Centre Region, State College regognized for bicycle friendliness

​The State College – Centre Region area was named a Silver Level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists December 16, 2020. This distinction follows Bronze Level BFC designations in 2012 and 2016.

"This Bicycle Friendly Community award is the culmination of years of work put in by the Centre Region and its citizen advocates for better biking," said Bill Nesper, Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists, in a release issued at the time of the designation.

The Pennsylvania State University was designated as a Gold Level Bicycle Friendly University in the spring. This is an improvement over a Silver Level designation it received in 2016.

The recognition the Centre Region and Penn State have received from the League are a testament to the work of organizations like the Centre Region Council of Governments, each of the six Centre Region municipalities, Centre Moves, Penn State and CentreBike. These organizations cooperatively and individually strive to grow cycling through a combination of in person and virtual cycling education and encouragement events as well as group ride outings. They also work with PennDOT to identify opportunities to improve infrastructure for cyclists in the area.

Across the nation, more than 850 communities have applied for recognition as Bicycle Friendly Communities, and there are 485 across all 50 states that hold the designation. There are currently 212 colleges and universities across 47 states and the District of Columbia recognized by the league as Bicycle Friendly Universities.

Criteria examined by the league in awarding these designations include bicycle infrastructure, availability of bicycle education programing and overall promotion of cycling through events like Bike to Work Day.

There are five levels of recognition for the BFC award: diamond, platinum, gold, silver, bronze, plus an honorable mention category.

"The gold designation from the League of American Bicyclists is a great acknowledgement of how far we've come since our original Bronze designation in 2012," said Transportation Services' Sustainable Transportation Program Coordinator Cecily Zhu in a release at the time of Penn State's designation. "We look forward to building on this achievement in 2021 with the opening of several new bike facilities and hopefully the launch of a new bike share program."

To learn more about the league's BFC program, visit www.bikeleague.org/community. To learn about cycling events in the Centre Region, visit http://www.crcog.net/bikes.