Hi {{ FirstName | default: 'Friend' }},
We’ve made it to December. This has been one helluva year for adaptation in the face of hard realities, uncertainty, and discomfort. I know it has meant big changes for me personally, and I suspect that many of you have faced challenges more difficult than mine. I also want to recognize this as a year of resilience and growth for Bike Durham as an organization.
This year we began the leap from an all-volunteer group to becoming a staffed organization. We hired John Tallmadge on a part-time basis at the beginning of the year, with hopes that we could raise the funds and build our capacity to complete the transition to a full-time Executive Director. The pandemic has slowed our progress, but as you will read below, we have been successful in dramatically expanding our work, particularly in beginning to build relationships in low-income neighborhoods of color.
We can only complete this leap to a staffed organization with your help. Members, volunteers, and supporters will continue to be the lifeblood of Bike Durham. (A special thank you to Jamie Jones for volunteering to be our newsletter editor!) We offer lots of ways for you to contribute: you can respond to action alerts, help with events, attend a community meeting, respond to surveys, help shape our policy positions, make a financial contribution, or even serve on the board of directors. Please let us know how you'd like to volunteer and register to join our next community meeting on Thursday, December 10.
Looking ahead, we have developed a strategic plan to guide our work for the next two years. It was informed by the 159 responses to the survey we published in October. We appreciate the investment those individuals made to provide great input about the types of actions we can take to make Bike Durham more welcoming, and the types of interactions that our members and supporters are interested in. We’ll share more on our strategic plan early next year.
You’ll be hearing from us again throughout December appealing for your donations to help us fund our leap to build power to achieve our goals.
Have a safe, healthy, and wonderful end to your year,
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Allison Shauger, Board Chair
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Through December 2020, cyclists who track any bike trip in the Share the Ride NC commute calendar can earn GoPerks points. Cyclists can synch their Strava, FitBit and other apps to their account so trips are automatically tracked. Each trip earns points to enter into prize drawings for gift cards to local restaurants, small businesses and local events. This month, GoPerks is offering several gift cards in Durham, including The Bicycle Chain, Nzinga's Kitchen and Guglhupf - plus many more. GoPerks is free, it’s fun, and it’s local.
Read more about this Bike Durham sponsor at: gotriangle.org/goperks
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Moving at Full Speed
On October 24th and again on Halloween, we held our first in-person public ride since the pandemic (and probably last until Spring). Turnout was great, as were the ghost stories researched by Board member Alison Klein. On the 31st, we rode through the Jack-o-Lantern-Protected Bike Lane for the second year in a row. New Bike Durham member Kristen Buckley shared her reaction on Instagram, “It felt so good to go on a masked up group ride with strangers and ride home gazing at the full moon.”
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In October, sixty (60) Bike Durham supporters sent email letters to the Mayor and City Council urging continued funding of sidewalks, bicycle facilities, and traffic calming in the City’s Capital Improvement Program. The Mayor and several council members restated their commitments to these investments, and at our urging, the Mayor and Council asked the City staff to develop funding strategies for the Council to consider. Seeing this through will be one of our top advocacy priorities over the next year. Join our Action Taker list.
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Our partnership with Durham’s Neighborhood Improvement Services department, the Durham Bike Co-op and resident leaders in the Oxford Manor and Club Boulevard communities has continued to organize family bike rides. In October we led rides from each community to Pelican SnoBalls on North Roxboro Street. On November 8th, we led a ride with about forty (40) individuals, including Council member Pierce Freelon, for both communities to highlight the history of the Braggtown neighborhood.
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As we lean into our commitment to center racial equity, we have made some changes aimed at building a board that has the skills we’ll need and that is more representative of Durham’s racial make-up. We are expanding our maximum board size from 9 to 15 members, and changing from selection based on election by Bike Durham members to appointment by a majority of the board. We are seeking up to nine individuals to fill open positions in 2021. We are particularly seeking candidates with experience or skills in accounting, communications, community organizing, equitable transportation policy, fundraising, and organizational development. Apply here to join our board of directors.
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Take Action
Bike Durham advocates at the local, state, and federal levels for your interests in a safe, affordable, sustainable transportation system for everyone. There are opportunities nearly every week to influence project designs, plans, policies, or funding priorities. To realize our vision, we need to build power together. Join our growing list of action takers.
Local
Add your safety concerns to the City’s new Vision Zero Public Comment Map. Every time you see a safety concern for yourself or someone else who is biking or walking, add it to the map.
State
The State Department of Transportation (NCDOT) is developing a Great Trails State Plan. It will be a network of multi-use trails of statewide significance connecting North Carolina’s counties and population centers with state parks and important recreational assets. It is founded upon extensive local and regional efforts to plan and build trails. NCDOT is requesting feedback on the draft plan through December 4th. Durham County is in Division 5 in the survey.
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Our goal is to have stable sources of funding balanced among individual contributions, corporate sponsorships, and grants. We recently received a $10,000 grant from the American Public Transportation Association to support the Transit Equity Campaign through next year and a $2,000 contribution from Whole Foods Community Giving program.
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Durham Drumbeat
Advocacy Committee Chair, Marc Maximov, and volunteer, Jen McDuffie, joined executive director John Tallmadge throughout the summer advocating for and supporting the City’s work with Aidil Ortiz of SpiritHouse on the Shared Streets program. We advocated for the City to put community engagement first, but the effort stalled due to limited relationships that we and the City Transportation Department had with residents in the neighborhoods experiencing the greatest burdens of the pandemic. Aidil and SpiritHouse (pictured below) moved the process to implementation by bringing ideas for COVID-safe ways to co-design solutions with their neighbors to slow traffic and make it safer for walking or biking in the street. We’re now pursuing grant funding in the hopes of helping the City to extend this program to other neighborhoods.
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On average, every twenty-one days a person who is walking or biking is killed or seriously injured by a driver in Durham. Information about the three most recent pedestrians killed in Durham is provided below. If you have any information about these incidents, please contact authorities:
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The Durham Fire Department (DFD) is conducting their annual Bicycle Recycle event to provide free bikes to kids who don’t have them. You can drop off used bikes at any Fire Station in Durham from December 1st-14th. They are then doing a socially-distant repair event with the Durham Bike Co-op at the DFD administration building on December 16 from 11am – 3pm. If you would like to help get the bikes ready for donation, contact Elaine.Towner@durhamnc.gov.
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The Benefits of Riding Your Bike
Dr. Naima Stennett, Board-Certified Family medicine physician and Sports Medicine Fellow, shares the multiple benefits of riding a bike, which can be remembered with the mnemonic C.Y.C.L.E. Read more here.
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Resilient & Equitable Responses to the Pandemic: Transportation
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing people around the world to question how this virus will affect the many public and private systems that we all use. This podcast, focused on transportation and features insights from John Tallmadge of Bike Durham.
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Building Equitable Engagement into Transportation Projects
You can watch the recent BikeWalkNC Summit panel we organized featuring Kim Roney, moderator, and panelists: Laura Biediger, Hana Creger, Aidil Ortiz, Olatunji Oboi Reed on YouTube here.
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Driving While Black
Looking for something to watch. This documentary examines the history of African Americans on the road from the 1930s to the 1960s and beyond. Link to view/purchase.
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Copyright © 2020 Bike Durham, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up for our mailing list on our website or at a Bike Durham meeting or event.
Our mailing address is: Bike Durham P.O. Box 25236 Durham, NC 27702
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