Bicycle Friendly designation shows off Milledgeville

Published 8:00 am Saturday, August 20, 2016

The Milledgeville community is aiming to become the first in Georgia to earn the Silver Bicycle Friendly designation.

Milledgeville is already a Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community, a recognition earned back in 2013 from the League of American Bicyclists. Moving up to the Silver designation would certainly be a noteworthy accomplishment.

The City of Milledgeville recently approved a resolution in support of the local effort to attain Silver status, which has the potential to generate local attention from across the state.

The designation is recognition of the local community’s efforts to create awareness about bicycling safety, education and promotes bicycling as a means of local transportation. The designation also brings attention to local efforts to promote bicycling and helps draw events to the local community from bike enthusiasts from other parts of the state.

Educating the community on the benefits of bicycling with younger residents, within the local schools, means that students will know the positives at a younger age and will become more likely to stick with the activity as adults.

For many people bicycling is a key factor in quality of life, for many retirees especially, and oftentimes cities rated with the highest quality of life are generally also rated the most cycling-friendly cities, a positive and draw for many people.

Attaining the Silver designation could help bring focus to the positive local efforts to promote bicycling and the hard work many in the community have put forth in this effort.