Kansas City Bicycle Log |
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Posts, email, and ideas related to bicycling and bicycle advocacy. I post these mostly for my own convenience in being able to keep them archived and searchable, but if you get some use of them, more power to you! Among other interesting items here is a fairly complete record of my involvement with the grassroots effort in support of the BikeKC initiative in the Summer of 2002. You can find everything from press releases to letters to the city council to exhortations to other bicyclists to write letters to the editor. See what worked well and what caused us problems in the effort to pass BikeKC. From my point of view, this was almost a picture-perfect grass-roots movement. The result was that BikeKC was passed on August 15th, 2002. Now we have to work to make sure the plan becomes reality! Most of that is in the 8/25/2002-8/31/2002 archive.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2002
TEA-21 re-authorization--my comments in support of bicycle education
These are my comments in support of TEA-21 re-authorization. You can (and should!) submit your own comments at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reauthorization/. Bicycle education. We know that one of the main impediments to the increased use of transportation alternatives in this country is a culture that devalues these alternatives and sees them as inefficient and unsafe. We know that education is one important way to change these attitudes. We know from the research that the number one way to improve the safety of bicyclists is to give them education and training in proper on-road cycling practices. We know that one of the main reasons people do not cycle for transportation purposes more, is that they are uncomfortable cycling in traffic and they do not know the proper and safe way to cycle in traffic. We know that cycling education can improve cyclists comfort level (and safety) in transportational cycling. We know that teaching cycling as a unit in public school physical education classes would meet the curriculum objectives for health and physical education set in most states and school districts. In particular, (1) many important coordination and movement skills are taught in a cycling class, (2) cycling classes teach responsible personal and social behavior in physical activity settings, and (3) cycling is one of the best lifetime health and wellness activities. These three are important points in most curriculum standards. For these reasons, I strongly advocate the inclusion of cycling education in the TEA-21 re-authorization, and particularly endorse the promotion of cycling education as a regular part of the public school education. Cycling education should be an important part--a vital part--of a Safe Routes To Schools program. --Dr. Brent Hugh Missouri Western State College |