With this influx of bikers, it’s more important than ever to make sure riders are comfortable on our streets. Leaders in Bella Vista, Rogers and Bentonville have embraced our region’s growing cycling culture by creating temporary protected bike lanes where residents and visitors can commute safely the entire month of November.

We have pledged our support to the cities working on this effort. For us, the journey started last spring when we took a close look at how people were using trails throughout the region. We discovered cyclists in Northwest Arkansas were using trails at per capita levels similar to well-known, bike-friendly cities like San Francisco. However, it was clear trails were being used primarily for recreation and not transportation.

We challenged ourselves and our partners to learn more about what we could do together to motivate people in Northwest Arkansas to consider bikes as a transportation option. A group of 16 delegates from across the region traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, to observe and learn from its on-street cycling infrastructure. The Danes have built a city where people move more efficiently from point A to point B by using streets designed to accommodate cars, bikes, mass transit and pedestrians.

One of the biggest lessons we learned in Copenhagen was the need to test ideas and gather feedback from users before making significant infrastructure investments. Back here in Northwest Arkansas, we decided to use tactical urbanism – a way of implementing temporary, low-cost changes to the existing environment.

These temporary protected bike lanes will be a way for communities to experience biking on safe streets to get from home to work and everything in between. I encourage you to check out the bike lanes and to provide your honest feedback. Your ideas could help shape the future of street design in our region.