Urbana Renews Gold-level Bicycle Friendly Community Status

As National Bike Month comes to a close, the League of American Bicyclists is recognizing 45 cities and towns for earning Bicycle Friendly Community awards, plus five communities that earned Honorable Mentions. Two other communities applied in this round but did not receive recognition. Urbana is one of the five of the communities earning Gold-level awards this round  that are also are renewing Gold-level communities. Only eight of the 45 awardees earned upgrades, with four upgrading to Silver-level status and four upgrading to Bronze from previous Honorable Mentions.

The League of American Bicyclists recognized Urbana with a Gold Bicycle Friendly Community award. In achieving this distinction, Urbana is again recognized as a Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Community in Illinois and part of a select group of communities nationwide to attain this status. Urbana also joins a total of 506 Bicycle Friendly Communities, of various levels, from across the country that are transforming the American landscape. 

The application process to update Urbana’s Bicycle Friendly Community status was rigorous. The City utilized the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission (RPC) to lead the effort for the 2023 application. Many thanks goes to the RPC staff who worked tirelessly to help Urbana achieve Gold-level status for 2023 through 2027. 

The League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly America (BFA) program have been setting the standard for how places build and benchmark progress toward better bicycling for more than 25 years, receiving over 2,100 applications for new awards and renewals from over 860 unique communities to date.

To learn more about Bike Urbana, go here. To also learn more about building a Bicycle Friendly America, visit www.bikeleague.org/BFA.