Bike leaders say Austin has a good start toward being designated a Bike Friendly City.

Officials with the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota (BikeMN) came to the Austin Public Library Wednesday afternoon to kickoff the process for community stakeholders to work toward the designation.

“Today is the beginning of a great project,” BikeMN Executive Director Dorian Grilley.

About 14 community leaders with groups like the city of Austin, Vision 2020, Mower County, Rydjor Bike Shop, and the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau attended and helped complete a preliminary assessment of Austin’s bike status.

They saw positive results for Austin.

“Becoming bike friendly would be a huge, huge accomplishment for us at this point,” said Steve Kime, chairman of Vision 2020’s Bike/Walk Trail Committee.

In initial tests, Austin has scored high in the League of Bicyclists’ five key categories for becoming a Bike Friendly City: encouragement, education, enforcement, evaluation and planning, and engineering.

“I’m seeing a lot of yeses on here, and that’s a really good sign,” said Nick Mason, BikeMN’s deputy director. “And what that tells me — really preliminarily — is we should apply. We should actually submit the application sooner rather than later.”

But it won’t be a simple process, as BikeMN officials told Austin leaders the application process is almost 200 questions, and community leaders came up with some constructive ways Austin can continue and be even more friendly to bicyclists.

A small town renaissance

The push for Austin to apply is being in part driven by Vision 2020’s Bike/Walk Trail Committee, which went before the Austin City Council in August to get a $500 grant to supplement the $3,500 the group had raised. That made for the needed $4,000 to work with BikeMN on getting the Bike Friendly designation from the American League of Bicyclists.

BikeMN brings a breadth of experience with cycling and community efforts, and it’s often worked to secure funding through state lobbying efforts.

Currently, 16 cities in Minnesota are Bike Friendly Cities, but only four of them are Twin Cities communities. Cities include St. Paul, Minneapolis, Mankato, Rochester and Crosby.

Grilley described a Bike Friendly Designation as something that is vital for communities, citing national surveys showing young people look for towns where it’s safe and convenient to walk and bike.

“It could be part of the renaissance of small towns in Minnesota,” he said.

In the most recent rankings, Minnesota ranked No. 2 for bike friendliness behind Washington, and Grilley is confident Minnesota could do better in the future.

“We might have a chance at being number one in the next year or two,” he said.

BikeMN sees road and mountain biking both as vital ways to promote tourism and business.

“It’s a big business in Minnesota,” Grilley said.

But it’s not just about recreation, BikeMN promotes biking as a means of transportation, and the group has worked toward securing transportation dollars for biking infrastructure. And data shows there’s safety in numbers. The number of bicyclists in Minneapolis has doubled while the crash rate has stayed the same of decreased

“It works to get more people out there,” Grilley said.

BikeMN is also big into its Walk! Bike! Fun! initiative, which is a way to teach children about safe walking and biking to school through training physical education/gym teachers. The aim is to promote biking and walking at a young age, while also promoting educational efforts.

Austin applied for Safe Routes to School funding but didn’t receive any funding, and Austin City Administrator Craig Clark said the state needs to increase its fund for the program. Mason noted they’re hoping Gov. Mark Dayton recommends funds for the Safe Routes to Schools in his proposal for the bonding bill in 2016.

Minnesota also boasts of 72 Bicycle Friendly Businesses, including 3M, Target, Ameriprise Financial, Great River Energy, Wells Fargo and BlueCross BlueShields.

“These companies are really, really taking it seriously,” Grilley said.

An Austin assessment

The meeting touched on the many things Austin has done in connection with biking.

Even the shorter preliminary application completed Wednesday showed several things Austin is already doing, from working toward an education curriculum for Safe Routes to School, Kime attempted to do a trail class, Rydjor has discussed a class on basic repair and maintenance, and some have discussed ways to work with law enforcement.

Along with its roughly 15 miles of rails, the community hosted a Minnesota High School Cycling League race in September, and the Dan Ulwelling Bike Race is held every July during Freedom Fest. Austin has previously welcomed several tours, such as Bicycling Around Minnesota (BAM), the Tour of Minnesota and The Ride Across Minnesota (TRAM) twice.

Vision 2020 and other leaders are also in the midst of forming the Red Bike Program, a free bike share program slated to kickoff next year. Kime is also looking to turn the temporary mountain biking trail near Todd Park into a permanent trail.

Austin also puts out a bicycling map each year and has a plan for future trail development in the city.

They also discussed tracking and studying bike/pedestrian and car crashes to look for trends.

They also found many ways Austin can improve and work on new things. Rydjor manager Jens Raffelson and Vision 2020 Interim Coordinator Quin Brunner voiced concerns that some Austin trails can be confusing and often feel disconnected.

Though Austin has a plan to extend its biking and walking tails each year, some voiced concern that there are limited places for bike trails

Though Vision 2020 is working on signage to help with trail connectivity, Raffelson said the signs can be hard to see for certain cyclists because the signs are high. Kime noted the signs were lower, but kids were jumping on them.

Grilley described the planning document as a good way to examine the community’s efforts to date and to set meaningful future goals. If Austin becomes a Bike Friendly City, it would reapply and fill out the document again every four years.

‘A good start’

Kime said he thought Austin’s assessment went well. Initially, he and Vision 2020 leaders weren’t even thinking of seeking a Bike Friendly designation, but realized they were already taking steps in that direction.

“This step, I think, further defines some of the things we will need to do,” Kime said.

Moving forward, Kime wants to continue to identify what Austin is doing well and ways to improve. He also noted BikeMN will be key in helping with the application process.

“I think we’re off to a good start,” Kime said.

Grilley agreed Austin is off to a good start.

“I think Austin’s done a good job of thinking about this and preparing this,” Grilley said. “I think we’re just here to assemble the pieces of the puzzle and find out if there’s a couple missing. But I’m not sure that there’s many missing. I think we’re really close.”

Moving forward, BikeMN and community leaders want to promote the effort on social media using he hashtag #BikeFriendlyAustin — even if the tag doesn’t denote this is Austin, Minnesota and not Texas.

“Forget Texas,” Mason laughed. “We are going to stomp them down.”