On Nov. 13 in Harrisonburg, “The Bike Capital of Virginia,” the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) and the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Metropolitan Planning Organization (HRMPO) held a very successful bike summit at James Madison University. This will be an annual event, with plans already being made for 2016. Click Thanh’s link below for more information, videos, notes, and reports.

From Thanh Dang:

“The Fourth Annual Harrisonburg & Rockingham Bike-Walk Summit was a hit with our local elected representatives, city/county staff, JMU/EMU, and many of the wonderful volunteer advocates who make it all happen.

For 2015 we enlisted the help of SVBC member Scott Wootten and his Adventure Seen Videos to create three short videos to help us recap some of the great biking and walking activity that has happened in our community over the past year.

The 2015 Summit theme was “Play to Our Strengths: The Secrets to a Biking and Walking Community” with a keynote address from Pete Eshelman, Director of Outdoor Branding with the Roanoke Regional Partnership. His talk and the other sessions focused on understanding the importance of biking and walking to the economy, creating a livable community that attracts and retains businesses and residents, promoting the community’s walking and biking assets, and prioritizing biking and walking planning and investment.

See videos here: http://svbcoalition.org/bike-walk-summit/

“

The World Came to Richmond from Tijo Media on Vimeo.

The cycling world came to our home town of Richmond,VA for 9 days in the fall of 2015. This super cut is a culmination of 4 years of hard work wrapped up in one week of shooting.

Producer: Brandon Montijo
Cam Ops: Brandon Montijo, Jason Parks
Editor: Brandon Montijo
Assistant Editor: Gary McHatton

The Richmond Times-Dispatch named the Richmond 2015 team — the group behind September’s bike races that brought international attention to the region — its inaugural Person of the Year on Wednesday.

The team that put on the 2015 UCI Road World Championships, along with 39 other honorees and a dozen Hall of Fame inductees, will be featured in the December edition of Discover Richmond. (Click to read more at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.)

…and from Richmond Magazine:

Wheels of fortune: We are living in the year of the bicycle.

Cycling won 2015 in Richmond. Period. It wasn’t even close, really. We’re talking a Peter Sagan-post-23rd-Street-climb separation from the pack.

Whether the UCI Road World Championships generated an economic windfall is to be answered in a study due this month, but by other measures, the Worlds were a resounding success. Visitors and athletes raved about how well organized the nine-day championships were, how friendly Richmonders are, and how neat RVA is. [continue reading…]

Graph by League of American Bicyclists

On Dec. 4, 2015, President Obama has signed into Law the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, aka the FAST Act — the first long-term federal transportation funding bill in a decade. The big-picture news for us is, funding for biking and walking has been preserved, even if capped over the life of the bill. According to People For Bikes:

“The approval of the FAST Act is a victory for bicycling because it grows funding for bike and pedestrian infrastructure projects to $835 million annually for the first two years and $850 million annually for the last three years, over the life of the five-year authorization.”

This is an increase over the current $820 million. Rails to Trails Conservancy notes that the new Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) remains similar to its predecessor, Transportation Enhancements; and that the new Transportation Infrastructure Financing and Investment Act (TIFIA) may provide new funding opportunities for trails and active transportation networks. The Recreational Trails Program and Safe Routes to School remain included in TAP.

But the most important aspect of the FAST Act may be the certainty it provides:

“It’s been over a decade since Congress passed a long term bill. Getting a bill longer than a few years has been the number one ask for state and local governments, and transportation stakeholders across the board. This gives some certainty of funding, allowing states to plan and implement long-term transportation projects. This is an important piece for biking as well. We know that over the years, investment in biking and walking facilities has dipped in between long-term reauthorization bills. (You can see those dips in 1998, 2005 and 2014, all years when reauthorization bills were delayed.)”

Please read the rest, from Caron Whittaker at the League of American Bicyclists.