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People Plus: Spandex Optional
Andrew Noune wasn't always a bike-lover. In fact, he didn't even ride
his first bicycle until he was nine years old. "What I really wanted
was to ride a scooter," he recalls, chuckling.
But sitting in traffic on a muggy July afternoon in 2005, Andrew caught
the bike bug. "I was driving home from Tampa, and got stuck in traffic
at the corner of Tuttle and Fruitville. The air was full of that hot
summer crud. It was eight lanes of traffic wide, standing still and
backing up deeper and deeper. It was pretty depressing."
The experience sparked Noune's long-dormant interest in bicycling. At
first he began biking just to the gym, then branched out to perform
more and more errands by bike. Within six months, Noune had founded of
the Alliance for Responsible Transportation, a 501(C)(3) charity
boosting improved biking infrastructure in the Sarasota metro and
surrounding area. "The puzzle for me wasn't 'why can't this happen?'"
he says. "It was 'why hasn't it happened yet?' It's too clearly a good
idea."
In the two years since its inception, Noune and A.R.T have collected
and refurbished over forty bicycles in their community bike shop
(located in Noune's Gillespie Park garage), overseen distribution of
free helmets and lights at A.R.T.'s public bike safety classes and held
monthly bike rides to Myakka. Noune has petitioned the county to hire a
Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator (now staffed full-time by Irene Maiolo)
and helped city planners re-stripe Tenth Street for bicyclists. "This
kind of community work and government work are basically the same
business," according to Andrew. As a 501(C)(3), "You don't have all the
bureaucracy, but you do have some of the benefits. There's less red
tape."
Andrew swings his arms in circles, grinning broadly and leaning back
when making his points. He has a habit of interrupting his anecdotes
with lengthy digressions into the finer points of bike policy. The
overall effect is a little like watching a kid popping wheelies on the
side of the road. It's as if Noune is amazed at his own enthusiasm, a
little shocked that he is capable of caring this much about bicycling.
Andrew's metamorphosis from average motorist to devout gearhead was an
incremental, if rapid, process, and one he thinks most people would
actually enjoy. He stresses that practical bike use is not only the
province of die-hard fanatics. "You don't have to be a crazy person
about fitness or the environment," he says emphatically. "It's not
about consciously choosing some alternate lifestyle. I'm against the
assumption that that's required. Some people come around to that and
some don't. But there are intermediate steps that anyone can do. And
those steps will make you feel good."
-By Brian Hughes, Photo by Luca Guarneri
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