Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community#
The League of American Bicyclists honored the efforts of the City of Fort Collins to build better places for people to bike with a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) award. Fort Collins joins 496 communities across the country in the movement for safer streets and better bicycling for everyone. The award recognizes Fort Collins for its commitment to creating transportation and recreational resources that benefit its residents of all ages and abilities while encouraging healthier and more sustainable transportation choices.
The Road to Diamond#
There is another level above Platinum, the Diamond level. The League has provided suggestions on our report card about how to achieve this status. Concurrently, we have also been proactive in making Fort Collins a better place for waking and biking. To read more about it, head over to our Active Modes Plan Update page.
FC Moves staff presented a staff report to City Council featuring our Platinum status on January 4, 2022. You can view the materials presented to Council below.
Bicycle Friendly America Program#
The League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly America program sets the standard for how communities build and benchmark progress toward making biking better. This round of awards includes 55 new and renewing awardees, joining a total of 496 current Bicycle Friendly Communities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Platinum BFC award recognizes Fort Collins' commitment to improving conditions for all people who bike through investments in bike education programs, regular bike events that promote and encourage people to choose biking, pro-bike policies, and bike infrastructure.
More than 850 communities have applied for recognition by the Bicycle Friendly Community program, which provides a roadmap to making biking better for communities of all shapes and sizes. While the award process considers very visible elements such as bike infrastructure, other essential elements include efforts around adult and youth bike education, encouragement through events like Bike to Work Day, evaluation mechanisms, and enforcement all through the lens of equity. The rigorous application process is an educational tool in itself, and includes an opportunity for local bicyclists and active transportation advocates to provide input on their experiences and perceptions of bicycling in their community.
The five levels of the BFC award – diamond, platinum, gold, silver and bronze, plus an honorable mention category – provide a clear incentive for communities to continuously improve. Awarded communities must renew their status every four years to ensure that they not only maintain existing efforts, but also keep up with changing technology, national safety standards, and community-driven best practices.
To learn more about the BFC program, visit bikeleague.org/community.