The BTA has posted their final list of “bike heroes” nominated for this year’s Alice Awards. It includes some names I think you’ll recognize (including prolific and outspoken BikePortland commenter Dabby McCrashalot), along with some you might not have heard of yet.
Here are the 2007 Alice Award Nominees.
- Candi Murray, Oregon Bicycle Racing Association
- Jonathan Maus, BikePortland.org
- Amelia Schaaf, Ashland Community Hospital
- Tony Brown, Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside
- Dan Colley, Kaiser Permanente Interstate
- Bicycle Repair Collective
- Savannah Teller-Brown, for her research on diesel exhaust
- Mark Ginsberg, Attorney-at-Law
- Steven Kung, Exchange Cycle Tours
- Jason Gately, Port of Portland
- Santiam Bicycle
- Catherine Rund, XO Communications
- Eleanor Blue
- Brad Ross, Cross Crusade Cyclocross Series
- John “Dabby” Campbell
- Liesl Lackaff, GreenWorks PC
- Wayne Naillon, PUMP
- Sara Stout
- Community Cycling Center’s Create A Commuter program
- Graham Berg, Resource Revival
- Mike Morrison, Legacy Emanuel Health System
- Greg, Antonia and Curtis MacNaughton
- Nathan Hobson
- Kelly Punteney, Vancouver, WA
- Greg Raisman, City of Portland
- Ian Stude, Portland State University Bicycle Coop
- Peter Jacobsen, neighborhood mechanic
- Paul Siemeinziek
- Janis McDonald, PDOT
- Ranier Farmer, Oregon State University
- Kevin Chudy, Bike ‘N Hike
- Senator Ginny Burdick
The big event happens on March 10th. Stay tuned to the BTA Blog for posts by the nominees and more information is coming to AliceAwards.org in the next few weeks.
Thanks for reading.
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Congratulations on your nomination Jonathan – one of the nominees some us might not have heard of yet.
Ditto Jonathan, your nomination is well deserved.
With the BTA’s increasing focus on state and national issues, have you thought of BikePortland awards?
Ethan,
I’m curious what you mean about our focus on state and national issues.
We’re always working to balance our coverage of and services to the Portland area (the staff lives and works here, as does 80% of our membership) and our statewide mission (we represent all of Oregon and SW Washington). I think about this a lot. The BTA is sort of unique in this respect. Most other cities’ bike advocacy groups represent just those cities (Chicagoland Bicycle Federation; SFBC; LA County Bicycle Fed; et al); and most other states’ bike advocacy groups represent just the state. And I was thinking about this with the Alice nominees, since all but five of them are from the city of Portland this year.
I’m not the least bit bothered by your comment. That’s not why I’m asking. I’m just wondering how we seem from the outside. It’s hard to know that from the inside, you know what I mean?
You can reply offline if you want, to michelle[at]bta4bikes[dot org].
Michelle
Yes,
Kudo’s to Jonathan!
The master plan that the BTA itself has published maps out a move towards an increasingly regional (perhaps national) scope and agenda. For any non-profit to succeed in such an ambitious plan AND still fully serve it’s base would be a miracle indeed.
It is almost cute how nobody over there seems to understand that the BTA’s “brand” has already been moving for some time in that direction. Like a diminutive Bike United Way, the now “established” BTA has become closely tied with the power structure in Portland, Salem, and I suspect at the national level as well. In doing this it follows that the organization has become more risk-adverse, slower to respond to community needs and opportunities, and generally distracted by other priorities, not to mention the ever present need to secure funding to sustain the BTA’s ever-growing machinery. What’s the proposed startup budget for this “Oregon Center for Bicycling and Walking”?
Given this, it is almost galling the way the BTA often comes into the fray late with a big media fanfare when it does actually wake up. The Belmont tragedy protest was a great example of the BTA’s ability to send out press releases and get interviewed at an event they had little else to do with. The Shock Jock episode this last year is a more recent example of the bike community needing someone to play hardball, but finding the BTA a toothless advocate. I won’t even get into the St John’s Bridge Fiasco.
My contention is that as the BTA fumbles the local ball again and again, some other individual or group will inevitably pick it up and begin making the important plays here in Portland.
Don’t get me wrong, the direction the BTA has mapped out is full of great work that needs to be done, most of which is thankfully in this region. I merely contend that this will almost certainly make the BTA into something other than this city’s no. 1 bike advocacy entity. Lets be frank here, what am proposing will happen has to some degree already come to pass with the ascendancy of this very website. Look what one guy can do without your high profile board, grants, bigger offices, and blonde ambition.
You asked.
Kudos to Ian. He was always lots of help to me at the psu coop.
“Look what one guy can do without your high profile board, grants, bigger offices, and blonde ambition.”
Blonde ambition? I don’t even know what the heck that means, but it makes me bristle.
As for bigger offices etc., the equation works for me that if one advocate can do x amount of work, 10 can do ten times the amount of work. I’m pleased to see the BTA growing. As a former employee, I can’t tell you how awful it is to see a need that you can’t fill because you flat out have no time. More people means more time to do good work for bikes.
Jessica,
With all due respect, your comments fail to also note that when an organization increases in size, it’s effectiveness (i.e. efficiency) often does not scale up at the parallel rate your post assumes. Compare your analogy to the number of people at United Way (It was no accident I mentioned their example) and the percentage of charitable dollars that go to programs, and the public’s perception of the organization. They have a HUGE building, half a block the last time I checked. There is no direct correlation between number of staff and effectiveness. Historically it is a often a reverse relationship.
I am sorry if my comments made you “bristle”. I tried also to point out that the BTA does some very valuable work. I note that anytime someone is less than pleased with the BTA and publicly says so, there are always hurt feelings. Is your contention that the BTA has no faults? As someone who has worked at two non-profits who have serious public perception issues (UW being one of them), I am well aware of the disconnect between what people within an organization think of themselves (your recent departure notwithstanding) and what many outside think. I am not sure if contending one debatable point, playing an emotional card, and not addressing the core arguments I set forth represents a rebuttal or tacit acknowledgment.
It seems that anytime a small, grassroots non-profit grows as it has successes and attracts more members, it runs up against some of these challenges.
I guess I need to read this “master plan”!
I might bristle a bit at your response too, Ethan, but it’s actually exactly what I was wanting to know. Like I said, we know what we do on the “inside” over here. It helps to know what it looks like from the “outside.” Thanks for following up.
No, seriously, what did you mean by “blonde ambition?” That’s what made me bristle, specifically, because I don’t know what it means but it sounds weirdly sexist. Could you just explain that?
What the BTA does is often less sexy — and less obvious — than some of the high-profile conflicts that happen.
I think, as does Chris Smith, This is appropriate.
We’re passing bills, working with Congress, and influencing how bike facilities around the city — and the country — function and look.
We’re making serious progress on many of the top 40 bike projects in the region — identified by over 1000 of the region’s cyclists.
We don’t win them all. But I think we’re doing pretty well. And with your help, we’ll win more.
Hey, Ethan –
Without bristling too much at the slightly nasty tone you take in offering what might otherwise be valuable perspectives, I’d like to share a little perspective, too – lest readers who are new to the biking community read your statements as fact.
You said, “In doing this it follows that the organization has become more risk-adverse, slower to respond to community needs and opportunities, and generally distracted by other priorities,”
Speaking about events that took place during the time that I was on staff at the BTA, I believe there are some strong examples of places where the BTA responded quickly and appropriately to community needs. The two examples that come most immediately to mind are: drawing together police, politicians and Critical Mass advocates several years ago to work toward a better pattern of police/rider interactions; and responding to, and trying to work with non-BTA advocates around, the spate of bicyclist deaths in summer 2005. I believe – yes, from my “insider’s perspective” – that where these efforts bogged down were in the difficulty of cooperation between an established organization and grassroots advocates (it takes two to tango), and the reality of accomplishing a broad mission with strapped staff resources.
You also said, “it is almost galling the way the BTA often comes into the fray late with a big media fanfare when it does actually wake up. The Belmont tragedy protest was a great example of the BTA’s ability to send out press releases and get interviewed at an event they had little else to do with.”
I worked on that press release, not with an interest in getting the BTA’s name out there, but because it was a horrifying event that needed publicity to send a message home to the driving public about the potential impact of their actions. So I find your comment personally insulting. On a less emotional, more practical note, while the public outreach capacities of concerned individuals and grassroots organizations have their strengths, so, too, do press releases and other outreach efforts by an organization with a well-known public face. And would it not have been completely inappropriate if the state’s largest bicycle advocacy group failed to comment on, draw attention to, and respond to the tragedy? Your comments on this topic read as petty nitpicking around what was a touchstone event for Portland’s bicycling community.
And your comment about “the St John’s Bridge Fiasco.”
I don’t remember seeing you at the ODOT-sponsored meetings that took place around this issue. If you were there, pardon my faulty memory, but I’d like to point out that there were inside shenanigans that did, indeed, make the process a fiasco. But it was a fiasco not because of, but in spite of determined BTA efforts to convince decision-makers to do the right thing for Portland’s bikers.
The BTA’s change in focus from city to state organization happened in 1995/1996 – perhaps you were involved with the organization at that early point, and felt that to be a mistaken approach. If not, and if you became involved after that point, and have believed that the BTA was focused only on the bicycling issues of Portland, then you failed to read and understand the mission and vision of the BTA.
Not that you can’t wish that the BTA were doing some things differently than it is – that’s your prerogative. But more effective than smartly-worded swipes at the BTA in public venues might be a positive, proactive approach to the kind of dialogue and resource sharing that makes change happen.
Evan, Brita,
Cruise over to today’s SF Bike Coalition’s website. They do (maybe attempt is a better term) much of the same policy and infrastructure type work that is in the BTA’s portfolio. Read the headline on their homepage, check out what they have to say. When was the last time the BTA took a stand in those kind of terms (Publicly)?
Direct, Passionate, Responsive. I am sure some of the BTA’s many city partners would not like to see such a broadside coming from Evan, but on occasion it is sadly warranted. Change the content to reflect the Shock Jock incident and you will get some idea of what I am talking about. All this behind-the-scenes work that is supposedly done may get you a bike boulevard (if you closed up shop tomorrow I’d bet good money we’d still get them), but will it increase the diversity of bicyclists? Will it get the police to target dangerous drivers or curb egregious behavior? I don’t think that approach will work for the really contentious issues that don’t involve installing concrete and paint. If there was an Alice for sending press releases and back channel communications . . .
It’s not the Bicycle Infrastructure Alliance after all (which is the focus of 35 of the 40 blueprint priorities). Slow, Conciliatory and Safe are not synonyms with “less sexy”. When I myself bring this stuff up and prompt a response from staffers, I get clearly that you all care about things like the St John’s Bridge, the recent violence in N Portland etc. I just never see the organization depart from it’s placid course of collaborative expansion of bike facilities. I’d be shocked to see the word “Unacceptable” as a headline on the BTA website.
Surveys are a tricky thing too. You guys often tout this blueprint process as a rationale for the way the BTA operates, in essence what is and is not important to focus on. Did you ask your 1000 respondents anything about how they wanted the BTA to approach the thorny issues and situations that come up over time? Did you ask how they wanted the BTA to respond when something really wrong or sad occurs in the bicycling community? Anyone who knows how focus groups and surveys really work knows that it is VERY easy to introduce bias into the process, sometimes merely by omission. I suspect that the laundry list of infrastructure projects that is the heart and soul of the BTA’s final blueprint says something profound about who was asked and what was asked.
Brita , you bring up some interesting points.
However, saying that there are examples during your tenure which run counter to my premise does not mean that the trend does not exist, nor that it has not intensified in recent years. I myself have repeatedly pointed out that there is much important ongoing work being undertaken by the BTA. I don’t think there’s a single item on your blueprint that I would be opposed to. But that is not my point.
Highlighting Critical Mass interactions with police is an interesting choice, given what’s gone down over the last few years. What happened there, no longer a priority, CM riders too unsavory to enjoy the BTA’s favor, was everyone gone touring Amsterdam or Berkeley? Staying power counts for something too, as does sticking with an important issue even when it’s not polling highly. If it once was, the BTA is hardly the champion of the rougher fringes of our city’s diverse bike culture any longer.
Your memory is spot on btw, I was not at a single ODOT-sponsored meeting regarding the St John’s Bridge renovation. I suppose that remark was designed to imply that since I was not in the trenches on that one I should not comment on the performance of the BTA, an organization I have supported and volunteered with in years past. I bet the SF folks would have laid siege to the bridge if they had gotten the shaft like that. Painting the organization as the victim of ODOT chicanery does not convince me that all the cards were played, that the BTA did not in essence fold when the chips were down. A forceful/relevant organization would have put out the hue and cry and made it very very messy and public for ODOT to disregard reason.
And the Belmont tragedy . . . Who would not argue your right as a human being to write a thousand press releases, surely not me. So many of us will never be able to pass by those two blocks without sadness, Peacock Lane will certainly never be the same for me. Nevertheless, establishing credentials as a caring person is a red herring. This argument is akin to “support the war or you are not a patriot”. Sorry, but as one of the people who was fairly involved in the day leading up to that demonstration I can say that while I would have been shocked not to see BTA faces in attendance, I was troubled to see the BTA meeting up with local news media for their pre-arranged media moments. My perception, lets call it that, was that rather than call your own press conference and have little coverage, you capitalized on the protest as a vehicle to get into the spotlight and be heard. No doubt this was done for noble reasons, none of them having to do with decorum. If you had all just attended, they would have interviewed someone else, perhaps someone who was actually responsible for getting us all down there. On the news, it looked like the BTA had mobilized Portland’s cyclists and they had taken to the streets. That simply is not what happened, nor is it really even in the BTA’s playbook anymore (see St John’s comments above). It does matter how people perceive what you are doing, no matter how good the intentions.
If I have it all wrong and the BTA is more relevant and innovative, has more dynamic leadership and is more connected with the community than it ever has been in the past, I apologize. I just don’t see it.
Ethan –
We could debate for a long time about specific events and actions and never see eye-to-eye on the value of the BTA’s focus.
Truth is, I think some parts of the points you make are valid, even if the manner in which they’re presented distracts from that. But I also think that to expect two different organizations, with different histories, in different cities that have different cultures to take the same approach to their work isn’t realistic.
Isn’t it possible that diverse groups of advocates could work – in relative harmony with other groups – on different aspects of the great amount of work that needs to be done in order to make Portland the kind of bike city it should be?
The question is still open – how to progress toward making that kind of positive, multi-faceted change happen? Holding grudges and fostering discord between members of the bike community doesn’t, in my mind, contribute toward that goal.
I learned, a while ago, that you must be very very careful with your language in portland unless you want your valid points to be confused as pointless rants in portland.
stay away from personal argument. don’t use inflammatory language – and, god forbid, don’t imply that you think women are blondes….
good luck to all those people trying to actually DO something! ride on, the wellington critical mass is dope!