(TL;DR: The BCU works to make streets in Boston safer, and a bunch of us are doing a ridiculously long bike ride to raise money for them.  Below are a few hundred words elaborating on that, but the short version is please donate so the BCU can keep pushing Boston toward Vision Zero!)

I am not (and have no desire to be) a Serious Cyclist™, but I really like micromobility (bike, scooter, rollerskate, etc.) as a convenient, healthy, environmentally-friendly option for getting around the greater Boston area.  At its best, the Boston area is one of the best regions in the U.S. for micromobility, with some outstanding rail trails and a growing network of protected micromobility lanes.  I love being able to pick up groceries, meet up with friends, or make an impromptu ice cream stop with my partner without the stress of traffic or parking.

Unfortunately, Boston drivers have lived up to their reputation—I have had multiple drivers try to hit me with their automobiles for snapping Bike Blockers photos, a driver run me off the road in 2022, a driver T-bone me in 2023, a driver get out and punch me in the face while I directed traffic for a group ride in 2024, and too many drivers to count almost right-hook me on my commute.  Since I started my current job, at least four micromobility commuters have been killed by automobiles on my commute route or within a mile of my office.  When I moved here, there was steady, visible progress making high-crash streets safer, but starting around February of last year, Mayor Wu and her administration made a jarring 180° and started freezing and rolling back safety and mobility improvements (partially in response to a certain real estate millionaire), and now that is being cited as reason for surrounding towns to do the same.  Thankfully, Boston area street safety organizations are picking up the slack and fighting for the infrastructure to run errands, get to work, and visit our friends via micromobility and arrive alive.

So the Boston Cyclists Union—?

—is one of those organizations, yes!  If you donate, your money is going to help pay for staff and materials to:

• Connect with residents across Boston and the greater Boston area to help folks learn more about street safety and mobility justice
• Meet with elected officials to ensure they are aware of Boston area street safety issues and press them to address them
• Organize events to help residents of all stripes get comfortable and feel empowered riding bikes and navigating Boston via micromobility
• Connect and coordinate with other organizations in the Boston area and across Massachusetts who share our mission

In recent months, that has looked like:

• Helping residents of high-crash corridors like Hyde Park Avenue envision safer designs for their streets
• Organizing volunteers to shovel snow out of bike lanes, curb cuts, and bus stops after January's snowstorm after the City of Boston failed to do so for 2 weeks
• Meeting with elected officials and City staff to improve prioritization of micromobility safety (as we saw in their handling of February's blizzard)
• Coordinating volunteers to collectively track the status of every micromobility infrastructure project in the greater Boston area because the municipalities make that needlessly difficult
• Co-hosting a workshop with Northeastern Professor Peter Furth to help folks better understand how infrastructure makes streets safer for vulnerable road users
• Planning a community dinner to help connect different types of micromobility users
• Planning a neighborhood bike forum with a focus on Boston neighborhoods inequitably served my mobility infrastructure
• Announcing a series of group bike rides for communities across the city from the start of spring through the end of summer

I can also say, in my experiences with them, the BCU staff have been simultaneously brilliantly adept at navigating complex political fields and wonderfully genuine people to get to know.  Our work is only possible through the work of volunteers (like me!), but we wouldn't have had half the impact we have without our staff steering the ship, and I wouldn't still be volunteering with them if I didn't feel our progress.

OK, but you said Montréal?  Isn't that—

—about a 400-mile bike ride from here?  Yep.  That is around 10× the longest ride I have ever done, and I don't think my knees and I could do it without the BCU's help training us and supporting us on the ride.  A big motivator is Bos/tréal being BCU's biggest fundraiser of the year.  To be upfront, a little under half of the donations go to the BCU's support and gear for the ride, but the majority goes to BCU's advocacy work (and 0% goes directly to me!), so please help support their work!