Bicycle Friendly America Summer 2018 - 30

NATIONAL BIKE SUMMIT, REVIEW
BY THE NEVADA CONTINGENT
KELLY CLARK
Nevada brought a large and happy
contingent of eleven bicycle advocates to
Washington, D.C. for this year's Summit.
With a good spread of experience from
the north end of the state to the south,
we also had a good mix of road and
mountain bikers and a broad diversity
of work experience, from Safe Routes to
School Coordinators to the State Recreational Trails Coordinator, and even a
public works director who knows the ins
and outs of street maintenance.
That is what made this year's Summit
so much fun - the diversity of people
from our state-and the energy everyone
brought to the experience.
It always helps to have some experienced leaders who have been to the Summit before. We had a pair of Aces there
with Ron Floth of the Southern Nevada
Regional Transportation Commission
and Scott Jarvis with the City of Henderson. They both have been to the Bike
Summit multiple times, and we all met
by phone ahead of time to take notes on
what to expect, what to wear and how to
prepare to lobby on the Hill.
It was exciting that this year Nevada
has revived its statewide organization -
the Nevada Bicycle Coalition (NBC)
- which had been on hiatus since 2011.
Two of us were at the Active Transportation Leadership Retreat, which was awesome, and three of us were able to attend
the Summit: NBC President John McCann, NBC board member Ron Floth
and myself as NBC Secretary. The training and experience from the Retreat will
definitely help us as leaders to lay the
path forward for our renewed statewide
organization.
The renewal of the Coalition came together rather naturally at the statewide
30 BICYCLE FRIENDLY AMERICA

bike conference in Henderson last fall.
Many of us recognized that we needed a
strong statewide voice for bicyclists that
had been missing since the epic year of
2011 when Nevada passed both Three
Feet for Pete and a Reckless Driving
Amendment in Nevada State Law, which
applied fines for those who drive recklessly and injure or kill cyclists.
We know we need to be vocal at the
Nevada State Legislature and locally, to
encourage continued support for bicycling as alternative transportation, and
for mountain biking as well. With so
much at stake, and a new eager young
leader named John McCann, the Nevada
Bicycle Coalition was revived.
What I liked most about the League's
Retreat in Washington, D.C., was the
breadth of bike experience in that room,
the willingness to share great ideas, and

the passion to change the world. Since
I have been riding my bike for over 40
years, and a safety advocate for 20 years,
it is a real re-charge to meet people who
share that passion and are doing amazing things.
For the Summit itself, I was a bit focused on improving infrastructure for
safety. I was really impressed by the
Federal Highway session on their new
design guidance that is available. Many
of us might not otherwise see the rural
multimodal guidance that is now available, but since I saw it at the Summit I
have asked our next Governor's Bicycle
and Pedestrian Advisory Board to have a
presentation from the local FHWA staff.
This shows engineers that there are options to include bicycle and pedestrian
infrastructure in all kinds of settings.
Of course everything at the Summit

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Bicycle Friendly America Summer 2018