The City of Boulder is again considering allowing cyclists to use a route that would connect Shanahan Ridge in South Boulder with the Doudy Draw trailhead near Eldorado Springs, reviving a debate between cyclists and conservationists that has divided residents for years.
The current push grew out of mountain bikers’ requests for a safer bike connection during the city’s multimodal survey in April. The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance, an advocacy group that has successfully pushed to maintain bike access in several cases this year, is also championing the route.
“This is about something simple: safe, connected trail access south of town,” the BMA wrote in an April post asking its followers to take the survey. “Right now, if you want to ride from Boulder to Marshall Mesa or to Doudy Draw, you’re pushed onto Highway 170. For adults, that’s uncomfortable. For kids, it’s often a non-starter. We can do better.”
The BMA’s proposal drew strong opposition from some hikers and environmentalists, most notably PLAN-Boulder County, a group focused primarily on preserving open space. In an Aug. 7 email, PLAN urged followers to oppose the bike connection, saying it would harm the area’s grasslands, disrupt hikers and runners who value pedestrian-only trails, and increase maintenance and enforcement costs for the city.
City staff say nothing has been decided and that they will not make a recommendation until residents weigh in. A questionnaire on this and other proposed transportation changes is open until the end of the month.
The questionnaire asks residents whether they would stop using the city’s southern trails if bikes were allowed and which considerations — including safety, environmental impacts and conflicts among trail users — matter most to them.
City staff say that a bike connection would likely improve safety and equity while encouraging more people to travel without cars. Their evaluation also says it could damage habitat and contribute to the spread of invasive plants.
The proposed route would connect the Shanahan Ridge neighborhood in South Boulder to the Doudy Draw trailhead. It would begin at the Greenbriar Connector, follow Thomas Lane to the South Boulder Creek West Trail and continue south along the Mesa Trail to the South Mesa and Doudy Draw trailheads. These existing trails run through the Colorado Tallgrass Prairie State Natural Area, which is home to rare plant species, ground-nesting birds, rare butterflies and other wildlife.
“Adding bikes will likely increase overall visitation, which may affect wildlife movement, access to water, and use of the area,” the staff evaluation reads.
In a recent open letter to PLAN-Boulder County, the BMA argued that environmental protection and a bike connection are not mutually exclusive and that existing trails could be rerouted away from the most sensitive areas.
City staff are scheduled to provide an update to the Open Space Board of Trustees in October. If the board recommends that the city council consider the issue, a vote is expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Strong feelings on both sides
The possible bike connection has dominated recent Open Space Board of Trustees meetings, with residents on both sides raising concerns about safety and fairness.
Karen Bell, a resident who opposes the bike connection, told board members at an Aug. 12 meeting about an elderly friend with whom she has hiked for nearly 30 years.
“We used to ride bikes together until chemotherapy ruined her sense of balance,” Bell said. She added that they now hike pedestrian-only South Boulder trails because her friend cannot move off the trail quickly for passing bikes. “Adding a few more bikes to the already extensive Boulder bike trail system at the expense of the safety of elderly hikers isn’t an equitable trade,” she said.
At the same meeting, Bev Baker of the Boulder County Audubon Society said cyclists would harm an area that supports “multiple species of rare and declining grassland nesting birds, plants, and pollinators.”
Some opponents argued that cyclists can avoid Highway 170, also known as Eldorado Springs Drive, by taking a slightly longer path via the Community Ditch Trail to the south.
Cyclists who spoke at the meeting said they remain concerned about riding on Marshall Road along that route.
“Both Marshall Road and Eldo Canyon are rat runs for distracted drivers,” said Eleanor Hodby, adding that her daughter had been hit by a driver while riding in a bike lane and wearing a high-visibility vest.
“I am sick and tired of worrying if she will come home safely from a mountain bike ride in the South Boulder area whilst well-established plans for a safe, well-designed off-road bike route to Doudy Draw gets bounced around between endless meetings.”
Several members of Fairview High School’s mountain bike team came to the Aug. 12 board meeting to advocate for the bike connection. Team member Xander Lewis said riders must cross Marshall Road twice to reach the Marshall Mesa and Doudy Draw trail systems.
“Drivers are often coming off the highway, and many are still going 40 or even 50 miles per hour,” he said. “Both BJC [Boulder Junior Cycling] and the Fairview High School teams have had multiple close calls. We’ve had drivers come within inches of our handlebars, yell at us, flip us off, and in some cases, hit us. I’ve already been hit once by a car, and while I got lucky, many haven’t.”
A debate dating to 2011
Opponents of the proposed connection also argue that South Boulder’s bike access was settled through a West Trail Study Area (TSA) planning process in 2011. Whether to allow mountain bikes on some trails was one of the few issues on which the community group leading that process couldn’t agree. The group left the decision to staff and the Open Space Board of Trustees. The board then recommended that the Boulder City Council maintain a mountain bike ban on nearly all city trails. In March 2011, the council voted to maintain the bike ban.
A reroute of the South Boulder Creek West Trail is allowed under guidance in the West Trail Study Area plan, but city staff have said that “adding bikers would be counter to previous plan guidance.”
PLAN-Boulder County argued that “our current West TSA Plan took 2 years and was notable as one of the city’s most in-depth and complete public processes” and “it cannot be easily changed without unraveling the interwoven agreements.”
The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance, which has long chafed at the city’s bike ban, disagreed. In its recent open letter to PLAN, the BMA argued that “considering one specific connection does not mean throwing out the West TSA or reopening every decision made in 2011.”
“Plans for public lands need to be able to respond when conditions, community needs and opportunities change,” the group wrote. “The question before the City today is much narrower: can one safe bike connection be created while protecting the conservation and visitor experience goals of the West TSA?”
The cyclists (ie rich people that moved here) are terribly inconsiderate of anyone walking. I live by Fairview and their “Mountain bike” team in groups of 15-20 fly through all the sidewalks blocking all paths and incredibly fast speeds with no warnings, no bells, no attempt at single or double file just complete disregard for anyone that’s unfortunate enough to walk on a public sidewalk. As someone who has never owned a car, the entitlement of the gentrifying cyclists that have to drive their car in order to ride their bike and have no respect for the land or the community is more a problem for the safety of cyclists than cars.
Bruce, this is a great piece of satire. This is a comment that smacks of the hippies of “Old Boulder”. I appreciate you pointing out that no poor people or anyone from Colorado has ever ridden a bike. I look forward to the months of sensationalist nonsense like this as the way forward is decided, I’ve got my popcorn.
Those affluent, gentrifying hooligans are a scourge! Joking aside, this is a hyperbolic comment that has lost all sense of perspective.
Those billionaires flying into Boulder to ride their carbon fiber bikes purposely aiming at us original settlers while we hike to the farmers market. Get off my lawn I say!
“Team member Xander Lewis said riders must cross Marshall Road twice to reach the Marshall Mesa and Doudy Draw trail systems.” There is very little traffic on these few hundred yards of Marshall Road. The stretch is frequently used for roller skiing for this very reason. City staff might collect useful information like a traffic count on this stretch of road. Put in a bike lane if needed. Also note that an underpass exists a few blocks from Fairview allowing a crossing under Broadway which the Fairview cyclists choose not to use. (Is the idea of training for mountain biking to ride the shortest distance?) Fairview mountain bikers already have immediate access to some of the best mountain biking in Colorado, why not appreciate this instead of seeking to degrade a rare protected (undeveloped) area on the Front Range. Where is the commitment to the environment on the part of these Fairview students? Here’s a bold idea: Instead of making proposals to harm open space, begin a program to encourage Fairview students to ride bicycles to school and turn that massive parking lot into a park!
“Both Marshall Road and Eldo Canyon are rat runs for distracted drivers,” said Eleanor Hodby.” Eleanor, it is not necessary to ride on the Eldo Canyon road to reach Dowdy Draw. There is an underpass that allows access, crossing under Hwy 93. Again, the few hundred yards of Marshall Road mentioned above have virtually no traffic, calling this stretch a “rat run for distracted drivers” is impressive hyperbole.
The Boulder County vehicle traffic and bicycle count (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/c5f4ffbc992c43c6a3f692aeb891215e) for Marshall Road show 276 bicycles and 310 vehicles annual average daily traffic (AADT) in 2022 and 142 bicycles and 370 vehicles AADT in 2023. The decrease in bicycles in 2023 is likely due to construction on the Marshall Mesa Trailhead.
Exactly this; there is already a reasonably convenient route.
If the bike community was worried about safety, they’d be up in arms about the NE corner of the city (47th and Iris/Jay to 63rd/Jay) and it’s very marginal connections into central Boulder and Gunbarrel.
But this proposal isn’t about safety. Its an attempt to try to normalize e-bike usage everywhere regardless of its impacts on other users or habitat.
The bike community was up in arms about safety in that NE corner of town. Remember Magnus White? Have you seen the new bike path being built along Diagonal?
I used to ride my bike all over that anrea and I hardly ever had to go on the road. It was my only form of transportation for years. reserve open space trails for hikers. We have to deal with cyclists everywhere else and they have run me off the road ,and off the trails so many times . So many don’t follow etiquette and feel that they have right of way.
I walk out at Cottonwood there’s a tiny offshoot trail that lets me get away from the cyclists and now they take that instead of the bike trail . They’re rude and inconsiderate and now there’s E bikes and e motorcycles that come up on the little trails. I’m choosing to try to get away from them and they’re chasing me down. Please don’t take away the little bit of freedom we have to walk comfortably without being rundown. I’ve had them pass so close that they’ve knocked me over and they don’t even look up or they yell at me for walking on a multi use trail where I have the right away.
We are one of the very few communities that honor trails for hikers only. Bikers have access to more than 80% of our county trails. Many bikers in this town have not earned the respect of hikers because of their need for speed and adrenaline. Our town is aging and elders and children need safe places to hike without bike interference. Bikes as we know degrade the trails and are degrading to wildlife. The bike lobby here is very strong. Nature cannot attend meetings or lobby. Many elders cannot either.
KEEP BIKES OFF OF OUR SOUTH BOULDER TRAILS!
These are not county trails. They are City of Boulder OSMP trails. Bikes actually have access to only about 30% of OSMP trails. Even this is disingenuous since 26 of those miles are the Lobo trail and coal Creek trail which are more commuter bike path than trails in nature. Not to mention the several other short segments of legal trail that are far away from other trails or paths such as those at Mud Lake which has no reasonable way to access without using a car.
All of the natural trails in the mountains near the city are off limits to bikes. So the city is essentially forcing cyclists that live in the city of Boulder to drive to a trailhead rather than ride trails near where they live. This proposal is simply trying to make it easier to be car free and access the trails we are allowed to ride in a safe manner.
Agreed. People are not looking at facts. And a HUGE fact is that my tax dollars pay for these hiker-only trails. I one to have to tide to a trailhead to ride or ride on the road and get buzzed by cars, even with blinking lights are bright clothing. Bikes are very limited and ,as BMA pointed out, It is about one specific trail, not overturning everything. Circumstances change and it is time to revisit.
Oh come on, there are tons of county trails for mountain bikes, also paid for by tax payers. I’m generally for this trail, but this type of attitude is why it will get shot down.
You are confusing City and County owned trails. This is a proposal for City of Boulder owned trails, not Boulder County.
I also am against the “I pay taxes so I should be entitled to every benefit” reason, as that is a race to the bottom that our current federal administration is using to cut just about any federal program that isn’t benefitting billionaires.
Your argument is misleading. The “80% of trails” number is incorrect; that’s Boulder County, not City of Boulder OSMP. On OSMP, bikes are allowed on only about 37% of trail miles.
Nobody is arguing every South Boulder trail should be opened to bikes. The proposal is for a limited connection, and the idea that bikes uniquely destroy trails and wildlife just isn’t supported by the research. Hikers, bikes, dogs, and horses all have impacts; trail design, conditions, and user behavior matter far more than whether someone is on a bike.
We can preserve plenty of pedestrian-only trails while still creating a safe, well-designed bike connection. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Bikes are not harming open space. Saying so is impressive hyperbole.
Studies have shown that wildlife is actually less disturbed by fast moving things like bikes than they are by slow moving things like hikers. Also, many more recent studies (with much better scientific process used than those studies from the 1980s hikers always use) show that bikes themselves do not cause more damage to the trail surface than hikers.
As a hiker and bicyclist, as far as trail erosion, the trails in Boulder I see in the worst shape with the most social trails and trail widening are hiker only trails.
Additionally, the whole point of opening this one new trail to bikes is precisely to allow more people to ride to the trails without using their car. Maybe this kind of encouragement would also motivate kids to ride to school and to the trails.
Josh,
There is ample evidence on both sides of this argument. The mountain bike community will argue that mountain biking does no more harm to this habitat than other permitted trail uses, and the conservation minded community will argue the contrary. Each side will present research and evidence to support their arguments and dispute the research and evidence presented by the other side. The debate will then devolve into which side’s research is more credible, and the debate simply continues.
What is not debatable is that once the harm is done, it is irreversible. Once a species is eliminated from the Colorado Tallgrass Prairie Natural Area, it is gone forever and will not return. Similarly, once an invasive species is introduced, it is extremely difficult to remove it. This makes the bar to changing the designation of this habitat very, very high.
You need to add that once a cyclist is killed by a car they too are never coming back
Ron,
True, but the risks are not equivalent. There hasn’t been a single crash reported on Marshall Road in the past 27 years. There have been many reported on the streets surrounding Fairview High School and 153 on Greenbrier Boulevard alone. A cyclist is at greater risk in front of Fairview than on Marshall Road.
Sounds like a great argument to start a second study on how to improve safety in front of a school!
Wendy,
Studying things is great! You can study things to death and not accomplish anything. I would recommend actually improving bicycle safety on Marshall Road. Boulder County has 60 feet of right-of-way on Marshall Road, which allows for 6-foot paved shoulders on both sides. If safety on Marshall Road really is a concern, then this is the most expedient means to address to address those concerns.
I strongly support the bike connector trail in South Boulder.
For nearly 40 years, the City of Boulder has treated bikes as second-class trail citizens. Let’s review the numbers:
Boulder OSMP maintains approximately 155 miles of trails. Only about 58 miles are designated for bicycles. That leaves roughly 97 miles — nearly two-thirds of the system — closed to bikes.
And the disparity is greatest where you might least expect it: Boulder’s iconic western open space. BMA estimates that 70 miles of trails between Eldorado Springs and Wonderland Lake remain entirely closed to bikes.
This isn’t an accident. It has deep roots.
In 1986, Boulder voters amended the City Charter to define the purposes of Open Space. Among them:
(c) Preservation of land for passive recreational use, such as hiking, photography or nature studies, and, if specifically designated, bicycling, horseback riding, or fishing.
Boulder’s Charter expressly recognizes bicycling as a legitimate passive recreational use of Open Space. But unlike hiking, biking is allowed only “if specifically designated.”
Nearly 40 years later, maybe it’s time to ask whether that presumption still makes sense. Scientific evidence does not support the blanket assumption that mountain biking is inherently more environmentally damaging than hiking.
Scarcity is the wrong mindset.
Re-designating existing trails is only part of the answer. The bigger problem, in my opinion, is approaching open space with a scarcity mindset. For decades, Boulder has treated trails as a scarce resource to be rationed. Hikers want fewer bikes. Mountain bikers want more access. Equestrians want safe trails. Conservation advocates want less impact. We fight over the same miles of trail and inevitably somebody loses.
What if we stopped fighting over scarcity and created abundance instead?
BUILD MORE TRAILS! We have the space. We clearly have the demand.
I’m a mountain biker, as well as a hiker, trail runner, and environmentalist. I’ll readily admit that shared-use trails aren’t always the best answer. So let’s design for both. Build more thoughtfully designed shared-use trails where shared use works.
Build hike-only trails where a quiet pedestrian experience is the goal. And yes, build bike-focused and bike-only trails where riders can actually ride mountain bikes the way they’re intended to be ridden. Purpose-built trails can concentrate use, create better experiences, reduce user conflict, and give land managers tools to manage recreation and protect sensitive areas rather than simply prohibit access.
Boulder is one of the great outdoor communities in America, but that status isn’t inevitable. Our population has grown. Outdoor recreation has evolved. Our trail system should evolve with it to remain vibrant and relevant. We shouldn’t still be fighting a 1980s battle over how to divide up a fixed supply of trails.
Protect more. Build more. Ride more. Hike more.
We can protect what makes this place extraordinary while creating more opportunities for people to experience it. But first we have to stop treating conservation and recreation as a zero-sum game.
So well said. In Boulder, the environmental argument against any new trail is often overstated. The science supports being selective about where trails go, not a blanket conclusion that adding trails is environmentally irresponsible. Open space is public; we should let the public get to use it! Secret trails born of scarcity cause more damage than constructing new, well-managed trails.
Exactly.
There are 46,530 in OSMP, compared with 13,000 acres in the developed city, so we shouldn’t need to fight over scraps.
The constant comparison between “conservationists” and “recreationalists” is absolutely wrong, and totally confuses the issue. I’m a hard-core environmentalist, and know that bicycles riding on a carefully designed trail harm nothing, in spite of the unscientific scare tactics.
Overall, we have a big problem with cars. Everything else barely matters. Anything that results in one less car trip is good for the environment and our personal safety.
Cyclists are often not good a sharing trails.
Hikers are often not good at sharing trails. Even with other hikers.
I’m a little confused. It looks like the proposed bike connection is on top of an existing trail (Greenbriar->Lower Big Bluestem->Thomas Lane->S Boulder Creek West->Mesa). Is the proposal to open this existing hiking-only trail to bicycles or to re-route/create another trail that would be used for bicyclists?
Here’s what the OSMP Draft Package of Solutions says about this proposal: “This potential trail connection would plan to reroute portions of existing trails to create a
continuous multi-use route built to OSMP bike design standards. The connection would begin at the Greenbriar Connector, follow Thomas Lane to the South Boulder Creek West Trail, and continue south along the Mesa Trail to the South Mesa and Doudy Draw Trailheads. While a potential approach for how a southwest bike trail connection could be made is presented here, no recommendation has been made regarding whether it should be included in the Multimodal Assessment Project’s final recommendations Community feedback will help inform the next steps and any future recommendation.
This area could benefit from a bike specific parallel trail, which would address a lot of the concerns. Also, I feel the wildlife disruption concerns are a bit overblown, considering that off-leash dogs roaming off trail are pervasive in this area.
Additionally, the open space in question for the proposed bike access is allowed to have foot travel off trail. So hikers are technically allowed to walk where ever they please and often do without regard for wildlife and then have the hutzpah to tell bikes they are bad for conservation by riding on established trails.
I am generally against adding mountain bike trails to Boulder Open Space in natural habitat or where there is significant hiker conflict but this trail is a necessary for bike access and safety, the need to get cyclists off the road to get to the Dowdy Draw and Marshall Mesa is great. Realistically, use is going to be very high and hikers will not use a single track trail anymore after there is bike access. The South Boulder Creek Connector is basically already a double track road and is a reasonable connection, with opportunity to minimize user conflict or cause damage. For environmental reasons, eliminate the Greenbriar Connector part of the trial and create a path on the West side of 93 to the trailhead.
Let’s prioritize a portion of undeveloped open space, that can be accessed easily from town and has actual elevation gain, for mountain biking first. Make a place for bikes. It is time. Like build new trails and prioritize a chunk of undeveloped open space for this popular recreational use, mountain biking. We have done it for hiking all over the place. Traditional mountain biking does not have more environmental impact than hiking, it’s just that it is a newer way to enjoy nature than hiking and many of the people fighting against this moved here in the 1970s as adults, before it became popular, and they never got into it and they don’t understand it and they say things that are simply not true and hide behind environmentalism because they maybe think EVERYTHING should be for them? I’m NOT for changing Chautauqua or our 100s of miles of ped/horse only. I love those too. I’m saying: New trails.
If you care about environmental impact, you will do it. Because the amount of car miles driven by people to go for a mountain bike ride because Boulder has never created an actual easily accessible place for legit real uphill mountain biking, is large.
We have endless acres for ONLY conservation and ONLY hiking and ONLY homes. But none for legit mountain biking as the primary first use.
I do all of the things. And I LOVE nature and trails and I feel so grateful to live here. But, my feet can only handle so much hiking. Mountain biking has given me a second chapter and honestly, it makes me feel way better than a hike. It’s going to keep me young and less depressed. I like to climb. I hate going fast downhill. I’m not a “rich outsider” as the first commenter implied, though I would love to be rich so I’m going to keep trying. I moved here for my first job many years ago. I’m a middle-aged risk averse woman who likes quiet and nature and came to love MTB over the past 10 years. It makes me really happy. Let’s make a legit place that you don’t have to drive to that is FOR cross country uphill mountain biking and has that downhill stuff that people crave too. It will create less conflict elsewhere and stop all of this fighting. Keep the hiking we have, create NEW trails for mountain biking. We can’t keep acquiring land endlessly and saying that it’s all for conservation and hiking. Come on.
Here’s a unique alternative…how about a bike lane on Eldorado Canyon Road? This would eliminate the need to bike on trails that get damaged from bike use, destroy the sense of the pristine, destroy wildlife habitats, have to be closed whenever it is wet because bikes tear up wet trails, and bikers don’t generally follow the etiquette as posted in the Dowdy Draw area. Don’t you think that’s a more viable option?
Once the trail is open to mountain bikes I am sure electric bikes will eventually follow. The electric bikes change everything in a negative way which one can already see in Boulder proper on the bike lanes and bike paths.
I have not had good experiences with mountain bikes on shared trails.
I think the suggestion to build a parallel is a good one.
I’m a biker, and while the trail would be lovely, I strongly oppose putting additional strain on any remaining habitat that gets little use. Our planet is obviously suffering, and we need to stop catering to human greed. The Aqueduct Trail negates the need to ever have to ride on the road to Eldo.
Boulder is a city experiencing growing financial debt with no viable path to get out of it.
I’ll volunteer to be the realist in the virtual room who points out, to the chagrin of the idealists and fighters, that regardless of the veracity of these “wants” (these projects don’t read as needs?), there is no money in our collective bank account to fund them.
If it was your personal bank account in the red, isn’t is reasonable to shelve “nice to have” projects?
Even funding essentials is now dragging Boulder further towards crippling debt. The result of which will eventually render the city desperate and overly susceptible to outside financial influence = loss of local control.
Therefore, let’s focus our spend on maintaining what we currently have that we value, and see what’s left in the account. Only then do we embark upon these ” nice to have’s” negotiations made real through rational financial practices.
Baxter,
Trust a realist to bring us back to earth. Let’s not mention the $30 million dollars of open space trail maintenance that OSMP is in arrears on.
Baxter – great points! The cool thing about this project is that if the trails are approved to allow bikes and are rerouted to protect the riparian area and other sensitive habitat, the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance and volunteers can perform the project at no cost to the City!
What exactly do you think the price tag is to allow mountain bikers to use an existing piece of double track?
Agreed, thank you.
I strongly support Bike Connectivity between Shanahan Ridge in South Boulder and Doudy Draw trailhead.
With all the fine trail work work recently and in progress doing in north Boulder, I can think of no higher priority for the city than a trail connection between Shanahan Ridge in South Boulder and Doudy Draw trailhead.
I’ve lived in north Boulder for 30+ years. We run, hike, dog-walk and bike the trails. Most of the trails up here are multi-use and people get along. Even on the North Sky single-track. I am on the Foothills North Trail almost daily. Hikers, amblers, dog-walkers, bikes, even once in a while a horse, we all get along.
The amazing work going on presently on the Foothills North re-route is in some respects analogous to the proposed Shanahan-Doudy connection: It will allow people to bike from the town out to the trail network of Boulder Valley ranch, which was arduous or impossible on the current rocky and erosion-prone trails depending on your ability.
Shanahan-Dowdy would do that for access to the trail system south of town.
With North Sky opening a few years ago as well as Cobalt to bikes and the Eagle reroute from the mesa, I see many more cyclists in the area enjoying the open space.
Cyclists love “loops” for variety, change ups, different mileages etc.
Shanahan-Doudy would be a huge win.
(There are plenty of hiking only trails. I should know, I ran them all. After Ranger Steve introduced the ‘OSMP Trail Challenge’ at REI on January 25th, 2017, I started right away and was the first to report in as completing them. In the processs, I discovered many trails I had never been on, all the while thinking I knew them all.)
Joe Glynn
I think this discussion risks being framed as hikers versus mountain bikers, when the more important question is whether this particular landscape should absorb another recreational use at all.
Greenbriar and Big Bluestem pass through one of Boulder’s exceptional remaining prairie landscapes. OSMP’s own work identifies Tallgrass West as regionally important, with locally rare Big Bluestem communities and grassland-nesting birds of conservation concern. OSMP conducted four years of breeding-bird monitoring here, specifically comparing areas near recreational trails with those farther away, and its Grasshopper Sparrow habitat modeling explicitly treated proximity to trails as a negative habitat and fragmentation effect.
That history matters. Greenbriar today is a narrow pedestrian trail, and it is one of the relatively unusual OSMP trails where dogs are prohibited. Lower Big Bluestem has additional restrictions specifically protecting grassland-nesting birds. These protections did not arise accidentally. For decades, OSMP—with substantial community involvement—has managed this landscape by concentrating recreation, reducing fragmentation, and protecting its exceptional biological values. The City’s own current evaluation acknowledges that adding bikes would likely increase visitation and could affect habitat and contribute to invasive-plant spread.
Allowing bicycles here would move that management direction backward. This isn’t simply adding another user to an unchanged trail. Greater use of a narrow trail can mean widening and parallel tracks, edge trampling, soil disturbance, and additional pathways for invasive plants—all particularly consequential in rare native prairie.
I absolutely understand the desire for safe bicycle connections. But cyclists already have access to the Marshall Mesa/Doudy Draw trail system by other routes. Not every Open Space trail needs to accommodate every recreational use, particularly when the alternative is increasing pressure on habitat Boulder has spent decades protecting.
Some places warrant restraint precisely because they are exceptional. I believe Greenbriar and Big Bluestem are such places, and I strongly oppose adding mountain-bike use here.
Please consider the safety of cyclists, especially young cyclists to have a proper safe trail to connect Boulder to Dowdy Draw.
Far too many Ghost Bikes exist already. It’s haunting and anxiety building for ourselves as well as our the thought of our children becoming a ghost bike memory.
Let’s have safe and equitable access to trails.
Hi John, fyi, young cyclists already have a safe route from SoBo to Dowdy Draw that has been used by Boulderites for decades. (1) Use the underpass (under Broadway) to access the few hundred yards to the Marshall Mesa TH (for some reason, Fairview students don’t want to ride a couple of blocks to this underpass.) (2) Ride along the few hundred yards to Marshall Mesa TH (this stretch of road has zero recorded car accidents with bikes in the last 30 years. When riding this stretch a cyclist will typically be passed by two cars on the way to Marshall Mesa TH. (3) Use the existing underpass to reach the dirt trail connecting to Dowdy Draw TH. On the way back, reverse this route.
Boulder is a very well-educated community, but for some reason, not all residents know that a safe, existing pathway is in place to Dowdy Draw. Perhaps this existing route could be improved with a bike lane on the few hundred yards of Marshall Road, and smoothing of the existing dirt path to Dowdy Draw, and advertising the existence of this Dowdy Draw connector route.
Hi G – your comment glossed over the high stress road between Marshall Road and the Marshall Mesa trailhead – Highway 170. During the afternoon, this road sees both high-volume and fast-moving traffic and it is also the time kids are riding after school. The Fairview kids are already at the top of Greenbriar and an off-street route is just .25 miles away. Having them backtrack to the underpass and ride on roads adds 2.5 miles to their trip to the trails.
Wendy,
The Fairview “kids” are at greater risk in front of their High School than they are on this stretch too. Check the Boulder County Crash Database. There are only 4 on this stretch, versus the 153 on Greenbrier Boulevard alone.
Good suggestion, thank you.
People need to get a grip here. This is a single, low use trail, and it’s primarily double track! There’s no serious risk of conflict here. This “debate” is a farce. There’s a loud minority that simply hates the existence of bikes – be it on trail, multiuse path, bike lane, or just sharing a road.
agree! i run on these all the time and am a passionate environmentalist but I beleive that that bike safety is most important; these kids (and adults) ought to have a safe route to Doudy!
While I enjoy hiking along trails without worrying about bikes, I also feel a need to protect bikers from dangers of automobile drivers. Safety concerns lead and thus I would come down on the side of opening the trail.
How this is even an argument blows my mind. How do the hiker environmentalists of Boulder get to their cherished south Boulder trailheads? Not on a bike or foot I assume…