AURORA | Joe Sejut said it takes him about an hour to commute by bicycle from his home in Lowry to work in east Aurora.
“It’s kind of a tale of two cities. If you can use the bike paths, it’s a wonderful experience,” he said. “If your route forces you to ride on the streets, then it’s bad. We have lots of 4-lane, 40-mile-an-hour streets. That means you have traffic going 45 miles an hour and you have left-hand turn lanes at every intersection. Those are deadly for cyclists, absolutely deadly.”
Sejut says he uses the High Line Canal and Toll Gate Creek trails to get to Treads, a bicycle shop where he works in sales on East Iliff Avenue near Buckley Road.
He said he mostly avoids Aurora’s city streets that offer little in the way of dedicated bicycle lanes.
With the Regional Transportation District’s Aurora light rail line set to open in 2016, the city’s planning department is working to improve connections between regional trails and the city’s future light rail stops, one of which will be located near Sejut’s work on Iliff.
Most of that money for much-needed bike and pedestrian improvements will come from the Denver Regional Council of Governments, who approved $17.5 million for bike/pedestrian transportation infrastructure improvement projects in Aurora this year. That’s in addition to $5.4 million that will be matched by the city, says Mac Callison, Aurora’s transportation planning supervisor.
According to Callison, the money will be spent on four citywide bike/pedestrian projects to serve future light rail riders. He said the paths will all be concrete, at least 10 feet wide and lighted so they can be used at night.
A noteworthy bike/pedestrian path will run parallel to Toll Gate Creek where it begins at Chambers Road and Delaney Farm and winds northwest to Interstate 225, all the way up to Montview Boulevard. The path will serve commuters on the future Fitzsimons, Colfax and 13th Avenue light rail stations.
Callison said part of that project also includes creating an underpass for commuters to travel beneath Colfax Avenue so they don’t have to cross at Fitzsimons Parkway and Potomac Street to access the light rail station there.
Students and staff who get off at the Fitzsimons light rail station at Montview can also look forward to a bike/pedestrian path to connect into the Anschutz Medical Campus via Ursula Street in the next year, according to Callison.
The final two projects will provide a bike/pedestrian route for commuters using the future Florida and Aurora Metro Center light rail stations near the Town Center at Aurora mall.
One path will cross I-225 from Florida Avenue and will ease travel across the interstate for Gateway High School students as well as visitors and staff at the Aurora Medical Center.
Aurora’s Metro Center Station, which will replace what’s now a modest patch of concrete and road that serves as a bus transfer at Sable Boulevard and East Centrepoint Drive, will also be getting a bike/pedestrian path to connect to the Aurora Municipal Center and the Arapahoe County Services building.
“We’re trying to get these projects to completion as soon as possible to coordinate with the light rail opening,” Callison said.
Bicyclists, overall, are rude, pompous, inconsiderate, and nasty! They yell out “ON YOUR LEFT” and sometimes I’m not thinking (my mind is clear while I walk the Highline), and they call you an idiot and speed off. One of them hit my dog with their bike and another called me a “F*****g a**hole” b/c I couldn’t move in time. IT IS THE **HIGHLINE CANAL TRAIL**…..*****NOT THE HIGHLINE BIKE PATH***** GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!
Stay right of center at all times and you’ll be fine. Usually when I say on your left and then thank you, people say you’re welcome. Aurora’s trails are great, if you can use them to get where you need to go, or if you are just getting in some miles. The roads are still designed for and dominated by motor vehicles. We need more bike lanes that connect commuters to destinations.