LITTLE ROCK — For the first Mayor’s Challenge to Go Car-Free, Nov. 5-11, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola plans to park his car for a week.
“The challenge is he wants the rest of us to do the same,” says Aly Signorelli, a volunteer organizer helping the Little Rock Bicycle Friendly Community Committee publicize the challenge.
Stodola says, “Hopefully I’ll hear from some people who are going to take me up on the challenge.”
Which is to use your feet, a bicycle, a city bus or some carpooling arrangement rather than driving your car — for seven days, says Anncha Briggs, another committee volunteer.
Briggs adds, “There will be a scorecard to monitor your progress, and at the end of the week the card can be e-mailed or [mailed] in to the city. A post party is planned in MacArthur Park, Nov. 13, where the first 200 participants will all receive a prize.”
Stodola says he expects he’ll be able to bike to work once or twice, “but the way this is sectioned, you can hitch a ride with somebody, you can bike, you can take the bus, you can walk.”
But he’ll need to schedule his days carefully. “I’ve got to get my kids to school, and then I’ve got to figure out what time my appointments are. Depending on what time I’ll start I’ll have to calibrate how much time it will take me to [bike] downtown. Riding downtown is easier than riding back up the hill.”
Also, “in all candor, I told them that there’s two days toward the end of that week that I’m out of town.” He won’t be using his car because it won’t be with him.
“But I’m going to be here for most of the week, five days out of the seven.”
LEARNING HOW
To help citizens figure out how to get around without a car, for a week, the committee plans an educational fair.
Signorelli says the public is invited to drop by the Little Rock River Market pavilions for Car-Free Learning Day, from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday.
“People don’t ride their bike, they don’t use the bus because they don’t know how to plan a safe route, or they don’t know how to carry their stuff, or they don’t know how to use the bike racks on the bus and they’re self-conscious about trying it for the first time with people waiting. Just all of that simple stuff that can easily be answered.”
Visitors will find 12 booths, each with advice on “a specific topic that people need to address before they can commute to work or school (or church, or the store) by bike or bus,” she says.
Among them will be a booth for Central Arkansas Transit, which will park a bus near the pavilion so people can practice using its bike rack. (Bus routes will be part of the map directions offered by Google beginning Nov. 1.)
Another booth will let visitors use a computer to check out bicycling routes or sign up for a mentor to help them make their plans. Other booths will answer questions about hygiene, locking up a bike during the day, traveling in traffic, coping with flat tires.
Briggs says Stodola will explain the challenge from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday during the monthly brown bag lunch meeting of the Residential Green Discussion Group, Room 124 of the Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 Clinton Ave. Coreen Frasier, a volunteer with Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas, will also talk about safety, etiquette and what to look for when buying a bicycle.
More information is on Facebook at the event page “Car-Free Learning Fair.”
“I think seeing me on a bicycle going from meeting to meeting will be hilarious,” Stodola says. “No, not really. It will be fun.”
ActiveStyle, Pages 29 on 10/24/2011