2016 The Year in Review

2016. The biggest year EVER for the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition. Without question. What did we do? More than we could have ever imagined. All to help get more people on bikes and make our corner of the world a better place to live, work, and play. With your help and by DONATING TODAY, we can do even more in 2017. Just a few highlights from 2016:

1. Connect Our Schools VICTORY! Maybe one of our proudest accomplishments? With your help, we convinced the city to commit $1.5 million for greenways to connect over half the Harrisonburg public school population. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, VDOT matched that money with an additional $1.5 million for a total of $3 million for the “Garbers Church Shared Use Paths.” Read all the details about our biggest funding victory to date. Read about Connect Our Schools.
2. $300,000 for trails in the National Forest: Money goes a whole lot further for trails in the National Forest than it does for paved roads. With that in mind, we applied for, secured, and administered $300,000 in federal grant money to improve our trails in our backyard. These types of grants don’t come easy and require a whole lot of work. Since we had to front the money and come up with a 20% match (more on that here) we still need your help to close out this grant for the year. You could also win a Shimano XT group (details here) and you can donate your time in lieu of donating your hard earned cash. Read more about all the great trail Projects in 2016.
3. Bicycles for Refugees: Education classes on how to confidently ride a bicycle in traffic, donating bicycles, helmets, and locks to those in need. This new program has the SVBC reaching those new members of our community who are in need. Read more about the program.
4. SHEN-ROCK Youth Mountain Biking: in 2016, the SHEN-ROCK became an organization operating within the SVBC. This means that the spring and fall seasons (High school and middle school mountain bike racing) feel the same for all the riders and the SVBC supports the team in whatever way needed from publicity to insurance, and finances. The team grew exponentially this year and held team rides two days a week for most of the year. Best part, you don’t EVER have to race to be involved with the team. Read More about the SHEN-ROCK team.
5. 5th Annual Bike-Walk Summit: Five years in a row, with the help of our community partners, the SVBC has brought together key folks in our region to move the needle for biking and walking in our community. We even found another dynamic keynote speaker for the event. Read more and watch the videos from the event.
6. First Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan EVER for Rockingham County: You read that right! after 4 years of work and even some cash from the SVBC, Rockingham County approved a bicycle and pedestrian plan. Now we can move forward with grants and plans to improve biking & walking on our beautiful rural roads. Read about the plan and our involvement.
7. Biggest Year of Massanutten Trail Building to date! Almost 3 miles of new trail built this year at Massanutten. The new “4K” trail (starting at the bottom of “2K”) is the beginning of plans to connect the Western Slope to the new Massanutten Bike Park via trail. We PAID a trail builder to come and do the heavy lifting, which is why we need your generous donation to do it all over again. Read more about the 4K trail build.
8. City Council and School Board Candidate Forums: All politics are local and the SVBC wants to be sure our local elected officials are aware of the importance of biking and walking. Whether school board or city council, we made sure they know we are listening and paying attention. Read more about the Forums and questionnaires for School Board and for City Council. Read about the forums. Watch the forums: City Council and then School Board
9. You know there is more to come but we didn’t’ want to overwhelm you for #givingtuesday
   

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