Toks Omishakin, Nashville's Bike Czar

There is a great article from this weekend’s City Paper on Mayor Karl Dean’s initiatives to make Nashville a more bikeable city. At the forefront of this mission is Toks Omishakin, who for years has worked to make Nashville a bike friendly city. Mayor Dean recently created a new position for Omishakin- to oversee the Bicycle and Pedestrian Activity Committee (BPAC), which has made him Nashville’s own “Bike Czar.” Pretty rad job, if you ask me.

Omishakin’s main goals for the city?  That every Nashvillian lives within one mile to a sidewalk, two miles to a bikeway and four miles to a greenway. To reach this goal, Nashville is planning to add 50 additional miles of bike lanes and sidewalks, and 20-25 miles of greenways.

Bigger than this, though, is Omishakin’s goal to change the mindsets of Nashvillians. We all have a friend, family member or coworker who thinks it is ‘crazy’ to ride your bike to work when you could drive. As a city, we need to educate our friends and neighbors that cycling and walking aren’t for crazy people- it is a conscious choice to live healthier and happier.

GO NASHVILLE 2010

tomato bike rack at farmer’s market

This has been a good week for cycling in Nashville. Yesterday, the mayor unveiled more of the new art-bike racks, including racks shaped like microphones and tomatoes. Hopefully these colorful racks will bring attention to the number of cyclists in Nashville, and demonstrate the need for MORE bike racks all over town.  If you want to ride through town and view the racks, a rack map is available here!

Today,  it was announced that Nashville will in fact launch a bike share program to begin this summer with 30 bikes. The program’s future was unknown after the May flooding, which destroyed the entire fleet of bikes. Support has been strong for the program, and a new fleet of  bikes is currently being worked on. By next spring, the city hopes to have over 1,000 bikes available.

Many cities- including Austin, Denver, and Portland- have bike share programs, which operate as a bike rental service at an affordable price, though Nashville’s goal is to make the program free. Bikes will be available at sites around town- most likely near greenways, colleges and bikeways- and the city will provide a helmet, lock and suggested bike routes.

This summer will serve as a pilot for the program, and bikes will be available at the Music City Star train station on Riverfront Park and at Shelby Bottoms Park in East Nashville. You can read more about the program here.

These are two great initiatives that Nashville is taking to be a cycling-friendly city. So, get out and support our city- the more people who use the bike share program, the more encouraged the officials will be to continue the bike love!

This is a ridiculous law and could set a terrible precedent for other towns. Though cycling is not banned on neighborhood streets, all downtown thoroughfares are now off limits to bikes.

Road trip to have a critical mass in Black Hawk? Who’s down?

musiccitycycling.us

Music City Cycling is Nashville’s premier cycling forum. And you should join!

All cyclists welcome: recreation, transportation, or sport, road, bmx, mountain bike, cyclocross, fixed gear, touring, commuting, etc.

Join the forum:

- connect with other cyclists of all kinds and skill levels
- post/participate in local events and rides
- report stolen bikes/parts to the local community
- stay informed and inform others about local routes, road conditions, etc
- promote bicycle awareness
- make friends with other local cycling enthusiasts you might not meet otherwise
- ask questions and seek/give advice about repairs, riding tips, and cycling products
- make the Nashville cycling community larger, more connected, and diverse

So it is with great thanks to share that this weekend, Halcyon helped collect 7 truckloads of donated items and over $2,500 to go towards our city’s rebuilding process. That is awesome, and what is even better is that this is happening all over town. When we each give a little…

It is truly heartbreaking to watch your hometown endure a disaster on this level. If you are in Nashville, I hope you are safe tonight. For those outside the Nashville area, please spread the word on our city’s plight- it is getting very little national media attention, and we are in great need of help. Many people have lost everything, our city’s economic centers (the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Opryland Hotel, all of Downtown Nashville, our major sports facilities, and more) are under water, and the city’s infrastructure is fragile at the moment, with limited clean water, electricity outages, and government closures citywide.

photo by Rebecca Gillespie

Now is time that we come together and fight for our amazing city. Everyone’s help is needed- Hands on Nashville is leading the recovery effort locally, including volunteer sign-ups. Join your neighbors and help our city recover!

If you are out of the Nashville area, please consider donating to the Red Cross to help those who have been devastated by the flooding. You can text ‘REDCROSS’ to  ’90999′ and automatically donate $10 to the recovery effort, or visit their website for more ways to help.

WE LOVE YOU NASHVILLE, OH YES WE DO. WE LOVE YOU NASHVILLE, WE WILL BE TRUE. WHEN YOU’RE NOT WITH US, WE’RE BLUE. OH NASHVILLE, WE LOVE YOU.

Ah yes, springtime is upon us, and no longer are we bundling up everytime we take a spin- it is the perfect time to celebrate and promote cycling. And May is National Bike Month, so there are plenty of opportunities for awesome cycling right now!

Riders all over Nashville have created over 70 events, which you can view at Nashville Bike Month. Anyone can add a  bike related event to the calendar, so don’t hesitate to add.

We will be keeping you updated all month, so you can always check back here, but get out and ride!

Whether it is early morning rides, commuting to work, or cruising with friends through the night, nothing beats a bike ride in the springtime.

This money will considerably impact the cycling world in Nashville. The City has announced that portions of the money will be used for the Share the Road initiative, which seeks to improves policies, education, and accessibility for cyclists and motorists to safely share roadways. Another program that will receive grant money is a city-wide bike rental program, which I hope will be modeled after the Yellow Bike program in Austin. Money will also be put into creating safe routes for children to walk and bike to their schools, something that Walk/Bike Nashville has worked diligently through Safe Routes to School.

All of this is great news, I encourage you to read the entire article at the Tennessean.

Good news from the national Bike Summit that occurred in D.C.  this week- Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced that “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” adding that next year’s budget includes initiatives for more bike and walking paths planned around affordable housing, and more money for public transit.

He continues:

“People want to live in livable communities. People want streetcars that are made in Portland, Ore. People want walking paths, biking paths, and opportunities for families to really do the things they do best — which is to hang together and have fun… They want out of their cars; they want out of congestion; they want to live in livable neighborhoods. We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects. We are discouraging transportation investments that negatively affect cyclists and pedestrians. And we are encouraging investments that go beyond the minimum requirements and provide facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.”

You can read the entire article at The Trucker.

Finally! Google Maps has just released bike-friendly directions, which will include trails and bike lanes. The feature will also help cyclists avoid congested streets, large hills, and other potential problems. To use the feature, go to Google Maps, click on ‘directions’, and select ‘bicycling’ from the pull down menu (the other options are by car, by public transit, and walking).

The bike maps are only available on the web right now, and are in beta. After playing with the option a bit this morning, I would say so far, so good. The coolest aspect, in my opinion, is that once Google maps a route for you, you can adjust the route by dragging across the map. This way, you can compare different options. We all have favorite routes around town, but it is always fun to go a new way.

This is a huge step for cycling, giving millions of people access to biking as transportation. It will make biking in new cities much easier, and hopefully will encourage more people to dust off their bike and ride it to work, if even just a couple days a week. Small changes yield great results. Thanks, Google!