St. Louis City retains Silver Bicycle Friendly Community status. Here’s how it can improve
The League of American Bicyclists is a non-profit organization that represents the bicyclist movement to create safer roads, stronger communities, and a more bicycle friendly America. The League published their spring 2021, Bicycle Friendly Community ranking. The ranking provides advocates and cities with assistance to build places more welcoming to people who bike.
St. Louis maintained its silver status as a Bike Friendly Community! Trailnet is proud of the work St. Louis has done in recent years, but we’re excited to keep working with the City become more bike friendly.
Read the Leauge’s full report card here.
6 Key Steps to Becoming a More Bike Friendly City:
- The City needs to continue to expand and improve low-stress biking and walking network in every neighborhood in STL to support people of all ages and skills getting on bikes. This includes work to continue implementing Trailnet’s Connecting St. Louis Plan, upgrading more of the city’s painted bike lanes to protected cycle tracks, and increasing traffic calming.
- The City and St. Louis Public Schools should continue to expand bicycle safety education. Bike safety should be taught in schools, such as the Safe Route to School programming, for students of all ages. The City should work to ensure that schools and surrounding neighborhoods are safe and convenient for biking and walking. Likewise, Organize a city-wide wide to School event every Fall and Spring. This should include outreach to parents and could include fun competitions and encouragement to get more kids on bikes.
- The City should Adopt a target level of bicycle use. Currently Trailnet operates the region’s bike-walk counts and census data shows less than 1% of people commute by bike. The City should adopt a goal and plan to increase the number of people biking to work.
- The city should adopt a comprehensive road safety plan and pursue policies to reduce traffic crashes and deaths for all road users
- St. Louis should re-implement a bike share system as a convenient, cost effective, and healthy way of encouraging locals and visitors to make short trips by biking. It would also make biking more accessible to all and bridge the gap between public transit and destinations