Salem Bike Vision Announces Summer Slate of Rides

Over the weekend Salem Bike Vision advocates announced three summer rides.

via Twitter

Each ride is aimed at persons with different riding interests and skill levels.

The three rides via signup form

You may recall back in April when they announced a grant award from People for Bikes. People for Bikes said:

With this grant, Salem Bike Vision (SBV) will host three community rides in 2023, working to educate the public about what makes for effective bike infrastructure and helping identify areas where safety is lacking. The organization will also engage local decision-makers around opportunities to use the city’s recently passed bond for safe bike infrastructure.

These are clearly community rides. But if the goal was "working to educate the public about what makes for effective bike infrastructure and helping identify areas where safety is lacking," the target group for the first ride, "those who use their bike regularly and feel comfortable," likely needs no education on effective bike lanes or identifying dicey areas. This is preaching to the choir, and may be a bit of wasted opportunity.

I was a little surprised the advocates have not linked more directly to immediate advocacy opportunities. As McGilchrist has been debated this spring, they have not commented either in favor of the design or to express concerns about the design. They did mention ODOT's project on segments of State Highway downtown, but merely pointed to the survey and did not recommend anything about their core issue of protected bike lanes. A bike ride along the route's couplets, from the Parkway, to Mission and 12th, and back again could be very useful for engineers who too often are just looking at a lines on a map.

via Twitter

Dongho Chang was City Traffic Engineer for Seattle and recently moved over to be State Traffic Engineer for the State of Washington.

Actually using the facilities - via Twitter

Same place, different group - via Twitter

This month he participated in "mobility and safety tours" for WSDOT staff, getting folks out of the office and onto the ground, using the facilities they have designed.

The final "policymaker" ride for SBV will have some of this, but may not be linked so strongly to any particular planning efforts.

With a sitting City Councilor and the Board President of Cherriots, Salem Bike Vision is positioned to leverage advocacy more forcefully with ODOT and other agencies. They might get a return call and courtesy, for which ordinary citizens struggle too often. They might get real change, even.

It will be great to see how SBV evolves and the three rides are a real start. You can RSVP and register here.