Bicycle Friendly Community

New Orleans, LA | Bronze Level

Community Highlights: New Orleans' geography and history make it a perfect bicycling city. The flat terrain and small geographic footprint, positioned between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, make cycling a quick, easy and practical transportation option. The built environment further enables bicycling as large portions of the city predate the automobile, resulting in a dense and largely uninterrupted grid system that allows people of all skill and comfort levels to ride in the city and avoid corridors with high motor vehicle volumes. There is currently a significant amount of bicycling momentum in New Orleans. The city is rapidly adding new facilities in conjunction with the Submerged Roads Program and other recovery related road projects. Total bikeway mileage has quadrupled in the last 3 years, from 11 miles to 44 miles. Additionally, the new Mayor and City Council have included bicycling issues in their agenda, evident by the adoption of a multi-modal transportation plan in the New Orleans 2030 Plan and efforts in the Council to pass a Complete Streets Policy. There is already a sizable number of people that use bicycles in New Orleans. The city ranks 6th in the nation for bicycle mode share amongst major cities. This strong foundation of users indicates the potential for New Orleans to be a regional and national leader for bicycling in the coming years as the city's bicycle programs and policies mature.

Most Significant Recent Accomplishment: New Orleans recently initiated the $7.6 million Lafitte Greenway project, a linear park and trail across the center of the city. This corridor will form the spine of a trail system connecting the river to the lake and a network of bicycle boulevards in the Mid-City area.

Most Compelling Community Statistic: The Tulane University Prevention Research Center and the University of New Orleans Center for Urban and Public Affairs has been conducting bicycle and pedestrian counts/observations at location throughout the city to track usage as new facilities are constructed and to work towards mode share estimates. A University of New Orleans report shows an average of 20 percent increase in cycling between 2010 and 2011.