Biking, walking, and rolling in the sun! ☀️

Bike Ferry Opening Day Ride, photo courtesy of Doug Goodman.

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 Complete Streets  | Education  | Trailside Center, Bike Ferry, and Valet Bike Parking | Community

Bike, Walk, and Roll

Local Motion’s recently updated mission is: “Making it safe, accessible, and fun for everyone to bike, walk, and roll in Vermont.” Roll? Yes, you will start to hear more from us about rolling, whether by wheelchair or skateboard, or ways that haven’t even been invented yet. We created a Strategic Plan with goals to support our mission and vision that more people will bike, walk, and roll in Vermont for transportation and recreation, improving their health while benefiting local communities and the environment.

Complete Streets

Northfield Pop-Up Project

Unnecessarily wide streets result in dangerous driving. When we reclaim that space, we can make our places safer and more enjoyable for all users—including drivers! In May, we installed a Pop-Up project in Northfield to show how the town square could be expanded, giving people more space and making the village a nicer place to spend time!

Pop-Up Project in Northfield, May 2022.

Randolph Walk/Bike Survey

Our community walk/bike/roll surveys are a great way to gauge support for community improvements and can help a town identify focus areas for those improvements. In June, we assisted a new walk/bike group in Randolph in administering a survey that will hopefully help the community move forward with improvements!

PlanBTV Walk/Bike 5-Year Progress Report

A plan is just that—a plan. Burlington’s PlanBTV Walk/Bike set a fairly ambitious vision for a connected network of walk, bike, and roll infrastructure. With the plan turning five years old, we were curious to see how far Burlington has come in terms of achieving its goals. We worked with the Burlington Walk/Bike Council and UVM to analyze progress toward the goals laid out in the plan’s engineering section and summed it up in a report. 

We found that Burlington is significantly behind on implementing the plan, especially when it comes to building the kind of protected and low-stress bike infrastructure that we need most. We’ll continue to work with our partners to analyze the rest of the plan, bring awareness to what we found, and demand action.

Education

Bike Smart Goes to Camp

After a very successful year in which we brought Bike Smart to 43 schools, we are now moving into our summer programming and will be in Rutland, Burlington, Richford, and the Northeast Kingdom! 

Our Bike Smart program includes a fleet of four trailers with 50+ kids’ bikes and is an incredible resource that we are so proud to provide to educators and children in Vermont. Equity and access to our programming is important to us. We prioritize schools and camps that serve low-income families and children. We also provide adaptive equipment to schools to allow every child to participate. We're looking forward to another summer full of bike fun!

JFK Elementary students in Winooski enjoy the Bike Smart program.

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Success

From a wildly successful Winter Walk to School Month, to the deployment of our SRTS kits in the spring—which were used by many of our schools—we had a wonderful year of encouraging school communities to discover how walking and biking enriches many aspects of their lives. Schools explored how exercise prepares childrens' brains for learning, and families learned how to improve their community connections through the slower, more mindful walk or bike trip. Schools also found a much-needed sense of celebration and community through Safe Routes to School events and programming.  

We are looking forward to another exciting year of SRTS programming in 2022-2023! Want to learn more or see if your local school is participating? Visit our Safe Routes to School page.

Students at Swanton Elementary School encouraging others to bike, walk, and roll to school.

Trailside Center, Bike Ferry, and Valet Bike Parking

The All New Trailside Center

The bikes set up in the new Trailside Center.

The 2022 bike rental season has had an exciting and rather ambitious start. In April, we moved the shop location to the corner of King and Steele Streets. Only a few pedal strokes from the rebuilt Burlington Bike Path, it’s a terrific place for bike rentals. We have also invested in a new reservation platform to make renting bikes from us a snap! If that’s not enough news, we’ve hired an excellent staff, some of whom are veterans and others are new to Local Motion, but all with a shared passion for the bicycle.

The Bike Ferry

The Local Motion Bike Ferry in action.

We got a jump start on the 2022 Bike Ferry season with a successful Friends of the Ferry fundraising campaign in the spring. Now in its second year, this campaign anchors our donation-only ferry service that allows everyone to ride, regardless of their ability to pay. Generally good weather has prevailed as we welcome a healthy mix of locals, out-of-staters, and Canadians! Both veterans and newcomers to the crew are onboard to greet passengers and carry them across The Cut. Check out our schedule and ride the ferry! (localmotion.org/bike_ferry).

Find Valet Bike Parking this summer

Valet Bike Parking will be at: 

• SoBu Nite Out Series, South Burlington, Thursdays in July and August, 5-8 pm, with fireworks night planned on August 4.
• Intervale's Summervale Series, Thursdays in July and August, 5:30-8 pm.
• Leddy Park Beach Bites, Wednesdays 4:30-8:30 pm.
• The Burlington Farmers Market, Saturdays 8:30 am-2:30 pm.
• Dragon Boat Festival, Sunday, August 7, 7:30 am-9:30 pm.

Visit our site to see more events and how you can get involved!

Our Community

Volunteers

Volunteers assist riders in safely parking their bikes through our Valet Bike Parking program.

A huge thank you to our 2022 volunteers! Every year, hundreds of volunteers donate thousands of hours to support Local Motion’s mission at the Bike Ferry, Valet Bike Parking, Cone Keepers, administrative work, photography and videography, and much more. A huge thank you to our volunteers!

Pssst…. 

There are lots of Valet Bike Parking volunteer shifts available throughout the summer and fall at events like SoBu Night Out, Friday Night Food Trucks, and the Burlington Farmers Market. Valet Bike Parking volunteers are often provided with free access tickets to the event they are working, including some awesome music shows at the waterfront this year! We still have some Bike Ferry volunteer shifts available, too!

Did you know?

• Some Local Motion volunteer opportunities may be appropriate for young adults who want to fulfill their school community service commitments.
• Workplace volunteering is a great way for teams to make a direct impact in the communities where employees work, live, and play.
• Plus! Volunteer hours with Local Motion are eligible for City Market member-worker credit which translate to a discount on groceries! 

Learn more about about volunteer opportunities and sign up for shifts at localmotion.org/volunteer.

Donor Support

Donor support helps ensure that we can provide our programs and services around the state. We offer a variety of giving opportunities to fit a variety of interests and needs, including annual appeals, donations of securities, remembering Local Motion in your will, gifts in tribute to a loved one, monthly sustaining gifts, and more. To learn more or make your donation today, visit localmotion.org/donate or contact [email protected].

Business Sponsorships

Business sponsorships represent a significant portion of Local Motion’s annual revenue! We will help your business customize just the right sponsorship opportunity, including:

• General Sponsorships are annual philanthropic gifts of any size to support Local Motion’s statewide work. Benefits include online and social media recognition.
• Program Sponsorships are customized and are a highly visible annual support of a Local Motion program or asset such as the Bike Ferry, Valet Bike Parking, or one of our four Bike Smart trailers. Program sponsorships generally begin at $1,000 and up. Benefits may include a featured business logo on the Local Motion asset, featured recognition on our website, a social media feature, and more.

Workplace Giving & Employer Matching can be a simple and cost-effective way for any size business to meaningfully engage employees in the community. Some employers match or even double their employees’ donations! Benefits include public recognition online and a social media feature.

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