Thursday, September 30, 2010

Bicycle Friendly Community award ceremony

Mayor Haslam will be accepting Knoxville's Bicycle Friendly Community award at a ceremony along the Third Creek Greenway in Tyson Park on Tuesday, October 5th at 11 a.m. This award will be presented by League of American Bicyclists' board member Mike Nix. Everyone is invited to attend! Attendees will get a sneak peek at a new bicycle awareness program as well. More details to come, so check back here soon.

For those of you who had not heard, here is the press release about Knoxville getting named a Bicycle Friendly Community--after two Honorable Mentions and years of hard work! http://www.knoxtrans.org/meetings/releases/pr_bfc_bronze.pdf

Friday, September 24, 2010

10th Annual Neighborhood Bike Ride!


Saturday, October 2, 2010
Starting point: Central St. and Baxter Ave.
Free safety checks begin at 9 a.m
Ride leaves at 10 a.m.

When we started the ride on Market Square in 2001, there wasn’t much else happening on Saturday mornings. Things have changed dramatically (for the best!), so we have decided to move north where we can spread our wheels.

The start location for this year's ride will be the corner of Central St. and Baxter Ave. We’ll tour Old North, Parkridge, the Old City and Mechanicsville for this year's ride. When we return, the Happy Hollerpalooza festival will be getting under way. Free parking is available at the Knox Central building, 1000 N. Central.

As always, all ages and skill levels welcome, and helmets required. There will be some hills, since this is East Tennessee, but we try to limit them, and we don’t leave anyone behind. The route is less than 12 miles (takes a little more than an hour, including a rest stop).

Three Rivers Market will have refreshments for us at the beginning of the ride. Participants will also receive cards good for a discount at Magpies, Time Warp Tearoom and Freezo, in lieu of our usual after-ride pizza.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Kids Love Bikes program




8 youth participated in the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) Youth Bike Skills class on two separate half days taught by a LAB licensed cycling instructor. The youth then completed three half days of community service performing trail maintenance and trash pick-up at local mountain bike parks and greenways. 6 kids completed all 5 sessions and were awarded a Specialized bike and helmet, as well as a cable lock, water bottle and cage.

The program was sponsored by Specialized bikes, SCO, Mast General, the Bike Zoo and the YMCA, and organized by Caroline Cooley, Jay Nevans, and Jim Richards.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Knoxville gets national recognition!

Our bike counts have gone up 75% - 155% since 2007. How did we do it? Through lots of programs, events, policies and projects. And we have now been recognized for that work by the League of American Bicyclists---we are officially a Bicycle Friendly Community! Just the second one in the state thank you! We got in at the Bronze level, so now we are going to be in the race for Silver with Chattanooga.

Press release here:
http://www.knoxtrans.org/meetings/releases/pr_bfc_bronze.pdf

TN state bike route survey

The Tennessee Department of Transportation is currently gathering information for an update to the state bike route network. As part of this update, they're inviting citizens to complete a short online survey regarding their experiences bicycling Tennessee's highways. Input from the survey will help guide the department in developing a comprehensive bicycling network that will assess state routes with respect to bicycle suitability and determine future action items pertinent to the furtherance of the goals of TDOT's Bicycle and Pedestrian plan.

The survey will close on October 10, 2010.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TNBikeSurvey