League of American Bicyclists - Active Mobility Leadership Lab FAQs

Login to Complete a Form or to Access Judging Panel

Email Address

Password

remember me

Renewing BFA Applicants:

If you last applied to the Bicycle Friendly America program before April 2016, you will need to create a new account to submit a renewal application.

Click here to Create a New BFA Application Account.

Looking for the League of American Bicyclists Member Portal?

To become a new League member, join here!

Frequently Asked Questions: The Active Mobility Leadership Lab

Please click on any question below for answers to common questions about the Active Mobility Leadership Lab.

Don't see your question listed here? Contact us at bfa@bikeleague.org!

Q: What is the Active Mobility Leadership Lab?

A: The Active Mobility Leadership Lab is a new 16-week virtual training program offered by the League of American Bicyclists for emerging and aspiring Bicycle Friendly Communities.

Generously funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in support of their Active People, Healthy Nation℠ Initiative, the Active Mobility Leadership Lab is designed to support local government agency staff in emerging and aspiring Bicycle Friendly Communities to build capacity around strategies to promote active mobility and physical activity.

Q: What is ‘Active Mobility’?

A: ‘Active Mobility’ refers to any human-powered travel, such as bicycling, walking, or using an e-scooter, mobility aid, skateboard, or similar device for transportation or travel. Active Mobility allows individuals to integrate physical activity into their daily routines.

Q: Who is eligible to participate in the Active Mobility Leadership Lab training program?

A: This program is designed for local, county, or regional government employees or individuals associated with such agencies in emerging or aspiring Bicycle Friendly Communities.

To be considered for the Active Mobility Leadership Lab training program, individuals must submit an online application before the deadline, February 6, 2026. See below for more details on the selection process.

Q: Is there a cost to apply or to participate in the Active Mobility Leadership Lab?

A: No! Thanks to generous funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in support of their Active People, Healthy Nation℠ Initiative, the League of American Bicyclists is able to offer this training program at no cost to participants in 2026.

The only potential cost participants may choose to incur is if they choose to attend the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. March 24-26, which is an optional in-person component of the training. Participants who are unable to attend the National Bike Summit in-person will be given the opportunity to attend certain Summit sessions virtually, with scholarships available for online attendance. There are also scholarships available for the in-person Summit, which must be applied for separately here. (Note the Summit Scholarship Deadline: January 30, 2026.)

Q: I don’t work for a local, county, or regional government agency, but I partner with one. Can I still participate in the Active Mobility Leadership Lab?

A: While this training program is designed for employees of local, county, or regional government agencies, there are opportunities for other kinds of local partners to be involved.

Each program participant will be asked to recruit a local working group made up of both governmental and non-governmental partners, so if you are interested in participating in the Active Mobility Leadership Lab but are not directly associated with a local, county, or regional government agency, please consider encouraging an eligible individual in your community to apply, and offer to support their efforts by joining their working group, if they are selected. This is a great opportunity for government agencies and local community organizations to partner and collaborate on their common goals related to active mobility.

Q: My city/town/county/region has never applied to the Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) program before. Can I still apply to participate in this program?

A: Yes! The Leadership Lab is designed for individuals representing communities that are emerging or aspiring Bicycle Friendly Communities, which includes communities that have applied to the BFC program and received no award, Honorable Mention, or Bronze, as well as those that have never applied to the BFC program before.

Q: What kinds of skills or knowledge will participants learn during the Active Mobility Leadership Lab?

A: Through training calls, learning modules, resource libraries, and a customized action planning process, participants will gain knowledge and experience on key topics related to building a Bicycle Friendly Community, such as:

Evaluating and identifying potential improvements for local infrastructure that supports active mobility, such as on- and off-road bikeways, bikeway level of stress, bikeway network connectivity, and bicycle parking.
Collecting and leveraging ridership and safety data to inform and/or make the case for local infrastructure improvements.
Identifying local funding and budgeting mechanisms or opportunities to fund potential local infrastructure improvements, ongoing maintenance needs, or similar.
Tools and resources for building public support and engaging with elected officials around active mobility policy, systems, and environmental improvements.
Establishing a plan of action outlining the specific goals, strategies, tactics, and timeline for the participant to work with their community partners to make meaningful progress toward implementing long-term improvements.
Building and sustaining local partnerships and coalitions to successfully implement action plans and related long-term improvements.

Q: What is the time commitment expected for participating in the Active Mobility Leadership Lab?

A: Participants should expect to spend approximately 1-3 hours per week on the training program between early March and late May, including one-hour Zoom calls and 1-2 hours of asynchronous learning activities such as reading materials, watching video/webinar recordings, and completing worksheets.

Additionally, each participant and their respective working group will be asked to develop an action plan with specific goals and actions outlined; additional time will likely be required to implement certain actions, though the amount of time will depend on the community’s selected goals and actions.

Q: What will participants be expected to do during the training?

A: Participants will be expected to:

Attend regular (nearly weekly) hour-long calls between early March and May 2026, which will alternate between participant cohort training calls and local working group action plan calls. (Approximately 10-12 calls total.)
Spend up to 1-2 additional hours per week on optional asynchronous learning activities, either individually or as a working group, such as watching videos or webinar recordings, completing worksheets, or implementing action plans.
Attend or find someone from your working group to attend the National Bike Summit, either virtually or in-person in Washington, D.C., March 24-26.
Note: In-person attendance is strongly encouraged but not required. Scholarships may be available for virtual registration.
Recruit and maintain a local working group consisting of governmental and non-governmental partners to help develop and implement an Active Mobility Action Plan. (See below for more details about the working groups and action plans.)
Commit to the development and implementation of an Active Mobility Action Plan for their community, which will include at least one actionable goal to be completed before June 15, 2026.

Q: How and when will training calls be scheduled?

A: The League will provide each participant with an alternating schedule of cohort training calls via Zoom roughly every other week, and local working group Action Planning calls on the alternate weeks.

The biweekly cohort training calls will be scheduled at a recurring time that works for all participants, and working group members may be sent as a proxy if you are unable to attend. The working group calls will be scheduled to accommodate as many members of the respective working group as possible.

Q: What is the Action Plan process for this training program?

A: Each participant, together with local partners, will be guided through the process of developing a customized Active Mobility Leadership Action Plan for their community.

The League will provide an Action Plan template and series of worksheets to support the development of each community’s Active Mobility Action Plan. Each working group will be able to select the specific goals and actions to be achieved through their action plan, so that it is tailored to the community’s specific needs and opportunities.

In the first several weeks of the training period, each participant/working group will select 1-3 focus areas for their Action Plan from a menu of options related to the Leadership Lab’s training topics.

After the initial 11-week training period, the League will continue to work with participants and their local working groups for an additional 5 weeks to implement their action plans and report on early implementation progress.

Q: What kinds of actions or goals might be achieved through the Active Mobility Action Plans?

A: In the first several weeks of the training period, each participant/working group will select 1-3 focus areas for their Action Plan from a menu of options related to the Leadership Lab’s training topics, such as:

Bike Infrastructure Audit or Inventory: Benchmarking existing conditions of specific infrastructure, assessing community-wide connectivity, etc.
Ridership or Safety Data Collection/Analysis: Benchmark ridership and safety data
Proclamations and Public Statements: Public commitments of support from community leadership
Assisting Local Employers and Institutions in Bicycle Friendly America (BFA) Activities: Use other aspects of the BFA program to engage with local partners and identify specific action steps for local employers, organizations, agencies, campuses, etc.
Local Partnerships or Committee Structure: Establish a formal Bicycle Advisory Committee (or equivalent) structure necessary to support and monitor ongoing progress.
Funding Opportunities: Identify and pursue new funding for biking and walking infrastructure or related planning and evaluation efforts
Inventory/Evaluate Infrastructure Plans, Policies, or Design Guides: Examine plans, policies, and design guides and map out a process to adopt changes.
Other: Participants and their working group may work with the League to identify other similar efforts that will make meaningful progress to increase active mobility opportunities in their community that can be accomplished in as little as 5 weeks or as long as 12 months.

Q: What is the local working group?

A: Participants in the Active Mobility Leadership Lab will be expected to form a local working group made up of partners across both governmental and non-governmental sectors to help develop and implement an Active Mobility Action Plan for their community. These partnerships are a critical component of the training and action planning processes, to build local capacity and accountability.

Q: Does a working group need to already exist in order to apply for the program?

A: No. As part of their application to this training program, we ask that applicants identify at least 3, and up to 10, potential partners in their community to serve on a local working group.

Having at least 2-3 partners who have expressed interest in participating in the Active Mobility Working Group with you is strongly encouraged, but having the full composition of the working group finalized is not required in order to apply.

In the first 2-3 weeks of the program, the League will work with participants to identify any additional potential partners or working group members and will offer guidance on potential outreach and recruitment of those partners.

Q: How will participants be selected for the Active Mobility Leadership Lab?

A: To be considered for this program, potential participants must submit an online application for consideration before the deadline, February 6, 2026. A total of 3-5 participants will be selected from different communities around the country, based on the following criteria:

Community needs (as articulated in the application) matching the goals of the training program deliverables;
Participant commitment to Training Program and Action Plan process;
Existence of potential local working group/committee members identified through application process;
Communities that are early in the process of becoming a Bicycle Friendly Community (currently Bronze or lower, or have never applied) and that show evidence of potential growth areas/opportunities for improvement.

Apply here!

This training is made possible by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Cooperative Agreement CDC-RFA-PW-24-0080). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC. These efforts are part of the CDC’s Active People, Healthy Nation℠ Initiative that is working to help 27 million Americans become more physically active by 2027.