what’s inside:
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| By the Numbers
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| 2015 Accomplishments
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| Supporters and Thanks
A strategy to accelerate change for better bicycling Bicycling has the power to transform people, economies and communities. It powers healthy lifestyles and instills a sense of exploration, freedom and independence in all those who pedal. You know this. We know this. And right now our governor is focusing on bicycling as a way to transform our state into an even better place to live, work and play. “Our goal is to make Colorado the best state for biking in the country,” Governor Hickenlooper said in September as he formally launched the Colorado Pedals Project, a significant public and private investment in biking over the next four years. He reiterated that message at our Colorado Bicycle Summit in February, following a conversation about the Pedals Project by bike czar Ken Gart and our own Dan Grunig. The Colorado Pedals Project is working to improve and increase opportunities for people to bike not just because we love the outdoors, or want to open up more opportunities for kids to get outside and be active, or even because we love biking, but also because bicycling is a huge economic driver and has the potential to be an even greater benefit to our state than it already is.
GETTING ENERGIZED AT THE COLORADO BICYCLE SUMMIT This year we brought in Mikael Colville-Andersen, a dynamic speaker from Copenhagen, Denmark, who challenged us to add bike lanes, narrow travel lanes and connect our disjointed bicycle infrastructure. “Why don’t we design bicycle infrastructure like we design everything else?” he said, encouraging us to design infrastructure with humans in mind. © David M. Budd Photography
SPRING/SUMMER 2016
The Colorado Pedals Project aims to get more families riding
Colorado has been among the top ten bicycle friendly states in the country for many years. So it’s great to get a little reminder that we still have a ways to go to reach the top. Colville-Andersen compared bicycle infrastructure in Colorado with an incomplete chair. We wouldn’t ask people to sit down in a chair that is missing pieces, but we do ask people to use bicycle infrastructure that is missing connections.
Following Colville-Andersen, we were honored to have the executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) give the plenary presentation. Paralleling the chair analogy, Shailen Bhatt recounted the story of cycling home from the opening of the US 36 Bikeway just after he moved to Colorado last year, sharing that he’s “lucky to be alive” after ending up on Highway 287 (Federal Boulevard) for a stretch of the ride. It is validating to hear the executive director of our department of transportation acknowledge that bicycle infrastructure is incomplete in Colorado—and that it’s a problem. But what really counts is the changes that Continued on page 3 Building a bicycle-friendly Colorado | bicyclecolorado.org