It’s great to join you all today. I appreciated the invitation from your Mayor – I’m a big fan of hers, and a big fan of bicycling.

As Mayor of Louisville Kentucky for roughly 20 years, I have a lot of favorite views in my hometown.

I love the sweeping curve of the Ohio River from the glass-walled room atop our new downtown center dedicated to peace, justice and the life and values of Muhammad Ali.

I love the award-winning Michael Graves skyscraper that’s home to a Fortune 500 health-insurance company.

I love our jewel-box of a baseball stadium.

And I love the wooded hills in our historic city parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture.

But one of my favorite views of my hometown is a vista I saw for the first time on a spring weekend in 2005. I was riding my bike … in a crowd of more than 2,000 people … leaving that baseball stadium parking lot … pedaling on a downtown Louisville street … at a special community-wide event that had never occurred before.

Kids and grandparents… speedy riders and slow pedallers… were making their way down Main Street to one of those historic Olmsted parks and looping back again … roughly 17 miles. On my way there, my 13-year-old son passed me on his bike … coming back… So did the head of our local library, an avid cyclist… the guy who runs the city’s website … and several of our CEOs. . . all part of the crowd.

I loved that view … and each of the 5 other Mayor’s Hike and Bike events

we’ve held since then…. where as many as 4,000 cyclists have turned out for the last one Labor Day 2007. I loved it for several reasons:

It was the first big public event we held after our first city bike summit -- a 2-day event early that year. Our summit – like yours – had as its goal . . . getting momentum rolling toward our goal of making Louisville more bicycle friendly.

The bike ride put in clear perspective the passion across my community for bicycling … the numbers, diversity and high level of enthusiasm. Truly there was excitement…exhilaration…in the air.

For me, as an elected official of a middle-American city … population 700,000… it marked a turning point. . . that accelerated my personal commitment…our community’s collective commitment … to pedal forward as fast as possible…toward making our city a great place for bicycling.

Why should we care if our city is bike-friendly? How can a community accelerate its progress toward that goal? What speed bumps lie in your path as you move forward?

Let me answer those questions briefly. I hope our experiences will provide ideas and inspiration….because many communities – regardless of size… face similar issues – from funding to safety.

My main message: It takes passion, partnerships, resourcefulness, vision and follow-through. So yes, from the very start we had a passion to make our community bike-friendly.

Almost all of us bring a positive personal history to bicycling. When I was a teenager, I helped my parents at their small inner-city grocery. Riding my bike. I made deliveries of milk and eggs, bread and cereal. As an adult, I began to ride again, for fun and fitness, often with my wife and son: I began to see more people my age…baby-boomers…on bicycles, too… not only because it was enjoyable … but also because their aging knees and hips were rebelling against jogging and harsher forms of exercise.

Even more important, what I realized riding as an adult in my hometown… was the intimate connection you feel to neighborhoods and neighbors … as you bike through a community. You don’t just smell the roses … and the forsythia … you smell the barbeque … see vegetable and flower gardens… hear music. You make eye contact with folks on front porches … and other people on bikes. It may sound corny … but as someone who loves his city …there is magic in the way a community feels on a bicycle. . . It brings people together.

And I could see other people appreciate that magic, too. I also saw more young people … embracing bikes as a great way to get together with friends….and get a workout … not only to appreciate the city … including those historic parks I mentioned… designed by Frederick Law Olmsted… but also to enjoy the scenic curves in suburban and country roads … or wooded hills… so abundant in our region and across our state. As you all know right here in Warren County, Kentucky is truly gorgeous.

I also heard more people say, “You know, it would be great to bike to work…to save on gas and get exercise at the same time.”

At some moment … maybe it was after I made a summer vacation to the mountains of Colorado…where bikes were everywhere… I thought: We can do more in Louisville. We can do more even if we don’t have lots of money. We can “work smart” on becoming bike friendly.

It fit into other community initiatives: We’re engaged in a public health campaign to encourage more residents to get physically active. We want to encourage our residents to make transportation choices that result in healthier air.

Bicycle-friendliness also aligns with our goal of enhancing Louisville’s appeal to bright, young people. We view it an amenity that helps with economic development.

AND …and this is a BIG “AND” … we got a big boost because we found some tremendous partners to help us move forward.

As I mentioned…we decided to hold our first-ever Bike Summit 3 years ago, in February 2005.

About 150 people gathered in that Michael Graves building – headquarters to the health company called Humana -- to discuss bike-friendly goals and strategies. We had merged our city and county governments just a few years earlier so it was easy to assemble all the local government departments with an interest in bikes – from public works … to police … to planning and design. We had some police officers patrolling on bikes, in fact. Today some of our EMS personnel also use bikes to make their way through festivals and crowded public places.

At that 2-day summit 3 years ago, we invited state transportation officials…and our Kentucky Department of Transportation has proven to be an enthusiastic partner. But most important, we engaged residents with interests in biking.

And we have a lot of those citizens. The Louisville Bicycle Club was formed in 1897, making it one of the nation’s oldest. It has nearly 1,000 members and schedules more than 850 rides a year. You will find the usual mix of cyclists … from racers to mountain bikers… from commuters to leisure riders.

What I also found was tremendous leadership and extraordinary commitment.

At the end of that 2-day summit, we emerged with some specific goals: from connecting the paths we have … to developing new ones. We knew we had to encourage more riding…educate our residents…engineer a bikeway system for folks with varied cycling interests and abilities … enforce safety rules …. and evaluate our progress regularly. We established a 35-member bicycle task force to oversee progress, meet several times a year and report back in a formal way annually.

There were already important partnerships in place: Our public transit service had equipped every bus with a bike rack and officials were bowled over by their popularity . . . double-digit percentage increases every year. Last year passengers took a bus and stashed their bikes on racks on the front 110,000 times – far exceeding expectations.

When the transit authority realized that some people were unsure how to use the racks, its marketing director came up with a lively rap video that tells how. It’s not an official ad campaign, but it’s toted up 5,000 hits on You Tube.

Biking has a habit of creating converts. We got another boost because we had a new fellow in charge of all transportation planning …a guy with a strong entrepreneurial streak who knew his way around the world of state and federal grants. He became a bicycle fan, began riding to work… and we began to integrate bike planning in all our transportation conversations.

What exactly has happened since that summit? We believe we are creating an environment conducive to biking that has captured the enthusiasm of residents. We were designated a Bronze-level Bicycle-Friendly Community by the League of American bicyclists two years ahead of schedule in 2006, and we are going for the Silver this year in 2008.

· We have now held 6 of those big community rides where we close city streets on a weekend morning and make way for bikes. It’s become a local tradition.

· We are working on engineering a good bikeway system, focusing on connecting the paths we had: Later this month we will officially open a 27 mile bike path along the Ohio River…part of our plan for a 100-mile Louisville Loop circling the city.

· We are marking more lanes on city streets. Two years ago we had only 2 miles of streets striped with bike lanes. We now have about 30 miles. Our goal next year is 40. We have committed ourselves to striping bike lanes on existing roads every time we can safely do so … as we repave major streets. We’re working on how to keep them from fading with time.

· We have a new city policy requiring “complete streets:” What that means is that every time anyone makes a major road improvement anywhere in the city – they must put in streets complete with sidewalks, bike lanes and a place for buses to stop. . . as well as lanes for motor traffic.

· We have aggressively sought grants from the state and federal governments for bike improvements … looked at easements owned by city agencies as possible land for paths…and continue to explore old rail lines that could play a role. Some of our suburban cities are excited about bike paths, so we are working with them as well. And we’re working on safe paths for kids to bike to school.

· A large local company has launched a bike program called “Freewheelin’” which lets employees hop company-owned bikes for short trips during their workdays.

· Over the past year, we’ve had a series of high-profile events in Louisville that spotlighted biking in a positive way. The National Senior Games let our residents see hundreds of competitors race bikes through the heart of the city’s parks.

The grueling competition in last summer’s Ford Ironman Triathlon included 2,000 men and women riding their bikes 112 miles through our community and its suburbs.

Last fall Louisville was chosen as the site to kick off the first qualifying event for the Cyclo-cross World Championships. The best bike racers from across America descended on our town to participate in this amazing and demanding sport - the fastest-growing cycling sport today.

Today we have a number of new bike projects on the drawing boards ... including a paths along our Olmsted Parkways and a loop that will cross the Ohio River on a pedestrian-bike bridge …go through southern Indiana greenways and return to downtown Louisville over a second bike-pedestrian bridge. .

· Planning is underway for bike-and-pedestrian improvements at the University of Louisville. This summer they will build at least two pavilions for bike storage with lockers. Their goal is good health and cleaner air as well as fewer cars on campus.

· For the third year in a row, one of the hugest events of the year – a giant Waterfront fireworks display called Thunder over Louisville that launches our Kentucky Derby Festival – will have Free Valet Bike Parking service. Last year 600 people avoided the headache of battling congestion and trying to find a parking spot. We stored and guarded their bikes.

· But the most dramatic new project is a new partnership focused on parkland. We had talked for years about creating a 100-mile bike and pedestrian loop I just mentioned…gradually piecing together its first legs.

But suddenly, plans moved to the front burner… as a civic leader … named David Jones, the founder Humana … took up a project to preserve roughly 4,000 acres of green space … in the rapidly developing suburban southeastern part of our community … along the fork of a stream…called Floyds Fork.

Floyds Fork has spectacular green space with ridges and valleys and a half-dozen waterfalls. Waterfalls! In an urban area 20 minutes from downtown.

In roughly a year, David Jones raised more than $20 million in private funds to begin purchasing land along the 27-mile stream. In addition, we received $38 million in federal funds with the help of our senior U.S. Senator.

Plans are moving rapidly forward to develop 3 or 4 major parks connected by a 27-mile greenway for bikes and pedestrians over the next 10 to 20 years – part of that Louisville bike loop that will eventually be 100 miles long.

Unfortunately I can’t clone David Jones for you. But then again I am not sure I need to.

I am sure your community also has avid cyclists and fans of green space in positions of influence. Your university community is a ready-made constituency for biking.

If I can offer one piece of advice, it is this: Never underestimate the power of a bold vision … that promises a legacy for generations. Louisville leapt forward because we took the energy of our bicycling community and a can-do attitude in government… focused it with our bike summit … and kept it rolling.

We will hold another bike summit in Louisville in November. I’ll let your organizing committee know when dates are set in case you think it would be helpful to see the way we decide “where do we go from here?”

Sure, we have much to celebrate. But it won’t all be high-5s, I promise you. It will include issues like how to maintain bike paths…made muddy by storm damage… how to make sure police, fire and EMS can be called and respond to problems on a bike path that may be far from a road. It will look at how to add bike lanes on busy streets where merchants want to retain on-street parking.

And – this is most important -- it will include much conversation on how to improve safety for cyclists on heavily traveled roads.

We had a terrible tragedy last year when a well-known Louisville bicyclist died after a collision with a car on a bridge over the Ohio River. Chips Cronen was an experienced biker. Two thousand bike riders honored his memory with a special ride across that bridge. In the wake of that tragedy, the city established clearly marked “sharrows” that say “Shared lane. Yield to bikes.”

Clearly such markings can help. But it takes engineering, education and enforcement to create a community culture where bicyclists and motorists peacefully and safely coexist. I don’t know your experiences but … it can be strained … downright unpleasant at times …to ride your bike on city streets.

The other challenge relates to money… funding for programs that support bicycling. With tight federal and state dollars, it is a challenge. And …with more and more cities getting on the bicycling bandwagon…we are all going to be competing for the same federal dollars to pay for projects like this. If the size of the pie doesn’t increase to match increased demand, important programs will not get funded.

It is our responsibility here to speak with one voice to state and national leadership on the importance of these issues, and ensure that they receive the consistent support they deserve.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my community’s experiences.

I would also like to hear what’s on your mind.