Community Highlights

Columbia is designated as a Bronze-level community due to its high walking mode share and thorough planning efforts. Community highlights include:

• After holding its first Open Streets events in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the City’s Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee worked with stakeholders and staff to develop its own implementation guide for Open Streets events.
• The City’s Walk Bike Columbia Plan, which focuses on implementation and sets ambitious, yet realistic targets for walking mode share and crash reduction.
• To address concerns about speed and safety, areas of the City are beginning to work with City Council to reduce speed limits from 35 to 25 miles per hour. These changes have been supplemented by traffic calming, signage and other engineering countermeasures to improve safety for pedestrians.
• According to the American Communities Survey, more than 20 percent of commuters in Columbia walk to work.
• The City conducts multiple counts each year that focus on pedestrian volumes. One of these is the Public Space Public Life count which measures pedestrian and bicyclist use of public spaces in the City. The second round of counts involves simultaneous manual counts at more than 30 locations around the City.