A diverse group of bikers, strollers, unicyclists and one space-age yellow Velo bike paraded up Main street Vineyard Haven from Veterans Park to Owen Park last Saturday to announce the formation of the Island Climate Action Network (ICAN), an upstart community organization dedicated to educating the Island about climate issues and ultimately shaping Island policy.

Founding member Matt Coffey, a designer at South Mountain Company and a Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellow, said the seed for the network was planted earlier in the summer when a group of Vision Fellows attended a dinner with climatologist Dave Woodwell of the Woods Hole Research Center as the speaker. “He stood up in front of us for an hour with no notes and just spoke from the heart about what he’s seen happening to the planet and where he sees it going,” Mr. Coffey said. “He cited a number of destructive trends that are happening around the planet and talked a little about how community resilience and taking local action can make a difference. We were all just batting around ideas about what actions we could take when we came up with the idea to start an Island climate action group.”

The group has been meeting on Thursdays at South Mountain Company and has solicited the participation of community leaders, including Oak Bluffs police chief Erik Blake, Martha’s Vineyard Commission senior planner Bill Veno and Martha’s Vineyard Housing Fund director Ewell Hopkins. Eventually the group hopes to contact town boards with recommendations and influence local policymakers to chart a sustainable path for the Island. So far biking has emerged as a central area of its focus.

Parade celebrates moving beyond fossil fuels. — Katie Ruppel

“Chief Blake is an avid bicyclist and he thought that the primary means to making biking better here was education,” said Mr. Coffey. “Educating VTA drivers not to pull over into bike lines, educating anyone who comes here and rents a bicycle what the best bike routes are and what are the rules of the road, educating truck drivers and summer visitors. Some other ideas thrown out there were leaving the bike racks in the downtown areas year-round. We’re looking at different examples around the world, Denmark, Palo Alto and Davis, California, being great examples where bicycle travel’s really celebrated and accommodated and where they have dedicated bike lanes.”

Mr. Coffey said there has been some enthusiasm at meetings so far for a coast-to-coast bike lane along State Road similar to that along Edgartown-West Tisbury Road that, if built, would complete an Island network of bike lanes. At one meeting South Mountain director John Abrams suggested burying power lines along State Road to accommodate such a lane.

“There’s arguments for and against that but right now we’re just getting ideas out there,” said Mr. Coffey.

To add your ideas and get involved visit icanmv@googlegroups.com or contact Christine Conley at cconley09@yahoo.com.