WABA and Black Women Bike DC Formally Join Forces

After more than a year of working with our friends and partners at Black Women Bike DC to grow and diversify bicycling in the District, we are pleased to announce that WABA and BWBDC have formally joined forces. BWBDC is now formally a sponsored project of WABA. This move, unanimously approved by the leadership of both organizations, provides organizational support to enable the growth of BWBDC in support of its mission to “build community and interest in biking among black women through education, advocacy, and recreation.” While WABA provides advocacy, outreach, and education programming to expand and enhance bicycling throughout the region, it also provides targeted outreach to groups underrepresented within the community of bicyclists. BWBDC ensures that those groups are not left behind as biking becomes an increasingly important way to improve regional mobility, public health, and sustainable transportation. And BWBDC is an excellent partner: It’s brought groups of riders together for its own events as well as existing regional biking events, has hosted classes and training, and raised the profile of bicycling among the black women who comprise its target audience and the District as a whole. In characterizing the group’s rapid growth and impact to date, BWBDC co-founder Veronica O. Davis says, “In the one-and-a-half years we’ve existed, we’ve grown the organization from three founders to 730 members in our Facebook group, and we have women who are getting back on their bikes for the first time in decades. We’ve even been able to get women bike commuting to and from work, and running errands by bike all around D.C.” Nichole Noel, of the BWB leadership team, says, “BWBDC’s partnership with WABA will enable us to create and develop programs that will make biking more accessible to black women throughout the D.C. metropolitan area, especially riders east of the river and in Prince George’s County. This partnership will help turn the BWBDC vision–that black women of all ages ride their bikes for fun, health, wellness, and transportation–into reality.”