This article is the ninth in a series profiling the varied and amazing nominees for the 2008 Alice B. Toeclips Awards, which will be presented to five winners at the Alice Awards & Auction on March 22nd. This profile was written by BTA correspondent Geoffrey Earl.

Next time you're riding in a bike lane, pedaling along one of the region’s numerous multi-use paths or searching for the purple, blue or green lines on your trusty bike map, say a little thank you to Bill Barber, because it's most likely that he had a hand in creating it, updating it or getting it funded. In some cases, he did all three.

Bill, a transportation planner at Metro since 1991, was its first Regional Bicycle Program manager from 1994 until 2005. During those years, he worked to transform Portland into the model of sustainable alternative transportation it is today, with the number of people bicycling to work, school and everywhere else rising substantially every year since he began his work at Metro.

Originally hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, this lifelong cyclist graduated from Portland State University with a degree in geography and became interested in bicycles as a legitimate form of public transportation. He began doing volunteer work with the city during the early 1970s (the era of the Bicycle Bill, Governor Tom McCall and City Commissioner Earl Blumenauer), helping to establish the first bicycle corridors in Portland and to get the bicycle recognized as a legitimate form of transportation.

In the early 90s, Bill began doing light rail planning at Metro. In 1994 he returned to bike planning when he established the Regional Bicycle Program and worked with local planners throughout the area to develop the linked regional system that exists today.

Bill led the effort to get regional funding for bicycle transportation projects through the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) and the Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program (MTIP) in multiple years (this is how the metro region gets our federal transportation dollars), and led a team of planners from throughout the region in developing the first major update of the RTP. Now bike advocates (like the BTA) regularly look to the RTP and MTIP cycles for funding trails and other improvements.

Later, working with Metro Parks and Greenspaces, Bill developed several high-profile multi-use trail projects, including the Springwater Corridor, the I-205 Corridor and the Three Bridges.

After all that, Bill made sure that all of those trails, green spaces and bike boulevards that he helped to create were easy for you to find, adding an ever-increasing number of colored lines to the Metro "Bike There!" map over four update cycles.

If that wasn't enough, Bill has also been a valuable advocate for bicycle transportation on the national level. He was a board member of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals and has served on panels and presented research at bicycling and pedestrian transportation conferences around the country. Bill's efforts at the national level have greatly enhanced Portland's prominence on the national bike scene.

Before he retired from Metro in 2005, Bill began working on two projects that he hopes will someday become a reality: an on-line trip planner – a “cyclists' Mapquest” called bycle.org – and a bicycle travel demand model, which would provide an invaluable tool for measuring the number and frequency of bicycle trips taken on the streets of Portland.

Tireless, devoted and as enthusiastic as ever about the brilliance and elegance of the bicycle, Bill continues to advocate for walkable and bikeable places as a neighborhood planner for Central Northeast Neighbors.

Next nominee: CCC volunteer and board member Tom Ralley.

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