Riding your bike instead of taking the car is a great way to increase your exercise over the week while helping to lower emissions. It can also have positive effects on everything from personal empowerment, to community programming and even infrastructure. We talked to Bike New York to hear more.
Highlights From The Interview With Bike New York
Bike New York is a nonprofit organization that “encourages bicycling and bicycle safety through education, community outreach and events.” Here’s what they had to say about the benefits of a strong cycling culture.
Cycling As Empowerment
Our slogan is ‘Grab Life By The Handlebars.’ Learning to cycle is an empowering experience. A child goes through this challenging thing and comes out on the other end having developed this skill. That can show a young person that this kind of success can take place in other avenues in life.
And this is not limited to children. Adults might be affected in an even more profound way, because they might not have learned something brand new in a long time. When they then get it they might think – wow, what else did I think that I can’t do? This is what we like about our ‘Learn To Ride‘ class. It embodies the spirit of self reliance and independence.
Programs For Communities
The organizations that join our programs are from the area or neighborhoods they serve. Schools, for example, will partner with us to do after school programs especially when it is there and all you have to do is get the kids to show up.
Infrastructure
We are primarily an educational organization. Our mission is to promote cycling as a sustainable form of transportation and recreation, first and foremost. But sometimes a city council member will call us up and say we want you to testify on behalf of this or that biking related bill. We’ve worked on a project in Van Cortland Park to pave a section of an old rail line. So we dip our toes in advocacy sometimes when working with partners.
Biking efforts of the city and of groups like us have made a dent in terms of having more people riding bikes, and as a result we have a lot more bike infrastructure on our streets than we had ten years ago.
Making Cycling Part Of A Lifestyle
It’s a habit that needs to be developed. We’ve been trying to figure out how to keep people going with biking – to take another class, do a ride with us, to get into it. We’ve put in a number of classes and opportunities that focus on giving the skills and knowledge people need so they can do this on their own more regularly.
Get On A Bike
You can find out all about Bike New York’s programs on their website – www.bike.nyc. If you are already an avid rider, check out their Five Boro Bike Tour – an amazing ride through all five New York City boroughs.