Bicycling Design Best Practices Program

 Bringing the world's best practices in bicycle transportation to America

Latest News

• 2011 Best Practices Annual Report
• Feature: Bicycling in the Netherlands: Lessons for the USA
• News: REI Best Practices Grants awarded
• Feature: The surprising rise of Minneapolis as a top bike town
• Blog: What cities across the country can learn from Minneapolis
• Video: New videos from Minneapolis and the Netherlands
• Slideshow: Making Bicycling Irresistible
• News: Transportation leaders convene in Minneapolis to study the best in bicycling
• Blog: Bicycling by Design
• News: Danish cyclocross champion shows U.S. city leaders the best in bicycling
• Feature: Seville, Spain's remarkable transformation
• Blog: Seville’s lesson to world: how to become bike friendly
• 2010 Best Practices Annual Report
• Blog: The Right Tool for the Job
• Feature: Portland's not perfect, but offers bright ideas for making biking mainstream
• Feature: A week of biking joyously - An account of a Bikes Belong workshop in the Netherlands
• Learn more about what it's like to ride in the most bicycle-friendly country in the world, the Netherlands, with our presentation "Everybody Rides."

Vision

The Bikes Belong Foundation's Bicycling Design Best Practices Program inspires, assists and catalyzes U.S. cities working to implement world-class transportation networks.

Bicycling is experiencing unprecedented growth across America as mayors, transportation officials and citizens appreciate the multiple benefits and low cost of modern bicycle transportation networks. Leading North American cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Portland and San Francisco are developing next-generation bicycle infrastructure and policies based on established international designs. 

Cost-effective bicycling facilities such as protected cycle tracks, bicycle-specific signal lights, and traffic-calming inspired by European examples are being adapted and implemented in American cities. These evolutions in traffic engineering and urban design are making bicycling safer and more more appealing to men, women, and children of all levels of cycling experience. 

In countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark, bicycling is an inexpensive, practical and mainstream form of transportation. By adapting and translating proven practices from these global leaders, American cities are saving money, reducing traffic congestion and supporting the kinds of lively, thriving streets that make great cities great.

Strategy

There are three key elements of the Bicycling Design Best Practices Program:

   •   Workshops and Study Tours – Bikes Belong assembles key U.S. transportation professionals and policy-makers to study, experience and be inspired by the most advanced bicycling environments in Europe and North America. The participants include traffic and transportation professionals, policy-makers, civic and community leaders from cities across the countries.

    •   Improve U.S. design manuals and professional guidance – The Best Practices Program supports efforts to incorporate state-of-the-art designs in national standard manuals for bicycle traffic engineering, as well as programs that enable innovative bicycle projects to be funded, evaluated and implemented locally.

     •   Grants - The Bikes Belong Foundation offers competitive grant opportunities to cities whose leaders have participated in the Best Practices Program. The grants are designed to support implementation of proven, effective projects that improve the bicycling experience and are inspired by lessons from Bikes Belong Study Tours and Workshops. Cities with an REI store in their metro area are eligible for REI Best Practices grants. Cities without an REI store can also access a limited amount of Best Practices grant funding through the Bikes Belong Coalition. Click here for Grant Guidelines and the Grant Application.

Contact

For more information about the Bicycling Design Best Practices Project, contact Zach Vanderkooy.