FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE            DATE:            06/24/02

CONTACT: Jesse Day, Safety Advocacy Manager jesse@nybc.net - or 518.505.9499

New York Bicycling Coalition Completes Regional Bicycling and Pedestrian Safety Workshop Across New York

Western New York, the Capital Region, New York City and Long Island had recent workshops to help bicycle and pedestrian advocates hone skills. The New York Bicycling Coalition, an umbrella group for the State’s bicycle clubs, created the workshops to allow idea sharing between government, industry, and safety advocates. NYBC brought these groups together as part of its ongoing program to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety in the state.

Bicycling and pedestrian advocates are becoming more experienced on issues of roadbed configuration, State, and County regulations and other issues so they can converse with road agency staff to adjust a project to better accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians. Advocates increasingly understand agencies work within tight budgets, usually must make trade-offs, and have to be responsive to elected officials.  Appreciating these and other elements of this work environment can improve the effectiveness of the advocate and help in relations with the road agencies. This was the premise of the workshops, based on NYBC's new Bicycling and Pedestrian Safety Manual, which guides a novice through some of these thorny issues.

Using the manual as a centerpiece, and drawing upon real-life local projects, NYBC hosted four free cutting edge, top of the line workshop titled: "BETTER ROADS FOR NEW YORK".  The workshops have achieved this mission, directly reaching hundreds of New Yorkers and indirectly thousands more.  The workshops took place in Albany, Rochester, Hauppaugue and Brooklyn.   NYBC and the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee have carved out a workshop format that can be used effectively in the future to bring the bicycling and pedestrian safety mission to more areas of the state.

NYBC has already analyzed numerous dangerous intersections, and has integrated this research in the organization's new manual.  As workshop participants observed, the manual suggests site-specific improvements to these intersections and explains the methods for catalyzing these improvements in an easy to understand format. The workshops brought together advocates and professionals to begin the dialog between government workers, advocates and elected officials.

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