Details will be forthcoming in a report from the Center for Public Deliberation at CSU but the results of our Safety Forum this last week were the following action items in order of priority.
1) Require bike rights and responsibilities questions in the State Driver's Manual;
2) Educational outreach for K-12;
3) Educational outreach for the general public;
4) Educate the motorist on the rights of cyclists;
5) Educate college age cyclists;
6) Increase overall numbers of cyclists;
7) Start another "Smart Trips" program;
8) Move away from our "car-centric" culture;
9) Move toward better law enforcement;
10) Improve and expand infrastructure.
The top five are educational initiatives, including the driver's manual rewrite, which is better acted upon by Bicycle Colorado since it requires legislative action.
Seems to us that the easiest way to achieve a lot of the educational outreach suggested is to have the City Bike Coordinator focus laser-like on education for students age 6 - 20 (that would pick up the K-12 and CSU students and reach the public as well through school groups, parents, PTAs, etc.)
In short, maybe it is time the Bike Coordinator stopped encouraging cyclists (who shows up for winter bike to work anyway? The already committed!) and start educational outreach programs by leveraging existing groups to help: CSU students helping CSU students; the Bike Co-op reaching out to school kids with a "kidz on bikes" program; and Bike Fort Collins using their $5,000 REI grant for educational outreach (whatever happened to that program, anyway?).
1 comment:
Seems to me that the bike coordinator's position should be term limited. It's time for some new ideas.
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