It's that time of the year again and renewing your Alliance membership or support is easier than ever! Just visit www.PeoplePoweredMovement.org/renew. You can renew right there on our website and then choose to pay online with a credit card, mail in a check, pay by phone, or have us invoice you. With these options, renewing for 2010 should be a piece of cake.  

The Alliance will enter those member organizations who have renewed their 2010 membership by December 31, 2009, into a raffle for a Dahon Mu P24 (a folding 24-speed bicycle with SRAM Dual Drive). Renew your organization's membership by the end of the year, and you could win a new bike for the office.  

Renewing early ensures your membership doesn't miss a beat and that you don't miss out on a day of the great resources your Alliance membership provides, such as:

• Access to members-only listserv
• Access to members-only online Resource Library with over 800 models, templates, and resources to support your work
• Access to members-only online Photo Library with over 300 photos to support your work, to be unveiled before the end of this year
• Free Mutual Aid conference calls on topics that support your work
• On-call support and networking with top bicycle and pedestrian advocacy experts
• Discounts on Alliance training, retreats, and publications
• Eligibility for special scholarship offers and contests
• Eligible to apply for an Advocacy Advance Grant (at least $250,000 to be awarded in 2010
• Opportunity for inclusion in Alliance's Benchmarking Report ·   
  
• Free job postings on PeoplePoweredMovement.org
• Extra credibility of Alliance membership
• Listing and link on PeoplePoweredMovement.org
• Ability to display the Alliance logo and link on your website.  
  

And again, thanks to you! Together we are growing the people powered movement. 

The Alliance for Biking & Walking awarded $104,000 in grants this month to five grassroots biking and walking advocacy organizations. The Advocacy Advance Grants will be used to jump-start emerging advocacy organizations and to fund innovative campaigns with the potential to dramatically increase biking and walking. 2009, the first year of the Advocacy Advance Grants program, resulted in $259,000 in grants to grassroots bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations

Grant recipients for this round include:

Active Transportation Alliance: Chicago-based Active Transportation Alliance will receive a $30,000 matching Innovation Grant for its Active Living on the Block campaign. The campaign will use community-based design to empower and energize neighborhoods with fewer economic resources and networks to make their built environment safe and accessible for biking and walking.
 
Cascade Bicycle Club Education Fund: Seattle Area's Cascade Bicycle Club will use a $16,500 matching Innovation Grant to create a replicable bikeability/walkability assessment tool to understand underserved neighborhood needs and issues and identify barriers to bicycling and walking and to custom-create appropriate programs to address identified barriers.
 
LivableStreets Alliance: Boston-based LivableStreets Alliance will receive a $30,000 matching Startup/Capacity Building Grant to launch a neighborhood outreach campaign to build grassroots support for improved bicycle, pedestrian and public transit design and to ensure that the soon-to-be renovated bridges over the Charles River include bike/ped access. The Grant will also enable them to hire their first Executive Director.
 
Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance: The Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance (CCBA) will use a $15,000 matching Startup/Capacity Building Grant to hire their first Executive Director, transform from a regional to a statewide bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organization and accelerate the implementation of the recently passed CT Complete Streets law.
 
New Orleans Metro Bicycle Coalition: A $12,500 matching Startup/Capacity Building Grant will boost the New Orleans Metro Bicycle Coalition's (MBC) efforts to ensure inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in New Orleans recovery projects as well as the hiring of their first Executive Director.

Congratulations and thank you to all the applicants for presenting so many wonderful proposals this year!  We were able to award a total of $259,000 to dramatically increase biking and walking!!!  

Stay tuned! The 2010 calendar will be published in the coming days.  For more information about the Advocacy Advance Grants Program visit http://www.PeoplePoweredMovement.org/grants
 
These grants are made possible with generous funding from SRAM, Planet Bike, Bikes Belong, and 42BELOW.

Learn more about these projects and read the full press release here.

Over 20 new campaigns for biking and walking were launched this October at two Alliance Winning Campaigns Trainings.  Bike Denver hosted the first, October 2-4, with 24 participants from five states (CA, CO, MN, NM, and UT). The 12 organizations represented planned out seven campaigns which include adding bicycle specific curriculum to police academy training, winning a bike hub at Denver's Union Station, winning implementation of a Safe Routes to School program for Santa Fe, securing funding from the City of Grand Junction (Colorado) for an educational program to increase mutual consideration and awareness between motorists and cyclists, and more.  

Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas also hosted a training on October 16-18 in North Little Rock, Arkansas with a full house of 33 participants from seven states (AR, LA, MO, MS, OK, TN, and TX) and one advocate from Australia.  Overall, the 14 organizations developed 10 campaigns including converting a rail bridge to a bike ped bridge, county and city complete streets policies, "No Harassment" and 3-Feet passing legislation, and passing a $100 million bond for biking and walking.  

Both trainings were outstanding with an awesome group of participants. Evaluations from the training reflect that participants also got a lot out of the instruction, left jazzed and well prepared to implement their campaigns. Brad Woods, of the Utah Bicycle Coalition said, "[this was] three days that will grow our ability to advocate." Karen Mogridge of Bike Walk Mississippi writes that the Alliance Winning Campaigns Training is ,"an incredible weekend training that should be a requirement for all advocates!"  

Thanks to Bicycle Technologies International and the City of North Little Rock, who provided local sponsorships for both events. Thanks to SRAM, Bikes Belong, Planet Bike and AARP for their support of all 2009 Winning Campaigns Trainings. And, thanks to the 57 participants who made Denver and North Little Rock such a success! 

The Alliance holds its final of six 2009 Winning Campaigns training events on November 13-15 in Richmond, Virginia. Get more information & Register Here...

T4America and the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) is releasing a report, ranking America's major metropolitan areas according to how safe they are for pedestrians. The report, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods), ranks the most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians and reveals that thousands of Americans are dying preventable deaths each year due to poor transportation policies and short-sited funding priorities.  

Some of the overall conclusions presented in the report include:

• Nearly 5,000 Americans die preventable deaths each year on roads that fail to provide safe conditions for pedestrians. More than 43,000 Americans - including 3,906 children under 16 - have been killed this decade alone.
• Metropolitan areas with the worst ranking generally have the most high-speed arterial roads with little or no provision for safe and comfortable walking and bicycling, and they tend to spend the least on building or retrofitting roads for pedestrian safety.
• States and metropolitan areas have resources from the federal government that could be used to make the streets safer, but most are only spending a tiny fraction of these funds on pedestrian safety features.
• The report finds that states and metropolitan areas are spending less than 1.5 percent of total federal funds on pedestrian safety, despite the fact that pedestrians currently comprise 11.8 percent of all traffic deaths and nearly the same percentage of all trips. 
  

Several Alliance organizations are involved with the report's release on November 9. In addition, T4America and STPP will be discussing the report and its findings in a telebriefing and Q&A for the media at 11AM ET on November 9. To download the full copy of the report, visit www.t4america.org.