Hope Street biking fun derails on data, money and influence

The eight-day Hope Street bike trail trial ended at 6 pm on Saturday with what appears to have been a bike-a-thon to the street in the final few days.

The results of the trial will be inconclusive because the survey the PVD Streets Coalition said they were conducting failed to reach out to the community at large, only sampling those trying out the bike trail or engaging with volunteers on the sidewalk mostly at Tortilla Flats and Frog & Toad, where promotional tables were set up. A survey by its nature should be unbiased, independent and devoid of cheerleading “noise” – this was clearly not any of those things and the results will only be anecdotal, not unbiased responses without influence. 

Our collaborating contributor who lives in the area followed the project along. We walked up to the Providence Streets Coalition’s promotional stand in front of the Frog & Toad novelty store last Sunday, October 2nd to fill out the survey. The first day of the trial, October 1st, was a washout with very bad weather sent up by Hurricane Ian.

After skimming through the survey, we asked the volunteer why they would do a survey like this. It was, in our opinion, amateurishly constructed and didn’t include key questions that we had been advised to present to the city’s planning and development department and for which we received no response. We will include those questions in a summary section below.

We had already reviewed the talking points from the Volunteer Guide that had been handed out to PVD’s volunteers, 50 or so recruits, to use to orient themselves and to be able to answer people’s questions. So, we knew in advance that the survey was openly biased. So we knew in advance that the survey was openly biased. Rule No. 1 in conducting an independent survey: Don’t take sides on issues being investigated including, in this case, will a bike trail running through the Hope Street business district, removing half of parking, damage our local businesses?

Saying that, we continued to engage the volunteer about the survey – when we asked why the survey was done like this he responded: “Because the trail is not permanent – and they want to make it permanent.”

We then asked: “Who wants to make it permanent?”

“The people working the survey.”

“Is that a neutral survey?” 

“I don’t think so.”

We were later told that the volunteer misspoke. But, did he?

Again, we looked at the Volunteer Guide talking points. There were two red flags based on our reporting.

1) To the question, “Won’t it kill the small businesses?”, the Coalition repeated its claim that a “mountain of studies from all over the country, and the world, show how beneficial bike lanes are for local businesses.”

The correct answer should have been more like – “the impact on small businesses is inconclusive and depends on each individual case. Every city, every neighborhood and every street are different.”

Joe Porier, author of a study in San Francisco where bike lanes are apparently working and who has been referenced by the Coalition, said he wasn’t familiar with the city’s Providence Great Streets Initiative and the bike lane controversy on Hope Street.

Poirier said that while he generally supports bike lanes and feels they have a positive impact on business, he also stated that: “Every case is very specific, and very unique.”

The Coalition had reported that “Poirier found that bicycle lanes in a dense city like Providence ‘rarely produce profoundly negative outcomes,’ and ‘that they are often associated with positive business performance outcomes.’

Except – those weren’t Poirier’s words. They were the Coalition’s.

2) To the question “Why are you doing this?”, the Coalition reported that it is “leading the effort because increasing safe active mobility infrastructure on Hope Street was the #1 most requested [location addition] to the Great Streets Plan during the engagement process in 2019.”

The meeting that was part of the process to create the “Plan” in question consisted of around 20 people. Hope Street was not on the agenda as a location for a bike lane at that time. And the Ward 3 Councilwoman, Nirva LaFortune, never reported the change of plan to add Hope Street, and, in fact, never held a formal meeting until more than three years later, eight days before the trial – when she finally notified the community.

When members of the community say they weren’t informed and were kept in the dark, that’s largely correct.

Lobbyist, advocate, activist

The biggest flaw with the Hope Street project is that the effort is being led by a lobbyist/activist individual and organization for the bike industry. Liza Burkin, who may be the group’s only “employee” is uniquely unsuitable to administer an independent community study because of her multiple conflicts of interest. Rule No. 2: Be neutral, squeaky clean neutral. Any charged words can influence the outcome.

First, Burkin was a registered lobbyist during much of the process. In 2021, she listed the Providence City Council and Providence Mayor Elorza as her “target groups”. She lobbied the city council and the mayor for passage of bike legislation. Then this year, she lobbied on behalf of numerous pieces of legislation in her role as a registered lobbyist for the state, targeting both the Senate and the House of Representatives. She lobbied the state legislature in support of grants and to give bicycles tax-exempt status.

We were told that she never informed the Hope Street Merchants Association when she met them in June that she was working as a lobbyist for the bike industry. We don’t know if she violated any ethical rules, but common sense and fairness would indicate that she should have informed anyone she met that she wasn’t neutral.

In 2021, she was representing People For Bikes, a lobbyist group based in Boulder, Colorado. People For Bikes completed a merger with a trade association composed of nearly 400 companies that deal in the bike industry, from the company that makes road signage to bike accessories, to Walmart. It is the largest group representing the bike industry in the US. PVD Streets Coalition was begun as an affiliation with People For Bikes, and still maintains that relationship.

PVD Streets Coalition, her main affiliation as its lead organizer, works through a fiduciary non-profit for money matters – that group is Grow Smart Rhode Island, also a registered lobbyist group and Scott Wolf and John Flaherty are also registered lobbyists with the state for the group, with environmental interests. 

People For Bikes has a unique interest in Rhode Island, a state where demonstration projects are often tested. In August of this year, just over 2 months ago, Martina Haggerty joined the national bike advocacy group as a senior director for local innovation. Her role was described by the group: “Martina’s direct work with city officials, municipalities and engineering and planning departments is invaluable to our local innovation work. Martina has been on the front line of some of PeopleForBikes’ most successful programs over the many years, and she understands the political dynamics it takes on the city level to make our infrastructure goals a reality.”

Prior to working for People For Bikes, Haggerty worked for 13 years with the City of Providence as a principal planner followed by her appointment as the director of special projects, where she focused heavily on strategic planning, urban design, forward-thinking public policy and more.

In 2022, Burkin again was a lobbyist, this time for the Providence Streets Coalition, to watchdog and support legislation at the state level.

We attempted to confirm if she informed AARP when applying for the AARP grant to conduct the Hope Street trial about the group’s lobbying status but AARP is not talking, other than to confirm what is already on their website – that a grant of $12,574 was given to the group for the 1-week trial. Notably, AARP is also registered as a lobbying group.

The volunteer RI AARP President, Marcus Mitchell, is on the Board of Directors for Grow Smart – which functions as the fiduciary agent for PVD Bike Coalition.  AARP RI provided a grant to the Coalition via Grow Smart. Mitchell is the founder of Shere Strategy Enterprises, a boutique strategic solutions company with focus areas in crisis management, small business start-ups and conflict resolution.  He serves on the Miriam Hospital Board of Trustees, and on the board of directors of Grow Smart RI, the Village Common, and the RI Environmental Educators Association.  He is a Commissioner on the RI Commission for Human Rights and a member of the RI Statewide Planning Council.

No pretense of neutrality

The PVD Streets Coalition – and Burkin, in particular – are enthusiastic supporters of the Hope Street bike lane, which became apparent during the eight-day trial in social media posts, photos, and videos. Burkin was often at one of the two engagement tables on the trail. There was no pretense of the implementers of the bike trial to present a neutral pretense.

From t-shirts for the volunteers, to blackboard signage and giveaways, it was an “all hands on deck” promotion. A hearty bunch, one has to say because for at least half the week activities were in the rain and wind.

Social media included tweets about the negative way the community meeting had gone at the Rochambeau Library. Our story – “Institutional ageism alive and well in tweets of group funded by AARP-RI” ( https://rinewstoday.com/institutional-ageism-alive-and-well-in-tweets-of-group-funded-by-aarp-ri/ )- reviewed that and the tweets about the need to work around meetings that didn’t represent the community they wanted to reach because they were “older, whiter and wealthier” than the identified population.

“These kinds of rooms (meetings),” she declared, “are pretty much guaranteed to be older, whiter, and wealthier than the community the project is based in.” Ward 3, where the trial took place, is predominantly white. The attendees at the meeting included small business owners representative of the nearly 40 businesses on the street, as well as homeowners, some of who either were going to have a bike lane put in front of their homes or would have re-directed cars parking in their side street neighborhoods.

There were more tweets than usual that day, with a last one saying, she “can’t wait to be the crazy old lady screaming in support at these meetings one day?”

No apologies. No retractions.

During the week, on Thursday, October 6th, PVD Streets Coalition organized a documentary film presentation of an anti-car film at the Festival Ballet’s parking lot on Hope Street. She promoted the film, The Street Project, as “inspiring story about a massive movement across the U.S. and around the world to reclaim our largest public spaces, our streets.”

In a mailing that was sent out, she reminded people to take their survey.

That event was followed the next day, Friday, October 7^th with an organized a “bike jam” event, which brought 125 bikers from around the city up from Wickenden Street to Hope Street.

There already were eyewitness comments made of people from other parts of the city riding up to Hope Street to participate in the trial and fill out surveys. Some had quite expensive bikes, bike clothing and accessories such as LED-lit helmets, “not your average biker,” a store owner noted. There was an observation of at least one biker who rode over a “counter” cable laid in the street multiple times. The counter had several cable locations and was installed several days before the trial began, but it’s not known by what group.

The Providence Bike Jam notice is telling. On Wednesday, October 5, the group, which organizes midnight rides around the city with a loud boombox bike and bikes decorated in bright lights, issued the following notice. According to the group’s website, Burkin is the contact person at [email protected], and there are videos of her leading off the bikes usually in costume with an inspirational message. The notice read:

Bikes Mean Business: Hope Street Edition! 

Meet: 7pm, India Point Park

Roll out: 7:30

Party drop: Lippitt Park

End stop: Hope Street business district – fan out, make a plan with your pals to stop in for dinner or a drink somewhere

Exactly one year ago – Oct 8, 2021, we came together in support of the South Water Street Trail to say bikes mean business! Now we’ve got the same message for Hope Street.

Not only are we human beings who deserve basic safety as we move around the city, but we’re also members of this community who love to support our local businesses just like everybody else. We’re excited to bring our bike joy and bizness to Hope Street this Friday to celebrate the one week temporary trail, and show how safer streets for all will mean THRIVING streets for all. 

Follow the money

When we started looking at the budget for the bike lane 1-week trial, it was only AARP-RI that told us of the nearly $13,000, but then noted that there “were other donors” – no one, not PVD Streets Coalition, after 14 requests, not Grow Smart RI, or any other group we asked would tell us who the donors were or how much more money was involved.

After the trial a tweet appeared from a national bike enthusiast and consultant. It was retweeted by Burkin, and not disputed. It read, “With permission from the city, @PVDStreets raised nearly $100k to build a one-mile bike trail for a week pilot in the hopes it becomes permanent!”

We’ve reached out for a comment about her apparent use of the trial to raise money for the Providence Streets Coalition. No response.

We contacted the person who made the tweet and he acknowledged in writing that they had raised $100K – but that they had not spent it all – on the Hope Street project.

Defacing one store’s petition against the bike lane

Some antics qualify as childish, like occupying a parking space for a promotional stand at the start of the bike trail at the corner of Hope Street and Lauriston Street. We assume that the city’s chief traffic engineer granted a permit, for a bike lane, and not an in-the-street exhibit.

On Friday, September 30th, the day before the trial was scheduled to begin, Burkin entered the Gourmet House restaurant near the start of the trail. When she saw a petition the owners had put out for people to sign, against the bike trial, she walked up to cashier, took her pen out and without permission wrote a sprawling message across the top of the page declaring that the trial “is only for one week.”Two staff stood by watching, but did not engage her.

What the trial and survey won’t tell us

1) It won’t tell us anything about Ward 3 that is statistically meaningful. The survey form didn’t ask for addresses. As best as we can tell, it set no limits on the number of times a respondent could respond.

Note that we reached out to Jill Elshelman, the Coalition’s lead researcher, to comment on our findings. She didn’t respond.

2) It won’t provide data about the opinions of seniors and people with both mild and serious disabilities in Ward 3.  AARP has no data. The city’s elderly affairs department has no data. The state’s Office of Healthy Aging (formerly the Rhode Island Division of Elderly Affairs) wasn’t even aware there was a data collection effort. A past demographic survey, commissioned by the People For Bikes, the parent lobby group, used a 40-year cutoff point to identify “seniors”.

3) It will provide no traffic impact analysis because Peter Alviti’s office told us that he wouldn’t be participating. Alviti is the director of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation. Although Hope Street is a city street, it connects to East Avenue and eventually I-95, the busiest north-south interstate on the East Coast of the U.S. A traffic project, which the Hope Street bike trail is, needs input from the DOT because some portion of the congestion on the street is traffic moving to and from I-95.

4) It will provide no data about how many people stayed away from the street because of anticipated parking problems, or came, couldn’t park, and left. It will provide data on Hope Street and side street parking.

5) It will provide no data on daily and annual bicycle usage among Ward 3 residents and whether Ward 3 bike riders commute to and from work. The earlier People For Bikes survey didn’t ask respondents how frequently they rode during winter months, on rainy days, and during the hottest days in summer.

6) It will provide no business analysis because the business owners were only told anecdotally to keep track of their sales before and after, and share them if they wanted to. A concern expressed by some store owners was they didn’t trust what was happening, nor the city, and there would be no meaningful year-on-year comparison since this is the first October in which they were clearly out of Covid’s impact. Any studies about other cities – including San Francisco, Portland, and Amsterdam – have little relevance to Providence and probably no relevance to the Hope Street bottleneck.

Personal observation noted few bikes parked outside restaurants. At 6 pm on Saturday, October 1, the first day of the trial, then no bikes on October 2. The following Friday, October 7, there were three bikes, and Saturday, October 8, no bikes.

No timeline was given as to the data collected on the study and when it would be presented or to who it would be presented to – “before the end of the year” was mentioned. Action on a Hope Street Bike Lane would be considered in the next administration, that of Mayor Brett Smiley, who takes office in January. Smiley has previously stated that he intends to look at the city’s bike lane program in total to review its future. He has stated publicly more than once that the businesses and residents would not get a bike lane if they did not want it.

Thank you to Roger Schreffler, our collaborator on this series of stories. Schreffler is a veteran correspondent and business writer who has spent more than 30 years covering the auto industry and technology involving the industry including electric cars, fuel cell cars, batteries, and smart mobility. In addition to his regular reporting for Ward’s Automotive, he’s written half a dozen research reports on advanced powertrain technology including EVs. For the past 18 months, he’s been covering the Carlos Ghosn story for Asia Times.

He and his wife have lived on the East Side for 20 years, moving to Providence from Tokyo. He credits the Hope Street business owners with helping us all get through Covid and feels that both the city and the PVD Streets Coalition have treated them shabbily.

While he has nothing against bike trails, he fervently believes that neither bikes, nor electric cars, in cities like Providence are the answer to reducing tailpipe emissions, at least not for another 5-10 years. For the time being, he says they’re “feel good” technologies. His preference: some sort of mass transit, probably electric minibuses, trying to replicate the Brown and Lifespan model.