Mr. Pedros goes to Washington

I am just back from attending the National Bike Summit, organized by the League of American Bicyclists, and I am ashamed for not attending any of the previous seven editions. The Summit descends on DC with the mission of putting the cycling agenda on the nation's agenda. It is a full on lobbying effort. Important work.

More than five hundred attendees representing industry, retail, and local to national advocacy met to discuss our priorities and then brought them straight to the offices of congress. we hit them with four agenda points, but this one is my favorite:

Complete Streets http://www.completestreets.org/ , pushing policy that simply requite that the safety, interest, and convenience of all users are considered in design and construction of transportation projects. Essentially, when you improve or create a road or motorway, take all of the users and their destinations into account. Lets stop cutting kids off from the school or the park, forcing commuters and recreational riders to a dangerous road edge and ignoring pedestrians.

All of the issues are all important. you can see the issue papers at http://www.bikeleague.org/conferences/summit08/2008_issue_papers.pdf If we don't keep cycling, pedestrian and inter-modal issues in the face of congress, we'll get dropped. We've got many friends in Congress (see the bike caucus http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikeadvocacy/bike_caucus_1.pdf )but not enough.

Trek Bicycle's John Burke implored all bike industry leaders to go and fight for cycling's agenda. So we went. Given the importance, I was truly surprised not to see my chief competitors there. While some were off filing colorful and frivolous law suits, we spent our money promoting cycling's agenda. SRAM, Saris, QBP, and Pacific Cycles all sent their top dogs as did many others. I hope the others will get it.

CZ