They say a bike, like a car, can tell you a lot about a person's personality. Mayor Byron Brown joins GObike Buffalo and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Friday for National Bike to Work Day.
The group is also kicking off the national "Travel With Care" campaign, which encourages cyclists and motorists to co-exist safely.
"Through our Travel With Care campaign and increased bicycle infrastructure, education and enforcement of traffic laws, we hope to create positive interactions and mutual respect between people on bikes and poeple in cars," said Justin Booth, executive director of GObike Buffalo. "Everyone in the city, whether on a bike or in a car, wants to be able to travel safely and efficiently. We hope our campaign furthers this goal."
The campaign includes billboards featuring community members, their bikes and the message "Travel With Care" through mid-July and is part of a national campaign funded by the New York Bicycling Coalition and the New York State Department of Health.
It also fits in with the city's Bicycle Master Plan to increase bike lanes, racks and cyclotracks throughout Buffalo. Brown recently led the "Slow Roll" down the Scajaquada Expressway.
On Saturday, the Skyway will be closed from 7:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. for GObike's fundraiser, the Buffalo Skyride. The I-190 northbound off-ramp to Church Street also will be closed to motorists.
The University at Buffalo found a recent 37 percent increase in residents biking in Buffalo for transportation and recreation. That bodes well, as the region ranks near the bottom of metropolitan areas for being fit.
The 9th annual American Fitness Index, released by the American College of Sports Medicine and the Anthem Foundation, found Buffalo Niagara ranks in the bottom third of the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas for fitness. With a score of only 43.6 out of 100, we rank 35th on the index, which is used to educate the community on the importance of physical activity.
Nationally, the index found a nearly 12 percent increase in the number of people who indicated they had exercised in the last 30 days. Also, twice as many states had policies that required teaching physical education in schools than last year.
The index found the fittest cities in the nation are Washington, D.C., closely followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver, based upon the number of people who walk, use public transportation and parkland, and lower smoking rates, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
