"POW!" The Biking Public Project

The Biking Public Project aims to expand local cycling advocacy discussions by reaching out to underrepresented bicyclists around New York City including women, people of color, and delivery cyclists. POW! stands for People On Wheels, it is a new initiative formed from the 2nd Annual Youth Bike Summit.

Our first target areas are Roosevelt Avenue in Queens and East New York, Brooklyn, locations that lack safe biking infrastructure but are teeming with riders. We propose a listening tour to expand the definition of what it means to be a cyclist. Interviewing people who ride in these areas, we will upset standing notions of cycling and alert the public—including advocacy circles—to issues faced by cyclists in these neighborhoods.

We also want to bring the stories of cyclists to communities.  Too often, cyclists feel ignored by cars, pedestrians and even each other.  By visually celebrating cyclists who are mothers, workers, travelers and locals, we can bring each person’s story to the NYC neighborhoods they inhabit.

We will start out by determining specific areas in each neighborhood that lack biking infrastructure, and partner with local bike shops, businesses and civic groups to get a sense of what issues plague each community’s riders.

The next step will include collecting stories from individual riders and creating an outreach campaign to publicize their experiences and the specific obstacles that exist for cyclists in these neighborhoods.

The results of the listening campaign will be displayed in a variety of mediums, including public art installations, to bring these narratives to the widest possible audience. Besides raising awareness to issues faced by the diverse cycling community, the materials we produce will serve as a resource and a rallying cry for other underrepresented cyclists.

The cycling community is amazingly diverse, but this diversity is not well represented in the bicycle advocacy discussion. Our goal is not to speak for riders who are traditionally excluded from the conversation. Instead our goal is to encourage all riders, regardless of age, race, gender, or cycling ability, to let their voices be heard. The first step in this process is reminding the biking public that their voices have the potential to make a lasting impact on street safety, public health, and community engagement.