Open Streets was a huge hit! If you missed it, no worries. The City will be hosting another one in September.
We have two and a half more weeks of Bike Month with even more great things planned. Get Outdoors Day is tomorrow in City Park and the Gear & Bike swap is next weekend.
Bike Fort Collins still has a few spots left for volunteers at Get Outdoors Day (as well as for Bike to Work Day on the 24th and the Bike Art Show on July 3rd). You don’t have to be a “bike pro” to help them out. They’ll walk you through what you need to do. (It mostly involves being friendly towards people. Easy Peasy.) If you’re interested in helping out, check out their volunteer page on VolunteerLocal.com to select a slot. Also, artists are still needed for the upcoming Bike Art Show in July. Contact KellyM@BikeFortCollins.com if you’d like more information on how to get involved.
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Events – Road and Trail Closures – Bike News and Views
– June Events –
Get Outdoors Day – Saturday, June 13, 9am, City Park
A fun, free, active day with a zillion things for everyone to do! National Get Outdoors Day Noco, presented by the University of Colorado Health, will be held in Fort Collins at City Park. Fish, bike, garden, climb, paint, build, paddle, learn, dance, eat, and play! Take part in interactive activities in each of Get Outdoors Day’s different villages, including the FC Bikes Bicycle Village! For more information, please visitwww.co.larimer.co.us/getoutdoorsnoco/.
Go By Bike: Cycling with Children – Wednesday, June 17, 6pm, Raintree Athletic Club, 2555 S. Shields St.
Do you want to commute, run errands or travel to school by bike with your children? In this presentation an FC Bikes Bicycle Ambassador will give you tips and tricks for how to get the whole family rolling. You will learn about the benefits of cycling with children, kid-friendly gear and clothing, safety considerations, route selection, and how to teach children the rules of the road through bicycling. To register, please call 970-490-1300.
The Fort Collins Gear & Bike Swap – Saturday, June 20, 11am – 5pm, 119 E. Mountain Avenue
The Gearage invites you to the third Annual Fort Collins Gear Swap & Bike Swap. Buy, Sell, Trade all thing Bike and Outdoor Gear related. The Bike Swap will take place in the heart of old town Fort Collins, on the south side of Mountain Ave between College and Remington, right in front of The Gearage, 119 E. Mountain Ave. Come check out the great deal on outdoor gear and bikes.
28th Annual Bike to Work Day – Wednesday, June 24, 6:30 – 9:30am.
Since 1988, the City of Fort Collins has hosted an Annual Summer Bike to Work Day. In celebration of the 28th Annual event, over 40 breakfast stations will be located all over town to encourage community members to get out and ride their bikes. Participants are encouraged to take a post event survey. To check out a map of station or see a list of station hosts, please visit fcgov.com/bikemonth.
– July Events –
Bike Fort Collins Art Show – Friday, July 3, Downtown Artery Café during 1st Friday Gallery Walk
As part of the First Friday Gallery Walk, Bike Fort Collins is hosting a Bike Art Show at the Downtown Artery Café. Beer and wine will be available for sale. (25% of sales will go to BFC.) Visual art/dance performance. Band. More info to come.
Adult Learn to Ride Class – July 9 & 16, 6-7:30pm.
Traffic Safety 101 – July 18, 8:30am – 4pm.
Adult Learn to Ride Class – August 6 & 13, 6-7:30pm.
USA Pro Challenge – Stage 6 – August 22 — Loveland to Fort Collins (I know. This is a race, not a transportation event. But it’s also a celebration of bikes event. So I’m including it here.)
Tour de Fat – September 5th
Traffic Safety 101 – September 26, 8:30am – 4pm.
Traffic Safety 101 – November 14, 8:30am – 4pm.
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– Road and Trail Closures –
Poudre Trail: There are (at least) 2 closures along the trail. (There may be more due to flooding. I’ll hopefully add that type of info in the future, but right now I’m not sure how accurate the online data is. So I’m just not gonna go there.)
The Mulberry underpass will be closed until around November 2015. If you’re traveling southbound, follow the detour and hop back on to the trail on the west side of Shields. But if you’re traveling northbound, you have two options. You can get off the trail on the east side of Shields, then either take the sidewalk or take the lane north on Shields. You’ll have to cross both Mulberry and Shields (follow the detour signs) to hop back on the trail. OR you can stay on the trail, travel under Shields, then ride the wrong way northbound on the Shields sidewalk. This way you’ll only have to cross one street instead of two, but it does mean you’ll be traveling the wrong way on the sidewalk.
Tafthill Road to Lee Martinez Park is still closed due to the work the county is doing on the N. Shields bridge. There are detour signs posted, but this closure is for such a long distance, and the detour roads are rather sub-optimal, that you might be best off checking in with either the City bike map or Google (Bike) Maps to find a better route.
Poudre Trail to W. Vine Spur has been put on hold. The water flood mitigation work has been completed, but the bike trail spur has seen funding shift to other projects on the south and east ends of town that were able to leverage grant monies to complete large projects.
Horsetooth and Timberline Intersection: The section of Horsetooth west of Timberline will be closed starting Monday, June 1. It is estimated to remain closed until July 25.
The project will add four new turn lanes to the intersection, bicycle and pedestrian improvements and landscaped medians. The project is funded by a federal grant (congestion mitigation) and the Building on Basics (BOB) quarter cent sales tax. The construction of the turn lanes, pork chop islands and reconfigured medians will improve the safety and signal timing of the intersection. To find out more, check out the “Horsetooth and Timberline Intersection Improvement” page on the city’s website.
Mountain Avenue between Shields and Washington: Eastbound Mountain is shut down while new water pipes are installed.
Shields and W. Vine Intersection: The planned round-about is listed online as starting mid-June. “Vine and Shields Roundabout Improvement.”
North College Improvements: We’re mid-project on this one and we can finally see some progress getting made. Woo hoo! To find out more about the project, or to see occasionally updated photos of the work, check out the “North College Improvements” page.
Timberline at Prospect Improvements: This project will be starting some time this summer. “Timberline Road Improvements.”
Laurel between Remington and Mason: Work begins soon to restripe Laurel street. The changes will include a protected bike lane and a few other bicycle facilities that are being tested out. And I should emphasize that point. This is a chance to test ideas around a particularly difficult intersection. If they work well there, they might be useful in other places as well. If not… well, at least we tried it out.
The Remington Greenway: I’ve written about the changes to Remington already, but here’s a brief synopsis. There will soon be a mini-round-a-about at the intersection of Laurel and Remington. And the stop lights where both Pitkin and Elizabeth cross Remington are being changed to 4-way stops.
Taft Hill Road – between Mulberry and Elizabeth: Taft is closed for repaving. They’ve right-sized the section between Mulberry and Laporte. Check it out and let me know what you think! Hopefully they’ll do that to the rest of the road as well.
– Bike News and Views –
What do planners see in Utah’s future? Bikes, bikes and more bikes, by Lee Davidson of the Salt Lake Tribune. (h/t: Jeff N)
Panel backs Boulder plan to re-purpose some vehicle lanes for bikes, by Sarah Kuta of the Daily Camera Boulder News. The city is talking about “right sizing” several high traffic streets, which means removing one or two traffic lanes for cars and replacing them with bike lanes. A block of Taft between Mulberry and Laporte was recently right sized in Fort Collins, so you can go and get a sense of what the article is talking about. (h/t: Jeff N)
Fort Collins’ 10 Steps to Diamond BFC Status, by Tessa Greegor as reprinted in News from the League. (h/t: Shawn Pagan)
3 feet or else: Chattanooga police use ultrasound technology to enforce law for cyclist safety, byWill Healey, tells of a new device that the police in Chattanooga, TN are using to catch motorists who are driving closer than 3 feet (the mandated distance a motorist must keep between himself and the cyclist in many states, including in Colorado). When someone drives too close, this cycling cop catches up with them, tells them about the law and then uses his GoPro to help them understand what it feels like as a cyclist to have a car pass too closely. The officer is educating, not ticketing. And he’s using an information pamphlet, and empathy to teach motorists about the 3-foot rule. Cool stuff.
Blank calendar from blankcalendarprintout.com.
