Pedal2Health Rolls Out in East San Jose

Last weekend, Poco Way Apartments was buzzing with a bike-powered smoothie blender whirling up fresh smoothies, music and great energy all-around. We were excited to work in collaboration with the City of San Jose’s Vision Zero team and LifeSTEPS, housing liaison to bring Pedal2Health to residents in Eastside San Jose. SVBC staff kicked things off with an engaging bike safety workshop to illustrate bike safety practices and rules of the road. Cordell, from Vision Zero, provided bicycle helmets and fittings for everyone. SVBC’s bike mechanic extraordinaire, Allison performed bicycle safety checks to ensure everyone's bike was in good working order. Then we lead a group of residents on a bike ride through the neighborhood. It was wonderful to see many neighbors out waving and cheering as we rode by. The kids enjoyed the ride and loved checking out farm animals at the ending point, Emma Prusch Farm Park! Shortly after, we rode back in for lunch and recapped bike safety takeaways. 

Pedal2Health's program goals are to create lasting bike riding habits that lead to improved human health among low-income families and individuals reduce, bicycling crashes and injuries by increasing safe bicycle riding practice and build relationships and trust between residents and police officers that lead to the improved safety of residents within Vision Zero corridors. The program is an extension of SVBC’s Vision Zero work and attempts to get at the “education” element of the 5 “E’s”.To start the New Year, San Jose has already seen two traffic fatalities. In 2017, the city had 46 traffic fatalities including five bicyclists fatalities resulting from a traffic collision. Unfortunately, these grim numbers represent the fact that one traffic incident is still one too many. SVBC is honored to work in joint collaboration with the community, residents, and partner El Camino Hospital Community Benefit Program, to help make our streets safe and done in a way that builds better communities. If you are an affordable housing community partner or would like to get involved in the program, please contact SVBC at Mui@bikesiliconvalley.org.