We updated our how-to guide for starting & growing your neighborhood bike/ped advocacy group!

Several years ago, BikePGH’s Advocacy Team published a toolkit to help people form their own neighborhood biking & walking advocacy groups and launch campaigns that win tangible changes for safer streets. We’ve updated it a few times since it was just a Word document, and the latest edition makes it even easier to think through starting a group and campaign. Although the principles of community organizing haven’t changed, we’ve added the latest tools, context on our region’s recent commitment to Vision Zero, and updated examples.

Over the past decade, several of these neighborhood-specific biking, walking, and traffic safety advocacy committees have formed across Pittsburgh and in the surrounding municipalities (check them out). These “mini-BikePGH’s” have helped us further our mission in ways we could never have done alone, and they have brought invaluable local input and legitimacy to transformative policy and infrastructure changes.

Mostly, these groups do many of the same things that BikePGH does, only on a smaller neighborhood scale. They build community through organizing group rides, they spearhead infrastructure projects like bike lanes and crosswalks, as well as help build support and get ideas for biking and walking initiatives among their neighbors. These advocates provide critical support for meaningful changes to our streets, and hold decision-makers to bold policies such as Vision Zero. They are critical to making real changes to our streets that save lives and reduce car dependency.

We hope you’ll join our movement to make the region more livable, and start or join a bike/ped committee in your neighborhood!

Check out the guide for more details, and contact us with your ideas — we’re here to help!

Upcoming Workshop: Learn how to use the updated toolkit!

Our Winter Bike/Ped Advocacy Network Gathering is coming up on December 10th at 6pm on Zoom, and we’re excited to use it to show off the new and improved Grassroots Advocacy Toolkit!

Join us for a walk through of the new toolkit and an interactive workshop where you’ll learn: 

• How the BikePGH Grassroots Advocacy Toolkit can guide you through forming an advocacy group, choosing a campaign, and creating a winning strategy
• A proven framework for organizing an effective advocacy campaign
• How to identify tactics that advance your campaign strategy and goals (rather than wasting energy)

If you haven’t been able to make it to our annual Strategies for Winning Campaigns training, this will be a great introduction to the topics we cover in that full day training. And if you have been through it, consider this a helpful refresher!

We’ll also reflect briefly on our wins this past year and share about advocacy opportunities coming up this Winter.

This is for anyone interested in bike & pedestrian advocacy, even if you’re new to advocacy or not (yet) part of a bike/ped advocacy group!

We hope to see you there.