PRESS RELEASE
Bicyclists Take to the Streets for Bike to Work Day May 14
OAKLAND, Calif., May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- With only two days to go
until Bike to Work Day, sponsors are predicting that hundreds of
thousands of Bay Area residents will ditch their cars and get to work
on two wheels on Thursday, May 14 - the region's 15th annual Bike to
Work Day.
Meanwhile, over 450 teams - comprising 1,330 people - are pumping
their way to work and play every day, in an effort to log the most
points. They are part of Team Bike Challenge, a month-long competition
where teams compete to win a grand prize Peak Racks bike rack that will
be placed in a public location of the winning team's choice. As part of
the Team Bike Challenge, established bicycle commuters recruit their
colleagues, friends, neighbors and local "bigwigs" to bike for most of
their May trips to work, school and other destinations.
"As a participant in past Team Bike Challenges, I have found that
using my bike can get me anywhere I need to go quickly, with a lot less
stress," says Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager, who also serves
as a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which
funds a major portion of the Bay Area's Bike to Work Day activities.
"It's also a great way to get your exercise in before the workday."
Already, more than 300,000 bicycle trips are made every weekday by
Bay Area residents. According to MTC's most recent Bay Area Travel
Survey, more of these bicycle trips are to work than for any other
purpose (81,000 each day), but there are almost as many bike-to-shop
trips across the region (75,000).
"MTC is pleased to support Bike to Work Day as part of our overall
strategy to improve mobility and the environment in the Bay Area," said
Randy Rentschler, director of legislation and public affairs at MTC.
Alternative transportation is an important component of MTC's
newly-adopted Transportation 2035 Plan for the nine-county San
Francisco Bay Area. The plan boosts bicycling infrastructure investment
fivefold over earlier regional transportation plans (from $200 million
to $1 billion). It also increases funding to spur compact
transit-oriented development, which in turn encourages more walking and
biking trips, and launches a new Climate Action Program that will
provide funding for safe bicycle trips to transit and school.
Nearly half of the 2,100 miles of continuous and connected bicycling
corridors planned for the Bay Area already have been completed,
according to MTC's just-adopted 2009 Regional Bicycle Plan. The $1
billion that MTC has committed to help finance the Regional Bikeway
Network will help to complete the on-street portion of these corridors.
The San Francisco Bay Area's Bike to Work Day 2009 is sponsored by
MTC in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente, and with support from the
Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, county bicycle coalitions, county
congestion management agencies and hundreds of local volunteers.
Information about Bike to Work Day is available on the Bicycling page
of MTC's traveler information service at www.511.org.
MTC is the regional transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.
Source: Metropolitan Transportation Commission
CONTACT: Randy Rentschler of MTC, +1-510-817-5780; or Andrew Casteel,
BABC, (Bay Area Bicycle Coalition), +1-510-250-0909
Web Site: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/
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