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League Welcomes New Equity Advisory Council
The League aims to be the voice for everyone who rides a bike in the U.S., but we recognize that many important voices are still missing from our membership and leadership. Not only are women, youth and people of color underrepresented in policy discussions that impact their neighborhood health and economic development; they are also missing in many bicycle advocacy discussions — particularly at the national level.
One of the League’s priorities in 2013 — and beyond — is to change the face of bicycling and work toward true equity and inclusion in the movement. For years, diversity has been a buzz word, a one-hour conference topic. We need to do more. To address equity, an organization has to commit dedicated staff, time and funding.
So that’s what the League is doing.
We’re excited to announce the launch of a strategic process engaging diverse leaders and advocates to assist in addressing equity and inclusion within our organization, its programs and external efforts. This work will be informed, developed and led by the newly convened Equity Advisory Council, comprised of 10 diverse leaders from different backgrounds working in their communities to get more people on bikes.
Our hope is that the work of the Equity Advisory Council will not only benefit the League but will also be a tool for local cycling organizations to utilize in developing their own initiatives, ultimately building a Bicycle Friendly America that promotes and protects the rights of ALL cyclists.
The Equity Advisory Council will be formally announced at the National Bike Summit in March but we wanted to give you a preview of the individuals that make up this dedicated group of changemakers:
Brian Drayton is the founder and executive director of Richmond Spokes, a non-profit, entrepreneurial youth training program located in Richmond, Calif., that empowers young entrepreneurs to use cycling and sustainable transportation to enable physical, personal, and professional mobility.
Anthony Garcia is Principal of The Street Plans Collaborative and is a leader in the field of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. A member of the faculty at the University of Miami- School of Architecture, Anthony has a strong background in urban planning urban design, policy writing and code analysis.
Eboni Hawkins is the founder of the Chicago chapter of Red, Bike and Green, an organization that promotes biking for improve health, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability in the African American community.
Helen Ho is an advocate and thought leader in fields ranging from alternative transportation and waste management to environmental education and community empowerment. Helen currently serves as the Development Director for Recycle-A-Bicycle and is Co-Founder of the Youth Bike Summit.
Keith Holt is the Executive Director of Milwaukee Bike Works, which sees bicycling as a tool for sustainable change in the community. Keith has been advocating for trails and bicycling in large urban communities for almost a decade, emphasizing ridership in communities of color.
Adonia E. Lugo is the co-founder of City of Lights/ Ciudad de Luces and CicLAvia. A doctoral candidate at the University of California, Irvine, Adonia uses ethnographic research on bicycling to advocate for social justice in urban sustainability through the Bicicultures Research Network and her blog Urban Adonia.
Sara Pelerin is an 18-year-old intern at Recycle-A-Bicycle, where she designs and produces recycled bicycle jewelry and is helping to plan and organize the 2013 Youth Bike Summit. Sara is a resident of the Ali Forney Center and plans on attending college this fall to major in Environmental Science.
Anthony Taylor is a founding member of the Major Taylor Bicycling Club of Minnesota, a nonprofit social/recreational club that promotes safe and fun cycling geared toward the African-American communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He is also the Vice President of the National Brotherhood of Cyclists, a group of grassroots African American cycling clubs from around the country.
Neil Walker is a leading League Cycling Instructor Coach, a youth program coordinator for Metro Atlanta Cycling Club, and founder of Cycles and Change.
Elizabeth Williams is a bike advocate and League Cycling Instructor (LCI) focused on empowering underserved communities, particularly women and youth, to live healthy, active and green lifestyles through cycling. Elizabeth lives in Long Beach, California and is the Founder & President of Cali Bike Tours.
Come to the National Bike Summit to meet the Council in person — and look for some great things to come out of this group as we work to make cycling inviting and accessible for everyone on the saddle.
Hamzat Sani
Equity and Outreach Fellow
Hamzat joined the League in September 2012 after working with the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition. Before working in biking, Hamzat worked with Martin Luther King Jr.’s son as a Program Associate at The King Center in Atlanta. A founder of the Red, Bike and Green chapter in Atlanta, Hamzat sees biking as a hub for change on the communal level.
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February 4th, 2013 at 8:15 pm
I am interested to know how to get involved with the Equity Advisory Council. As an active transportation planner and Hispanic woman of color working on pedestrian and bicycle-friendly policies, design and programs via KidsWalk Coalition–a partnership initiative between the Tulane University’s Prevention Research Center, the City of New Orleans and local community groups and nonprofits, I am thrilled to see that gap is being addressed. In addition to my planning work, I have been working on innovative community outreach projects for several years, most notably, as a con-founder and the Director of Programs at Velo-City. Velo-City is a nonprofit education initiative that introduced young people form diverse, underserved neighborhoods to planning and design through cycling-based programs. We were among one of the first in the country to integrate planning and bicycling into a service-learning curricula to give young people from underserved neighborhoods a voice in the planning process. It is something I am passionate about and am working on in New Orleans now. Again, I would love the opportunity to be involved in your newly formed equity council. Thanks!
February 4th, 2013 at 8:17 pm
Continuously impressed by your work,and proud to be a dues-paying member. Thanks for making social justice a priority within the bike movement.
February 5th, 2013 at 11:58 am
This sounds like a it could be a good thing. My question is why hasn’t the League board sought to diversify itself years ago? When will that become a priority?
February 5th, 2013 at 12:27 pm
I heartily applaud these efforts! Please do not forget the old, of every race and both genders.
February 5th, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Congrats to all, you have a big job ahead you.
February 5th, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Great question! It is precisely the kind of question that LAB is looking to the Equity Advisory Council to help us ask ourselves and answer pragmatically. This is a step to have Equity ingrained in every aspect of LAB’s work to make cycling a viable choice for all. Its great to see that this work is of interest to our wonderful membership.
February 11th, 2013 at 10:01 am
[...] started the wheels turning toward a more inclusive movement by bringing on a new Equity Fellow and convening an Equity Advisory Council. Now we want to ensure that our biggest event of the year — the National Bike Summit — is as [...]
February 11th, 2013 at 6:43 pm
Glad to see. Please, please, please, do not make this have “kids” on bike slant. Low income people really need bikes and safe places to bike to get to work, school, etc. It is great to see Recycle-a-bike people on this, but remember there are hundreds of other bike coops in North America and most concentrate on getting adults on low cost bikes- there is a huge need. Pls do not become just focus on solutions for kids.
February 11th, 2013 at 9:05 pm
This is a great initiative; however, it is completely different from what “Equity” was defined as by LAB just a few short years ago. Then, “equity” meant the legal and practical equality of cyclists with motorists on the road. Admirable though this new initiative is, you’ve now completely co-opted the word “Equity”. Where does that leave the original concept?
February 11th, 2013 at 9:08 pm
This is interesting- I’m glad to see the League broaden the membership with a leadership that points the way.
As a third generation American of North Atlantic Island heritage, I’m glad that we are looking at all of the groups that make up America.
I’m just as glad to see that some of this group are LCI’s.
Nothing,can beat education. If you know how to ride, you can ride anywhere.
February 11th, 2013 at 9:15 pm
See “Cyclists Equity Statement”, http://www.bikeleague.org/about/position.php
February 11th, 2013 at 9:23 pm
John Brooking is absolutely right. Equity at LAB just two or three years ago was the 6th “E”, to go along with Education, Enforcement, Encouragement, Engineering, and (I forgot what the fifth one was). This new twist on Equity deals only with political correctness. This is yet another reason why I have become so disillusioned with LAB after being a member for 42 years and a life member for 37, plus almost a dozen years on the Board on three different occasions. LAB has completely forgotten acting on behalf of the interests of its core membership.
February 11th, 2013 at 9:41 pm
Mr. Hoffman, it is people like you and Mr. Brooking who are holding this movement back. You continue to try to fight over the crumbs, at a time when across the country we have grown the pie. It’s time for a more expansive view of who rides bikes and to consider the needs of all of them. Not just the spandex warriors who have been doing it for themselves for years, but the moms who want to ride with their kids, the busboys who have no choice but to ride home from their late night shifts, and today’s teens and young adults who are choosing to forgo their driver’s licenses and buying cars because they see better ways to spend their time and their money than in traffic. This new effort by LAB should be applauded not shot down.
February 11th, 2013 at 9:53 pm
I am not shooting the effort down. I said repeatedly it was a very worthy initiative, and I wholeheartedly support the effort. What I’m criticizing is the name.
Here is the statement from the League’s own policy in 2007:
“Cyclists’ Equity Statement: Cyclists have the same right to fair and equitable treatment by the government as other road users. The basis for these rights is expressed through the six Es approach that the League supports.”
By all means, I applaud the formation of this council and its participants. It would have been so easy to find another name for it that would not conflict with and confuse the League’s prior meaning of the word. Why would they choose this name when “Equity” supposedly already meant something else?
February 12th, 2013 at 3:13 am
[...] on the brain. Bob Mionske offers advice on dealing with the door zone. The Bike League forms a new Equity Advisory Council to reach beyond the usual voices. A 72-year old Scottsdale AZ woman is killed by a 20-year old [...]
February 12th, 2013 at 10:02 am
Equity is not either between socioeconomic groups or between types of road users, it’s the elimination of all unfair and discriminatory policies. It’s a very positive step for bicycle advocacy organizations to be seeing themselves as more of a part of a bigger picture. We won’t make bicycling safer or more popular (as a mode of transportation or a sport) without addressing various overarching injustices within society and making sure as many voices as possible are heard. In no way is including disadvantaged or underrepresented voices a move away from working for all of us – including affluent straight white male road warriors – to have better conditions in which to ride our bicycles (which is just one part of a broader move towards overall sustainable transportation and land use policies).
February 13th, 2013 at 9:00 am
[...] by her call to action, we couldn’t be more excited to have Lugo’s perspective on the League’s new Equity Advisory Council — and as a speaker at the National Women’s Bicycling [...]
February 14th, 2013 at 10:17 am
[...] inspired by her call to action, we couldn’t be more excited to have Lugo’s perspective on the League’s new Equity Advisory Council — and as a speaker at the National Women’s Bicycling [...]
February 14th, 2013 at 4:48 pm
I don’t plan to prolong this debate, but I think Dani S. has missed the point. As John Brooking pointed out, equity as expressed in the League’s statement of 2-3 years ago is entirely different than this current (and misnamed) attempt at equity.
I have no objection if LAB wants to seek a more ethnically, racially, or socio-economically diverse membership. LAB has never discriminated against people who aren’t old white guys like me. Anyone who pays the dues can join.
What I object to is subverting the still very real issues of legal equity–such as discriminatory laws, unjustifiable court decisions against cyclists who exercise their legal rights, and discriminatory and uneven law enforcement against cyclists–with side issues such as this. LAB is too quick to jump on politically popular issues in an attempt to raise its profile instead of working harder at these generations-old issues that I mentioned above. Having been in LAB since 1971, I know all too well what those are.
If LAB wants a more diverse membership, maybe it should encourage us old white guys to leave, or in the case of members like myself who bought life memberships years ago, to buy them back. (By the way, that would include some of the current directors.) No way can LAB earn enough every year on my $250 life dues to cover the cost of servicing my membership until I die, something I don’t plan on doing anytime soon.
February 14th, 2013 at 6:35 pm
While I think the League’s Equity Advisory Council is a great idea, I hope there is some way to include the “invisible cyclists”, those usually low income, often other nationalities who bike for economic choice or necessity, and are not necessarily bicycle enthusiasts.
February 15th, 2013 at 11:04 am
[...] league is shifting that effort into high gear with the creation of the national Equity Advisory Council, a panel of ten advocates and experts on promoting bicycling in diverse communities. The new team [...]