How NBG. Indianapolis and the plan. 

Because our new plan calls for building a coast to coast network of Downtown Greenways in all 19 of our other NBG Anchor Cities similar to the Indianapolis Cultural Trail (ICT), we are bringing our annual National Mayors’ Ride here, to the Crossroads of America. Over the next year, then, I will be busy establishing Indianapolis as not only the legal home of the National Bicycle Greenway but placing the example it has set on center stage for all the bicycle world to see. Toward that end, the 2020 Mayors’ Ride will arrive in Indianapolis on Sunday, Sept 20, 2020 for a reception with the Mayor as a part of the city’s Bicentennial. Already we have the 2020 schedule on line HERE and have begun the process of recruiting riders for it.  

To help us sell Indianapolis as a worthy home for cyclists, we will be using my book, “How Indianapolis Built America and How it will Rebuild it with the National Bicycle Greenway”. Toward that end, in October and November, I plan to finish part two of two of that publication. During this time,  I will be fleshing out all the knowledge I have collected about the resurrected Indianapolis riverfront that now serves as a stunning introduction to the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

Come January 2020, I will switch back into recruiting mode. During this time I will also be working with Mayors’ offices in getting proclamations  written that tie these, our NBG Anchor cities, into our event and, hopefully, the Indianapolis Bicentennial. And once our Mayors’ Ride does kicks in Saturday July 18, from San Francisco and Friday, Sept 4 from Washington, DC, I will, as I’ve done since 2002, administer it.

Come the end of September 2020, once our Mayors’ Ride ride and associated reports are complete, I will shift into funds accumulation mode. I will begin looking for funds for a team that can go out  and  study the Downtown Greenway parameters in our anchor cities. In such a way we can flesh out the bid requests we will be putting in front of the landscape architect firms that can build this type of infrastructure. The ICT, for example, was built by Sasaki Associates, Storrow Kinsella and Reasite.

Once we have hard numbers, they will establish our fund raising goal as we shift into that mode for the next several years. It is here that everything will be on the table from grants to donations to charging a small amount for NBG memberships to the sale of NBG novelty items, to joint venturing merchandise-purchase days as with Amazon and Whole Foods, etc. 

The reason a cross country network of downtown Greenways will build the National Bicycle Greenway is because our route across back country America has already been lined out. Since 1998, our years of Mayors’ Rides and NBG Scouting missions have produced the pathways you can find on our main page at BikeRoute.com. Getting cyclists safely in and out of the population centers along its way, however, has always been our challenge. 

Downtown Greenways will give us the tool we need to be able to achieve the fluid interconnectivity we long have sought. In the case of Indianapolis, the ICT has even spawned other Greenways, one of which already covers almost 30 miles on the way to Chicago, the next NBG Anchor City enroute to San Francisco, if traveling from the East.

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