Spokane Mayor Mary Verner announced today that the League of American Bicyclists has named the City of Spokane a Bronze Level Bicycle Friendly Community.
This award program is designed to revolutionize the way communities evaluate their quality of life, sustainability, and transportation networks, while allowing them to benchmark their progress and work toward improving their bicycle-friendliness.
Only 140 of the 359 total applicants for the award have received designation. There are four levels of the award: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.
There are several accomplishments that helped the City accomplish this designation, including:
– Completion of a Master Bike Plan.
– Organized bike and pedestrian counts.
– Supporting events like SpokeFest and Bike to Work Week.
– Adding “sharrows” on 37th Avenue and Southeast Boulevard.
– Completing the second phase of the Fish Lake Trail.
– Adding a Bike-Ped Coordinator postion to look for grant and other opportunities to expand our bike and pedestrian network.
– Work on a “complete streets” concepts for our community.
Also worthy of note: Mountain Gear was named a Silver level Bike Friendly Business and Rings & Things a Bronze level. This happened in 2009 but they didn't do news releases & we just happened to find out recently.
More on Mountain Gear: http://bit.ly/7Z1pzM
More on Rings & Things: http://bit.ly/d9qYtv
@BarbChamberlain
Co-Chair, Bike to Work Spokane
Vice-Chair, City of Spokane Bicycle Advisory Board
Follow-up question: We plan to put on a workshop for businesses interested in learning from Mountain Gear and Rings & Things about why it's good for their businesses to be bike friendly and how others can get ready and apply.
Do you know business owners/managers who would be interested? Email info@biketoworkspokane.org with contact information and we'll put them on the list to receive an invitation when we get the workshop put together.
@BarbChamberlain
Thanks Barb, and a belated congratulations to Mountain Gear and Rings & Things. Next time give yourself a pat on the back and a news release so the rest of us can.
That's interesting about the business workshops. I will do some brainstorming and see if I can come up with any myself.