Bicycle Planning in North America

Dozens of North American cities, counties and states have acted to institutionalize bicycle planning along the above lines. They have established and expanded professional bicycle planning and promotion staff, and adopted and carried through bike master plans and high-visibility programs to elevate cycling's status. Some cities have adopted specific targets for desired levels of cycle commuting and personal trips by bike. The following are among the outstanding examples:

One reason Seattle ranks as America's #1 cycling city — city government actively solicits improvements to its bicycling infrastructure.

• In 1983, Toronto created the City Cycling Office, now with a staff of four. Toronto's bicycle planners not only oversee construction plans and projects to ensure road and bridge compatibility with cycling; they have also spearheaded creation of 1,700 bike parking sites and large-scale public education and promotion campaigns. [5]
• The bicycle office of Seattle, Washington (population, half-a-million) has six full-time staff; their facility and program development played a leading role in Seattle's designation as the top U.S. cycling city by Bicycling magazine in 1990. [6]
• In what may be the most ambitious municipal bicycle transportation initiative yet to emerge in the 1990s, the City of Chicago has adopted a far-reaching plan to extensively develop personal, official and commercial bicycling by the year 2000. The plan aims to transfer 10% of auto trips under 5 miles to cycling by the turn of the century, by constructing a network of 300 miles of bike routes, adopting a bicycle parking ordinance and expanding municipal bike-parking facilities, increasing commercial, governmental, and police use of bicycles, and increasing educational programs for cyclists and drivers. Because this plan has come from one of the nation's largest cities — and an older, northern, transit-based city relatively similar to New York physically, socially and climatically — it warrants particular attention from NYC transportation planners. [7]
• In Pasadena, California, the municipal administration commissioned The Plan to Make Pasadena Bicycle-Friendly. [8] Under the plan, all streets are considered to be bikeways and are maintained and upgraded as such. The plan also foresees expansion of the city's bicycle staff, creation of a municipal bike parking ordinance and improvement of bike-transit links.
• In March, 1991, the City of Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin updated their bicycle plans (first established, along with considerable cycling infrastructure, in the 1970s). The linked plans incorporate facility development, maintenance policies and bicycle education and enforcement programs. [9]
• Portland, Oregon's Alternative Transportation Program has adopted a goal similar to Chicago's — to have 5% of commuter trips to be made by bicycle by the year 2000. The program has produced an area bike map, installed bike parking lockers, enacted a bike parking ordinance, organized large-scale promotional events and begun implementing a network of bike routes and lanes. [10]
• In 1990, Boulder, Colorado (population, 80,000) created an Alternative Transportation Center within its Transportation Division. The center organizes and promotes public transportation and employer-provided transit and carries out bicycle and pedestrian planning and promotion. Boulder's Bike Week produces more participants than any similar effort in North America (4,500 in 1991 [11]). Two-full time bicycle planners in city government conduct opinion research on appropriate hardware and siting for bicycle parking while overseeing construction of bikeways.
• Oregon is a leader at the state level. State law dictates that 1% of transportation funds be spent on bicycle facilities; a bicycle plan is one of seven modal system plans making up the state's unified transportation plan. The plan considers means to accommodate bicycles on transit vehicles, specifies weather-proof bike parking hardware for commuter destinations, and identifies streets for bike lane installation and rural roads for shoulder-widening. To implement these policies, the Oregon Highway Division's Bikeways Program has two full-time staff, plus an officially-constituted bicycle advisory committee (BAC). The program has also helped foster action on bicycling at the local level: six counties have bike master plans and BAC's; 30 Oregon cities have bike master plans, and 11 have BAC's. [12]
• North Carolina adopted a detailed bicycle policy in 1979 and updated it in 1991. The bicycle program now has seven staff, and receives its own budget plus additional funding through the state Transportation Improvement Plan. North Carolina's school bicycle education program is a widely-cited model. [13]

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