Meet Caron Whitaker | Deputy Executive Director, League of American Bicyclists

We had the good fortune of connecting with Caron Whitaker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Caron, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
The League of American Bicyclists is a non-profit that works to build a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone. We want an America where everyone has the ability to ride safely around their neighborhood- to school, work, shops or just for fun and exercise.

Today the League has three main programs:
Education- we have a train the trainers model where we certify people to be bicycling instructors, and then they can teach classes using our materials. Our instructors teach roughly 50-60,000 people a year.

Bicycle Friendly America – The League certifies communities, businesses and universities to be bicycle friendly. We have an application and coach them through the process looking at infrastructure, education, equity, encouragement and evaluation.

Policy Advocacy- In the 1880s the League successfully advocated for the paving of roads, today we advocate for policy and funding at the Federal level to make it easier for states and communities to be bicycle friendly. We also support our 350 state and local organization members in their policy asks at the state and local level.

What should our readers know about your business?
The League of American Wheelman (changed to bicyclists in the 1990s) has been around since the 1880s. That long history of fighting for the rights and safety of cyclists is pretty special. Then and now the League is made up of state and local organizations that are individually working at local level for change, and then come together as a coalition to make National Change.

The most recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that passed in 2021, included a number of beneficial changes that will help local governments fund bicycling and walking improvements, encourage states to address bicycling and walking safety, and includes increased access and safety for bicycling as an important piece of addressing climate change.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to recognize the Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists, Tempe Bikes, Living Streets Alliance, Pinnacle Health and all the organizations and individuals across Arizona that are working to improve bicycling and walking access and safety

Website: bikeleague.org

Instagram: @bikeleague

Linkedin: League of American Bicyclists

Twitter: @bikeleague

Facebook: League of American Bicyclists

Other: The League of American Bicyclists will be hosting Bicycle Friendly America workshops in both Yuma and Chandler in the next few weeks. The Bicycle Friendly Community Workshops are designed to bring community members together, who have a stake in creating a welcoming place for people to bike, to discuss the issues facing the community and find solutions to them. The League will deliver a tailored Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) workshop that includes a community-driven evaluation and assessment of bike infrastructure, bike and driver education, encouragement activities, evaluation and planning activities, and the ways equity diversity, and inclusion are used to measure all actions. The BFC workshop will include pre-work with agency staff and local advocates to plan the workshop. Through the two-day workshop, the League will send a BFA staffer to the host city to present and guide the workshop. The program is an interactive presentation that will encourage participants to take a deep dive into where the community is at, offer concrete solutions to issues, help a community realize its strengths and weaknesses, and provide a holistic view of how to strengthen and grow the community from an equity lens. Each workshop will also conduct a bike ride audit, organized and led by the host city with assistance from the League. Following the workshop, the League will be available for any further questions/assistance on an as-needed basis via email, phone, video calls, or presentations. Additionally, the League will provide: Up to 4 pre-workshop planning calls, and unlimited emails Assistance and guidance on local partners/participants to invite to attend, planning the bike audit route, and follow-up steps after the workshop Customized presentation for the community Workshop Workbooks and Action Planning Toolkit for each workshop participant Optional: Creation of a Google Group for continued collaboration Optional: Customized community survey to be sent 2-4 weeks prior to the workshop to gather a wide range of community feedback about qualitative data on bikes and biking in the community.

Image Credits
These pictures are of a Bicycle Friendly Community workshop in Reno NV. The League of American Bicyclists will be holding similar workshops in Yuma and Chandler during the last week of April.