Like most urban bicycle riders, I look down on people driving cars.
I mean, I look down into their cars when they pull around me, stop at intersections with me, or as they inadvertently run me off the road.
From atop the duct-taped saddle of my precious 1972 Schwinn Sports Tourer, I see why it is so dangerous to ride a bike on so many Denver and Aurora streets. It doesn’t have to be like that. Aurora officials are working hard to make it safer to pedal to places near and far from home. Right now they’re trying to figure out a way to get bike riders safely to and from the Anschutz Medical Campus. As it stands, riding a bike there and on most streets has a sphincter-pucker quotient of 9.6 on a good day.
From my treacherous perch, I watch drivers text, peel hard-boiled eggs, apply mascara (really stupid on so many levels), pick noses and radio stations and do everything but pay close attention to what’s going on around them.
As a car driver myself, I get it. You expect to see only cars and the occasional, worrisome pedestrian. Bikes are so different than cars. They’re unexpected, they’re silent, they appear seemingly out of thin air.
Both Denver and Aurora are taking the bicycling thing seriously. Denver is far ahead of Aurora, creating the region’s first dedicated, segregated bike lanes, one Downtown on 15th Street. The Anschutz area needs dedicated, segregated bike lanes.
You’re probably thinking that this is just all so much fad. Why put serious bike-lane money in a place where it’s often cold, snowy and jammed with cars on most of the important streets? It’s because more people than ever want to ride their bikes to as many places as they can, but getting there alive is a gamble.
I know what’s possible. In the Dutch city of Harlem, just east of Amsterdam, I watched old women in dresses and sensible heels climb onto bikes, baskets filled with groceries or laundry, and pedal through snow flurries on cobblestone streets. Why? Because it’s easier, faster, healthier, cheaper and imminently more enjoyable than climbing into a couple tons of steel, fighting stop-and-go traffic and circling endlessly in hopes of a better parking spot. In Holland, 27 percent of every trip to somewhere outside the house is made on a bike. It wasn’t always like that, but determined to help people get to where they’re going, the government started creating lanes just for bikes. What they found was the answer to the chicken-or-egg riddle. Once the streets became safer for bikers, more and more bikers came out to ride.
In places like New York City, Copenhagen and Montreal, bikers began turning out en masse when cities made common sense changes. Destinations here, such as Anschutz, where it’s likely lots of bikers would ride to, must have safer routes.
A perfect example of poor planning is RTD’s Nine Mile Station at Parker and Peoria. It’s the terminus of a busy light-rail line and RTD bus depot. If you leave Nine Mile any way but inside a car, it’s a nightmare. If you make it alive across Parker Road at Peoria, there’s a sidewalk on only one side of the street. I’ve seen a few brave bikers on that sidewalk, I’ve never seen any biker with enough nerve to ride on Peoria. Too bad. Since Aurora is filled with easy-to-ride neighborhood streets, just making a few arterials safer for bikers — especially to mass-transit depots — would probably get thousands of people out of their cars and onto a bike. Just painting stripes and pictures of a bike on the road doesn’t cut it. To a biker, these faux bike lanes are as comforting as drawing a parachute on your back instead of giving you a real one before you jump from a plane. As city planners have found in other cities, green lanes, or lanes with barriers between cars and bikers really work.
What it means is that some Aurora streets, maximized for car travel, would have to be made more troublesome for traffic to accommodate safer travel for bikes. The trade-off? Negligible reduction in commuter times for motorists, and a compelling invitation to get to where you’re going healthier, alive and without paying penance at the pump or on the far side of a parking lot.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
How astute of Mr. Perry to notice women farding.
I’m all for more bikes! Less cars for us old farts to deal with on our old fart streets and old fart parking lots.
It’s obnoxious to see bikers next to you while you’re driving b/c it creates anxiety. Take the Highline!! If streets were for bikes they would all be “paths”. They are STREETS and AVENUES for a reason…cars!!
How do you propose to pay for these new “bike” roads? Cars are assessed an annual license fee to drive on public property. These fees go toward our roads and bridges. The drivers also pay gasoline taxes to help pay for roads. Are you suggesting that bikes are assessed high enough license fees to help pay for the “bike” roads? Plus, perhaps a per-mileage-ridden fee? If bikes are supposed to be treated equal to cars, them appropriate fees should be charged.
What about using a Solowheel, and staying on the sidewalks? The Solowheel is ideal for getting to the train station, and is 4 to 5 times faster than walking. I have ridden my Solowheel to Nine Mile station multiple times. While this suggestion may not work for everyone, since Solowheels do cost more than bicycles, and like bicycles, Solowheel riding is a skill that must be learned, the Solowheel is an option available to the majority of Light Rail riders. For more information on the Solowheel, go to http://www.solowheelcolorado.com