Trails were mentioned frequently during the 2012 Bicycle Summit, & I was pleased to hear how strongly this biking community embraced the concept of bike trails and their importance to the cycling community. Some of the trail-related highlights and quotes from the conference include:
Colorado Bicycle Summit
- Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper spoke highly of trails and their role in safe biking.
- Safe Routes to School depends heavily on local paths and trails for the ultimate in safety.
- The biking & walking infrastructure creates more jobs per mile than roads do.
- From 11 to 17 jobs are created per million $ spent on biking & walking infrastructure.
- Many of the people I spoke with at the conference had already visited trailsnet.com.
- Thanks to stationary & mobile counting devices, it is clear that trails are used quite heavily for commuters as well as recreational trail users.
- CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) has a staff dedicated to providing infrastructure and support for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Once again, thank you to the sponsors and presenters at the Colorado Bicycle Summit. It was a very uplifting conference and renewed my hopes that America is moving in the right direction when it comes to issues such as alternative transportation, bicycle recreation and Colorado bike trails.
