The City of Lawrence has been honored again as a Bicycle Friendly Community. The city first received this designation in 2004 from the American League of Bicyclists. Only 214 cities in the U.S. are designated as Bicycle Friendly Communities; this is Lawrence’s fourth successful application. The designation is given to communities based on proven efforts to evaluate and recognize investments in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and bicycle-supportive policies.
City staff put together the application utilizing information collected from bike/pedestrian counts, safety data, outreach efforts and lane mileage. This year’s application highlighted efforts of the city to increase bicycling through the completion of the Burroughs Creek Trail, a new bike rideability map and efforts to create policies that utilize the Complete Streets framework. The Lawrence-Douglas County Bicycle Advisory Committee and staff’s collaborative efforts with the Lawrence Central Rotary Club, Safe Kids Douglas County, the Tour of Lawrence, the Lawrence Mountain Bicycle Club and Lawrence-Douglas County Bicycle Advisory Committee were also featured as part of the application process.
“Lawrence has worked for many years to make our community accessible and friendly to bicyclists,” said Mayor Robert J. Schumm. “This designation is a welcome recognition of some of our policy and planning processes in relation to bicycling in and around Lawrence.”
By the numbers, Lawrence has seven miles of bike lanes, three miles of shared-lane markings (sharrows), 39 miles of signed bike routes, and 28 miles of paved shared use paths.
Three Kansas communities have received the Bicycle Friendly designation: Lawrence, Manhattan and Shawnee. Find out more information online at www.bikeleague.org/bfa.
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