Outdoors: New program to benefit bike, pedestrian policies

I caught up with the Seattle native to talk about the new job, what insight he brings from his hometown and what making Richmond a more bike/pedestrian friendly city would mean for its citizens.

Your bio says that for the past 21/2 years, you were the advocacy programs manager for the Cascade Bike Club. You worked on Seattle’s Bike Master Plan, served as co-chair of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Board and created the Advocacy Leadership Institute to aid grass-roots bike advocates.

What did you learn from those experiences that you hope to bring to Richmond?

Richmond is smaller than Seattle, but there are bike infrastructure things they can do. They can learn from Seattle. Seattle learned a lot from Portland.

So, there’s this sort of evolution of learning and best practices that I think Richmond can benefit from quite a bit.

Give me an example. Is there any low-hanging fruit?

Seattle is starting to build a network of what’s called “neighborhood greenways.” Put simply, they’re residential streets that are engineered for low vehicle speeds and low vehicle volumes — just kind of envision your quiet neighborhood street. Portland has a whole citywide network of those from one end of the city to the other.

You do (neighborhood greenways) with signage; you do them with things like speed humps and speed tables. In some cases, you might want to limit access to just bikes and pedestrians on maybe one certain intersection. Not that the whole thing would be closed off to cars, obviously, people have to access their homes, but you’re trying to prevent the cut-throughs.

What else is Seattle working on that Richmond could take a look at?

I think that Richmond would benefit from a high-impact, high-visibility urban protected bikeway.

It’s an on-street bikeway that’s physically protected from cars. I wouldn’t say that’s low-hanging fruit because that’s going to take a lot of political will to get built, but it’s something that would be very beneficial to the city.

How are the challenges of Eastern cities and suburbs different from Western cities?

East Coast cities are generally . . . built tighter, more compact. So, finding the space to actually build those protected bike lanes will be a challenge.

In the suburbs, this is the same thing out in Washington State, the lack of a grid network makes connectivity harder. So, you have to look for those opportunities to connect neighborhoods in an efficient way, but also keep people safe.

You don’t work for any one locality. It seems like part of the challenge of your job is in galvanizing regional support bike and pedestrian issues.

I sort of see part of my job as making it easier for (Richmond Bicycle, Pedestrian and Trail Coordinator) Jake Helmboldt to do his job. He’s got stuff that he wants to build. My job is going to be to help build support for those (efforts) and help create the political space necessary to get it done.

There’s lots of people that I still have to meet.

I plan to do the same thing on the regional level that I did in Seattle. Just getting the right people on board and being able to tell that story about why bikeways and safe places to walk are important.

What does success look like in your job?

Bike Walk RVA is about creating a (region) where people feel safe and comfortable enough to walk to the grocery store or bike to school or bike to work.

In Seattle, I felt like I was working on a painting that was sort of half done and people had started long ago.

What’s really appealing about this job is there’s some stuff out there, there’s some infrastructure on the ground, but it’s much more of a blank canvas. I know it’s going to take a lot of time, but it’s going to be really exciting to see that network develop over time.

I’m really excited about working with other advocates in the communities to create a shared vision for what that should look like.