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SRAM Partners with National Advocates to Double Federal Funding for Bicycling
The League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking & Walking are pleased to announce a new, three-year campaign to double federal funding for bicycling and walking by 2013. The Advocacy Advance initiative is backed by renewed support from SRAM, an innovative maker of bicycle components.
The League and Alliance have been awarded up to $1.2 million from SRAM over the next three years to unite active transportation advocates across the nation and give them tools and resources to secure increased funding from existing federal transportation programs for critical bicycle and pedestrian projects.
“At SRAM we believe that bicycles improve the environment, ease congestion, reduce the cost of transportation and create healthier communities,” says Stan Day, SRAM CEO. “The biggest barrier to increased bicycle use in daily lives is the lack of appropriate infrastructure, and local bicycle advocates are working to break down those barriers across the country. The Advocacy Advance campaign will empower those advocates to dramatically improve conditions for bicyclists.”
The Advocacy Advance partnership was created two years ago, with major funding from SRAM. Under that banner, League and Alliance staff research issues vital to the bicycling community and create reports that give advocates the data and knowledge they need to effectively promote bicycling. The partnership has also awarded more than $500,000 in direct grants, technical assistance and scholarships to build the capacity of local and state bicycle advocacy organizations and jumpstart innovative campaigns.
Building on these successes and stepping up to a new challenge, the Advocacy Advance Team is now strategically targeting federal funding. While bicycling and walking make up 12 percent of all trips in the U.S., those modes receive less than two percent of federal transportation dollars. By 2013, that will change.
“Our initiative to double the federal investment in bicycling and walking projects in three years is both bold and essential to creating more livable communities,” says Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “SRAM’s commitment to Advocacy Advance demonstrates its leadership in the industry, and its faith in the powerful partnership between the League and Alliance to accomplish this goal.”
“We know local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy leaders have both a remarkable passion and the community connections to make real change on the ground,” says Jeffrey Miller, Alliance President/CEO. “The Alliance and the League are committing to work even more closely with those leaders to deliver strategic training, assistance and grants so they can make communities better places to bike and walk.”
More details about Advocacy Advance will be released in coming months.
Meghan Cahill
League Director of Communications
Cahill joined the League in December 2008 and has a BA in Media Communications with a concentration in Italian Studies from the College of Charleston.
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November 4th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
kudos to Stan Day and SRAM, they’re a great example of making a true commitment to “growing the pie.”
November 4th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
With so much money now coming from the bicycling industry, one has to ask whether the League is still the voice of its members. One has to believe, to paraphrase former GM Chair Charlie Wilson, that what is good for cyclists is good for the cycling industry and vice versa. Perhaps that is true.
LAB needs to explain to membership how this corporate money is influencing its decision making and governance. Is SRAM lobbying for more separate facilities for potential cyclists? For more control over the Board Is this in the interest of existing League members? Who is asking?
November 4th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Khal – the League of American Wheelmen was founded and led back in 1880 by Colonel Albert Pope, a leading bicycle manufacturer of the day. The bicycle industry was a critical part of the Good Roads Movement and the League…without good roads, there would be no cycling, cyclists or sales.
When the League was most recently resurrected, in the mid-1960s, it was Schwinn and then the industry’s Bicycle Institute of America that bankrolled the organization and got us back into the saddle again.
I think its fair to say we owe our existence to the support of the bike industry.
Industry support since the mid-1970s has waxed and waned – in the 1980s, when I first joined the staff, and for most of the 1990s we bemoaned the fact that the industry did nothing to support our efforts. Now they do, and I for one am delighted to work with smart business leaders to get more people on bikes – and yes, even sell more bikes and bike stuff.
Half our income comes from members; about one-third comes from the industry – we report on our financial picture every year in the magazine. Trek, SRAM and Bikes Belong provide substantial support for the League’s programs and ask for minimal recognition; no influence over the programs beyond their initial approval of the grants; and no involvement in the governance of the League. To a remarkable degree, they trust us to deliver programs we have developed.
Each of these industry leaders is making a significant contribution to bicycle advocacy and we are delighted to be their partners and to work closely with them.
November 4th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Thanks, Andy, for elaborating!
When I was board pres. of HBL, we got a substantial amount of money every year from organizations such as the Honolulu Advertiser and later JAL to underwrite major rides. Another source of income was city money to run the BikeEd program.
What was required from corporate sponsors was we deliver on high quality rides and provide obvious recognition of sponsorship. City simply wanted good bookkeeping on deliverables.
There was no surreptitious effort to influence Hawaii Bike League governance or advocacy. It can be done, just wanted to hear it.
What corporate money does influence, obviously, is what staff are doing with their time. But if grants are used to expand staff capability rather than redirect existing staff, one can have it both ways, I suppose.
November 5th, 2010 at 12:16 am
One comment from outside the Beltway, if you don’t mind too much:
Given the political & fiscal situation shaping up after this election, it might possibly be a good time to re-assess the relationship at the Federal level, and look to more state & local solutions. Unlike TEA-21 & SAFETEA-LU, the next bill is looking like it may be a tough fight over a greatly shrinking pie – which could end up with entire major programs consolidated or eliminated.
The reason I feel comfortable proposing this is because the attitudes at the state and local level in many areas toward cycling and its priority in transportation are different than they were 8-10 years ago – just look at the progress made by the “complete streets” movement. And a bruising battle inside Washington over resources that just might not be there could distract from more-productive activities.
Not everything has to be a Federal line item. Really. Especially with a new group of House members who are very aware that the money they’re juggling came from hardworking taxpayers – and that the taxpayers would prefer to have as much of it under their discretion as possible.
That’s my $.0.02. I could be wrong, but I see serious fiscal difficulties ahead at all levels of government – ones that could swamp entire constituencies.
November 5th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Even before reading Richard’s comment, my question was how much of this money can be allocated to cyclist and motorist education, not just paint and pavement projects? At the individual cyclist level, education gives much more bang for the buck than infrastructure, being both cheaper and more enabling. “Supporting bicycling” is more than just attracting beginning cyclists, it’s also educating those beginners who have already started, and educating the motorists with whom we must all share the road, bike lanes or not. I think this is all the more important given the new federal reality.
November 5th, 2010 at 11:56 am
(1) I support Moeur’s and Brookings’ comments.
(2) Andy, you left out a crucial element. The LAB board is self-appointed now, and doesn’t have to be responsive to members. Superbly qualified members aren’t allowed to run for the board if, by whim of existing board members, they aren’t desirable. How’d that happen? INDUSTRY PEOPLE got on the board and made it happen. I hold Martha Roskowski, Chris Kegel and Mike Greehan, all of the trade association Bikes Belong, responsible for this. Roskowski wrote the bylaws change; Kegel put it to a vote with no notice to the members, and Greehan avidly supported it.
November 5th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
John S., you are simply wrong. The majority of the board is elected by the membership. The board has established minimum qualifications for board candidates, which seems not only appropriate but a responsibility for good governance – and those qualifications do not have regard to the issues or platform of prospective candidates. You are simply wrong about Bikes Belong: Martha Roskowski worked for Bicycle Colorado, then America Bikes (both advocacy groups)and then the City of Boulder during her time on the board; Chris Kegel and Mike Greehan did both serve on the Bikes Belong Board as well as the League’s but did not “represent” Bikes Belong; Chris owns one of the best bike shop chains in the country and Mike owns his own publishing company after serving as publisher and editor of Bicycling magazine and working for Interbike, the industry’s trade show. People with a strong connection to bicycling and bicyclists by anyone’s standards. And even if they had been representing Bikes Belong, they were two of 12 board members – hardly a majority. The things you are complaining about, John, happened almost a decade ago; it’s really time to move on. Today, we have a strong board of directors representing various elements of a diverse bicycling movement, including the industry side. I think that’s a plus. And when members vote for five new board members in December, there are some more excellent candidates to choose between. I encourage you to read about the election process to date on our home page, look for the candidate statements in your next American Bicyclist magazine (they will also be on the website), and take a few moments to cast a vote for the future of the League.
November 5th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Your doubling of federal pork for bicycling does not impress me, Mr. Clark. Real cyclists measure success not in dollars but in adherence to the principle that a bicycle is a vehicle and that therefore a bicyclist has the same rights and duties as any other vehicle and that there are no exceptions. I see you cheated on a board nominating process again as part of your strategy of relegating that principle, upon which the league was founded and conducted its first advocacy, further and further onto the ash heap of history. Why am I not surprised.
November 5th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I was not involved with the LAB during the time Mr. Schubert is referring to, so I cannot speak to what has happened in the past. However, at the present time, as one of the rejected candidates for the current round of elections, I do think that the fact that the current board has first review of any hopeful member-elected candidate, and the power to reject such candidate without any public transparency regarding the reason, detracts significantly from the claim of being “elected by the membership”. It seems more like the membership vote is merely a formality at that point.
I say without any *public* transparency, but I note that in my communication from the Governance Committee in which I was informed that I was not selected to be a nominee, I was not even told privately the reason I was not selected. I have therefore just written to the chair of that committee asking him to let me know how they felt I was unqualified. I do not intend to publish the detail of what he says, respecting the privacy of our email discussion, but I reserve the right to communicate my general level of satisfaction with the answer.
Two additional points: (1) Yes, there is a petition process available to rejected candidates, and I, Khal, and Eli Damon did try to use it to get on the ballot, but did not succeed. We have documented our efforts, and it has been the subject of some discussion whether the process itself is sufficiently accessible or reasonable. I don’t want to get into that discussion here, but simply bring it up. (2) The Governance Committee got 23 applications and approved 8 of them to run. Four of those were the incumbents, so out of the 19 *new* applicants, they chose only 4 to run. Surely the other 15 were not all unqualified? Assuming they were not, why the arbitrary cutoff? Why reject *any* who meet a minimum level of qualification? Why not let the membership truly decide? I would like to know the thought behind this decision. It too detracts from the claim of a membership-elected board.
Finally, it is true that the (bare) majority of the board is still member-elected (such as that is), but it should be noted that that percentage just decreased over the summer, with no input from membership and minimal communication after the fact. It decreased from 7 elected of 12 total (58%) to 8 elected of 15 total (53%). The bylaws in Article III Section 2 state that the board size may be increased to up to 17 members, but only in a “similar” proportion of elected to appointed directors as the original 7/12. Had the board made *two* of the 3 new positions created this summer elected, rather than just one, the proportion elected would then have been 60%. So rather than allowing the elected percentage to grow by 2%, they chose to shrink it by 5%. Do they think -5% is “close enough”, compared to +2%?
November 5th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Way to go SRAM! I love the SRAM shifters on my road bike. Glad to hear that my dollars spent on them filter their way back to advocacy.
@John Brookings-
I don’t know you, but with your lack of understanding of the importance of federal transportation funding for bicycling in the last blog post, and your lack of discretion by posting your screed above makes me think those in charge made the right call. You don’t seem fit to direct the LAB in these critical times. It reminds me when I saw Forrester listed as a candidate a few years back. The only reason I bothered voting for the board at all was to vote against him.
I’ve seen the pages you have about the board election. Your ‘reform’ group seems to talk about member this, member that. As a member I’m happy with what they’re doing. It’s been a few years I think, but I recall seeing a membership survey with high marks for LAB’s work. Is it possible that despite the rhetoric that most LAB members are happy with their work? Maybe it’s time for another membership survey.
November 5th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Jason, I was responding to Andy’s assertion that the majority of the board is member-elected. Technically true.
We obviously don’t see eye to eye, but I’m going to refrain from getting personal about it. Have a nice evening.
November 6th, 2010 at 12:34 am
Federal funds, including match funds for state and local governments have certainly been important in the last decade or so. But with 60 new and highly skeptical conservative Republican and Tea Party members in the House (which originates Federal spending bills), that money simply might not be there or might be there in greatly diminished quantities.
As Mr. Moeur apparently agrees, cycling has gotten increased strength as a strongly local issue and this asset needs to be worked. Cyclists and pedestrians (and those who use mass transit) need to work their local governments and state legislatures to ensure good programs such as Complete Streets survive. The conservative mood in Congress is to reduce the size and scope of the Federal pie. Ok, fine, we need to work on the state and local pies.
November 6th, 2010 at 11:28 am
There is broad agreement here about the need for local advocacy. It may not have been clear from the press release, but the Sram grant funds efforts by the League and the Alliance to support state and local advocacy through research, grants, and technical support. That said, the target still needs to be federal funding sources (which are divvied up by states and MPOs) because that’s where the money is. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves in thinking otherwise. Now is not the time to stop fighting for a piece of the pie, it’s the time to redouble our efforts. Let’s all work for it together. It seems like a lot of energy is being spent on less productive things.
November 6th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
“…It seems like a lot of energy is being spent on less productive things….”
For example?
November 7th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Darren, to be clear. I don’t recommend we pack our tents and move the League offices back to Illinois (or wherever). But one has to harvest from the fields that have crops in them.
Don’t get me wrong. I am quite concerned about the potential drying up of Federal dollars. Several years ago I was a member of the Los Alamos Transit Task Force that defined the parameters of our very successful county bus system and I still perform oversight duties as Chair of our County Transportation Board. Although we fund a considerable piece of that pie, we do count on Federal funds. Further, we are tied into the Northern New Mexico Regional Transit District. It relies on Federal funds including those directed through the NNM Pueblos. So this IS a big deal. Not to mention, the last big segments of our spiffy new bike lanes were funded in part with ARRA money.
But we have to cover our bases–surely nothing you and Andy have not already discussed. With so many new Congressmen (and women) elected on a pledge to cut Federal spending and reduce the scope of Federal mandates, we have our work cut out for us in convincing these folks what is still a viable Federal mandate. Personally, I would focus on those things that can be cast in terms of national mission. Perhaps a healthier and physically fit nation, as President Eisenhower challenged us in the fifies. We bang the drum on obesity and active living. This is not a new drum:
http://www.loti.com/sixties_history/The_Eisenhower_Years.htm
As for the rest? Well, we look to State and Local Government. And, we look to individual cyclists and cycling clubs/associations to depend more on themselves and their competence on existing facilities and less to Government funds that might not be there.
Like all things in Government, this tide will rise and fall. Cycling is not dependent on the tides. After all, we ride bikes, not sailboats.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:04 am
Jobs,economic development and national security.
How many bike shops are in my state? How much revenue and jobs do they generate? How many bikes have been sold in 2010?
Bicycles should be listed as national security equipment. When the roads are blocked with traffic, no trains are available, bicyclists and walkers can escape harm by using the trails connecting our communities.
November 12th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I was happy to read Andy’s post and I guess I should have left it there. The LAB does great work and I am proud to be a member. I am glad that we have sponsors who underwrite efforts to improve facilities nationwide. There is work to be done and that involves our working together. In that work I continue to engage with an organization that works for me. No problem. End of story.
FYI-I delisted from the LCI listserve to avoid the sort of parinoid, negative, backbiting that has now migrated here. Why can’t we all agree to limit this sort of mud slinging to the LCI group and save this space for real news and the occasional three cheers for staff when they score a success???
If that is not possible, I have to wonder if the angry, bitter types need to form a group of their own where they can investigate one another to their heart’s content. Come on people, we have work to do.
November 13th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Here ya go: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CyclingFieldofHonor