Former CBS News producer finds rewarding role in local bicycle advocacy

Retired journalist Tom Bradford vividly recalls the classic struggle of conscience as he looked in the mirror while getting ready for work during his radio days in Grand Rapids, Mich., in the early 1970s.

"I'd ask myself, 'Are you going to smoke today or ride the bike?' " says Bradford, who started smoking in high school and was up to two packs a day. "I knew I couldn't do both. Eventually, one had to win out over the other."

Long before smoking disappeared from the hundreds of newsrooms across America, Bradford chose cycling.

And it's been something he's done with great passion throughout a rich and diverse career, which included TV producer roles at CBS News in New York and various other positions in the past 40 years.

His current role has thrust him back into the news recently, though not as the reporter, editor or producer. As the acting director of the bike and pedestrian advocacy group Charleston Moves, Bradford is increasingly called upon to be the voice of "alternative" forms of transportation.

At 67, Bradford is using his golden years to help make biking and walking safer in Charleston for generations to come. He is an ally that the

few original bike advocates say the area needed.

"Tom Bradford has quickly become the most effective and important advocate for transportation alternatives in the state, and one of the Top 10 in the Southeast," says Dr. Donald Sparks, a founder of Charleston Moves and its precursor, the Charleston Bicycle Advocacy Group, which played a key role in pushing for the Cooper River bridge bike and pedestrian lane.

"Although a relative newcomer to Charleston, Tom has been able to steer the rapids of local politics and been able to bring lots of different voices to the table," says Sparks. "He combines maturity, thoughtfulness and passion to the goal of making Charleston a more livable community. And besides that, he really is one of the coolest people in town."

Focusing on cycling is a natural fit for Bradford, who traces his passion for the activity back to his childhood growing up in Philadelphia. He recalls venturing into his grandmother's basement to admire a bike with wooden rims.

"Since I was a little kid, I've been totally fascinated with bicycles," says Bradford.

"It (biking) has always been a major theme in my life. Everybody who knows me, or has known me, always understood me to be partly about bicycles. I rode them, I raced them and now I ride them for transportation and recreation. Now, I'm able to talk about the virtues of bicycles for transportation, and it seems to be the right time in my life to do that."

Bradford the newsman

The eldest of five children, Bradford and his family moved a lot because his father was a Presbyterian clergyman. He went to Christian schools and Calvin College in Grand Rapids, which he attended on and off for four years but has yet to graduate (he's still working on that).

While his mark in journalism was in broadcast, he got his start in print.

"I stumbled into newspaper work. I had delivered The Paterson (N.J.) News as a kid. It was a paper route of 110 that I delivered on bike, and I liked that whole idea (getting the news)," says Bradford. "After college, I marched into the city room and got to speak to the city editor. I told him I delivered this paper for years and that I wanted to work in the newsroom now. They gave me a job as a copy boy."

Promotions and moves came early and often, and it didn't take long until Bradford was working in a major news market. Reporting jobs at The Paterson Evening News, Passaic Herald News and Newark Evening News appeared to be putting him on track to work at a major New York daily until the Evening News closed in 1969. That's when he made the leap to broadcast with a radio and TV job at WOTV in Grand Rapids.

By 1972, he started at the CBS affiliate WBBM-TV in Chicago working as a managing editor, executive producer and anchor producer. Four years later, he headed to the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, KNXT (now KCBS-TV).

He finished his career with the bigwigs at CBS News in New York from 1982 to 1999.

Leaving New York

Seventeen years is a decent run in network news, but it can be an unforgiving business.

"I survived many waves of cutbacks, but finally the music stopped and there weren't enough chairs," says Bradford. "I was out at CBS."

At 57, he wasn't ready to retire and proceeded to work for a developer for high-tech start-ups for two years and as a consultant for foreign cable TV operations for a year. At the same time, his second wife, Sally, was fighting cancer. He was at home with her in New York when the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center took place.

Sally lost her battle to cancer in 2003. They had been married for more than 20 years.

After some time passed, friends matched up Bradford with Susan Bass, largely because both were passionate about biking, art and traveling. Today, he calls her the love of his life.

Unlike Bradford, Bass' experience during Sept. 11 was more traumatic. In 2001, she worked as the managing director of Marsh & McLennan, which had offices in both towers of the Trade Center. She was in a pharmacy at the bottom of one of the towers when the attack took place and soon would be an eyewitness to the greatest single horror to face the United States.

That experience, combined with a desire to start a new life with Bradford years later, spurred the couple to look for a new home. "I was in a place where I was ready to leave New York," recalls Bass. "I needed a fresh start."

They took an online survey at www.bestplaces.net. Charleston ranked high in both of their surveys. They came for visits and decided this was the place to move to.

In 2004, they got married in and settled in Charleston.

Contributors

The couple found a home on State Street and funneled their energies into renovating it and getting involved in the community, particularly in the realm of the arts.

During renovations, Bradford was talking to electrical subcontractor Lenny Greene, a bike advocate himself, when Greene opened a walk-in closet to see Bradford's collection of 11 bicycles. The talk turned to cycling, and Greene invited Bradford to join the cause. Bradford had been part of groups in New York, but none dealt with advocacy.

He had been impressed with the work that Greene, Sparks and others had done with the Cooper River bridge bike and pedestrian lane, but agreed that the bridge showed two things: the value of the lane to the bridge and the glaring need for more work to be done in the Charleston area.

As volunteer acting director, Bradford has provided a level of maturity, tenacity and consistency that Charleston Moves needed as it refocused on being proactive on local projects and issues and changing attitudes at a time when both roadways and waistlines in Charleston are bursting, local advocates say.

"People are beginning to understand that good communities are not just about making great networks of highways and roads, but rather taking a more well-rounded approach to transportation to make a healthy community," says Bradford.

Reach David Quick at dquick@postandcourier.com.