A proclamation designating the week of June 22 through June 26 as “Bike Week” and Wednesday, June 24, as “Bike to Work Day” in Denver. 
With pleasure, Mr. President. Designating the week of June 22nd through June 26th as Bike Week and Wednesday, June 24th, as a bike to work day in Denver. Whereas the city and county of Denver partners with the Regional Denver Regional Council of Governments, local bicycling organizations and cycling enthusiasts each year to plan activities and events intended to promote awareness of the benefits of cycling. And. Whereas, Bike to Work Day is an annual event designed to encourage people to ride their bicycles for transportation on a consistent basis to reduce congestion, improve air quality, and benefit public health. And. Whereas, the Department of Public Works hosts the Civic Center Park Breakfast Station, one of the largest in the region where cyclists celebrate their commute to work with free snacks, raffle prizes, music and educational outreach offered by organizations in the region. And. Whereas, the Department of Public Works is a major contributor in the planning and implementation of Denver's bicycle infrastructure, implementing at least 15 miles of new bikeways annually, and this year installing two protected bikeways on Arapahoe and Lawrence Streets downtown, with vertical separation between bikes and cars, and whose plans to install more protected bike lanes are contributing to Denver's designation as a top bicycling city and its inclusion in the People for Bikes Green Lane Project, which provides technical assistance in the installation of bike lanes. And. Whereas, the city now has more than 140 miles of on street bike lanes and SROs and more than a hundred miles of off street trails, offering recreational opportunities along the scenic routes and is in the process of constructing the 35th 36th Street Bridge and important pedestrian and bicycle connections from the new RTD East Line and will begin work on the Brighton Boulevard bicycle facility in late 2015. And. Whereas, Denver is supporting bicycling in other new and creative ways, offering on street bike corrals and bike sharing stations in places where people gather with the goal of supporting local businesses and making bike riding an attractive way to get around for more of Denver's residents. And. Whereas, bicycle and pedestrian safety and infrastructure continues to be a top priority for the Denver City Council of the City and County of Denver, which is supporting funding for additional and expedited multimodal improvements that will increase bicycling in our city. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the City Council, the city and County of Denver, Section one, that the council designates the week June 22nd through June 26th as Bike Week and June 24th as Bike to Work Day and encourages citizens to keep their heads up and watch out for one another and stay safe this summer, no matter your mode of travel and section two that the clerk of the city and county of Denver shall attest, and to fix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation, and that a copy hereof be forwarded to the manager of Public Works. Thank you, Councilwoman Sheppard. Your motion to adopt. I move that proclamation 384 series of 2015 be adopted. It has been moved and seconded. Comments. Councilwoman Sheppard. Thank you so much. It is my pleasure. I think for the third or fourth year in a row now to read this proclamation celebrating not just bike to Work Day, but Bike Week and all of the wonderful progress that our city has made in becoming a truly bike friendly city. I really want to thank all my colleagues for that, for consistently making the investment of the city in bicycling infrastructure one of our top priorities in every single budget retreat that we've had for the last three years in a row. And I'd really like to thank the mayor for continuing to increase the amount of money that he puts in the budget annually to meet many of the goals that we've laid out and of course, our public works. Department for, you know, carrying that banner and working hard to make these things happened. And I remember when we opened up the 15th Street Bikeway, you know, that was like a wow revolutionary big deal. But, you know, it's doing what it was supposed to do. It's giving people a safe space to ride down a very busy east west corridor in downtown that has a lot of bike, a car and bus traffic on it. I actually ride down 15th Street probably twice a week on that bike lane, and I can attest to the fact that those improvements that we've made in the street, you know, really helped me feel more comfortable as I'm riding down. So, you know, I think we're doing a great job. I think we have a long way to go because we were recently designated as a a gold city in our bikes in across the United States. But we really want to be a platinum city. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, there's only one in the country. So we really want to aspire to get even more of our residents out of their cars and onto their bikes. Let me just tell you, when I bike to work in the morning, I get to come down Confluence Park and ride up the trails underneath our street grid. And I arrive and I feel so relaxed and distressed because I didn't have any traffic jams, I didn't have any crazy drivers. It's there's so many benefits to it other than just being a convenient way to get from point A to point B. So I just want to say that it's important that folks think about biking to work not just one day a week, but perhaps every day or at least once or more a week, and make that commitment and see how it changes your life. I've been doing it for like about the last month this year, and it's really been actually a lot of fun. So with that, I'm happy to to sponsor this proclamation and I don't know if anyone else has comments as well. Thank you, Councilwoman Shephard. Councilman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. President. I think, Councilwoman Sheperd, for bringing this proclamation forward. I remember probably about three or four years ago did my first bike to work, and I showed up in a bunch of kind of biking gear minus the tight shorts. But, you know, the Colorado Denver biking gear wasn't in my normal go to work type of gear. And and I just thought, you know, it's just a fun little exercise that we do as a city. When someone from Bike Denver told me, no, the point is that you actually use it as your transportation to work. So come next time in a suit. And I really didn't understand nor get nor see kind of biking in the overall multimodal system within our city and county of Denver. Until I went on a trip with people for bikes and a couple of folks from the city and to Copenhagen and really begin to understand how this system could work. And then we went to other cities as well. And so, you know, I think it's important that we do the the bike to work day, but I hope that it helps all of us in the city and county of Denver think about multimodal options and mode share quite differently than we had in the past. That right now in the city and county of Denver, 80% of our mode share is around cars. And I think one of the most important and most issues that I hear from every neighborhood is the issue of congestion and traffic. And so I think it's important, number one, that we as a city have a vision and get serious about our investment and implementation and to multi-modal not just bikes, but pedestrians, making sure we have transit opportunities and things like that. And so, you know, we can't just encourage bikes. We have to kind of put our money where our mouth is, like Councilwoman Cheryl was saying, and dedicate funds each year to increase protected bike lanes. And we know that if we have protected bike lanes, 60% of the people in this city who do not ride bikes will simply because they're safe, comfortable, and they're connected to the places that they want to go. So I'm really excited for this. Thank you. Councilwoman Schipper and I will be supporting this. Thank you, Councilman Brooks. Councilman Moran. Thank you. Council President Herndon. Right before I came over here, I actually saw an email from Transportation. Solutions, which is a. Transportation management. Association. Whose board I serve on, as have Councilman Brown and Councilwoman Sussman and. Councilman Nevitt and the whole. Ideas to get people out of the single occupancy vehicles, cars. I mean. Your bicycle might be single occupancy. But at any rate, I'm not the confident cyclist that many of my colleagues are. And so what interested me in this announcement is that Triple A, the Automobile Association, is going to be offering complimentary roadside assistance on Bike to Work Day, and that I thought was pretty great and shows how we're changing the number. And this is a paid political advertisement. The number is one 800 a help. Thank you, Councilwoman Robb. Councilman Monteiro. Thank you, Mr. President. I would want to say that slowly, but also kind of quickly. We've been building on shifting the mindset in the city and county of Denver in terms of people looking at riding their bikes to work. And I was one of those people because I was always a little tentative, as Councilman Brooks was saying, about what to wear. And so, you know, how do you come to a community meeting? You're all sweaty from riding your bicycle and everything. But all kidding aside, I began to look at utilizing my bicycle when I lived in the Central Valley, and I was very close to the South Platte River and the Cherry Creek, and I would just get on my bike and ride all the way into the city and county building. Part of that also is that, you know, there's a lot of conversation about utilizing the street grid in terms of protected bike lanes and getting to work. And that's all important. But I also just want to bring up to many people that bicycle that we have another grid and that's on the South Platte. On the Platte and also Cherry Creek. And you will see many people utilizing that as transportation as they're making their way through the city of Denver and possibly even to work. So I just wanted to bring out that in my mind, there's two grids, there's a regular street level, and then there is a river path. And so we also have that option as well. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Monteiro. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I you know, Councilman Brooks, it's cool to wear your suit riding your bike. And when you when you're coming from the east side where everything's nice and flat, but when you're coming from the west side, where there's nothing but hills and bar, no still no bike lanes in a lot of areas, no safe crossings. It's really hard. And I tried it. I've tried coming down here, I'm not so bad downhill. But going back, let's just say you got to you got to take your suit to the dry cleaners almost every time you ride your bike. So having said that, I think it's important that, you know, we recognize Bike to work day and that we all participate, but we also pay attention when we when we are coming downtown and we are biking down here, biking wherever we need to go, we got to pay attention, know areas that we need to improve, areas that we need to have, bike lanes where it makes sense. Places like Colfax, instead of having to go all the way down into the gulch and on the way back home, in the dark and in pure obscurity, you know, places where it makes sense, places where it makes sense to put down striping. And I think it's important that we take note of that when we when we do bike places where it makes sense to cross. Right. And it's upon us and it's incumbent upon us as a city to make sure we recognize those intersections and not just give the priority to cars right away at those intersections that we may stumble across like Federal Boulevard and 10th Avenue, or like the Colfax Di Viaduct, which is beyond me why we have not thought of making Colfax bike friendly and more pedestrian friendly instead of having to go under and around it and through the. Through the crevices of the city and maybe over our bridge some day. So we have to put our thinking caps on. Yes, it's awesome to participate in, but we have to make sure that we're identifying gaps and we are marking certain places and certain intersections where it should be bike friendly and taking that to committee. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Any comments? Proclamation three 8413 nine. Madam Secretary, Roll Call Edward Susman. Brooks Brown I fats I can eat lemon lopez monteiro, i. But I'm sorry. Nevett. You sure? Okay. Hi, Ortega. Hi, Rob. Mr. President. Hi. Catherine Levitt, are you sure? I thank you. All right. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. 3939 is three. 84 has been adopted. Councilwoman Sheppard, is there someone you like to invite to the podium to receive the proclamation? I would like to invite several members of the Public Works Department to the podium. Please introduce yourselves. Council. President Members of council. My name is Emily Snyder, and I'm the urban mobility manager with Denver Public Works. I'm going to make my part brief as many of you are transitioning off council and this is Bike Week. I just wanted to say thank you very much to this council for all of their support over the past years, for bicycling and walking in this city and for making it a priority, as you have done. And with that, I'm also transitioning the acceptance of this proclamation over to my colleague Rachel Bronson. Thank you, Emily, and thank you. Council President and members of Denver City Council. Emily has passed the torch. It's pretty exciting. As a recently designated bicycle friendly business and community in the city and county of Denver is proud to celebrate Bike to Work Day. We will be celebrating, as Councilwoman Shepherd said at Civic Center Park with our annual breakfast station. We'll be celebrating, along with dozens of Denver businesses and vendors and thousands of bicyclists from across the community. Our Bike to Work Day celebration at Civic Center Park would not be possible without our many partner agencies, including Denver Parks, Parks and recreation facilities, public works, solid waste, public works, communications and public works right away. Services. Currently across the city. In terms of staff, we're competing in a bag to work day business challenge. We have 325 staff across the city that are registered and the leading agencies in this competition who will all be eligible for prizes. Are the Library Technology Services, Environmental, Health and Parks and Recreation. Back to work day, bike to work week and Bike Month would not be possible without our many partners in the community, including Dr. COG, CDOT, Spike, Denver, Bicycle, Denver's many transportation management associations and many others. So thank you all for recognizing this very important day and for your leadership in making Denver a world class bicycling city. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Shepherd, for that. We have one more proclamation in Proclamation 427 sponsored by Councilman Brown. Will you please read Proclamation 47?