Clare McDermott
We sat down with Clare McDermott, Managing Director of Events and Marketing for Chicago’s Active Transportation Alliance, to talk about the organization’s mission and how she got involved.
What is the Active Transportation Alliance?
We advocate for better walking, biking and public transit in the Chicagoland area. We’re really happy that, because of our partnership with Wheel & Sprocket, we’re able to do more work out in the community.
How did you first get involved with Active Trans?
I was working at a large advertising agency and biking there from our Chicago apartment, and I stumbled across Active Trans as I was getting more interested in the local cycling scene. I got excited about the organization, and when I saw that they had a job opening up in my field of events and marketing, I thought “This is perfect--dream job!”
Do you still bike commute?
I have two little boys that are three and five, and we live in Oak Park now. I bought a cargo bike two years ago and we’ve been getting a lot of use out of it to drop the kids off at school and run our daily errands. We get all sorts of questions out on the streets, like “What is that?” and “Where did you buy that?” Of course, I love to refer them over to Wheel & Sprocket Oak Park. We’ve been having a lot of fun with the new bike, and enjoy getting more done without having to bust out the car.
What is your role at Active Trans?
I head up the fantastic events team that puts together seven major events per year, many of which raise funds that support the work that we do at Active Trans. Our biggest event, which we’ve done for nineteen years, is Fifth Third Bike the Drive, where we shut down Lake Shore Drive and it’s just open to bikes. We usually have about 20,000 people that come out for that event. Most of our events up until this point have been bicycle-themed, but we’re bringing out some new public transit themed events for 2020.
How can people get involved?
I am always looking for more volunteers for Bike the Drive, which takes over 400 volunteers to run, so if people are interested, they can visit the Bike the Drive website. And if they want to learn more about Active Trans and our other events, they can visit our website, which also usually has different action alerts up, like petitions to sign or ways to receive more information about our campaigns and how you can help.
What are your current advocacy focuses?
One of our big priorities right now is the Back on the Bus campaign, because we need public transit for healthy and equitable cities. We are also putting pressure on Mayor Lightfoot right now to include a dedicated line item in the city budget to continue improving the bike network. We hope that people in their daily lives can choose alternate modes of transportation like public transit or cycling over ride-hails or driving just a bit more often, since it’s better for the city and better for the environment, so we work to make it safer and more accessible.