I was pleasantly surprised to find Greensboro, NC on Bicycling Magazine's list of top 50 bike friendly cities. Greensboro is part of the Triad metropolitan area. It turns out the Triad is the 2nd most sprawling urban area in US. The city has a population of 260,000 and density of 2,436/sq miles. The median income for a family in Greensboro is $50,192. The city is home to seven institutions of higher education. Industry in the city includes textiles, modern architecture. The city is a major transportation hub and is thought of as the South's up-and-coming centers for relocating businesses. In 2004 the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded Greensboro with entry into the Clean Cities Hall of Fame.
Of all the cities on the list of 50 Top US Bike Friendly Cities, Greensboro is the most similar to Winston Salem. The current bike infrastructure includes 81 miles of Greenway trails, with a proposed increase to 420 miles of greenway in the next decade.
Other reasons that make Greensboro awesome…. A bicycle education program is taught to all fourth-graders, and some schools host bike rodeos. The mayor is an enthusiastic supporter of all cycling causes. There are also a number of great biking clubs and organizations including the Velo Club and BIG (biking in Greensboro).
So how does Winston Salem stack up? Winston Salem is also part of the Triad metropolitan area. The city is slightly smaller and less dense than Greensboro and has a population of 230,000 and density of 1,400 people/sq mile. The median income for a family is $46,595. The city is also home to seven institutions of higher education. The city has suffered from a reduction or loss of industries including textiles, tobacco and banking. The city is thought of as the South's center for design and innovation, and is known as the City of Arts and Innovation.
Although Winston-Salem and Greensboro are similar in many ways, they greatly differ in their bike friendliness. The current bike infrastructure in Winston-Salem includes 22 miles of Greenway trails, with a proposed 150 miles of greenway extensions.
There are a few bike clubs and bike shops in town including the Piedmont Flyers and Ken's Bike Shop, Mock Orange Bikes, & Paul's Cycle and Fitness.
What can we do to help make Winston Salem more bike friendly? Could we use these 18 cities (the ones we chose to research) as models for how things should be?
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