May 2024 was Bicycling Monterey’s 15th anniversary. The post below, written on the 10th anniversary, provides a brief history of how Bicycling Monterey got started.
Special thanks to a Santa Cruz County bike advocacy leader for his acknowledgement of this work: /about/about-this-blog/what-monterey-bay-bike-advocates-say
Looking back:
A summary of Bicycling Monterey’s 10-year history
compiled by the founder
Background: My first time to bicycle in Monterey County was when I biked here from Santa Cruz, where I lived 1976-1981. As I tell in “Falling in Love with Bicycling,” I’d biked since childhood, but Santa Cruz was where biking really won my heart. After moving to my present address in rural Monterey County in 1981, I continued to bike. But for many years, especially when my son and daughter were young, biking was most often limited to our own rural neighborhood or to the coastal trail. When I returned to biking regularly for transportation, and experienced again what a joy that is, I wanted to make it easier for others to bike here.
On May 15, 2009, after answering many questions for people out on Monterey County’s bikeways, I published the first online edition of the Tips for Bicycling Monterey County guide.
In June 2009, I began distributing to stores and hotels the first posters to help people find the guide. That was all I intended to do.
On Sept 1, 2009, when I posted “Night Ride Home,” I was enjoying my own rides—that love for biking that I’d had since childhood was renewed again. But bike advocacy? I just liked to bike; I did not foresee what was ahead.
Then, in fall 2009, I recognized that bicycling could help with some issues that local municipal leaders, visitors bureaus, and others were struggling to address. Beautiful Monterey County, my home since moving here from Santa Cruz in 1981, has millions of visitors annually (4.6M currently, per visitors bureau estimate). Transportation choices impact natural resources and quality of life. To encourage more visitors and locals to bike, or bike-and-ride, I created and launched in Nov 2009 a new, long-term project: HER Helmet Thursdays. That same month, I also registered tipsfortourists.com as an alternate domain name for the Bicycling Monterey site, to help encourage visitors to consider biking while here; see related post, “‘If you build it they will come’: Helping visitors, and residents, use sustainable transportation.”
From 2009 to 2019, a wide variety of bike-related needs of residents and visitors have come to my attention. That resulted in numerous and diverse Bicycling Monterey projects 2009-2019. I’ve done my best to advocate with bike equity in mind—bicycling for people of all ages, abilities, shapes, sizes, ethnicities, income levels, and interests. Projects range from education and advocacy on issues affecting people who bike to public outreach to increase awareness of the benefits of biking—even for people who do not bike—to bicycling education for incarcerated youth.
From 2009 to 2019, the Bicycling Monterey website grew to include over 660 posts and pages of original content for Monterey County residents and visitors, plus inspiration and resources for people elsewhere. The site is linked by organizations regionally and nationwide, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Monterey Jazz Festival to Cruz511 – Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission to UC-Berkeley CATSIP, People for Bikes, and more. Public awareness about the benefits of bicycling kept increasing.
Image below © People for Bikes, used by permission. http://peopleforbikes.org/get-local/#state-CA
From the start, and every year since, I had no intention of giving well over 12,000 hours of my time to volunteering as a bicycling advocate (something not connected to my longtime professional work). I’m not retired, not wealthy or financially supported.
Yet my passion about the multiple benefits of bicycling—including bicycling being part of the mix in climate hope—kept winning out. Before I knew it, ten years had passed of serving as a voice for bicycling in Monterey County, including as a local partner of the California Bicycle Coalition.
From 2009-2019, numerous people have recognized the value of the Bicycling Monterey work, through kind comments, volunteer time, contributing project supplies, or contributing funds. Each one is appreciated! For ways to contribute and FAQs, click here.
For May 2019 and beyond, here’s to many more people actively advocating for bicycling—for the benefit of people and planet!
In Monterey County, reach out to Monterey County bicycling leaders and resources. Help make this county—or wherever you are—a safer and more convenient place to bike.
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