Congratulations to the five new cities added to the League of American Bicyclists list of Bicycle Friendly Communities.
The League announced that Austin and San Luis Obispo were added to the silver level on the list, and LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, were added to the bronze level in the latest round of awards.
Cities on the list get there by proving that they provide safe accommodations for cycling and encourage their residents to bicycle for commuting and fun.
The program is administered by the League and sponsored by Bikes Belong Coalition, a group of retailers and suppliers that lobbies on behalf of bicyclists to improve bicycling conditions nationwide.
Fifteen other communities renewed their spot on the list. Here are more details about how the Bicycle Friendly Communities are chosen.
As the announcement came in a LAB e-mail update, the cities weren't yet listed online among previous winning cities on the list of bicycle friendly cities.
The Austin Cycling Association website tells of some bicycling activities in the Texas Capital and Lance Armstrong's adopted hometown. Here's an interesting article from Bicycle Austin in 1999 that shows how far Austin has come to receive the honor. The city will host the BikeEd 2007 conference in June.
Bike unfriendly
Before you get to feeling too warm and fuzzy about bicycle friendly communities, check out this short clip from Toronto that was posted on Spinopsys this morning.
OK, this guy obviously doesn't represent Toronto, which has a very active bicycling community. But he is definitely bike unfriendly, considering he allegedly attacks a guy on a bicycle for blocking him from going through a yellow light in Toronto. According to the CityNews website, a group of high school students filming a project downtown happened upon the incident and starting shooting.
Update: See the comment below. The perp is Darius Tierman, described in a Toronto Police Department press release (.pdf) as “an off-duty Toronto police service officer.”
I'll say he's off-duty, he's been on leave since October 2004. He was charged with assault causing bodily harm in the Tuesday fracas after turning himself in. More at CityNews.
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