League of American Bicyclists Presents Richardson With Our Bronze BFC Certification
It was one thing to be honored with becoming the 5th city in Texas, and the first city in north Texas, to be recognized as a Bike Friendly Community. It was even better to actually have a League of American Bicyclists Board Member present us our certification, in person.
Gail Spann, one of the most active and influential board members of the League, also happens to live in north Texas. Instead of sending a League staff member from Washington D.C., Gail came out to personally congratulate Richardson residents and the Richardson City Council for a very difficult accomplishment. We are privileged to to get such a personal visit to welcome us into a growing community of exceptional bike friendly cities.
There is now a sign that marks our designation, that is installed in front the west entrance to City Hall. I would love to see these pop up at every road leading into the city.
Richardson Texas Gets Recognized As A Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community
Today, the League of American Bicyclists recognized Richardson, Texas with a Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community (BFCSM) award, joining 350 visionary communities from across the country.
With the announcement of 42 new and renewing BFCs today, Richardson joins a leading group of communities, in all 50 states, that are transforming our neighborhoods.
“We applaud this new round of communities for investing in a more sustainable future for the country and a healthier future for their residents and beyond,” said Andy Clarke, President of the League of American Bicyclists. “The growing number of leaders taking up bicycling as a way of solving many complex community problems is encouraging. We look forward to continuing to work with these communities as we move closer to our mission of creating a bicycle-friendly America for everyone.”
The BFC program is revolutionizing the way communities evaluate their quality of life, sustainability and transportation networks, while allowing them to benchmark their progress toward improving their bicycle-friendliness. With this impressive round, there are now 350 BFCs in all 50 states. The Bronze BFC award recognizes Richardson’s commitment to improving conditions for bicycling through investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and pro-bicycling policies.
This is a big deal in north Texas. Even though many cities in the area – including Fort Worth, Plano and Frisco – have received an Honorable Mention, Richardson is the first north Texas city to be recognized as a Bike Friendly Community. With it’s many bike lanes, growing trail network and interconnecting neighborhoods, this is a well deserved recognition.
There were many other variables involved in earning this status, including a great city management team – encouraged by a city council with a vision to create a great city. Richardson is also growing a strong bike community – supported by local and regional advocates like Bike Friendly Richardson and BikeDFW.
Richardson is just getting started. They’re hoping that Bronze is just a stepping stone to an even better, more robust bike community. They also hope to see that the many great efforts of their neighboring cities get recognized by the League as well.
We hope that this recognition becomes a way to motivate other north Texas cities to work harder to become bike friendly as well. Let’s keep this momentum going.
You can find the latest list on the League of American Bicyclists site or click here.
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Protect Biking and Walking Federal Funding
We received a message from the League of American Bicyclists, requesting our support. We would love to get our local cyclist friends involved with this initiative:
Thank you for you dedication to building a Bicycle Friendly Community. We appreciate the work you are doing to make bicycling safer and more accessible. We wanted to make you aware of a sign on letter for Mayor’s, championed by the US Conference of Mayors and the League of Cities, asking Congress to continue to support the Transportation Alternatives program. The Transportation Alternatives program is the biggest funding source for bicycle and pedestrian projects and an important source of funding for small, local transportation projects. Protecting and expanding this funding source ensures communities like yours can continue to make it safer and more convenient for people to bicycle (and get the recognition for it too)!
The current transportation bill expires September 30, 2014 and Congress is now debating policy for the next bill. Please consider encouraging the mayor to sign onto this letter to let Congress know that the community supports continuing and increasing funding for the Transportation Alternatives Program. We have sent a request directly to your mayor as well.
Thank you,
BILL NESPER, Vice President, Programs
With respect to our hard working City Council, we hope that you would take the time to politely encourage Mayor Laura Maczka to participate in this. Let her know that her constituents recognize the progress the city has already made for cycling and we are proud to support this initiative.
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National Bike Challenge – FINAL LOCAL RESULTS
For those of you who didn’t know, there was a National Bike Challenge hosted by Endomondo, The League of American Bicyclists and Bikes Belong. From May 1 through August 31 they’re tried to get as many riders as they could to ride 10 million miles – which was achieved nationally.
They’re also did regional challenges, putting small teams of 10 riders in friendly competition with each other for points and miles. BikeDFW hosted our local challenge.
We are proud to report that Bike Friendly Richardson had two teams participate in our region and both did very well. BFR team 1, who started at the beginning of the challenge, ended up taking 5th place in points (based on miles and amount of rides) in the region. Not only did we rank in the top 10, but we also had the most “transportation” (as opposed to sport/recreation) distance – topping out at over 7,111 miles. This is something that we are extremely proud of.
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BFR team 2 also did really well – even working against the odds. Although team 2 got a really late start, with half the members, we still managed to make it to 22nd place. Not bad in a region with 40 teams. Also, 97% of team 2’s miles were for ‘transportation’.
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National Bike Challenge – Team Bike Friendly Richardson July Check In
For those of you who don’t know, there is a National Bike Challenge hosted by Endomondo, The League of American Bicyclists, Bikes Belong and BikeDFW. From May 1 through August 31 they’re trying to get as many riders as they can to ride 10 million miles. They’re also doing regional challenges, putting small teams of 10 riders in friendly competition with each other for points and miles.
Bike Friendly Richardson has a team and we’re doing quite well in our region. So far, we’ve remained in the top 3.
Here is an Early July Update from BikeDFW:
July 06 at 13:53
Some interesting stats as of July 1st:
Texas has 854 total rides in the National Bike Challenge. 395 of those (46%) are from the DFW area. That means we’re providing as many riders for the NBC as the rest of Texas combined… awesome!
Texas currently ranks 34th among all states. That sounds pitiful until you consider that the state rankings are calculated on a per capita basis. Texas (pop. 25.1 million) ranks first among the really big states, including New York (rank 42nd, pop. 19.4 million) and California (rank 43rd, pop. 37.2 million)… However we’re a long way from the leaders like Wisconsin, which is currently in 3rd place with 5,788 riders (pop. 5.7 million). There’s still plenty of time, so ENCOURAGE YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO PARTICIPATE.
There’s a lively competition in the DFW team category where several area bike clubs are duking it out with the TI DLP team for top honors. However, the Bike Friendly Richardson and DORBA teams are also in the top 10 but FAR ahead in commuting miles (and gas saved). Over 75% of their mileage is commuting. David Appleby, riding for Plano Bicycle Association, was the mileage leader at the end of June with over 2,000 miles since May.
Of note, Howard T Maher of Richardson was a Gold Level drawing prize winner in the National Bike Challenge drawing on July 1st. He won a Specialized Globe bike.
We took a closer look at the stats. So far, even thought we don’t have as many collected miles as some of the local bike clubs, we do have the most cycling transport miles – recorded for transportation over recreation or sport. As of today, we’re at 4,376 miles (80% of our riding), closely followed by DORBA, who has 3,520 miles. The two teams ahead of us in the local challenge (who have many more miles/points scored) only have 1,223 and 793 miles for transportation.
We’re excited by these results, but we also feel that the community can do better and put more transportation miles on the leaderboard. If you commute, it’s not to late to join the challenge and show how DFW is doing our part.
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Some Exciting News
Bike Friendly Richardson is pleased to announce that we have just submitted the application to have Richardson considered for a Bicycle Friendly Community designation!
This was an idea that we had had for a while and last November, Jenny Rilling took it on as a project. With the help of City staff, we made it happen. The Bicycle Friendly Community program is administered by the League of American Bicyclists. With all the bicycling improvements in recent years, and more to come, it was time to throw our hat in the ring. Not every application receives the Bicycle Friendly designation, however, the LAB staff generously provide feedback to each applicant to help them do better next time.
This is our first time submitting the application, so we don’t know how we’ll do, but we are proud of how far we’ve come, and we’re looking forward to getting feedback on where we can improve. Currently only three cities in Texas have received the Bicycle Friendly Community designation: Austin, San Antonio, and The Woodlands.
We’d like to recognize the following people without whom this wouldn’t be possible:
Richard Wezensky and Jenny Rilling with Bike Friendly Richardson
Dave Carter, the City’s Bicycle Coordinator and Assistant Director of the Transportation Department
Jessica Shutt and Mark Titus in the Transportation Department
Jim Lockart and Jim Dulac at the City
The Richardson City Council, Parks Department, Police Department
And of course, all the BFR friends and everyone out there who said, “Hey, we should improve biking in Richardson”, and everyone out there using the bike trails, bike lanes, and roads and having fun and trying to continually improve things for cyclists.
Thanks, everyone, for all you do. See you out there on the road!
-BFR Staff
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May – National Bike Month
The League of American Bicyclists recognizes May as National Bike Month. Of course most of us cyclists know that EVERY month is “Bike Month”. However, it is nice that efforts are being made to promote bicycling and increase awareness. We look at this as an opportunity to celebrate a fun, healthy, clean and green lifestyle.
On a personal level, I’m going to to celebrate this month by bike commuting to work on “Bike To Work Day” (Friday, May 21) if I can’t do the “Bike To Work Week” (May 17-21). I realize that this isn’t much of an effort compared to my bike commuter friends, but it’s a step (or pedal push) in the right direction.
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Bike Friendly Richardson 
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