Columbia is a Bicycle Friendly Community
The League of American Bicyclists, a nationwide organization of bicycle clubs, individual cyclists and affiliated organizations, has named Columbia a Bicycle Friendly Community at Silver Level. The award recognizes communities for their efforts to increase bicycling and community achievements in five categories: Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement and Evaluation & Planning.
Columbia is one of only 108 communities to receive this designation and the only community in Missouri. Of the four levels of awards; bronze, silver, gold and platinum, there are currently only 67 communities in the United States at the Bronze level, 23 awarded the Silver, nine awarded the Gold and just three awarded the Platinum designation.
This year 29 new communities applied for Bicycle Friendly designation. Only 13 communities received recognition and Columbia was the only Silver award winner. The others either received honorable mention or Bronze. No one scored higher than Columbia.
Benefits to Columbia include new road signs letting residents and visitors know that bicyclists are an important part of the Columbia transportation system and recognition that Columbia enjoys a high quality of life for residents, which is attractive for business thinking of relocating to the area.
The substantial amount of work required to put the Bicycle Friendly Community application together was speared-headed by Robert Johnson of the PedNet Coalition and Steve Kullman of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Commission.
Related Stories:
