CP: Interview 2

Asher Forman
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
21 April 2020
Interview Blog
     The next interview that I found really interesting was with Bill Mintz who is the founder of the non-profit organization Freewheels. Five years ago, this organization was nonexistent with Mr. Mintz having a job in corporate affairs. However, he soon retired and joined Bike Houston because of his love for biking and wanting to spread it elsewhere. At the time, Mr. Mintz was interested in immigrants and refugees as these groups of people were present all throughout Gulfton (a small town in southwest Houston), which is where he was living. Many of the refugees and immigrants had difficult times finding jobs as only a few were capable of speaking English. This caused money struggles as they had to put food on the table and a roof over their head for either themselves or possibly a whole family. Then if they were able to get a job, they were usually located far out of the town that required a long commute, which cost a lot of money. They had to pay this fee back and forth every day just so they could make a living. Mr. Mintz saw this issue and realized that he could help these people by giving them bikes so they would have an economical means of transportation. He did this by first asking for donations from people that had extra, spare, or even broken bikes. Then, he worked to fix them up by himself and then soon with a helpful team of mechanics. Over the years, Mr. Mintz was able to establish Freewheels and expand this organization to help more people in need. At the moment, Freewheels has been able to donate around 900+ bikes, as well as increasing bike-awareness, and the biking population in Houston.
     Overall, Mr. Mintz has given me new insights into what he thinks about the problem of not having enough bike infrastructure. Moreover, one thing that I found quite interesting was when he answered the questions of what things in an ideal world would be done to help this problem? He mentioned the classic of having more painted bike lanes, but he also talked about two things that I found were extremely significant. The first one is that there should be more bike racks. While that sounds like a silly issue, it can be quite difficult when bringing a bike to different places. If the city that one lives in is not bike-friendly whatsoever, then there most likely won’t be a spot to place a bike once having reached a destination. If there are no places to park a bike, then why take a bike in the first place? Not having this simple infrastructure is reducing the bike population by quite a bit. On top of that, the second thing he talked about was how bicycling should be included whenever there is a new transportation plan. Many cities ignore bike infrastructure when making transportation plans as they don’t consider the benefits and how it might positively affect so many people from just having a safe place to bike. Being included in these bike plans would increase bike infrastructure and bike-awareness, which would improve bike safety. After talking with Mr. Mintz about how to fix this problem, we conversed about things that might help to improve my engagement project of spreading bike-awareness in Houston. The one helpful tip that he gave me was that it would be relevant to include a part about bike safety on the flyers. This is important as people need to know how to be safe when riding through the busy city of Houston safely. Therefore, I hopefully plan on adding on safety tips and recommendations in my flyer so that people don’t just have a fun time when biking, but also a safe one.
  

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