Bicycle Advocacy: A Stormy Trail - part 3

By Larry Lagarde

This is the 3rd in a 3 part series describing how a catastrophe turned me into a cycling advocate and led Tennessee cyclists to ground truth the Mississippi River Trail.

Trail Suggestions Bring The MRT Calling
Prior to Katrina, I had begun blogging about places to go bicycling and had also established ties with other blogging cyclists. Issues related to the storm kept me from blogging for 3 weeks, leaving cyclists like fellow blogger Kiril Kundurazieff (CyclingDude.com) wondering if I had died in the storm. I contacted him and set the record straight.

Kiril had been writing about the Katrina debacle and urging people to help. In reply, the executive director of the Mississippi River Trail, Inc. (Terry Eastin) wrote Kiril, asking that he post on CyclingDude.com her request for suggestions regarding how the MRT could help New Orleans by developing new local bike trails. A day later, I submitted several trail suggestions. Within another 24 hours, Terry had contacted me.

The board of directors of the Mississippi River Trail, Inc. was meeting in Memphis in a matter of weeks. At Terry's request, I attended the board meeting which was being held downtown at the offices of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. I was the only one that rode a bike there. I didn't know anyone.

Terry asked that I speak up if I had something to say. I sat, listened and then chimed in on the topics of the website and of trail mapping. Terry liked my suggestions. She asked that I prepare a proposal that would include 3 ways that I could help the MRT. I suggested local advocacy work in Memphis as well as helping with the website and trail mapping.

Terry tapped me to serve as the local MRT coordinator for Memphis. She asked that I lead a ground truthing campaign that would inspire local cyclists to rediscover the MRT and submit their own input regarding improving the route of the trail in Tennessee.

I started from scratch. I rode portions of the MRT. I created a project time line, shot trail photos, took trail notes, made contact with local cycling advocates and civic leaders, researched online mapping, attended city planning and cycling group meetings, wrote press releases, letters to the editor and started a Yahoo Group for the MRT. I created a list of potential project supporters, worked up a time line for route selection, created an agenda for the ground truthing public meeting, roughed out 2 potential trail alignments, scheduled the meeting, announced the meeting to the press, personally contacted all the local high profile cycling advocates and even created a survey form for ground truthers. Meanwhile, I managed a household, made 2 more maternity related emergency trips to the hospital and welcomed into the world my beautiful daughter, Grace.

Three weeks after Grace was born, the initial public meeting for the ground truthing was held. From cycling shop owners to casual cyclists, the room was packed. There were a series of speakers including Terry Eastin and myself. The meeting attendees agreed to help ground truth the trail.

I parceled out sections of the MRT to different volunteers. Each was responsible for riding and commenting upon their section of the MRT. Ground truthers began riding the trail and reports were being submitted. Then FEMA stepped in.

FEMA About Face & Return To New Orleans
Like many other hurricane evacuees that were unable to return home, FEMA had been assisting us with the rental payments for our apartment. With rent in Memphis costing over 3 times more than the note I was still paying on my damaged New Orleans area home, we needed that assistance and were counting on it lasting until the end of the school year. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats at FEMA reneged on their assurances and prematurely cut off aid with little warning.

Without an alternative, we returned to New Orleans and moved in with family. I continued my cycling advocacy via RideTHISbike.com; however, in the best interest of the ground truthing project, I stepped down from my role with the MRT. My concerns were that I would be too consumed with restarting our lives in New Orleans to devote adequate time to the project.

Though a variety of Memphis area cyclists had pledged to help with the ground truthing, no one stepped in to take my place to lead the effort. Terry Eastin took over the project and I notified ground truthers to submit their reports directly to her. I did return to Memphis to ride a section of the MRT with a group of Memphis cyclists and and continued to correspond with some of the ground truthers in an unofficial capacity.

Though busy with rebuilding in New Orleans, I agreed to become a board member on a fledgling non-profit known as the Friends of the Lafitte Corridor (FOLC). An abandoned strip of land running 3 miles through the city from the French Quarter, the Lafitte Corridor had been on the minds of city planners for years. Before Katrina, the corridor was slated to become a bike trail and a bond issue had even passed to begin funding the project. Naturally, Katrina changed everything.

With the City of New Orleans on life support and desperate to rebuild, residents in neighborhoods along the Lafitte Corridor were concerned that the city administration would sell off portions of the corridor to private developers. Not only would such a development destroy a historic transportation link (the corridor follows a shipping canal dug centuries ago by the Spanish as well as a formerly vital rail link to the city), it would also squash efforts to link and revitalize flood ravaged neighborhoods.

At the beginning of the year, I accepted to serve as the vice president of the Friends of the Lafitte Corridor. In the interim, we've made great strides and have even been recognized by the Rails To Trails Conservancy as one of the most important rail trail projects in the nation. FOLC has become the charity cause for RidingTheSpine (a trio of international touring cyclists) and has received grants from a variety of non-profit associations.

We have much work to do but the future is brighter now. Though nothing is set in stone, the prospects for a better and more beautiful New Orleans are very exciting. Without a doubt, it's a privilege to be helping to rebuild New Orleans at such a critical time.

Larry Lagarde
RideTHISbike.com
Ph: 504-324-2492
Urging bicycling for recreation, commuting, health and a better future.