Letters

Neighborhood say needed on bikes
       Welling Clark, president of the Organization of Westside Neighbors (OWN), has a point (“Neighborhood focus in city bike plan?” July 28 Westside Pioneer]. Planning for city bike routes should not be limited to discussions between just bike enthusiasts and city staffers. As one who has lived for 34 years two doors away from Pikes Peak Avenue at 24th Street, I have had a very long time observing bike riders and Colorado Avenue car traffic. Guess what? Over the last 15 years increasing volume of bike riders, as individuals and as groups, have used quiet Pikes Peak Avenue as their preferred route to work out, climb the hill both ways between 25th and 27th streets, and just enjoy the tree-shaded avenue all the way from Chestnut to 30th Street.
       Why bike advocates want to put sharrows on already crowded treeless Colorado Avenue is beyond me. Trying to push out cars? Pikes Peak Avenue appears perfect for three miles of east-west riding. Car traffic is very low. Riders don't need to be confined to a narrow strip. Of course, bike riders ignore stop signs routinely in this town, but I have yet to see a car-bike collision at the busy intersection of 24th and Pikes Peak. As a long-ago bike rider - I delivered newspapers on mine - but now a car driver and Westside resident, I vote for Pikes Peak Avenue to be the route through Old Town.

Dave Hughes