Some 150 communities have been honored as “bicycle-friendly” by the League of American Bicyclists, but there is just one institution of higher learning — Stanford University — on that entire list.
While the home cities of UC-Davis, left, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), University of Colorado (Boulder) and others are bike friendly, the campuses themselves don't have such designations.
The League wants to award the efforts of college campuses that already are bicycle-friendly and help others adopt practices that improve the health and well-being of students.
BFU
The League is launching a Bike-Friendly University program that will highlight those campuses that meet the “5 E's” of engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation. The first deadline is Jan. 21, 2011.
You can check out the Bicycle Friendly University application online. It's a 27-page document with 94 questions that asks whether there's a bike program manager, a bike advisory committee, and dozens of other queries about road conditions for bicycles, bike programs, bike parking, bike safety, and more.
Bicycle transportation
Making bicycling at college campuses easier and safer is a great way to instill the idea of bicycles as transportation in future government, business and social leaders. Let's hope the Bicycle Friendly University program catches on.
The Bicycle Friendly University webpage at the League of American Bicyclists has all the information you need to get started.
By the way, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in platinum-level Davis, and wrote about it in February 2008 — “A platinum-level ride through Davis, California.”
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