Orlando Bicycle Plan Update

When the city was developing the first bike plan 25 years ago - a time when treating bicycles the same as cars and trucks was still widely regarded as the best way to accommodate people biking; installing road signs acknowledging bicycle presence was considered radical; and the world wide web had just been introduced - it would have been hard for anyone to anticipate what bicycling in Orlando would look like today. Now, entire bridges are built solely for bicyclists and pedestrians; streets are lined with a shared network of electric bicycles, powered by solar panels and paid for and tracked using cell phones; and record numbers of young people are choosing to live car-free.

Bicycle planning practices have experienced a recent and significant paradigm shift, similar in magnitude to the changes in the early 1990s that ultimately inspired the city’s first bike plan. So while the 2020 Bicycle Plan Update has stayed true to the essence of the original bike plan vision and its subsequent updates, the 2030 bicycle plan vision provides succinct and clear expectations that directly reflect new best practices for bikeway network planning based on:

WHO:   Everyone - residents and visitors of all ages, abilities and backgrounds.
WHAT: Low-stress bikeways
WHY:    As a means of transportation

• An updated visionary bikeway network and project implementation approach.
• Design guidance for bikeway projects, including key crash reduction strategies.
• Strategies to enhance existing bike parking, wayfinding, and shared micromobility programs.
• Other policy and program recommendations that further support a bicycle-friendly culture.

Comfort – Make bicycling within the city comfortable and convenient for people of a wide range of ages and abilities.

• Increase bike parking locations
• 20% more miles of separated bikeways
  
  

Connectivity – Create and maintain an integrated network of low stress bikeways connecting residents to activity centers, schools, workplaces, parks and regional bikeway networks.

• Add 46 miles of bikeways
• Achieve a citywide bikescore of 70+
  
  

Equity – Ensure that people from all neighborhoods, backgrounds, abilities and income levels in the city have access to bicycling infrastructure and resources.

• Decrease inequities in share of total bikeways across neighborhoods.
• Decrease inequities in share of separated bikeways across neighborhoods.
  
  

Safety – Improve the safety of people bicycling within the city through engineering education and enforcement.

• Decrease the bicycle danger index by 30%.
• Eliminate fatal bicycle crashes
  
  

Culture – Build a culture of bicycling through programs and policies.

• Increase the number of people who bike to work by150%
• Five times the number of bike events per year
• Increase the average monthly trail users by 115%.