Sunday, September 28, 2008

Boulder Attributes Platinum Ranking to City's Bike Summit Last Year

The Boulder Daily Camera carried the following article in today's paper:
(For details on the Boulder Platinum Summit meeting scroll down)

Bike-friendly rank bumped up to platinum
Boulder's bicycle- friendly rank bumps up to top honors
By Laura Snider, Camera Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2008

The League of American Bicyclists bumped Boulder's bicycle-friendly status from gold to platinum last week, putting the city in the company of Portland, Ore., and Davis, Calif., the only other towns with the league's highest honor.

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"To all the people who ride bikes in Boulder, including kids riding to school, world-class racers training for their next event, commuters riding to worker, mountain bikers riding Marshal Mesa and families biking to the farmer's market, I say thank you," Mayor Shaun McGrath said in a statement.

The designations, which must be applied for, are based on everything from well-designed bike lanes and multi-use paths to cyclist education and bicycle-law enforcement liaisons.

There are seven official bicycle-friendly communities in Colorado, including bronze-rated Longmont and gold-rated Fort Collins. As a whole, Colorado ranks 22 out of 50 for bicycle-friendly states. Washington is the friendliest, according to the league, and West Virginia is the least supportive of bicycling.

The city said ongoing efforts to encourage biking and the bike summit held in Boulder last year, which forged bonds between government agencies and leaders in the bike community, were responsible for the higher rating. Mayor McGrath also acknowledged that Boulder still has improvements it wants to make.

"I am aware, as are most cyclists in Boulder, that we still have work to do to make bicycling safer and more attractive to more people," he said. "This award will inspire the city, and hopefully our community, to continue to progress.

For more information on the League of American Bicyclists rating system, go to www.bikeleague.org.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.

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