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Hickenlooper promises $100 million to make Colorado “the best state for biking”

Jason Blevins
The Denver Post

LAS VEGAS — Gov. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday announced a plan to spend more than $100 million over the next four years to make Colorado “the best state for biking in the country.”

“Being the best biking state is going to fuel our robust economic growth and tourism industry, move us toward a cleaner environment and advance our goal of being the healthiest state in the nation,” Hickenlooper said Wednesday morning at Las Vegas’ annual Interbike rally, the largest bike trade event in North America. His was the first-ever gubernatorial address at the 33-year-old Interbike.

Encouraging everyone in the room to steal his ideas, Hickenlooper described how his Colorado Pedals Project is aiming to mirror the two-wheeled culture of Denmark, which spends 25 percent of its road budget on bike infrastructure and where 36 percent of adults commute by bike at least once a week. (That compares to about 0.6 percent in the U.S.)



The Colorado Pedals Project — headed by Denver businessman Ken Gart, the state’s dollar-a-year bike czar — corrals Bicycle Colorado, Great Outdoors Colorado, the Department of Natural Resources and the new Outdoor Recreation Industry Office to work with the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Office of Economic Development in a private-public mingling.

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