Feeling a little beleaugured by traffic or poor road design on your morning bicycle commute or ride to the store?
Rest assured that somewhere in the US, seven cities are being honored in 2007 by the League of American Bicyclists as new “bicycle friendly communities” for their efforts to integrate bicycles into the fabric of city life.
Certainly leading the list in terms of population and impact is New York City. Others receiving the Bronze-level designation are Lexington-Fayette County, Kentucky; Liberty Lake, Washington; Santa Clarita, Cal., and Spartanburg, S.C.
Two cities received the higher ranked silver award. They were Santa Cruz, Cal., and Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Why NYC?
How did New York City make it onto the list? One thing the LAB mentions is the city's incredibly thorough bicycle crash analysis completed last year and how it's being used to make cycling safer for New Yorkers.
Some 130,000 cyclists hit the streets in the Big Apple everyday.
An Associated Press story on New York “bicycle friendly” award cites several improvements:
— The city is installing 400 to 500 bike racks a year and plans to have more than 400 miles of bike lanes and paths by 2009. There will then be 1 mile of bike lane for every 10 miles of road; the ratio is now 1 to 15. In San Francisco, it's 1 to 7.
— In Brooklyn's hipster-heavy Williamsburg section, the city reduced the space for car parking in favor of bike parking — a first — when it widened the sidewalk to fit nine new bike racks over the summer.
— A seven-block length of Manhattan's Ninth Avenue is now being remade into the city's most bicycle-oriented stretch of roadway ever, with a bike lane separated from car traffic by a paved buffer zone and a lane of parked cars.
— (Mayor Michael) Bloomberg has proposed legislation to make it easier to bike to work by requiring commercial buildings to provide bicycle parking.
— A $1 million public service ad campaign (was announced ) last month to remind drivers and bike riders to watch out for each other.
Others
The reason LAB cited the other cities:
Santa Cruz — Good all-around cycling program, strongly enforced guidelines to protect the safety of cyclists, pedestrians and disabled travelers during road construction.
Steamboat Springs — A strongly integrated off- and on-road bicycling system, featuring some of the best single-track in the country.
Lexington-Fayette County — A new bicycle-pedestrian master plan with $2 million in local funds allocated for trail development and bike lanes.
Liberty Lake — Built a bicycle infrastructure from the ground up as the community has grown over the past 20 years.
Santa Clarita — Made intersection improvements across the city with the installation of extremely sensitive bicycle-detection technology to ensure cyclists are properly accommodated on city streets.
Spartanburg — Completed a two-mile rail-trail through downtown which was paid for with more than $1 million in local funds.
Renewals
Thirteen other cities renewed their Bicycle Friendly standings. According to LAB, they were:
Platinum
Davis, Calif.
Gold
Palo Alto, Calif.
Silver
Arlington, Va.
Chicago, Ill.
Folsom, Calif.
Santa Barbara, Calif.
Tempe, Ariz.
Bronze
Auburn, Ala.
Bloomington, Ind.
Brentwood, Calif.
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Vancouver, Wash.
Washington, D.C.
Criteria
The LAB choses communities based on education, engineering, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation.
See a map locating all the nation's Bicycle Friendly Communities. Do you think your city should get a shot? Check out the Bicycle Friendly Community website to learn how to apply.
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