Advocacy Works

Good news, friends, advocacy works! We joined forces with The Urban Phoenix Project, Chispa AZ, Bike Laveen, Poder in Action, and The Pueblo’s Budget to ask Phoenix to provide virtual access to the city's Community Budget Hearings and were successful in our quest. A citywide virtual meeting is now scheduled for Tuesday, April 11. There's more about budget meetings below, but the point is your voice matters. Our input at public meetings and on surveys has changed this city for the better. Whether you speak in person or send a polite - but emphatic - email we need you to speak up. 

Have you visited psp.bike recently? We’re now managing a Linktr.ee with quick links to surveys, meetings, job postings and other timely matters. It can also be found at the Support section of our website. Are there other links you’d find useful? Let us know!

Budget Hearings

The City of Phoenix’s annual Community Budget Hearings have begun. This is your chance to let the city manager, your councilperson, and fellow residents know that you value safe and connected bicycle facilities, and want the city to continue to design streets that work for ALL users.

We already asked for and received virtual options to attend the meetings. What else do we need? Have a bike lane project you care about? Tell your councilperson. Feeling riled up about cars parking in bike lanes? Ask for enforcement. 

Here's a list of meetings. Not sure what to say? We have some ideas. Not comfortable talking into a microphone? We get it. It can be scary at first. But know this: no one will argue with you. This is your two minutes to share your priorities. And if you're really not a public speaker, you can submit written comments. Even by just being in the room, you add your power to our cause.  

Bike loud, Phoenix!

Survey: Osborn Road Street Design 

The Street Transportation Department is asking for public input on a proposed restriping plan for Osborn Road between 19th Avenue and 11th Avenue. Please take the survey in English or in Spanish by April 16. We favor Option C or D, which would add a bike lane in each direction, connecting to already existing bike lanes west of the project area on Osborn Road, and to bike lanes on 15th Avenue.

Encanto and Clarendon Elementary schools would be greatly served by slowed traffic and safe access for students and families to their grounds.

Valley Bike Month 

Valley Bike Month, April 1 – 30, is an opportunity for people to challenge themselves on how much they ride, win a prize, and make some new friends. 

ShareTheRide.com - Valley Metro's rideshare matching database has special challenges and contests with great prizes all month long. Good news! It links with Strava. Want to ride with someone who already knows the ropes? Find a bike buddy by registering and selecting “Find Commuting Partners.” 

Bike Fun - Valley Bike Month partners and bike clubs are hosting great events valley-wide. Here's the list.

Bikes & Transit - Use your bike to extend your transit trip at its beginning or its end – or both! Watch this 2-minute video to find out how.

Valley Bike Month 
Second Saturday Ride
 

Rise N Ride! This special #ValleyBikeMonth outing includes a limited-edition sticker and t-shirt while they last.

We'll meet at 8:00 at Short Leash, have time for coffee or a doughnut, maybe a drink if that's your thing. We roll *about* 9:00.

See more on our Facebook page.

Bike to Work Day!
 

April is Valley Bike Month and the City of Phoenix, Maricopa County and Valley Metro have partnered to host Bike to Work Day on Wednesday, April 19. Bike to Work Day encourages using alternative modes of transportation to improve air quality, reduce traffic and improve overall well-being.

A police-led group bike ride will start at Park Central, 3141 N. 3rd Ave., at 7 a.m. (check in is from 6:15-6:45 a.m.) and end at approximately 7:30 a.m. in downtown at Phoenix City Hall Plaza, 203 W. Adams St. (next to the Orpheum Theater). The FREE event will include a prize drawing and a light breakfast at the Finish Line Reception. Learn more, view the route and register by April 7 (that's tomorrow!).

Regardless of whether you bike with the group in the morning, feel free to join us for a bike from work (or wherever) Happy hour hang that evening.

Come to the PSP April Public Meeting 

Join Phoenix Spokes People as we work to make Phoenix a friendlier place to ride bikes. Attend our virtual public meeting on Saturday, April 22, at 10:00 a.m. and see what goes on behind the scenes. 
 
If you want to level up your membership and activism game, note that we're holding elections for board members in May. 

The meeting will be virtual on Google Meet. It will start at 10:00 a.m. and the link to the meeting is here. 

Why Can't We Do That?!

How Paris Kicked Out the Cars

Riding a bike has, rather suddenly, come to feel as Parisian as the Métro, and nearly as essential for getting around. To twist a French idiom, vélo, boulot, dodo—bike, work, sleep.

Each rush-hour light change at the intersection of Rue de Rivoli and Boulevard Sébastopol, in the center of the city, brings a bewildering, silent dance of scores of bicycles. Paris is learning to ride a bike.

It’s part of a larger movement—spanning a half-century, two decades, or the mayoral tenure of the Socialist Anne Hidalgo, depending on whom you ask—to expel cars from the heart of the largest metropolitan area in the European Union. 

What’s to come is more radical still: a low-emissions zone for Paris starting next summer that will exclude older, high-emission vehicles. A total ban on gas-powered cars by 2030. A ban on through traffic in the city center, including some pedestrianized areas. A reduction of street parking by half. A redesign of the ring road highway. A pedestrian-friendly renovation of the Champs-Elysées. Paris will become a cleaner, greener, cooler, quieter city, the proponents of these measures say.

Why can't we do that here in Phoenix? Read the article. 

Become a PSP Member

• A fan of friendly, casual bike events? 
• Wanting better bicycle infrastructure and safer streets? 
• Looking for fun, impactful volunteer activities?