Bicycle Friendly Community

St. Louis, MO | Bronze Level

Community Highlights: The South Grand Bike Tour St. Louis, held in May is an annual bike ride designed to offer city dwellers a low-traffic, supported bike ride featuring Bike St. Louis routes. The ride is family-friendly and demonstrates how easy it is to access downtown and other neighborhoods by bicycle from this densely populated part of the City. In addition to encouragement efforts such as this and education offerings for adults and children, St. Louis works to accomodatae all cyclist on city streets - 30% of arterial streets in the city have bike lanes and this number is set to grow in the coming years.

Most Recent Significant Accomplishment: Several noteworthy projects have been completed within the past year throughout the city. Bike St. Louis Phase II added 53 miles to the on-street system and connected the City to the nearby suburbs of Clayton and Maplewood. This new investment increased the total miles of on-street routes in St. Louis to 73. One of the most extraordinary efforts to expand the regional trail system is the McKinley Bridge Bikeway and the Trestle at Branch Street. Together, these $10 million dollar projects created a bicycle and pedestrian friendly route over the Mississippi River and connected the 11-mile Riverfront Trail in Missouri and the 18-mile Confluence Trail in Illinois. By working together across state lines between two cities, two
regional park districts, two regional transit agencies, and two state transportation departments, St. Louis was able to
reuse existing infrastructure in a creative way, saving millions of dollars compared to new construction. The project also
provided an opportunity to enhance the ecology of the Mississippi River by replanting native vegetation and short prairie grass. The St. Louis region received an All America City award for the project, the first time a metropolitan region was
given the award.

Current Activities that Promote Bicycling: The city regularly participates in National Bike to Work Day and offers two refueling stations with a continental breakfast for commuters. St. Louis is also home to several local bike races including the Gateway Cup and Tour de Soulard.