Transportation Alternatives has had a Bronx Volunteer Committee since 1994, originally founded to develop the Bronx Greenway Plan and to organize the first Safe Routes to School program in North America. Since then the committee has gone through several iterations, from involvement in the Tour de Bronx, to Car-Free Grand Concourse to this year's Car-Free Crotona and group bike rides.

The challenges facing grassroots organizing in the Bronx make it hard for us to rally our Bronx-based volunteers around smaller, specific, neighborhood projects - we often have a dozen people at meetings, but oftentimes each person is from a different area in the Bronx. This makes it very hard to turn out many residents to one community board meeting, or to a neighborhood street surveying project.

For 2010 we at T.A. have a new vision for what this committee can be, and this is where our Car-Free Bronx Coalition partners come in. While our car-free Crotona events in 2009 were not quite as popular or filled with activity as we would've liked, I think that we can focus our efforts around a different series of events for next year, based on issues that Bronx-based advocacy groups are already working on.

As for the what and how, again, I would like to invite our volunteers and our non-profit Bronx-based coalition partners to join me for "Green Drinks" at Ziggy's Stardust Sports Café (601 E. 189th Street, 718-562-3711) on Wednesday, November 11th from 7-8:30pm. I'm eager to discuss these ideas with you all, and to hear about what you're currently working on in the Bronx, and to provide a space for us all to mingle and discuss ideas for 2010 Bronx-based safer streets advocacy!