Farewell, Hello, Celebrate

With heartfelt thanks, SVBC wishes a fond farewell to Ian Dewar, a long time member of the SVBC Board. Ian was originally elected at the end of 2010 and at the time was working at Specialized. In his role, he was instrumental in convincing Bikes Belong (which then become People for Bikes) to take a delegation of City of San Jose officials to the Netherlands for a week long bicycle study trip. One of the participants on that trip was, at the time, the recently elected Councilmember Sam Liccardo. What a fortuitous investment! Fast forward to today and now Mayor Liccardo is making sure that San Jose is leading the way in creating a safe, stress-free bike-friendly city. Thank you Ian for your time with SVBC!SVBC would also like to welcome three new Board Members, Margarita Parra, Josh Mello and Jorg Heineman. In case you missed the election or you’re not eligible to vote (to be eligible, become a member here) you can check out their bios here. We are excited to put these new folks to work helping to advance Silicon Valley’s biketopia.And, as we enter a new year, let’s not forget to celebrate just a few of the great successes of 2018.Measure W: Phew! That was quite a nailbiter but in the end, San Mateo’s transportation sales tax measure passed. Measure W brought together a wonderful set of partners who worked together to make sure the Measure was good for bikes and transit. Once a great measure was on the ballot we all locked arms and helped get the 2/3rds vote requirement needed.Page Mill/280: We fought hard to get an interim project adopted quickly for this and then found out the project got locked up in lawyer land. Fortunately, after many polite but stern phone calls with every single contact we had at the County and Caltrans this project is now moving again.Bike Share for All: SVBC was on the front lines of the Bike Share for All program, an initiative to get lots of low-income folks signed up for FordGo Bikes. Of all the cities, our work resulted in the greatest proportion of low-income members.Pedal 2 Health: With support from the El Camino Hospital District, SVBC launched a program to bring bike safety education and rides into affordable housing communities. And we’re doing it all over again in 2019 with a focus on getting more moms riding.Better Bikeways San Jose: Have you been treated to San Jose’s Downtown bike lanes yet? Better Bikeways San Jose, (BBSJ) was a year long effort to plan and rapidly implement a network of bike lanes in the Downtown Core. SVBC played a supporting role in the project with a focus on community outreach and is proud to watch the City of San Jose jump into a leadership position on bike infrastructure.Bike Parking: Approximately 6,500 bikes were parked this year (and we have a couple more events still to go.) To put this in perspective, if you assume that these folks would have otherwise arrived by car, 2/car, then that's a little over 3,000 cars off the road.And all these accomplishments don't even factor in all the good stuff that happens outside of the realm of SVBC that we cannot take credit for. That's you! You all are doing wonderful bikey things. That includes corporate partners like Google, Linkedin and Facebook who are aggressively pursuing bike projects on their own, working with cities to conceptualize, support, and build bike projects. That includes our elected officials who organize their own bike events, like Supervisor Cortese's Day on the Bay Ride or Mountain View Mayor Lenny Siegal's Mayor Rides. It includes the wonderful organizations out there doing awesome things to get more folks on bikes like San Jose Bike Party, San Jose Bike Clinic, Turning Wheels for Kids, Silicon Valley Bike Exchange, Good Karma Bikes, Community Cycles of California and more. Together, we're all doing great things to spread the joy of bicycling and in the process, solving many of society's most challenging problems. Thank you!