Bicycle Friendly Communities
About the Program
The Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFC) Award Program helps communities evaluate how bicycle friendly their community is, celebrate progress, and work toward achieving higher-level awards over time. The BFC Program was launched by the Share the Road Cycling Coalition in Canada in August 2010 in partnership with the Washington-based League of American Bicyclists. Communities in Québec should apply through our program partner, Vélo Québec.
UPDATE
We will not be holding a FALL 2022 application round for the BFC Award Program. We will be reviewing the BFC application form and updating measures to align with best practices in bicycle data collection. For any communties that would like to begin the process of gathering information for the early 2023 round, you may continue to use the offline copies of the Fall 2021 application form as a template. Any updates will be highlighted in the 2023 version, to ease the process of adapting content to the new form.
Communities complete a comprehensive online application and are judged in four categories, often referred to as the four 'Es': Engineering, Education, Encouragement, and Evaluation & Planning. (In August 2020, Share the Road followed the lead of our partners at the League of American Bicyclists and removed the "Enforcement" section of the Bicycle Friendly Communities Application.) A community must demonstrate achievements in each of the four categories in order to be considered for an award at the Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum or Diamond level. Applications are judged by a volunteer panel of expert judges.
The 4 ‘Es’
ENGINEERING - Physical infrastructure and hardware to support cycling
EDUCATION - Programs and campaigns that give people on bikes and in cars the knowledge, skills and confidence to share the road safely
ENCOURAGEMENT - Incentives, promotions and opportunities that inspire and enable people to ride
EVALUATION & PLANNING - Processes that demonstrate a commitment to measuring results and planning for the future
If you are interested in applying for a BFC award, the next round of applications will be Early 2023. Before starting your application in the online system you, check out Apply and Assess your Assets webinar and slides (15 July 2021), the Getting Started page, the Frequently Asked Questions page, and the offline version of last year's (Fall 2021) application (available in PDF and Word format - note: the application must be submitted online, these offline versions are just for reference). Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions, or would like to be added to the contact list for BFC updates.
BFC Inspiration
Check out our past BFC yearbooks for best practices, highly transferable programs and projects.
Share the Road Cycling Coalition’s Bicycle Friendly Communities program is possible thanks to our program partners,
The League of American Bicyclists, Vélo Québec, and our sponsor, CAA.
