GObike Buffalo

Thank you, Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski, for supporting safe infrastructure in Buffalo! Happy Bike Month!

We're creating active spaces for healthy living around Western New York! Through our Healthy Streets Initiatives, we work with community members to find out what changes will help make streets safer and then make them happen, from painting crosswalks to refreshing bike lanes to installing semi-permanent bumpouts. Help us create healthy streets and healthy communities become a GObike member today! https://link.gobikebuffalo.org/Join-GObike

Happy New Year! Don't forget to join us with Alta Planning & Design for a virtual public meeting this Wednesday, January 6, from 6 to 7:30 pm. The meeting will include the final plan for the proposed 80-mile Southern Tier Trail project and the next steps, along with an extended Q&A period for stakeholder questions. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eMaAj-4CSpC3xMWI3SWubQ

GObike is excited to join Independent Health and the Buffalo Museum of Science for their annual Community Health Day on Monday, January 18, 2021. Normally an on-site event at the Museum in a typical year, Community Health Day at Home will feature free virtual health and wellness activities, demonstrations, and informational content on the Museum’s Facebook and YouTube channels hourly from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to introduce positive changes families can make to achieve and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

Hurrah and Happy New Year!!! NYS kicked of 2021 in style with the completion of the 750-mile Empire State Trail. It has been such an absolute joy seeing this asset come to fruition with local improvements, including better signage and improved connections, popping up throughout the year. For our next trail build-out, how about an interstate connection between Buffalo and Pittsburgh via the Southern Tier Trail?

Tomorrow, January 12, at 2 pm, Buffalo Common Council will consider looking at the feasibility of a citywide sidewalk snow removal program following the Christmas-day hit-and-run incident that left a couple viewing Christmas lights seriously injured. One of the victims used a mobility device and could not access the sidewalk due to unshoveled snow and the absence of curb ramps. Our neighbors in Rochester and Syracuse have similar programs. Do you think Buffalo should adopt one? Who should pay for it? If you'd like to speak at the meeting tomorrow, the information is in our link below.

There's still time to register for the final public meeting for the proposed 80-mile Southern Tier Trail! Join us tonight to review the proposed route.

The GObike Community Workshop gratefully accepts the support we receive from donors like you and we turn it into change. Change is more people riding to improve their physical and mental health. It's more children building confidence and independence by biking to school or fixing a flat tire. It's ensuring that all WNY residents have safe, reliable options to get to their destinations. It's playing a role in our region's fight against climate change by reducing waste and carbon emissions. Please make a tax-deductible donation today. Together, we can continue to create positive, lasting change for our community. bit.ly/GObikedonate

It’s been a heck of a year, and our workshop staff have risen to meet the challenges: with thousands more people riding, our shop staff have worked their tails off to build, sell, and fix bikes to meet the increasing demand. With limits on having people inside the workshop, we went out in the community to provide mobile repair and bike giveaways, and host outdoor safety workshops. We’ve been a community resource for over 10 years help us keep WNY rolling for years to come. Please become a member or donate today: http://bit.ly/GObikedonate

Our Outreach and Operations Director, Rebecca Reilly, will be presenting on the Reimagining Creativity in Response to Crisis panel at Arts Services Inc. - ASI's Creative Professional Exchange. We hope you can tune in to learn about our pop-up complete streets program and other great initiatives throughout the region.

We thank all our volunteers, old and new, for their support of our work. Read our outreach and operation director's thoughts on the year with pop-up volunteers: "It is difficult to grasp our humanity sometimes and feel connected through digital-only mediums. It’s harder still during the pandemic to truly revel in what human beings can build together. Though not knowing each other and possibly having different values and politics, we can come together and have a beautiful day and look at each other with pride for what we accomplished." https://gobikebuffalo.org/our-volunteers-make-us-great-pop/

While the current pandemic has posed some ongoing challenges for our community workshop, our staff has been working tirelessly to keep our community on bikes! Since March, they have recycled 196 refurbished bikes back into the community through online sales and repaired 326. They have given away 45 bikes to those in need and serviced 40 bikes at mobile repair events. Your $35 individual ($60 family) membership helps offset our workshop’s costs to provide these services, and more. Become a member of GObike today to help support our efforts to keep our community rolling. https://gobikebuffalo.z2systems.com//go/membershipJoin.jsp

The Erie Canal Trail was recently featured in BICYCLING magazine as one of the top places in the country to leaf peep from your bicycle! Have you been on the trail this year?

350. That's the number of volunteer hours it took to construct the Ridge Road pop-up protected bike lane! Want to help? Become a member and support our work! https://gobikebuffalo.z2systems.com//go/membershipJoin.jsp

The ITE: New York Upstate Section has provided an engineering overview of our Ridge Road Pop-Up Project. If you are interested in the nitty-gritty engineering details of a temporary, volunteer-constructed pop-up two-way cycle track, this blog is for you!

"We think it’s crucial that Middle Main is rebuilt for all kinds of transportation rather than the current state that is car-dominant. The future of Buffalo needs to be better than the status quo, and the city has already demonstrated that when rebuilding Main Street the results can be inclusive and beautiful." What do you think about the future of Middle Main Street?

Motorists and bicyclists: here's how to safely make a right turn. The video is part of our Together, We Ride, campaign, focusing on encouraging safe interactions between all road users. Funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with a grant from the New York State Governor's Traffic Safety Committee.

Last week, our education and shop staff conducted a safety presentation with the girl scouts from troop #30375. The scouts learned bike terminology, viewed a fix-a-flat demo, talked about important bike safety accessories, and played some fun games to practice the rules of the road. We ended with a celebratory lap around Ring Road to put all our new knowledge into action!

We love sharing the joy of biking. This fall, we're hosting mobile repairs and bike giveaways throughout Buffalo like this one at the Delavan Grider Community Center a few weeks ago. Thank you to Independent Health for sponsoring our mobile repairs and the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation Youth Sports and Recreation COVID-19 Fund for supporting our bicycle giveaways. We gratefully accept bike donations at our community workshop and at community events.

In solidarity with Karen, Slow Roll Buffalo, and the Buffalo Bike Community: Last night in Niagara Square, as an impromptu nonviolent protest of the injustice over Breonna Taylor was reaching a peaceful conclusion, a motorist who had been stopped in front of City Hall suddenly revved up and rammed through the crowd, striking Karen Huffman, a Slow Roll board member and longtime volunteer leader who also serves as a legal observer among countless community causes. Karen is cur...rently hospitalized in stable condition, grateful for the rapid response from volunteer medics on the scene as well as the ongoing outpouring of love and care for her. All citizens who support Karen’s commitment to justice for all are invited to Niagara Square tonight at 7 pm, where Slow Roll will preside over a series of statements on her behalf before proceeding on a roundtrip nonviolent march. The gathering will be live-streamed at www.slowrollbuffalo.org as well as their YouTube channel and Facebook group, as a special episode of the weekly Virtual Slow Roll. Karen is a rockstar and we love her so much.