On November 16th, The League of American Bicyclists awarded Plano the Bronze-level, Bicycle Friendly Community status.  Brownsville and Plano become the sixth and seventh communities in Texas to achieve this recognition.  Austin has a gold-level status, Houston, San Antonio, The Woodlands and our good neighbors to the south, Richardson are all bronze-level communities.

Tomorrow night (Dec 14th, 2015) at 7pm, during the City Council meeting, the City will acknowledge the award.

It is not a trivial achievement.  Cities must proactively apply and are scored in 5 general categories (the 5 “E’s”), which are broken into various sub-categories:

• Engineering (2/10)
• Education (4/10)
• Encouragement (1/10)
• Enforcement (3/10)
• Evaluation and Planning (2/10)

The applications are thoroughly reviewed, feedback is solicited from area bicyclists and a scorecard is prepared.  The numerical ratings above are our ratings in each category from the current scorecard.

Our next goal should be to achieve Silver-level before our 4-year term as a Bronze-level community expires.  We have some low hanging fruit to increasing our bicycle network, increasing bicycle related events and implementing an active bicycle advisory committee will move us significantly closer to that goal.

Here is a link to the Plano scorecard.

Make some time tomorrow night and turnout to celebrate and let the City know that we support their efforts to improve the quality of bicycling in Plano.  The Bronze-level award by the League of American Bicyclists is a great return on that investment that adds to the City of Plano’s resume as a great place to live and work.