Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all TVCA members,

It’s coming… The last day of winter is less than two months
away, March 19th, and we’re all looking forward to riding in warmer
temperatures. Despite having fewer riders on the roads through the winter, your
TVCA has been very busy working on activities to enhance the safety and riding
experience for all cyclists across the Treasure Valley. Here’s a bit on what
we’ve been up to.

We taught a couple of Street Smarts Cycling classes over the
winter and have another one scheduled for February 10th through the
Boise School Districts’ Community Ed program. We’re having discussions with a
couple of groups, including a new local chapter of Yield to Life, about their
interests in broadening safe cycling practices. And we’re also working with the
Safe Routes to School program to teach a train-the-trainer session for
volunteers interested in staging bike rodeos at local elementary schools.

We continue to support the Boise Mayor’s taskforce on safe
cycling as their recommendations obtain final inputs and approval. Several TVCA
members participated in the City Council meeting two weeks ago to show support
for the overall work, and to influence some changes that will make them more
clear to both cyclists and to motorists. Additionally, we continue to provide
input to the proposed legislation that Senator Elliot Werk (D, District 17,
Boise) and Senator John McGee (R, District 10, Caldwell) are sponsoring. Drafts
of legislation around a new 3-foot to pass law, anti-harassment, and
incremental funding for the Safe Routes to School program have been written and
are beginning their way through committee. We expect that the proposed
legislation may be heard on the floor of the Senate sometime in February. On
the infrastructure front, we continue to understand how TVCA and all valley
cyclists can support the efforts of the Foundation for Ada-Canyon Trail Systems
(FACTS) with their plan to complete three additional miles of path from Garden
City to Eagle Road on the south bank of the South Channel.

We recently posted a couple of interesting articles on the
website (www.biketreasurevalley.org)
that you should read. First talks about the overall success in 2009 for the
Tour de Fat Festival and what New Belgium Brewing does for the cycling
community, and the second from ACHD which sets the record straight on where
funding for our roadways actually comes from.

Finally, we’ve decided as a board what our priorities will
be for 2010 in terms of funding. Here they are in priority order:

1. Implement
   an online commuter routing system to enable cyclists to locate the safest
   and most efficient routes across the valley.
2. Invest
   with the City of Boise on PSA’s to make both cyclists and motorists aware
   of the new ordinances and how to increase the safety for cyclists.
3. Updating
   our website infrastructure to enable us to be the best single location for
   information on cycling in the Treasure Valley. Our current system just
   doesn’t provide us with the capabilities we need to accomplish this.
4. Augment
   the sponsorship dollars we receive to stage Boise Bike Week 2010.
5. Invest
   in additional bicycle racks for event parking at the Boise Centre on the
   Grove.

We’re very appreciative of the funding we received from the
Tour de Fat Festival in 2009, a $5000 end-of-year contribution from BOB
Trailers, and all of the generous donations from our members. Thanks very much
for your support of our activities. And as always, if you have inputs or ideas
for us, please let us know.

Best regards,

Walt