The League of American Bicyclists recently completed their evaluation of our application for Bicycle Friendly Community and awarded Springville an Honorable Mention. The scorecard suggests that Springville is close to a Bronze designation and provides a number of things that can be done to reach that level. Here are a few that I think can be accomplished over the next couple of years, at which point we can apply again.
- Adopt a Complete Streets policy. This basically means that whenever a street is developed or redone, planners have to properly account for all users, not just vehicles. Also adopt a NACTO design manual to help accomplish this. These things would need city council support.
- Expand and improve the trail and bike lane network, including by creating more grade-separated facilities. This is being done, with the addition of bike lanes, buffered bike lanes, and the elimination of some on-street parking on Center Street, Main Street south of 400S, and 1700E since the beginning of this year (and since we submitted our application).
- Install wayfairing signs. Wayfairing signs have recently gone up on the Mapleton Lateral Canal Trail, and Springville could definitely use some on the Hobble Creek Trail as well as on Center St. and Main St.
- Increase bicycle parking around the community. We have already created a parking map. Now we need to fill in the gaps like how Provo has recently installed a bunch of racks downtown and at parks.
- Improve bicycle education in schools and through events like Bike to Work Week and Bike to School Day. This is definitely something we need to do better on–hopefully Covid-19 doesn’t interfere with these plans next year!
- Improve relations with law enforcement and encourage the creation of bike patrols. I have talked with Chief Martinez about this and he would like to puchase bike and do this. Follow up is needed.
- Update the bicycle master plan and secure dedicated funding for its implementation. The Active Transportation Ad Hoc Committee just had its first meeting and is working toward this update. Support from the city council will be needed to secure dedicated funding from the transportation budget.
- Work on multiple ways of counting bicycle trips, including with automated bicycle counters. We will have to see if there is funding available for this at the city level. In the meantime, we can continue to do school counts and maybe do some trail counts in the summer as well.
So, lots of good things to work on over the next couple of years! And one of the biggest things, of course, is to ride more and encourage others to ride more. We have strength in numbers!