Philadelphia Rolls Out New Road Safety Education Campaign

The City of Philadelphia is rolling out a new public safety campaign titled, "It's Road Safety Not Rocket Science." Included here are three of 19 different ads that will begin appearing on SEPTA buses, subways and bus shelters.

Keep off sidewalks!

The Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities  (MOTU) worked with Philly-based LevLane Advertising to develop the Ride-Right Walk-Right Drive-Right messages.  The goal of the campaign is to remind all users that pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and drivers share the road and that we need to keep the streets and sidewalks safe for each other. 

Don't be a salmon!

The $125,000 campaign is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and will run through the spring. Advertisements will appear on at least 65 buses, 50 bus shelters across the city, and dozens of Broad Street Line and Market Frankford Line subways.

Red means Stop

If you want to see more of the ads, visit MOTU's blog where they are posting them daily. The ads target different groups of street users, but these here are aimed at bicyclists. The Bicycle Coalition and AAA were consulted during the campaign's development.

From Our Education Dept: Empowering Students to Improve Their Communities

For the past two summers, the Bicycle Coalition has been proud to partner with Boat People SOS – a national Vietnamese-American community organization with a thriving Delaware Valley branch – for their Summer Youth Bike and Environmental Program (SYBEP). The program, designed to educate and empower youth around issues of environmental justice, was a tremendous success this year! Minh Nguyen from the Asian Youth Empowerment Project developed the six-week program, which involved 25 youth, four program coordinators, the Bicycle Coalition, and Neighborhood Bike Works.

The youth, whose backgrounds spanned a variety of cultures, languages, and neighborhoods, learned about environmental justice issues, explored the city on bike expeditions led by Bicycle Coalition staff, learned bike maintenance from Neighborhood Bike Works’ Joseph Tirella, and developed their own community projects about biking, community gardens, and pollution. SYBEP students worked with the Bicycle Coalition to teach our summer Learn-to-Ride classes, where dozens of Philly youth learned to ride a bike! Their hard work even secured them first place at the Philadelphia Youth Network’s Expo in the “Saving the Environment/Going Green” category.

Philadelphia Cycling Committee Meeting Tonight

The next monthly Philadelphia City Cycling Committee will be at the Bicycle Coalition Office, 1500 Walnut Street, Suite 305, Tuesday, November, 15th 2011 at 6:30 - 8:00 PM (6:00 PM Pizza and Refreshments).

On the agenda for Tonight's meeting are updates on the 10th and 13th Street Pilot Bike Lanes, Spring Garden Street Greenway Project, Safe Streets for Healthy Neighborhoods, the Philadelphia Bicycle Navigational Signage Plan, Delaware River Trail Projects and a sneak peak of the Regional Trails Website.