It’s June and therefore time to begin work on your FY18 Municipal Planning Grant applications! Did you know that Municipal Planning Grants (MPGs) can be used to increase the economic vitality of your community? Read on to learn the details.

The Vermont uniform crash report form gets tweaked just about every year in response to requests from law enforcement and others.  This year, it got a significant upgrade to bike-related fields.  This will begin to address a chronic problem with regard to data on bike crashes in Vermont:  way too many crashes where the bike-related factors are "other" or "unknown."  This is something Local Motion has been quietly but doggedly working on for the last few years.  Progress! 

Check out this sure-to-be informative, free(!) America Walks webinar series on building walkable communities. Coming your way on the second Wednesday of every month throughout 2017, experts as well as advocates and municipal representatives will present sase studies from around the country, and discuss what makes a city walkable and how to do it in your community.

Register NOW!

Grants are now available through VTrans for Vermont Communities to make their streets and roads work better and be safer for walking and biking! Projects can include planning, design and construction of infrastructure projects for a number of facility types, including scoping, design, construction and even a "small projects" category - new this year and intended to implement necessary safety improvements like signs, pavement markings, crossing enhancements or on-road bike facilities through striping...

VTrans just released its first-ever report on the Vermont Bike Ped Program, which invests millions of dollars every year in improvements for walking and biking around Vermont.  The report is concise and readable, with an overview of how funds were spent and details about specific projects around the state.  It's a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what the opportunities are for getting improvements for walking and biking built in your community...

download the full report

Burlington is the smallest US city included in the Alliance for Biking and Walking's 2016 Benchmarking Report, a survey of the status of walking and biking across the country.  The report covers all 50 states and the 50 most populous cities in the country, plus a handful of small to midsized cities chosen because of the strength of the bicycling movement in that community. Thanks to the efforts of Local Motion and our statewide partners, Burlington has made the cut since 2014!  Read on to learn more about what this national report has to say about walking and biking in Burlington and across Vermont...