Jacksonville, Fla., works on its bike-ability

Jacksonville has the makings of a great biking city — flat streets, year-round warm weather and 150 miles of bicycle trails. But despite the city’s efforts to enhance conditions for two-wheel traffic, its bikability is rated among the worst in the nation.

Jacksonville’s dominant car culture, lack of bicycle infrastructure and connectivity between routes and lack of awareness of biking laws among bicyclists and motorists have suppressed its budding biking community. Bicycle advocates like Jeff Hohlstein, president of the North Florida Bicycle Club, said employers should care.

“Being a biking-friendly city is the kind of thing that attracts employees,” Hohlstein said. “When employers can show the city is biker friendly, a lot of times the younger, more athletic people view that as a plus. People who bike to work are more productive, spend less time off from sickness and show up to work alert.”

Miami took seriously bicycling’s benefits to individual health, business, community and the environment when it undertook a major biking initiative two years ago. Like Jacksonville, the city recognized that economic, environmental and social conditions were creating a demand for expanded infrastructure to support the use of alternative forms of transportation.

Yet Miami has moved at light speed by comparison, giving itself a tight four-year timeline to undertake a major infrastructure and education effort to become a designated bicycle-friendly community by the League of American Bikers by 2012.

The league’s Bicycle Friendly Community Program provides incentives, assistants and award recognition for communities that actively support bicycling by providing safe accommodation for cycling and encouraging people to bike for transportation and recreation.

Jacksonville has been working toward the same certification. The league’s advice to the city: do your homework. The organization told Jacksonville city officials to take an inventory of bicycle facilities such as bike lanes, parking and support facilities, and get a handle on bicycle-versus-car crash statistics.

Read the full story in the Jacksonville Business Journal.