NBG Anchor Cities, What, Why, Where
Simplified from the chapter in NBG Blueprint
As we have pointed out, since people are what make the lands one passes through memorable and enjoyable, here is an expanded discussion of the Anchor Cities needed to hold our route across America together. As we use all of the money making tools in this book, augmented by the change in mindset our Public Relations people will bring about to lessen the domination of the private automobile, our population centers will undergo a dramatic transformation.
They will become the bicycle villages we have long foreseen. A new economy and people in good physical condition not led by a culture of fast food, hospitals and sickness, will issue from this change.
In addition to the health and social components, from the standpoint of giving the National Bicycle Greenway a strong financial footing, our Anchor Cities are of crucial importance. This is so because they serve as placeholders for the Downtown Greenways each of them will get that make our revenue engines possible. Because few resources and even fewer people will feel called to our vision unless it can generate notable revenue, with Downtown Greenways at their center, here are the main money generating programs that Anchor Cities will spawn:
- NBG Membership/Downtown Lodging Discount Program
- NBG Merchant Discount Program
- Point of Interest Maps (POI)
- Biking Report Cards
These funding sources are so unique, in fact, that like our Downtown Greenways that will revitalize centers of commerce, they also get whole chapters in this book.
Boulder | Chicago | Cincinnati | Columbus | Davis | Des Moines | Denver | Indianapolis | Napa | Oakland | Omaha | Palo Alto | Pittsburgh | Reno | Sacramento | Salt Lake City | San Francisco | San Jose | Santa Cruz | Washington DC
In terms of the spec for our Downtown Greenway cities (our Anchor Cities), they will be built around the needs of the highest level user, the long distance touring cyclist. This is so, because by working to attract cyclists from far away, it will remind all those tuned in that Anchor Cities are national in scope. It will encourage all those attracted to our offering to think big as they then spread the word of our coast-to-coast vision. In so doing, they will be helping to expand the resources available to us from individuals and corporations wanting to make a large sized difference with their money contributions. Soon, as financed by seed money, with the help of our Public Relations firm, the mission of the National Bicycle Greenway will spread like wildfire.
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In each of our anchors, our plan, as we will show you, calls for Downtown Greenways, similar to the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. Besides serving local cyclists, the across the city amenities in them will attract cyclists from throughout the region. Since their endpoints will connect to our coast-to-coast route, our Anchor Cities, as we said above, will do well to think of our TransAm cyclists as the design standard for which they will build around.
It is here that because of their heavily loaded bicycles, easily navigable infrastructure is very important for them. This is so because the unwieldy machines they will be on have a bit harder time going up and down curbs, moving through narrow passageways and/or getting around in heavily automobile trafficked areas, etc. By improving the local bike ways for the TransAm cyclist, by making them the standard which they design around, Anchor Cities will also be making their roads and paths attractive to their local cyclists. Doing so will also increase visitation from all those from throughout the region who come for day trips.
Since the TransAm cyclist, the one traveling from one coast to the other, is the highest art form of bicycle touring, in building for them and the heavier loads they carry, everyone wins. As these cities work, for example, to slow the roads down with traffic calming measures, they increase the quality of life for their own residents. As they also work to show their cities off with historical markers, they increase the sense of pride and well-being their local citizenry experiences. Because touring cyclists travel slow enough that they can enjoy such information placards, such tastefully designed signage will add a richness to these areas the experience of which our cyclists will spread near and far with pictures and stories.
Just seeing heavily laden cyclists on Anchor City roads will have an impact on the local citizenry. Not only will the youth be curious, but it will give the local population the inner satisfaction of knowing that their city must be doing something right. They will have the sense that the people who worked their bodies to visit them came because where they live is vibrant and alive, worthy of using one’s muscles to come and explore. Seeing them will also remind them to slow down themselves, that they need to take a breath when they find themselves rushing around.
The sense of peace that these cyclists bring will show that there is more than deadlines, appointments, work and having to be somewhere. There will be the inner knowing that they can vicariously travel with our cyclists until the time is right to perhaps go on long distance bike rides of their own.
NBG TransAm Hall of Fame
In and amongst the mix of touring cyclists, the TransAm cyclist is the one whose opinion is respected the most, their impression of a given locale is given great weight. Similar to the traveling storytellers of the Middle Ages, their words serve as good or bad public relations for the towns and cities through which they pass. While any touring cyclist, sees, smells and hears the world around them at 10 miles an hour, and they are fully ensconced in it, the coast-to-coast cyclist is much listened to because they are seen as being on a mission.
Great respect is conferred upon them because in endeavoring to ride coast-to-coast, they are seen as goal driven. When a man or a woman knows where he or she is going, everyone pays attention to them. This is so because they want to know what they can do to help them get wherever they are trying to get.
Once our Anchor Cities more and more realize they are stepping stones for our Trans Am cyclists, they will do their best to make sure the image our riders broadcast is a positive one. In putting their best foot out for them, they will help to confer a high esteem upon those out for the coast-to-coast long-haul. As such, they will add to the honor the NBG places upon the TransAm cyclist with its NBG TransAm Hall of Fame (that it calls attention to in its NBG Biking Report Cards). As these cities work to sell the prestige of their being an NBG Anchor City, they will feel called to raise the profile of our TransAm cyclists.
One of the ways some will do this is to put our TransAm Hall of Fame on the TV infomercials that run around the clock in hotel rooms to describe the city and hotel in question. When more and more cities adopt this practice, our TransAm Hall of Fame will become an institution that grows in stature.
This will plant a seed, it will make being a part of the Hall an attractive possibility for the youth in our Anchor Cities. Instead of feeling pulled to cars, gangs and drugs, kids will be more likely to admire our touring cyclists, see them as role models. When they see that our long haul cyclists are celebrated for something they themselves can do, it will open their eyes to a new possible future for themselves in the world..
Kids will see they don't need any special athletic skill, a certain height, weight or skin color or that there is a financial hurdle they must clear. They will see they can become a member of the NBG TransAm Hall of Fame just by doing something most anyone can do. And that is ride a bicycle. Even if they don't have one, in Book 2, we will explain our NBG Hubs where they can earn one for themselves.
In becoming honored in such a way, however, they must be willing to learn the attributes needed to become a TransAm Cyclist. It is here that, if ahead of their trip, they don’t take the time to learn the importance of visualization, organization, goal setting, time management, list making, proper nutrition and the positive mental attitudes required in advance, the long distance road will rough them up pretty bad. They will come to understand that completing their mission as well as the quality of the ride that results, will be directly related to how well they master these skills.
Giving young people role models they can look up to is similar to what the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization does. Instead of a formalized structure, however, we feel that by just having our long distance cyclists on the road, they will set an example the youth will want to aspire to. It is here they will be able to see for themselves the importance of keeping their own word in being able to walk their talk. They will realize that the every day person they bear witness to straddling a loaded touring machine who came from far away, is just someone who is doing what they said they would do.
As they then follow the example our TransAm Cyclists set, they will learn to take ownership for anything they say they will do. In learning the importance of their word, such knowledge will help them develop the grit, inner strength, confidence, trust and hope that any of the formulas winning at the game of life requires.