Since April, GObike has been working with community groups around Western New York to implement pop-up complete street projects. These low-cost temporary infrastructure projects are designed and often constructed by the community, and allow residents to experience traffic calming in their neighborhoods through infrastructure design.
In 2019, we painted 133 crosswalks in 13 communities in Western New York with the support of 20 community groups, including 54 volunteers who contributed 405 hours to the projects.
Our first curb bump-out demonstration project at the Father Baker Housing Development on Wilmuth Street in Lackawanna was the highlight of the season. Working with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Niagara, the City of Lackawanna, residents, Slow Roll volunteers and the Mount Olive Church summer camp attendees, ranging in age from 7 to 70, we first implemented a crosswalk and curb bump-out design created by the youth. The kids chose vegetables and fruits, sun and sky, flowers and sports as various themes to paint on the bump-outs. We also implemented our first physical bump-outs using wheel stops from Rubberform, a Lockport-based company that uses recycled plastic to create various products.
After the project was complete, Rebecca Reilly, our Operations and Outreach Director, spoke with a resident from the street.
“This is so beautiful,” the resident said, waving to everyone working on the project and the colorful bump-outs on the corners. “Seeing this community come together, to see that you care…we worry about our kids with all the speeding that goes on.”
Thanks to faithful and hardworking community friends, the City of Buffalo, the City of Niagara Falls, and the City of Lackawanna, the GObike tactical pop-up program allows communities to guide their neighborhood’s destinies through collective action. Our community volunteers demonstrated to their elected officials, with sweat equity, their desire for complete streets solution—enough to help us do the hard work in the hot sun.