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Bike-Walk Alliance of NH ==
Concord, NH earns LAB's Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community award, the first community in New Hampshire to do so, and is only the fourth in New England.
Bicycle Friendly
Community awards are intended to educate and reward communities for actively
supporting bicycling. Various groups in Concord have been working for several
years to make Concord a more bicycle friendly community. With the approval of
the Concord City Council, the City applied for and was granted the designation.
Each applicant community is scored in the areas of engineering, education, encouragement,
enforcement, evaluation and planning. Concord was recognized for its many programs
that promote cycling. Just two years ago, the City Council under the direction
of Mayor Jim Bouley formed the Transportation Policy Advisory Committee (TPAC)
which was charged with, among other things, proposing policy, developing plans
and making recommendations for the improved use of bicycles in Concord.
"Over the last two years, the Bicycle Subcommittee, with the support and
cooperation of the City Council, the City's engineering staff, the School Board,
Concord 2020, PATH, local businesses and the Central NH Planning Commission,
has made a lot of progress that is only starting to become visible," said
Dick Lemieux, Chair of TPAC and member of the Bicycle Subcommittee. "We
are all pleased and proud of our designation," he said.
Between 2003, when LAB began the award program, and 2010, more than sixty percent
of communities that applied failed to meet the criteria. The detailed 16-page
application for Concord was evaluated and scored by BWA-NH, a key factor in
the award being granted.
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