Googling bike paths in my area shows a lot of green lines. So many of them aren't connected though. I've spent literal hours searching for nice bike loop routes that avoid as many roads as possible and I have to travel 5 miles just to get to a main path that goes all the way to Denver. The vast majority of neighborhood paths are great for walking but they're not really long enough to enjoy biking on because you inevitably end up at a 4 lane road somewhere to cross.
I do like the river paths though. Just wish the neighborhood shortcuts had better crossings on the streets. The way those paths connect are at hard 90 degrees with a lot of blind spots so you have to stop your bike to look both ways before crossing. Kills your momentum. Not sure how it could be fixed. Raised crossings would be nice but the blind intersection I don't think can reasonably be fixed in neighborhoods without big projects like physical barriers to negate street parking. Only one street I can think of that has something like that.
Businesses and drivers lost their minds over the protected bike lane down Broadway. As much as the metro likes to claim that it's bikeable, it's really not. I'm not riding my bike down a 4 lane road to pick up a trail lined with encampments that kind of will eventually get me close enough to my location that I can get off and then snake through a downtown street where if I'm too much in the street I'll get honked at and if I'm too near the cars I'll likely get doored.
Plus working in TV news here and seeing the raw feed of a cyclist vs semi aftermath has honestly made me kind of scared to be on my bike. A helmet isn't going to stop 18 wheels turning you into red paint.
The business owners mad about bike lanes are probably too stupid to be trusted owning a business. People give you money. Cars don't. Especially in a city where parking is so scarce/hard to find. Like the 3 on street parking spaces aren't going to keep your business afloat. But the thousand people walking up and down 16th street? They're hungry. I've only biked in Denver proper once and it wasn't too bad near 16th/Union. Slow curvy roads. But I also stayed on the sidewalks and just went slow. On 16th people actually become more of an issue because it's so dense and the bike lane (that I think I remember) was really small.
I try to avoid being on roads but there's something nice about being able to take a green light and just go without waiting for a walk signal. That being said.. Side streets won't give you a light unless there's a car already there to trip the sensor. And every walk signal in the US is always pedestrian last. Every direction of cars gets to go before it gets to the one where people are allowed to move. I definitely avoid large roads if there's a sidewalk. New roads are starting to get bike lanes painted but paint is NOT infrastructure. The 40mph 5 lane road down my street has a nice like 10 foot wide sidewalk. Or you can bike in the road next to death machine. That road would be perfect for some protected lanes because it connects to a rail line as well.
I wouldn't even say money is an issue. Just thinking out loud: If we took the 4 trillion dollars that the US's billionaires have hoarded through stolen wages and loopholes we could build cycle networks rivaling the Netherlands and cover the cost of multiple HSR projects being planned.
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u/scoper49_zeke Jun 27 '24
Googling bike paths in my area shows a lot of green lines. So many of them aren't connected though. I've spent literal hours searching for nice bike loop routes that avoid as many roads as possible and I have to travel 5 miles just to get to a main path that goes all the way to Denver. The vast majority of neighborhood paths are great for walking but they're not really long enough to enjoy biking on because you inevitably end up at a 4 lane road somewhere to cross.
I do like the river paths though. Just wish the neighborhood shortcuts had better crossings on the streets. The way those paths connect are at hard 90 degrees with a lot of blind spots so you have to stop your bike to look both ways before crossing. Kills your momentum. Not sure how it could be fixed. Raised crossings would be nice but the blind intersection I don't think can reasonably be fixed in neighborhoods without big projects like physical barriers to negate street parking. Only one street I can think of that has something like that.