St. Joseph working to become Bicycle Friendly Community, but 10-15 years behind peer cities | St Joseph News-Press

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In recent years, the city has pursued "sharrows," bike lanes and other initiatives in the goal of becoming a "Bicycle Friendly Community." But after all that effort, is St. Joseph still facing an uphill battle?

"St. Joseph is way behind its peers by at least 10, 15 years," said Andy Clements, the assistant director of Public Works and Transportation for the city. "The good part of that is we're not leading the edge of innovation so we can learn from other people's mistakes, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to move forward."

In mid-2015, a bicycle and pedestrian steering committee was created. One of the committee's goals is to earn a Bicycle Friendly Community designation, or BFC, through the League of American Cyclists. . . .

So why spend time and energy into becoming a bike friendly community? When you look at the top 10 most livable cities in the U.S., nine of them are bicycle friendly.

"We're not only hoping to encourage people to become more physically active, but it also helps improve tourism, economics," Taylor said. "There's a whole plethora of things that a Bicycle Friendly Community can do for a city."

Link: 

St. Joseph working to become Bicycle Friendly Community, but 10-15 years behind peer cities | St Joseph News-Press

MoBikeFed comment: It is good to see St. Joseph taking these positive steps towards becoming a Bicycle Friendly Community.

As Clements notes in the article, St Joseph is indeed 10-15 years behind its peer communities across the nation in working to become a bicycle friendly city.

The good news is that communities that make bicycle friendliness a priority have been able to make some real progress in a fairly short period of time.

Find out how your community can work to become an officially recognized Bicycle Friendly Community here:

http://mobikefed.org/bicyclefriendlymissouri