Bob Giordano, Free Cycles and MIST

Bob Giordano has grown from an idealistic University of Montana graduate student into a powerful voice for sustainable transportation in the Missoula community.

The founder of Free Cycles and it's umbrella organization MIST (The Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation) has come a long way since his 1996 graduate course with U of M professor Steve Siebert.

Giordano remembers hearing his professor's story about riding free bikes in Portland, Oregon.

“Before that, I had never really thought about biking as a solution to a lot of societal ills,” he said.“It really stuck with me.”

Siebert's story sparked an idea in Giordano and he ran with it. Soon after, he and his roommates started Free Cycles, operating with the simple concept of letting Missoulians ride bikes at no cost.

“For the first two years, we just put green bicycles around town. That worked OK, but we knew we wanted to do something more,” Giordano said.

A few years later Giordano developed his idea of sustainable transportation into an organization called MIST. The Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation expanded on the concepts of Free Cycles to promote not only biking, but pedestrian walking, public transit, efficient vehicles and trains.

Because of its near-total dependence on petroleum fuels, the U.S. transportation sector is responsible for about a third of our country’s climate-changing emissions. Reducing transportation emissions is one of the most vital steps in fighting global warming, the Center for Biological Diversity reports. Cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles driven by U.S. citizens are to blame for about two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. transportation sector.

Giordano's local organization embraces three concepts that guide them in the sustainable transportation decision making process.
Using the principals of safety, equity and environmental soundness, staff and volunteers at the organization can analyze projects beyond their gut reaction and choose which projects to support both within the organization and in the community.
Giordano said the pressing issue of climate change has also added an urgency to the way his organizations operate.
“It really hasn't shifted the direction we are going, but it's given us a kick to do more, to do it quicker, to do it better and to speak louder,” he said.
Giordano has advocated many road projects. These include adding more bike lanes, installing roundabouts and changing four lane roads to three lane roads for increased biker and pedestrian safety.
More than a dozen of these road projects have been completed or are in the works around Missoula. 

Missoula's first bike lane was striped in the fall of 1997. Since then, nearly 65 percent of Missoula's arterial streets have been re-striped with bike lanes.

Broadway Street between Toole and Orange streets was converted from a 4-lane roadway to a 3-lane roadway in the fall of 2005. The change has resulted in a safer roadway. Injury crashes have dropped significantly and pedestrians, drivers and cyclists on the most part report that the road feels safer.
The first modern, single lane roundabout on an arterial in Missoula opened for traffic in August, 2009. MIST is continuing to inform the public how to properly use these lanes to increase safety and traffic flow.

Giordano's always wanted people to feel they are a part of his sustainable transportation organization.

“Sometimes in planning projects and big city projects people get left out because they don't know how to make their voice heard, or they feel intimidated,” Giordano said. “Something as simple as a community bike shop can make people feel welcome.”

Giordano's hands-on attitude is one of the reason's Free Cycles and MIST have caught on in the community. He not only works on managerial-type tasks, but sweeps floors and helps teach people how to fix their bikes.

Working at Free Cycles also helps Giordano make his voice heard when he pushes sustainable transportation projects in the community.

“If I had not done Free Cycles as part of the foundation and was just advocating, I don't know how well that would work,” Giordano said.
Giordano's face and name have come to be trusted by community members.
When Giordano is not surrounded by bikes, or talking to people about sustainable transportation, he is likely spending time with his family, or playing music with friends.
He helps his wife with fundraising projects at her preschool. He enjoys playing the violin and mandolin, and also pays the occasional visit to the Kettle House Brewery.
True to his career calling, Giordano enjoys biking, hiking and cross-country skiing.
“For some reason it's in my blood to explore and travel. Working on bike projects and promoting walking paths and better buses and trains in a way is self-serving,” Giordano said. “Not only do I want to do it for the good of the community and the world, I want to do personally.”
Giordano believes using a bike to get around can make a difference because with the less people driving, the less overall pollution being emitted into the air. Riding bikes or walking can also change the way individuals operate in their everyday lives.
“There is something that happens on a very personal level when somebody gets out of the car, and hears the birds, feels the land, tastes the pollution,” he said. “When you are walking and biking you are exposed – you are vulnerable – but you are also able to engage with others in way that I think is more valuable than drivers waving to each other behind a windshield.”
The nonprofit founder likes keeping up with what other people are doing in the community – no matter how big or small.

“What I like a lot about Missoula is there is a lot of people working on organic gardening, sustainable energy, water issues ... on and on and on,” Giordano said.
Giordano also enjoys talking to people who come into the shop. Some of them, he says, are homeless or are about to start a job and don't have a way to get around.
“They always like to tell their stories, and when I hear what they have to say, I can empathize with their situation. I always put myself in other people's shoes, or on other people's bikes,” he said.
“There have been times when I haven't really had more than a couple pennies to my name, and my parents always encourage me to help other people. So it just seems like the right thing to do to include everyone.”