2011 COLORADO BICYCLE SUMMIT
Dan Grunig, Executive Director of Bicycle Colorado, with help from Scott Christopher, organized the summit.
Bill Vidal, Mayor of Denver spoke about his cycling experiences. He commutes to work about once a week. He’s ridden Ride the Rockies and used to put in 1000 miles a year. He said that we can’t only accomodate cars. As Manager of Public Works in Denver, he created a multi-modal balanced plan and measured person trips. He doesn’t want to expand the footprint we already have. Denver was the first city in the US to launch a citywide bike sharing program. It started during the DNC in 2008 and has expanded since then. At Barnum North Park a mountain bike skills area is being built. He spoke about Portland, OR where they’re nearing 10% of traffic is bicycles. Their goal is 25%.
Tim Blumenthal has a passion for all things cycling. He runs Bikes Belong and was part of the effort for the bike sharing program. Tim said that Every bike trip saves money and every car trip costs money. In Portland, car parking spots have been converted to bike parking. The advantage to that is that more bikes can fit in the space and businesses can be better seen from the street. Boulder has a few.
There are some tax incentives for businesses to pass on to employees who bike to work. But they get only about $20 a month compared to $200 for carpooling.
Specific bikes for shopping and short trips have been developed. They’ve gotten popular in Copenhagen.
$1 billion goes into the Colorado economy every year from cycling.
The Ciclovia started in Bogota, Colombia. The city shuts down major roads on Sundays so that bikes, runners, roller bladers, moms with baby carriages and anyone else can recreate on city streets without cars. Boulder tried it last year.
John Burke, President of Trek Bicycle Corporation
He said the the mission of Trek is not just to sell bikes, but to also give back. Some of the topics he discussed were as follows:
Worldwide Trends
1. Congestion: We can’t keep building more roads
2. Urbanization: The pressure on transportation in cities is increasing.
3. Environment: Vehicles are responsible for 65% of urban air pollution.
4. The world is getting fat. Colorado is the only state in the country where that’s not the case.
He said the bicycle will address the problem. We need to create a bicycle friendly world. There’s one bridge in Copenhagen that 27,000 bicycles go over every day.
The percentage of trips taken by bikes in the Netherlands is 30%. In the US it’s 1%.
Ways to Make a Difference
1. Ride a bike on trips under 2 miles.
2. Have a plan. Bicycling is economically friendly. One new highway interchange costs about $130 million. What does it cost for a bike lane?
3. Get organized. Madison, WI has an event called “Ride the Drive” that attracted 60,000 people last year.
4. Show Up and Ask
Randy Neufeld from SRAM Cycling Fund spoke about the financial impact of cycling as well as reprioritizing.
Afternoon sessions included
– Developing Complete Streets and the Benefits to Communities
– The Power of Mountain Biking in Your Community
– Next Steps for Safe Routes to School
Tuesday was supposed to be a b-cycle ride from the hotel to the Colorado Capitol. But it was snowing and close to zero so that was scrapped. Participants had the opportunity to meet with Colorado representatives in the legislature.
