Every day my p3 twitter account flashes snippets (tweets) from the many organizations that I follow. As May is Bike Month, the twitter-sphere (should that be hyphenated or is it two words?) has been a constant stream of how bicycling is becoming more and more prevalent, at least in the world of planning and urban design. I sat in a meeting this morning in my hometown where we’re finishing the work on a new bicycle masterplan. When asked about our progress to date, I mentioned that even though we were nearing completion of the technical planning for bicycle facilities, our work was far from over. Implementation is the key to any plan!

That is so true in all aspects of planning. Without an implementation strategy that’s multi-faceted and comprehensive, no good planning effort remains unpunished. I mention being comprehensive because all plans should include many different avenues to success including project partners from different disciplines with different motivations for success, even though the group shares a common overall vision. Partner participant diversity offers every implementation effort a multitude of contacts from different silos to champion different parts of the comprehensive plan, thus bringing a resiliency to the life of the document and thus, the success of the community.

So, as I think about the future life of our bicycle masterplan, I must remind myself how important it is to have many project partners and champions during the implementation of the plan, just like it was important to gain community consensus in the creation of the plan.