Thank you to the 150+ of you who registered and participated in our summit on the weekend of January 24 and 25. Having so many of you in one room putting your heads together to evaluate our work and future here in the East Bay was incredibly valuable to us.
Bike East Bay’s Strategic Planning Summit 2015 from Bike East Bay on Vimeo.
At the end of many energized conversations, break-out groups, Q&As and more, Bike East Bay emerged with a new Mission, Vision, Guiding Principles, Goals and Priorities
Mission
Bike East Bay promotes healthy, sustainable communities by making bicycling safe, fun and accessible.
Vision
The East Bay is a leader for innovative and accessible bikeways and streets that meet the needs of all users. Bicycling is a mainstream, comfortable and safe choice for people of all cultures, ages, abilities, and backgrounds. Bicycles are well integrated into the transportation system and are a key part of our thriving communities.
Guiding Principles
- We commit to improving access to biking, walking and transit, with particular attention to communities and areas that have been underserved.
- We promote bicycling as a way to improve the health, economic vitality, and happiness of our communities.
- We work in partnership with the private and public sectors to make our streets and communities strong, sustainable and accessible.
- We are passionate about increasing the number of people who ride bicycles safely, confidently and knowledgeably.
- We foster collaboration, inclusion and capacity building within communities, work with diverse groups for effective change, and value ongoing listening and learning from our community stakeholders.
- We are fiscally, ethically, and environmentally responsible with our resources and in our work.
Strategic Goals
Advocacy
Overarching goal: Increase the number and diversity of people biking.
Top Priorities:
- Support the development of an extensive and seamless network of bike facilities that collectively makes bicycling an attractive option for people of all abilities and experience.
- Cultivate street design that integrates bicycle access as a part of making streets safer for all and creating lively and liveable public spaces.
- Increase funding for bicycle projects and improvements. Watchdog and track to ensure that funding is used.
- Build partnerships and collaborate more so that Bike East Bay is part of a broad voice of change, both internally and externally.
Education
Overarching goal: Overcome barriers to bicycling via programs educating all road users.
Top Priorities:
- Continue to provide abundant free bicycle education programs for all ages.
- Improve and develop programs, curricula and instructors to respond to and serve the needs of all communities we represent. Develop ongoing feedback loops with our communities that inform our programming.
- Build partnerships to increase the reach of our education programs with law enforcement, schools, riding clubs, employers.
- Increase awareness and appreciation of bicycling by people who interact with bicyclists on a regular basis including drivers, businesses, local residents.
Community Engagement
Overarching goal: Build strong and collaborative relationships with representation from all East Bay communities.
Top priorities:
- With full participation from board and staff, grow a major donor and business supporter program that provides significant financial support and political clout.
- Engage and cultivate our supporters, members, volunteers, business partners, and donors to deepen their participation and financial investment in our work.
- Serve as a hub that facilitates collaboration between our community partners and identifies commonly held strategies that increase cycling in the East Bay.
- Broaden our communication and advocacy strategy, through promoting concepts such as Vision Zero, to increase participation and gain support from all people in the East Bay.
Bike East Bay staff are working now on refining and fleshing out the action plans that came out of the summit. Check back here for our final action plan document in April.
Pictures by Pamela Palma – click to see more of them.
Missed out and want to experience some of the summit energy? Check out this short video by Wilson Tai, one of our Day 1 Panelists, from the last panel question:
Video not working for you? Click here to go straight to Youtube.
And a last big thank you to Chop Bar and Tina Tamale for their awesome catering. Good food = good advocates.
We asked all participants when they registered why they ride a bike. Here are their answers, in word cloud form!
