FRIENDS OF THE FORT COLLINS BICYCLE PROGRAM INC

Consistent with the essence of our mission (i.e. More Bikes. Safe Streets.), Bike Fort Collins has the following high-level goals:

Bike Fort Collins works to increase the overall number of people riding bikes, with a goal to see bicycling represent 20% mode share within the City of Fort Collins.

Bike Fort Collins endeavors to focus its advocacy efforts in a manner that will contribute to achieving Vision Zero (zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries in our community), particularly as it relates to bicycle/pedestrian-related incidents.

Through our Safe Routes to School Program, Bike Fort Collins also has a goal to educate and develop safe bicycle skills among students, that ultimately results in at least 50% of local K-12 students biking or walking to school on a regular basis.

Bike Fort Collins works to align its programs and advocacy efforts--towards the achievement of our goals--with the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) five "E"s: Education, Encouragement, Engineering, Evaluation (and planning) and Equity.

Bike Fort Collins focuses its bicycle advocacy efforts on engineering, evaluation and equity. We provide the City of Fort Collins with infrastructure improvement opportunities we identify, while advocating that the improvements be built into current/future evaluations and plans. We also work to get bicycles to those who don't have access to one, through efforts such as our Wish For Wheels FoCo program.

Bike Fort Collins has a contract with the City of Fort Collins to deliver all Safe Routes to School programming, or youth bicycle education within the local school district (grades K-12). The program consists of four elements: ensuring students have working bicycles , providing bicycle safety education, assisting with development of physical bike handling skills, and coaching on street rides to develop real world riding experience.

In an effort to move the needle on bicycle equity, we've established two coalition groups within a local mobile home park: one for youth residents and one for adults. We work with these coalition groups, as representatives of the larger community for developing Active Living Plans--including how to incorporate walking and bicycling into their lifestyles more. We've organized a group of cross functional experts to collaborate investigating and implementing the Poudre Valley residents Active Living ideas and priorities.

While the citywide Bike Share Program shutdown due to COVID-19, Bike Fort Collins has been associated with bike sharing in Fort Collins since the inception of the concept in 2008, either in operating the original program(s) or helping to promote the service to encourage more people to ride bikes. The City of Fort Collins is currently going through an RFP process to identify a new Bike Share Program operator, and Bike Fort Collins hopes to continue to be associated or contribute in some capacity with the new operator.

Finally, in an effort to encourage "More Bikes", Bike Fort Collins provides a Bicycle Friendly Business Development Program. Bicycle Friendly Business (BFB) is part of the LAB's Bicycle Friendly America (BFA) program. “Bicycle Friendly” certifications can be earned by states, communities (cities), universities and businesses. Organizations within these categories can apply and earn levels, such as Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. BFC provides workshops, mentorship, and application support and review to businesses interested in applying for a BFB certification.

Bike Fort Collins has a strong local social network, communicating with several thousand constituents and/or Bike Fort Collins members multiple times per month. Over the years we've developed positive working relationships with critical community partners including the City of Fort Collins's bicycling transportation team, the CSU (local University) alternative transportation team, Larimer County health services, Larimer County transportation, and the local school district.

We employ a group of over 20 certified bicycle instructors and bicycle mechanics for our Safe Routes to Schools program. We continue to educate and develop the capabilities of these instructors.

Many of our lower income and disadvantaged community members are primary Spanish speakers. We employ bi-lingual project managers, have funded the hiring of bi-lingual counter representatives for the local Bike Co-op (low income bike repair organization), and offered a cultural awareness workshop for all of our partners.

Finally, we have talented, passionate and well credentialed Board of Directors who are committed to the Bike Fort Collins mission--and in addition to volunteering their time relative to Board obligations, volunteer with our programs, open doors and help the organization build capacity.

Bike Fort Collins continuously hosts and participates in numerous events each year (especially when we are not under gathering restrictions of the pandemic) to promote bicycling, encourage riders, and help build a solid bicycling community. For example, we collaborate with the city in participating in and promoting bi-annual events like Bike to Work Day and Open Streets Days.

In 2019 our Safe Routes to Schools program reached 6,400 students, serving 26 schools. And in 2020, while we weren't able to deliver our traditional programming, we created over 20 instructional videos in an effort to still make available and get Safe Routes to School curriculum out to students during remote learning. We also introduced and produced an inaugural Wish for Wheels FoCo program that provided 260 bikes and helmets to second-graders who don’t have one among the school district's Title 1 elementary schools.

From an advocacy perspective, last year we actively participated on the URA North Fort Collins Investment Planning Stakeholder Group (as a voice for bicycling), resulting in community input presentation by CSU IBE to the URA Commission. We developed an Intersection/Facility Focus initiative – featuring a new intersection/facility survey in
our monthly eNewsletter each month, as well as developed an Intersection/Facility Improvement Opportunity presentation and presented to Fort Collins Bike Advisory Committee (BAC) and the City of Fort Collins Transportation Board. We also played role in bringing Ride for Racial justice to Fort Collins—and promoting it in September.
We co-hosted the annual “Virtual” NoCo Bike Summit. We secured commitment from Larimer County and CDOT to install nearly 80 new road signs on area county roads/state highways over the next 3 years. And, we initiated a "Paint the Pavement/Creative Streets" initiative to paint infrastructure at dangerous intersections in lieu of expensive road improvements in an effort to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

With our guidance the Poudre Valley Mobile Home park adult and youth residents both developed their Active Living plans and prioritized the items on their respective plans. We have hosted several social events and bike repair sessions within the mobile home park, as well as had a new playground installed. We coordinated an experiential walking event that informed a community map & kiosk that was installed within the internal park that surrounds the playground, as well as bilingual wayfinding signage that we coordinated the installation of on bikeways and bike trails surrounding the mobile home park. Finally, we are working to conclude the formal structure of the program with the landscape renovation of their entire internal park area--to further augment the new playground (2021).