I was lucky enough to serve on the Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen Core as well as the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates' Board of Directors, and I can say that while there seems to be a lot of opportunity for alliances, the skillsets required for political/planning advocacy and "retail"-level advocacy are very divergent. In a nutshell, SABA exists to build bike lanes; SBK exists to fill them.
SABA spends a lot of time cultivating contacts with local developers, city and county transportation and planning officials, local businesses, business organizations, and elected officials, in a way that would really be distracting to SBK's mission. SABA's also undertaken initiatives that SBK wouldn't have the organizational capacity for: foremost in my mind was an effort to develop a full plan to redo two dangerous intersections, utilizing existing traffic control devices and city GIS mapping. Again, not something SBK would think to handle. SABA has also helped fill seats at city council meetings on important bike projects and helped develop and distribute talking points to attendees.
Part of this is organizational capacity; SABA is twenty years old and has a budget for paid staff, while SBK is seven years old and has repeatedly signed on to maintain an all-volunteer staff. At the same time, SBK has a street cred and populist mentality that allows it to really hammer the same people that SABA has to play nice with. It's nice to have both.
All that aside, if you can develop a grassroots maintenance collective with the wine-and-dine (or the populist politics) skills necessary to win over transportation officials, more power to you.
--Ryan
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 10:08 PM, Bill Wright librarybike@hotmail.comwrote:
Much conversation here from California, we have yet to have our Governor sign a 3-foot minimum safe passing law! Come on California Bike Collectives, lets all get behind this one. We are putting the request for calmer street actions, for safer auto and truck passing of bikes, and eliminating the close 'buzz' passes. Assembly Bill AB1371 is going toward the governor for a third time.
We at LibraryBikes.org have been a large player in pushing this law (see www.BikeSacramento.org). Many people come to our shop and are discouraged to take bike riding seriously for transportation because it is not safe enough. We need this minimum standard that 20 other states have already approved, a minimum of 3-feet space between bikes and passing cars.
This advocate cry in California stated from our shop more than three years ago! Yes advocacy works from bike collectives.
Bill Wright Burton Director, LibraryBikes
On May 4, 2013, at 3:31 PM, "Brian Drayton" brian@oaklandspokes.org wrote:
Oakland SPOKES is launching a hyper local/National Community Bike Organization (CBO) Campaign and is setting up a community bike lounge in partnership with Pop Up Hood Oakland to host “Bay Built Bikes” by East Bay Area Community Bike Organizations (CBO) and, local mechanics/builders and bike art vendors.
This Bike lounge will display and consign Bikes built by Bay Area mechanics as part of the campaign Headquarters for SPOKES National’s Community Bike Organization Project. Our goal is to collectively advocate for earmarked City, State, and Federal Funding of our communities’ CBO Projects. This lounge will have commuter accessories, and catered café fixings from Awaken Cafe, Bicycle Coffee, Numi Tea, and Rock the Bike smoothies in its cool Old town Location. We will be having daily opportunities for you as **members to reserve space to do workshops, and host bike-related social events.
Our soft opening will be held in conjunction with Oakland’s First Friday on May 3rd 2013. Following that, our grand opening will take place in the middle of the Bike to Work After Party and we will be hosting the official Bike to work “After Party -After Party”. We plan to have DJ music by Abel Dee and special guests and perhaps some Bike Flix to keep the pedals turning.
The lounge will have a map of the East Bay covering an entire wall as focal accent. This map will have pushpins for all the CBO’s. Bike routes will be marked out on the map in red and will begin from the SPOKES Community Bike Org Hub on the map along routes to each site pinned on the map. This map will serve as a visual guide to patrons of where all our shops are located in reference to each other the hub and their lives. The SPOKESHOP community bike lounge will also provide your organization with a space for exposure in Downtown Oakland where you can showcase your bikes, bike art, bike jewelry and swag for sale.
Each member shop or org will need to contribute their high quality logo and a “Bay Built Bike” or bike product(s) to be part of the for sale consignment exhibit. We will highlight your logo, branding and location on a string of *banners in the lounge. Your product or bike will be mounted on the wall or rack with a short bio of your organization and name of the builder or artist behind the product. All sales will be tracked as consignment and you will have the opportunity to refresh your line of products as it sells. Our goal is to help our businesses or organization further penetrate the bike movement and bike industry and send business as well as awareness to the customers in your community. Through crowd funding and a capital campaign, we intend to raise funds to advocate for bikes as part of community economic development.
In order to participate, we require you to be a **member of the Community Bike Collective.
https://sites.google.com/a/richmondspokes.org/about/programs-1/cbc
https://sites.google.com/a/richmondspokes.org/about/programs-1/cbc
This successful model will serve as a hub of resources for cyclists in East Bay by providing them with maps and quick commuter tips.
Increase your sales and impact while celebrating green mobility today. Join us now!
https://sites.google.com/a/richmondspokes.org/about/programs-1/cbchttps://sites.google.com/a/richmondspokes.org/about/programs-1/cbc
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