We're a bit limited in our capacity but we've been engaged with planning work to some degree. In our area, there is perhaps a bit of a unique situation in that we have a couple prominent community organizations - Latino Health Access (LHA) and KidWorks - engaged in bicycle advocacy work as an important part of their broader work. We've been forming a coalition with them and other groups (El Centro Cultural de México, El Fenix, Neighborworks OC, SACReD, Neighbors for the Santiago Bike Trail) to identify needs in our city and communicate them to the city Planning Dept. and Public Works, making sure that equity is an important component in considerations of how to improve our streets and educate about bike safety. Working together is definitely fruitful. While we each sort of have our own things going on, they interrelate in great ways. While not all of it is plainly advocacy work, I think with a little imagination you can see it creating movement in that direction. We're learning as we go. A little context: the city is updating its bikeways master plan, so that augments the urgency of our work.

Examples of our interactions:

- Members of our various organizations recently took a League Certified Traffic Safety 101 class together, helping to inform us all about current laws, traffic issues, and what's involved in bicycle infrastructure. The LCI's, who are members of a cycling club and our county bicycle coalition, donated their time. Our involvement was part of what helped it come together.
- Youth members of KidWorks, their "Bike It! Santa Ana" group, have been doing a bicyclist survey and cycling data collection. They came by the shop one day during a survey and we helped them tune up a couple bikes. Other members have returned for further work, which keeps them rolling and engaged in their work.
- Last week members of KidWorks, El Fenix, and LHA came to the shop to work on their bikes prior to a group trip up to Los Angeles for CicLAvia, Los Angeles' open streets event. One person who did not have a bike basically built a bike from scratch the day prior. I met up with the group up there during the ride and did a couple repairs up there. They returned with a greater enthusiasm for their work. The following day, Jeff Miller, CEO of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, presented at a community center, and many of the same people attended, interacting with members of the city council, the Parks Dept., Planning, and Public Works. Incidentally, we just learned that our city will be holding its first ciclovia event in October.
- A few months ago we did a bike valet for the kickoff event for an LHA campaign called the Wellness Corridor, improving biking and walking in our downtown, and have provided mechanical support at another event.
- A couple months ago four Bicycle Tree volunteers assisted in recording community input regarding bike safety at a city-sponsored event
- Last year we consulted for and promoted a free bus trip to Long Beach sponsored by the city's Parks Dept. - 50 people took a walking a biking tour of this city that has implemented many great bike and ped infrastructure elements that we don't see here. This trip included KidWorks and LHA youth and staff (plus city staff).
- Specific to what you're saying about interacting with Alta Planning + Design, they will be working on an update to the bicycle master plan for a neighboring city, Anaheim. They have asked us if we could set up a mobile repair station at a couple events alongside Alta Planning's booth as a means of attracting members of the public to provide input on the master plan update.
- We have helped repair bicycles used for a bicycle trailer compost collection program operated by KidWorks and a community garden operated by the Grain Project. We will be giving their fleet discounted tune-ups starting next week. This program got a $100,000 grant a couple months ago so we're really interested to see what it develops into. High-profile campaigns like this highlight the usefulness of bicycles and the desire to make them a more prominent part of our infrastructure.
- We have just done extensive work (done at discounted rates) on the fleet of the Anaheim high school cycling team, and will be doing a maintenance workshop with the team members and hopefully deepening our cooperation; I hear they want to volunteer and get more involved in bicycle advocacy. I think connecting them with our Santa Ana organizations will be instructive and hopefully inspirational to them to be engaged in their communities in similar ways.
- A lot of this has developed after years of working together at more of a distance. We were brought those crucial extra inches closer by a few factors, including our separate evolution toward bicycle advocacy and the coalition-building efforts of El Fenix.

All of these organizations are serving largely lower-income, in some ways politically disconnected communities. We fill a niche in terms of providing bikes and maintenance services at a very low cost, helping to keep members of this movement rolling.

In short, we're sort of serving as the team mechanics for community organizations engaged in bicycle leadership and advocacy work. We are perhaps also contributing a little enthusiasm, knowledge, and energy into the mix, and we're getting the same in return. We each possess our own strengths and connections, together we are stronger.

We've seen exciting improvements recently. Aside from the bikeways update, which we hope will be robust (drafted by Alta Planning + Design and our Planning Dept.), our city has adopted  Complete Streets legislation, a well-received 5-year plan that included bicycle infrastructure language, and we're looking forward to our first ciclovia. The city also received funding for a bike safety campaign. It's not all rosy, to be sure, but we seem to be seeing distinct momentum city-wide. Our county transportation authority is also hiring an active transportation coordinator; because North Orange County is basically one big metropolitan mush this affects us strongly as well, the OCTA is probably more engaged at the city level than most county authorities.
 
Maybe I'm just imagining things, but I sort of feel like our presence and persistence, combined with a loose engagement with various organizations over the years has provided a bit of the wind in the sails moving bicycle issues forward. Our slight and ever-evolving knowledge of the political process of advancing these issues helps us navigate. None of this movement would be occurring without the work of community organizations, individual advocates, and champions within the council and Parks Dept.

I'd say this sort of illustrates that for us the reality is a little more complex than simply us connecting community voices to planning - there's a web of mutual support that has us all more informed and engaged in the social/political/planning process. 

- Paul Nagel
The Bicycle Tree
shop: (714) 760-4681
811 N. Main St.
Santa Ana, CA 92701
http://www.thebicycletree.org
info@thebicycletree.org