The Seattle City Council has unanimously passed the Seattle Bicycle Master Plan in order to, it the city's words, "increase bicycling and improve bicyclists' safety in the city."

The Bicycle Master Plan was an 18-month collaboration between the city and a Citizen's Advisory Board that

included representatives from the Cascade Bicycle Club, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, and others.

"Bicycling has great benefits for personal, public, and global health, said Councilwoman Jan Drago, chair of the Transportation Committee. "It is a form of transportation that the city must support and make safer and easier to do."

The Bicycle Master Plan is a policy that plans to increase the number of bicyclists that bike to work daily from the current 6,000 to 18,000. The Bicycle Master Plan identified the locations and recommendations for a 450-mile bicycle system that includes bike lanes, shared land markings, bicycle boulevards, signed local street connections, and

multi-use trails.

The Plan also includes developing a bicycle education, enforcement and encouragement program and securing funding to implement the infrastructure improvements. All of this should help increase the safety of bicyclists and reduce the rate of bike crashes by one third between 2007 and 2017.

Bridging the Gap, a voter-approved levy passed in last year, provides $10 million a year to implement recommendations in the Bicycle Master Plan over the next nine years.

"The generosity of Seattle voters will help us realize the goal of a city where bicycling is an accessible and safe form of transportation."