For a successful advocacy campaign on a local level, it’s important to involve citizens and the cycling community to broaden your impact and make your voice heard. In Austria two innovative participation campaigns were held during the year:

• "Stimme fürs Rad" a campaign focused on the opinion of Viennese politicians towards cycling

• "Goldene Speiche" awarded the best cycling infrastructure chosen by the cycling community

Stimme fürs Rad

The campaign "Stimme fürs Rad" (Vote for bicycles) gathered information about the opinion of Viennese politicians towards cycling. In Vienna the district council has a strong influence on planning and implementation of cycling infrastructure, therefore the Austrian bicycle advocacy "Radlobby" wanted to know what the candidates of the different political parties think about cycling. This information would be presented to the bicycle community to see which political party supports cycling the most in their district.

The cycling community was asked to identify neurologic spots in bicycle infrastructure via an online web mapping application based around these questions:

• Where should be the next bicycle road implemented?
• Where are dangerous spots on the way to school?
• Where are gaps in the cycling network which should be closed?

The campaign was a huge success with about 1000 contributions from the bicycle community and 5000 responses from the politicians.

Glodene Speiche

The campaign „Goldene Speiche“ (The golden spoke)  awards the best cycling infrastructure measure which was implemented in 2015. The award goes to the local decision makers (planners, politicians, ...) for their effort to make the city more bicycle friendly. Bicycle advocacy on local bicycle infrastructure is often characterized by criticizing and providing feedback for decision makers. The award aims to strengthen the link between bicycle advocacy and decision makers, by providing positive feedback and to thank authorities for their effort to implement best practice cycling infrastructure. 

Within several weeks the cycling community could post and vote on suggestions on a web mapping application. Within the five most voted suggestions a jury will choose the best infrastructure measure. The award ceremony takes place on-site with representatives of the responsible municipal departments and the district mayor. The campaign is designed to easily be used by other local bicycle groups all around Austria or even Europe. The next step will be to implement the campaign to a national level.

more info: www.radlobby.at