ElmCityCycling is a group of more than 400 advocates who work to make New Haven a better place for bicycling and walking. We keep in touch with each other through a yahoo listserv, and through monthly public meetings on the 2nd Monday of every month. Although it is not our event, many local cyclists also keep in touch through monthly Critical Mass rides (see below), which generally begin on the last Friday of every month, at around 5:30 pm on the New Haven Green.
See our page on monthly public meetings for a more detailed list of current goals and efforts, which include:
MORE BIKE LANES:With the New Haven City Plan department's GO-alition, we helped
create the Orange Street Bike Lane and the city's official Plan for Greenways & Cycling Systems. We are working on getting bike lanes in more neighborhoods now.
MORE BIKE PATHS: With the Farmington Canal Rails-to-Trails Association and other groups in the region, we help advocate for greenways.
MORE BIKE RACKS: With the GO-alition and Mayor DeStefano, we have helped
bring more bike racks to downtown, the train station, and on buses. Lots of work remains to be done.
SAFER STREETS: Fliers in your tax bills, "share the street" signs, safety information on bike maps, free bike lights to kids in Inner City Outings (thanks to Melinda Tuhus and The Devil's Gear Bike Shop), education efforts, and publicity in the local press, are all ways that we try to let people know how to safely share the road -- both cyclists and drivers. We also advocate for safe streets for pedestrians and are supporters of the citywide New Haven Safe Streets coalition.
BIKE MAP: The best back roads and greenways to get around New Haven are all in this map:
(http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/CityPlan/EIGreenwaysResources.asp).
The state dept. of transportation offers free bike maps of Connecticut:
http://www.dot.state.ct.us/bureau/pp/docs/bike/index.html
More free bike maps are at www.yale.edu/cycling/mapsmaps.html
PUBLIC BIKE RIDES: Every June in the Arts & Ideas Festival, every
October in City-Wide Open Studios, and at other times, we
hold public bike rides to share the fun of bicycling in & around New
Haven.
CRITICAL MASS: Critical Mass is a monthly worldwide celebration of
bicycling, when thousands of people in more than 200 cities take to the
streets on bicycles. Critical Mass is a vision of a bike-friendly
world, a protest for better biking facilities, a mobile paean to bicycling's
joys, and a merry ride exploring the neighborhoods of New Haven.
Critical Mass is a glimpse of what life could be like. Join Critical
Mass the last Friday of every month at 5:30 pm on the New Haven Green!
While many ElmCityCycling members participate in Critical Mass, obviously we
don't sponsor it -- no one does. No one leads it either, but also,
everyone leads. Come to the Green on the last Friday of the month to
see what we mean.
"We are helping to give the city a resurrection, a second coming of the
city beautiful, a second chance at really working." Travis Hugh Cully.
"We're not blocking traffic. We ARE traffic. Viva la Velorucion!" "The
mass doesn't worry about what the problem is; it's the solution in
search of the problem. The mass is not the medium; the mass is the
message." Eric Holeman.
"You may never know what results come from
your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result." Gandhi
