The 10th annual National Bike Summit was held in D.C. a bit ago. Todd Scott who operates the m-bike.org site and Kelli Kavanaugh from Wheelhouse Detroit (and right here at
Model D) showed up to push biking in Michigan. Todd Scott's post lays out what happened with some good news at the end for the Detroit bicycles.
Excerpt from m-bike.org:
The networking opportunities here were significant. I spent some time
speaking with a software engineer that developed the Google's bike
routing. There are a number of issues that I don't believe they have
considered that I will be following up on. I also said that since the Google Trike is coming to the Detroit Zoo, it might
as well create Streetview images for the Dequindre Cut
and RiverWalk. That might be possible. We'll see.
I went to dinner with Kelli Kavanaugh (Wheelhouse Detroit), Karen
Kavanaugh (Governor's office in Washington DC — not related to Kelli),
and Ginny Sullivan (Adventure Cycling.) It was a great opportunity for
exchanging bicycle advocacy information.
I spoke with Gary Fisher about coming to Detroit for an urban ride.
He's never ridden in the city and I think I had him convinced he needs
to. I believe he was wearing tweed throughout the entire Summit —
totally dapper.
The biggest disappointment? The National Bike Summit remains an event
mainly attended by white adults. This lack of diversity perpetuates the
stereotype that bicycles are white cultural phenomenon. There was a
moderately interesting session on promoting diversity that relied
largely on the efforts of the presentation by the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. Perhaps the
best recommendation came from Keith Holt (Active Transportation Alliance.)
He suggested groups start by diversifying their boards — a great
suggestion for the League
of American Bicyclists who organized the summit.
Read the entire article
here.
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