www.biketraffic.org

As far as we know in all of America, Bank One's support - both financial and promotional - of bicycling in Chicago is unprecendented among corporate sponsorships of non-competitive cycling. We've always thought the value of promoting urban bicycling should be obvious to marketing and PR departments outside of the biking industry. I talked with Melinda McMullen, vice president of communications with Bank One, to find out more about Bank One's decision to dive so deeply into Chicago bicycling, where no other corporaton of comparable size has dared to tread.

SB: How much has Bank One committed to bicycling?
MM: I can't give out dollar amounts, it's just policy that we don't. But I can say we believe that Bank One's commitment to cycling in Chicago is the largest corporate cycling effort in the United States. This includes sponsorship of the city's Bike Chicago program, Bike the Drive, Bike Valet parking at events including Taste of Chicago, weekly guided bike tours and printing 125,000 city bicycle maps. And we donated 208 bike parking racks to the city.

How does Bank One believe promoting bicycling will benefit the company?
It creates an opportunity to talk to the media through the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and the city, get our name out there. You're always looking for things that will help customers know you want to do business with them, that you'll offer them a higher level of service. And there's some direct marketing tied into it; for example, a coupon in the city bike map entitles you to $25 cash if you open a Bank One checking account.

Does Bank One have any kind of bicycling commuter club or services for employees?
No commuter club or special services. We try to have bike racks for employees, and we've been working with the city to get them installed (because they have to be installed in public areas). We are getting a lot of positive feedback from employees about our bicycle promotion, and they want more bike racks. Employees love the bike tours. I'm going on my first one tomorrow, Bronzeville, I think.

Who put the tours together?
Chicago Cycling Club members are leading them, people who really know the neighborhoods, the history where we're riding. Riders get BikeOne waterbottles and t-shirts. You can sign up for all the tours at bikeonechicago.com.

Is Bank One doing anything similar in other U.S. cities?
We are not. Promoting bikes was a real natural for Chicago. We do community outreach, locally based marketing. For example, in some other part of the country maybe we promote hiking as a way to market ourselves. But for Chicago, I don't know if you can find as well-organized bicycle community anywhere else. Here's the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, the city's bike program, the Chicago Cycling Club. There was a bicycling infrastructure here. We looked for something special in Chicago that corporations hadn't looked at yet. And we weren't interested in sporting events. Everyone puts their names on sporting events. This is about the culture of cycling, cycling being a part of Chicago's culture; this is not a sports marketing program.

What's Bank One's assessment of how it's working for the company?
We're thrilled! Is this a one summer commitment, or longer term...? You have to evaluate it every year. But based on the success this year, we'll probably continue it. We stuck a toe in this year.

You've got a pretty big toe. No offense.
[Laughing.]We're a pretty big company. We think we can change some more minds about bicycling here. I didn't ride much before we started this program. I've ridden every day since. Someone told me that I was one of only two speakers who rode to the Mayor's Bicycle Rally. And I'm not an athlete, I don't do competitive events. It got me riding

Continuing Education
Dad fights Oak Park school's "no bikes" rule
By Melanie Zanoza

Michael Stewart is mad.

Even though he lives blocks away from his children's grade school, he must drive three or four blocks out of his way to deliver them to class. Why? Because their Oak Park district refuses to let kids bike to school, forcing parents to carry their children's bikes home with them should they allow them to ride.

For two years, Stewart has attended PTA meetings, hoping to get an insight into the bike ban. But he has come away empty-handed - no answers, no changes. "Their answer was that they were afraid bikes would get stolen," Stewart says. He says they maintain that bringing bikes to school is an issue of liability.

Currently, two signs instruct children not to ride bikes and promise a $750 fine, claiming they are a violation of a village ordinance. According to Stewart, the village knows of no such mandate. The school also claims the signs apply only to a cement porch, an action intended to keep bullies off of the playground and to avoid damage.

Stewart understands the reasoning. What he doesn't get is the district's refusal to even investigate biking programs for the school. The district recently held a meeting to discuss the problem of too heavy auto traffic around the school, but "looked dumbfounded" when Stewart suggested biking as a solution. Stewart's issues with the ban are two-fold. He wants to offer his kids a safe and easy way to get some exercise during their to-school commute. More importantly, he wants them to develop an appreciation for biking while they are young. "We need to ingrain early into kids' heads that biking is okay," says Stewart.

And that is exactly what Stewart is trying to do. Apart from his appearances at PTA meetings, he is also out in the community trying to raise awareness of the problem and show the city how beneficial biking can be. He and a bike-supporting group set up a booth at Oak Park's Day in Our Village festival, offering free air for lumpy tires. "Most people don't realize that proper adjustments make biking more comfortable," he says. "I think that a lot of people have bikes that need minor repairs, and this stops them."

In addition to encouraging his co-workers to bike and serving as a biking icon for the community, he also offered to provide the village with a bike rodeo similar to the one he put on for his boy scout troop. It included an obstacle course and instruction on how to properly change tires. What is the next step? Stewart promises to keep fighting for bikes, at least as long as his kids are in the district. "Oak Park is a progressive place," he says. There have been some advances: one road was named a continuation of the Grand Illinois Trail and some bike racks have been set up around the village. The school ban, however, remains.

T.C. O'ROURKE
Bike Lane Section, CDOT
by Floyd Mittleman

If you think that deciding which streets will have new bike lanes and maintaining existing lanes is an easy job, think again. T.C. O'Rourke works in the Bike Lane section of the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) as a Chicagoland Bicycle Federation employee under contract with the department. He's held the job for about three years. He lives in Wicker Park and cycles to work. There are about 75 miles of marked bike lanes on city streets. Keeping these streets in good shape and finding new streets to mark is the responsibility of CDOT. This involves an extensive public process as well as complex engineering reviews. To maximize efficiency and to save money T.C. must coordinate the actual bike lane marking with other street projects. Some streets in the city are controlled by the city, some by the Illinois Department of Transportation, and others are county streets. What's the big problem here? It's coordinating the activities of IDOT, CDOT, and the county.

T.C. ensures that the bike lane markings are in good condition and that the design of the bike lanes match the conditions of the roadway. This gets him onto his bicycle many times during the workweek. If the state is repaving a street that has an existing bike lane, it needs to know the lane will need to be re-striped. If the state is repaving a road that could have a bike lane, they must be convinced to change their plans to accommodate it. This is true for county streets, too. T.C. makes sure that these other agencies comply with the decisions established by the city.

In some years the city may resurface as many as 60 miles of streets. T.C. arranges to have bike lane streets re-striped. And he works with CDOT's Bureau of Bridges and Transit to incorporate bike lanes into their street scaping and other urban design plans if at all possible. On average there are about five miles of new bike lanes installed each year and about five miles of existing lanes are improved. T.C. coordinates the work between the many bureaus and agencies within the Department of Transportation.

What does he do in his spare time? Bicycle! Over the Memorial Day weekend T.C. biked to Davenport, Iowa - 243 miles on his fixed-gear track bike. You will see him cycling on Fridays with Critical Mass. Have you wondered who takes pictures for Federation events and Bike Traffic? T.C.'s college training is in photography so he is on call to keep a visual record for the Federation. Chicago has come very far very fast to become a great cycling city and we can thank T.C. O'Rourke for helping to make this happen.

Bike the Drive Behind Us
Big boosts in bike programming ahead
By Cathy Haibach



Thanks to everyone who came out for Bike The Drive 2003! The second annual event was a smashing success, with a record 16,250 registered riders. Including volunteers (who rode for free) and sponsor and media passes, a total of almost 17,000 cyclists enjoyed a safe, car-free ride on Lake Shore Drive on Sunday, June 15.

Bike the Drive is a very successful fundraising event for the safety education programs of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. Bike the Drive raised $260,000 to encourage and promote safe and healthy transportation for youth, seniors and adults in schools and communities throughout the city and the suburbs.

As I write this, more than 2,500 people have completed the Bike The Drive survey (available at www.biketraffic.org). Comments have been overwhelmingly positive. Turning Buckingham Fountain into a giant round-about alleviated any congestion at the center of the ride and made the start area and the festival easier to find. Riders enjoyed having the choice of starting north or south, and the rest stops flowed smoothly. Of course, our staff put a lot of work into making perfect weather for the ride.

Once again, our route on South LSD was tricky to manage. We included time guidelines on the rider numbers and on the day of event guide, but some riders were still unable to finish their ride because of the south side's earlier cut-off times. We apologize for any miscommunication, and thank you for helping us create the safest ride possible for everyone.

The relationships the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation has developed to make bikes on LSD a reality are invaluable to us. We work with the Mayor's Office of Special Events, the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Department of Transportation, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Chicago Park District. We thank you for all of your time, energy, and advice that helped make Bike The Drive a success.

A very special thanks to all of Bike The Drive's sponsors: Bank One and the BikeOne program (www.bikeonechicago.com), WMAQ NBC 5, PAX TV 38, WDRV "The Drive" 97.1 FM, the Chicago Sun-Times, Clif Bar, Culligan, Chicago Athlete, SRAM, Village Cycle Center and REI.

And a special note to our volunteers: You ROCK!

The Commute Is in the Bag
By Lenyr Munoz

This past winter, I took a new job at Northwestern University. It's exactly what I wanted - minus the commute. My once-lovely hour's bike ride to a job I hated had suddenly become an hour-and-fifteen minute el ride to the new job I love. (By bike it's 16 miles. I'm not that hard core.) So I kept my heart set on summer when I planned to ride my Bianchi to the Ogilvie Metra station, take the train to Evanston, then ride a waiting garage-sale bike the two-minutes to my job. But I dreaded leaving my Bianchi alone downtown for nine hours every day.

One day I was listening to a WBEZ pledge drive in the car. (Some days I drive to Evanston. Sue me.). Pledgers were entered into a drawing for two bikes courtesy of Rapid Transit - one of them a folding bike. Here was the answer to my summer commute. There would be no worrying about my Bianchi and no rusty chain awaiting me at Evanston. I could ride to Metra, collapse a folding bike, hop the train to Evanston, unfold it and ride the half-mile to work!

After some research, my husband and I went to Rapid Transit for a test ride. What at first seemed the perfect folder (among other things I liked the color) actually felt a bit rickety. And in its bag and hoisted onto my back, its 25lb weight felt too awkward. I wanted ultimate portability and lightness. I was looking for small and compact, like me.

When my husband pulled out the aptly named Breezer Itzy, it gleamed at me impishly. With 14-inch wheels and a compact frame, it seduced me into riding it. It felt sturdy. Its pick-up surprised me, and once rolling rode smoothly. After a folding demonstration, we put it in its bag and were awed by its compactness. The lack of any accessories brought its weight down to a comfortable 20 lbs., which meant less strain on my back. At $465, it cost more than I had budgeted, but its sturdiness and lighter weight to me were worth the extra money.

After a few in-home practice folds and unfolds, my first commute on the Itzy intimidated me a little. Frankly, I felt like a circus freak. But I felt like a superhero when I got to Ogilvie Station (just 12 minutes later on the Itzy), folded it up, stuck it in its bag and trotted up the escalator to the train. Circus freak on tiny bike to train commuter in about a minute. No strange looks and nary a sideways glance did I receive. It felt - feels - great. I ride only short distances on my Itzy since I do feel a bit scrunched at times. And its tiny wheels find all the bumps. But the benefits of having this bike far outweigh those quibbles. Now I have it all: I love my job, my commute and my Itzy.

Teenage Wrenchland
Bikes for Chicago builds a future for kids
By Steven Buchtel

Soon the same Chicago neighborhoods canvassed by prep school basketball scouts and military recruiters will be rich ground for bike shops looking for highly trained professional wrenchers. And they might host a future boom in bike-related businesses.

Bonnie Keyes is the Austin neighborhood's crazy bike lady, a short, powerfully built woman whose voice and direct demeanor lead some to mistake her for a cop. "One day I saw a kid riding by without a seat on his bike," says Keyes, "and I have some bike parts lying around. So I yelled, 'Hey, do you want a seat for that? Well, you know, he comes back with a friend riding on his handlebars and says, 'He doesn't have a bike.'" "So I said, 'Help that woman by mowing her yard,' or 'Clean up that empty lot.' Pretty soon, I had kids doing all sorts of things to get bikes or parts for them."

In June 2001 Keyes quit her business management job in the chemical industry and surrendered fully to the calling of community renewal. Today she heads Bikes for Chicago, a program run through the Illinois Manufacturing Foundation (IMF) in Pilsen in conjunction with the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development, that teaches at-risk teens the bicycle repair business.

Bikes for Chicago started with extra kids from another program that Keyes manages for the IMF. "We had these kids whose schedules or interests really didn't work out with the other program," says Keyes. "And from my experience in my own neighborhood, I knew these kids could get excited about bikes." A friend of hers put Keyes in touch with special needs educator and bike mechanic Christopher Wallace. Upon meeting Wallace, "I just got this feeling that things were falling into place," says Keyes.

IMF typically trains adults to fill manufacturing jobs. Keyes' program has a broader mission. Bikes for Chicago is strongly tied to academic performance partly by virtue of its funding source, primarily a federal Department of Labor grant administered through the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development. The funding requires Bikes for Chicago to improve students' scores on a basic skills test. But Keyes and the program's case manager Juhnna Harden have committed themselves and the program to fulfilling the spirit of this requirement, not just the letter.

Keyes and Harden go out of their way to build relationships with the kids' teachers and their care givers, sharing information regarding homework habits, grades, and classroom performance. They tutor, they host homework clinics. These things alone help kids immensely with school.

In the repair shop with Wallace is where the kids build confidence. Each new class begins with what many hacks like me tackled last: rebuilding wheels. "I want to blow them out of the water," says Wallace. "Blowing them out of their comfort zone, and then making them feel successful, makes them feel like they can do anything. After they know all about wheels, I say, 'Now let's talk about derailleur adjustment screws.'"

Some of the bike shop training seems pulled from high school science texts. Lessons and experiments in force vectors and shifting centers of gravity deepen discussions about brake adjustments. Says Wallace, "When these kids discover they can tell what's true or not true by applying logic and the scientific method, you can see it in their faces, how powerful it is."

"To see them puff up and tell some one, "Let me tell you something about wheel building..." Keyes says with a smile.

Graduates' skills match their confidence. Wallace says his kids, who train using torque measurements, can assemble bikes more quickly and with higher quality than most shops currently are. "We bring in a bike from a 'real' bike shop, and the kids see for the first time that they can do something leagues better than a 'professional.'"

Keyes wants that confidence in their skills to inspire students to start their own bike businesses. "There are opportunities to build bicycle-based businesses in really rough neighborhoods," she says. "It's not going to grow in a conventional bike-shop way; it's going to be repair, refurbishing, recycling. This is going into areas that don't have bike shops, and creating a different business model that will fly."

To prepare them, Keyes has found the class bike-related jobs like offering repair services at Bike the Drive (the class set up shop near 57th St.) and staffing the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation's Bike Valet event parking service. "Our kids were so nervous when those first real 'customers' rode up," laughs Keyes. "But once they start working, the confidence from their training just takes over."

Keyes' vision needs resources beyond her current funding, resources she's determined she'll find. Make her search easy: Bikes for Chicago needs more adult mentors (some who will receive bike repair training), it needs storage and shop space, and it needs bike shop-quality new or used bikes (no department store brands) for its class. Donations are tax-deductible.

And if you need an ace wrench for your shop, Bikes for Chicago graduated its first class this spring. For more information, contact Bonnie Keyes at 773/704-4614.

When you drive, you're still a bicycle advocate. Or you could be. Click the sign above to take the pledge. Or read about the Driver's Pledge in the December 2002/January 2003 Bike Traffic.



BikeOne. From May 31 through August 2, Bank One will lead free guided bike rides (2 hrs. long, 15 rider limit) around Chicago and select suburban neighborhoods. These weekly tours leave from Bank One Plaza and select suburban banking centers and, with a learned guide along, take in local landmarks and other points of interest. And Bank One's doing much more for Chicago cycling; look for the whole story in July Bike Traffic. Find Bank One's tours at bikeonechicago.com.



Bike Trafficis published by the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, a nonprofit, volunteer advocacy organization that is improving the quality of life in Northeastern Illinois by making cycling safer, more convenient, and more fun. All material that isn't copyrighted may be reprinted. Advertising rates available on request.

Managing Editor
Steve Buchtel

Editors
Randy Neufeld
David Callahan
Lisa Phillips

Layout
Steve Buchtel

Copyright 2003, Chicagoland Bicycle Federation
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Ph: 312/427-3325  Fax: 312/427-4907 E-mail: cbf@biketraffic.org