It’s an initiative out of the Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation, or FAST Planning office. Olivia Lunsford has been recruiting local businesses to label themselves “bike-friendly.”
“Marketing themselves as a place that is not just tolerant of bikes and bicyclists, but welcomes them with open arms,” Lunsford said.
She says FAST Planning is responding to a demand by cyclists who ride to work or for work, summer and winter, or just recreational bicyclers who want to find a restaurant with a bike rack, for example.
“We took it upon ourselves to start trying to map locking bike storage availability amongst these businesses and throughout town, as well as businesses that incentivize their customers to bike to their businesses, by doing like a sticker program or a 10% off of any purchase or 10% off of their beverage, entering you into a raffle, things like that,” Lunsford said.
Lunsford says these businesses are listed on the new Fairbanks Bikeways Map. The map also shows the dedicated bike lanes in Fairbanks, Badger Road and North Pole, and at Fort Wainwright. It also shows 15 places where there are freely-available repair kits.
“So, the idea is that these kits are available for public use. We took into account the hours of operation, um, distance from one repair kit to another, and so on,” Lunsford said.
Lunsford says she hopes a cyclist with a flat tire or loose chain could walk into one of these places and ask to use the repair kit. The 15 places with these stations are listed on the FAST Planning Bike-Friendly FBS page at: FASTPlanning.us/bffbx/
Black Spruce Brewing Company
Co-op Market Grocery and Deli
Design Alaska, Inc
FNSB Parks and Recreation office at the Big Dipper
Goldie's AK
Goldstream General Store
The Great Alaskan Bowl Company
HooDoo Brewing Co.
Lat 65 Brewing Co.
Little Owl
Malemute Saloon
RESPEC
Roaming Root Cellar
Stone Soup Cafe
Ursa Major Distilling
Lunsford says there are a lot more places that will have the new 2023 Bikeways map, which was just printed.
“We're just trying to cast a really wide net. In the past, we've only distributed large amounts of maps to a small amount of businesses, so we're just going the complete opposite end of the spectrum this year,” Lunsford said.
But if you can’t find a physical map around town or are coming into Fairbanks from elsewhere in the Interior, FAST Planning is soon launching a digital version of the map.
“Folks will be able to geolocate themselves amid all of this new information, which includes where is a bike rack? and where is a repair kit?” Lunsford said.
This week, Bike-friendly businesses will get a pink decal to notify customers.
