Greening New York City Bike-by-Bike

Happy to share with you an article I wrote for the Green Edge Collaborative NYC's first Leaflet. The article is about a great non-profit that is successfully promoting bike culture and sustainability in New York City.

The spring is back in the New York City and so are the bikers! You will find them all along the Hudson River Greenway, an amazing bike route that stretches from Battery Park all the way to Washington Fort Park, with little secrets such as the Cherry Walk. You, too, can explore this route if you rent or buy a bike. One place we suggest you do this is Recycle-A-Bicycle, an organization that, in addition to operating two bike shops in East Village and Dumbo, is helping the City to become greener, more bicycle-friendly, and is teaching young people to do the same.

Recycle-A-Bicycle promotes everyday bicycle use by recycling used bikes. New Yorkers donate about 1200 old bikes every year which are then refurbished by Recycle-A-Bicycle’s mechanics and volunteers. About half of these bikes are re-sold, and the rest are either used for parts or transformed into jewelry, crafts, or art installations through RAB’s recycled arts program. The revenues are used to fund Recycle-A-Bicycle’s youth programs, such as professional training, bike-maintenance courses offered in partnership with New York City schools, after-school programs, and chaperoned group rides for younger kids.

Recycle-A-Bicycle shares a powerful vision with many of us, that of a sustainable New York City. It is doing an excellent job at realizing this vision by promoting bike culture throughout the boroughs among children, parents and educators. Through initiatives such as the Earn-A-Bike program, teenagers get a direct and integrated educational experience. For example, when a student volunteers 18 hours on bike repair, they earn their own bicycle frame, which they can build and ride for themselves. Through bicycle riding, students learn first-hand about the importance of being fit and active and also learn to respect their immediate environment by not polluting it. The hope is that the children of today will continue to promote positive bicycle culture as they grow and become influential in their communities. Recycle-A-Bicycle estimates that they work with about 1,000 young people a year and ride about 500 miles during this time. In the fifteen years they’ve been around, this amounts to direct outreach to thousands of New York City youth!

Recycle-A-Bicycle has helped New York City become a much more bike-rider-friendly city than it used to be by encouraging bicycle riding. “We introduce a lot of people to cycling for the first time, young people and adults alike. Being a community-based bike shop we want to get people riding bicycles. It is not uncommon for people to come to our shops to buy the first bike that they’ve had in years – something we very much support,” says Pasqualina Azzarello, Executive Director of Recycle-A-Bicycle.

New York City is witnessing a shift in the public consciousness which is becoming more open to different forms of transportation and lifestyles. The numbers of bike-lanes and bike-riders are increasing. Recycle-A-Bicycle works in support of Transportation Alternatives, who advocates for more bike lanes and helps to introduce bicycle safety issues to the main stream. In addition, Recycle-A-Bicycle helps many people get fit and comfortable with riding the streets of New York City by offering Bike Maintenance classes in partnership with Bike New York. “The presence of more riders on the streets of New York really helps to encourage our local government to want to accommodate that. If people weren’t riding, then bike lanes would be a good idea in an abstract way,” says Azzarello.