The coveted Bike City status granted to Wollongong may have been due to what's coming in the future, but it is also based on what has already happened, according to Wollongong City general manager Greg Doyle.
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In the early hours of Friday morning, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) named Wollongong as one of four new Bike Cities, along with the Flanders region in Belgium, the Italian city of Val di Sole and Fayetteville in the United States.
Wollongong is the only Australian city - and the only one in the southern hemisphere - to gain this accreditation.
The Bike City tag came to the city because it will host the UCI Road World Championships next year and the council's recently released cycling strategy.
But Mr Doyle also pointed out the work of those who came before.
These are people who work with European cities that have had cycling in their DNA for hundreds of years
- Wollongong City Council General Manager Greg Doyle
"My view is that it recognises the work of the past," Mr Doyle said.
"There already has been a legacy in this area - there's a lot of advocates for safe cycling and cycling in Wollongong. Also, we've had the bones of a network of cycleways and shared pathways. This is an acknowledgement of the city's ambition to take that to the next level."
Mr Doyle said it was a huge honour for the European-based cycling organisation to pick a relatively young city.
"These are international judges," he said.
"These are people who work with European cities that have had cycling in their DNA for hundreds of years. Those cities were created with cycling as a key part of their planning, whereas that's not the case for us."
While delivering new cycling infrastructure promised in council's cycling strategy, Mr Doyle said it wouldn't come at the expense of other transport modes.
"I think the really cool thing about the approach at Wollongong that's been different to other cities that we researched is it's not one or the other," he said.
"We're continuing to invest in road, continuing to invest in footpaths and now we're investing in shared pathways and cycleways."
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