December 1 is the deadline for applications to the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee. Forms online. I applied for the last two go-rounds, thinking I could offer some insights regarding bicycling around Denver. They asked for a bio:
I saw the MBAC application link in the Lucky District 7 Newsletter, and thought it was time to step up, or ride the path to more bicycle protection as well as pedestrian safety.
I was a Denver Post paperboy, and delivered telegrams on my bike for Western Union. I have never owned a car, but drive my wife’s vehicles. I grew up on the Northside, and rode my bike everywhere, to the gravel pits up north Zuni, and across town to caddy at the Denver Country Club. There is hardly a corner of this town where I have not ridden a bike. Most of my commutes to Crestmoor Downs where I first gardened, to the Auraria Higher Education Center where I managed the grounds, and to Denver School of the Arts where I taught have been on a bicycle.
With another teacher at PS1, I taught a biking class in the late ‘90s, introducing inner city kids to Cherry Creek dirt trails. I bought a Specialized CREO pedal-assist e-bike two years ago, to keep up with my son, who is an avid bicyclist.
My experience and expertise in education and bicycling would be beneficial to the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee.
Neither time was I chosen to volunteer my time for once monthly meetings advising the city administration on how to promote safe bicycling and expand the infrastructure that would provide that. I’ve been on plenty of boards that do substantive things, like encouraging student scholarship in writing and recitation, awarding fellowships to teachers to increase their content expertise, leading a neighborhood organization that reviewed zoning and license applications, opening an art venue that delivered the first series of performance art productions in Denver. I figured the MBAC could use me. But maybe these advisory boards are not of much use.
The board attached to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) saw some disgruntled members after their recommendations were ignored regarding street realignments and bike lane expansion, on East Alameda Avenue and near Sloan’s Lake. City administrators seem stuck on recognizing the complaints of affluent residents ragging on Nextdoor rather than those citizens and committee members who participated in the planning process in open meetings who were negotiating the social contract, and not organizing on a social avatar.
DOTI is watering down safety projects, said a headline in the Denverite. Every few days on Nextdoor I had seen comments from the Wash Park Resident regarding the Alameda Avenue realignment, how it was disruptive to residents, who didn’t want the cut throughs on their sacred streets. I posted one comment saying I supported bicyclists and pedestrians over cars and the nasty traffic that has made Denver unsafe and unpleasant. I had already discussed the Broadway Bikeway with the former owner of the Skylark, angered by the disruption to his business and the obstacles presented to his rockabilly patrons, not many of whom ride bikes. An old friend had posted online about the plastic bollards growing in Whittier for no reason he could discern, ruining the aesthetic of the street. Too many people wanting less traffic without changes to their routines. Cars ruined the aesthetic of urban life.
I’ll not be applying to counsel the administration on its alternative traffic use and street alignments. Instead, I thought I would post all my ideas regarding bike use, automobile traffic mitigation, and infrastructure that could make a difference. Denver is crowded with cars, has been since Mayor Speer built the City Beautiful parkway named for him, and it’s caught up with us — highway engineers are even suggesting that adding lanes to highways will not ease congestion. While the Shared Streets Program is admirable for its intentions, if you look at the map of projects, it only covers 30 or 40 Denver blocks. In a city where there are 5700 lane miles of streets, 3100 miles of sidewalks, and less than 500 miles of bike trails in the city proper, Shared Streets is lobbying to add 5-10 miles of shared paths? I find this proposal embarrassing, as much as I am irked by the city’s backsliding on bike paths and lane realignments, or traffic calming.
The city state has outlawed handheld cellphone use, reduced speed limits, and allowed bicyclists to yield at Stops and Red lights, but more and more deaths to pedestrians and bicyclists occur each year. Inspired by elk bellows’ proposal to cut off central Denver to car traffic by commuters (February 16, 1978, Westword), I advance these tenets as part of my manifesto on policy changes to encourage bicycling on Denver streets:
- Place 4-way Stops or roundabouts on all neighborhood intersections.
- Place calming measures like speed bumps or corner bollards on all arterial streets.
- Construct protected lanes and traffic lights for bikes like the Broadway Bikeway on all major one-way corridors.
- Repeal the right-turn-on-red policy for cars across the board; many vehicles are too large to recognize a bicyclist’s right to ride alongside parked cars.
- Any SUV named after a mountain (Denali) or a territory (Yukon) or a neighborhood known for sprawl (Suburban) should be restricted to state highways and outlawed on neighborhood streets.
- Parking for new developments should include no requirement for off street parking. Fill the streets with cars so people are forced to bike or scoot or walk or share.
- No darkened front windows on cars so others can judge the driver’s intentions by looking them in the eye.
- Make cars the responsible party to be blamed for any accident involving pedestrians, bicyclists, or scooters.
- Make all busses free, and use smaller busses to access neighborhoods more frequently.
Time and money and people’s obstinacy towards change make most of these proposals out of the question. I’m not one to sit through endless meetings hammering out compromises that are then ignored when a few loud affluent types play their trump. But feel free to apply to the MBAC and adopt any tenets that you find amusing. You have my blessing.
