Our work is grounded in the community values expressed in the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan. We advance biking and walking as a means to advance broad, community-based values and goals. These include:

• Improve safety: Reduce injuries and deaths on our streets
• Improve community health and fitness
• Improve air quality and climate resiliency
• Expand affordable, equitable travel choices while taming traffic
• Make streets more attractive places for people

Community engagement and a commitment to meet real community needs are integral to our approach. City of Austin bodies that serve in an official advisory role include the Bicycle Advisory Council, Pedestrian Advisory Council, and Urban Transportation Commission. We also proactively seek out and incorporate community input on individual street enhancement projects.

Programs and Data

• Austin Bicycle Plan
  The Austin City Council adopted the 2014 Austin Bicycle Plan on Nov. 6, 2014. The plan proposes implementing elements of the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan by creating a connected and protected active transportation network that will provide additional transportation options for Austin residents and visitors. The plan’s overarching goals is to significantly increase bicycle use and improve bicycle safety throughout Austin.
   
• Smart Trips Program
  Smart Trips Austin is an active transportation options program that aims to reduce single occupant vehicle trips and increase trips taken by foot, bike, bus or shared car. The City of Austin and Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Capital Metro) are working together to encourage Austinites to consider more sustainable options for getting around town. These options can help you improve your health, save money, avoid traffic congestion and keep Austin a clean and beautiful place to live. Visit Smart Trips Austin’s Bicycling Resources page for more information.
   
• Vision Zero
  Vision Zero is an international movement that aspires to reduce the number of people who die or are seriously injured in traffic crashes to zero.  Austin’s Vision Zero Action Plan (PDF) defines a community-wide approach to reach this goal by 2025.
   
• Bicycle parking
  Business property owners and managers can submit an application to provide secure bike parking to customers and tenants with help from the Austin Transportation Department Active Transportation Division. Residents may also apply, as long as they obtain support from the business owner.

• Bike counts
  Recorded bicycle traffic along the Lance Armstrong Bikeway (LAB) at Waller Creek; updated daily.

Initiatives and Encouragement

• Austin Big Jump
  Austin is one of 10 cities selected for the Big Jump Project, a 2017-2020 initiative of the national organization PeopleforBikes. Austin will work with PeopleforBikes and nine peer cities across the country in order to achieve a “big jump” in the number of people traveling by bicycle in the city’s central core. The project’s ambitious goal is to double bicycle ridership in three years in Central Austin and make travel by bicycle an even more viable transportation option while expanding the many community benefits that biking brings.

• Love to Ride
  The City will soon be offering Austinites personalized biking encouragement through the Love to Ride program, which will make it more fun and easy to get riding and encourage others to ride more.  For new or less confident riders, Love to Ride provides the step-by-step support you need to overcome barriers and start enjoying the benefits of cycling. More information will be announced shortly.

• Ride Report App
  With the Ride Report app, Austin bicyclists can track trips, rate their rides and help the City use and improve a “comfort map” of bicycling routes in Austin. Download the Ride Report app and use it while cycling to report on the relative comfort of your route and ride. The crowdsourced feedback will help the City improve biking routes in Austin. The goal is to make Austin streets more “high-comfort, low-stress” experiences for riders young and old, novice to experienced.

Awards and Recognition

• Austin is recognized as a GOLD Level Bicycle Friendly Community by The League of American Bicyclists.
• Austin was selected through national competitions by PeopleForBikes as one of 10 leading cities to join the Big Jump Project (2017) and as a groundbreaker city for its Green Lane Project.
• Austin was selected as the host city for the 2015 NACTO Designing Cities conference, the leading national event on the multimodal design of city streets.
• Austin was a leading city in the U.S. Department of Transportation Mayor’s Challenge for Safer People and Safer Streets. Austin received the program’s Ladders of Opportunity Award in 2016.

Partner Department Programs

• Great Streets Program
• Neighborhood Partnering Program Projects
• Safe Routes to School
• Sidewalk Plan Update
• Urban Trails Program Projects