Missoula Sets the Standard for Bike-Friendly Communities

You don’t have to be a big city to have a first-class bike-friendly program. 

While large metro areas like New York, Austin, and Denver attract plenty of attention for their high-dollar bike infrastructure transformations, smaller and mid-size cities can be just as effective in making their communities safe and appealing places where residents will want to walk or cycle to work, school, or other errands. 

Take Missoula, Montana, for example. At first glance, Missoula might not seem a likely place for a nationally recognized bike-friendly program. After all, Montana is a low-density Western state known for pickup trucks, stunning Western landscapes, and its legendary Big Sky.

None of this has stopped Missoula, with a metro population of 118,000, from becoming one of only 35 Gold Level Bicycle Friendly Communities in the country, as named by the League of American Bicyclists. That’s a huge accomplishment that takes years of planning and implementation. The University of Montana’s main campus in Missoula also earned a Gold rating from the League as a Bicycle Friendly University.

Make It Better

Ben Weiss is Missoula’s Bike/Ped Program Manager, shown here with his electric cargo bike in front of the California Street Bridge.

Part of the secret to Missoula’s success is its long-term commitment to improvement and excellence.

“The mantra here is make it better for biking and walking,” said Ben Weiss, a senior planner for the City of Missoula who is in charge of the city’s renowned bicycle and pedestrian program. 

Missoula has done a lot to make it better for cyclists and pedestrians. The city has about 25 miles of trails in their primary commuter network. These trails serve as the backbone of the network, making it possible to commute to work or school or shopping throughout the city. Most of these primary commuter network trails are lighted for night travel and plowed to remove snow in the winter. 

In addition, Missoula has nearly twice that many miles of additional trails that serve as neighborhood connectors or secondary trails. About two-thirds of its commercial streets have bike lanes, including some with protected lanes like shown in the photo below that put a barrier between motorists and cyclists for added safety. 

Missoula is developing what it calls Neighborhood Greenways. These are low-speed, low-traffic local streets that can be safely used by cyclists and pedestrians. Ben said the city is taking steps to make these Neighborhood Greenways better for cyclists, including calming traffic, installing wayfinding markings and signage, and enhancing safety and improving connections at major intersections. 

In addition, a 50-mile-long regional trail, the Bitterroot Trail, passes through Missoula on its way to Hamilton, Montana. The trail parallels the Bitterroot Mountains, offering a scenic ride and several small towns to enjoy along the way. A seven-mile rail trail, the Milwaukee Trail is part of the still-developing Great American Rail Trail that will run from Washington, D.C., to Washington state. While passing through Missoula, it connects multiple neighborhoods including University, Riverfront, River Road, and Two Rivers.

More than Great Bike Infrastructure

Teaching bike safety to children is part of Missoula’s comprehensive bike/pedestrian program.

While Missoula’s network of trails and bike lanes is enough to make most cities envious, Missoula’s bike and pedestrian program goes much deeper. It’s part of a larger city initiative to encourage residents to use their cars less and find alternative means of transportation, whether that be walking, cycling, the city’s local transit system, carpools, or vanpools. The city has an innovative program called Missoula in Motion that offers useful and creative transportation tools and incentives for residents.

One feature of the Missoula in Motion program is Way To Go! Missoula, or WTG!M. This online mobility tool makes planning and logging sustainable trips easy. When residents register with WTG!M, they can discover the best route options for where they want to go, track their trips, earn rewards from local merchants, see their commuting statistics, and earn achievement badges.

Another innovative feature of Way To Go! Missoula is the Guaranteed Ride Home benefit for registered users. If you are cycling or walking across town and encounter an emergency, the program will pay for you to get a ride home. You can receive up to 12 free rides home per year. The purpose is to make residents more confident about their ability to successfully walk or ride their bike or use other forms of sustainable transportation. 

Missoula in Motion also provides bike lights, maps, and interactive trip planning tools. It also hosts Sunday Streets Missoula, an open streets event modeled after Bogota, Columbia’s famous Ciclovia, scaled to Missoula’s size and culture.  

Taking a Ride

Ben was gracious enough to show me around Missoula by bike, including riding past the university, through commercial districts, and near housing developments. One of the first observations was how common walking and cycling are in Missoula. Bikes are everywhere. 

People of all ages walk and cycle around town, and they aren’t doing it merely for leisure or exercise. This is how many people in Missoula get around. They walk or ride their bikes to commute to work, shop for groceries, and take children to schools or parks. 

If it weren’t for the majestic Rocky Mountains that surround the city, cycling through Missoula could easily be mistaken for cycling through a mid-size European city, such as in the Netherlands, where cycling is a way of life.

Missoula’s trails are well planned and functional. One stretch of trail we rode was 14 feet wide, compared to your more typical 10 to 12 foot trails common in many other cities. Ben said this is done to make room for pedestrians and cyclists to happily share the trail, even during busier times of the day. A wider trail reduces friction among various types of trail users and makes the experience safer and more pleasant for everyone.

We also saw examples of how far the city is willing to go to complete its trail network and make all areas of town accessible by bike. One example is the recently completed Russell Street Tunnel, shown in the photo below. Notice the wide width of this multi-use trail.

One of the more popular landmarks on Missoula’s trails network is the distinctive California Street Bridge, shown below. It is a 400-foot cable span built exclusively for biking and walking. The bridge allows easier access for pedestrians and bikers to the downtown area. 

Another innovative solution is found wih the Madison Street Underbridge, shown below. With this bridge, cars and trucks use the main bridge, while cyclists and pedestrians ride on the underbridge below.

Why Missoula?

While more city and county planners elsewhere are now beginning to focus on making their cities more friendly for pedestrians and cyclists, Missoula has spent decades getting to the enviable position it occupies today.

“Missoula is, and has been for more than 40 years, in the forefront of bicycle planning,” Ben said. 

A generation ago, Missoula’s city leaders wrestled with what to do about population growth. The city is in a valley, so space is limited. Officials projected that local traffic would become a nightmare and an expensive burden for the city without creative transportation planning that included mass transit, cycling, and walking. 

“There’s a geographic constraint,” Ben noted. “If we can make it easier for people who want to bike and walk, then it’s also easier on the people who need or want to drive to be able to drive.”

“The environmental and health benefits are kind of icing on the cake, but for the city it’s more the economic realities and what we’re up against in terms of growth,” Ben said.

Another plus for Missoula’s development as a leader in cycling infrastructure is the fact that the Adventure Cycling Association got its start there. Two Ohio couples came to Missoula in the early 1970s to study at the University of Montana. Cycling enthusiasts, they began to dream about long-distance cycling tours and organized Bikecentennial ’76, a cross-country bike tour in 1976 to celebrate America’s Bicentennial. Based on the success of that event, they launched Adventure Cycling Association, which remains based in Missoula today and attracts many cyclists to the city.

By the late 1970s, some of the leaders at Adventure Cycling Association began to discuss with the city the idea of hiring a bike/pedestrian officer, a staff position virtually unheard of at the time. During the surge of popularity in bike riding that occurred in the 70s, these pioneering cycling enthusiasts were concerned that bike accidents were also increasing. They believed the city could create a safer environment for cyclists and that hiring an officer to oversee that program was the right answer. 

The person hired for this new position was John Williams, a cycling advocate and educator. 

“He was one of the first people in the country to have this job,” Ben said. “He created a template for what this job does in a lot of other communities. He set expectations not only for Missoula but also nationally.”

Ben and Amy: A Biking Family

Ben has been on the job for 10 years. His love affair with cycling, however, began much earlier. He never owned a car while attending college, getting around campus instead by bike. When he first moved to Missoula, Ben was working manual labor jobs. Describing himself as “young and poor” back then, Ben commuted to work by bike.

“When I started bike commuting, I didn’t even realize there was a career field that focused on thinking about this stuff,” Ben said. “When I realized I couldn’t do manual labor the rest of my life and started thinking about graduate school, my in-laws handed me a book about planning that really opened my eyes to all of the philosophy and experience and psychology around the built environment. Decisions that we sometimes don’t think about are really driving our future.”

Appropriately, when Ben first met his wife, Amy, she was passing through Missoula on a fundraising bike tour. She still enjoys cycling today.

Both Ben and Amy ride electric bikes for daily activities. On most days, he rides an Urban Arrow cargo bike, which allows him to carry their two children to daycare. Amy rides a Tern HSD folding bike, which is equipped to carry one child on the bike. 

Having children further reinforced Ben and Amy’s desire to move away from traveling predominantly by car.

“We saw that car crashes are the leading cause of death for kids ages 0 to 19,” Ben said. “We thought if we could minimize the amount of time our kids are in the car that would be a good thing.”

“Since getting our e-bikes, over 90 percent of our car trips have been eliminated,” Ben said. “Our car is limited to recreational driving for 10 1/2 or 11 months of the year. We do Costco trips on the e-bikes. I’ve even hauled lumber on the cargo bike. There are still occasional things we need to use the car for, but for the most part we live pretty car-free or car-light for much of the year.”

Looking Ahead

Missoula has figured out what most North American cities haven’t: How to make it safe, convenient, and pleasant for people of all ages and all abilities to either walk or ride a bike for commuting or running errands instead of relying nearly exclusively on cars. 

“Our goal is to build a complete and connected network that serves everyone well,” Ben said. “The city wants to make it safe not only for experienced, confident cyclists but also for a grandparent and a grandchild to cross the city on bike.”

No matter how advanced Missoula’s cycling infrastructure and culture may be compared with most North American cities, Ben said they have much more yet to do.

“We’re aware of how special it is, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to make it better and make the opportunity available to more people.”

Looking further out, the Great American Rail Trail, a project sponsored by the Rails to Trails Conservancy, is scheduled to run through Missoula. The city is seeking a grant to complete key trail gaps in western Montana. Eventually, the coast-to-coast trail will run from Washington, D.C., to the state of Washington.

See More Great Cycling Stories:

– Bike Riding in Northern Michigan

– A Tale of Two Islands: Bike Riding on Florida’s Boca Grande and Anna Maria Island

– E-bike Adventures in New England

– Florida’s Pinellas Trail: A Success Story That Keeps Growing