Bike Walk Macon’s first Streets for All Fest

There’s more to Bike Walk Macon than meets the eye, though the group has offered a lot to see and do in its brief 10-year history.

The non-profit works to make biking and walking safe, healthy and convenient options for recreation and transportation throughout Macon and they’ve set a first-ever Streets for All Fest for March 6-8, just a week away.

The three-day collection of events is an invitation to have fun while exploring Macon’s streets and neighborhoods, learning about pedestrian possibilities and getting to know Bike Walk and what it’s up to. They’ve planned a community party and a variety of group rides and walks to do it.

The festival is a fundraiser as well as an awareness-raiser so there’s a fee for most activities, but two are free so no one is left out:

• An event kickoff Bike Party Decades Ride on Thursday, March 6, starting at 6 p.m. at Bike Walk’s 830 High St. office. It’s family-friendly and for all skill levels with participants encouraged to come outfitted in the garb of their favorite decade. Ten years, get it? It’s about a 7-mile, slow-paced ride.  
• A festival-culminating Plaza Party on Saturday, March 8, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. celebrating 10 Years of Bike Walk Macon on Cotton Avenue Plaza. Another family-friendly affair, it will include music, outdoor games and activities and chances to learn about Bike Walk advocacy efforts, activities and achievements.

A full schedule with ticketing plans is at the Bike Walk website, but so you know, paid events start at $20 with all access at $75.

“We liked the idea of a multi-day festival with a number of smaller events,” said Rachel Hollar Umana, Bike Walk’s founder and executive director. “We liked the idea of catering to different interests and came up with activities like a pet parade walk in historic Vineville, the Decades Ride, rides and walks exploring different perspectives on Macon and ones involving behind-the-scenes looks at what’s going with paths and trails and pedestrian safety. The Cotton Avenue Plaza party gives us a chance to bring the community and our partners together to celebrate, have fun and look at what’s happened over 10 years, what’s going on now and what’s ahead. We’re nowhere near completing our mission, but we’ve come a long way and are eager for the next 10.”

Bike Walk’s start

Bike Walk Macon grew naturally from Umana’s own experience plus serendipitous circumstances aligning in Macon. Growing up just outside of Augusta, Umana came to Macon to attend Mercer and, after, spent a year teaching English in Thailand. Among the year’s many takeaways was experiencing life in a car-free environment where walking and bikes were the norm. Returning, she found herself living and working downtown where it made sense to bike to work and walk to restaurants.

“I’d never known anything about any kind of transportation other than driving,” she told me. “Thailand forced me to live without a car and I saw benefits. When I got back it was natural to commute by bicycle. But still, I knew little about transportation and wasn’t trying to find out.”

But Umana did get together with others to talk about the ins, outs and challenges of biking in Macon. To expand on that and start what at first amounted to social rides around town, Umana applied for and got an 8 80 Cities and Knight Foundation Emerging City Champions fellowship and micro-grant for young civic innovators.

“That was the start,” she said. “And I learned more and more about city spaces being re-imagined and made not just for cars but for people. People walking and riding bicycles, enjoying where they live and work. We wanted to act and be a voice for that.”  

That was in 2015, and Macon Bike Walk rides and street events started happening.

Around the same time, Macon found itself heading a list of Georgia communities it didn’t want to be on.

Synergies for betterment

Macon found itself listed high on a state pedestrian fatalities list. City leaders were ready to see that change and grappled for answers. Eventually, what is now Macon’s Vision Zero Action Plan came into being along with the city’s Pedestrian Safety Review Board. By definition, Vision Zero is a multidisciplinary strategy bringing together diverse stakeholders to address the complex problem of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy and equitable mobility for all.

It values human life over mobility and safe streets for all users and modes of transportation. 

Umana and Bike Walk members became a go-to community-connected voice and resource while connecting with a cross section of community organizations from NewTown Macon to neighborhood associations.

Weston Stroud is Macon’s traffic safety manager.

“One of the things that makes a great city is having advocates who push for progress,” he told me. “The biggest public space in any city is its roadways and we must consider how they’re built and used and how it impacts the most vulnerable users. Local agencies can only do so much so having a group like Bike Walk Macon advocating and working on the grassroots level is of real value.”

Umana recognizes that often unseen, the organization’s role is more than just having fun out walking or riding bikes and that its growth comes from filling a need.

“We tapped into something, into an issue that hadn’t been tapped into,” she said. “But there were a lot of things happening. There was the development happening downtown, the issue of pedestrian safety, the growing number of people walking and biking for different reasons – they were all present. We’re lucky to have champions among our partners and in the city-county from engineering to parks and recreation to the mayor’s office and all around. They understand the vision whereas a lot of places don’t get it. We wouldn’t have the success we’ve had without them.”

So, who is it for? The community

Whether aware or not, involved or not, Bike Walk Macon serves the whole community, whether in the background through policy advocacy and bike giveaway programs or more visible, public activities like creating bike rides and traffic-calming, street-decorating workdays that aid safety and touch lives in various ways.

Painter-designer Erin Hawkins has worked with Bike Walk’s street paintings since the start and designed the Cherry Street artwork depicting the Ocmulgee River with notes from Little Richard’s song “Southern Child.”

“My first project was painting a crosswalk mural at Mount de Sales Academy in 2019,” she said. “It was pivotal for my mural business. At the time, I had only completed a few mural projects and the opportunity helped launch me into more public art. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with them on additional projects and love how Bike Walk Macon engages local artists while creating a safer, more vibrant and family-friendly community. Their work not only improves walkability and bikeability but brings art into everyday spaces where people of all ages can enjoy it.”

Unlike most involved in Bike Walk who are average, everyday cyclists like Umana, Renee Corwine is of the more serious sort. She’s Bike Walk’s board president and a long-time mountain biker and triathlete.

And she’s eager for the festival.

“What a great opportunity to grab your bike or walking shoes and explore Macon,” she said. “As an avid cyclist, it’s important to me that I feel safe when I’m riding on our streets. The Streets for All Fest is a way for people to get some exercise, meet new friends and, most importantly, learn about Bike Walk Macon’s mission to make our streets safer for all road users.”

As Bike Walk Macon networks people and organizations across the community, the impact is an enjoyable brand of community building. 

Successes and awards

Bike Walk Macon has records proving organizational success, from the number of people involved to goals accomplished. For instance, in 2024, the group carried out 115 events reaching over 6,000 adults and 1,600 kids. They’ve led or been involved with educational ventures, traffic calming projects and 2024’s 10 walking events, 14 group bike rides and 22 children’s activities. Since starting, the number of city bike-lane miles has increased from one to 12 and, thanks to the growing Ocmulgee Heritage Trail, there are 13 additional bike-walk miles.

Thousands of people have been engaged through rides, open streets and play streets where short and long stretches of roads have been closed temporarily to cars and opened to walkers and cyclists of all skill levels. Laws and policies have been established to govern future road building and repairs by Vision Zero values. 

Asked to highlight three awards and recognitions connected to Bike Walk, Umana mentioned these:

• Just this year, Macon became a certified Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community as recognized by the League of American Bicyclists, one of only 460 communities across the U.S.
• In 2017, Macon received recognition for the Macon Connects project which created 8 miles of temporary pop-up bike lanes downtown, the largest such effort in the nation. As a result, 10 times more people used bike lanes leading to increased bike-lane infrastructure.
• On a personal note of accomplishment showing she’s come a long way from being just someone on a bike, in 2024 Umana received a graduate certificate in sustainable transportation from the University of Washington.

The Streets for All Fest is the time to enjoy the streets and find out more about Bike Walk Macon.

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com. Find him on Instagram at michael_w_pannell.