FAQ

Simple steps to make bicycling safe and comfortable pay huge dividends in civic, community and economic development. Given the opportunity to ride, residents enjoy dramatic health benefits, reduced congestion, increased property values and more money in their pockets to spend in the local economy. When your community is bike-friendly, tourism booms, businesses attract the best and the brightest, and governments save big on parking costs while cutting their carbon emissions.

A Bicycle Friendly Community welcomes cyclists with trails, bike lanes, share the road campaigns, organized rides, Bike to Work Day events and so much more. A rich matrix of options that recognizes your area’s unique resources, the BFC application evaluates how your community encourages people to bike for transportation and recreation through the five Es: engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation.

The popularity of the program speaks for itself: As of 2012, more than 500 communities have applied, and 215 have been awarded Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum designation. But, even if your community doesn’t quite make the grade yet, applying is well worth the time. Each applicant receives customized feedback and technical assistance. Once your community becomes a BFC, the League will present an award and two highway-quality road signs at a local ceremony or celebration.

The Bicycle Friendly America Resource page contains several reports on the benefits of cycling, design guides, case studies and other useful information to aid your application process and bicycle-friendly efforts.

No. Thanks to the generous support of Trek Bicycle, we are able to waive all application and renewal fees.

Any municipality, county, Census Designated Place, military base, regional planning agency or Indian Country can apply to the BFC program. Usually, a community official responsible for bicycling issues completes the application. However, much of the application can be completed by anyone familiar with what a community has done for bicycling as long as the community’s governing body approves its final submission. Often, the most complete applications come from communities where city officials, public agencies and local cyclists work on it together.

Visit the Getting Started page to learn more about the application process.

New and renewing applicants fill out the same application form. However, if you applied in Fall 2012 or later, you will be able to transfer the data from your last application into the new application.

There are two deadlines throughout the year - one in February and the other in July. The next deadline is February 19, 2014. Applications submitted through the online application site on or before the deadline will be considered for a May 2014 designation.

If you have started an application and missed the deadline or are reapplying, you can transfer your data as soon as the new cycle opens.

To do so,

• access your application desktop and click on “Copy Form” next to the last application you have been working on.
• Select the new cycle you want to transfer your data to. Click “Submit”.
• You can now edit the new application.

Once an application cycle is completed, applications are send to several cycling experts, advocates and interested cyclists in the applying communities for local feedback. After the local review period, the applications, any submitted supplemental material and the local feedback are reviewed by a panel of national bicycle professionals. Applicants will be notified of the result about a week ahead of the public announcement to provide enough time to send out a press release and organize an award ceremony, if desired. All designated BFCs will receive an award certificate, a digital award seal and two Bicycle Friendly Community road signs.

Applicants that just fall short of a designation receive an Honorable Mention. Communities that receive an Honorable Mention are being promoted on the League website for one year. However, they do not receive a certificate, seal or road sign. The names of applicants that do not receive any recognition are not published. All applicants that do not achieve Bicycle Friendly status still receive a detailed feedback report that can be used to work towards a designation next time the community applies.

The BFC award is valid for four years. A BFC needs to reapply in spring or fall of the same year the award expires in order to maintain its status. For example, if your BFC status expires in 2014, you will need to reapply in February or July 2014.

If you are a designated BFC you can order additional BFC street signs, renewal stickers (if applicable) and BFC promotional material by sending an email to bfa@bikeleague.org.

An important part of the BFC designation is the official presentation of the award to the community. A city council meeting or a bike-themed community event are good venues for an award ceremony. The ceremony could also include the celebratory installation of the Bicycle Friendly Community sign. The following steps are usually involved in setting up a local award ceremony:

1. Choose a date and location.
2. The League will identify a representative to present the award – the representative may be a League staff person or board member, the head of a local club, a member of the bike industry, or other appropriate person. If you have a preference, please let the League staff know. The League will provide talking points for the presentation.
3. The League can assist you in developing a press release for your community announcing the award ceremony. Most communities use their communications department to distribute the press release. 
4. Have the BFC street sign and award certificate on hand for the awards ceremony - the sign works best as the item to present commemorating the award.