Becoming 'bike friendly'

Here's a lovely Bike to Work Week present: After years of trying, Cedar Rapids has earned the distinction of being one of America's “bike-friendly” cities.

In fact, two Corridor cities were among the 24 newly declared Bicycle Friendly Communities by the League of American Bicyclists this year. University Heights also earned the distinction.

They join Iowa's current bike-friendly cities - Des Moines, Cedar Falls and Iowa City - on a shortlist of only 214 areas so designated in the country. Nicely done.

It takes a lot of work to earn the designation. The league judges applicants' investment in bicycling based on “the five Es” - engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation and planning. National experts look at physical infrastructure and planning processes, but they also look at how a city encourages cycling through educational programs, incentives and enforcement of traffic laws that hold both motorists and cyclists accountable.

Why bother, you ask?

Biking is a win, win, win: cheap, healthy and good for the environment. It's also good for our image, Iowa Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Mark Wyatt told me this week.

“This is something that does attract people to a community,” Wyatt said.

Young professionals, creative types, people who want to raise a family all look at quality-of-life stuff like bike friendliness when deciding where to make their home.

Boomers and Gen-Xers want to be active. Surveys show a lot of Millennials are not even interested in buying cars. Even Mayor Ron Corbett is giving biking to work a try.

As cities compete for attention, support for alternative transportation will become an even more important part of the mix, Wyatt predicts.

Way back in 2009, when Cedar Rapids first started looking into bike-friendliness, there were no Bike Friendly cities in Iowa. Iowa City once had earned the title, then lost it when standards were raised.

Since then, Iowa's bike-friendly cities have added miles of bike lanes and made other infrastructure improvements. Most important, city officials have made bike traffic an integrated part of transportation planning.

It's a good lesson for even more Iowa cities - friendlying up your town can be cheaper and easier than you might think.

So as bicycle enthusiasts challenge bike-curious Iowans to try commuting on two wheels this week, I've got a challenge of my own.

How many more bike-friendly cities will I be able to congratulate next year?

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net