Newsletter sent on 7/21

Summer is better by bike! 

We’re rolling out our programs and services to make biking and walking more enjoyable for all. Read all about what we've been up to this summer in our newsletter! 

Spring is one of our favorite seasons, as we’re busy planning out the year ahead and getting ready for summer!

What are we doing this spring?

• Installing a Demonstration Project to make a village safe and pleasant for pedestrians
• Sending our Bike Smart trailer to 20 schools
• Developing a new interactive mobile Island Line Map
• Prepping our Bike Ferry for a long fun season on the water
• Tuning our rental bikes for the Trailside Center
• And more! Scroll down to discover what we’re doing!

We’re excited for all our programs and services to roll out for the season and encouraging all Vermonters to experience the joy of biking and walking!

A few words from Local Motion Executive Director, Karen Yacos:

When I look back on the past year, I see a time of challenges large and small, some met and others still looming. Each of these challenges creates opportunities to better our communities, our organizations, and ourselves. Local Motion has heeded that call at every level, with both the adaptability and the limitations that come with being a small nonprofit. Simultaneously, we are supporting and supported by communities, partners, and organizations across the state as we take on this work together. You’ll hear all about it throughout this newsletter. 

Summer has come to a close and fall is in full force with winter fast approaching! Before the snow falls, we wanted to give you an update on all the great things that we worked on over the summer.

• We formed a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team and have set out to understand and address structural racism within our organization and in the context of the work we do.
• We operated our Bike Ferry and Trailside Center safely and successfully during this summer of COVID-19.
• We turned our in-person safety, education, and Learning Network workshops into webinars and reached more people than ever.
• We continued to offer our E-bike Lending Library so Vermonters could get outside in a new and fun way.
• We maintained over three miles of protected bike lanes in Burlington.

But that’s not all! Read more about what we’ve done this summer by scrolling through our fall newsletter. 

If the last several months have taught us anything, it’s how important it is for Local Motion to be adaptable and resilient. Practically overnight, we have transformed the way we communicate with our community of supporters, volunteers, and partners, reimagined much of our programming, and found new ways to deliver it. As we learned of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others, we began the difficult process of evaluating our role in becoming antiracist in our work.  

These are challenging times, and what we do has never been more important. We have provided leadership and expertise in supporting communities as they create new spaces for people to recreate, commute, shop, and be outside by advocating for—and even helping to maintain—everything from expanded parklets to new and improved bike infrastructure. Our instructional video series is helping new and returning riders (and there are many of them!) be safe as they discover the joy and utility of bicycling. Many of these same riders are utilizing our expanded E-bike Lending Libraries as a way to try an electric bike for the first time. 

We hope this newsletter finds you safe and well. As spring blooms right before our eyes, we are adapting to our current environment to ensure our programs continue to operate successfully. 

We are holding public online workshops to help folks get out on their bikes, continuing to advocate for safer and more equitable streets, monitoring and giving feedback on infrastructure proposals, and pushing officials to take notice of the inadequate infrastructure that this crisis has highlighted. Not only that, but we’re also working on projects that will make our other programs even more effective once they restart. Scroll through our Spring Newsletter and see for yourself all the great work we have been up to!

A few words from Local Motion Executive Director, Karen Yacos:

As we look back on 2019, I see a year in which Local Motion advanced the work of culture change and movement building in a serious way. We brought Jeff Speck—a thought leader in designing equitable bike- and pedestrian-friendly communities—to UVM, where he spoke to a packed room of officials including mayors and planners, advocates, and interested citizens. And then we brought many of those same folks to Montreal to experience firsthand the sort of changes for which Speck (and Local Motion) advocate. 

Summer has been full of activity and we aren't slowing down as we enter the fall season. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to and what’s on the horizon!

It was the mid-90’s and Brian Costello had the vision to move people across the Winooski River. To make a long story short, by 1999, Brian made that happen with our first bike ferry, and Local Motion was born. Brian and Chapin Spencer then proceeded to build what is today Vermont’s only statewide biking and walking advocacy organization. Styles may have changed in the past 20 years, but our devotion to motion has only grown stronger with time. Click here for our early ferry history!

Here's the 2018 Year in Review Newsletter that was emailed on January 23, 2019.

We’re walking and rolling! 2018 was a jamming year for biking and walking in Vermont. Thanks to you, our donors, community partners, and business members, Local Motion continues to make our streets more livable, get more people biking and walking, advocate for better policy, and grow Vermont's active transportation culture. Keep your eye out for a few Local Motion newsletters each year!