TCCP is going to be amassing to participate in the Miracle on KS Avenue parade to be held on Saturday, November 26. We will be meeting up at 5 at the bike shop (423 Kansas). LOOK for BIKES! Parade starts at 6. If you want to work on decorations several hours before, the shop will have open hours from 10 to 1 earlier in the day! Come celebrate the shop and support the holidays, or maybe that’s the other way around! (There’s a Facebook event that can be found on the TCCP Facebook page)
TCCP in Miracle on KS Avenue Parade!
Posted in Topeka Community Cycle Project
Tagged Miracle on Kansas Avenue, TCCP, Topeka
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Urban revival puts butts in the (bike) seats
Elly Blue is on a monthlong Dinner & Bikes tour around the western U.S., along with Portland bike filmmaker Joe Biel and traveling vegan chef Joshua Ploeg. This is one of her thrice-weekly dispatches from the road about bicycle culture and economy. Read them all here. Via Grist.org.
Topeka, Kansas: “Kansas is sneaky cool.” So says the friend we’re staying with in rural Kansas, about midway through our Dinner & Bikes tour. The state’s capitol, Topeka, certainly proves this to be true.
It’s obvious that at some point in recent decades, downtown Topeka was left for dead. Less obvious is that it’s now bouncing back. It’s doing so in a “sneaky,” quintessentially Kansan way — without any flashy showcasing, but with unyielding determination. And bikes are playing a quiet but starring role in the city’s renaissance.
Getting ready for a sold-out Dinner & Bikes show in downtown Topeka
The few rough characters we saw riding around downtown Topeka on bicycles on a Wednesday afternoon chose, understandably, to stick to the wide and even emptier sidewalks. But it apparently doesn’t take much to fill the streets with bikes. We were floored when the organizers of our event here told us they had sold 90 tickets. People came out of the woodwork from all walks of life to fill a vast, dusty former department store building that was saved from being turned into a parking lot when the founders of the nonprofit Topeka Community Cycle Project asked to rent it out.
For the past year and a half, Cycle Project volunteers have taught bike repair skills and provided bicycles to the community for free, work trade, or affordable prices. The project is right down the street from a homeless shelter, and there’s a strong transportation equity component to its work.
“A wide diversity of people volunteer,” said Meredith Fry, a biology student at Washburn University and one of the organizers of our event. “It really brings everyone from everywhere, and seeing people be able to work together is really great. I think it’s been a big change for the community.”
The Topeka Community Cycle Project saved this former department store from the wrecking ball.Photo: Elly BlueDowntown has long been seen as a bit of a wasteland. Many of those who could afford to leave fled to the suburbs. But thanks in part to the biking community, that's changing.
“In the last two or three years, there’s been a whole change in mentality,” Fry said. “You have people coming downtown for an art walk, and you have a homeless shelter at the end of the road, and it’s like, yeah, you’re going to see them. You can’t hide them — you don’t want to hide them. We’re all people.”
The bike project “crosses so many different barriers,” Fry told me. “That’s why we charged only $5 for the tickets tonight.”
“Rethink Topeka” is the rallying cry around here of late. And it seems to be working. The city, like many we visited, is working with a consulting firm to develop a bike master plan, spearheaded by a bike-friendly city council member. We were given a draft of the new bike map and as I rode around I could almost see the future bike lanes on the downtown’s wide, one-way streets.
In three years, I predict that Topeka will be among the country’s most bike friendly small cities — and if the Cycle Project is any indication, bicycling will be available to everyone, not only those with money.
Elly Blue is a bicycle activist living in Portland, Oregon. She has been the managing editor of BikePortland.org, the lead coordinator of the Towards Carfree Cities conference in Portland in 2008, and has been an active bike funnist since 2005. She publishes a feminist bicycle zine called Taking the Lane.
Posted in Topeka Community Cycle Project
Tagged Elly Blue, Joe Biel, Joshua Ploeg, Taking the Lane, TCCP
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Kids Bike Builds
We’re building up kids bikes every Monday in the month of June from 6pm – 8pm. Come down and help us fix up the dozens of kids bikes that have been donated. We will make them available for youth directly and donate to organizations in town who service families with limited means.
TCCP / Craftavists Craft and Art Sale Fundraiser
April 9th: TCCP / Craftavists Craft and Art Sale Fundraiser
1pm-6pm
The Craftavists are passionate about merging art and activism. The Topeka Community Cycle Project is a volunteer-run community bike shop that is committed to the recycling, repurposing, and distribution of bicycles.
The Craftavists and TCCP have partnered to upcycle bicycle parts and materials in order to create handmade bicycle inspired art. Over the past several months, the Craftavists and TCCP have been holding Craft Parties at the TCCP work and learning space in downtown Topeka. The events have engaged members of both organizations in creating art and community. The artwork will be available for sale during the Rethink Art Walk on April 9th at 423 S. Kansas Ave.
Proceeds to benefit the efforts of both organizations.
Upcoming Events:
April 16th: TCCP Spring Bicycle Sale
1pm-4pm
All bicycle prices 15% off during sale. Click here for photos and prices.
Join us for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade this Thursday!
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is the biggest parade in Topeka – and it starts just down the street from the Topeka Community Cycle Project. Come join us! Line up at 11:30 for the noon start time, or 10:30 if you need to borrow a bike.
Check out the event on Facebook to see who else is riding!
Planning Workshops for Bikeways Master Plan
Click here to find out where your local planning workshop is taking place.
http://cycleproject.org/files/BikewayPoster.pdf
Landon Trail Update
Landon Trail Friends,
The Landon Trail can use your help. As you know the City of Topeka approved the plan to build the Landon Trail in Topeka from 25th Street to about 34th Street. The City match for the funds would be $100,000.
The Kansas Department of Transportation recently announced that they were increasing the funding for the Landon Trail from about $450,000 to $1,100,000. The city match would stay the same at $100,000. This will finish the Landon Trail and the 3 remaining bridges inside town. It would directly link the city section with where the Kanza Rail-Trails Conservancy Volunteers section begins.
The Topeka City Council must approve this Landon Trail Project. It is already engineered, so the funds will go toward construction. It will make the Landon one of the most important public recreational trails in the midwest.
The Landon will connect and be open to the Clinton Lake Wildlife Area and Wakarusa River this fall. Volunteers are making progress weekly.
We need you to telephone and email each Topeka City Council member and ask them to support this project. It will greatly enhance Topeka and northeast Kansas. It will pump money directly into our local construction economy and result in a facility which will be visited by many many people.
To email or phone the city council go to their site at Topeka.org and go to the link for city council. The item comes up tomorrow night, Tuesday August 17th at about 5pm. Please attend if possible to show your support.
If you or your organization would like to have someone speak in support of the trail you should call the City Clerk by 5PM on Tuesday to put your name on the list. You don’t have to say a lot. Just saying you support it, helps.
Pass this on to other trail supporters and ask their help also. It is a win-win for all of us.
Thanks,
John Purvis,
Kanza Rail-Trails Conservancy
785-263-9994
Posted in Topeka Community Cycle Project
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TCCP on WIBW
Thanks to WIBW for inviting us over to talk about the shop. Volunteer Robert Fitzgerald appeared on WIBW’s News @ 4 to talk about TCCP with anchor Melissa Brunner.
Click here to view!
http://wibw.videogenesis.net/watch?v=10764
Shop Hours Expanded
It’s been a busy winter and spring down at the shop. Lots has been accomplished in two hour increments since opening January 15th. Now that the shop has the basic structure in place, we are expanding our hours!
SHOP HOURS
Thursdays 5pm – 7pm
Saturdays 10am – 1pm
Once we get overhead lights installed we’ll expand our Thursday hours. Donations are accepted any time the shop is open. If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up here: http://bit.ly/d6cADg
Downtown Workshop
The Topeka Community Cycle Project and Friends of the Free State Capitol, Inc. have entered into an agreement allowing the TCCP to lease the space at 423 S. Kansas Ave. in downtown Topeka, KS for a community bicycle workshop. Let the fun begin.
