Alliance > Media center > People Powered Blog

Entries tagged: Cincinnati

In June, the city of Cincinnati passed an ambitious plan to double the number of people who ride bicycles for everyday use. Queen City Bike is helping them get there with a $10,000 grant to fund Bicycle Friendly Destinations.

The grant, announced earlier this month, comes from The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, but the idea came, in part, from the business community.

Every year, the regional chamber of commerce convenes a Leadership Class that brings together area powerbrokers to come up with new ideas to enhance civic life. Living up to the bike-friendly attitude that’s been spreading across the Buckeye State, those leaders agreed that better bicycling has the potential to lure and retain promising employees. The folks from Queen City Bike, who helped flesh out the concept, were given the reins for the Bicycle Friendly Destinations program.

“More and more cities are realizing that supporting bicycles is important for their future,” Gary Wright, President of Queen City Bike, says. “Young people especially measure a community by how bicycle friendly it is. I’m proud to say that Cincinnati is one of the places that gets it.”

The Bicycle Friendly Destinations program, Wright explains, will work with area employers, retailers, government agencies, and arts and cultural organizations to make it easy for people to reach and use their facilities on a bicycle, whether that means adding bike parking or creating bike commuter incentives for employees. The overall goal of the project, he adds, is to increase the use of bicycles for all kinds of trips, whether to work, to go shopping, or just to run errands in the neighborhood.

Queen City’s role is central to the project’s success. Led by Jess Linz, a key player in Cincinnati’s biking renaissance, the local advocates will advise organizations on the best steps to becoming a Bike Friendly Destination, and will publicly recognize those that succeed next May.

“The City is committed to making our streets more bicycle friendly. We hope that many area businesses and organizations will match that commitment by participating in the Bicycle Friendly Destinations Program,“ Wright says. “We are very excited that The Greater Cincinnati Foundation is partnering with us to make that happen.”

Read more about Queen City Bike and the Bicycle Friendly Destination program here.

Photo courtesy of Jeremy Mosher