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This week bicycle advocates from the Trails and Open Space Coalition and Bike Colorado Springs, along with the Colorado Springs Bicycle Coordinator and Pueblo Bike/Ped Coordinator, received a warm welcome and wonderful bike tour of Fort Collins from the Fort Collins Moves staff. Fort Collins is only the second city in Colorado (after Boulder) to have achieved Platinum Bicycle-Friendly Status from the League of American Cyclists. (Colorado is the only state with two Platinum-level cities). Colorado Springs is currently ranked at the Silver level, and our Mayor has said that we want to work toward Gold.
What did we see in the City of Fort Collins? A well-connected system that uses “best practices” infra-structure to move cyclists in and around the city in a “low-stress network.” Protected bike lanes, wide bike lanes, bike boxes, road diets; they use all of these tools so that bicycling is  a safe and reliable transportation option connecting neighborhoods to downtown and the University.
Staff told us they are actively working  to become a “world class bicycle community” and measure projects against that vision. We saw lots of signs and bike racks, a new user-friendly, free bike map and a traffic signaling system that detects bicycles and adjusts signal times to accommodate bicycles.
Our suggestion – travel up to Fort Collins and take a bike ride!
In the meantime, our goal is to bring some of those good ideas south.
[/spb_text_block] [spb_single_image image=”2287″ image_size=”full” frame=”noframe” intro_animation=”none” full_width=”no” lightbox=”yes” link_target=”_self” caption=”New Belgium bike racks around town.” width=”1/3″ el_position=”first”] [spb_single_image image=”2290″ image_size=”full” frame=”noframe” intro_animation=”none” full_width=”no” lightbox=”yes” link_target=”_self” caption=”Bike and car detection system.” width=”1/3″] [spb_single_image image=”2289″ image_size=”full” frame=”noframe” intro_animation=”none” full_width=”no” lightbox=”yes” link_target=”_self” caption=”School bike racks.” width=”1/3″ el_position=”last”]