Yesterday the League of American Bicyclists released it’s ranking of Bicycle Friendly States. Florida moved up the scale to number 12 for 2010.
There was some snafu with the documentation submitted by Florida to the League last year, making Florida rank much lower in 2009 (32) than 2008. If you want to know how well we’ve improved, the accurate comparison would be with the 20th place ranking in 2008, upon which we have still improved significantly.
This year the ranking breakdowns (PDF link) by category are worth looking at. The categories include legislation, policies and programs, infrastructure, education, evaluation, and enforcement. Florida scored third place in policies and programs, but ranked lowest in education and enforcement.
I hope we are all interested in improving Florida’s rankings in these weak areas, but there is no simple solution. It will require extensive partnership and cooperation between different government and law enforcement agencies and even private organizations, advocacy groups, or individuals. The “Ride Right, Drive Right” campaign is an excellent example of such an education campaign in Florida, a partnership between a private company, an advocacy organization, and a government agency. Enforcement will need similar partnerships with local law enforcement agencies.
Perhaps we can learn from this example and build new partnerships for both education and enforcement. Let’s hear your ideas in the comments. We all can work together to make Florida a better place to cycle.
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You should be here at CNU, lots about urbanism, accessibility, and public health.
This goes to confirm that it’s all on paper. Policies and programs are of no use when they are not implemented, just as the ranking in that area rightly shows.
Campaigns such as “Ride Right, Drive Right” are rather anemic… 16 signs or so in the whole state and in the richest county in the state? Okay… And where’s the infrastructure? A block here and there counts toward #12? Wow…
The bottom line is that the major problem here is the lack of political will. As hard as many people are working (and I know many) they won’t be able to go that far as long as we keep putting the wrong people in-office.
Today is national bike to work day. I bike a lot down here albeit it gets pretty dangerous oftentimes with the very heavy traffic and ‘older’ people on the roads.
The problem is that, overall, many South Floridians do not care about their region. When you go to New York, Chicago, San Francisco and even Atlanta, Baltimore, D.C. and L.A., you sense a level of pride amongst the citizenry. People in those places care about where they live. However, come down here and everyone seems to want to LEAVE South Florida. It’s as though every other person you talk to is just biding time until they either get a better job elsewhere or finish school. I’ve never seen anything like it. You can’t help but get the impression that South Florida is made up of a bunch of transients. So, no wonder we don’t have better urban policies, politicians in office and infrastructure: why would you care for something that you’re going to end up leaving behind?