Lakewood Earns Bronze Ranking as a Bicycle Friendly Community

Lakewood has taken great strides to become bicycle friendly. And on Sept. 27, those efforts paid off when the city earned a Bronze ranking as a Bicycle Friendly Community from League of American Bicyclist. Currently, there are only five other communities in Ohio that have been designated (Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Westerville and Cincinnati).

Dru Siley, Director, Department of Planning and Development & Division of Housing and Building for the City of Lakewood, stated in a press release that one of the goals in the bike plan was for Lakewood to become one of the most bicycle friendly communities in the country by the end of 2014.

“As you know, we have committed as a community to make every effort to invest in making sure Lakewood always has a multitude of safe a convenient transportation options for our residents and visitors,” Siley said in the release. “In 2012 the Bicycle Master Plan was adopted and outlined a plan of action to enhance safety for the thousands of riders we currently have in our community and to encourage new riders to feel comfortable to occasionally leave the car at home and ride a bike.”

The city rolled out plans in October 2011 to become more bike friendly. 

Improvements in the past 20 months, including nearly 80 new bike racks in the city, sharrows on Detroit and bike lanes of Franklin helped contribute to that designation as have events such as Bikes and Bands, Bike to School Day and the Bike Rodeo.

The city applied to the League to gauge progress and learned of the ranking.

The designation will be officially announced by the leagu of American Bicyclists on Oct. 15.