Spotlight: Google, SVBC's 2015 Corporate Cycling Champion

[retweet][facebook]Friday's SVBC Annual Dinner will be an opportunity to honor some of this year's biggest bicycle advocates in Silicon Valley. Along with Janet Lafleur being honored with the 2015 Ellen Fletcher Volunteer Award, Google will be honored with the 2015 Corporate Cycling Champion Award.Google has shown a commitment to reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips and encouraging healthy transportation options for their employees. But beyond its employees, Google understands and appreciates the myriad of societal benefits that come with more people riding bikes in their communities. With their Google Bike Vision Plan, published in partnership with Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Google envisions a place where anyone from ages 8 to 80 can ride a bike safely and comfortably.Google's Jeral Poskey and Brendon Harrington took some time to answer some questions from us. Enjoy, and be there on October 30 as we honor their efforts at our Annual Dinner!1. Can you tell us why supporting a safe and accessible bicycling environment, both at Google and in Silicon Valley, is a priority for Google?Biking is a great way to commute, has a low carbon footprint, and it improves riders' health. Biking is also the best way to add new capacity to our transportation networks. If we can shift more people from cars to bikes, everyone benefits.In addition to building infrastructure, we're doing a variety of other things to encourage cycling. Our gbikes are probably the largest community bike share program in the Bay Area. We also have a fleet of commuter bikes we loan to Googlers visiting from other offices, people who would ordinarily assume they have to rent a car to visit Mountain View. We’ve also just started experimenting with giving Googlers pedal-assist electric bikes if they pledge to use for commuting instead of driving, to see what degree they can pull people out of their cars and onto a more sustainable mode for commutes or errands.2. How did the Google Bike Vision Plan come about? What is the long term goal for Google's Bike Vision Plan, and how will you measure that?The vision plan originally was intended to provide a map of exactly where new bike paths and lanes would go. But as we were developing it, we found something much more useful: A system that lets you assess your bike network, prioritize changes, measure success and ultimately make improvements. We think this technique can greatly improve the return on investment of both private and public funds used for biking.3. The data-driven research you conducted to develop the Plan is very interesting. Are there any findings that stood out to you?It has shown us how this effort must be thought of regionally. In one case, you could look at a map of the area's bike network, and you could identify the boundaries between the cities. Each city had great bike networks, but they didn’t connect. It was like there were large canyons isolating each city. The need for a regional approach is strong.4. We've all seen the Google Bikes and know about your involvement in Bike to Work Day - what other fun activities do Google's campuses host to encourage bicycling?The Google bike community itself takes the leads on many things. A safety effort started by a couple of engineers has morphed itself into on-site bike training classes, which are surprisingly popular - we’ve added more classes to meet demand. We've given local merchants a chance to come on campus and sell safety gear. And our "conference bikes" -- a bicycle that allows eight people to ride at once -- is always a fun team outing.5. What does it mean to you and Google to receive the Corporate Cycling Champion Award from SVBC? We're honored. SVBC does so much for the bike community— it’s humbling for them to be recognizing us. We're thrilled though that others see the promise of our bike vision plan. We’re just getting started and we’re looking forward to start putting some of this into action, and getting real improvements made to the bike network in our area.6. What are you looking forward to sharing or experiencing at the Annual Dinner?The dinner is a great way to stay in touch with the entire Silicon Valley bike community. We look forward to seeing some of our key partners from public agencies and advocacy groups. We especially like to hear the testimonials from people who are tirelessly advocating for better, safer biking. We see lots of reason to be optimistic about our cycling infrastructure, and we love hearing from the people who have made it happen.We applaud Google for their ongoing efforts to choose bicycling for transportation and for inspiring their corporate neighbors and Silicon Valley to make every day “Bike to Work Day.” See you on October 30!