Update for 2014: Congratulations to Bernard Green and Chris Flescher, bike advocates and winners of 2014 Transportation Excellence Awards, as announced in the “We Could Car Less” column  in the 2/1/15 Californian and “Winning Ways” in the 1/31/15 Californian.  Below, read about the 2013 award-winners.

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The following six bike advocates each received a Transportation Excellence Award for 2013 from the Transportation Agency for Monterey County (TAMC). They, along with the other award winners named further down this post were honored at a ceremony in Salinas on 1/22/14.

Thanks to these six winners, more than half of 2013’s awards are for efforts that promote bicycling!

Bike Advocacy: An excellent program

Ciclovía Salinas, Monterey County’s first Open Streets.

Bike Advocacy: An excellent project

CSUMB’s Bike Bunker (among the best bicycle parking in the county).

Other award-winners in the projects category also offer benefits to people  bicycling, even though they are primarily recognized as benefiting people using other modes of transportation. Scroll down and check them out!

Bike Advocacy: Four excellent individuals

“Bikes rule” the entire category of individuals who received awards for 2013! Who are these extraordinary advocates?

Retiree Eric Petersen

Salinas High instructor Jim Warwick

California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) student Richard Vasquez

CSUMB student Casey Andrews

 

Additional award winners…

Benefiting multimodal travelers–including people who bike: Three excellent projects

• Bike-and-riders who use the Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST), and others, will appreciate that MST’s Jazz Bus Rapid Transit was another winner in the projects category.
• Touring cyclists and others who bike the Big Sur coast–or drive it– appreciate the Highway 1 Rocky Creek viaduct work by CalTrans that also received an award.
• People who bike downtown Monterey’s Pacific and Del Monte intersection won’t be surprised that those intersection improvements garnered an award for City of Monterey. As bike commuters know so well, many things contribute to bicycling being safer. These include drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists observing laws and safe practices; being visible and predictable; and having better infrastructure! That includes not just bike paths and bike lanes (click here, then scroll down to learn more about bike paths, lanes, and routes); it also includes other route improvements that make things safer for all travelers. (Who bikes downtown? Click here, then scroll down for a sampling of people who do.)

Benefiting 60+ and visually impaired travelers: An excellent program

Rounding out 2013’s ten Transportation Excellence Awards is the Independent Transportation Network, which received an award in recognition of their rides for people 60 or older, or visually impaired adults. (If you are a 60+ cyclist, or a visually impaired person who bikes, you might ask if ITN has a bike-and-ride option–that is, whether any of their drivers can put a bike on or inside their vehicle. Of course, there are many 60+ people who bike, and among them is one of   ITN’s own volunteer drivers: avid cyclist and bike advocate Cath Tendler-Valencia!

Congratulations to all ten of the above for their work to improve transportation in Monterey County!

Download a PDF from TAMC about all 10 award winners; click the following link:  TAMC Excellence Awards for 2013

Note: Casey’s work with CSUMB’s Tripwise promotes various alternative transportation modes, including bicycling, riding MST, and bike-and-ride. As indicated by the mentions of Casey on Bicycling Monterey’s Acknowledgements page, Casey’s bike advocacy is nothing new; he’s been at it for some time!

To learn more about Casey Andrews, Richard Vasquez, and the Bike Bunker Project–a team headed up by CSUMB Transportation Planner Megan Tolbert–see CSUMB’s 1/23/14 post “Bike Bunker project, two students honored.”

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The info below was previously published on 1/17/14.

The public is invited to the

Transportation Excellence Awards ceremony

RSVPs are optional but are helpful in planning seating and refreshments. You may RSVP to Grant Leonard:  831-775-4402 or grant@tamcmonterey.org

Find helpful info on this site?

Contributions are welcome and appreciated.