The 21 new members of the Bicycle Friendly Communities club — and 10 that received promotions — are proof that cities are never too small, or too big, to be included.
The latest list released by the League of American Bicyclists includes new silver-level communities as different as East Coast seaport Boston, Mass. (pop. 617,600) and western recreation destination Sisters, Ore. (pop. 1,875).
Among those successfully renewing their designations are New York City (8.1 million) and Carmel, Ind. (79,000).
Since launching the program, the League of American Bicyclists designated 179 Bicycle Friendly Communities (out of 452 applications) in nearly every state. The announcement of the latest round on Monday also marks the beginning of National Bike Month.
'Remarkable'
Communities are ranked at four levels, platinum (the highest), gold, silver and bronze. The League points to the achievement of some of the larger eastern cities to not only make the list, but join or be renewed at the silver level for the first time.
Boston entered the list at the silver level, as New York City and Washington DC were elevated to silver in their renewals. League president Andy Clarke said:
“Moving the needle on bicycling in a city the size of New York City is nothing short of remarkable, and the city is one of the very few that has jumped two award levels. With the imminent arrival of bike sharing and the continued expansion of the bikeway network, Gold is not far away.”
Worst to best
Meanwhile, Boston was once notable for being one of the worst big cities for bicycling. The League credits Mayor Thomas Menino with launching Boston Bikes in 2007 and adding bike lanes to help push bicycle commuting growth by 125 percent from 2005 and 2009 to a level four times the national average.
Another big city, Washington DC, entered in bronze in 2004. Lately, building buffered bike lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue and launching Capital BikeShare, the nation's largest bike-sharing operation, helped promote it to the silver level.
More remarkable progress was seen in Minneapolis, Minn., the only city named to the gold level in 2011. Improvements there have helped double the number of bicycle commuters over the past decade.
Communities earn their way onto the Bicycle Friendly Communities lists based on the 5 E's — education, enforcement, education, encouragement, and evaluation — and planning.
How about your town? You can check outThe Blueprint to see if your town can apply for a designation. Here are some other resources for Bicycle Friendly Communities.
The program is jointly sponsored by Bikes Belong and Trek's One World, Two Wheels.
The 2011 spring Bicycle Friendly Community designations are:
Silver
Boston
Sisters, OR
Hilton Head, SC
Bronze
Athens and Clarke County, GA
Cupertino, CA
Des Moines, IA
Eau Claire, WI
Fresno, CA
Harrisonburg, VA
Juneau, AK
Kansas City, MO
Keene, NH
Las Cruces, NM
Los Altos, CA
Norman, OK
Northampton, MA
Raleigh, NC
Sedona, AZ
Somerville, MA
Tybee Island, GA
Wilmington, NC
The 10 renewals in 2011:
Gold
Minneapolis, MN (moved up)
Silver
New York City (moved up)
Washington DC (moved up)
Bronze
Beaverton, OR
Carmel, IN
Lexington and Fayette County, KY
Mesa, AZ
Roswell, GA
Shawnee, KS
South Sioux City, NE
Honorable mentions and more information available at League of American Bicyclists.
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