Note: Please note the video mentions a 25% increase in traffic, this is website traffic for www.youcanbikethere.com. Thank you.

Listen to a radio interview featuring Bike to Work Day in the Bay Area on "Our California: Eat, Drink, and Explore" on Krush 92.5 FM, by dynamic host and former Bay Area personality, Randy White. 

The podcasts are available on iTunes and Stitcher.  

 The winners of the Bike Commuter of the Year (BCOY) award are recognized for their dedication to riding their bike for everyday transportation. They are testament to the many benefits of bicycle commuting: from improving their health to bringing families together. Nominations were accepted, evaluated and awarded by each county’s Bike to Work day representative. Here are the 2011 winners of the Bike Commuter of the Year award. 

Alameda County

Jason Hollick

Jason Hollick of Berkeley, a sixth grade student, inspired his family to bike daily and is already a bike activist. 

Contra Costa County

Al Lim

Al Lim of Brentwood, who commutes by bike in all weather conditions, inspires his staff and family to bike. He also runs an orphaned bike garage where he loves to fix bikes to give to others. 

Marin County

Julian LePelch

Julian LePelch of Mill Valley, a 5th grader, set a goal to ride to and from school everyday and traveled 3.5 to 5 miles a day.

San Francisco Bay Area’s 17th Annual Bike to Work Day, which will be held on May 12, 2011, aims to motivate non-bike riders and those already cycling to get involved. With bike riding’s many advantages like healthier living, reducing one’s footprint, and an affordable transportation alternative, Bike to Work Day is headed for a significant increase in participation in 2011. Biking to work is a great way to fulfill the requirement of 30+ minutes of physical activity per day needed to stay healthy.

Bike to Work events, presented by 511.org and Kaiser Permanente, will take place throughout the month including a Team Bike Challenge and Bike Commuter of the Year Awards. Additionally, local employers are urged to help encourage bike riding as more physically active employees are more alert, healthy and more productive.

“Bike riding benefits not only Bay Area residents’ health but the environment as well,” says Diana Rohini LaVigne, regional producer for Bike to Work Day. “Unfortunately, bike riding comes with misperceptions from what you must wear to being fit before even starting. But biking is for everyone. You don’t need special clothing, you don’t need special equipment, and you don’t need to already be in shape to take up biking. All you need to do is find your motivation and jump on.”

San Francisco Bay Area’s 17th Annual Bike to Work Day, which will be held on May 12, 2011, aims to motivate non-bike riders and those already cycling to get involved. With bike riding’s many advantages like healthier living, reducing one’s footprint, and an affordable transportation alternative, Bike to Work Day is headed for a significant increase in participation in 2011. Biking to work is a great way to fulfill the requirement of 30+ minutes of physical activity per day needed to stay healthy.

Bike to Work events, presented by 511.org and Kaiser Permanente, will take place throughout the month including a Team Bike Challenge and Bike Commuter of the Year Awards. Additionally, local employers are urged to help encourage bike riding as more physically active employees are more alert, healthy and more productive.

“Bike riding benefits not only Bay Area residents’ health but the environment as well,” says Diana Rohini LaVigne, regional producer for Bike to Work Day. “Unfortunately, bike riding comes with misperceptions from what you must wear to being fit before even starting. But biking is for everyone. You don’t need special clothing, you don’t need special equipment, and you don’t need to already be in shape to take up biking. All you need to do is find your motivation and jump on.”

 According to a new report by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst says that building bike lanes and pedestrian projects, and bike boulevards, creates more job per million dollars spent than road repairs and road resurfacing.

The study, “Estimating the Employment Impacts of Pedestrian, Bicycle, and Road Infrastructure,” which examines the costs of engineering, construction, and materials costs for different types of projects in the city of Baltimore, concludes that, for a given amount of spending, bike lanes create about twice as many jobs as road construction. The difference lies in the varying labor intensity and the ratio of engineering costs to construction expenses across project types. Footway repairs and bike lane signing are labor intensive, meaning that a greater share of the total cost goes to pay people than in material heavy road projects. “Each $1 million spent creating on-street bike lanes directly creates 7.9 jobs and creates a total of 14.4 jobs when we include the indirect and induced effects,” the author, Heidi Garrett-Peltier, writes, “The two categories of road repairs have the lowest employment effects, with 3-4 direct jobs and approximately 7 total jobs created for each $1 million.”

Here’s the report’s conclusion:

After nearly four years of legal wrangling, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch lifted the city's bike injunction this afternoon, freeing the SFMTA to begin working on implementing the remaining projects in the Bike Plan, and soundly rejecting the objections made by plaintiff Rob Anderson and his attorney Mary Miles. Read More.

THE SMART board made the right decision this week when it rejected the Marin civil grand jury's recommendation to scrap the bicycle and pedestrian path along the rail line to save money. Read More.

SAN FRANCISCO — The majority of San Francisco residents support an additional annual fee for their vehicles that would go toward transportation projects, according to a new poll.

A $10 vehicle license fee, which 62 percent of San Francisco residents supported in the new poll, is projected to raise $5 million annually. The funding would pay for street work, with an emphasis on San Francisco’s bicycle and transit networks, sidewalk improvements and upgrades to transit stations and stops.

Read More - SF Examiner

Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials on Wednesday rejected a Marin County grand jury recommendation to defer building a pedestrian and bicycle lane as a way to deal with a funding deficit that jeopardizes the ability to open the rail line on time.

Read More