was introduced in America. As suffragette Susan B. Anthony put it, having the ability to ride away from the protective atmosphere of the home “changed women.”

Those and other fascinating tidbits from the history of women and bikes were provided by Sue Macy, author of the book Wheels of Change and keynote speaker at the first-ever National Women Cycling Forum, held this week in Washington, D.C.

Read more on her blog.

WABA blog post by Fionnuala Quinn: Small Fields, Hedgerows and U2 by Bicycle

As part of the WABA Women's Bicycling Forum, Fionnuala Quinn of FABB recently posted the article Small Fields, Hedgerows and U2 by Bicycle on the WABA blog. Fionnuala, recipient of WABA’s 2011 Advocacy Award and manager of the Women Cycling Project, will be a speaker at the forum which will be held on Monday, December 12 from 6-8pm at DC Public Library - West End Branch. You can register online.

From Fionnuala's article:

My mother recalls the great honor of being brought by her father on the donkey and cart into Boyle for her first new bicycle. She rode nine miles back on the bicycle that was purchased for the huge sum of ten pounds specifically so she could bypass the local national school and attend the better school further away.

A generation earlier, a bicycle had been similarly bought for her mother so that she too could have access to better schooling. Those Raleigh and Royal Enfield bicycles allowed them to travel the Roscommon roads widely, riding between the hedgerows and small fields that hadn’t changed for hundreds of years. My mother talks of happy times riding with her sisters and collecting other girls en route to school in Elphin five miles away. Before the bicycle, the women and girls of rural Ireland had never had this freedom of travel and the options that brought with it.

Read the rest of her article.

FABB's Fionnuala Quinn receives WABA Advocacy award

Fionnuala (right) at the Tysons plan tour

At last night's WABA Annual Member's Meeting Fionnuala Quinn, vice-chair of FABB, received WABA's Bicycle Advocacy Award for 2011. Congratulations Fionnuala! The award is well-deserved for all of the hard work she has done with FABB and as the primary author of the Guide for Reviewing Public Road Design and Bicycling Accommodations for Virginia Bicycling Advocates. Fionnuala also was a major force behind the Women Cycling Project.

The Guide has been well-received locally, regionally and nationally. Earlier this year FABB received the Alliance for Biking and Walking 2011 Alliance Advocacy Award for producing the Guide. Over 13,000 women responded to the Survey on Women Cycling for Transportation, part of the Women in Cycling Project, and several reports have been written based on the survey.

Fionnuala also gave the keynote address at last night's meeting in which she discussed the Guide and the Women Cycling Project. She stressed that "good design costs the same as bad design" so why not ensure that our roads are designed for all road users. She also discussed the importance of creating riding conditions so that more women feel comfortable using bicycles for transportation.

Bloomsday bike ride

Fionnuala Quinn of FABB
and Mark Blacknell of Arlington BAC
Photo by Megabeth

Today is Bloomsday, the day that events described in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce occur. "The day involves a range of cultural activities including Ulysses readings and dramatisations, pub crawls and general merriment... Enthusiasts often dress in Edwardian costume to celebrate Bloomsday, and retrace Bloom's route around Dublin via landmarks such as Davy Byrne's pub."

FABB's Fionnuala Quinn was asked to help put together a unique celebration of the event, a "leisurely bicycle ride followed by breakfast at the Irish Embassy." As you can see from the photo at the right, the bicycle attire was rather unique. It was a nice touch that they used Capital Bikeshare bikes. For photos from the ride see Megabeth's photostream.