Changing gears – A new focus and new leadership at Bike Baton Rouge

Mark Martin is prepping for a full schedule of projects on the horizon—from securing a designation of Route 90 from DeRidder to Bogalusa as a US Bicycle Route, preparing for workshops later this month with several Baton Rouge organizations to brainstorm how to use federal funding to improve bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and consulting with the city on a new Dalrymple Drive bike path.

That’s a lot of bike-centric work for a guy who just stepped down from his post at Bike Baton Rouge. Earlier this week, the non-profit organization announced Martin, who established it in 2006, had retired as its longtime chairman.

“It was time,” he says. “It was pretty clear we needed a change. If you’ve been at it this long, a pattern can start to happen where it becomes your thing rather the organization’s thing.”

Martin (pictured above) has a long list of accomplishments with Bike Baton Rouge, from helping establish the Mayor’s Family Bike Day and the annual Velo Louisiane Bicycle Festival to petitioning DPW to include bicycle and pedestrian facilities on new road improvements and encouraging legislation that adopted a Complete Streets model for new DOTD projects. Still, Martin says he was ready to hand over the reins to a new group of Bike Baton Rouge members with new ideas.

One of those folks is Beaux Jones, a current board member and assistant attorney general who has taken Martin’s place as chairman. Jones helped spearhead the name change of Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets to Bike Baton Rouge. The organization’s longstanding work has been on policy change at the city level to implement better and new bike paths. But with the rebranding came a focus on getting the community interested in bicycling opportunities.

“What we realized over the last several years is that there are plenty of good ideas in Baton Rouge; we know what we need,” Jones says. “The problem is having that political capital—we need people who are demanding change, otherwise it’s hard to get things done. So one side of our work is infrastructure policy and advocacy, the other side is really just people—getting people interested in riding bikes for fun, riding bikes for fitness and also as an alternate transportation.”

One facet is the Easy Trips program, which encourages people to use their bikes for trips that are two miles or less—what amounts to about 40 percent of urban trips. Bike Baton Rouge is planning a bicycle route atlas with suggested routes to grocery stores, shopping centers and other destinations based on the neighborhood.

Another facet is the Bike Friendly Businesses program, which highlights nearly 20 local businesses providing bike racks for their patrons. The organization also offers free consultations to businesses that want to participate. “A lot of businesses want to help and cater to more active modes of transportation, but maybe don’t know how,” Jones says.

Martin has often advocated the fact that business owners could replace one parking space in front of their shops with a bike rack and accommodate 10-12 more customers. Studies have shown bicyclists don’t spend as much during each visit, Martin says, “but they go more frequently.”

And the frequency of bicyclists on Baton Rouge streets has been apparent recently, with many visiting the Better Block BR event in April to try out the temporary bike path. Bike Baton Rouge often provides free bike parking corrals at downtown events, and saw its largest turnout at the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, securing 173 bikes for patrons of the event. That amounted to 173 less individuals struggling to find vehicle parking for the popular music festival.

The increased interest and the fact that Bike Baton Rouge currently has its largest membership to date made it the perfect time for Martin to step down, knowing the organization is headed in the right direction.

Both Jones and Martin note that he’s still very much involved in the organization, but also plans to focus on some of his own projects now, one of which includes a long bike trip to mark his upcoming 60th birthday. Martin hasn’t finalized it yet, but says it will take him northwest to several national parks before following the Mississippi River trail back to Louisiana. He’s looking at a trek of about 6,000 miles and several months.

“I guess the more people I tell about it, the more I’m going to have to do it,” he says.