I've gone to two Champaign County "Big, Small, All" community meetings for the future plans for the county in an effort to network with area bike riders. It's very clear that bike/pedestrian pathways and making the county bicycle friendly is a very HIGH priority to it's citizens. It's very near the top of the list in fact. It is not something that local governments should put on long-term planning lists! It should be right near the top of the NOW list.
The beauty of making Champaign County the most bicycle friendly place in the Midwest is that it will attract outside money for the county and cities and save money for the area, not cost money. Bike paths allowing people to ride to school, work, shopping, dinning, and recreation will tie greenways and parks together. Reduce traffic congestion. Improve the noise and air pollution in the area. And increase physical activity of anyone willing to get out on a bike.
Besides college and university commencement ceremonies, I don't know of anything big happening in Champaign County in the month of May. Imagine how much money could be attracted to the County with a major bicycle festival!
Besides the tourist money that would be attracted in May. Money would come to the area all summer long as cyclists arrive with their bikes to experience riding the most bicycle friendly place in the Midwest!
Local citizens would invite their friends and relatives to come and ride the rails to trails paths and other parts of a county wide network of paths that take riders from Homer Lake to Allerton Park (with the cooperation of our neighbors in Piatt county) and from the Early American Museum to Gordyville USA, and everyplace in between.
More Champaign county residents would find it worthwhile to stay right here in the county for exercise and recreation that they might otherwise travel away from the area to enjoy.
Making Champaign County the most bicycle friendly place in the Midwest sounds like a WINNER no matter how I look at it.
-Rick Langlois
4 Comments:
So, was that graphic from a big small all gathering?
I have not been able to attend one, so I"m pleasantly surprised if cyclists have. (I did write in a comment about it on the bigsmallall website.)
There are lots of bikers, and would be more if it weren't so scary to do it... how to translate that into action?
Hello suej,
Bikes and peds are very well represented at Big, Small, All. Making Champaign County more bike/ped friendly may be a top five issue!
In any case from my observations it is NOT a long-term planning issue but rather a "Lets work on it NOW" issue.
The county and city governments had better listen to the people!
What graphic do you mean? Are you talking about my "mind map" at the beginning of this blog?
-Rick L
I think Sue's writing about the John Lennon "Imagine" graphic.
Thanks for the link to Cyclelicio.us, by the way. Did you get my email in response to what you sent me? Or am I still landing in your spam box? :-)
I'm a little surprised I was focused on bringing money to the area as a key benefit to making C-U "bikeable"! Why would I care about that?
Probably I thought government and business would get on-board if they believed me. It's true also. Money does come to more livable communities, and bikable communities are livable communities.
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