Millions of federal stimulus dollars on their way to central Ohio won’t come free. Recipients are expected to pay administrative costs and fulfill strict reporting requirements designed to prevent fraud and waste.

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My wife and I are looking to open a restaurant. We plan to open it in the inner city section of Columbus, Ohio. This would be a big lift for several low-income families, including my wife and I who both unfortunately were part of the many who lost our job due to the company we worked for closing.

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Moreover, in these tough economic times we need to rely on heroic support of our volunteers to bridge staffing gaps.

We need to get creative with generating opportunities to engage new cyclists- that is, bottom up events and opportunities for community contribution.

And any stimulus funds toward any project- cycling or not- need to do the following:

- be a long term strategic investment
- should demonstrate fiscal acuity and communicate to the tax payers who are footing the bill that we “get it” and that their money is being invested wisely. Funding a bikestravaganza with ANY stimulus funds is not wise. Bike facilities, maybe, but lumping this in with anything that could be perceived as trivial is a huge blunder.
- a willingness to use existing services, tools, and talents to create a climate where organizations- chiefly those are recipients of federal funds- are not simply asking for a handout, but who are contributing real value and substance to a solution. That is- give more than you take.

Pencil, paper, and some personality can get you amazing results in a corporate, year round commuter challenge. As it happens, some smart and creative people can build a web site to replace the pencil and paper (I am doing that in my free time right now for the Bike To Work Week effort under my involvement in Yay Bikes!)

It is clear that the real purpose behind this request is opportunism fueled by a lack of plan for the sustainability of the group requesting the staggering half a million dollars. I would hate to see reckless requests like this compromise the ability to fund the Share The Road campaign that the Mayor’s office and others have worked so hard on, but people could see requests like this and back-burner all cycling related requests as frivolous.

I’m willing to converse on other aspects of the requests mentioned. This one hits close to my heart.

“Bike Bus”
(Yay Bikes!)

More on the “Bike Bus”
(news article from the city)

The Hilltop connector is estimated at 81k

The High Street “Share the Road” Campaign is estimated at 100k for infrastructure improvements, studies for bike lanes in the UD, studies to turn bus lanes to bus/bike lanes and the “Share the Road” campaign itself

Town-Bryden Boulevard @ 80k (10 less for the Oak street version)-this, arguably, can be the last thing done here

The SR161 MUP is 1.2 million, could fund half or a quarter to get it started

Another idea would be to give COTA the money for “bike buses”, I’ll dig the link up here in a minute. A transit agency out west takes a handful of buses during the season, rips most of the seats out and puts bike racks in their place. I don’t know what the going rate for a bus is, but if we could even take 4 of the older stock and retro fit them for year round bike use, create a N-S route and an E-W route you could hopefully bridge the gap out the suburbs.

Also reading through some of the requests, I saw a handful of “please fund my business idea”.

Why not use the stimulus funds to create a business loan program to encourage new small business development. Have a review panel that would evaluate the business plan, marketability, financing and so forth and could offer a low interest loan payable over a longer period with no payments over the first 5 years or so.

ETA

Grant is in the process of (hopefully) rolling out their own commuter station open to the public. I’ll get that link in a minute as well.

I would love COBAC or someone (really, the City would be most appropriate) to get that $500k and build some great infrastructure such as adding some bike lockers downtown and at some of the park/ride spots and a staffed downtown bike center with lockers and showers – that would actually create jobs. (obviously I haven’t done any sort of feasibility study on these so don’t attack me about whether or not these are sustainable – they’re just daydreams for me).

Similarly, I agree, there is a lot of tear down effort going on in and around Columbus. I think this is appropriate in these particular cases and would like to see that stimulus money put to work. The whole westland mall area is a disaster (I’m stuck working out here nowadays – god I miss downtown). I’d love to see the mall come down and that whole area become green grass until the day comes that a developer decides to make an investment.

There are events, say the Columbus Arts Festival, that do have a large budget and warrant it- such an event does more to promote the economy and to create revenue because there is a) a wider audience, and b) a commodity as a component of the event. I’m a cyclist. I love cycling. Let’s attract more people, sure- but it is still a niche activity/lifestyle. No way, no how do you need more than $10-20K to throw the bash of a lifetime… if you have people in the community who support you. Even then, this is a luxury event.

As far as using some of the funds for staff funding- I have real concerns about this. Here’s an idea- create some value. That will fund a staff. Don’t take bailout funds from some worthy project to fund a staff. If you don’t create real value, can’t get investment from sponsors/businesses and/or through member fees and contributions- then you are not relevant. The people have spoken. Step aside and let someone who can raise capital (human and fiscal) do the job. I would like to see this go the other way. Clean out the staff this group currently has. Don’t throw good money after bad.

SFBC (sfbike.org) gets over 2/3 of their income from membership dues and individual donations (their annual report dates a bit back, so I’m approximating conservatively- they have double the membership now). 10% comes from grants, and around a quarter comes from events + other.

Sorry, kids, you have to do the work to build an organization, learn to work with others, and grow a membership and group of contributors. You don’t get to take a shortcut that is the equivalent of economic bypass surgery toward being a productive parnter in the our community- you gotta prove you can manage the funds and build relationships first- and I can speak first hand that this group is very bad at that.

What is the best place to voice these feelings up the political chain? I’m off to poke around on that site to get some contact information to speak out against this request. I urge others to do the same.

I’ll let you guys know if my simple freedom of speech here gets me sued. I’ll post the paperwork if that happens.

After being in San Francisco recently I would find it a stretch if you said you needed more money to run a group in Columbus.

This smells like a bailout money grab. Shame on them.

As a non-car owning, full time cyclist I have to say that this would be a colossal and reckless waste of funds. I hope our politicians have more sense than this.

My belief is that this group no longer represents people who use bikes as a real form of transportation. There are always exceptions, but my gut tells me that they represent mostly wealthy suburban recreational riders at this point.

There are already plans to push the Bike To Work Week effort into a Bike Any Trip, year round effort- and this would take next to no investment with a few smart, creative people on board. Hell- the program and technology will already exist by mid march. So, save your $$ Ohio- you can use this system/program for free.

Of course, you would have to build partnerships with people who actually ride to know this. This group- not so good at that.

The purpose of the Mode shift Program will be to organize, promote, and run ‐‐with numerous partners including the City of Columbus, Central Ohio Transit Authority, and Capital Crossroads an annual spring event to encourage everyone to get out of their cars and to make bicycling, walking, and busing a part of their everyday routines for getting to work, to school, to shopping, to restaurants, to entertainment, to sporting events, and everything else.

The effect of the annual spring event will be carried on throughout the year by means of a year around Commuter Challenge among institutions, businesses, as well as public and private organizations to encourage mode‐shift throughout the year. End of Ride Facilities program would entail consulting, and selling, businesses to develop and install appropriate bicycle parking and other facilities to overcome barriers to choosing bicycling as a primary form of transportation.”

Found it, finally. Reading that, it sounds a little better. But if we’re going to see the money spent on bikes to any extent, I would rather see the Alum Creek Trail finished and any other money put towards the bike ways plan. It would be great to see something done toward “end of the ride facilities” but you have to get people there first.