Ro Troia

Boulder Colorado always ahead of the curve

Whether you are a worldwide athlete training for your next marathon, or you’ve decided to save on gas and ride your bicycle to work or run down to the grocery store, you will feel right at home in Boulder Colorado.  Everyday you see people riding to work in work clothes and dresses, all decked out with baskets on the front and trailers on the back. Families ride together on tandem bikes or with infants tagging along in attached bicycle trailers.  As a driver, you must be very alert and always look twice before making a turn.  I myself have spent many Sundays riding my bike around to Open Houses.

Boulder Colorado’s street bikeways are an intregal part of the Boulder Transporation system.  The Boulder County Transporation Department adds shoulders for bike use to all roads receiving a pavement overlay if that road has historically experienced significent bike use in the past.  In additon to their aproximate $3 million transporation budget for their roadways, their imporvements and additions of on-street bikeways is made possible by taxes specifcally approved by the voters to specifically improve alternative methods.  Just recently Boulder County won a grant of $150,000 received in the state lottery to connect Boulder to Superior (a neighborhood south of Boulder off of Rt.36).  The finalization of the Marshall-Superior-Coalton Trail system will connect the city of Boulder to the town of Superior, adding 1.5 miles of natural-surfaced trail extending from Boulder’s Cowdrey Draw Trail on the northwest to Superior’s Mayhoffer/Singletree Trail at the southeast.

OK, we all know the bicycling is healthy for you, which is so Boulder, but you actually can get somewhere in Boulder faster by riding your bike.  If the cars make you nervous (they always make me nervous and for good reasons too! ) you can ride any of the paved mulit-use paths such as the beautiful Boulder Creek Path that runs East to West and follows the middle Boulder Creek from Fourmile Canyon on the western end to Arapahoe Rd. near Cherryvale Rd. on the east just past Flatirons Golf Course.

Bear Creek Trail runs Southwest to Northeast and follows Bear Creek from CU Research Park (Foothills and Colorado Ave.) to the corner of Table Mese Dr and Broadway.

All the trails have links to other paths and city parks.  The Broadway Boogie Trail which travels North-South follows Broadway from Greenbriar Blvd in the south to its connection with Boulder Creek Path near Boulder High School (Arapahoe and 17th) which gives you access to the areas of Table Mesa, CU, The Hill and downtown Boulder.

A great commuter path called Centennial Trail that goes East-West connects CU to the intersection of Baseline and Cherryvale with a branch that leads off of Foothills Parkway north to Jay Road where it hits the Cottonwood Trail.

Boulder Colorado also has awesome off road trails (unpaved) to ride, although, all cyclists must yield to hikers and equestrians and stay on the established trails marked with the international bike symbol.  All Boulder Mountain Park trails are closed to cyclists.  Please visit the Boulder County Open Space and Mountain Parks website:  www.ci.boulder.co.us/openspace for more information on these trails.

And if you get too tired, you can always get back on the bus because they all carry bike racks on the front of the buses.

Tags: Tags: alternative transporation, bicycling, bike to work, boulder colorado, Boulder real estate, cycling

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Boulder Subdivisions and Neighborhoods, Focus on Boulder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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