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Alix Armour, head of sustainability at Super73, and Troy Jones, social and environmental responsibility manager at Specialized, serve as co-chairs on the Supply Chain and Social and Environmental Responsibility track within PeopleForBikes’ Sustainability Working Group.

The word sustainability usually conjures images of the environment, materials and recycling, not necessarily supply chain outcomes from social inequalities and environmental risks. These issues, beneath the surface of the sustainability conversation, include safety and the status of foreign migrant workers, child labor, codes of conduct, conflict minerals, environmental performance improvement, legal and regulatory compliance, transparency, management systems and diversity in suppliers. 

Immense challenges like these make up the core discussion of the Supply Chain and Social and Environmental Responsibility (SER) track within PeopleForBikes’ Sustainability Working Group (SWG). The track meets quarterly, bringing together leaders from across the bike industry interested in learning from one another on how to tackle these big issues of supply chain and SER. 

Figuring out how to get your company started can be daunting, but the work is critical — consider it risk management for your brand. Startups and 50+ year old companies have very different business models, processes and work capacities, and as co-chairs, we bring both experiences to the conversation. As passionate supply chain and sustainability professionals, we’re not wasting time getting to the hot topics. We’ve tackled such themes with PeopleForBikes members that have both close to zero and decades of experience. 

Our first initiative was to invite different supply chain SER service providers to review their tools and techniques bike companies can use to measure and track SER performance metrics. This helped give members who were new to the concept an idea of the existing methods and practices available to evaluate SER for a wide range of needs and company sizes. We also spent time discussing codes of conduct, what difficulties our members are encountering internally and externally, as well as bringing in diverse speakers to offer new perspectives on SER to our discussions.

SER service providers can simplify due diligence by providing elaborate supplier questionnaires, in-factory audits, tracking platforms, risk analysis, legal council and more. While incredibly effective, they do come at a cost. 

For smaller companies who are just starting the process, a simple first step is getting to know and start building relationships with all of your suppliers, understanding stress factors and seeing how you can help and improve specific situations. No matter your company size, it is crucial to identify and evaluate your critical suppliers. In our track, we outlined a simple scoring system to help bike companies identify risk and procedures. 

After that has been established, it’s up to your brand to decide which metrics are most important for your strategy. For example, if you’re trying to calculate your Scope 3 emissions, you may need to find out the locations of all your Tier 1 and 2 suppliers. Depending on your company’s products, you may need to collect valuable supply chain data for compliance reasons, carbon emissions calculations, materials evaluations, etc. 

Our goal in the Supply Chain and SER track is to help brands start implementing and increasing SER practices into their operations, with an objective of 50% of track members establishing an implementation plan by the end of 2022. To join and learn more about how your company can get started, reach out to Noa Banayan, PeopleForBikes’ director of federal affairs and our track staff liaison, at noa@peopleforbikes.org. 

Factoring Social and Environmental Responsibility Into Your Supply Chain

Answers to the most common questions around our newly revamped ranking system for bicycling cities, now simpler and international.

Ahead of the release of our annual City Ratings this June, we wanted to answer some commonly asked questions about the program, show you what’s new for 2021 and set cities up for success when it comes to improving bicycling locally.

The PeopleForBikes City Ratings is a data-driven approach to evaluate and compare bicycling in U.S. cities and towns. From there, we help city leaders pinpoint improvements to make biking better for everyone.

This year, we expanded to feature more than 600 U.S. cities, including 150 brand new to the program. We’ve also gone international! Although the City Ratings aren’t completely global (we don’t rate cities in Africa or Asia, for example), we rated more than 100 international cities in 11 countries worldwide, including Canada and Australia. 

Whereas last year’s scores were rated out of five, we’ve switched to a 100 point scoring system. While a score of 52 might seem low, cities with scores of 50 or more demonstrate higher ridership, improved safety and greater access than their peers. That being said, most U.S. cities will fall short of world-class examples of integrated bicycling in places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. By offering a comparison to some of the world’s great bike cities, we hope to inspire and motivate others to accelerate their bike infrastructure and programs that get people on bikes.

The 2021 City Ratings showcases a new way of calculating scores that emphasizes the importance of building safe, comfortable and connected bicycle networks. We also tweaked our formula to make things simpler and more consistent.

The revised City Ratings incorporates only two inputs: the quality of a city’s bicycle network through its Network Score, and community perceptions of bicycling via the Community Score. The Network Score comes from the PeopleForBikes Bicycle Network Analysis and the Community Score comes from the PeopleForBikes Community Survey.

The Bicycle Network Analysis, or BNA, is a data analysis tool that measures the quality and connectivity of a city’s bicycle lanes — in other words, its bike network. A bicycle network is defined as the system of paths, trails and streets that someone riding a bike can use to access everyday destinations, like:

Neighborhoods — access to parts of the city where residents live.

Opportunity — access to jobs and schools.

Essential Services — access to places that serve basic needs, like hospitals and grocery stores.

Recreation — access to recreational amenities like parks and trails.

Retail — access to major shopping centers.

Transit— access to major transit stations.

Interested in improving your city’s bike network? Here’s how:

Every year, PeopleForBikes conducts an online survey to capture perceptions of biking from people that live, work and play in the cities we’re rating.

The Community Score is based on a 100-point scale derived from four equally weighted scoring categories: Ridership, Safety, Network and Awareness. Answers to questions in these four categories provide valuable insight into how often people ride bikes for transportation and recreational purposes, how safe they feel riding a bike in their community, whether the local bike network helps them reach useful destinations and if they are aware of nearby bicycling resources.

I don’t think my city is included. How can I get involved?

We evaluated a record number of cities across the U.S. for this year’s City Ratings, but there’s always room for more. No matter how you’re involved with bicycling in your city, you can request to have it included in our next round of data collection and analysis.

Are you a city leader? Sign up to be notified when our City Snapshot opens to tell us about your city’s existing bike network and planned improvements.

We’re glad you asked! We created an entire video series through our Advocacy Academy outlining the necessary steps to improving bicycling in your city. From city leaders to bike enthusiasts, we all have a role to play in making biking better for everyone.

How can I benchmark my city’s progress?

We will post a printable scorecard customized for each city on our City Ratings website. While your city’s overall score determines its place in our annual ranking, the scorecard dives into the details of the data to reveal actionable steps local leaders can take to benchmark progress and make improvements.

What can I learn from highly rated cities?

We have an entire Advocacy Academy series dedicated to sharing lessons from some of the best bike cities around the world. In the coming months, we’ll profile even more top-ranked cities based on this year’s scores.

How does your city rank? Check out our 2021 City Ratings and learn how to improve your score.

Everything You Need to Know About 2021 City Ratings

Bike wonks know Sevilla, Spain, as home to one of the fastest bike-infrastructure investments in world history. But installation speed isn’t the only lesson U.S. cities can draw from this wildly successful low-stress biking network.

As participants in a study tour to Sevilla heard last week, Sevilla also shows the power of two values that have been underrated in U.S. bicycle planning: homogeneity and recognizability.

Or, to summarize both in one word: the protected bike lane network Sevilla built from 2007 to 2010 is legible.

“Part of what makes Sevilla work is that the whole thing is just painted green,” said Kyle Wagenschutz, PeopleForBikes’ vice president of local innovation and a leader of last week’s study tour. “You don’t have to be an expert in cycling infrastructure to know how to navigate it. You simply follow the green cycle track and it if it turns, you turn with it.”

Legibility is a value that many U.S. street designers, eager to think creatively about the best option for each particular street, can forget.

But for the potential biking recruit — someone getting around by car, bus or foot whose life might be improved by biking, if only they decided to try it — legibility is essential.

And Sevilla applied that value to a huge share of its major streets.

Wagenschutz and delegates from Los Angeles, Portland and Denver met last week with Manuel Calvo, the mastermind of Sevilla’s plan. His slide deck included a series of before/after photos that show the Seville approach pretty well.

Some things to notice in the images below:

Pedestrian-friendly: The new biking space comes almost entirely from automotive space, not from walking space.

Bidirectional: Every bikeway pictured carries bike traffic in both directions, which saved cost and road space because it only required one row of new barriers … but also creates some pretty narrow facilities.

Recognizable: Every bikeway pictured looks about the same: a light green two-way protected bike lane on a large arterial. Sevilla’s network doesn’t rely on low-traffic residential streets; it simply fixes the main streets, and all in the same way.

 As we reported last year, the result of the network above was that the risk of riding a bike in Sevilla immediately plummeted, and the number of people biking soared:

Wagenschutz said Monday that homogeneity and recognizability are things more U.S. cities should keep in mind as they design biking networks — even if they never achieve the consistency that Sevilla, building its network very quickly, was able to.

“What if there were some very visual way for you to understand whether you were on the bike network at any given moment?” he wondered. “Or whether you had wandered from it?”

It’s an idea people will get to hear about directly from Calvo if they attend the PlacesForBikes conference in Indianapolis next month. He’ll be a keynote speaker.

A Secret Strength of Sevilla’s Amazing Bike Network: Legibility

Campus bike sharing in the United States seems to have hit a new high water mark on the flagship campus of the University of Texas.

Forty days after launching a free pilot program for UT students with 85 new bikes to serve them, Austin B-Cycle says it’s on track to more than double the ridership of its entire 530-bike system.

Austin Active Transportation Program Manager Laura Dierenfield said 7,800 students have registered for the program so far — 15 percent of the UT campus’s entire student body.

“We were hoping for, like, 3,000 for the life of the pilot in the first 18 months,” Dierenfield said. “We had twice that in the first week.”

Students aren’t just signing up for the free program, either. They’re biking. In the program’s first 40 days, the campus bike docks averaged 12 checkouts per bike per day.

For comparison’s sake, the average New York Citi Bike is ridden five to six times per day during the spring.

“It’s been increasing in general because the weather’s getting even nicer,” Austin B-Cycle Director Elliott McFadden said. “We have 11 campus-area stations, and they are the top 11 stations in our system now.”

UT’s rapid embrace of bike sharing already puts the campus in striking distance of ridership at maybe the nation’s most successful university-linked bike share system, at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D. During that system’s season, its 100 bikes average 13 checkouts per day.

“We’re close to their kind of usage, and that took them about six months to get there,” McFadden said. (NDSU’s program is also free for students to join, paid for out of student services fees.)

Thanks to Austin B-Cycle’s new campus-related bike trips, McFadden said, the system’s annual ridership is on track to rise from 190,000 trips to 400,000.

“We’ve anecdotally heard students are doing Uber and Lyft less, because they can hop on a bike instead,” McFadden said.

It’s all very good news for Austin’s quest to at least double central-city bike trips in three years — and it’s a lesson for schools and cities elsewhere that want shared bikes to be useful tools in local transportation.

But why exactly did it work? Here’s what Dierenfield and McFadden think.

As they try to create an escape from central-city congestion, Austinites have been working to link their scattered protected bike lanes into a connected network. The city has been building these slowly for years: one of its first was on Guadalupe Street, just across from the UT campus. Austin street designer Nathan Wilkes has worked for years to develop a durable, modular, affordable bike-lane separator that can be bought and installed in bulk.

Then in 2016, voters approved a big transportation bond that made a connected low-stress biking network financially possible. The city has brought on a squad of specialists to double the rate it fills in the bike network.

“The major investment in the protected bike lane on Rio Grande and then the work we’ve done on Guadalupe several years ago all work to create high-comfort facilities that people see every day, whether they’re walking by them or driving by them,” Dierenfield said.

More connections keep coming. This year, a protected bike lane is planned through the UT campus, along Clyde Littlefield Drive, crossing Interstate 35 onto Manor Road and through an off-campus area where many students live.

2. If we built our cities the way we build our campuses, more Americans would bike

Multi-story homes and workplaces, relatively close to one another, with lots of nearby sidewalk-facing retail, lots of public space and not much room for parking: that’s a description for a Dutch city or an American university.

In both places, it turns out that bikes make it easier to get around.

Thanks to a decade of major real estate development just east of campus, Dierenfield said, “we have housing very close to the university.”

That’s created thousands of students who have an annoyingly short distance to drive but an annoyingly long distance to walk.

“You have a demographic that has tons and tons of short trips and very little time for fussing with parking and other sorts of things,” Dierenfield said. “They’re building their lives, and for that reason they’re constantly on the move.”

“There’s a phrase in Hawaiian, where I’m from: e holo paikikala pono,” she added. “That means ‘biking for the right reasons at the right time.’ … We’ve made it easier to use bikes for that trip type that’s suited to bikes.”

3. Students could sign up for free on a mobile app

Unlike their counterparts in Fargo, UT-Austin students couldn’t simply use their student IDs to check out bikes. McFadden said his team was worried that creating a B-Cycle account — which required putting a credit card on file — would feel like too big of a hassle, even if it was free.

“I think our highest hopes were that we would be where we are right now in the first 6-12 months,” McFadden said.

Apparently signups weren’t a big problem. McFadden and Dierenfield both credit B-Cycle’s mobile app, which lets students sign up right on the street.

“That was one of the game changers,” Dierenfield said.

A campuswide email generated the first 1,000 memberships, McFadden said.

“Since then it’s really been organic,” he said. “The students are talking to each other and figuring it out.”

The rapid growth has come at a cost to B-Cycle: thanks to longer shifts for its operations team, the company now figures its cost for the 18-month pilot will be $50,000 more than expected.

But McFadden said that with so much usage, he saw a strong case for a $10 annual fee on all students that would cover Austin B-Cycle’s campus-related expenses and let the free bike share sign-ups continue indefinitely.

“Some people were looking at Fargo as if is this an outlier, a one-off,” he said. “I think what we’re showing is, no, if you integrate a campus system with a larger city system — if you remove some of those barriers, this can really work.”

Texas Just Blew the Lid Off Campus Bike Share Launches: Three Reasons Why

Due to the constantly changing dimensions of the COVID-19 crisis, we encourage you to follow all current CDC guidelines as well as local travel advisories and recommendations. Take care of yourselves and loved ones. We’re all in this together.

Cities that score well in Safety have low traffic fatality and injury rates and are places where people feel safe riding a bike. We know that people ride more not only when they are safe, but also when they feel safe. 

We develop our  City Ratings Safety score using  three sources of data. 

Bike and all mode fatality rates. The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) reports on the number of fatalities associated with motor vehicle traffic crashes across the U.S.  Because the number of fatalities at the city level can vary significantly from year to year, we average fatality rates across a five-year period.

Bike and all mode injury rates. The City Snapshot records the number of type A injuries (incapacitating; requiring ambulance transport) on an annual basis. Focusing on type A injuries provides a standard definition that allows us to compare across cities.

Perceptions of safety. The PlacesForBikes Community Survey measures how people feel about bike riding in their communities. We know that many people won’t get on bikes if they don’t feel safe.

Lawrence has a long history of planning for bicycles, dating all the way back to their first Pedal Plan developed in 1976. Recently, the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP), established in December of 2018, has played a major role in making the city safer for biking.

“The NTMP is a comprehensive program designed specifically to improve the environment and quality of life in Lawrence through driver awareness, management and control of traffic on neighborhood streets,” says Jessica Mortinger, Lawrence’s transportation planning manager. “This comprehensive approach to traffic management should make neighborhoods more comfortable places to walk and bike for all residents.”

The Lawrence Bikes Plan, completed in August of 2019, is also a big player when it comes to safer streets. The plan includes a matrix to help evaluate the level of comfort people have on different bikeways (shared use path, bike lane, etc.) which is then used to shape appropriate infrastructure concepts. The plan also overlaps with the Safe Routes to School Plan, which is working to identify projects that can be used to increase the level of comfort and safety for students biking to school.

Prior to the year 2000, Grand Forks focused primarily on recreational cycling. After a historic flood in 1997, the city shifted during a rebuilding period, constructing a well-connected, shared-use trail system to benefit both recreational riders and commuters.

Grand Forks recognized that early education is key in preparing bike riders for a lifetime of safety on two wheels. Safe Kids Grand Forks, part of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing accidental injuries for youths, provide annual safe cycling classes to all Grand Forks third graders.

Grand Forks’ Greenway (built after the flood in ‘97) provides more than 20 miles of off-road paths and trails along both sides of the Red River to move around town — and even into neighboring Minnesota — without ever interacting with vehicular traffic. “The bikeway system provides routes through natural areas featuring rivers, coulees, woodlands and prairies for a diverse landscape setting,” says Stephanie Halford, senior planner for the City of Grand Forks. “Connectivity between residential and business sectors makes choosing cycling for commuter travel easier, safer and much more attainable.”

Small towns generally have good safety records because there are more low-stress roads and people tend to drive at slower speeds. Many of our high-scoring small towns also stand out when it comes to Acceleration. 

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People for Bikes City Ratings: Small Towns

How do you create safe, connected ways to ride bicycles? Small towns can offer some great ideas.

Defined as any place with a population of fewer than 100,000 people, many of our top small towns scored high in Acceleration because they’re focused on investing in improved biking.  Eighty percent of this score comes from the scale and variety of infrastructure and encouragement programs, as reported by city officials in the PlacesForBikes City Snapshot. Twenty percent of the score comes from local public opinions about bike investments gathered by the annual PlacesForBikes Community Survey.

Small towns often have  low-stress roads and people tend to drive at slower speeds. And highways often don’t run right through the middle of small towns, meaning they have the foundation of a really strong bicycle network and a natural environment for bicycling.

Let’s take a look at what some of our high-scoring small towns are working on to get more people riding bikes.  

Ferndale, Michigan: Overall City Rating, 3.0 — Population, 20,159

Many small towns have seen the economic benefits of increasing bike and foot traffic. Two decades ago, Ferndale made its downtown area more pedestrian-friendly by narrowing West Nine Mile Road and adding on-street parking and landscaping. The result has been a return of bike and pedestrian traffic and the arrival of new stores and restaurants. The city has continued to become more attractive to bikes and pedestrians by further reducing traffic lanes and adding bike lanes around downtown.

Jon Hughes, owner of Downtown Bike Shop, says that Ferndale has grown to the point that biking is just the most convenient way to get around. “I opened my shop in Ferndale ten years ago because it’s such a nice downtown and so many people were already walking and riding their bikes to get almost everywhere.” Hughes says that he’s seen more and more bike lanes go in, which has encouraged lots more people to ride a bike instead of drive a car. In partnership with the city, Downtown Bike Shop puts on a series of bike events for all ages and abilities. From family rides to health and fitness rides, to bike rodeos and mechanic classes.

DOWNTOWN FERNDALE BIKE SHOP

Bella Vista, Arkansas Overall City Rating, 3.0 — Population, 28,092

Connecting people to trails and recreation is a great way for small towns to encourage more ridership. The 37-mile Razorback Regional Greenway stretches from Bella Vista to Fayetteville, and connects people to schools, parks, community centers, and downtown areas. The paved path also connects to 250-miles of mountain biking trails. This system of trails alone have put Northwest Arkansas on the map in terms of bikeability.

According to Cassi Lapp, the Communications Director in Bella Vista, each town in the region sort of specializes in a specific set of trails and features. Bella Vista boasts traditional cross-country trails. Lapp says, “You can go to the next town over to get technical trails, or a bike park, or a downhill track. It’s cool to be part of a region where everyone is unique but part of something bigger.”

In addition to mountain biking, people in the community are using the trails for running, hiking, walking their dogs, playing with their kids, and bird watching. One thing that Bella Vista has worked hard on is marking the trails. Lapp says, “We have a really great marking systems — each trail is labeled with ability levels, and all street crossings are well marked with signage.”

Lapp says the town has already seen an influx of people moving to the area to be near the trails, either as a primary residence or as a seasonal rental. Bella Vista is working to add 40 new miles of trails to their existing 50-miles. They should open the new system later this year.  

Lompoc, California Overall City Rating, 2.9 — Population 43,762

Between the Pacific coast and wine country, Lompoc enjoys picturesque rolling hills. Not far from Buellton (a high scorer in our Safety rating) and the Santa Ynez Valley, Lompoc has ideal year-round weather for bike riding.

Joshua Leard, a civil engineer for Lompoc, says that it’s a continuous process to advance mobility and transportation in the area, but that bicycling is a huge part of their mobility plan. “Over the years we have completed a bicycle transportation plan, constructed Class I bike paths, restriped roads for Class II bike lanes, improved our traffic signals to accommodate bikes, posted city bike route maps online and at primary entrances to the City, and many other safety and convenience improvements that make the City a welcome place for bicyclists of all skill levels.”

Moving forward, Leard says Lompoc will continue work to complete their network, and to connect to other regional networks in the area.

Work with other small towns in the region to create connector paths and greenways.

Work with locally-owned bike shops and businesses to put on events for all ages and abilities.

Integrate bike riding skills and safety training into elementary school curriculums.

Improve bike/walk links to parks, trails & mountain bike areas. Make at least one new link each year, prioritizing areas with low recreation access.

On a year-to-year basis, Acceleration is where cities can make the biggest difference in their City Ratings scores. What we’re measuring here is how committed a city is to growing bicycling quickly. The Acceleration rating is designed to identify cities that may not provide a great bike riding experience today but are doing all the right things to grow bicycling over the next three to five years. 

Acceleration is about setting plans into motion, taking action for the future and recognizing that changing long-term safety and ridership requires action today. Here’s how we calculate Acceleration scores:

Planned growth in bicycle facilities and events. The City Snapshot collects data on the percentage increase in bike facilities and event participation in U.S. cities.

Perceptions of progress. The Community Survey measures how city residents feel about the progress the city is making toward better bicycling.


2020 City Ratings Top Five for Acceleration:

The Fayetteville Mobility Plan, first introduced in 2017, represents a huge shift in the direction of the community’s perception of transportation. The plan benefited from strong community support for investment in active transportation.

Since 2014, Fayetteville has added more than 15 miles of bike trails, and 83% of their population now lives within a half mile of a paved trail (up from 55% in 2015). “Fayetteville is small enough that a person can reach most places by bike in about 15 minutes and get all the way across town in an hour,” says Dane Eifling, Fayetteville’s mobility coordinator. “Our paved trails follow the flattest route right through the middle of town which make them fun and easy to ride along with getting you where you need to go.”

In the near term, Fayetteville has numerous upcoming projects planned to be completed by the end of 2020 to help create an even more well-connected network of bike lanes, paths and trails around the city. Longer term, the city plans to continue their build-out of active transportation paths and trails so that by 2040, 97% of the population will live within a half mile of any given trail.

While bikes might not be the first thing people think of when they think of Las Vegas, recent efforts by the city are looking to change that impression. “Changing perceptions has been important for Las Vegas — whether it’s our sustainability efforts, professional sports, even our bicycling culture,” says Marco Velotta of the city’s Office of Sustainability. “Las Vegas has made great strides to make itself a place for bikes.”

Such strides include constructing and funding more bike facilities, promoting bicycle use for transportation and continuing to foster the growth of bike culture for riders of all ages, abilities and skills. “The Las Vegas City Council will soon be considering the adoption of a new comprehensive 2050 Master Plan, which contains the goal of connecting and enhancing accessible bicycle and pedestrian facilities as part of a safe and efficient complete street network,” Velotta says. “The plan recognizes bicycling as a necessary active mode of transportation, and getting around without the need for using motor vehicles is something that offers a great degree of freedom as well as an affordable way of commuting.”

As part of the plan’s implementation, Las Vegas will be adding hundreds of miles of new bike lanes, including buffered lanes separate from vehicle traffic, and continue to expand the build out of its off-street trail network. 

Talk about acceleration: Here’s what Bella Vista has accomplished during the last five years. Between January and November of 2016, the small city in Northwest Arkansas broke ground and completed 40 miles of multi-use trails. Construction of an additional 52 miles of multi-use trails began in September of 2018, which includes eight tunnels, three bridges and seven trailheads. 48 miles  have been completed, and the final four miles will be finished this summer.

“Bella Vista’s trail system provides a much needed mode of active transportation due to the area’s steep topography, lack of sidewalks, disconnected neighborhoods and miles of winding roads with narrow shoulders,” says Bella Vista Trails Coordinator Kay Curry. “The trail system allows the community to get out and explore natural areas that weren’t possible to access before.”

Looking forward, Bella Vista’s Metfield Greenway extension is the next step in the city’s push for a more well-connected network for bikes. The 2.9 mile extension will help connect neighborhoods, parks, recreation centers, a school, a hospital, retail centers and trailheads to the regional trail system, as well as expand the opportunity of active transportation to the greater Bella Vista community. 

What cities are the easiest to navigate by bike?

A bike network includes all bike lanes, paths and trails that allow people on bikes to move around a city. The Network score evaluates the quality of a city’s bike network and how completely it links people to each other and local destinations using comfortable routes. A high-scoring network is one that connects people with where they want to go, safely and efficiently. Perceptions of the network are also given weight.

A more complete bike network increases safety as well as ridership, and when more people go by bike, transportation becomes better for all road users. Network quality is based on two factors:

Bicycle Network Analysis – The BNA measures how easy it is for people in a community to get the places they want to go on a complete, comfortable, connected bike network. Scores range from 0 to 100 where 100 is a perfect score. In places that score 100, the bike network functions as well as the road network.

Perceptions of network quality. Our Community Survey asks respondents to rate how complete, comfortable, and connected the bicycle network is in their community. 

What makes a small Colorado ski town tucked in the heart of the Rocky Mountains so good for bikes? “In Crested Butte, it’s all about singletrack,” says Dave Ochs, director of the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association (CBMBA). CBMBA has been advocating for, building and maintaining trails to make the network and access to it the best it can be since 1983.”

With a “downtown” that’s only nine square blocks, it’s no surprise that the main form of transportation for most in-town Crested Butte residents (even in winter months) is on two wheels. But don’t let its size fool you — Crested Butte is  the hub for over 450 miles of trails, all cared for by the Crested Butte Conservation Corps, a full-time trail care and stewardship crew started by the CBMBA. 

What’s the best way for a town to develop a thriving bike network? Ochs says it’s teamwork. “Work closely with the community, the stakeholders, the agencies and the local government. When it comes to recreation, people usually have more in common than not, and bringing everyone to the table usually yields quality returns and sustainable compromises.”

While a lot of cities have a history of biking, few have one as old as Provincetown, which saw the first proposal for a bike path in town way back in 1899. 68 years later, the Province Lands Bike Trail in the Cape Cod National Seashore was the first bike trail built in a national park.

“Since people have been riding bikes here long before automobiles, it’s much more common than other places in the U.S.,” says Chair of the Provincetown Bicycle Committee, Rik Ahlberg. “Much of Provincetown was laid out for people on foot and carriages.” 

Today, those streets (that are as skinny as 9 feet wide) have speed limits posted as low as 5 MPH, allowing many of Provincetown’s residents and tourists to go by bike without the worry of a car speeding past. As for the city’s newer, faster roadways, the Public Works department has prioritized adding bike lanes where possible when resurfacing streets, and will complete a new climbing lane for bikes this summer.

While the small town on the tip of Cape Cod may only have less than 3,000 year-round residents, a busy summer day can bring in over 50,000 visitors, with daily bike rentals being the go-to way many Provincetown tourists choose to travel and see the town.

“The best part about Provincetown is that so many people ride bikes,” says Ahlberg. “Bikes are used everyday for transportation to and from work, for grocery trips, just to get around town and of course for trips to the beach. It reminds me of my childhood in the 1970s when everyone was riding bicycles. The difference here is that it’s not just a fad.”

Going to the Netherlands on a study tour to learn about bike infrastructure is exciting and inspiring. At times, it’s also overwhelming — especially when the infrastructure at home seems far from ideal. How do you even start making improvements?

That’s why Nick Oyler, Bikeway and Pedestrian Manager for Memphis, and his team of eight colleagues, had specific goals when they went on their trip this past June. Each person would create their own project — something they saw or were influenced by on the trip — and put it into action when they returned to South Memphis.

For Oyler, every day in the Netherlands was full of seeing things that were “impressive and seemingly impossible to do in Memphis.” But one thing that really got his attention was the “bicycle street,” or what the Dutch call, Fietsstraat. Open to both bikes and cars, the streets are designed in a way that calms traffic and gives priority to bikes. Cars stay in the center lanes of the road, and yield to bikes on outer lanes.

Within the first day of the trip, Oyler was fascinated by this concept. “I researched it in my hotel at the end of the night,” he said, “and discovered that it wasn’t an entirely new concept in the U.S.” In America, they’re called “advisory bike lanes” or “advisory shoulders.” Oyler wanted to find a way to implement the idea in South Memphis.

He discovered a white paper put out by Alta. The document provided all kinds of guidelines for adding infrastructure to various existing roadways, including rural contexts. Oyler had the framework to make an impact on his own city.

According to Alta, an advisory bike lane is “a preferred space for bicyclists and motorists to operate on narrow streets that would otherwise be a shared roadway environment.” There are several versions of the advisory lane, but the idea is that an existing two-way road can be converted to shared space — even when there is little to no room for bike lanes to be added. Creating an advisory bike lane forces car traffic to move more slowly and be more cautious of bike traffic. After first-hand observation in the Netherlands, and time studying the U.S. examples, Oyler felt certain advisory lanes could be implemented in the Big Jump area of Memphis.

Working closely with his team and the City of Memphis, Oyler just launched their first trial versions of advisory lanes on Walker Avenue. The trial version, which they’re calling a “demonstration,” will be in place for a month. They launched a community outreach program, creating pamphlets and signs, and spoke with residents directly — to explain how it would all work.  After the trial period, Oyler and his team will complete a door-to-door survey to gather feedback from residents.

Just weeks after the installation of the advisory bike lanes, it’s too early to determine the results, but generally residents seem thrilled that positive change and investment is underway in their neighborhood. According to Oyler, “Typically for these kinds of demonstration projects, I’m used to receiving a slew of critical emails and phone calls. Since the installation two weeks ago, I’ve only received one call – and that individual ultimately issued her support after better understanding the project.”

Of the early reactions from residents, Oyler says, “The day we installed the advisory bike lanes, a man who resides on Walker Avenue returned home on his bike to find the new striping in place. He excitedly shouted to me from across the street, ‘Are these bike lanes?’” For the next 10 minutes, the man rode up and down the street shouting to his neighbors, “We got bike lanes!”

Small changes can make a big impact. It’s easy to think of infrastructure as physical structures; but really, it’s about the people. It’s about lives improved and communities strengthened.

European Strategies on Rural Memphis Streets

At PeopleForBikes, we believe we can all do more to grow the cycling community. We’ve been doing the work for nearly 20 years and we want to keep the momentum going. We’re committed to improving inclusiveness in our messaging, broadening the audiences we reach, and increasing our staff diversity. Join us as we learn from various voices in the cycling community. Together, we can turn what we learn into action.

Create better access for communities of color to cycle

When Courtney Williams moved to New York City from the Midwest in 2009, she realized pretty quickly that she wanted to ride a bike, but didn’t feel safe. Beyond the traffic stress of a large city, she was aware of other intimidations that come with being a woman of color on a bike. So she started promoting group rides. She discovered she was good at organizing and good at advocating. The Brown Bike Girl was born. Today Williams partners with local government, nonprofits and institutions to increase bicycling access and adoption within communities of color, and bicycling education for all. Williams helps get more people on bikes through initiative planning and facilitation, training, and creative collaboration.

Williams says that a lot of the negativity toward cyclists comes from the belief that people on bikes don’t know how to bike or obey laws correctly. Especially in large cities, people riding bikes for transportation often speak languages other than English.“We need to work on bike education, which requires teaching in multiple languages,” Williams says, “If you’re not educating people in a way that they’re able to receive, you’re not making improvements.”

The second piece of making education accessible is to offer it in places where the people who need it feel safe. Williams suggests offering both bike education and recreational events in places that are traditionally underserved, rather than places that are central to the city.

Equity means getting people on bikes and keeping them riding

Williams says there’s a difference between diversity and equity. “Diversity is just a pretty collection of things that are different, but if you’re not serving those people in a way that improves their quality of life, then you’re not helping.” Williams offers courses that educate people on situations they’ll encounter when riding and/or owning a bike in a city. She teaches not only about bike laws and etiquette, but also about how to park and lock a bike.

Williams says there’s also a need for people to be able to express their insecurities about biking. In her course, “Cycling Makes Sense,” she works on shifting mindsets, and helping people to see all the benefits of being on a bike in the city.  “Many times I talk to people of color and they’re worried about how much a bike costs, but I help them see how much money they’ll actually save, and how their lives will improve.”

How to Grow the Bike Community: 3 Ideas from Bicycle Advocacy Consultant Courtney Williams

According to a new study released by Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center in Oregon, bicycle lanes and infrastructure can produce tangible economic benefits for cities.

The National Street Improvements Study, conducted by PSU in conjunction with PeopleForBikes and consulting firm Bennett Midland and funded in part by The Summit Foundation, researched the economic effects of bicycle infrastructure on 14 corridors across six cities — Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Memphis, Minneapolis and Indianapolis. The study found that improvements such as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure had either positive or non-significant impacts on the local economy as measured through sales and employment. 

For example, in 2012, bike lanes were installed on Central Avenue in Minneapolis by reducing the width of the travel lane and removing parking lanes. Retail employment increased by 12.64% — significantly higher than the 8.54% increase calculated in the control study area a few blocks away. The same corridor also recorded a dramatic 52.44% increase in food sales, which more than doubled the 22.46% increase in the control area. A protected bike lane along Broadway in Seattle that was completed in 2014 was accompanied by a significant 30.78% increase in food service employment compared to  2.49% and 16.17% increases in control areas.

“This study is an important resource to help cities make the case for building more bicycle infrastructure,” said Zoe Kircos, PeopleForBikes’ director of Grants and Partnerships. “PeopleForBikes knows that connected networks are key to encouraging more people to ride, and now the data shows that economic vitality often follows those investments. We’ll share these case studies far and wide, and encourage other communities to use this economic assessment guide to calculate the economic benefits of bike lanes on their own streets.”

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