Fort Collins Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community Application
Fort Collins' Platinum Bike Plan
This blog is a tool to brainstorm ways to become a Platinum level Bicycle Friendly Community. Add a comment to any entry to include your ideas in our wishlist. Scroll down to view other options. To see the results of the January 2012 "Bicycle Program Priorities" survey cut and paste this link in your browser: www.TinyUrl.com/FoCoBikeSurvey
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Friday, May 17, 2013
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.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
'The Bear's Bicycle' a route to reaching all ages on safety
First Published in The Coloradoan, Jan. 7, 2013
By Rick Price
During
three years of teaching in the City’s Safe Routes to School program I’ve been
surveying children’s literature on bicycling.
There are some wonderful children’s books about bicycling available and
there are some absolutely terrible bicycle safety books – terrible because they
are boring and because they try to teach kids by lecturing them rather than
through creative engagement.
But
at least one book should get the award for excellence in both entertainment and
bicycle safety. It is The Bear’s
Bicycle written by Emilie Warren McLeod and illustrated by David McPhail
(Joy Street Books, Little, Brown and Company).
In a read-aloud program this book could reach elementary school kids,
seniors or parents and CSU student volunteers all at the same time.
This
story begins with a simple statement: “every
afternoon we go bike riding.” An
illustration shows a little boy and his teddy bear preparing their bikes for a
ride. The boy checks the air in the
tires and tests the brakes in preparation for the ride.
Kindergarteners
through second graders sit spellbound when I read this to a class. I ask them to look carefully for lessons they
would like to teach bear, who is the alter ego of Tommy in this book, and is
not the safest of cyclists.
The
bike ride begins with the two cyclists coasting down the driveway. Tommy (the boy) looks left and right, then
signals a right turn while bear coasts down the driveway, turns right without
stopping and picks a few apples off a tree in the yard while oblivious to
anything else around him.
The
book continues in this vein: Tommy walks
his bike across the street after first checking for traffic while bear rides
right into a milk truck. Tommy watches for
hazards such as opening car doors, debris or dogs while bear is oblivious to
all of these dangers. Tommy stops at stop signs, keeps to the right and
warns pedestrians of his approach. At the end of the afternoon he wipes
his feet before entering the house. Bear
does the opposite on all of these.
At the end of this book I ask kids what they would
tell bear to help make him a safer cyclist.
Hands shoot up. “Bear,” the kids
begin, “you should stop at stop signs.”
Or “Bear,” they’ll admonish, “you need to walk your bike across the
street” or “yield to pedestrians.”
No bicycle book is perfect. Inevitably one of the kids will raise his
hand and say, “Bear, you need to wear a helmet.” Indeed, neither bear nor Tommy wear helmets
in this book. That’s a failing, for
many, with any kids’ bike book. For me
it is a teaching moment. I never
complete my lesson without mentioning the importance of wearing helmets. The other thing about this book that makes it
less than perfect is that both Tommy and bear use bikes with training
wheels.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Preparing Bikes and Kids for Spring Cycling
First Published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan, March 1, 2010
by Rick Price
Children
five to ten should learn the rules of the road as pedestrians before they begin
bicycling: teach them how to walk through parking lots, crosswalks, driveways,
and sidewalks. The rules they learn
walking (“look left, look right, look left again . . ,” stop at the edge, and
so on) will serve them well when they begin bicycling.
Smaller
children should not ride alone on the street (your cul-de-sac excepted,
perhaps). They don’t have the cognitive
ability to judge distance and speed. Encourage them to ride behind you until
they learn the concepts of keeping right, watching for hazards, and making way
for those passing. While they ride
behind you they imprint on you as goslings do on their parents. So follow the rules of the road: signal, keep
to the right, use two hands, and wear a helmet.
How many parents do you see without a helmet? They are, effectively, teaching their kids
that it’s ok for adults to not wear a helmet.
By
the time children are 10 (4th grade) they are ready to ride on
neighborhood streets with parked cars and light traffic. They’ve developed their peripheral vision and
have the judgement necessary to be allowed freedom to discover the world. But now they need real instruction in bike
handling, hazard avoidance and they are able to understand that bicycles are
vehicles and must follow the rules of the road.
Those
of us concerned about bicycle policies in the community advocate that the education
of a cyclist should be focused on 4th and 5th graders
where we should set a goal of training every single one of them in PE classes
over a ten-week period. If they can get
pedestrian rules of the road earlier and apply them in 4th grade
we’d have a much safer bicycle community.
Continue that teaching on the bike into middle school and we’d also have
safer young drivers of motor vehicles.
About
that bicycle. Get out to the garage
right now and check: “A,” air in the
tires; “B,” the brakes; and “C,” the crank, chain and cassette if it has more
than one gear. If the ABC Quick Check
shows that the bike is ready, you’re good to go. We do this regularly in
elementary school bike parking lots, though, and find that 60% of the bikes
need air AND a brake adjustment. This
last one is serious. Your child needs to
learn how to ride his or her bike but he or she needs to learn how to stop it
effectively. Most brakes on kids’ bikes
won’t stop the bike because they are not properly adjusted. If the bike didn’t pass the ABC test and you
can’t fix the brakes, please take it down to the bike shop today.
If
you are buying a child’s first bike please go to the bike shop, not a
department store, and get professional help with proper sizing.
_____________
Rick
Price, Ph.D., LCI #2347 lives and pedals in Fort Collins where he is the Safe
Cycling Coordinator for the Bike Co-op.
If your school or group would like a safe cycling presentation
contact
Rick@ExperiencePlus.com.
Labels:
3rd grade,
4th and 5th,
ABC Quick Check,
k thru 3rd
Monday, July 2, 2012
Budgeting Will Allow the City of Fort Collins to Prioritize Bicycle Safety
First published in the Coloradoan July 2, 2012
By Rick Price
How can we get more people to use their bicycle for
transportation in Fort Collins? Offer more classes in safe cycling skills? Build more bike paths? Hire a marketing firm to advertise the health
benefits of bicycling? Continue to offer
a free bicycle lending program to encourage tourists to ride bicycles?
Last January I conducted a survey of interested citizens in
order to provide input to City Council on these priorities. Five hundred thirty-six people responded to
the survey. 87% of respondents felt that
the City's bike program contributes to their personal
well-being and quality of life and 84% felt that our bicycle programs and
culture constitute an economic driver, enticing businesses and residents to
move here.
When asked to rank programs,
including law enforcement, the bike library, and education programs for
children, college students and motorists, education for children came out on top,
supported by 82% of respondents. Second
was educational outreach to motorists which attracted the support of 68% of
respondents. Third was support of the
bike library (67%) with summer bike to work day close behind at 64%.
Respondents in this survey were not
asked to allocate funds in a hypothetical budget but they were asked a number
of times to prioritize programs. Bike
safety programs for school children came out consistently at the top of the
list with three quarters tagging this as “very important” and another 21%
identifying it as “somewhat important.”
Two popular programs that give
bicycling great visibility in Fort
Collins came in near the top of this list of
priorities. They are the bike library
and summer bike to work day. But answers
to additional questions made it clear that most people feel that these are
programs that the City should continue to sponsor but not pay for entirely. Only a quarter of respondents felt that the
City should continue to fund the free bike library while a majority (66%) felt
that the program should be self-supporting.
A similar sentiment was expressed with Bike to Work day. 32% encouraged the City to continue to
sponsor this while 57% felt that local businesses or bicycle advocacy groups
should assume more of a role in financing bike to work day.
Among the bicycle programs that had
less support in this survey were the Bicycle Ambassador Program (only 25% of
respondents supported it), the Bike Safety Town for school children and Winter
Bike to Work Day, both with 43% support.
In my view the Bicycle Ambassador Program and Bike Safety Town, if
properly launched and funded, could be the mainstay of an educational outreach
program in the schools while winter Bike to Work day could easily be passed to
the private sector.
As staff finalizes the 2013-2014
budget recommendation for City Council approval later this fall they should
consider the results of the above survey.
The community is asking for more bicycle safety programs and fewer costly,
headline-grabbing initiatives.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Are We Building Too Many Bike Lanes?
First published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan, May 21, 2012
Sometimes I worry that we are building too many bike lanes. We build them to encourage children,
families, and novice cyclists to ride more. But bike lanes can be misleading if they give
a false sense of security to novices who need to learn when and how to get out
of the bike lane safely. They can also
mislead motorists and parents into thinking that the only place for bicyclists
is in the bike lane.
If we
are going to become the safest bike town in the nation we’ve got to come to an
understanding of where bicycles belong on our streets and the role of bike
lanes in this. Three principles govern the concept: 1) Colorado
law; 2) common sense; and 3) best practices in bike safety. Common courtesy also plays a role.
Cyclists
should exit the bike lane if it is dangerous for them to be there because of
debris, potholes, glass or the threat of opening car doors from parked
cars. Cyclists should also get out of
the bike lane and merge into the travel lane to make a left turn, when
overtaking a slower vehicle, and to avoid a right turn lane if they are
continuing straight through an intersection.
Conflicts
are often built into intersections where right turning cars must cross bike
lanes. How many motorists know that the
law requires them to allow one hundred feet before turning right after passing
a cyclist? Not many, I fear.
When
there are no bike lanes cyclists can and should use the right-most regular
travel lane in a position where they feel safe:
they should stay away from parked cars and occupy the entire lane if it
is not wide enough to share side-by-side with motor vehicles. Lanes less than fourteen feet wide cannot be
safely shared so cyclists should position themselves in the center or the right
third of that lane.
Roundabouts
in south Fort Collins
often have bike lanes leading into them.
In some cases the bike lane ends before the roundabout, requiring
cyclists to merge with traffic, which is desirable, while other times the lanes
end abruptly at the roundabout itself creating potential confusion for cyclists
and motorists.
Instead
of more bike lanes we need an intensive education program to educate all road
users of the rights of cyclists and best practices for everyone. The City should take the lead in this. Maybe when we conduct a national search for a
new bike coordinator we can look for someone to help us move in this direction.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Clear Up Confusion on Bicycling in Old Town Fort Collins
By Rick Price
First published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan May 14, 2012
Last week a passenger in a car on College Avenue shouted at
me to get off the street. When the car
stopped at a red light at College and Laporte Avenue I pulled up beside it and
asked the occupants if they had spoken to me.
The young male passenger said, “yeah, get the [expletive] out of the
road or at least keep to the right.”
Photo compliments of Preston Tyree. |
There is still plenty of confusion about where we can ride
our bicycles in Old Town Fort Collins. Maybe
it is time the City and the Downtown Business Association took steps to clear this
up, especially for those who work in Old Town and who are in a position to help
educate others.
When I mention the dismount zone to cyclists on the sidewalk
in Old Town I’ve often had reasonable people ask me if I want them to “ride on
College Avenue?” When I say “yes,” they
are incredulous and explain to me that it is illegal to ride on College. We need to bust this myth once and for
all: it is illegal to ride on College
Avenue only between Harmony Road and Laurel Street. North of Laurel it is perfectly legal to ride
on College and between Magnolia and Maple Streets it is actually safe since the
speed limit is 25 miles per hour and College is, for all practical purposes, a
parking lot. You are safer pedaling College
Avenue here than you are bicycling across the parking lot at Foothills Fashion
Mall. Admittedly you need to practice
basic principles of vehicular cycling but you can learn these at
www.BikeEd.org.
The City could help this situation in two ways: 1) publish a
single panel flyer to explain where and how to bicycle in Old Town; 2) pass an
ordinance, similar to ordinances in Los Angeles and Independence, Missouri,
where it is illegal to harass “any person riding a bicycle, walking, running,
or operating a wheelchair” by shouting or otherwise directing “loud or unusual
sounds toward such person.”
Yes, it would be difficult to enforce such an
ordinance. But the publicity alone would
go far to make Old Town a safer place to ride a bicycle.
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