Community FAQ & Resources

Simple steps to make bicycling safe and comfortable pay huge dividends in civic, community and economic development. Given the opportunity to ride, residents enjoy dramatic health benefits, reduced congestion, increased property values and more money in their pockets to spend in the local economy. When your community welcomes bicycling, tourism booms, businesses attract the best and the brightest, and governments save big on parking costs while cutting their carbon emissions.

A community recognized by the League as a BFC℠ is one that encourages people to bike for transportation and recreation through the five Es: engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation. You can learn more about key metrics and benchmarks by exploring the Building Blocks of a Bicycle Friendly Community.

The popularity of the program speaks for itself: As of 2019, more than 950 communities have applied, and 488 have been awarded a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum designation. But, even if your community doesn’t quite make the grade yet, applying is well worth the time. The application process will help your community create new partnerships and momentum for bicycle improvements, allow you to gather essential bicycle-related data in one place, and the result will show your political leadership how their community stacks up against similar communities all over the nation. In addition, each applicant receives customized feedback and technical assistance. 

The Bicycle Friendly America Resource page contains several reports on the benefits of cycling, design guides, case studies and other useful information to aid your application to become recognized by the League as a Bicycle Friendly Community.

Each community that applies to be recognized as a Bicycle Friendly Community completes a thorough application. This application gives the League information about bicycling conditions and efforts to improve those conditions. The report card created for each community features key data from the application and some federal data to provide context for each community. To find explanations of each data point on the community report card, please read our Guide to the Bicycle Friendly Community Report Card.

The Bicycle Friendly America program has four sub-programs: Bicycle Friendly Business, Bicycle Friendly University, Bicycle Friendly States, and Bicycle Friendly Community.

The Bicycle Friendly Community program focuses on comprehensive actions that communities can take to improve bicycling in their communities. Communities can receive Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond awards based upon their efforts.

The Bicycle Friendly Community award is based upon:

• An application developed in 2002 with the help of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pedestrian Bicycle Information Center. This application has been periodically updated by League of American Bicyclists staff and a panel of outside experts over in the past 15 years, most recently in the fall of 2016 when the application system was migrated to a new software platform. A copy of the current application is available here.
• The award is based around the concept of the 5 E’s – Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, and Evaluation & Planning. The application and feedback that is given to each community that applies is split into categories that reflect each of the 5 E’s.
• Award levels are based upon all data provided by the application. In particular, close attention is paid to the 10 Building Blocks of Bicycle Friendly Communities, which were formulated in 2013, and other key metrics found on each community’s report card.
• The Bicycle Friendly Community program has a public input component, including an optional survey which applicant communities can choose to distribute, but that public input is not a major component of the award determination.

Thanks to the generous support of League Members and BFC program sponsor Eco-Counter, there is no fee associated with the BFC application at this time. 

Any municipality, county, Census Designated Place, military base, regional planning agency or Indian Country can apply to the BFC℠ program. Usually, a community official responsible for bicycling issues completes the application. However, much of the application can be completed by anyone familiar with what a community has done for bicycling as long as the community’s governing body approves its final submission. Often, the most complete applications come from communities where city officials, public agencies and local cyclists work on it together.

Visit the Getting Started page to learn more about the application process.

No, new and renewing applicants fill out the same application form.

The Fall 2020 deadline is now October 1, 2020 at 11:59pm Pacific Time, and awards will be announced in December 2020. 

There are typically two submission deadlines throughout the year - one in February and the other in August (note updated timing for Fall 2020 deadline).

• Fall 2020: Application is already open and the deadline has been extended to October 1, 2020 (awards will be announced in December 2020)
• Spring 2021: Application will open in October 2020 and deadline will be February 10, 2021 (awards will be announced in May 2021)
• Fall 2021: Application will open in April 2021 and deadline will be August 2021 (awards will be announced in November 2021)

Once an application cycle is completed, surveys are sent to advocates and interested cyclists in the applying communities for local feedback as well as made available to the community for public circulation. After the local review period, the applications and the local feedback are reviewed by a panel of national bicycle professionals. Applicants will be notified of the result at least a week ahead of the public announcement to provide enough time to send out a press release and organize an award ceremony, if desired. All BFC-designated communities receive an award certificate, a digital award seal, and a public report card.

Applicants that just fall short of a designation receive an Honorable Mention. Communities that receive an Honorable Mention are being promoted on the League website for one year. However, they do not receive a certificate, seal or road sign. The names of applicants that do not receive any recognition are not published. All applicants that do not achieve BFC status still receive a detailed feedback report that can be used to work towards a designation next time the community applies.

The BFC award is valid for four years. A BFC needs to reapply in either spring or fall of the year the award expires in order to maintain its status. For example, if your 2016 BFC status expires in 2020, you will need to reapply in either February or August of 2020.

If you are a designated a BFC you may order additional BFC street signs and BFC promotional material in the BikeLeague Store.

If the mayor is a ride leader in the local bicycle club, your strategy is simple: show him or her the BFA brochure, website or BFC powerpoint presentation!

But, most communities will take a little more work. Here are the steps to encouraging your community to apply:

1. You must identify the decision makers responsible for the policy changes you seek.
2. Ask for a letter recommending the Bicycle Friendly Community program from any organization that might be inclined to support better bicycling. The local bicycle club is a natural first choice, but local environmental groups, civic organizations, businesses and others will tend to cooperate if you make it easy enough for them. Draft the letter for them so they know exactly what you need to minimize the amount of work you ask of them.
3. Set up a meeting with the decision maker(s) you identified and bring your best spokesperson and copies of the letters of support with you. Talk about the benefits that bicycle improvements as well as the benefits of a Bicycle Friendly Community designation. A good starting point is to ask if the person will submit the application for Bicycle Friendly Community status. One way the city can show its support for building a Bicycle Friendly Community is by adopting the Action Plan for Bicycle Friendly Communities available here.
   
4. Following the meeting, write a thank you memo that spells out your understanding of what was agreed to. Lack of persistence is the downfall of many a bicycle advocate. Motivated people motivate politicians and their employees.

See the Advocate Tools page for more information.