Thanks to bike advocate and Sunnyvale BPAC member Kevin Jackson for sharing this call to action with the SVBC community. SVBC submitted a letter (PDF) to the Sunnyvale City Council about the proposed Vision Zero study issue last week.

You probably know about the Vision Zero program, but if not you can read about it here. An obvious question is: Why would anyone be against this? Beats me, but in Sunnyvale a proposal to study developing a Vision Zero plan needs council's vote of approval in a workshop this Friday. Some in the city don't see the value in a Vision Zero program, so I'm asking for your help to make it happen.

This Friday, January 15, San Jose Bike Party (SJBP) will ride for the 100th time since October 2007. With a simple mission of building community through bicycling, SJBP has made a tremendous impact in increasing bicycle use among people of all ages and backgrounds. They have also collaborated with city leaders and groups like SVBC to promote bike-friendly programs and advocate for better bike infrastructure in San Jose.

Mark Hirsch, SJBP Organizer, GiDM Co-Founder, and SVBC member, shares with us his thoughts on SJBP's 100th ride.

The County of San Mateo has issued a call for applicants for their newly formed Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC). Applications are due Friday, February 5, 2016 at 5 pm. The BPAC will advise the Board of Supervisors on policies, programs, funding, and other issues that relate to improving and increasing walking and bicycling transportation in San Mateo County. Eligible applicants are people who live in San Mateo County (either in incorporated cities or in unincorporated areas). Members will be selected to represent the interests of older adults, safe routes to schools, bicycling, and other walking/bicycling interests.

We recently partnered with San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to gather your thoughts on our work towards Caltrain’s bike-friendly future through on online survey. A huge thank you to everyone who took their survey and provided feedback! Following a successful campaign [link] to increase bike capacity on future electrified Caltrain trains (coming 2020) and secure $3 million in funding for bike parking at stations, we wanted to hear from you on what improvements would help make accessing Caltrain as easy and convenient as possible for you. The results of this survey will give us a data-driven approach to our future Caltrain advocacy work and help us accurately communicate the needs of our members to Caltrain.

As part of our work to get better biking infrastructure across our two counties, we offer our support to local jurisdictions as they apply for various funding pots. Whether it’s the statewide Active Transportation Program (ATP), nationwide grants, or local level funds, we reach out to cities and the counties to offer our review and support of their grant applications for better bike infrastructure and programs. Because these funding programs for bicycle and pedestrian improvements are always oversubscribed and there are a lot of good projects, support letters from relevant organizations make applications more competitive, can be worth several points in the ranking process, and can be the difference between being awarded a grant or not.