. . . Because of the interest in FOGBEE history, Bruce's post "Back by Popular Demand" has its own PERMANENT Web Page, which will keep our young lady from disappearing in the future. Please click "FOGBEE History - The Yazoo Connection" also found in the Side Bar.
5 comments:
Tom,
It was a treat to surf the History of FOGBEES site. Re-reading the newsletter was especially poignant. The chief enemy of a Greenways system in Hendersonville is apathy. The developers and their political minions are the agents, but apathy among the rest of our citizens has been the real killer of dreams.
Bruce
So...the question is, "how do we turn apathy into empathy?" What can we as a bike club do to increase public awareness and interest in cycling? Seems that the current global warming and carbon footprint issues present a ripe environment for this. What if we got the Star News, for example, to print a weekly article on the benefits of cycling, walking, running, etc. that could be a real benefit to citizens? Include commentary from local physicians and physical trainers. We could include examples of our own explorations and achievements. How many bikers, runners and walkers are there in Sumner county? I bet the number is both large and invisible to the community.
Ed, I resemble that remark questioning the # of bikers, runners, walkers.....especially the large part, I'm less sure about the invisible part
David (Hardin) has been working at getting getting a politically active Biker Group since 1999, Justin & Bruce since 2003, and Tom since 2005. We have all given up. We're not sure if we should be frustrated with City Hall or the "invisible/apathetic" biking community. City Hall knows they can ignore David, Frank (Bowyer), Bruce, and me, because Foster told them to ignore us and eventually we'll go away and they'll never hear from anyone else. However, its the new voices that have the greatest volume.
Bruce wrote a nice Guest Column for the Hendersonville Star News. A few follow-up letters to the editor from many different authors (even if you have to "ghost" it for a neighbor) would help and costs only a stamp.
It will take a change of the political order for issues dear to cyclists to get much consideration. It's not just Hendersonville. Gallatin and the Sumner county executives also appear to consider anything but facilitating commercial and residential development an unnecessary bother. Never mind the deferred costs.
There are no apparent alternatives to the current mayors so for now we must take a cold tater and wait. Unless anyone has a candidate to lead an all our assault on rampant development without adequate concurrent infrastructure.
Bruce
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