Blog Post

At the National Bike Summit in March, Secretary Ray LaHood committed U.S. DOT to improving safety for bicycling and reiterated a promise to look at the agency’s design guidelines for building bicycling facilities. Today, Secretary Anthony Foxx assumes LaHood’s mantle in a significant way. I am in Boulder, Colo., at the bi-annual Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals conference where the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) today announces new bikeway design guidance that embraces the “NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide,” as well as the more traditional AASHTO bike guide.

Last week, we shared a release from the Gluskin Townley Group that announced more women, and fewer men are participating in biking. But isn’t that in direct contradiction to the federal data? We checked in with two of the top bike-ped researchers to understand the distinction between the two sets of numbers.

Steven Krauza has been an avid cyclist for a few years, but this summer he rode for 24 hours straight — riding more than 300 miles to raise money for charity. The Erie, Pa., based rider also has a larger goal: make his county the healthiest in Pennsylvania by 2025. We’re all about goals here at the National Bike Challenge, so we were glad to catch up with Steven about his tremendously long ride and more!

Our new Women Bike “Women on a Roll” report is doing exactly what we’d hoped: It’s getting people talking. Blogger Lady Fleur recently wrote a five-part series breaking down the report’s “Five Cs”, noting her own personal experiences as they related to the facts and figures. We loved the series, “Five Things I Knew About Women & Bikes… But was afraid to write about before I had data to back me up,” so we’re sharing some of our favorite sections from it.

The League has two job openings in our Bicycle Friendly America℠ program. The Bicycle Friendly Community Specialist will provide direct, hands-on assessments and assistance to 100 communities nationwide annually. The Bicycle Friendly Community program provides a roadmap to improve conditions for bicycling and has recognized 259 communities in 47 states as BFCs. The Specialist’s main responsibilities will include planning and coordinating all aspects of the League’s BFC visits, conducting a bike program and network assessment, and leading hands-on workshops across the country.

The moment many transportation watchers have been waiting for arrived today as the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the recipients of $474 million in the fifth round of federal TIGER grants. Among the notable winners for bicycling and walking are a 2.5 mile expansion of Atlanta’s Beltline Corridor Trail; a regional pedestrian infrastructure project in Foley, AL; a complete streets project in Olean, NY; a multiuse trail connecting Missoul and Lolo, Montana; and a Complete Streets project in Lee County, FL. See the list of recipients here.

Continuing our investigation of the 5 Cs of Women’s Bicycling highlighted in our Women on a Roll report, we explore the importance of convenience. With kids, cargo and time constraints, making bicycling practical and convenient is a critical component to getting more women out riding.

In our recent Women on a Roll report, we highlighted data from the National Sporting Goods Association that shows a rise in the number of female riders and slight decline in the number of men. Today, the Gluskin Townley Group put out a release highlighting the shift in cycling demographics reflected in both the NSGA numbers and the GTG’s American Bicyclist Survey.