The Henry Hudson Quadricentennial Celebration in New York City is raising awareness about the many contributions made by the Dutch in the formation of this urban area, and the continuing ways in which the American and Dutch cultures can learn from one another and work together.

 

Recycle-A-Bicycle (RAB) is honored to be a participant in these activities and to be the recipient of the Hudson400 Batavus bicycles that were imported from Holland to help promote and raise the visibility for the commemorative festivities. Recycle-A-Bicycle staff attended the opening ceremony on Queens Day and will offer free programming at the closing event on Harbor Day.

 

It is our goal to continue the community spirit of collaboration between the Dutch and American cultures. This will be done through a variety of public programs and in partnership with local organizations and government agencies dedicated to the advancement of a bicycle culture and the promotion of greenways in NYC. 

 

Participating parties include, City Parks Foundation and Bike New York. (Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, Socrates Sculpture Park, Henry Street Settlement, Green Map System, Transportation Alternatives)

 

1. Learn to Ride – Teach Your Child to Ride is a highly successful program launched by Bike New York in 2006. It earned the award, Best of NYC Parks in 2007. Based on the many requests from adults who learned of this initiative, a new program was started in 2008. Currently, Bike New York provides 30 bikes for its Adult Learn to Ride classes. Most adults who want to learn don’t own their own bicycles.   Having a fleet of bikes to loan out removes what would be a barrier to participation for many people. This free program has reached more than 480 people since its inception.

 

 

2. Bicycle Library – Bike New York offers a free Bicycle Education Program to Physical Education (PE) teachers in public schools. The goal is to train PE teachers to teach a basic bike skills curriculum. This curriculum focuses on bike handling skills, traffic knowledge, and general bike knowledge.    Borrowing from similar bike curriculum training models used in Texas and Virginia, Bike New York targets PE teachers as those who are best positioned to teach a lifelong fitness skill.   This program was started in late 2008, and has reached 138 teachers in New York and NJ. Consequently, schools borrowed Bike New York’s bikes and provided basic bike education to 1,550 students in the first year of operation. The scheduling of Bike New York’s bicycle fleet for loan has begun for school year 2009/2010. It is clear that demand for these bikes will outstrip their supply.

 

 

3. Youth Ride Club – Recycle-A-Bicycle operates a Youth Ride Club from it’s Long Island City facility. This program currently enrolls 150 people for the cycling season and is comprised of 18 rides that build handling skills, confidence in traffic, and endurance over time. Originally, this program started with 15 participants, and has grown tenfold over a five year period. The Youth Ride Club has 40 bikes in its fleet. However, there have been several times when we were unable to provide everyone with a bike and asked that students ride in the support van and swap with a colleague halfway through the trip.

 

4. Special Events – Throughout the Quadricentennial celebration, the Dutch bikes have been offered to mobilize the public and promote a lifestyle change that incorporates cycling into the daily routine. Events, such as Summer Streets, particularly benefitted from this bicycle presence. In the spirit of the Dutch legacy, RAB would reach out to NYC DoT and the 11 organizations that host temporary pedestrian streets citywide, and work to figure out ways to finance this bicycle roll-out in the years to come. Additionally, RAB would work with organizations that have expressed similar access to bicycles, such as the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance for its annual City of Water Day event on Governors Island.

5. Bicycle Tours: Cycling offers an appealing and adventurous way in which to explore the urban environment. Guided tours improve upon this experience by wedding education to adventure. RAB has several ideas on how to capitalize upon this fact.

Tours by Teens - RAB will develop a program, Tours by Teens, to guide low-income teens in the Lower East Side to create a bicycle tour, and to create jobs for them in running this program. This will be done in partnership with Henry Street Settlement’s Workforce Development Center and Summer Youth Employment Program along with the Catalyst Program of Partnerships for Parks and Green Map Systems.

 

 

Brooklyn Greenway Tours – Over the years, RAB has collaborated with the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI) dedicated to the planning and development of the Brooklyn greenway. Recently, RAB and BGI led a bicycle tour for the Catalyst program. 

 

Reporting: RAB will prepare an annual report for submission to Hudson400, documenting the successes and challenges of each of the programs listed above. More specifically, RAB will provide the number of people served by program and list the names/dates/locations of special events where bicycles were deployed.

 

Storage: The storage of bicycles will be divided between three facilities: RAB Long Island City, RAB Dumbo, and a container located in East River Park.

 

Maintenance: The maintenance of these bicycles will be the responsibility of Recycle-A-Bicycle.

 

Program Finance: Recycle-A-Bicycle will work with its partner organizations to raise money for programs so that these may be offered free of charge. Given RAB’s limited administrative staff, bicycle rentals will provide an income stream that will offer us the ability to cover some of the costs. To this end, we anticipate 8 bicycle rentals (4 bikes in 2 retail locations), generating $8,000 for a season, and contracting with government agencies and corporations to charge for rentals on special occasions (generating an estimated $5,000).