What’s Good for Trek is Good for the Country?

There is a long history of “Astroturf” self-promotion campaigns by industry masquerading as grassroots popular movements.

In the title of this post, I paraphrase a line you may recall. Actually, what the president of General Motors said wasn’t quite “what’s good for GM is good for the country” — that is the improved popular version — but instead, that he couldn’t conceive that he had any conflict of interest,

“because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”

— said in a Congressional hearing reviewing his nomination as Secretary of Defense by President-elect Eisenhower. There was, to be sure, a question of GM’s big government contracts, but also, in the decades-long afterglow of the statement, the question of the nation’s transportation choices.

So, today, this message appears in my e-mail:

As you’re preparing for Interbike, I’m reaching out to let you know that Bikes Belong will be showcasing their unprecedented, nation-wide initiative, PeopleForBikes.org at this year’s event.

While millions of Americans ride bicycles and recognize the economic, social and physical benefits of riding, only a fraction have stood up to help improve bicycling in America. The goal of PeopleForBikes.org is to gather and unify one million voices in support to encourage government leaders to support legislation that improves bike paths, lanes, trails and other facilities from coast to coast.

Throughout the summer Bikes Belong has been working hard to build awareness for this initiative with a presence at bike festivals and events – including a partnership with New Belgium’s Tourr de Fat, social media efforts and support from more than 1,000 bicycle retailers across the country.

To date, almost 70,000 people have signed the pledge to improve the future of biking in this country for every type of rider.

If you’d like to learn more, Tim Blumenthal, president of the Bikes Belong Coalition and director of PeopleForBikes.org, will be on-hand at interbike and I’d be happy to coordinate a time for you to connect with him.

Please contact me with questions and interest.

Best,

Troy Tepley
For PeopleForBikes.org
612.305.6256
troy.tepley@exponentpr.com

Let’s be clear about this: Bikes Belong is a bicycle industry lobby. It is gathering signatures to support its agenda, which may not be your agenda. I’ve been receiving Bikes Belong e-mails for years now and mostly, they have announced seed-money grants for bicycle paths which, as hoped, will attract more people to purchase bicycles. Many of the paths have had very little relevance to transportation needs. As the e-mail says, “bike paths, lanes, trails and other facilities from coast to coast.” Education? Rights to the road? Traffic law improvements? All have been marginal to the efforts of Bikes Belong.

With its “PeopleForBikes” campaign — whose promotional materials and dot-org Web domain create the impression that its backers are ordinary people rather than corporations — Bikes Belong is now turning its sights toward urban cycling. Given Bike’s Belong’s track record of promotion of facilities over other aspects of bicycle programs, and its lack of discretion about the facilities it promotes, I am, let’s say, wary.

The PeoplefroBikes campaign has now gathered more than 3 times as many signatures as the League of American Bicyclists, the national bicycling advocacy organization, has members. Shows what a good publicity campaign with money behind it can achieve. Does not necessarily show that the people who signed on have a very clear idea of what they are signing onto.