BMore Streets for People - update

Here's an update on our ciclovia work this year here in Baltimore, MD, aka Charm City.

Preparations are well underway for Baltimore’s second ciclovía. On the morning of 31 October 2010, southbound Roland Avenue will again be opened for exclusive use by pedestrians, cyclists and skateboarders. Leaflets have been dropped door-to-door throughout Roland Park and nearby neighborhoods. 

A similar event last October 25th drew an estimated 1000 Baltimore residents to the one-mile course.

Interest is higher this year. The event, we would like to think, is going viral. Well, maybe not quite. It has need noted in online discussions by local cycling groups, including One Less Car and the Baltimore Bicycle Club. Several neighborhoods have disseminated the flyer via email. At this writing, over 200 have signed up on the BMore Streets for People Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=1 … 738556357.

We also seem to have more traditional media coverage. Read the Baltimore Messenger's recent article here: http://www.explorebaltimorecounty.com/e … nd-avenue/

The Roland Park ciclovias are forerunners to a permanent city program. Baltimore’s BMore Streets for People Program was enacted into law in May 2010. However, there is no budget and an Advisory Board is yet to be formed. The plan is to extend progressively longer ciclovías throughout the City.

Our grassroots organizing began last Spring when some 23 northside neighborhood associations came together to form the BMore Streets for People Coalition. The aim was to add a five-mile extension to the course by connecting the north-south Roland Park route with an east-west route on the City's bustling 33rd Street. Three meetings were held, drawing up to fifty leaders and local cycling enthusiasts. Details of the plan were developed via email. Coalition leaders made presentations to some six neighborhood association meetings. An umbrella organization, The Greater Homewood Community Corporation, agreed to sponsor the required second City permit. Through this process the vision of ciclovia has evolved into a more community-centered event. Cycling swiftly through city streets has given way to images of popular performances, booths, incorporating church liturgies and so on.

The full route carries an estimated cost of around $20,000 to $30,000 per event (assuming $2200 to $3000/mile), nearly all of it for City police overtime. The Coalition had about $10,000 in individual pledges as of August.

Fundraising was hampered by the lack of an official City endorsement.

After persistent goading, the Office of the Mayor began working with the Coalition in July. By then, time had effectively run out. The proposed plan to have four ciclovias in 2010 had to be cut to just one. The expanded route was also an issue. City counterparts consistently expressed their reservations about the 33rd Street extension, citing technical feasibility and short lead time. The City suggested the 31 October date. The plan to extend was ultimately shelved when a local merchant, and then Johns Hopkins University, objected to the date because it falls on the university's annual Parents Weekend.

Nor was it clear that critical mass had been reached on the ground. Several of the Coalition member associations along 33rd Street were unresponsive or still expressing reservations as late as September. Two leaders even asked that their residents be polled before agreeing to support the plan. They apparently saw the program not as intrinsically their own but as something being imposed, like the Baltimore City Marathon, which closes 33rd Street every year to the chagrin of many residents.

So this year's ciclovia will be identical to the 2009 ciclovia. Despite all of our efforts, not an inch nor an extra hour of time has been added.

The setback showed that coordination was never sufficient for the scale-up to succeed. But it seems to have garnered added sympathy and support, most noticeably down at City Hall. The 2010 ciclovia has been added to the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods events calendar: http://www.baltimorecity.gov/Officeofth … fault.aspx

Two City Council members, co-sponsors of the BMore Streets for People legislation, are also promoting the 31 October event in their e-newsletters. 

Our City counterparts now favor the extended 2011 ciclovia course. How many events we can do in 2011 remains to be defined. Funding is still unidentified. There are no indications that an unfunded 2009 federal proposal by the City to use ciclovia as an anti-obesity strategy will be resuscitated and resubmitted this year. Most if not all of the 2011 BMore Streets for People budget will have to come directly from the community.

We knew it was never going to be easy. In working with the City, the Coalition continues to encounter serial conundrums. For instance, though the law is on the books, the City will not formally endorse the 2010 ciclovia- we can't use the City logo or even the formal name BMore Streets for People- until the Advisory Board called for in the legislation is formed. The Office of the Mayor has asked the Coalition to compile a list of individuals representing various interest groups who will serve on the 24-person Board. Each will be vetted and named by the Mayor. That's 24 hoops to jump through before we can improve coordination and officially move forward.

To summarize, here in Baltimore we are organized and guardedly optimistic. We have a thriving cycling community that is rallying around the cause of urban ciclovia. But it's not clear that we have reached critical mass in terms of the popular support and engagement we need in order to build the Program from the bottom up. Time, improved coordination  and continued low-intensity, all-volunteer work may or may not get us there. We have enlightened local elected officials who champion our cause. But achieving the needed institutional innovations is harder. The City bureaucracy effectively ran the clock out on us this year.

We are hoping for a spectacular success on 31 October that will put our cause in the headlines and attract more volunteer and private donor support. Social theory tells us that formal institutions only change in response to changes in their environments. We shall continue testing that theory.