By Colin Killian, Public Communications Director
In this week’s episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Grace Hallowell and Transportation and Mobility Staff Planner Carl Ahrens discuss the activities planned for National Bike Month throughout May, including the Cycle with Council event on May 3.
College Station is nationally recognized as a Bronze Level Bicycle Friendly Community, as designated by the League of American Bicyclists. The designation reflects our commitment to a multimodal mobility system that serves all user types.
The “What’s Up, College Station?” podcast is available weekly via Podbean, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon/Audible. Please subscribe, rate, and recommend!
If you have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, email me at ckillian@cstx.gov.
TRANSCRIPT
Grace Hallowell:
What’s up College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell and today I am joined by our transportation and mobility planner, Carl Ahrens. Welcome to the show. This is your first time here. We’ve had some of your colleagues on before, but today is Earth Day, so it kind of relates to what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about National Bike Month and the Cycle with Council event that we have coming up.
Carl Ahrens:
We proclaim May as National Bike Month every year. There will be a proclamation going to council this week, April 24th, Thursday at six o’clock. Anybody is welcome to come out and we have our Cycle with Council event May 3rd. That’s how we kind of kick off our celebration to National Bike Month. So we have a short five-mile ride. It’s starting at College Station High School at the Field House. It’s going to loop through. We try to highlight a new facility that’s been built. So the new facility we’re highlighting this year is the Greens Prairie Road Shared Use Path.
Along with that, we celebrate the whole month as National Bike Month. So National Bike to Work Week is May 12th through the 18th. National Bike to Work Day is May 16th and National Ride A Bike day is on May 4th, the Sunday after Cycle with Council.
Grace Hallowell:
National Bike Month is a very exciting time for College Station because we are a bike-friendly city. We have multiple shared-use paths for people to ride their bikes and enjoy the spaces that we have. Even biking to work is good for the environment and good for your health. I have not ridden a bike in quite some time, but this is still a very exciting way to celebrate National Bike Month and get to know our council a little better.
Carl Ahrens:
It’s a great way to meet council. We’re also recognized as a bike-friendly community by the League of American Cyclists. We’re a bronze level designation. We just got that designation within the past year and we’re also the first bike-friendly business in the city of College Station with a silver designation.
Grace Hallowell:
That’s a very exciting designation for us. I know I see a lot of people biking to work on my way home from work and even here in the parking lot too. City’s employees that ride their bikes. So for the Cycle with Council event, are there any restrictions? Is it open to all ages?
Carl Ahrens:
We try to keep it as open as possible. It’s a short five-mile ride like I mentioned, and I mean we have people of all ages come out every year. We’ve had little ones that are four years old riding with their family to people who are in their eighties and still living a healthy lifestyle. So we try to keep it as easy and fun and family-friendly as possible, and safe. More information is on our website.
If you go to the City of College Station website, go to the planning page and then go to transportation planning, there’s a tab called Active Transportation and so underneath there it’ll have all the information, the map, it’ll have the registration and everything you’ll need to know about the event leading up to it.
Grace Hallowell:
Do people need to RSVP or can they show up day of?
Carl Ahrens:
You can RSVP or you can show up day of, there’s just a little waiver form that they’ll need to fill out and so you can do that either electronically or do it day of. I’ll have a booth set up so everybody can sign in there.
Grace Hallowell:
One more time, what is the date of Cycle with Council?
Carl Ahrens:
May 3rd at 8 a.m.
Grace Hallowell:
All right. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Carl.
About the Blogger
Colin Killian has been with the City of College Station since 2010 after serving 23 years as the associate media relations director for the Texas A&M Athletics Department. He has also worked as a reporter and editor for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and Lewisville News. A native of Hobbs, N.M., Killian graduated from Texas Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism/political science.
If you liked this post, share it with the buttons below!
