PeopleForBikes Announces National Protected Bike Lane Week

April 5, 2016

BOULDER, Colo. (April 5, 2016)— PeopleForBikes’ Green Lane Project is excited to announce the first-ever National Protected Bike Lane Week May 9-13, 2016.

Protected bike lanes, which separate bike and car traffic using curbs, planters, parked cars or posts, increase bike traffic on streets by an average 75 percent in their first year of installation. Since 2009, the number of lanes on the ground has been doubling every two years with 275 lanes in 82 cities today.

“Protected bike lanes are going mainstream, thanks to hard work by U.S. cities, political leaders and advocacy groups,” said Martha Roskowski, VP of Local Innovation at PeopleForBikes. “The lanes are becoming the gold standard for turning busy streets into safe and comfortable places to ride.” Protected Bike Lane Week is a celebration of this progress.

PeopleForBikes invites agencies and advocates to help celebrate the week by organizing local events to draw attention to the power and promise of protected bike lanes. Event ideas include, but are not limited to, mayor proclamation or ribbon cutting on a new lane, setting up a pop-up protected bike lane or serving coffee and doughnuts on the morning commute. In honor of Protected Bike Lane Week, PeopleForBikes is offering small grants of $500 for up to 10 local groups holding local protected bike lane celebrations. Anyone interested in organizing a local event during Protected Bike Lane Week or applying for a mini-grant should sign up here.

“Back in 2009, Portland was one of the first U.S. cities to install a protected bike lane. Last fall, we became first U.S. city to make them the default design for all new bike lane projects,” said Portland Transportation Commissioner Steve Novick, one of the first cities to announce an organized Protected Bike Lane Week event. “We’re looking forward to joining our transportation and public policy peers from around the country when we celebrate protected bike lanes next month as a way of making streets safer and less stressful for everyone.” PeopleForBikes looks forward to celebrating with all cities and towns, big and small, rural and urban.

Please direct comments or questions specific to National Bike Lane Week to:

Aisling O’Suilleabhain,

aisling@peopleforbikes.org.

About PeopleForBikes:

PeopleForBikes is uniting millions of individuals, thousands of businesses and hundreds of communities to make better bike riding for everyone. When people ride bikes, great things happen. Join us at PeopleForBikes.org.