The power of paint & plastic

With little more than humble paint and prosaic plastic poles (aka "bollards"), we can make Denver the best bike city in America in a matter of months. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) is already using these ingredients all over town to improve our streets. Building the VAMOS Bike Network would simply be an extension of work that's already happening.

DOTI's growing use of paint and plastic is a quantum leap forward because they can quickly create a lot of small features that together make a big difference. Examples abound. Here, DOTI created "bulb-outs" to slow traffic and shorten the crosswalk for pedestrians:

Here, on Santa Fe Drive, paint and plastic narrow the roadway so drivers slow down:

On Bayaud and Lincoln, paint and plastic prevent drivers from using a residential street as a cut-through route, while still allowing bikes to pass through:

It doesn't cost much to build these features and they can be installed in just a few hours. Contrast that with highly engineered concrete features, like this one at Garfield and 1st Ave, that take forever to build and cost an arm and a leg:

This is one of Denver's best new biking features: a diverter at Irving on the 35th Ave Neighborhood Bikeway. Drivers must turn right, while families on bikes and pedestrians are able to proceed:

But there's a critical conundrum: concrete features are expensive and time consuming to build. For 35th Ave to be a great place for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to ride bikes, we need about 10 of them between Sheridan and I-25, not just the one on Irving. The cost and time to build all of these out of concrete on 35th Ave (let alone across the entire city so you can actually go places) is prohibitive.

If we can start to build diverters quickly and inexpensively with paint and plastic -- below is an example in Portland -- we can produce a complete network of high-quality Neighborhood Bikeways that connect the entire city of Denver. And that, in part, is how we can make VAMOS a reality and turn Denver into the best bike city in America in a matter of months.