January 2015 - Parks & Recreation - 16

Community Center
For the Love of Biking
Wisconsin cities and counties are working together to
create more opportunities for active transportation
By Roxanne Sutton

ou might want to make sure you have some time on your hands
before asking a bicycle enthusiast in the great Midwestern state of
Wisconsin how they feel about their bike trails. Mountain bikers
and " roadies " alike have a lot to gush about, and for good reason.
Between a 10-county initiative to create a connected trails system and mountain biking groups dedicated to growing and improving recreational trails, Wisconsin has a lot going on.
" The Dairy State " might not be the
first state that comes to mind when
you think about great biking and
walking destinations. Certainly cities
like Portland and Boulder are known

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for their bike-friendliness, but Wisconsin cities including Madison and
Milwaukee have both made Bicycling
magazine's list of America's Top 50
Bike-Friendly Cities with populations
greater than 100,000. It's
not just the larger cities
that are striving to be
active-transpor tation
friendly, though. Oshkosh - a city of just under 67,000 - is making
great strides in creating a
connected trails system
for both bicyclists and
pedestrians.
In 2011, Oshkosh adopted and approved a
20-year pedestrian and
bicycle circulation plan
steered by public, private
and nonprofit groups.
The plan includes 41
proposed improvements
with on-street and offstreet multiuse trails.
The goal: enhancing
overall transportation.
" Biking and walking
are not just a recreational thing anymore - a lot

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of people are using those for transportation, " says David Buck, AICP,
principal planner at City of Oshkosh.
The plan focuses on linking origins
to destinations to get people where
they are going and utilizes the trails
within the city's parks to create those
links. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the plan is the intention to link Oshkosh's system with
the larger regional bike plan.
" In our plan, our routes do extend beyond our city limits, and it
was designed with the external trail
and pathways being considered, "
Buck says.
To accomplish this, Oshkosh is
working with the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (ECWRPC), which is working
on a regional bike and pedestrian
network plan. This plan includes 10
counties and is focused on connecting gaps between the municipalities
and guiding them on best practices.
ECWRPC also gathers plans from
each community and puts them together to see how the biking and
pedestrian plans in all 10 counties
work together.
ECWRP also helps connect bicycle and pedestrian plans through
the more rural areas where the local communities may not have these
types of plans in place.
Mountain bikers in northeastern
Wisconsin have cause for celebration too. Thanks to several enthusiastic biking groups and associations

January 2015 - Parks & Recreation

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