We’re making biking better in Tennessee through funding local bike projects, supporting pro-bike policies and legislation at the local and state levels and highlighting great hometown routes on Ride Spot. In spring 2018, our Community Grant Program helped fund new beginner and advanced mountain bike trails built by the SORBA Tri-Cities Mountain Bike Club in Johnson City.

In May, Tennessee’s tourism department launched a statewide program to promote bicycle tourism aptly named Bike Tennessee. Consisting of 52 curated road cycling routes, the initiative is poised to help residents and visitors experience the state’s landscapes and rural towns safely and sustainably by bike.

Professional cycling guide Shannon Burke of Chattanooga-based Velo View Bike Tours spent two years on his bike mapping 1,739 miles of mostly rural, low-traffic routes that traverse some of the state’s most scenic and historic landscapes, including 14 state parks. The maps are now available to download on the cycling app Ride with GPS.

“Tennessee has all the right ingredients to be one of the premier cycling destinations in the country — low-traffic backroads, welcoming communities, and stunning scenery,” Burke says.

But with 93% of the state categorized as rural, Tennessee faces unique challenges in growing its bicycling community, attracting tourists, and boosting its outdoor recreation economy, which already generates $11.9 billion for the state, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. 

The routes are just the start. Developing awareness and infrastructure in Tennessee’s rural communities to support local and visiting cyclists will ensure the longevity of the initiative.

In April, ahead of the program’s launch, I spent a morning biking 23 miles on country roads with Burke, two other journalists, and Sonshine Loveless, another local tour guide with Outshine Adventures. We met at the Cookie Jar Cafe, situated on a 150-year-old dairy farm in the small rural city of Dunlap.

Together we rode up and down gradual hills and past churches and farms, avoiding potholes and catching views of the Cumberland Plateau’s ridges. At one junction, we stopped for water and to pet an affectionate donkey at the fence. Only a handful of vehicles, most of them trucks, passed us at slow speeds during our two hours on the road. A few drivers even waved.

“You’ve got ridges, you’ve got donkeys, you’ve got all you need,” says Burke, who moved to Chattanooga from Austin for the city’s great road biking opportunities before the pandemic. 

He’s partly serious, partly joking. Points of interest and resources along each route are noted in the ride descriptions on Ride with GPS. During his time biking across the state, Burke also identified opportunities for rural areas to make investments to better welcome cyclists, including protected bike lanes, safety facilities, and street signage as well as restaurants, restrooms, lodging options, events, and bike shops that offer rentals.

Because of the limited rental supply in most of the small rural towns, Burke recommends clients bring their own bikes when he leads tours. “The problem with going to a rural area is you score on the low traffic and great scenery, but you’re also by definition away from urban amenities,” he says. 

Once we finished our loop and returned to the Cookie Jar Cafe, we were famished and ready for a home-cooked meal. On the menu, there were southern classics like fried dill pickle spears, corn nuggets, turnip greens, hushpuppies, cornbread, and deviled eggs. What they’re really known for though, Burke says, are their pies — coconut cream is his favorite. 

We ordered a slice and it didn't disappoint. If every rural community had its own Cookie Jar Cafe, plus a few other amenities, Tennessee would have no problem getting cyclists to visit.


In 2021, the Tennessee legislature passed $2.1 million in recurring funding, allowing the Department of Tourist Development to help develop at-risk communities as desirable destinations. The bike routes program was born from that initiative, led by Jenni Veal, the state’s rural destination development manager. She and Burke worked together a few years ago to develop a mini version of the initiative in Southeast Tennessee, where she was the regional tourism director.

Today, Veal is facilitating conversations between multiple state agencies who want to be involved in the statewide campaign, such as the Department of Transportation’s bike and pedestrian planning and the Department of Health’s bike share efforts. 

For the last year, Veal and a colleague traveled to rural communities across the state to help its leaders understand the bike program’s goals, from the economic benefits to the safety considerations. Most importantly, they had the opportunity to ride bikes provided by Loveless.

“We wanted to get people on bikes who maybe haven’t been on them in a while,” Veal says. If the people promoting cycling don’t ride bikes, “They don’t understand what their community might feel like on a bike and what their needs are.” The partner pedal instilled some empathy for riders, and some community leaders even bought their own bikes after the event.

Progress will be slow because that’s the realistic pace of community development, Veal says. A bike shop with a mechanic or a road resurfacing effort may not transpire in every rural town. But they’re still celebrating each win, like the installation of two bike racks in Brownsville, a city near Memphis of about 10,000 people where Ford is building an electric vehicle plant. 

As momentum picks up, Burke already has his next assignments: mapping routes for gravel riding and mountain biking. As the organizer of three gravel and mountain events across the state — Tennessee Gravel, Reliance, and Telico — all of which bring in out-of-state visitors as well as locals, he knows there’s more opportunities the state can unlock with other kinds of riding.

Success of the program is going to require more than advertisements and the Bike Tennessee website. In order to be truly successful and sustainable, real investments by the state and local municipalities are necessary to compel cyclists to visit.

“If you get them to come to the state and see that it’s really beautiful here, then they have an interest in coming back,” Burke says.

Tennessee is Using Bicycling to Support Rural Tourism

Photo Credit: Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau

PeopleForBikes’ annual City Ratings is a data-driven program to identify, evaluate, and compare the best cities and towns for bicycling in the U.S. and across the world. Based on data from PeopleForBikes’ Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA), each city receives a City Ratings score on a scale of 0-100. 

High-scoring cities often perform well across six factors captured in the acronym SPRINT: safe speeds, protected bike lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection treatments, network connections, and trusted data.


For 2024, we ranked more than 2,500 cities worldwide, including 816 new U.S. cities and 133 new cities across the U.K. and Australia.

Medium Cities (50,000-300,000 population)

From bustling cities to small towns, communities from coast to coast amplified their commitment to better biking with an unprecedented surge in safer, more comfortable places to ride in 2023. And, with thousands of additional projects planned across the country and more federal funding for bikes available than ever, we can reasonably expect the pace of construction to increase more dramatically in the coming years. 

Even for the most ardent naysayers, it’s difficult to deny that the landscape of bicycling in America is transforming (although not as quickly as many of us would like to see). While we have yet to see any U.S. cities emerge with truly bold citywide plans for bike networks as we’ve seen in places like London, Paris, and Bogota, many are (slowly) beginning to envision a future where cycling takes center stage. Although there remains a substantial amount of work ahead of us to cultivate a safe and comfortable environment for people of all ages and abilities to ride bikes in the U.S., it's well worth pausing to commemorate the significant infrastructure victories U.S. cities achieved in 2023.

Photo credit: New York City Department of Transportation

After car-free streets took the top spot on last year’s list, we’re delighted to witness locales like New York City continuing to adopt more of these low-stress environments for cyclists. Launched in March, NYC’s much-anticipated vision for Broadway is beginning to transform the iconic street with pedestrian plazas, inviting outdoor dining structures, planters, and bike improvements, with the stretch between West 25th and 32nd streets being reshaped in 2023. While the full vision includes a “people-centric” Broadway connecting Union Square to Columbus Circle, the city’s next phase is on the horizon, with planned improvements underway between West 33rd and 21st Street.

2. 156th Street Cycle Track | Redmond, Washington

Featuring a two-way cycle track, Redmond’s 156th Street Cycle Track improves access to the Redmond Technology Station — part of Sound Transit’s East Link Extension — and the NE 40th Street Shared Use Path. This area of Redmond, the longstanding home of the Microsoft Corporate Campus, remains a focal point for the tech giant's ongoing commitment to community development. While the Microsoft-funded section is complete, the City of Redmond is working to expand it further from 140th to Turing.

In September, Salt Lake City celebrated the completion of its most significant public works project to date, the 300 West Reconstruction Project, which features a separated, two-way, 10-foot-wide bike lane, upgraded sidewalks, and more than 200 new trees to provide shade and serve as a buffer to the roadway. New "bioswales" were also integrated to improve water quality by filtering debris from stormwater runoff. The project, funded through the "Funding Our Future" bond, showcases Salt Lake City's commitment to prioritizing biking as a sustainable and accessible mode of transportation while fostering greener and safer corridors for all road users. Special project features include raised sidewalks and bikeways at all non-signalized intersections, bike counters, wayfinding signage, and green-tinted concrete.

4. Inman Square | Cambridge, Massachusetts

After two and a half years of construction, the Inman Square project in Cambridge reached its much-anticipated completion in 2023, featuring sidewalk-level bike lanes, protected intersections, shorter crosswalks, and a vibrant new plaza. Serving as a pivotal crossroads for various modes of transportation, these enhancements further Cambridge's dedication to Vision Zero and demonstrate the power of their Cycling Safety Ordinance, which propelled Cambridge to a score of 58 in PeopleForBikes’ annual City Ratings program. As evidence of its high quality, the project made headlines earlier this year after a social media video seemingly showcasing bike infrastructure in the Netherlands went viral, only to be revealed as a playful deception filmed in Cambridge's Inman Square.

5. Bryant Avenue South | Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis’s Bryant Avenue South reconstruction project, stretching from Lake St. to 50th St. W., reshaped a residential street in the heart of south Minneapolis. Despite its quiet residential character, Bryant Avenue is a key bicycling corridor parallel to the congested Lyndale Avenue. Previously converted into a "bicycle boulevard" in 2010, the reconstruction — which created a bidirectional sidewalk-level protected bikeway, intersection improvements, pedestrian-scale lighting, and stormwater infrastructure — reflects a forward-looking commitment to safer and more sustainable transportation that’s helped Minneapolis become the best large U.S. city this year’s City Ratings.

In September, Pasadena celebrated the completion of its first two-way protected bike lane along Union Street. The new 1.5-mile protected bike lane enhances connectivity to Pasadena's popular destinations, including Old Pasadena, Playhouse Village, Pasadena City College, Caltech, and the Metro Gold Line Station at Memorial Park. Approved by the City Council in 2016, the project repurposed existing road space to accommodate the protected bike lane, converting the previous one-way westbound street into a cyclist-friendly corridor. This initiative supports Pasadena's commitment to sustainable transportation and efficient urban planning. The project was funded through a combination of local and federal sources, including the American Rescue Plan Act, California’s Active Transportation Program, Gas Tax, Los Angeles County’s Measure R, CMAQ, and Pasadena’s Traffic Reduction Fee.

Inspired by successful implementations in cities like Toronto, Boulder introduced new "tall curbs" along Baseline Road in 2023 to physically separate bike and vehicle lanes, offering increased protection for people biking. The project is a critical element of Boulder's Core Arterial Network (CAN), which includes plans for strategic improvements along some of the city's least safe corridors for people walking and biking. With local artist Talia Swartz Parsell adding vibrant paintings to the barriers, the initiative combines safety and public art that complements the surrounding mountainous landscape. Further enhancements are slated for 2024, including additional bike lane barriers. 

8. Pinellas Bayway South | Tierra Verda, Florida

The Pinellas Bayway South Cycle Track in Tierra Verde is a significant addition to the more extensive Pinellas Trail network that spans more than 50 miles. Originating in 1983, the Pinellas Trail has steadily expanded since, becoming a regional destination with more than 1.5 million annual users. The new cycle track, separated from traffic by a raised concrete island, rectifies safety issues caused by vehicles parking in the prior non-protected bike lanes and helps reduce speeding along the corridor. Managed by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) as part of a resurfacing project, the new cycle track closes a two-mile gap between the Pinellas Trail, connecting trail users to Fort De Soto County Park. “FDOT was able to use their existing standard detail for median islands to separate the cycle track from the travel lanes,” said Kyle Simpson, an active transportation planner with Forward Pinellas. “[That] reduced the cost of the project and did not require moving any drainage.”

9. East Main Street | Rochester, New York

Photo credit: Erdman, Anthony and Associates, Inc.

Rochester’s East Main Street Reconstruction project features sidewalk-level bicycle lanes designed in accordance with the City's Complete Streets policy. While addressing needs such as roadway repaving, water main replacement, and new sidewalks, the project also introduced decorative lighting, street trees, and new signage. As part of Rochester's "spine network," a vital element outlined in the city’s Active Transportation Master Plan, the East Main Street project reinforces the city's dedication to creating a well-connected and accessible bike network.

Through a $6 million Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone project, San Antonio transformed Avenue B into a one-way, southbound street to accommodate protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks, on-street parking, and landscaping. Serving as a vital connection between the River Walk, Downtown, and various amenities, Avenue B contributes to San Antonio's expanding network of bike lanes and links to trails along the San Antonio River. Ultimately, the city hopes to extend the bike lane north of I-35 to reach the Witte Museum and Brackenridge Park. 

In a commitment to enhance road safety, the City of Dayton completed a $12 million reconstruction project along Salem Avenue between the Great Miami River and Cornell Drive. The federally funded initiative transformed a six-lane “stroad” into a lower-speed street with widened sidewalks, a bi-directional protected cycle track, decorative lighting, and pedestrian islands. The Salem Avenue project connects to more than 350 miles of regional trails as part of the Miami Valley Trails network. In September, Dayton approved an Active Transportation Plan to expand the network further, with more than 20 projects slated for construction by 2027. 

12. 12th Avenue South | Nashville, Tennessee

Photo credit: Nashville Department of Transportation

The 12th Avenue project in Nashville — envisioned as part of the 2017 WalknBike master planning process and subsequently identified as a top bikeway priority by the community — transformed a vital stretch of Nashville into the city’s first complete and green street. The 1.5-mile project includes physically protected bike lanes, bioswales for stormwater management, bus boarding islands, and safer pedestrian crossings. 

“The corridor had existing, substandard bikeways — with significant demand for better, safer facilities to connect affordable housing and student housing with Nashville’s downtown and other commercial districts,” said Anna Dearman, NDOT’s walking and biking manager. In response, NDOT moved the project swiftly from conceptualization to reality, with accelerated final design and construction phases to improve connectivity for affordable and student housing residents along the corridor to downtown and other commercial districts.

13. Turner Avenue | Grand Rapids, Michigan

With funding from a combination of the city’s Vital Streets program (a voter-approved income tax for road and sidewalk projects) and federal Surface Transportation Program and Carbon Reduction Program sources, Turner Avenue represents a major bike infrastructure upgrade for Grand Rapids. This transformative project, which replaced a striped one-way bike lane with a new, separated, two-way facility, spans 1.2 miles from 4th Street to Richmond. The project also increased greenspace to mitigate stormwater runoff and filter pollutants entering the Grand River. The city plans to begin design work to extend the bikeway from 4th Street to Fulton Street West in 2024.

14. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive | Atlanta, Georgia

Photo credit: Central Atlanta Progress/The Atlanta Downtown Improvement District

The Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Cycle Track in Downtown Atlanta was a collaboration between the City of Atlanta Department of Transportation and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, furthering the Downtown Atlanta Master Plan by enhancing safety and accessibility in the city center. According to Stacy Grolimund, senior project manager with Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, the project began in late 2022 when the Atlanta City Council voted to resurface streets near City Hall and the State Capitol. Councilmember Jason Dozier advocated for the inclusion of multimodal safety enhancements to align the project with the City’s Vision Zero goals. For now, the protected two-way cycle track stretches from Forsyth Street to Capitol Avenue, but the project is part of a more extensive planned network that will ultimately provide direct access to State Farm Arena, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Georgia World Congress Center, and westside neighborhoods like Vine City. 

Physically separated bike lanes in the suburbs? Yes, please! In Agawam, Massachusetts, Dutch-style bike infrastructure emerged as one of the standout bike lanes of 2023. Sparked by the Morgan-Sullivan Bridge replacement and MassDOT’s Complete Streets directive, the project resulted in separated bike paths along Main Street, Springfield Street, Suffield Street, and Memorial Avenue. The area, dotted with strip malls, now offers improved accessibility to local businesses and schools, marking a significant step toward sustainable transportation for this suburban area. Since completion, it's proven highly successful, with increased student biking and plans for further extensions to expand the network. Michelle Chase, Agawam’s town engineer, emphasized, “MassDOT’s Complete Streets program has been absolutely critical for the success of this project,” noting that it “inspired everyone involved in the design to push for the best accommodations even when challenges were encountered.”

16. 17th Street | Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica further solidified its reputation as a great city for bicycling with the completion of curb-protected bike lanes along 17th Street. Stretching just over a mile from Wilshire Boulevard to Pico Boulevard, this project features Southern California's first curb-protected intersections, offering significant safety improvements for cyclists. The 17th Street bikeway conveniently connects key locations such as the 17th Street Metro E Line Station, Santa Monica College, and the Michigan Avenue Greenway, creating a more accessible and interconnected bike network.

Earlier in 2023, Santa Monica's innovative use of a concrete extrusion machine for bike lane construction garnered significant attention, with the efficient, precise technology creating multiple blocks of protected bikeways in a single day. In a Streetsblog article from June, the city's principal engineer, Selim Eren, highlighted the sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and speed of the method, emphasizing the significant transformation from traditional bike lanes to the new protected design on Ocean Avenue, resulting in a substantial increase in cyclist volume. 

17. Meadowbrook Road | Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson’s new Meadowbrook Road project, unveiled in May 2023, has been championed by the Mississippi Department of Health for its role in improving public health and well-being. From Old Canton Road to West Street/Northbrook Drive, the $3.3 million project features a new road-adjacent shared-use path for people walking, rolling, and biking. Funded through a federal FAST Act grant and Jackson’s One-Percent Municipal Sales Tax, the project also included roadway resurfacing, ADA modifications, and traffic signal upgrades. Meadowbrook Road is one of several projects the city has underway to connect its downtown to the Fondren District and Jackson State University. “In our community, our residents value both cycling and walking along with accommodating wheelchair users. With a smaller right-of-way in the heart of the city and the need to use our limited space efficiently, the shared-use path has become our go-to choice in the city,” said Robert Lee, Jackon’s city engineer.

Stretching approximately 1.25 miles, the recently constructed Belmont Avenue protected bike lanes create a low-stress, east-west route across Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway and over the Chicago River while connecting several north-south protected lanes, neighborhood greenways, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Belmont Station, and the 312 Riverrun Bike Trail. The project also improved safety for pedestrians and transit riders through curb bump-outs, concrete refuge islands, and bus priority treatments. 

The project marks just one of the dozens recently completed by Chicago — contributing to more than 55 miles of bikeway projects completed in the last year alone along streets like Augusta, Central Park Avenue in Garfield Park, Clinton, Dearborn, Grand, Kedzie, and Milwaukee. Together, these projects are signs of definite improvement for Chicago, which scored only 7 out of 100 points in our 2023 City Ratings. We’ll be watching closely to see how the city’s score improves in the coming years with its new commitment to protected bike lanes. 

In 1984, when Will Chavez was 17, he signed on to participate in a month-long, multi-state, 950-mile bike ride. A member of the Cherokee Nation, Chavez grew up in Eastern Oklahoma where he’d spend summer days riding a one-speed motocross bike with his cousins, exploring nearby Marble City and the local creek, where they’d go swimming. By the time he was finishing high school, Chavez was invited to participate in the inaugural Remember the Removal Bike Ride.

Founded by Mike Morris and Mose Killer, the Remember the Removal ride was envisioned as a way to better involve youth in their Cherokee culture. The school in Marble City only goes through eighth grade and about a third of kids often drop out when it comes time to transition to high school. Morris and Killer saw a need to cultivate leadership qualities in Cherokee youth, as well as help them build self-esteem and confidence to face life’s challenges. The pair settled on a bike ride that would not only test the youth mentally and physically but also allow them to honor their shared history.

The Remember the Removal Bike Ride retraces the Trail of Tears, a forced displacement campaign from the U.S. government that doubled as a form of ethnic cleansing. Between 1830 and 1850, some 60,000 people from the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their homes in the southeastern United States and relocated west of the Mississippi River. The relocation to less fertile land took months, and more than 4,000 people died from exposure, disease, and starvation.

The Trail of Tears is actually a network of different routes  — Remember the Removal riders stick to the northern route.

By recreating the original route as a bike ride, Cherokee leadership hoped to expose youth to the hardships their ancestors faced when they made the same trek on foot decades before. That first year, Chavez joined 19 other students and ride coordinators on bikes, while support vans and a school bus followed with tents, food, and other necessary supplies. The group visited historical sites as they followed in their ancestor’s footsteps, averaging 60 miles a day. For Chaves, the trip was life-changing. 

“Before the ride, my self-esteem was not good and I didn’t have much confidence — that all changed after the ride,” says Chavez. “I credit the ride for giving me the confidence to take on numerous challenges like joining the army, finishing college, and having a career in journalism. The ride changed me because it forced me to go past my limits – physically and mentally. So, afterward, I had the fortitude to not give up when things got tough or when it seemed like a task was impossible.”

For the last 27 years, Chavez has been an assistant editor for the Cherokee Phoenix, which was first published in Cherokee and English in 1828 in New Echota (present-day Georgia), then the capital of the Cherokee Nation (the paper’s offices are now headquartered in the new capital, Tahlequah, Oklahoma). In addition to his full-time position, Chavez has worked as the coordinator and trainer for the Remember the Removal Bike Ride for the last four years. 

In addition to the inaugural ride in 1984, Chavez also participated as a mentor in the second iteration of the ride, 25 years later.

“In 2009, the chief at the time decided to bring the ride back and he consulted some of the original riders, asking how we did things,” says Chavez. “Except for 2020, it’s been going consistently since then.”

Today, the ride remains a youth leadership program for tribal members aged 16-24, with applications opening each year in September (there are also two mentor riders each year, for those 35 and older). The program interviews are comparable to a formal job interview — applicants are scored and selected by a panel at the end of October, before attending orientation in November. 

"When I was chosen to be on the ride, I felt a sense of pride grow within me," says Whitney Roach, who completed the ride in 2021. "I not only get to represent myself and my family, but I get to represent my ancestors who were forced on the Removal…I [had] the opportunity to retrace their steps in remembrance of their strength and resilience."

Selected participants sign a contract, committing to six months of rigorous physical training, clocking miles but also learning how to clip in and use a bike with drop handlebars and lots of gears. There’s also a cultural training component that includes Cherokee lessons.

“Most of our youth don’t speak Cherokee these days so that’s part of the training,” says Chavez, adding that the cohort’s formal introductions to the tribal council are always in Cherokee. “They learn the language, the culture, and the history of the Trail of Tears. They end up with a really good background of what happened so that they’re prepared when they go out on the road and people start asking them questions.”

Along the ride, which starts in Georgia, riders visit significant sites, including New Echota, the former Cherokee capital; Kituwah Mound, the original Cherokee homeland; Blythe Ferry, where Cherokees gathered during their forced removal; Mantle Rock in Kentucky, where the former Trail of Tears route is a hiking trail; and many, many unmarked grave sites. 

“There are so many points in history when the Cherokee people could have disappeared like some other tribes,” says Chavez, noting that in addition to surviving the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee survived a smallpox epidemic that decimated the tribe in the 1700s, the American Civil War in the 1800s, and the seizure of lands and destruction of tribal government the pushed the tribe into poverty in the 1900s. “Yet, we are still here today. From the standpoint of being a Cherokee person, the ride made me even more proud of who I am and even more proud of my ancestors for what they endured and survived,”

A body of research, published from 2020 to 2022, highlights the benefits of the Remember the Removal Bike Ride for participants’ physical, emotional, social, and cultural well-being. Past riders that were surveyed showed improvements in their diet and exercise habits, as well as their mental health, with reductions in things like stress, anxiety, depression, and anger. Perhaps most importantly, those surveyed also demonstrated improved social and cultural connection to one another, their Cherokee identity, and fundamental Cherokee values.

Participants from the 2019 Remember the Removal Bike Ride walk down a preserved section of trail used by Cherokees in Tennessee during their forced removal some 180 years ago.

Over the course of three weeks, the youth ride anywhere from 40 to 70 miles a day, some much more difficult than others (particularly those in Missouri, nicknamed “Misery” due to its constant heat, hills, and rough roads).

In 2021, the riders switched from using road bikes to gravel bikes, which makes traversing the mountains and backroads much easier. The Cherokee Education Department pays for rider’s helmets, shoes, sunglasses, a bike computer, custom cycling kits, and bikes, which are Fuji this year but have covered the gamut of quality brands over the last decade. To receive the kit, riders are required to pass a grueling 60-mile road test — friends and family are then invited to watch them receive their kits, an event with a strong ceremonial element. When participants complete the ride itself, they get to keep their bikes.

In an average year, Chavez takes 8-10 riders, although this year it’ll be a group of six, having lost two to injury. Interestingly, since 2018, the Remember the Removal riders have been trending female, and since 2021, the cohort has been completely female. 

This years Remember the Removal cohort, which will begin their ride on June 5.

“Elders and council members have been asking, where are all the boys?” says Chavez, noting that male youth just aren’t applying. “Obviously, the girls aren’t afraid to do it — it’s tough and these girls want to take on the challenge.”

At the end of May, Chavez accompanied the riders to North Carolina, where they met up with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, who also has a team of six riders. While the two tribes share a lineage, there are still a few differences in language, which can become apparent in the call signs used, all of which are in Cherokee. After a training ride together to get on the same page, the group will travel to Georgia, where they’ll begin the Remember the Removal Bike Ride on June 5, traveling nearly 1,000 miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Upon completion, the riders will join more than 200 alumni, many of whom are still as committed to the ride as Chavez is, showing up to help with training, mentorship, or on-route support. It makes sense — after all, Remember the Removal is first and foremost a spiritual journey. Not only does it test the endurance and emotions of those who participate, but it directly connects them to their ancestors. In riding, they remember where they came from and find the strength to go on.

If you’re interested in following the riders’ journey along the northern Trail of Tears route, tune in to the official Remember the Removal Bike Ride Facebook page. 

This Annual Bike Ride Connects Cherokee Youth to Their History

In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Park Service (NPS) recently prepared an environmental assessment (EA) to examine alternatives and environmental impacts associated with a proposed new mountain bike trail system within the Wears Valley portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). The NPS issued a decision and a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Wears Valley Mountain Bike Trail System EA.

The purpose of the trail system project is to enhance visitor experience by providing mountain bike trails as a unique recreational opportunity in GSMNP. While more than 800 miles of trails exist in the Park, less than 8 miles are designated for biking. Public roads within the Park are open to biking, but no purpose-built mountain biking trails currently exist.

The EA analyzed a no-action alternative and three action alternatives for the construction of a mountain bike trail system. Based on the analysis presented in the Revised EA, which was available for public review from February 8 to March 10, 2022, and after considering public comments, the NPS selected alternative 3 (Proposed Action and NPS preferred alternative) for the development of a mountain bike trail system if construction and annual operational funds become available.

Alternative 3 will create a mountain bike trail system with approximately 4.2 miles of easy trail (green, less than 5% slope), 2.9 miles of moderate trail (blue, 5-10% slope), and 4.7 miles of advanced trail (black, 10-15% slope) for a total of 11.8 miles of bicycle-optimized mountain bike trails in Wears Valley. The selected alternative would also include approximately 2.3 miles of pedestrian-only trails in the project area for a total of 14.1 miles of trails. An approximately 0.93-mile access road would also need to be constructed to access the mountain bike trail system and trailhead. Amenities at the trailhead would include a bike wash and repair station, restrooms, and picnic tables. An informational kiosk for orientation, trail etiquette, and rules for mountain biking would also be constructed at the trailhead. 

The FONSI and NPS responses to comments on the EA and associated documents are available for viewing online at the Wears Valley Mountain Bike Trail System website and on the PeopleForBikes website, including an FAQ Resource.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Announces Finding of No Significant Impact for New Trail System

In 2020, traffic fatalities in the Memphis area were up 50% compared to the year prior and they’ve only continued to climb, echoing national trends. To choose to bike or walk in such an environment can be dangerous and sometimes life-threatening, a fact not lost on the city’s transportation planners. What’s more, traffic fatalities and collisions aren’t the only car-related issues in Memphis: The city also happens to have a big problem with illegally dumped tires.

In early 2020, Laura Murray, a former Alta Planning + Design employee, had an idea to help tackle both issues at once. Murray found a local industrial artist, Tad Pierson, who’d been using tires as an art medium for more than a decade. The pair worked together on a novel concept — transforming old tires into new bike lane barriers — which they eventually pitched to the City of Memphis. 

While the city was interested, it wasn’t able to fund a pilot and encouraged Murray and Pierson to find a nonprofit or community development corporation to collaborate with on a trial installation. They found both in the Binghampton Development Corporation (BDC), a nonprofit working to improve the quality of life in the Binghampton community, a historically disinvested neighborhood in central Memphis. In Binghampton, some 35% of residents live below the poverty level and the majority of folks identify as Black or people of color. The community also has a large immigrant population — 17 countries of origin exist amongst its 12,000 residents — and it’s common for new refugees to settle there. 

The BDC has been active in the neighborhood since 2003 when it began pursuing a revitalization strategy through housing and economic development, as well as empowerment programs for those plagued by issues of systemic poverty. In addition to developing physical assets, like parks and neighborhood commercial services, and providing affordable rental and homeownership opportunities, the BDC invests in people through mentorship programs and hard- and soft-skill training for youth and adults. 

Murray and Pierson’s timing was serendipitous. When they approached the BDC with their idea to build bike lane barriers using old tires, the organization was actively looking for warehouse-based opportunities for its job training program. As part of the roughly six-month-long, paid, full-time training and development program, BDC employees work on projects that range from mattress recycling to warehousing for trucking companies. After securing additional funding — some of which came from PeopleForBikes, alongside the Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation, the Cummins Foundation, and the City of Memphis — BDC ran with the tire project.

“We had enough funding to pay for the equipment and our trainee’s labor for about 400 bike lane barriers made using the old tires,” said Andy Kizzee, director of the BDC’s business hub. “We manufactured in November and December [2021] and have been monitoring since.”

Employees working on the tire pilot have been involved in all stages of the process, from stripping down, shaping, and painting the tires to anchoring them to the road along a one-mile stretch of unprotected bike lane in Binghampton. Since installation, the tires have been monitored for traffic impacts, and different designs, paint methods, and anchoring techniques have been tested. Installation was completed in February 2022 and although the evaluation process will last a full year, so far less than 10 of the 400 barriers have detached from the roadway (those few that did were due to instances of extreme heat). 

For Nicholas Oyler, bikeway and pedestrian program manager at the City of Memphis, the pilot has gone better than expected. The tire barriers are a low-cost alternative to flex posts, which are essentially plastic poles that delineate between a bike lane and traffic lanes. As almost any city planner can attest to, installing flex posts often results in lots of grievances from residents, mostly for aesthetic reasons. Oyler thought the tire barriers might elicit similar ire, but he’s been pleasantly surprised. 

“I’ve received no negative complaints at all for any aspect of the tire barriers,” said Oyler. “I’ve actually received requests from people in other neighborhoods asking for the tires to be installed on their streets. What better measurement of success is there, in terms of a public reaction than people asking for them?”

While the tire barriers have held up well to impact, no one involved in the project would argue that a tire is actually going to stop a car. As with a flex post, if a driver is moving fast enough and makes a mistake, no low-cost barrier stands a chance. 

“A concrete, raised median would be best — that would be true protection — but until we have funding to do that everywhere that’s needed, cities need a low-cost temporary alternative,” said Oyler. “Not only are the tire barriers locally sourced, but they have the added benefit of collecting discarded trash, reducing blight, and, through the workforce development program, providing an opportunity for people to improve their lives.”

The BDC job training program was specifically designed for people who fall into common “can’t work” or “won’t work” scenarios. This includes folks with a legal history and/or substance abuse issues, as well as people who have simply never worked before or lack the transportation options necessary to maintain a job. The BDC warehouse only employs local residents, and thanks to its central location in the Binghampton neighborhood, allows employees to commute by foot.

The tire project itself is particularly well-suited to the training program. First, the machine used to cut the tires is safe, a must for a learning environment with high turnover. The process of shaping, painting, and installing the tires also exposes trainees to a wide variety of different work tasks, which are both marketable and easy to learn. 

“It’s perfect job training content,” said Kizzee, adding that the trainees have done a great job. “We’ve been pretty pleased with the product — it’s on par with the other commercially made [barrier] products.”

While Kizzee believes there’s still some room for improvement, other cities are already taking note. He recently presented the project alongside Oyler at this year’s Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals conference, resulting in a lot of exciting feedback from planners and city officials, especially those located in Sunbelt states (since the tire barriers are easily concealed by snow, they’re not well-suited to colder environments). Kizzee and the BDC are now exploring the possibility of selling the tire barriers to other cities and/or open-sourcing the concept for cities that want to do it on a smaller scale. 

“If this was up and running and we were constantly getting orders, we’d be able to make 500-700 tire barriers a month — that would mean 3-5 training positions committed just to this one product,” said Kizzee. “We’re pretty pleased with that.”

While the pilot is still ongoing, there are plans to secure additional funding and expand to other bike lanes in Memphis. For Oyler, the project is all about finding a new purpose: for our tires, for our streets, and even for people. It’s a great example of what local government and community organizations can do when they partner together and take a risk. Memphis, having deadly streets and being resource-limited, was the perfect place for an out-of-the-box idea to flourish.

“This idea could have died but, because of the context we’re in, we have to be open to taking new approaches and trying things that are different,” said Oyler. “When you have a credible community partner wanting to be at the table and help realize an idea like this, why not say ‘yes’ and make it happen?”

Transforming Old Tires Into Bike Lane Barriers

The Wilderness Act of 1964 immediately protected 9.1 million acres of land in the U.S., including the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana, Linville Gorge in North Carolina and Mount Hood in Oregon, among many others. The act is most known for its definition of wilderness: 


"A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

While this may be a romantic and murky definition, what it does make clear is that “wilderness” does not include people. The protection of these places is wonderful and necessary, but it narrows access to wilderness away from those who can’t venture far enough to reach it. It creates a binary where there can’t be wild things where there are people. But does it have to be this way? Can wilderness be simple and nearby rather than vast and far away? The Urban Wilderness in Knoxville, Tennessee, challenges this dated definition by playing home to more than 50 miles of trails, all in the middle of a city.

Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness spans multiple parks, historical sites and other public lands, all in the southern part of the city, where the creators saw potential in an area spanning more than 1,000 acres from the Alcoa Highway up to the Tennessee River. The Wilderness connects 10 city parks, three Civil War forts, a large nature center, a climbing crag, a 500-acre wildlife management center, a world class mountain bike park, multiple roads, greenways and private land easements, many connected by the 12-mile South Loop System. The area has revitalized South Knoxville, which now includes nine breweries, multiple restaurants and will soon include a campground specifically made for mountain biking — the Drop Inn. The idea for the Urban Wilderness all began with two organizations and a vision.

Legacy Parks Foundation and the Appalachian Mountain Bike Club (AMBC) began the Urban Wilderness with a map. In 2008, Brian Hand, then president of AMBC, looked at the city from his South Knoxville farmhouse and saw potential. Mountain bikers had already been building trails and riding in the Appalachian foothills of Knoxville. While the legality was often dubious, it gave them an understanding of what local mountain biking could be. The rugged karst geology of the region made it difficult to develop, leaving undeveloped green space across South Knox. Hand started talks with Carol Evans, head of Legacy Parks Foundation, who helped formulate a plan to secure funding and public support. They began with a  fundraising goal of more than $1.5 million for the first round of land buying and were surprised to come up with the money in just eight months during a recession. The continued success  led to the city putting $10 million towards a gateway park and entrance to the trail system.

Evans credited this success to creating support across different user groups in Knoxville. She believes Legacy Parks’ ability to be flexible, communicate often and create the trails incrementally are the biggest factors in the success of the Urban Wilderness. The AMBC created the trails, most being moderate, multi-use trails good for riders of all skill levels. Neighborhoods surrounding the trails have embraced them for everything from birdwatching to hiking to dog walking and, of course, biking. The ability to get out and play before work, during lunch or in the evenings has changed people’s perceptions of the city. Knoxville can now identify and take pride in being an outdoor town, rather than just a college town on the way to the Smoky Mountains. This sense of community is particularly strong among AMBC members.

The AMBC has since grown to three full-time staff and one part-time staff member who maintains the Urban Wilderness. When a fallen log or washed-out berm is called in, it is usually fixed within the week if not the day. AMBC has a humility and blue collar attitude towards the trail system. Executive Director Matthew Kellog said their goal is to be “quietly really good” and they are constantly looking for improvements through their memberships in the Southern Off-Road Bicycling Association (SOBRA) and the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA). The organization supports a free youth development program where kids can race in NICA and USAC races at all levels. A grant from Bell Cycling helped create a women’s cycling group, and a grant from Santa Cruz’s PayDirt program recently went towards multiple new all-weather trails.

The city has seen cycling grow in popularity and become an integral part of Knoxville’s culture. Downtown was closed for a few days in late June 2022 when the USA Road Cycling National Championships zoomed across its historic streets. NICA has held multiple interscholastic races in the Urban Wilderness, and ROAM Fest, a womxn-only mountain bike festival, held one of its stops in Knoxville. The other locations? Mountain bike meccas Fruita, Colorado, and Sedona, Arizona.

The Wilderness has also helped shape the identity of the University of Tennessee. University of Tennessee Outdoor Pursuits (UTOP) Director Josh Elder is an avid mountain biker and whitewater paddler who helps decide where to program university-sponsored trips. He says that UTOP uses the Urban Wilderness for 2-4 hour activities about 12 times per school year. More than guided trips, the ability to give a low-entry introduction to biking through rental mountain bikes has led many students to discover and fall in love with the sport. It’s easy to rent a bike in the morning, ride 15 minutes to the trails, explore the Wilderness and be back in time for afternoon classes. “The Urban Wilderness is a glue that holds things together through accessibility for everyone,” said Elder.

The Urban Wilderness challenges the notion that an experience in nature has to be hard to reach, or has to be devoid of people. Legacy Parks Foundation and AMBC have made a trail system for all. Visitors, who bring in up to $52 million in tourism revenue, or locals, who have a daily opportunity to be outside, can equally enjoy the Urban Wilderness. It has helped create a city where more than half of residents can walk to a city park. Wilderness can co-exist in cities and can enrich them through community, recreation and adaptability. The opportunity to find meaning outside has been ensured in an unlikely place, for whoever wants to come experience it.

The Urban Wilderness Transforming Knoxville

The Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP) awarded $75,040 in grants to 10 projects that will reach and engage traditionally underserved populations through shared micromobility. This is the seventh round of mini-grant funding the national bicycle advocacy organization PeopleForBikes will administer through its partner role with BBSP.

"Better Bike Share mini-grants allow us to support short-term, impactful projects that directly improve access to shared micromobility for lower-income and/or BIPOC communities," said Tangier Barnes-Wright, senior partnership and program manager at PeopleForBikes and BBSP. "We are inspired by the 2022 grantees and look forward to learning from their projects and sharing lessons broadly across the nation."

The following projects were selected by a grants panel to receive funding: 

Increasing Low-Income and Latinx Ridership on Portland’s BIKETOWN | $9,400
Community Cycling Center, Portland, OR

The Community Cycling Center will partner with Andando en Bicicletas y Caminando (ABC) to increase BIKETOWN bike share access through signups and education in low-income communities of color. Over the course of three sessions, 10 neighborhood leaders will be trained on the process of signing up for reduced-fare membership, positioning them as a trusted resource for other community members.

The Go Hub Community Mobility Rituals | $9,000
Equiticity, Chicago, IL

In partnership with Divvy, Superpedestrian and local community-based organizations, Equiticity will host a monthly bike ride and scooter roll. Each ride will have a different theme, socializing participants around the act of mobility and increasing a sense of safety, ownership and autonomy. Depending on the ride, Divvy bikes or Superpedestrian scooters will be provided and participants will learn about each system and its corresponding low-income membership program. 

Golden Rollers: Introduction to BCycle and Micromobility for Older Adults | $5,640
Ghisallo Cycling Initiative, San Antonio, TX

The Golden Rollers program will provide annual bike share memberships, training, guided rides and safety equipment at no cost to 24 seniors and older adults with the aim of increasing ridership. The program will be based out of a senior center adjacent to a BCycle bike share station. This mini-grant will allow interested participants to gain familiarity with the BCycle system and access their fleet of two-wheeled, electric-assist bicycles.

Art, Bikes and Books for All! | $9,500
Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville, Nashville, TN

The Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville, the Nashville Public Library and the Music City Dope Pedalers, a majority-BIPOC bike club, will partner to grow the existing Bikes and Books for All program, which makes checking out a BCycle bike as easy as borrowing a book. Funding will help the program expand to more library branches, create bike routes and host a community bike ride with art bikes designed by local artists. 

Blue Bikes Community Liaisons Program | $6,000
Blue Krewe, New Orleans, LA

Blue Bikes will recruit liaisons from the three neighborhoods within its system that rate highest according to the New Orleans’ Bike Equity Index, which helps identify underserved, priority areas. The liaisons will participate in monthly training and be compensated for leading one community outreach activity of their choosing each month from June to November. They will also represent Blue Bikes at neighborhood events, sharing information about the system and gathering feedback on how to improve bike share.

Wheels to Work | $7,000
Houston Bike Share, Houston, TX

Modeled on Indego bike share’s Wheels to Work program in Philadelphia, this mini-grant will support employment and increase health and mobility through bike share. Houston Bike Share will work directly with New Hope Housing’s Harrisburg location to combine services such as resume writing and soft skills classes alongside bike share system training and bike safety. Participants will receive a free BCycle membership and participate in group rides designed to be inclusive.

Building Mobility Justice in Pittsburgh | $9,000
Bike Share Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

This mini-grant will fund aspects of the POGOH bike share system’s equity initiatives, including cash payment administration, support for its $10/year low-income Mobility Justice Pass and its 2022 Community Day event execution. The Community Day will bring families and the neighborhood together around outdoor activities, food, music and a helmet giveaway, raising awareness about POGOH and the Mobility Justice Pass. 

Equity Memberships | $8,500
Tulsa Bike Share/This Machine, Tulsa, OK

This Machine will partner with local nonprofits, including the Tulsa Housing Authority and two prison alternative programs for female drug offenders, to provide a form of reliable transportation to access essential services. The pilot program will offer reduced-priced memberships to folks working with its partner organizations and anyone with a SNAP or SoonerCare card. The goal is to collect comprehensive data before applying for funding to make the equity membership program permanent.

West Dayton Community Outreach | $6,000
Bike Miami Valley, Dayton, OH

The Dayton Bike Share system is expanding by adding hubs in the city’s priority areas of West and Northwest Dayton. These geographies were historically redlined and are still today majority Black communities. This mini-grant will fund work on the front end of that expansion, gathering input from residents, providing marketing materials and helmets for the demo days and stipends for door-to-door outreach in the community.

Beautification of Downtown BCycle Station | $5,000
Des Moines Street Collective/Des Moines BCycle, Des Moines, IA

In partnership with ArtForce Iowa, the Des Moines Street Collective hopes to bring refugee, first-generation youth to bike share through the beautification of a downtown BCycle station. Marginalized youth will have a hand in the entire creative process, from the initial brainstorm to the final product. Every youth artist will participate in two group rides, receiving bike-riding lessons, an annual BCycle membership and a helmet and bike lock.

The Better Bike Share Partnership is funded by The JPB Foundation as a collaboration between the City of Philadelphia, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and the PeopleForBikes Foundation to build equitable and replicable bike share systems. Learn more at BetterBikeShare.org.

Better Bike Share Partnership Awards $75,000 in Grants

You can glimpse the future right now in forward-looking American cities a few blocks here, a mile there where people riding bicycles are protected from rushing cars and trucks.

Chicago’s Kinzie Street, just north of downtown, offers a good picture of this transportation transformation. New bike lanes are marked with bright green paint and separated from motor traffic by a series of plastic posts. This means bicyclists glide through the busy area in the safety of their own space on the road. Pedestrians are thankful that bikes no longer seek refuge on the sidewalks, and many drivers appreciate the clear, orderly delineation about where bikes and cars belong.

Most of all this is a safety project, notes Chicago’s Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein. We saw bikes go up from a 22 percent share of traffic to 52 percent of traffic on the street with only a negligible change in motorists? time, but a drop in their speeds. That makes everyone safer.

Klein heralds this new style of bike lane as one way to improve urban mobility in an era of budget shortfalls. They're dirt cheap to build compared to road projects.

The Kinzie project was discombobulating to the public when it first went in, notes Alderman Margaret Laurino, chair of the city council’s Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Committee. ?Business owners had questions. But now people understand it and we’re ready to do more.

Protected bike lanes are not just for diehard bicyclists they offer a level of safety and confidence for less experienced riders, adds Rey Coln, a Chicago alderman who first saw how well these innovations work on a trip to Seville, Spain.

Mayor Rahm Emmanuel campaigned on the promise of building 100 miles of these green lanes over the next four years to heighten the city’s appeal to new businesses. After the protected bike lane opened on Kinzie Street last year, more were installed on Jackson Boulevard and 18th Street on the city’s Near West Side. Thirteen more miles are planned this summer throughout the city. (The Chicago suburb of Evanston just announced plans to install protected bike lanes on one of its busy streets.)

People on bikes everywhere feel more safe and comfortable on busy streets with a physical barrier between them and motor vehicles. In some places it’s a plastic post or line of parked cars. In others it’s a curb, planter or slightly elevated bike lanes. But no matter what separates people on bikes from people in cars, the results are hefty increases in the number and variety of people bicycling.

We've seen biking almost triple on parts of 15th Street NW since installing a protected bike lane last year, reports Jim Sebastian, Active Transportation Project Manager for the District of Columbia. "And we’re seeing different kinds of cyclists beyond the Lycra crowd. People in business suits, high heels, families out for a ride, more younger and older people."

This particular bike lane one of more than 50 protected bikeways built recently in at least 20 cities from New York to Minneapolis to Long Beach, California?is richly symbolic for Americans. It follows 15th St. NW to the White House.

"This is what cities of the future are doing to attract businesses and young people," notes Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. "People don’t want to drive all the time; they want a choice."

The Green Lane Project, an initiative to showcase these next-generation transportation improvements, was launched May 31 in six U.S. cities: Chicago, Washington D.C., Memphis, Austin, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. The effort is coordinated by the Bikes Belong Foundation. Advisors to the project include New York City Department of Transportation (which has already pioneered 5 miles of protected lanes on six streets), the National Association of City Transportation Officials and the League of American Bicyclists. Major funders include Volkswagen of America, SRAM, Interbike, the Taiwan Bicycle Exporters Association and the Bikes Belong Coalition.

The name green lane was chosen not only to draw attention to the typical color of protected bike lanes but also to highlight their potential in improving the urban environment and saving on transportation costs. "Green lanes are not just a color on the street. They are paths to better cities," the project’s website explains, adding that more people on bikes eases congestion and boosts residents health, sense of community and economic opportunities.

The project will connect elected officials, city planners, traffic engineers, bike advocates and citizens in these six cities to share experiences, trade data and swap ideas, says Project Director Martha Roskowski. Until this year she ran GO Boulder, the alternative transportation effort at the city of Boulder, Colorado, which built its first protected bike lane in the early 1990s.

"For cities, green lanes are like finding a whole new drawer of tools in your toolbox," Roskowski notes. "Our mission is to expand the knowledge on how to use these tools. How to get them on the ground. How to fine tune them. How to make them work best."

Five years ago, these designs were barely on the horizon in the U.S. although they've been standard in Europe for decades. "Today, cities across the country are looking to green lanes to tame busy streets and connect missing links in the bicycling network," she says. She points to the 2011 publication of a design guide by the National Association of City Transportation Officials as a key factor creating momentum for green lanes. "The guide shows cities how to combine existing, approved design elements in new ways to create these spaces," says Roskowski.

"The idea is to create the kind of bike networks that will attract the 60 percent of all Americans who say they would bike more if they felt safer," says Randy Neufeld, a longtime bike advocate in Chicago who as Director of the SRAM Cycling Fund helped start the Green Lane Project. "It’s about helping people from 8 to 80 to feel safe biking on city streets."

The six Green Lane Project cities will receive technical assistance and support, backed by targeted grants to help carry out their plans. Other cities around the country will soon be able to tap into a comprehensive resource center of data, documentation and best practices compiled by the project.

Protected bike lanes are often accompanied by other safety improvements?paint that marks bicyclists? path through intersections; designated spaces at stoplights that give two-wheel traffic a slight head start; and traffic signals dedicated to people on bikes. All these measures reduce car/bike collisions by making people on bikes more visible and clearly assigning priority at intersections. In addition, many cities around the country are also building buffered bike lanes, where wide patches of paint rather than physical barriers separate bicyclists from cars and trucks.

The proliferation of new bikesharing systems where people can conveniently rent bikes at on-street stations with a credit card and return them to another station near their destination?creates new demand for green lanes by getting more riders on the streets. Bike share is now running full board in Washington, Denver, Boston, Minneapolis, Chattanooga and Miami Beach and coming soon to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities.

Roskowski notes that the recent rise of bikesharing and protected bike lanes are linked. "Bikeshare puts new people on bikes who want safer, more comfortable place to ride."

The United States has witnessed a boom in bicycling over the past 15 years, proving that bikes aren’t just for kids and recreational riders anymore. They are an essential component of 21st Century transportation systems that can cut congestion on crowded streets, save money in transportation budgets, improve traffic safety and reduce pollution.

The number of American commuting to work by bike has climbed 43 percent since 2000, according to census figures. And numbers are even higher in places making their streets more accommodating for bicyclists. New York City, Boston, Seattle and Minneapolis-St. Paul have all doubled the number of people on bikes over the past five years. In Portland, Oregon, 6 percent of all commuters travel to work by bike?an achievement matched by smaller cities such as Gainesville, Florida; Madison, Wisconsin; and Cambridge, Massachusetts?and surpassed in Boulder, Colorado (10 percent) and Davis, California (22 percent).

Yet overall, America still lags behind many Western nations in embracing bikes as a form of transportation. Only one percent of all trips nationally are made by people on bicycles today (up from 0.43 percent a few years ago). There are many explanations?some practical, some philosophical?for why most Americans bike infrequently.

The sprawling layout of many cities and suburbs is one obvious cause. The decline of physical activity among many Americans, even kids, is a likely contributing factor. Some observers point to automobiles? long reign as a status symbol. Others suggest that many Americans view bicycling as a white, upper-middle class hobby, not as a form of transportation for average families. However a recent study found that 21 percent of all bike trips in the U.S. are made by people of color.

Many cities are paying particular attention to make sure that low-income and minority communities where many families don’t own cars and others are financially strapped by the rising costs of operating one?have access to state-of-the-art biking facilities. With a 63 percent African-American population, Memphis was selected as one of the six Green Lane cities in part because of Mayor AC Wharton Jr.’s strong support for biking as essential, not a frill, for a city with one of the highest diabetes rates in the country and where 15 percent of households have no access to a car.

Danny Solis, a Latino alderman representing a district on Chicago’s West Side with a high percentage of Mexican-Americans, African-Americans and Asian-Americans, says good bike lanes are important to improving public safety and economic vitality in lower-income communities. "It increases interaction between neighbors, which is a boost for businesses and keeps the gangs away."

Encouraging more people to ride bikes offers substantial rewards for all Americans, whether they ride a bike or not, by using streets more efficiently to move people and offering an economical choices in transportation as well as addressing looming problems such as the obesity epidemic and volatile fuel prices. And it gets even better from there, the more people ride, the more benefits we'll all see.

Of course, any proposal to reconfigure the streets, even in modest ways, can stir opposition. It’s true that in some cases, carving out space for people on bikes means reducing parking spaces or travel lanes for cars. In other designs, parking and travel lanes stay the same as existing bike lanes are upgraded with the addition of bollards, or parking is rearranged so that bike lanes run adjacent to the curb,.

A follow up study tracking the 15th Street Green Lanes in Washington found that 78 percent of people living nearby view the project as a neighborhood amenity. And in New York City, protected bike lanes sparked a heated debate in recent years when politically well-connected figures lobbied to rip them out. But a slew of opinion polls showed that most city residents approved of the changes, even if they themselves did not ride bikes, and the lanes stayed.

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak acknowledges a bikelash is possible when Green Lanes are first introduced in a community, but notes that in this era of shrinking municipal budgets, "We need to get more use from all the streets we already have. It really is the idea that bikes belong."

It’s not Utopian to think that the United States could become a world leader in bicycling. Americans are an enterprising people, who are capable of almost anything when we apply our ingenuity and technical expertise toward a goal. Who says we can’t match Germany (where 10 percent of all trips are made by bike), Denmark (18 percent) or even the Netherlands (27 percent), all of which are wealthy nations like us where most people own cars?

Protected bike lanes, commonplace throughout Europe and Asia, are a big part of how we accomplish this. Making people feel safer on the streets was how the Netherlands? engineered a 100 percent increase in bicycling since the 1970s, as well as Germany’s even more dramatic rise from 2 to 10 percent of all trips over the past 15 years. Even a city like Seville, Spain, where almost no one biked a few years ago now boasts a 6-7 percent bike mode share thanks to a network of protected bike lanes built since 2007.

In the United States, we tend to view bicyclists as a unique breed willing to brave city traffic. Bicyclists in Europe are considered no different than anyone else. In the Netherlands, for example, 55 percent of all riders are women, compared to about 25 percent here. Dutch bicyclists over 55 ride at comparable rates to the rest of the population, which is far different than here. And 55 percent of school-age children in the Netherlands ride to  school on a regular basis. In the U.S. only 16 percent of kids either bike or walk regularly, down from 42 percent in 1969.

The ultimate goal of the Green Lane Project is to make bicycling feel as normal to Americans as shopping for groceries or walking the dog.

Chicago and the five other cities taking part in the Green Lane Project (chosen from a field of 43 applicants) are undertaking ambitious efforts over the next two years to build protected lanes and other 21st century bike facilities. They aim to show how Americans can enjoy the numerous benefits of increased biking?and in the process reap the rewards of standing out as a leader in urban quality-of-life.

San Francisco: San Francisco debuted one of the country’s first protected bikeways on its main commercial thoroughfare Market Street in 2009, which will be expanded as part of the city’s Green Lanes strategy. A new lane recently opened on Golden Gate Park’s JFK Drive and more are planned for the Civic Center, SOMA and Castro districts and potentially the Embarcadero, a road winding along the bayfront.

Every person bicycling is opening up space on the streets and a parking space at the end of their journey," notes Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "The city is projected to grow in coming decades but we have no more space to move people around. It makes smart fiscal sense to invest in bicycling, it’s the most inexpensive way to move more people."

Austin: City officials cut the ribbon April 23 for a protected bike lane running 4/10 of a mile on Rio Grande Street near the University of Texas campus, and as many as 10 are in the planning stage. "Green Lanes are safer, hands down, observes the city’s bicycle program manager Annick Beaudet. "A lot of people are still afraid to get on a bike here so that makes Green Lanes very important to us."

Mayor Lee Leffingwell declares, "As one of the most congested cities of our size nationally, bicycling is certainly a realistic way to address this problem. But I also value the contribution to the economy that comes with the provision of smart transportation options that attract major employers to Austin."

Portland: As the large American city with arguably the best network of on-street bikeways and undeniably the highest ridership, Portland looks to Green Lanes as the best way to make sure the number of bicyclists continues to grow. "The more separation you create between people on bikes and fast-moving cars, the more people you will see on riding," says city bicycle coordinator Roger Geller. "And the more people biking the more benefits everyone gets in terms of health, community, safety and the environment."

Portland inaugurated its first Green Lane downtown and recently completed two others in the Northwest and Southwest quadrants of the city with more to come.

Washington D.C.: Washington striped its first on-street bike lane 40 years ago, but bicycling in the city really took off with the advent of the Capital Bikeshare program in 2010 and the protected bike lane on 15th St. NW, which connects to a popular buffered bike lane on Pennsylvania Avenue leading all the way to the U.S. Capitol. Another Green Lane on L Street is up next. Overall, Washington has seen an 80 percent increase in bicycling since 2007.

Capital Bikeshare is currently the nation’s largest with 1200 bikes (2800 by the end of the year) available for short term rental at 180 stations, which average 6000 rides a day by DC residents, commuters and tourists. (New York is set to launch a system this summer that will number 10,000 bikes by next year.)

"This is the time of the bicycle," observes Ellen Jones, chair of Washington’s Bicycle Advisory Council and a director of the Downtown Business Improvement District. "People want to live and work in places where they have a lot of choices for how to get around. That makes you feel great about a place like Washington."

Memphis: Mayor AC Wharton Jr. is behind the push to make Memphis a bicycling leader among Sun Belt cities. "We believe in the power of bicycle facilities to enhance the health, economy and safety of our community," he says.

Work on the city’s first Green Lane, a 1 mile connection between a popular park and a well-traveled rail-trail, starts soon.

Bikeway/Pedestrian Coordinator Kyle Wagenschutz, says, "We're not building trails just for people who already bike, we want to energize the growth of cycling in the city as a legitimate sources of transportation."

Memphis, like most cities, does not promote bicycling simply as a transportation policy, but also as economic development strategy. "The job recruiters at FedEx and our medical centers talk about the importance of being a good place to bike in attracting talent here," Wagenschutz says. "Recently I met with a partner at the law firm, Bass, Berry & Sims, who told me he did not ride a bike and was not interested in riding a bike, but he wanted to tell us how appreciative he is for how helpful all the bike improvements have been in recruiting young lawyers to their firm."

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2024’s Best Places to Bike

The Best New U.S. Bike Lanes of 2023

This Annual Bike Ride Connects Cherokee Youth to Their History

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Announces Finding of No Significant Impact for New Trail System

Transforming Old Tires Into Bike Lane Barriers

The Urban Wilderness Transforming Knoxville

Better Bike Share Partnership Awards $75,000 in Grants

The simple, inexpensive breakthrough that is transforming American cities

Green Lane Project officially kicks off in Chicago

Memphis is about to build the country's first crowdfunded bike lane

Memphis in the Netherlands: "Blown Away"

How Memphis created a rolling festival of street redesigns

Memphis announces major initiatives for protected bike lanes

Memphis on Broadway

Introducing Our Spring 2021 Community Grants Recipients

“Where America Fails, So Have We in Bicycling.”

Biking Is (Not Just) for Boys

America’s 10 Best New Bikeways of 2018

America's Best New Bikeways of 2020

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