The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) recently awarded the top “platinum” award to Stanford for bike friendliness. Stanford was the only institution among 20 colleges and universities surveyed to receive the highest award, ranking ahead of “gold” winners UC-Davis and UC-Santa Barbara. According to the LAB website, schools were judged based on infrastructure built to promote cycling, available education programs for cyclists, university efforts to encourage biking, law enforcement involvement and plans for the future.

The award is part of the League’s “Bike Friendly University” program, which was launched in October and aims to recognize and support bicycle-friendly college campuses.

Initiatives that led to Stanford’s award included bike safety classes, helmet discounts and programs for cited cyclists to take a class instead of paying a fine. Another commendable factor was the University’s “commute club,” which encourages faculty, staff and students to travel to campus more efficiently.

Ariadne Scott, bicycle program coordinator, said in an interview with BikeRadar.com that the “University’s employee drive-alone rate dropped from 72 percent in 2002 to 48 percent in 2010.”

“[The] bike commute rate for university commuters is 21.7 percent,” she said.

–Tyler Brown