Does your hometown newspaper have a bike column?
When I first read about that column, I thought, “Awesome! I wonder if Austin has a bike column?”
The answer appears to be ‘no’, but I’m not quite sure yet. Some towns may have a ‘commuter/traffic’-type column, but I think it’s important to have someone who is specifically looking at cycling issues.
I tried to launch a low-key campaign to convince my local paper, the Austin American-Statesman, to start running a regular bike column, but there hasn’t been much interest yet. I figure I’ll plug away on my own, as time permits, and just hope for the best. I really don’t know the best way to do it - I figure I’d just start writing emails and letters whenever I could, and try to keep track of people I’d contacted, maybe eventually follow-up with them - and that includes the newspaper, of course.
But, you should work on this for your town, too. I feel like there needs to be a lot more education on cycling - both for drivers and cyclists - and a newspaper column is an awesome way to achieve that. It just seems to me that cycling is such an important and growing part of our lives - a phenomenon, really - that we need to dedicate real resources to it.
Thanks to Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space for the reminder.