No Bike Day in the Grove this April

For the past couple of years we have had Miami Bike Day here in Coconut Grove each April. If you came out and enjoyed, you knew how great an event it is. The whole town is shut down to auto traffic and thousands of people come out on bikes, skateboard, and basically anything on wheels.

This year, there will be no Bike Day because of lack of funding. In the past, the BID and Grove merchants helped support the event with the help of a major sponsor, which was Mack Cycle.
There was no sponsor this year, so Bike Day is not to be.

There is a Miami Bike Day in Brickell on May 8. It's a real shame that the Grove, which was made for Bike Days cannot come up with funding. I mean the Grove is enveloped with bicyclists each weekend. It's a favorite place to bicycle for so many. It was made for bicycling!

The major expense is the cost of shutting the streets down. The City asks for so much money for this, you would think that as a quality of life thing, the City would stop with the constant fees for every little thing and do something nice for the citizens.

According to organizers I spoke with, last year's Bike Day in Coconut Grove cost $6190.00 for police and city services. The cost for the MOT (Modification of Traffic) was $1938.00. The 2009 event was $9154.00 for the police and about $2000 to $2500 for MOT. This is chump change according to what the City doles out for other things like the Marlins Stadium, paying developers, paying for a not-needed skateboard park and more according to the Investigation Miami blog. Why not a Bike Day a few times a year for the citizens?

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in sponsoring the event, hopefully with the BID and merchants, let us know.

We do have the Great Grove Bicycle Race on track for October, so that is a bike event, but just not Miami Bike Day.