Denver Detours Cyclists
Denver's idea of a bike detour - a three and a half foot wide cage for runners, cyclists, and walkers.
This is in Denver's City Park, a park used by runners, walkers, and families with strollers. (And today by cross-country skiers!) The park sits astride two major bike routes. It is also the major walking and biking path to East High School.
There is some construction going on in the park, and the photo shows what Denver considers an adequate detour for all those users and the bike routes: a corridor narrower than a Cooper Mini to "accommodate" two-way bike traffic and runners and walkers and strollers.
It is dangerous. It is completely ridiculous. It is also the way Denver thinks about bikes.
If you are burning gas, you get two dozen detour signs, reasonable detour paths, and flagmen. If you aren't burning gas, you get a narrow, poorly marked, unusable, unsafe cage.
To add to the absurdity, look on the other side of the fence - the area behind the red arrow is a good place. This thing could be a safe width. There is room for construction trucks and two-way bike traffic and for everyone else. But Denver has jammed all non-vehicle traffic into a space smaller than an grocery store checkout line.
Also, check out where the detour map is placed. (Marked with the red arrow.) To read the map without binoculars, one must stop in the cage, blocking the detour. What nimrod thought of this?
Moreover, though I can't illustrate this without several tedious paragraphs and a map, the detour takes about the most circuitous route through the park that is possible. About the only way to make it longer would be to add a couple laps around the elephant house at the zoo.
Could Denver have designated a direct, sensible detour? Yep. But a direct route might interfere slightly with the gas burners, and in Denver, that's not going to happen.
Denver really needs a real bike planner.
