Maribel Mateo and Tony Garcia began biking between their home and school three years ago, after their family's car was damaged in an accident. The siblings would pedal along Santa Ana, California's Edinger Avenue with no sidewalks or bike lanes to buffer them from cars whizzing past at 40 miles per hour. They realized that their city's streets were not designed to accommodate cyclists.

So they started Bike It!, a youth-led campaign organized by KidWorks, a nonprofit that operates in low-income communities. In their free time, the two teenagers conducted bikeability assessments, standing on street corners on school nights to survey passing cyclists. On Saturday mornings, they took classes and learned how to use geographic information systems to map and interpret their data.

Impressed by the siblings' efforts, city representatives asked them and other Bike It! participants to write up a grant on behalf of the city to improve bike safety.

Then, about a year ago, Mateo and Garcia's father, who also commuted by bike, was hit by a car during his 12-mile ride to work. He wasn't permanently injured, but the collision took its toll: The family's sole income earner was too shaken to get back on a bike. "Our dad's accident motivated my brother and me to do this work and to have patience with the time it took," Mateo says.  

Last October, the California Transportation Commission approved the grant application and allocated $2.37 million to the city to improve bike safety, some of which will go toward installing a bike lane on Edinger Avenue.

"People say we're the future of Santa Ana," Garcia says. "It's our generation and generations to come that are going to benefit from improved bike infrastructure."