Bicycle Friendly Community

Urbana, IL | Bronze Level

Community Highlights: Encouraging bicycle use is not a new idea in the City of Urbana. From the Citizens Advisory Committee on Bicycle Programs created in 1976 to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission created in 2005, the City has been committed to bicycle planning and education for many years. These efforts have expanded dramatically in the past 5 years with the development and adoption of an award winning Bicycle Master Plan, the production and mass distribution of bicycle maps, and an outpouring of educational efforts being carried out by multiple organizations.  With its small size and flat topography, the City of Urbana is an ideal community for bicycle commuting. Urbana's dense population and interconnected street grid system makes bicycling an easy and natural way to commute. That is why, based on a 2002 travel survey of households, Urbana has the highest bicycle commuting rate of any city in Illinois, with 8 percent of their citizens commuting by bike. The City of Urbana is committed to substantially expanding its bicycle network. They plan to more than triple their bicycle network from 22 miles to 72 miles in the next 5 years. The Urbana Bicycle Master Plan was honored with an Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association 2008 Chapter Award and a 2008 Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations Award.