January 1, 2023, 5-6 pm
Join us for our first Holiday Lights Ride. It will be a casual, family friendly ride around Sleepy Hollow to look at the lights.
Prizes for the best decorated bicycle and the best costume! (Thank you to Coffee Labs for donating gift cards.)
Meet at the corner of Mahoney Place and New Broadway, Sleepy Hollow. (Map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/41.08709/-73.85795)
(Photo credit: Time's Up)
Tarrytown schools spend $3.8m per year on busing. That's 4.5% of the budget.
The majority of of Tarrytown's students live a short walk or bike ride away from school. But most kids get bused. That's because our villages and the State have configured our streets to emphasize the convenience of people driving over the safety of people walking and cycling.
Enhancing street safety means we can cut taxes and/or invest more on teaching our kids. Bonus: kids who walk or bike to school get to experience much needed independence, which builds emotional resilience and life skills.
The State Department of Transportation informed elected officials that it has selected a consulting firm WSP help the DOT turn Broadway in the Rivertowns into a "complete street." https://route9active.org/letters/2022-12-15-nysdot-cousins.pdf
If you didn't see our prior newsletter, it covered why this is good news, and why it is crucial for residents and merchants to advocate to make Route 9 _great_. https://biketarrytown.org/updates/2022-11-29.php
Many thanks to the Rudolph J. and Daphne A. Munzer Foundation for their generous donation to Bike Tarrytown. Please join them, and the many other donors who recently pitched in, to support our mission to make the Rivertowns better in 2023 and beyond.
https://biketarrytown.org/donate.php
Riding in winter is loads of fun... if you're wearing the right clothes. Cycling in the snow is a BLAST... if you know how to handle yourself. If you're interested in doing so, but need some tips, drop us a line.
The Village of Ossining won a second round grant of $7m to create an electric bicycle share program. This follows on an earlier $200k grant mentioned in our 8/17/22 newsletter. Once the program gets off the ground, the project hopes to expand to Tarrytown, Dobbs and Croton.
Sleepy Hollow's Administrator was not approached by Ossining, but the Village likely can get involved if it wants to, if/when Tarrytown begins to engages the bike share consortium. This will be valuable, since so many people in Sleepy Hollow live an easy bike ride away from the Tarrytown train station. And it will help tourists get to the Old Dutch Church and the Philipsburg Manor restoration.
We sent a note to Ossining's manager encouraging the inclusion of "adaptive cycles" for disabled people, as well as cargo bikes. We also suggested the system have a fee and operating structure similar to that of OV Fiets in the Netherlands. (A modest fee of $5/24 hrs. And the bike is yours until you return it, so you don't get stranded in the middle of a journey by someone else renting the bike you're using.)
(Photo credit: Cycling Fallacies)
Grand Central Terminal will soon have Long Island Railroad trains arriving. To make taking the train to Long Island easier, the MTA will be offering a new "Combo Ticket." Riders pay their regular fare to Grand Central, and for an additional $8, can ride to ANY station on the sister railroad.
We've updated our advice on how to handle common excuses traffic engineers give for not fixing dangerous roads.
https://biketarrytown.org/new-york-state/addressing-traffic-engineers-nysdot.pdf
In an English village, downtown merchants and volunteers have teamed up to deliver products by bicycle this holiday season. Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow could similarly benefit by providing deliveries by bike.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg3jr7mmwvzo
(Photo credit: BBC News)
Most trips are short trips. Here are some common misconceptions about driving for these journeys.
The new, young Mayor of Emryville, CA is recently got their DPW to install seats at every bus stop in town. Perhaps Sleepy Hollow can vote in someone like this when elections happen in March?
https://twitter.com/JohnBauters/status/1598046623489146881
In both senses of the word. You read the whole newsletter. And contributions from folks like you made it possible for Bike Tarrytown's work to continue. Please donate today.
https://biketarrytown.org/donate.php
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