Danville Gets Sustainable with 'Bike-to-Events' Around Town

The weather is right for it, the Iron Horse trail awaits and now thanks to 16-year-old Jonathan Adams, there is plenty of bicycle parking at local high school Bike-to-School days and upcoming summer festivals.  Early this year, the San Ramon Valley High School freshman built portable bicycle racks as part of his Eagle Scout project. 

Jonathan worked along with members of Scout Troop 815 to complete the portable bike racks that can park 200 bikes.  Local Danville Area Sustainable Businesses leaders Heritage Bank, Gayler Construction, Chow Food and Bar, Consignit Couture along with California Pedaler, Trader Joe’s and Safeway supported the scouts’ project with generous donations to fund the necessary materials. 

Adams, an avid cyclist and member of the San Ramon Valley High School Mountain Bike team, built the racks because he often has difficulty finding a place to lock his bike downtown.  The town of Danville is working on grants from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to fund new, permanent bicycle racks to increase available bicycle parking capacity downtown from 121 spots to 215.  In the meantime, Jonathan's racks are available for summer street fairs and bike-to-school days. 

San Ramon Valley High School’s Environmental Club (E2) marked April’s Earth Day by ‘breaking in’ the portable bike racks at a Bike-to-School day on Friday, April 20th.  “On average, our Bike-to-School days attract about 200 students and teachers each event” said SRVHS environmental science teacher and E2 advisor Cindy Egan. Egan added, “Without these portable racks, we needed donations to rent additional racks to park all the bikes for each event”.  San Ramon Valley High School is already planning to make use of the portable racks with another Bike-to-School day scheduled for Friday, May 18th.   

SRVHS isn’t the only local high school inspiring their campus to commute by bicycle.  Monte Vista High School’s Green Team and Sustainable Garden Club have already used the portable racks to host Bike-to-School events at the end of April and last Friday on their campus.  

With school almost out, the portable racks will get plenty of activity at the Danville Art Faire, June 16th and June 17th 10am-6pm.  Plan to ride your bike to the event, bring a lock and park at the bike station hosted by the SRVHS Wolf Foundation.  The bike station will be conveniently located in the Balfour building parking lot on Hartz Avenue near the intersection of Hartz Way/Railroad Avenue.

And while you may be already planning to breeze to work by bicycle for Bike-to-Work day, this Thursday May 10th - don’t forget to stop by the Street Smarts /Town of Danville Energizer Station on the Iron Horse Trail behind Lunardi’s Market The station will offer support and goodies for all our bicycle commuters from 6:30am – 9:00am. For those traveling through other communities, visit http://511contracosta.org/bike-to-work-day-2012/ for complete event details.