Everett Getting Recognition For Becoming More Bike Friendly

The City of Everett, Washington recently issued a press release citing recognition from the League of American Bicyclists naming the City as a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community.

Everett has been named a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. The award recognizes the work the City has done to develop its bicycle network, making Everett a safer, more accessible community for cyclists of all abilities and encouraging healthy and sustainable transportation choices.

“The City has made great strides implementing our Bicycle Master Plan, adding more than 24 miles of bikeways since 2011,” said Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. “Being named a Bicycle Friendly Community recognizes our strong efforts to improve conditions for bicycling and progress toward making our vision of a better, bikeable community a reality.”

“We are thrilled to have this progress honored, and we are even more committed to embracing non-car travel, providing residents with greater travel choices by making bicycling a more comfortable and attractive travel mode.” said Christina Anna Curtis, Everett’s active transportation engineer.

“This Bicycle Friendly Community award is the culmination of years of work put in by Everett and its citizen advocates for better biking,” said Bill Nesper, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists. “This award round, Everett joins 57 new and renewing Bicycle Friendly Communities in the movement toward healthier, more sustainable and connected places.”

As a Bicycle Friendly Community, the City is also celebrating National Bike Month with community events and resources throughout the month of May. On May 10, the Everett Public Library and Sharing Wheels Community Bike Shop will host a mobile bike clinic offering free bicycle repair. On May 20, community members can join Everett Transit, other City departments and community partners to celebrate Bike Everywhere Day at Everett Station, with prizes, information about safety, local bike paths and trails, and more.

More about the award

There are 497 Bicycle Friendly Communities in the United States. Of the 19 ranked communities in Washington, 13 are bronze, 4 are silver and 2 are gold. More than 850 communities have applied for recognition by the Bicycle Friendly Community program. Each year, the League assesses communities through a voluntary application process on bicycle-friendly engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation and planning. Award status lasts four years.

Everett’s notable scores

Among Everett’s notable scores, Everett scored high in ongoing efforts to encourage residents to embrace non-car travel. Everett’s annual bike month events scored as high as average gold and platinum-level communities. Everett also scored high in efforts to engineer, evaluate and plan for safer bike facilities. Everett has better bicycle-friendly laws and ordinances than average platinum-level communities. Everett also has more bike program staff than average silver-level communities.

For more information about Everett’s bicycle master plan, completed and upcoming projects and the many bike amenities in Everett, visit everettwa.gov/bikes.