Thanks to your support, the Oak Park Village Board unanimously approved its first bike plan, which includes a detailed bike network and innovative safety and education programming.

This 10-year plan will work to make your Oak Park a world-class bicycling community.

The Village hired the Active Transportation Alliance to develop the plan. Thanks in large part to residents’ input, the plan will make your community a more bikeable and livable place. Congratulations!

To read the accepted plan, click here.

Oak Park has an active bicycling culture and has recently made strides to become more bicycle-friendly. In 2006 the League of American Bicyclists recognized Oak Park with an honorable mention in its Bicycle Friendly Communities awards. The Active Transportation Alliance was delighted to assist Oak Park in developing a Village Bicycle Plan. The Active Transportation Alliance worked with Oak Park and the village’s residents to develop a plan that will build on current and past success and develop recommendations to make bicycling an integral park of daily life in Oak Park. 

Objectives:

• The first objective of the plan is to develop a comprehensive bikeway network consisting of marked on-street bikeways, signed routes, and multi-use trails where possible. In addition the Active Transportation Alliance investigated opportunities for innovate facilities such as Bike Boulevards or a “Green Boulevard”, with the goal of providing a continuous loop around the village. 

  A convenient and comprehensive network of bikeways will increase safety for current bicyclists and encourage more people to try bicycling. Oak Park’s public right-of-way is limited and the Active Transportation Alliance developed design options that reflect these conditions. The plan also considered bicycle parking and access to transit needs. The Active Transportation Alliance will review current policies and make recommendations to develop complete streets and bicycle-friendly streets policies

• The second objective of the plan is to develop a safety and education plan for the Village. Many people do not bicycle because of a perceived risk to personal safety. In addition to talking to residents and conducting fieldwork, the Active Transportation Alliance identified problem areas through crash data  We also made recommendations for safety programs including Safe Routes to Schools and Bicycling Ambassadors.
• The final objective of the plan is to market bicycling to the community. Marketing is one the most cost-effective means to increase bicycling. We will looked at opportunities to market bicycling within current programming as well as new ideas such as developing incentives for Village employee’s to bike to work.

This comprehensive bike plan will expand residents’ transportation options with new bikeways and bike parking for local businesses. The plan will also identify innovative encouragement and safety programs making bicycling a safe, comfortable option for all residents.

You can contact the Village of Oak Park about the bike plan at bikeplan@oak-park.us.