Boulder: Cyclist's Paradise

A recent four-day vacation to Colorado provided an excellent comparison of how different communities choose to integrate bicycles. Many cities in Colorado provide excellent cycling and walking infrastructure, Boulder in particular. What makes one city's attempt a success and another city's efforts fall short have to do with three basic issues: Car-Bike intersections, bike lanes, and signage.

Several creeks flow through the city, the most prominent being Boulder Creek. The city has created a series of parks and multi-use trails that parallel the creek, making it a hub of activity. Overpasses crossing the creek were constructed so that the trail passes, unimpeded, underneath motor vehicle traffic. These underpasses are generally well-lighted and for a Berkeley-Oakland cyclist, they are amazingly graffiti free. Where the trail meets an overpass, there are "exit ramps" that lead you off the trail to join any of intersecting city streets.

According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, about a third of cycling fatalities occur at intersections. Boulder and several other Colorado cities have crosswalks that are often raised slightly, forming a sort of speed bump that requires motor vehicle drivers to slow. Combine the raised pavement with signs that instruct drivers to yield to pedestrians and cyclists from either direction and you have a clear, easy-to-understand, and safer intersection.

Boulder's robust cycling community is undoubtedly due, in part, to the amount of available bike lanes and paths: 159 miles of on-street bike lanes and multi-use paths that includes 58 miles of paved multi-use pathways and 78 bicycle underpasses. Go to most any downtown Boulder street during midday and you're likely to see more parked bikes than parked cars.

Surveys of Americans have revealed that more would ride a bicycle if there were safer facilities provided for cycling. In cities where cycling infrastructure is improved, cycling increases dramatically. Statistics indicate that Boulder has about the same amount of cycle commuting as the Berkeley-Oakland Area, even though the Coloradans have done a lot more to make cycling safer and more accessible. I especially like this cyclist's vending machine provided by one of the local bike shops, chock full of things you might need from energy bars to bike tools to inner tubes.

For cycling and walking, Boulder provides great infrastructure. In short (pardon the pun): Boulder Rocks!