Eugene aims high for platinum Bicycle Friendly Community rating

Every four years, the City of Eugene reapplies for the League of American Bicyclists "Bicycle Friendly Community." In 2005, Eugene achieved a silver BFC designation. By 2009, the City earned the gold BFC level and has stayed gold since then. This year, the City has applied for the next level: platinum. Now that the application is in, the League of American Bicyclists is running a community survey to hear from residents, local area cyclists, and bike advocates about their experience with riding bikes in Eugene.

The BFC survey is open to anyone familiar with or interested in bicycling in Eugene. Community input will help the league and the City better understand current bicycling conditions and potential areas for improvement. The survey should take about 10 minutes to respond to, and each question is optional.

There are currently five other platinum level cities in the United States: Davis, Calif.; Boulder, Colo.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Portland and Madison, Wisc. If Eugene achieves the platinum level, there is still work to do; the next level is diamond, which was added in 2012 to help U.S. cities reach the levels of bike ridership that some European communities have achieved.

The Eugene community should be proud of all the work that has been done during the past 15 years to make biking better in Eugene. The City also recognizes that more work is still needed to become one of the first diamond communities in the U.S., and the City is committed to that work in the future.