Schaumburg drafts four-year plan to improve bicycle friendliness
Having recently won renewal as a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community, Schaumburg is preparing a four-year plan intended to bring about further improvements.
Among them are bicycle programming that targets a number of age groups and proposed new partnerships with local school districts.
Goals that would be emphasized in the year ahead include developing bicycle education opportunities for adults, increasing participation in programs such as Bike Month and bike-to-work events, and engaging further with bike advocacy groups.
Other goals of the four-year plan include creating education materials like videos that can be used in schools, launching media campaigns highlighting new facilities and safe behavior, gathering new data related to changes in the road or bicycle network, and increasing high-quality bicycle parking.
The plan also would develop bicycle-friendly driver education for motorists, build on programs that increase safety for children commuting to school or riding for recreation, and network with experts on both encouragement programs and the village's bikeways network.
The village board's transportation committee will make a recommendation on the plan Tuesday. The full village board will consider it a week later.
The planned improvements won't necessarily change the village's current Bicycle Friendly Community designation, Schaumburg Transportation Director Karyn Robles said.
Schaumburg's bronze designation already is a respectable level given the area's winter climate and the impact that has on the number of people who ride bicycles year-round for more than transportation, she added.
In fact, the closest Illinois communities that are higher than bronze are the silver levels attained by Chicago, Evanston and Champaign, and the gold Urbana has achieved.
Those are either college towns or at least have very different transportation systems than Schaumburg's, Robles said.
“I think in four years that would require a lot of money and resources,” she said.