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In Burlington, Vermont, Pedal Power Pays Dividends

Marc Wortman, February 15, 2011, GOOD - Cities

By late October snow and ice pound down along Burlington, Vermont’s roadways from the nearby Green Mountains, while wind knifes up from Lake Champlain, not letting up until May. Burlington’s 39,000 hearty souls are better known for rocking out for hours in flannels and Tims at Phish concerts than pedaling from point to point. No matter. Bicycles have become a local vehicle of choice even when winter storms make the plowed roads impassable. For some, like University of Vermont student Christine Hill, big drifts just mean fatter tires and more layers of clothes.

 

Hill works in an AmeriCorp VISTA-funded job at Bike Recycle Vermont's (BRV) lakeshore shop. She repairs used bicycles for sale there at minimal cost to people who otherwise can’t afford one. She also guides young people at BRV through ten mandatory hours of training in bicycle repair and refurbishing the bicycle they’ll ride away on. Every year more than 500 people—along with the kids, recently resettled Somali refugees, homeless men and women, and convicts released from jail—can acquire a recycled bike of their own for twenty-five dollars or get one in exchange for labor, a price that also includes a new helmet, lock, and lights. Nearly 3,000 bicycles have been distributed since BRV was founded in a local backyard in 2004.

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