We left the house at 9:45 Saturday morning. It was perfect cycling weather, and when we hit the Cherry Creek Trail, it was obvious everybody else in town thought so too.
Dogs and joggers ran for their lives as bicycle racers zipped past; a small child toddled off the grass and practically lost a limb; and a fistfight nearly erupted at Confluence Park between an uptight guy decked out in red-and-yellow bicycle-racing duds and a mellow cruiser wired to an iPod who absentmindedly cut him off at an intersection.
We glided carefully through the madness and turned south.
The South Platte Trail was blessedly uncrowded, and soon we discovered why. The river had flooded it in several places between Confluence Park and the C-470 bike path. We detoured across streets or pedaled through the murky water and kept riding in our mud-splattered bike shorts.
By the time we arrived for lunch at a restaurant in Littleton, we were ravenous. We locked our bikes to a pole and took a table far from anyone who might have functioning olfactory receptors.
It was just another day on Denver’s insane bike trails.
Denver has the distinction of being the only city ever to decline in the national ranks for bicycle-friendliness. It came at a time when bicycle sales were through the roof and the mayor’s Greenprint Denver plan boasted a commitment to “urban centers that support walking, biking and mass transit.”
One reason the bike trails are so crowded, said Dan Grunig of Bicycle Colorado, is because many Denver streets lack accommodations for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Bike lanes and sidewalks are spotty around town. “Denver hasn’t adopted a complete streets policy” that would make all streets accessible to bicycles, pedestrians and transit as well as cars. “That drives bicycles and pedestrians to the trails,” he said.
No kidding. It’s either that, or get mowed down by somebody committing DWHUA. (Driving With Head Up where it definitely shouldn’t be).
Elizabeth Preston, director of communications for the League of American Bicyclists, said Denver was busted to bronze because the city failed to fulfill many of the promises in its Bicycle Master Plan.
“It originally was designated silver because Denver had a lot of projects planned to make the city more bicycle friendly,” she said. In October 2005, it dropped to bronze because it just wasn’t happening.
David Rapp, president of BikeDenver, said among the factors that likely affected Denver’s reputation were the failure of the city to build the proposed bicycle station at Union Station; the cancellation by Denver Police of the bicycle safety program in the schools; the lack of bicycle-pedestrian bridges over I-25 near the University of Denver; and little progress in expanding bike routes.
Denver’s bicycle planner James Mackay said it all boils down to money. “The budget’s been pretty constrained,” he said, and that’s not likely to change. “In fact I think the lean years of ’03 and ’04 are going to look ample compared to ’08.”
So what’s a cyclist to do?
Hold your ground, cycling advocates say.
“Personally, when I ride if there’s an opportunity to use a bike lane, I take it,” said Rapp, “and when I need it for personal safety, I position my bike to use an entire car lane.”
The thing cyclists shouldn’t do is what we did after lunch on Saturday: ride on the sidewalks.
Even though we didn’t encounter a single pedestrian for more than five miles, it was a death-defying trip back to the South Platte Trail along Bowles Avenue.
The sidewalks would end inexplicably in random places, forcing us to cross the busy suburban SUV speedway; we had to watch motorists closely at intersections because they weren’t expecting us; and we encountered all manner of debris from traffic signs to broken glass and broken tree limbs.
Motorists need to learn to share the public right-of-way, said Steve Cook, congestion mitigation manager for the Denver Regional Council of Governments. “Take the lane,” he said.
If that’s too scary, ditch Denver and ride in Boulder.
It’s Colorado’s only city with a solid gold bicycle-friendly ranking.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
