We’re a bit late getting this out, but a lot happened in 2022. Thanks to all of our members and supporters who made all this possible! Our top 3 highlights: saving the Farnam Street Bikeway, Walkability Team events: Walk with Us events & Road Traffic Victims Day of Remembrance, and increasing our capacity with Nicole Ebat our Membership Coordinator and 8 new board members! We probably missed a few things, so let us know what we missed.
- We hired Nicole, our new membership coordinator!
- We blogged about our mixed feelings and concerns about the Farnam Streetcar proposal after the Mayor announced that the library would be demolished, the site given to Mutual of Omaha, and the Streetcar would be built in early 2022
- We held three “Walk with Us” events this year
- Our Walk with Us in Blackstone made a bunch of noise, and the city took steps to improve pedestrian infrastructure
- Our Walk with Us at 90th and Dodge started new conversations between Mode Shift and City, and the city took steps to improve pedestrian infrastructure there as well
- Our Walk with Us in Joslyn Castle highlighted the concerns of a growing neighborhood
- Worked with the Creighton Social Science DataLab to gather and analyze transportation data that we accessed through a grant we received from SPIN.
- This story map came out of the project: “Streetcar rush puts Omaha Bike Network on a slippery slope”. It uses the data to show potential points of conflict between bike and streetcar infrastructure and advocates for mindful integration of the streetcar to ensure safety and Vision Zero goals are met.
- Helped continue the pilot of the Harney Street Bikeway
- Mode Shift Omaha’s Board Chair spoke in favor of the Bikeway at City Council before the Council voted unanimously to support the Bikeway
- Organized Mode Shift members and supporters to attend the rally to Save the Bikeway on September 29
- Reactivated the Bike Team
- Investigated streetcar planning and pushed for bike infrastructure to be included
- We have heard that protected bike lanes will be included, but we have not yet seen this commitment in any official document
- Began planning for more bike parking and bike rides in 2023
- Looking into support for Bike Bus to School and other bike education and promotion.
- Investigated streetcar planning and pushed for bike infrastructure to be included
- Sidewalk stories podcast was finalized; we’re considering ways to relaunch it
- Elevated the problem of deaths in our streets and hosted an action for World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims in November
- We were mentioned in the national roundup by the Vision Zero Network and in local stories on WOWT & KETV
- Affordable housing action plan was passed with action items around duplexes and Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs); Missing Middle advocated for zoning changes to allow for these types of homes that can often be found close to transit
- Mode Shift joined the stakeholder group for the Connect Omaha Active Mobility Plan (aka the Bike Ped Plan), provided feedback to improve the survey, and we encouraged our supporters to attend the open houses hosted on this (in 2023, we hosted Kevin Carder from planning to update us on the plan)
- Mode Shift was not invited to the Omaha Vision Zero Planning stakeholder group that launched in mid-2022, but has been following the process as we can through Safe Omaha Streets blogs and other updates from members of the Vision Zero Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). (We did host Omaha’s Vision Zero Coordinator: Jeff Sobczyk to give us an update on the process in early 2023.)
- Other highlights:
- We added 8 new board members
- Partnered with Blue Bucket Project to clean up our community
- Raised more than $10,000 to keep Mode Shift going with your help
- Supported another year of Car Free Midwest podcast
- Hosted bike corrals to park bikes for a few large Omaha events, including Maha
- Used our parklet to bring attention to the surplus of parking in Omaha
- We received a nonprofit subscription to Slack so we could access our archives for no cost
- We set up a Guidestar profile
- We started our website redesign (launched in early 2023)