Fort Collins Wins Platinum Award: "Fort Collins bicycle culture, in nation's top 4, aims higher"

By David Young, the Coloradoan

First Published May 13, 2013

 Fort Collins has been climbing the ranks of “bicycle friendly” communities for 10 years now, but there’s still one more rung to go.

The city has been working toward becoming a platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community ever since it reached the gold level, said Molly North, FC Bikes Program Specialist. To finally achieve it is a proud moment.

The League of American Bicyclists awarded Fort Collins the Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community status on Monday. It puts Fort Collins into the upper echelons of cities that embrace bicycles as a lifestyle.

Troutman Underpass on the Mason Trail, March 2013

Next up, the city is striving to reach the next level: diamond.

In the past five years, programs such as the bicycle library, bicycle ambassador program and bicycle infrastructure were key in reaching the next level, said North, who applied for the designation. She also credited both the city and the community for sustained commitment to cycling.

“Part of the spirit of this bike-friendly community program is that competition,” North said. “Really, competition against oneself.”

With bikes used as recreation as well as transportation, the city needs to get more people on bikes and further the programs in place if it wants to reach the diamond designation.

“We are not going to rest on our laurels,” North said. “We are not going to be ‘as is,’ but if not broken, we won’t fix it.”

Nicole Wynands, program manager of the Bicycle Friendly Community program with the League of American Bicyclists, said one of the big achievements that helped Fort Collins move to the next level was the Bike Ambassador Program, in which trained cyclists work with the community to advance safe cycling.

In addition, the infrastructure, such as an expansive 133 miles of off-street trails and 280 miles of bike lanes, contributed to the designation. Wynands also noted how CSU and businesses encourage cycling by offering bike parking.

More people ride bikes than walk in town — a rarity — as 6.6 percent ride and 3.3 percent walk, she noted.

The diamond designation is still in the works. In addition to an application, it would require a survey and some stricter requirements that accompany it. A diamond designation requires that ridership would need to be 15 percent and bike crashes would need to be limited to 50 per 10,000 daily commuters, with fewer than .02 fatalities, Wynands said.

Rick Price, Fort Collins Bike Co-op safe cycling coordinator, said the award is well deserved and the city has been working toward this moment for years. He gave much of the credit to City Council for its foresight in helping put Fort Collins on the map for biking.

Price has his eyes on the next level — diamond — noting that to reach it, there needs to be more education and policies that will help raise the next generation of cyclists.

Fort Collins achieved the status for its investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and pro-bicycling policies.

The Bicycle Friendly Community program evaluates quality of life, sustainability and transportation networks, providing benchmarks toward improving bicycle-friendliness. There are 259 Bicycle Friendly Communities in 47 states across America. But there are only four platinum cities in the country: Fort Collins; Boulder; Davis, Calif.; and Portland, Ore. There are five levels of the award — diamond, platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Fort Collins received a silver designation in 2003 and a gold designation in 2008. No city has reached the diamond level yet.

Moving forward, Dan Porter, cyclist and operator of local bike website yourgroupride.com, said he would like to see more races, such as the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, become standards for Fort Collins.

Coinciding with the award, FC Bikes new program manager, Tessa Greegor, started Monday. Greegor, 30, comes from Seattle, where, for the past five years, she has been the principal planner for the Cascade Bicycle Club, the largest bicycle advocacy organization in the country.

Greegor said the award reflects the level of commitment that the city has to cycling.

Coming into her first day on the job, she noted the framework is in place for bikes freeing her up to focus on updating the bike plan, expand the bike library and work on bike safety.

Greegor wants to help families and children feel safer when riding.

New Belgium Recognized as Platinum Bicycle Friendly Business

Congratulations to New Belgium Brewing! This just in from the League of American Bicyclists. The photo shows New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins hosting a winter bike to work breakfast.

Washington, DC - March 05, 2009 – The League of American Bicyclists is proud to announce New Belgium Brewing is named as a platinum level Bicycle Friendly Business and is one of the 34 new BFB award winners. This is the second time BFB winners have been announced since the program's inception in 2008 when the League announced the first 13 designees.

“We’re delighted to highlight New Belgium and the ways in which they are getting more people on bikes,” stated League President Andy Clark. “In today’s challenging economic climate, businesses with healthy, happy and productive employees are going to be the most competitive and the most sustainable – the Bicycle Friendly Business program recognizes some of the best examples of this in practice.”

The BFB program recognizes socially responsible businesses that promote healthy, happy, and green workplaces and provides a road map to become even more bicycle-friendly in the years to come. “Businesses across the nation are rising to the challenge of reducing their carbon footprint and improving the health of their employees - we are excited to be able to provide a roadmap to help achieve both these goals, and to recognize those companies that are leading the way," said Clark.

“It’s an honor to be recognized at the League’s highest platinum level rating,” said New Belgium spokesman, Bryan Simpson. “As a brewery founded on a bike ride through Belgium, we do bike advocacy from Tour de Fat to Team Wonderbike because it’s an important part of who we are and how we want to manifest on this planet.”

Bicycle Friendly Businesses are corporations, organizations, nonprofits and associations that weave bicycling into their business culture and give employees and customers the opportunity to be active stewards of their personal and environmental health through bicycling. When bicycling is infused in an office or company culture, great things happen: reduced health care costs; more productive employees; improved worker and customer; satisfaction; smaller carbon footprint; and increased corporate social responsibility.

Applying as a BFB is easy and free. Applicants receive technical assistance from the League staff as well as tools to evaluate and assess their bicycle friendliness through the application process. The BFB application is available online at www.bicyclefriendlybusiness.org.

Streetfilms Documents why Boulder is Platinum

Take a look at where Fort Collins has to go in order to achieve the platinum level bicycle friendly community award.

Clarence Eckerson has done a great job of documenting Boulder's great bike system and bike culture for Streetfilms. Watch the whole thing and learn!

Share this with ALL your friends in Fort Collins.

Boulder Attributes Platinum Ranking to City's Bike Summit Last Year

The Boulder Daily Camera carried the following article in today's paper:
(For details on the Boulder Platinum Summit meeting scroll down)

Bike-friendly rank bumped up to platinum
Boulder's bicycle- friendly rank bumps up to top honors
By Laura Snider, Camera Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2008

The League of American Bicyclists bumped Boulder's bicycle-friendly status from gold to platinum last week, putting the city in the company of Portland, Ore., and Davis, Calif., the only other towns with the league's highest honor.

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"To all the people who ride bikes in Boulder, including kids riding to school, world-class racers training for their next event, commuters riding to worker, mountain bikers riding Marshal Mesa and families biking to the farmer's market, I say thank you," Mayor Shaun McGrath said in a statement.

The designations, which must be applied for, are based on everything from well-designed bike lanes and multi-use paths to cyclist education and bicycle-law enforcement liaisons.

There are seven official bicycle-friendly communities in Colorado, including bronze-rated Longmont and gold-rated Fort Collins. As a whole, Colorado ranks 22 out of 50 for bicycle-friendly states. Washington is the friendliest, according to the league, and West Virginia is the least supportive of bicycling.

The city said ongoing efforts to encourage biking and the bike summit held in Boulder last year, which forged bonds between government agencies and leaders in the bike community, were responsible for the higher rating. Mayor McGrath also acknowledged that Boulder still has improvements it wants to make.

"I am aware, as are most cyclists in Boulder, that we still have work to do to make bicycling safer and more attractive to more people," he said. "This award will inspire the city, and hopefully our community, to continue to progress.

For more information on the League of American Bicyclists rating system, go to www.bikeleague.org.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.

Boulder Celebrates 1st Anniversary of Platinum Bike Summit

Boulder City Council sponsored a Bike Summit Sept. 7, 2007 with the purpose of achieving Platinum status from the League of American Bicyclists.

Among the suggestions coming out of the summit:  

• World class recreational cycling for all ages;
• Bikes on Transit;
• Wayfinding initiatives;
• Bike Education in Schools;
• Bike Service Stations;
• Car free zones;
• Active Living Business Cluster.

"The bike summit was attended by nearly 100 people, inclucing leaders from the bicycling community and staff from a number of local agencies, who gathered to brainstorm a vision of of vision that would make Boulder the bicycling capital of the world in 20 years.  The  Bike Summit Report is a recording of the recommendations and initiatives identified by summit participants.

The summit was a collaborative community effort. City staff's primary role was to listen carefully and to facilitate a broad and open discussion amongst participants, with no attempt to explain why something wasn't feasible or how it didn't fit into current city plans.

Follow some of these links for more on the Boulder initiative:

From the report on the summit: http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7693&Itemid=3068

Madison Progresses toward Platinum

Madison, Wisconsin achieved Gold level status in 2006. That designation was renewed in May, 2008. According to the City of Madison’s Traffic Engineering Department: “In the fall of 2006 Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz formed the Platinum Biking City Planning Committee with the overall goals of

1) achieving the Platinum designation level through the League of American Bicyclists Bicycle Friendly Communities program, and

2) putting forward a roadmap - or bike path - for Madison to become the best city in the country for bicycling.”

In April 2008 that plan was adopted by the Madison Common Council. Have a look: http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/trafficEngineering/documents/PlatinumAdopted040808sm.pdf

There is no reason why Fort Collins can’t have such a plan.

Portland takes Platinum

Indeed today Portland, Oregon will receive the highest Bicycle Friendly Community award from the League of American Bicyclists. We should all plan a trip to the City of Roses to see how they did it!