New York Bicycling Coalition to Hold 2003 Workshops on Bicycling and Pedestrian Safety and Infrastructure Planning

 

Release Date: March 4, 2003

Contact: Jesse Day, Executive Director

518.436.0889

 

The New York Bicycling Coalition will be holding FREE bicycle and pedestrian planning workshops beginning in May this year in partnership with the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee.

 

NYBC will host four workshops around New York State from May 7 to June 4 that will provide local residents, transportation planners, advocates, and city and town officials the opportunity to discuss the latest state of the art solutions for accommodating cyclists and pedestrians on our roads and pathways.

 

The workshops will be held in Syracuse, Nassau, Westchester, and Binghamton,  and will provide detailed insight in the latest health and fitness issues, transportation infrastructure solutions, and policy and project implementation for cycling byways.

 

NYBC will improve on last year¹s workshops by engaging participants in a discussion and presentation of issues and problems on their local roads and bike-pedestrian facilities.

 

Especially new to the program will be a morning session devoted to schoolchildren in the area. Children in local school districts will be invited to assess their local biking and walking conditions, and to map solutions for adults, with the aid of a planning facilitator. They will then learn safety techniques for cycling, and participate in a bicycle rodeo. The rodeo will provide the participants with an opportunity to develop their bicycle handling skills. Special emphasis will be placed upon techniques that will help them avoid the most common types of car-bike crashes. They'll also be introduced to basic traffic rules."

 

The remainder of the afternoon sessions will feature presentations in the latest health, infrastructure planning, and advocacy methods.  Each locality will have the opportunity to present issues and conditions relevant to their local roads and to solve those problems with the professionals available at the workshop.

 

The NYBC bike and pedestrian planning workshops are aimed at building relationships between localities and state and federal road planning experts so that people can tackle the vexing cycling and pedestrian access issues together.

 

The workshops are also intended to establish a dialogue between advocates, town officials, and state and federal transportation experts and officials so that they may continue planning better cycling and pedestrian facilities in their localities.

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