Our organization turned 24 today and what a journey it's been!
We started out with a volunteer board who was convinced by Randy Neufeld that they should hire him if he could raise the money. He did and the rest is history.
We grew and grew. We started producing events like the Boulevard Lakefront Tour (which turns 21 this year) and started consulting with the City of Chicago and other municipalities to make it better to bike. We advocated for new trails, legislation to make it safer to get around and won bikes on Metra.
We now have 6,000 members, a strong board, more than 1,000 people who volunteer with us each year and a staff of nearly 40.
We've expanded our mission to advocate for biking, walking and transit and the future looks good!
We're hosting Bike the Drive next weekend, our biggest fundraiser and one of the biggest car-free bike rides in the country. We hope you can join us www.bikethedrive.org. Bike to Work Week is coming up June 13-19 (www.activetrans.org/biketoworkweek).
And just today, on our birthday, the RTA launched a new trip finding website for our region that will include walking, biking, CTA, Pace and Metra so people can make environmentally-friendly commuting choices.