We’re just getting started, and things are changing fast, but here’s a quick primer on Bikeramento’s vision from founder of Midtowngrid.com, Brian Fischer:
Bikeramento’s mission is to propel Sacramento into the most bikeable city and region in the world. We wish to learn from other world class biking cities, such as Beijing, Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Montreal, Portland, and several more.
Our vision manifests in the Sacramento Velobahn; increased bike parking; bike rental stations; number of bicycles per capita; updating codes to maximize bicycle commute safety; a more robust Davis Causeway bike trail; bicycle tourism; visionary events, such as Bikeramento Week and a Tour de Sac by 2011; increased exposure and public relations for April is Earth Month and SACOG’s May Is Bike Month; and celebrating local bike commuters, like Chefs Zac England (Dad’s Kitchen), Patrick Mulvaney (Mulvaney’s B&L and Culinary Specialists), and Rick Mahan (The Waterboy).
It’s ambitious and that’s why we’ll need your support and insights to strategize about the best ways to achieve key features.
After CIM today, the Amgen Tour of California lays around the corner in February, kicking off in Sacramento with the return of Lance Armstrong to professional cycling. Launching the first leg on Valentine’s Day and an early 2nd Saturday Art Walk, the Amgen Tour will attract thousands of tourists to Sacramento’s region to race and to watch.
We will launch the 1st Annual Bikeramento Week during the days leading up to the Tour of California to maximize attention to bike tourism and the Sacramento region as a new capital of biking.
Let’s take Flat City to the zenith of cycling possibilities by deeply connecting the city of Sacramento to its greater bike trails and sister cities through 2 major infrastructure investments, the Sacramento Velobahn and a far more safe and scenic Davis Causeway Bike Trail.
These two bikeways will connect us far more affordably and far quicker to our Brain Trusts of U.C. Davis and Sacramento State University than waiting for light rail (although we fully support speeding up the timelines extending light rail to both as well as to the airport). There is no reason even in this budget climate why we cannot complete the Bikeway Initiatives and investments within a 5-year plan.
As they say in the GEW, Global Entrepreneurship Week, “No fear, no boxes, let’s go!”
What is the Sacramento Velobahn?
The Sacramento Velobahn is a Central City Bikeway and potential greenbelt that could lead to a dynamic Sacramento Central Park that cuts through the heart of Downtown and Midtown and ultimately connects cyclists and pedestrians from river to river, Old Sacramento to East Sacramento and Sac State. Very simply, it is the Midtown-Downtown street bridge to the American River Bike Trail, the urban bikeway. The goal is to facilitate bicycle commuters, casual biking, and bicycle tourism by minimizing confrontation between cyclists and cars.
It is Sacramento’s newfangled answer to Germany’s last century Autobahn, a beacon, transitioning prestige and importance to alternative transportation beyond personal use of the automobile. Christened such by entrepreneur and blogger, Ricardo Robles, who co-founded CapSity Offices and inspired Sacramento’s first participation in the Kauffman Foundation’s GEW, the Velobahn should inspire us by igniting imagination and encouraging bikeability.
Most importantly, the Velobahn improves the safety of the average commuter, which all bicycle activists in the region will tell you is the main deterrant preventing more people from commuting to work by 2 wheels.
So imagine all the people…biking for today, on a permanent bikeway perhaps up and down the R Street Corridor and K Street Mall forking over on 17th Street east-west to Capitol Avenue and south on Cap Ave from the East End Complex across Alhambra Boulevard. We would expand sidewalks and outdoor seating at Jack’s Urban Eats, The Waterboy, and Rubicon Brewing Company among attracting other social centers.
Once across Alhambra Boulevard, cyclists would share the road much more meaningfully and prominently with cars on Folsom Boulevard to the back entrance of Sac State and we would seek an additional solo bikeway on another more residential street.
We hope that the Velobahn would become iconic to Sacramento and international cycling. The Velobahn would allow a cyclist to encircle the region on the American River Bike Trail.
Having experienced what the city looks, feels, even smells like on days of street closures for major events, like Run to Feed the Hungry on Thanksgiving and during CIM today, The Guru hungers for increased walkability and bikeability that allow us to better occupy our streets, see our people and architecture, and smell our flowers and trees.
We at Bikeramento relish your constructive ideas, energy, inspiration, and participation to complete the Sacramento Velobahn and ameliorate the Davis Causeway Bike Trail (see the bottom) within our destined 5-year plan.
Join us at Bikeramento.org and sign up for the email list on the front page. We’re just getting started spinning our wheels and there’s room for a whole lot of Spokes People.
A big shout out and thank you to all those activists and bike shops that have led the way and to the people on the streets riding bikes everyday for basic travel. From the Bicycle Kitchens to ECOS, from SABA to SACOG, from Critical Mass to the Velocab, from Ed Cox to Bikes N Bites, keep expanding the vocabulary of biking in our region. Or as we say at Bikeramento, keep writing the Bictionary of Possibities.
