What a year! As we look back at 2023, we're grateful for the support of our community and the opportunity to promote building community through bicycling. Thank you to everyone who volunteered, donated, became a member, attended an event, and generally supported our work this year: We couldn't do our work without you. Thank you!

Here are a few highlights from our adventures in 2023:

We advocated for infrastructure and policy improvements to increase safety, accessibility, and connectivity. We met with officials from The Woodlands Township to discuss infrastructure priorities, and we wrote a letter of support for the Township's successful application for $7.5M in funding from TxDOT for the pathway extension along 242 linking Harper's Landing to the parts of The Woodlands west of I-45. We published our annual candidate survey featuring responses from the candidates for the Township Board of Directors election in November. Our board president joined the Houston-Galveston Area Council's Transportation Advisory Committee as an Active Transportation representative, and she served on the Transportation Improvement Subcommittee and Bicycle-Pedestrian Subcommittee. She also attended the (virtual) National Bike Summit and participated in meetings with members of the Texas congressional delegation as part of Cyclists in Suits, the League of American Bicyclists' main advocacy event day on Capitol Hill.

We spent time organizing our priorities to help us understand how we might help residents bike more safely and joyfully in the year ahead.

We also got great guidance from community members about how to make riding safer in our community. TXTRI founder and community leader Sandra Sutherland took us on a bike ride in Creekside Park to better understand the roadways and the ongoing concerns for riders in that area. We gathered community input at events like Bike The Woodlands Day, Bike To Work Day, and at local community safety events.

We worked to improve navigation on the pathway system. We partnered with The Woodlands Township to create a new wayfinding program featuring QR codes on the wooden bollards along the 200+ miles of paved pathways in our community. After a pilot project in spring 2023 with about 40 QR codes in Grogan's Mill, we are currently installing signs on the pathways throughout the rest of the villages. Stay tuned for this project to be completed in 2024.

We ramped up our bike recycling program, organizing three major recycling drives in May, August, and December. The May and December events were part of existing events with the Township's Environmental Services department, including the annual Earth Day celebration and the 3R Drive-Thru Recycling event. This year, we collected almost 200 bikes to be recycled back into the community through the support of our friends at Recycled Cycles of Texas. We also contributed bikes to CASA of Montgomery County (which offers mentoring support to local youth) and Riders in Recovery (a mountain bike team for youth recovering from addiction and substance abuse). As part of our Day of Giving in November, we made a cash donation to Recycled Cycles to help purchase a bike rack to help the organization repair and redistribute bikes to people in need.

We hosted events, including the return of our public annual meeting and events during Bike Month including Bike To Work Day and Bike The Woodlands Day. We also appeared at local Township events and school events, including the National Night Out Community Safety Expo and bike rodeos at Sally K. Ride Elementary and the Sam Houston State University Charter School.

We helped spread the word about local rides. Our board members updated our website with more details about ongoing weekly rides, and we promoted Chasing Watts, a Houston-built app for organizing and promoting rides.

We also improved our membership program and created a sponsorship program. We partnered with local businesses to offer discounts for our members. We also outlined our first-ever sponsorship program and began recruiting local businesses as ongoing sponsors. And we found more ways to engage volunteers in local events.

None of this would be possible without our community's support. Thank you for your financial support and your volunteer work. If you'd like to be part of our work, check out the Get Involved Page of our website here. And, if you'd like to become a member, your tax-deductible donation here.

Thank you for helping us build a better community through bicycling!

Sincerely,
All of us at Bike The Woodlands