Queen City Bike Receives $10,000 Grant for Bicycle Friendly Destinations

New Program to Get More People Riding Bikes to More Places

CINCINNATI (August 30) – Queen City Bike announced today that it has received a $10,000 grant from The Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) to help launch a new program to get more people riding bicycles to more places in the region everyday.

The Bicycle Friendly Destinations Program will work with area employers, retailers, government agencies, and arts and cultural organizations to make it easy for people to reach and use their facilities on a bicycle. The overall goal of the project is to increase the use of bicycles for all kinds of trips, whether to work, to go shopping, or just to run errands in the neighborhood.

Queen City Bike will provide advice to organizations on what they need to do to become a Bike Friendly Destination, and will publicly recognize those that succeed in May 2011. The program will help organizations of all kinds become more attractive places to which to ride, from small retailers who need to know what kind of parking their neighborhood customers need, to large employers who want to encourage more people to commute by bike.

“Getting more people to use bicycles for everyday transportation benefits everyone,” according to Gary Wright, President of Queen City Bikes. “It reduces pollution, cuts down on traffic and parking congestion, and is good for your health.” Wright went on to say, “More and more cities are realizing that supporting bicycles is important for their future. Young people especially measure a community by how bicycle friendly it is. I am proud to say that Cincinnati is one of the places that gets it.”

One of the goals of the City of Cincinnati’s Bicycle Transportation Plan, adopted in June of this year, is to double the number of people who use bicycles for everyday transportation over the next five years. “The City is committed to making our streets more bicycle friendly. We hope that many area businesses and organizations will match that commitment by participating in the Bicycle Friendly Destinations Program, “ Wright said. “We are very excited that The Greater Cincinnati Foundation is partnering with us to make that happen.”

The Bicycle Friendly Destinations Program grew out of a Leadership Cincinnati Class 33 project lead by Brad Hunkler of Western & Southern Financial Group that identified this as key priority for local employers seeking to attract and retain talented people. Queen City Bike participated in the project and agreed to take over implementation of the program,

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About Queen City Bike. Queen City Bike is a non-profit organization that promotes bicycling as a safe and healthy means of transportation and recreation in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. For more information on Queen City Bike, visit www.QueenCityBike.org.

About the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation empowers donors to make a profound difference in the quality of human and community life in the Greater Cincinnati region, today and tomorrow. We believe in the power of philanthropy to change the lives of people and communities. As a community foundation, GCF makes grants and provides leadership in six key areas: arts and culture, community and economic development, education, environment, health and human services. An effective steward of the community’s charitable resources since 1963, the Foundation inspires philanthropy in eight counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. See www.gcfdn.org for more information.