Green Valley and Scottsdale: 10 Best Burbs for Biking

I don’t normally expect to find articles regarding bicycling in Sunset Magazine, let alone rankings of communities where bicycling is involved…but I did, in the June 2012 issue.
Green Valley and Scottsdale were both named “Gold” communities (their highest ranking), the only two Gold-level award recipients in the whole western US, in an article titled “Ten Best Burbs for Biking”. 

The premise was to identify the Top Ten communities in the West that were other than “urban” (as in NYC urban, I guess) or “college-centric” communities with a readily expected bicycling population. I was thrilled to read this and to see your personal efforts, along with key allies, supporters and co-workers, get recognized in a “lifestyle” magazine that is not bicycling-focused. It is encouraging to see this type of publicity within what is a broader and hopefully growing audience.

Congratulations to all involved!
Bob Beane, President, Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists

Excerpt from the article (June edition of Sunset Magazine):
10 Best Burbs for Biking 
We developed this list from the nonprofit League of American Bicyclists’ award program. It’s easy to sing the praises of the West’s bike-centric college towns (Boulder, Davis), so we chose instead to focus on communities without an obvious bikeready population that are making it easy for people to ride to shops, restaurants, work, and more. Each of these towns recently received a gold, silver, or bronze award from the League based on bike-friendly infrastructure, education, and progressive city planning...

» GREEN VALLEY, AZ 25 miles from Tucson. Part of bike haven Pima County, where the local police actively advocate motorist and cyclist equality, Green Valley is the latest community in the county to double its bike lane miles (from 30 to 60) in the last five years.
 » SCOTTSDALE, AZ 12 miles from Phoenix. Talk about door-to-door service: A whopping 75 percent of homes here are within a halfmile of a bike path or lane.

The full article is currently here.