‘BIKE CZAR’

Becky Katz working to ensure street safety for cyclists

By Dyana Bagby

Earlier this year, Becky Katz was rear-ended by a motorist as she rode her bicycle on a wide street with low traffic.

Katz was thrown into the car’s windshield, shattering the glass with her helmet, and she broke a shoulder socket and wrist. Her bike was totaled.

A long-time cyclist, Katz said she had no doubts she would be back on two wheels as soon as she healed.

“Within moments [of being struck] I was thinking, this has got to be better,” she said. “It killed me I couldn’t ride for about two months. As soon as I could buy a new bike I did.”

The traumatic crash galvanized Katz to want to do even more for cyclists in the city to make streets safer, for them as well as motorists. In October she was hired as the City of Atlanta’s first chief bicycle officer.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition made the position possible in large part, and received a five-year $250,000 challenge grant from the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation to create the job with the city’s promise to add additional funding.

Rebecca Serna, executive director of the ABC, met Katz several years ago as part of the Atlanta Streets Alive planning committee.

“She had really unique and creative place-making ideas for Atlanta Streets Alive, and was a huge asset to the committee,” Serna remembered.

Having Katz as the city’s “bike czar” is exciting, Serna said, especially after ABC’s lobbying efforts to create the post and its involvement in the hiring process. Also, Katz has the background and skills to ensure she is successful in the new job.

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She’s also fun.

“I love running into Becky biking to get places, usually in a dress,” Serna said. “Recently we rode to a meeting together in East Point, getting a little turned around in the process because we’re having such a good conversation! It was fun showing up together, both in dresses, on our bikes for a meeting.”

But Katz had been thinking for years, before her major crash, that the city needed to find a way to protect cyclists braving the city’s roads. When she first moved to Atlanta, she only rode a bike and took MARTA.

“There were certain points where I was like, ‘Why is this difficult right now?’ she said.

One way Katz envisions molding Atlanta into a more bike-friendly city is by just asking people to take shorter trips by bike rather than by car. If you want to go to the local store and buy a bottle of wine or visit a friend two blocks over, a bicycle is a great way to travel.

“Our distances lends itself to community … but when you get on Moreland and you go, ‘Whoa!’ This is a major street I need but it’s scary,” she says.

“How do we ensure we can be connected [by routes] that don’t make you feel like a hero or gladiator when you ride them?”

Katz, who previously worked with Park Pride, a nonprofit working with Atlanta’s communities to improve parks, says she is currently focusing on gathering data of cyclists – where they ride, where there are crashes, what roads are stressful to pedestrians and cyclists.

“Data builds a really strong case for why bike infrastructure can help all users of the road,” she explained. Ground counters and sensors are ways to gather data for cyclists, and underground sensors will be installed at the Atlanta Beltline Westside Trails.

Mayor Kasim Reed’s promise to push Atlanta into the top 10 of bicyclefriendly cities and the city’s $2.5 million in funding to double extend bike lanes from the Eastside Trail to Midtown seems to be putting the city on the right path. But Atlanta’s love for cars cannot be underestimated.

Just recently, the Georgia Department of Transportation removed bike lanes from its plans during the re-striping of Peachtree Road through Buckhead after backlash from officials and residents.

“I think that I understand why people are nervous,” Katz said. “That corridor is essential. Everyone knows that area is precious to our city,” she said.

But having people stop driving their cars is not her mission, Katz stressed. She simply wants to make roads safer for people traveling in all different modes of transportation. And she understands some people who drive everywhere are hesitant when it comes to sharing the road.

“Our goals are very aligned,” she said of cyclists and motorists. “We have a lot of consensus in our transportation standing; we want safe streets for people to get around in the mode they want to or have to get around.

“Our roads are precious. We need to work together, for a healthier, more sustainable and economic viable city –this is the only way,” she said.

Solar Atlanta, the city’s first solar energy program, will use existing state legislation and federal tax credits to purchase and install solar panels on 28 municipal buildings including recreation centers, fire stations and one police station. The solar installations will promote significant savings on the City of Atlanta’s electric bills, and are projected to reduce the city’s carbon dioxide emissions by 73 million pounds, while saving 216 million gallons of water through the year 2030. “Solar Atlanta moves the city one step closer to protecting our environment for future generations and toward our goal of becoming a top-tier city for sustainability,” said Mayor Kasim Reed. “Soon more than two dozen of our well-used community centers and public safety facilities will be powered in part by clean, affordable energy. With the Solar Atlanta program, the City will reduce our carbon footprint, conserve water and demonstrate our commitment to our values.” The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability inspected and evaluated more than 600 municipal buildings to determine the initial round of buildings that would benefit from solar panels.

Google Community Grants Fund of Tides Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to Trees Atlanta to work with the Center for Geographic Information Systems (CGIS) at Georgia Tech to increase the visibility of a recently completed tree canopy assessment for the City of Atlanta. Of the top 10 counties in the southeastern United States losing tree canopy to development, three are located in metro Atlanta – Fulton, Gwinnett and Cobb. Thanks to the Google Community Grant Fund of Tides Foundation, the study data is available to the public via an online tool built on the Google Maps platform. Trees Atlanta has created a community-based program, called “Canopy Conversations,” focused on the canopy coverage data of Atlanta’s neighborhoods. To see the data and maps, visit treesatlanta.org.

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