This upcoming Wednesday (the 15th) we will have the August Bike Friendly McKinney meeting at The Pub in McKinney. This is a good one to attend – we will have Gary Graham from the City of McKinney as our guest to talk about the roll out of the on-street bike plan. Lots of people have recently joined BFM and it would be GREAT to put faces to the email addresses. I hope to see lots of you there!
As the “front man” for BFM I wind up doing a lot of things that make my wife raise her eyebrows. Until just recently I don’t think she knew how often I lean out my car window or holler at a passing cyclists to say “Go to Bike Friendly McKinney dot Com!” We were walking with our son around the neighborhood last week and we passed a dad walking his son and as we passed he said “Are you the guy who yelled to go to Bike Friendly McKinney dot Com?” This, I think, was when my wife realized she married a nut. I wave BFM stickers out the window, I pull into parking lots where bikers are getting ready to go or coming back from a ride and say hi. I do this because in starting BFM I learned something I wasn’t expecting – most people in the city are unaware that a bike plan is rolling out, and there isn’t a good means to get this information to them other than actually getting in their face and saying “Hi!”
So here’s your chance to help me do silly things. We need volunteers to sit in front of grocery stores and Target and Lowe’s like girl scouts selling cookies to tell everyone there’s a bike plan rolling out. We have a nice white tent, lots of information to hand out, maps of the plan and questionnaires for people who want to spend 60 seconds to help the City. What I don’t have yet is 2 dozen volunteers to help. We will provide everything, but we need people who can sit or stand for 2 hours and talk to everyone about what’s going on. If you don’t feel qualified to do this, you’re the perfect person to help! There’s no better way to learn about what the City and BFM are doing than to tell others.
If you can help, please shoot me an email at bikefriendlymckinney@gmail.com. The best way to make the city more bike oriented is for lots of people to be aware and involved – which is exactly what we’re all about!
Be safe!
“Why in the world do we need ‘bike lanes’?”
I read this comment today on another forum. The author was questioning the need for the expense for adding bike lanes in his city. He cited concerns about money being spent during a recession, for something he feels is not justified. It is everyone’s right to speak their mind. He has a good point. Why do we need bike lanes?
One of the most important things we do as an organization is to promote bicycling as something good for the community. Maybe the person who asked that question is not a cyclist. That’s okay. We will not all be in total agreement. But, our task is this: convince enough people to adopt this plan, and more will follow. What we are doing here may not seem revolutionary, but we are changing the shape of our country, one community at a time.
Why do we want bike lanes? As for me, I want to feel safe.
I want to be able to ride from one end of this city to the other. I want to see more people on bicycles. I want to see companies and merchants promote cycling by providing bike racks and other facilities. I want McKinney to be an example to the rest of the country of how motor vehicles and cyclists and pedestrians can coexist.