Keep an Eye on These 10 Cities Aiming for Big Increases in Cycling

11:16 AM EST on January 25, 2017

The two-way protected bike lane on Cathedral Street in Baltimore. Photo: Elvert Barnes via People for Bikes

The national advocacy organization People for Bikes has selected 10 American cities to participate in "The Big Jump" -- a program that seeks to double or triple cycling rates in specific neighborhoods. The goal is to demonstrate how smart policy can lead to big changes in a short amount of time.

Over three years, the 10 cities -- New York, L.A., Portland, Memphis, Austin, Providence, Baltimore, New Orleans, Tucson, and Fort Collins, Colorado -- will receive resources from People for Bikes "to support the development of bike infrastructure and programs that encourage biking in a given neighborhood." Local governments and foundations will also chip in.

In Baltimore, local advocacy group Bikemore reports on where the Big Jump will focus:

Big Jump specifically looks at ways to support neighborhoods that are already making strides toward increasing the number of people who walk and bike, and aims to build on that success in surrounding neighborhoods.
Therefore, Baltimore’s project will focus on improving bike infrastructure in a swath of Central and West Baltimore, with the ability to connect a neighborhood of huge opportunity, Remington, to a neighborhood that would benefit immensely from increased connectivity, Reservoir Hill. The selected project area already has a higher percentage, relative to the city average, of households that lack access to a car; it has neighborhoods that already have high percentages of people walking; and it has neighborhoods eager to increase the number of people walking and biking if there was better infrastructure.

More recommended reading: The Urbanist reports that the Womxn's March on Seattle translated into near-record transit ridership for Sound Transit and King County Metro, while in DC, more than a million people rode Metro the day of the march, according to Greater Greater Washington.