Hey BOLT riders! Tired of lugging your bike on and off the bus every day? The Bus Then Bike program offers long-term bicycle parking in a card-key accessed shelter on 28th and Iris in Boulder and downtown Longmont. The shelters will provide a secure place for bikes and bike accessories to be stored overnight. Community Cycles is partnering with the county on this program and along with Bike Longmont will provide maintenance to the bike shelters.

Thanks to efforts of the Community Cycles Advocacy Committee, the city of Boulder  has applied for a BikeStation as part of a $4 million application to the Federal Transit Administration to remodel the 14th Street and Walnut Transit Center. The new station would include more areas for passenger pick-up, more spaces for bus layovers, a more attractive and safer waiting area for passengers, and 250 secure, protected bike parking spaces. The city will find out later this year if funds are awarded to this project.

Boulder is examining options for bicycle and pedestrian connections east of Crest View Elementary School. Of the three options on the table, two involve adding 5-foot-wide sidewalks to residential streets, while the third is a paved or gravel path along the Fourmile Canyon Creek drainage. All cost roughly the same amount.  Community Cycles strongly supports including a paved multi-use path along the creek with an underpass at 19th Street. This plan was approved by the public and city council in the original NOBO plan. The path can be plowed, allowing safe access all year. This option also represents an important segment of the planned Fourmile Creek Path.

Community Cycles and GO Boulder have named 41 Boulder businesses "bike friendly," based on the results of a survey ranking businesses' efforts to make biking a feasible option for customers and employees. To become a Boulder Bike Friendly Business, fill out our survey here. To learn more, click here.

Advocacy committee members recently gave the city a helping hand by surveying all bike lanes in our city for damage and maintenance needs. Some of the hot spots we reported have already been taken care of! We hope to make this an annual event.

Committee members attended comment sessions for the County's Transportation Master Plan. We will continue to follow this process and give input when we can. More information can be found here: http://www.bouldercounty.org/sustain/trans/pages/default.aspx.

When a segment of the business community has economic clout, it's often easier to get the attention of decision makers. In Boulder, we know that bicycle-related businesses contribute substantially to the economy. To quantify this, Community Cycles is conducting a survey of local bicycle-related businesses (58 of them!) to determine their local economic impact. This information will be used to push for pro-bicycling policies in Boulder.

Another sub group led by Sue Prant is working on coordinating the 2011 Walk and Bike Month activities. Much of the advocacy committees work ties in with Bike to Work Month activities. Contact Sue at bikesue@gmail.com if you'd like to help.

The Community Cycles Advocacy Committee has created a survey to assess the needs of the local bicycling community. We will use the results of the survey to better serve the Boulder cycling community and improve Community Cycles programs. Take the Boulder Bicycle Survey now.

CC's Advocacy Director recently testified before the board of the Denver Regional Council of Governments in support of six bicycle and bus projects in Boulder and Boulder county that may be cut from the regional Transportation Improvement Plan. The Boulder projects scored well in the regional cooperation process, but when Denver did not receive funding for its highway project, officials went around the process and suggested cutting the Boulder projects. We will keep you posted.