Sioux Falls Striving to Become a Better Bicycling Community
If you're a biking enthusiast, I am guessing you more than likely have a fond appreciation for all the different bike trails that surround Sioux Falls.
Over the years, the city has gone to great lengths to develop ways to help improve the biking experience and overall safety of the Sioux Falls bike trails for its users.
With that said, there is a group of bicyclists within the Sioux Empire called "Falls Area Bicyclists" that believe there is still room for additional improvements to be made, especially in terms of bike trail safety.
Dakota News Now is reporting this group is currently working on ways to enhance and add new trails that will help improve the safety of bikers throughout the Sioux Falls area.
Sioux Falls bicyclist, Ian Grove told Dakota News Now, “The American League of Bicyclists have designated Sioux Falls as a safe bicycling place. We have a bronze-level designation right now but with just a few enhancements that will be increased to a silver-level designation.”
If you happen to be a bicycling novice like me, there are five different levels of designation a community can achieve in terms of being a bicycle-friendly community. They are; Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
At this time, the city of Sioux Falls currently holds a bronze designation. This means we exhibit a strong commitment to bicycling that is still in its beginning stages. While there is room for improvement in every category, steps are being made in each of the 5 E's, which include, Engineering, Encouragement, Education, Evaluation and Planning, and Equity and Inclusion.
Sioux Falls is one of (324) other communities across the country that currently holds a Bronze level designation when it comes to being a bicycling-friendly community. At last check, there were (89) communities with a Silver designation, St. Paul, Minnesota being one of them. (31) Gold level communities, (5) Platinum level cities, and there are still no communities here in the U.S. that have yet to reach the Diamond level bicycle-friendly designation.
According to Dakota News Now, members of the Falls Area Bicyclists group are working on ways to improve Sioux Falls' status within the bicycling-friendly community.
The group would like to see the city focus more on bicycling projects to get residents interested in biking active and outside. Topics of discussion include creating more accessibility for people to bike to various places around town. Adding more signage and designated trails to help get even more people out on the trails and another level of safety and security to the city bike trails.
If all goes as planned, the Falls Area Bicyclist association hopes these various project ideas will come to fruition here in the Sioux Empire in the upcoming years.
Source: Dakota News Now/ Bike League.org
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