BikeSLC.com launches as City's new bike-specific website

Bike/Ped Coordinator, Becka Roolf (center right)
explains and demonstrates features of the City's
new bike-specific website.
(Photo: Tom Millar / SaltCycle.org)

Salt Lake City pulled off another first for municipal bicycle programs in Utah today as the Transportation Division unveiled a new bike-specific website, BikeSLC.com. The site was previously a very sparse webpage found only under the division-wide site, slctrans.com.

Becka Roolf, SLC Bike/Ped Coordinator, took all in attendance through a mini tour of the website. Alongside Art Raymond (Mayor's Office), Robin Hutcheson (SLC Transportation Division Director), members of the press, and staff from the Mayor's Office, Sustainability Division, and Transportation Division, Roolf explained the ins and outs of the new site as well as its utility to bicyclists and potential riders with resources and links for bicycle safety classes, the citywide bike map, event calendars, and more.


Roolf and Division Director Robin Hutcheson answered questions from attendees and the press which took the usual turn toward questions and comments like "I always see bicyclists breaking laws. Why don't you do something about that?" Roolf and Hutcheson tried to keep the conversation on topic and expressed themselves and the desires and direction of the Division and the City as a whole very well.

"The focus," explained Roolf, "is on safety. There is nothing more important. Intersections are the places where drivers and bicyclists need to pay more attention and act with more caution because that is where the majority of crashes occur."

Hutcheson, in response to Christopher Smart's question about why the City is choosing to invest in such things like bicycling, said, "In part, we're responding to a huge increase in demand." Trips by bicycle increased nearly 30% between 2010 and 2011, and has risen even more since last September's bike counts. There is a very large demand in Salt Lake City, the likes of which we have never seen before. At every intersection, I see at least one cyclists waiting next to me or across from me. It's a great feeling to be in the company of many other bicyclists. It's true: there is safety in numbers.

So check out SLC's new bike website, and send in any questions or comments to bikeslc at slcgov dot com.

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