Transparency is extremely important to us, so we are letting you know that we may receive a commission on some of links you click on from this page. See our disclaimer.

How can cities find ways to promote bicycling to work? It may not be as costly as previously thought.

The Denver Business Journal reports that “Setting up costly infrastructure to promote bicycling to work might be less important than things like multimodal transportation policies, bike-friendly workplaces and better integration of bicycling with transit.”

In fact, according to a study titled “Measuring the Impacts of Bike-to-Work Day Events and Identifying Barriers to Increased Commuter Cycling” and published in Journal of Urban Planning and Development, one key may be finding ways to leverage companies'  own bike to work programs. The University of Colorado writes that “Local governments should use bike-to-work days to find out from participants why they’re attending and — more importantly — what prevents them from biking more often.”

Said Wesley Marshall, assistant professor of engineering at the CU Denver College of Engineering and Applied Science, who co-authored the study: “While single-day promotional events might not be a big influence on people deciding to bike again the next day, bike-to-work day does seem to have the ability to capture a wide range of bicyclists and provide insights into the barriers to increasing their bicycling,”

Said Kevin Krizek, a professor in CU-Boulder’s Program in Environmental Design, who also co-authored the study: “If cities know why people want to get out on their bikes, they can do a better job of building on that information. Better yet, if cities know what’s impeding people from cycling, they can mitigate those obstacles by intervening with new policies.”