BIKE FW Summit

BIKE SUMMIT OVERVIEW
March 21, 2009

On March 21, 2009, Fort Wayne held its first ever Bike Summit at the downtown Allen County Public Library. The purpose of this event was to assemble public officials, bike experts, and residents to better provide valuable input as we begin to initiate bicycle planning into our transportation system.

The attendance exceeded over 200 individuals, had tremendous media coverage, and was opened formally by Mayor Henry on a gorgeous spring morning.

Updates were given to the public on a public survey that had been both online, and distributed with utility bills (4,000 surveys were collected).

The Summit was fortunate enough to also have Nancy Tibbet, Executive Director of Bicycle Indiana (formerly Indiana Bicycle Coalition, Inc.) as its guest speaker, who detailed the latest bicycle legislation, and praised Fort Wayne for the work that had been done thus far.

Trail updates and a slide show were also given by City staff before attendees broke out into focus groups where information was collected as to where they traveled, obstacles to riding, and general issues about bicycling as it pertains to Fort Wayne.

Bicycle-related vendors and organizations were on hand, as well as a Citilink bus and personnel that demonstrated the proper way to mount bicycles on bus bike racks.

The event closed with a couple of bicycle rides on local streets, county roads, and the Rivergreenway system