Eugene Stays Gold: City Earns Bicycle-Friendly Community Award Once Again

The City of Eugene renewed our Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) application at the end of 2024, after last applying in 2019 and renewing our Gold award. The Eugene community has accomplished a lot since 2019, including building several more protected bikeways, launching a first of its kind micromobility non-profit called Cascadia Mobility, getting Safe Routes to School education in every public school, starting a non-profit bike shop called Shift Community Cycles, and more. All these accomplishments made City Transportation staff think it was time to apply for the next level up in the Bicycle Friendly Communities award structure -- Platinum!  

The League of American Bicyclists informed the City in January that we’ve been awarded Gold again, but that we were very close to achieving Platinum. The League implemented a new scoring matrix in 2024 for the BFC program that made achieving Platinum more difficult than it was four years ago. Using the old standards, Eugene would have reached Platinum status.

Although the City of Eugene doesn't get a new award level in recognition of all our progress, something larger is happening. The League is strengthening the BFC program and pushing communities across the USA to do more. The new 2024 scoring matrix even led to some communities dropping a level (like from Gold to Silver). These communities now have a ‘grace period’ to make changes to keep their previous status. The good news, Eugene is "solid gold” and according to the League we were very close to Platinum.

The City received a “Community Report Card” from the League that offers recommendations on things we can do to take us to Platinum. The bicycle community in Eugene is ready to continue working towards making Eugene the best city for biking in the country and to be the first to achieve Diamond status someday!

This update was originally shared in the City of Eugene Transportation’s March-2025 InMotion newsletter.