Bike Florida announces Share the Road Challenge Grant for 2016

Here's an opportunity for local Lee county governments, our school district, any of our bike clubs or advocacy organizations to apply for the new Bike Florida challenge grant for innovative ideas to improve cycling and bicycle safety in our community.  
Update: Click here for the grant application and further instructions.

On Sept. 13, the Board of Directors of Bike Florida authorized the creation of a $25,000 Share The Road Challenge Grant for 2016. It will be a matching grant, so the potential amount of money available will be $50,000.

The Share The Road Challenge Grant will be offered to a local government, school district, bike club or bike-ped advocacy organization that comes forward with the most innovative idea to improve cycling and bicycle safety in their community. 

“We’re very excited about this new challenge grant,” Bike Florida Executive Director Ron Cunningham said. “The idea is to stimulate creative thinking about how to better facilitate cycling and improve bike-ped safety at the community level. Ideally we would like to support a model initiative or program that could then be exported to other Florida communities. We want applicants to come to us with their best ideas, whether it be a protected bike lane demonstration project, a creative design for a bike boulevard, a new approach to bike safety and education or some other initiative.”

The $25,000 Share The Road Challenge Grant will take the place of the Share The Road mini-grants that Bike Florida has been offering for years. The mini-grants provide small amounts of seed money, usually no more than $2,000, to support modest cycling projects. “The intent of the Share The Road Challenge Grant is to maximize Bike Florida’s available resources to help fund a larger, more ambitious project,” Cunningham said. “With a total of $50,000 available, including the local match, grant applicants may then be able to leverage additional funding for their initiative in the form of state or federal grants.”

The Challenge Grant will be funded by revenues received from the sale of Share The Road license tags. Bike Florida will also be soliciting sponsors to help support its grant program.

Bike Florida will schedule a Challenge Grant workshop for potential applicants during its Share The Road Celebration of Cycling event on Friday, Nov. 13, in the City of Clermont. That event will feature a daylong series of speakers and forum discussions about how to improve bike-ped safety in Florida and what communities are doing to facilitate bicycle travel. Details about Share The Road Celebration of Cycling can be found at www.sharetheroad.org.

Questions about the Share The Road Challenge Grant can be directed to Ron Cunningham, Executive Director, at ron@bikeflorida.org, or 352-262-5798.