OSMP questionnaire on the Doudy Draw connection: comment by August 30.
The city is asking what people think about a bike connection from Shanahan Ridge through to Doudy Draw. The questionnaire closes August 30, and the section you want is about two thirds of the way in.
In June we asked a few of you to speak up about the South Boulder trail connection. This is the next step in the same process, and this one costs a questionnaire rather than an evening.
The City of Boulder is taking feedback on its Multimodal Improvements Assessment, and one of the draft solutions is a bike connection running from Shanahan Ridge through to the South Mesa and Doudy Draw trailheads. The questionnaire closes Saturday, August 30.
Why this one matters to us
Riding to Doudy Draw right now means Highway 170 or the frontage road, and the crossing at 93 and 170 near Marshall Mesa. That is a road our riders use, and it is not a crossing anybody would choose to send a fourteen-year-old through. A connection through open space would give riders a way to get down there without touching it.
What is actually being proposed
The route would start at the Greenbriar Connector, follow Thomas Lane onto the South Boulder Creek West Trail, and run south along the Mesa Trail to the South Mesa and Doudy Draw trailheads.
Those trails are walking-only today, so this would change that. Anyone who says so is describing it accurately, and it is worth being straight about that rather than pretending otherwise. What it is not is a proposal to open the whole South Boulder network to bikes.
The concerns are real too
Those trails run through the Colorado Tallgrass Prairie State Natural Area, which holds rare plants, ground-nesting birds and rare butterflies. OSMP’s own staff evaluation says adding bikes will likely increase overall visitation, which may affect wildlife movement and access to water.
No recommendation has been made and no decision has been taken. The questionnaire is genuinely part of how the city works out what to do, which is the reason it is worth ten minutes.
If you fill it in
The relevant part sits about two thirds of the way through, in the section covering the Shanahan to Greenbriar connection. Answer it honestly rather than to a script. If what you care about is younger riders having a safe way to reach a trailhead, say that plainly, because it is the part of this nobody else in the room is going to say on our behalf.
Thanks to the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance, who are driving this one and who did the work behind a good number of the trails we already ride.