Bike Lane Project Targets Atlanta

Patch Staff Report

The PeopleForBikes Green Lane Project last week selected six new U.S. cities, including Atlanta, to join its intensive two-year program to build better bike lanes. 

PeopleForBikes, based in Boulder, Colo., is a pro-bicycle group that is striving to improve bicycling in the U.S. by collaborating with millions of individual riders, businesses, community leaders, and elected officials.

Joining Atlanta are Boston, Denver, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Seattle.

Each will receive financial, strategic and technical assistance to create low-stress streets and increase vitality in urban centers through the installation of protected bike lanes. The six cities were chosen from more than 100 U.S. cities that submitted letters of interest for the program.

Launched in 2012, the Green Lane Project works with U.S. cities to speed the installation of protected bike lanes around the country. These on-street lanes are separated from traffic by curbs, planters, parked cars or posts to help organize the street and make riding a bike an appealing option for more people.

In the first two years of the program (2012 and 2013), the Green Lane Project worked closely with other major U.S. cities – Austin, TX, Chicago, IL, Memphis, TN, Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC – to build protected bike lanes. Since then, the number of protected bike lanes on city streets nationwide has nearly doubled from 80 to 142 – with more than half of all growth coming from the Project’s original six focus cities.

The founding cities will continue as mentors to the new class while continuing to build their bicycling networks with the momentum driven by the Project.

Protected bike lanes bring predictability to busy streets: drivers like knowing where to expect riders, and pedestrians report fewer bikes on the sidewalk. The lanes make roads safer for all users, reducing bike, auto and pedestrian injuries by up to 50 percent.

Read more from the group here.

- PeopleForBikes supplied information for this report that was edited for publication.