Bicycle Douglas County Meeting Minutes: November 8th, 2004
Announcements: Red Rocks Federal Credit Union is moving to the town center and the new location will not have a community room. BDC can use the current site through May ’05 and then we will have to find a new meeting room. Possible sites are the local libraries or rec. centers. If anyone has another great site please let Judy Siel know ASAP.
A Cub Scout group would like to help on our next community service project and then have our members give them a bike safety class. Anyone interested in working with the cub scouts; notify Judy Siel.
Michael Seeberg author of Road Biking in CO will be giving a free slide show and talk next Monday night at 6:00 pm, at the Highlands Ranch library.
Velo Swap review: BDC received enough $ donations to pay for our advocacy booth; we got 15 new people who want email updates from our group.
Guest Speakers: Rich Cuellar from Highlands Ranch Metro District wants some feedback on a possible mountain bike terrain park that they may build in a joint project with South Suburban Parks near the BMX site on Colorado Blvd. This site might be 2-3 km track with obstacles to work on mtn. biking skills. HRMD will develop a survey the BDC will email to members to get some feedback this winter. IMBA has a guidebook for building such terrain parks.
Mark Giebel from Highlands Ranch Community Association gave BDC an update on the Back-county Wilderness Area. The land is currently owned by Shea Home and will be ceded over to HRCA when Highlands Ranch reaches 90% build-out. Future plans include expanding the “East –West Trail”. Over 7,000 acres of the 8,200 acres will remain a wildlife reserve with very limited access. The next parcel to receive a soft surface trail is located east of Monarch Blvd; a professional trail builder will develop this trail. Parts of this area might have seasonal closures to allow the existing wildlife protection. HRCA will be looking for volunteers to help maintain and monitor trails. A “nature center” is planned along the east-west trail near Daniels Park Rd./Griggs Rd.
Club business: Dewey Hill gave BDC an update on a new Douglas County Open Space trail completion linking the Indian Creek Trails to the new Nelson Property (south or Roxborough State Park). Mountain bikes are only permitted access though the Indian Creek trails. There are ~2-3 miles of new trail with over 2,000 feet elevation change to challenge cyclists. Douglas County Open Space has not yet gotten mountain bike access from the north side due to DOW land rules.
Douglas County Public Works will be re-stripping Monarch Blvd in ’05 and will try to narrow the lane width of the center medium and increase the shoulder from Daniels Gate south to Castle Pine Parkway. This has been BDC request since we organized in Feb ’03 and we will continue to work with the county on this issue. Construction has begun at the Quebec and University intersection to add islands on the NE & NW corners. When completed the bike lane will be to the right of the through lanes, but to the left of the non-stop right turn lanes. Construction on Santa Fe to widen parts to 4 lanes with a shoulder continues. Notice that there are “NO BIKES” allowed signs on this part of Santa Fe. Eventually there should be a separate paved area along the east side of Santa Fe for bicycles. The intersection at C-470 & Santa Fe will be reconstructed before C-470 is expanded but the plans do include a separated grade crossing for the bike trail!! Thanks to everyone who went to the C-470 meetings and made our voices heard about the bike trail and improving intersections crossings.
Upcoming Douglas County Town Meetings for the 4th quarter:
See the Douglas County website for location details and time www.douglas.co.us
Next meeting Dec. 13th at 7:00 pm
Holiday get together & white elephant gift exchange
Slide show of Tuscany, Italy
See you there!!