GObike

The cowardice of all these hit and runs (12 that we know of) and the inability to stop them, or even speak about them by most of our community's elected leadership has defined Buffalo and Western New York this summer.
Exponentially more people in and out of power race to the comment section or to an available microphone to demand something be done about e-bike riders going no faster than any driver, than those who have ever demanded something be done about all these murderous, unaccountable drivers on our terribly designed roadways.
What is behind the shift? Everyone reading this post grew up on safer streets than kids have today. And the solution is to blame everyone outside of a car or truck for their own death??

Here until 3P where your kids can get helmets, locks, lights while supplies last along with a bike safety course, hot dogs and snacks!
Doat and Bailey with

Our final East Side Bike Rodeo is this Saturday!
Please register your child in advance using bit.ly/rodeoseastside2024

So much fun this weekend across the region. There's also a bikes and skateboards event for kids in the city! See comments for details!

East Side Youth Bike Rodeo, Pedal for Parks ride ready to roll this weekend GObike Buffalo and its partners will sponsor another East Side Youth Bike Rodeo event from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, 165 Doat St.

"We'd do it again. It's the right thing to do. You certainly know it's the buzz of the city."
Get yourself into High Gear by picking up a bag at 313 Broadway. Open until 6 today, 10-2 tomorrow.
Have some excellent rides this weekend, friends!

Get ready for Camp Coffee Ride next Sunday, September 29 - Bike, or Rail & Bike Edition to Niawanda Park!
The Bills have a night game, so what else would you rather do with all your nervous energy than RIDE!
If you’ve never done Camp Coffee Ride before, it’s a great chance to do a group ride that covers some distance at a moderate pace. Gather at GObike’s HQ at 313 Broadway at 9:30A, we’ll depart at 10:00A.
Two Options:
1: Ride through downtown to the river and all the way up Shoreline Trail to Niawanda Park (12 mi out, 12 mi round trip)
2: Ride to the NFTA Metro on Main Street downtown, ride it with your bike to LaSalle Station and ride the Rails to Trails path through North Buffalo, Kenmore and Tonawanda to Niawanda Park. (6 mi ride out, 6 mi ride back). Celebrate September being Transit Month!
If you’d like to ride home with the group, you can expect to be back at 313 Broadway at 1:30P.
For logistics and FREE COFFEE, please be sure to register (for free) in advance. See you Sunday 9/29!

Camp Coffee Ride: Niawanda Park Join us for a monthly group bike ride to a local park where we savor coffee together in the great outdoors.

Our friends at in Black Rock were excited to send in these photos that the cycling path on the north side of the rail bridge to Unity Island is finally back open!
Have a great ride!

This caption from Open Buffalo encompasses everything we feel, and have been trying to portray for years.
When other organizations speak up like this, it moves mountains. Thank you.

Over the last two years, Buffalo and the surrounding region has experienced an unprecedented increase in the number of cycling and pedestrian injuries and fatalities caused by motor vehicles. Some riders have been left for dead on the side of the road while others have suffered injuries from which they will never fully recover. As is too often the case, the immediate response is to attempt to normalize these deaths, or worse, blame the victims. Although reasonable safety measures can be taken to minimize the frequency and severity of such accidents, there are many who seem more concerned that they may be inconvenienced by the presence of bike lanes or speed bumps during their daily commute than they are by people getting killed while riding their bikes.

This is likely attributable to America’s car culture, which prizes the independence and autonomy offered by owning an automobile. Consequently, the country’s landscape has been shaped by our reverence for and reliance upon cars to the point that those who use alternative forms of transportation, such as a bicycle, are often viewed as a nuisance, if not worse. Setting aside the economic, health, and environmental benefits of cycling, it is myopic to believe that car ownership should afford one a greater claim to roadways and safe travel than any other form of transportation.

Nonetheless, whether someone chooses to ride a bicycle because it is good for the environment, good for their body, and the most economical means of transportation available to them, their safety should not be so easily sacrificed simply because we deign to inconveniencing motorists. If, as many assert, “all lives matter,” then that includes our friends, family, and children when they are on their bikes.

There's always time to stop and enjoy the view when you're commuting by bike 😍.

Saddened to learn about the loss of another life.
If the report is correct, and this man failed to yield, it's a reminder that our education efforts on social, in schools, in partnership with municipalities and businesses, can never quite reach enough people. When you see our educational videos online, please share them to your networks. You never know whose behavior you might change for the better.
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What we won't accept is this report contributing to the ill-informed movement against e-bikes. Any cyclist can reach the speeds that an e-bike can when they're pedaling hard, or going downhill. E-bikes have opened up the opportunity for cycling to so many people who would not have rode a bike before, because of distance or whatever level of fitness they were in. They're a public health solution, a climate solution, and they're fun to ride, as all bikes are. Please, ride them safely, on the right, just as you would any other bicycle, and let's all look out for each other on our roadways.

We were so happy to join Jamal Davis of CEJ Buffalo when we talked to Thomas O Neil White of WBFO for 'What's Next?'
It's 10:07 meaning it's going on air on 88.7FM RIGHT NOW. Or you can listen anytime right here: wbfo.org/podcast/buffalo-whats-next
"Transportation inequality restricts access to jobs and key services for community members. Go Bike and the Coalition of Economic Justice are two groups that aim to change the system through their transit initiatives and legislative recommendations. On today’s show, we welcome Justin Booth, the executive director of Go Bike, Kevin Heffernan, the communications director of Go Bike, and Jamal Davis, a transit rider organizer for the Coalition of Economic Justice. The three sit down with Thomas O-Neil-White to discuss what better transportation safety looks like, and how better access to transportation can be achieved."
Happy Transit Month!

Driver was high, hit and seriously injured a child out riding her bike and may spend 4 years in prison.
We need protected pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure NOW across all of Western New York so that children don't have to be anywhere near all these drunk, high, speeding, texting, reckless drivers.
Other cities and towns across our country are doing it better and faster than us. Why accept mediocrity and all the injuries and deaths that come with it here?

Niagara Falls woman pleads guilty to vehicular assault after seriously injuring juvenile BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A Niagara Falls woman pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon to second-degree vehicular assault after hitting and seriously injuring a juvenile last year, the Niagara County …

"Transportation policy must no longer value the convenience of vehicular traffic over neighborhoods that are subjected to too much of it. Efforts to add more mitigating green infrastructure should continue.
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Second, Buffalo urgently needs better mental health care and more of it. With only one hospital serving patients needing intensive psychiatric care and inadequate outpatient facilities for mental health emergencies that don't call for hospitalization, efforts to expand the area's mental health resources are slow in coming to fruition.
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Gov. Kathy Hochul's fiscal year 2023 executive budget included a $1 billion multiyear plan meant to "drastically reduce the number of individuals with unmet mental health needs throughout the state." That announcement was made 19 month ago, but Buffalo has not yet seen substantial boots-on-theground benefits. There is some progress: BestSelf is expected to open its new crisis stabilization center at 430 Niagara St. during the first quarter of 2025."

Disturbing data EDITORIAL

Keep banging the drum.
In the 1970's, the Netherlands looked a lot like Western New York does today.
Every day citizens there looked around at all the dead children on their streets and declared it unacceptable. They organized, protested, and demanded safer infrastructure for people to walk and bike. It took decades to become the global cycling leaders they are today, with some of the world's highest rankings in health, happiness, economic output, and economic opportunity.
It all started with a movement to protect their own kids' lives.
On Saturday, over 100 people shared that sentiment when they showed up for our ride with East Side Bike Club and Slow Roll, Reddy Bikeshare, Slow Spokes, WNY Bikes, and others.
Who will decide they've read enough headlines about dead kids and join us next time to demand urgent action in building out safe infrastructure? Will you step up?

The Editorial Board: A child's death adds another tragic reason to make Western New York streets safer Will Western New York’s streets ever be safe for cyclists and pedestrians? The deadly possibility that motor vehicles will hit and kill either seems to loom larger than ever in

More lies by drivers leading to young women in our community being killed.
As she left her shift at Cole's in summer of 2023, 21-year-old Sydney Lohr was killed by Mohammed Tanbir as he drove down Elmwood.
Tanbir's windows were heavily tinted. He had forged a doctor's note to the state DMV saying he medically qualified for the tints.
Now a young woman is dead, and Tanbir is free, pending trial where he faces a maximum of seven years in prison.

Driver in fatal accident arraigned for false claim to get tinted windows Mohammed R. Tanbir, 27, of Buffalo, was indicted on three counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a Class D felony, and three counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, a Class E felony.

You are the greatest steward of your city. Join us as we reconvene on Gaiter Parkway on Saturday 9/28!
East Side Trails are moving forward. We're excited to share the next steps with you soon. In the meantime, let's keep what we've got clean, accessible, and beautiful!

Justin Booth will be speaking on behalf of the Scajaquada Corridor Coalition.
Learn more at parksidebuffalo.org/event-5812439

On social and in our post-implementation survey for residents and visitors of Fredonia, our pilot project featuring curb extensions and buffered bike lanes has been received positively, especially as students have returned to campus.
We thank local and county leadership for being outstanding partners throughout this process.
Enjoy a beautiful walk, roll, or ride down Central Ave, folks!

Over 100 cyclists from multiple riding groups across WNY showed up this morning to mourn the loss of Trevor Friedly. Trevor, whose sole means of transportation was his bicycle, was out riding last Friday, lights on, in a bike lane, when a reckless driver on Fillmore Avenue hit and killed him. Despicably, that coward behind the wheel left the scene.
Those in attendance today stopped at City Hall on our way to a ghost bike installation to demand city leadership's attention and action to condem this summer's traffic violence and develop solutions.
Trevor joins countless Western New Yorkers out walking or biking who have been injured or killed by drivers this summer, including 8th Grader Leah Mayer who was killed this week in Grand Island while out walking.
None of this is normal. None of it is acceptable.
And none of it is inevitable! We just need our elected leaders to acknowledge that the lives of their residents are more important than protecting driver's ability to speed, to be drunk, to be on their phones.
Then the work to transform our region into one where children and adults are safe can progress.