BikeCDA founder has eight answers

This week, I have "8 BikeCDA questions" for John Kelly, the founder, president and general labor for BikeCDA.

John has been in law enforcement since 1985. He and his wife, Kathy, moved to Coeur d'Alene in 1988 where he joined and continues to work for the Coeur d'Alene Police Department.

While living in Coeur d'Alene, John got involved with many bicycle-friendly activities including triathlons and local group rides which sparked John's passion for Coeur d'Alene's bicycle community. This passion drove John to want to make changes within our area to further inspire people to become more involved in a bike-friendly community.

Question: How did Bike CDA come into existence?

Answer: Coeur d'Alene is filled with diverse cycling enthusiasts and our developed trail system encourages locals as well as tourists to get out and ride, but not all of our roads provide the same enjoyment and safety as riding on a trail. As a police officer in Coeur d'Alene since 1988, I have been meeting too many people at accident scenes who have experienced unfortunate auto/bike collisions.

In December 2013, a group of us who met regularly at a local coffee shop saw an opportunity to advocate for the safety of all cyclists who ride on our streets. These cyclists ranged from Ironman athletes to commuters and kids who ride their bikes to school, to casual cruisers who live in and visit our beautiful community.

BikeCDA hopes to encourage more projects that would make the city's streets more bike-friendly and safe. In November, we obtained our nonprofit status from the IRS, granting our organization a 501(c)(3) status which will allow us to raise money to support our mission.

Question: Can you elaborate a little on the mission of BikeCDA?

Answer: BikeCDA is a collective voice promoting and fostering a safe and active cycling culture in our community. We provide a central hub to unify the many diverse groups, teams, and organizations that are involved in our cycling community.

By encouraging a vibrant cycling community we have a great opportunity to build a bicycle infrastructure that will benefit bike tourism and also encourage everyday cyclists to ride to work and run errands as an alternative to driving. Creating protected bike lanes creates jobs and is much less expensive than building roads and highways for motor travel. Bikeonomics contributes to our community whether you are a rider or not!

The other passion of our organization is giving back to our community. We are planning more bike rodeos to teach bicycle safety to children and adults along with helmet and bike light giveaways from our generous donors and sponsors and we also delight in our bike giveaway program.

Question: BikeCDA and the City of Coeur d'Alene seem to work well together. Are you planning any collaborative projects with the city council?

Answer: BikeCDA has a collaborative, open relationship with the Coeur d'Alene Ped/Bike Committee. After all, the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee's purpose aligns with ours. Their mission is to "promote non-automotive forms of travel and the development of safe pedestrian and bicycle facilities into a well-designed, integrated transportation network for all Coeur d'Alene citizens." Our vision is to have open, two-way communication so BikeCDA can voice concerns and issues to the committee and provide input from our 1,000+ members.

Question: This last summer we saw the arrival of the "Bike Corrals." Has that been a successful endeavor?

Answer: As shown in many documented studies, replacing in-street car parking with bike corrals has been proven to help local businesses and has also proven to be an economic benefit to the community.

Question: Does BikeCDA hope to someday have a program like Portland and San Francisco's Yellow Bike Projects where broken and discarded bikes are rebuilt and brought back to life for community fund-raising and kids in need?

Answer: We have already begun a bike giveaway program made up of dedicated mechanics and organizations in our community that fix up bikes and give them back to people in our community so they can ride to work or school. Many of the recipients of our bikes have no other form of transportation, so our work in this area can help a lot of people, and as a nonprofit charitable organization, donations for this program are tax-deductible.

If you would like to donate a bike (in any condition), or donate monetarily to this or other BikeCDA programs, we can be reached through our website (bikecda.com), through Facebook, or call or text (208) 410-6369.

Question: BikeCDA is very supportive of local athletic events. Are you folks working on any special events to get people on a bike to raise awareness of biking for health and fitness?

Answer: Yes, indeed! Our local community rides have encouraged many people to come out and ride, make new friends, and frequent many of our local coffee shops, pubs and businesses. This isn't just about biking; it's about bringing us together as a community.

Check out our Facebook group or page BikeCDA to stay up-to-date on all things related to biking in the area, including when and where we are meeting next.

Question: What can the community do to help BikeCDA support more biking and cycling events such as criteriums, cyclocross and century rides like Coeur d'Fondo?

Answer: There are several ways the community can support cycling:

* Connect with us as we connect with the community.

* Drivers can be more aware they are sharing the road with bicyclists.

* Bicyclists need to follow the rules of the road and be considerate of other road users.

Question: The bike culture in North Idaho is growing every year. What is BikeCDA's long-term plan for future growth of all things bike?

Answer: Our long-term vision is to work with the City of Coeur d'Alene to become a platinum-level Bike Friendly Community designated by the League of American Bicyclists.

To get there, we will need to incorporate essential elements across five categories known as the Five E's: Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, and Evaluation and Planning.

We describe this as the five spokes of a wheel, with each spoke carrying equal importance and value. However, if there are any weak spokes in the wheel, they will cause an unbalanced system. An unbalanced system will then create an opportunity for system failure or crash.

Just within the last few months, we have had bicyclists struck by motor vehicles because of the lack of or substandard in-street infrastructure. We, as a community, must first ensure balance within the system, even before we can begin to think about future growth.

Yes, we dream of enjoying all of the things that the current platinum cities have, but until we have a solid and firm foundation across all Five E's, we are only setting our community members up for failure.

Thank you, John, for your great answers. BikeCDA is clearly a great organization for our community.

Judd Jones is a director for the Hagadone Corporation.