Events involving biking to work in St. Joseph, biking across Missouri and biking for kids take place within the next month.
The annual “Bike to Work Day” will be celebrated on Friday in St. Joseph. The eighth annual event includes prizes, contests and discounts.
Nancy Taylor is the Health Educator for the City of St. Joseph Health Department. She said the purpose of the event is to encourage people to consider bicycles as an alternative mode of transportation.
“About 40 percent of all trips that are made in the U.S. in urban areas are usually less than two miles,” Taylor said. “So we’re trying to get people to consider, instead of getting in their vehicle and driving one or two miles to their destination, to consider using a bicycle. So ‘Bike to Work Day’ is a day where people can be unified – you can get a bunch of coworkers together and do it together and just make it fun and see the value and benefits of using a bicycle instead of an automobile, especially for your shorter trips.”
Also a part of the day will be a photo contest showing participation in “Bike to Work Day,” a 10 percent discount at participating downtown bicycle friendly businesses and free transit bus rides if you board with a bicycle. Also the employer with the most participants in “Bike to Work Day” will win a bike rack.
For more information or to register, go to the Saint Joseph Bicycle Club Facebook page or the St. Joseph MPO website.
Another upcoming event is a community meeting working toward a bicycle friendly St. Joseph.
This will be the fifth meeting in an effort to work toward becoming a bicycle friendly community. According to Taylor, they plan to apply to the League of American Bicyclists to see if they can receive a designation as a bicycle friendly community.
“Most of the larger cities in Missouri already have that designation,” Taylor said. “When you look at the top 10 most livable cities in the United States, nine of the 10 are bicycle friendly communities, so it really helps grow the community and has a lot of positive benefits besides the health aspect of getting out and riding your bike.”
There are five areas of bicycle friendly community attributes. Those include encouragement, education, enforcement, evaluation and engineering. Taylor said the meeting next week will focus on education and getting feedback from the community.
The next community meeting will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25th, at the St. Joseph Health Department in the second floor conference room. For more information, call (816) 236-1491.
Other bike events include a Kids Tour of St. Joseph on Saturday and the Bike Across Missouri event kicking off in St. Joseph on June 11th.