That means it’s time to start thinking about alternate means of transportation.

How will you be getting from Point A to Point B?

By bike? Photo by Paul Aiken.

By bus? Photo by Marty Caivano.

Will you walk? Photo by Paul Aiken.

Will you walk with friends? Photo by Lynne Sladky, AP.

We want to know … so tell us!

We’re proud of this bike-laned land we call home. But are bike lanes good enough? Advocates of cycle tracks don’t think so.

Question: So what the hell is a cycle track?

Answer: It’s a completely separate lane for bikers protected by a curb or a concrete barrier.

The cycle track is an idea we Americans have adopted from our neighbors across the (big) pond in Europe. The cycle track makes biking super safe, but building them might mean adding a lot more cement to our beautiful city.

So what do you think? Are Boulder’s bike paths extensive enough, or do we need cycle tracks as well?

Read more about them at Grist.com in Elly Blue’s article, “Cyclists shouldn’t ‘share the road,’ they should have their own.”

I’m just going to stop while I’m ahead.

Here are a few more shots (obviously taken before yesterday’s snowstorm). Want more info on the event?

Michael, Tanya and Mark White were jazzed to participate in the event.

Connie Mansour of Boulder Tamales served up warm food on a chilly morning.

Ed Dowski sipped chai tea at the Dushanbe Tea House station.

Graduate students Sarah Bounty, Sara Beck and Traci Brooks smiled at the CU station with their professor, Karl Linden.

This spring, as the skis get put back in the garage and the mountain bikes get dusted off, Boulder Valley 5th graders have a message for local bikers, motorcyclists, and horse riders: Please stay on designated trails! That unmarked path may be tempting, but it might be causing serious damage to the land and our drinking water.

The Boulder Ranger District, of the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, is enlisting local 5th graders to promote watershed protection, local wildlife conservation, and trail rules/etiquette. Selected artwork from the 2010 Student Wildlife Art Contest will be recognized here at BigGreenBoulder and incorporated into new educational trail signs on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest.  

Damage from unauthorized trails off the Peak to Peak Highway.

The art contest was inspired during efforts to repair and restore several miles of undesignated trail that was damaging a sensitive streamside area that runs east of the Peak to Peak Highway. Heavy use of these trails damaged plants, disturbed wildlife trying to raise young, and introduced sediment and pollutants into the Boulder Creek watershed.

Fifth graders participating in the contest are designing artwork around 3 themes:

1. The value of streamside areas to humans: Riparian areas—areas located along the banks of streams, rivers or other bodies of water—make up a small, but valuable part of the Colorado landscape. Soil and plants in riparian areas play a critical role in cleaning, storing, and releasing our drinking water. When streamsides are hardened and straightened from trails or roads, water cannot soak in. This can lead to flash flooding and diminished water supply. Flash flooding often strips additional stream bank material, clogging reservoirs and water systems with sediment.

2. The value of streamside areas to wildlife: Along Colorado’s Front Range, you can often recognize riparian zones as ribbons of green in an otherwise dry landscape. These areas provide food, water, and shelter for a higher number of animals, as well as a more types of animals—than surrounding lands. They also provide critical refuge to animals while raising young, or during fires or prolonged droughts.

3. Read the signs before you ride: Enjoy your public lands and help protect streamside areas by following just two important guidelines: 

Damage

Rule #1: Avoid creating new routes or expanding existing routes. Undesignated or “social” trails form over time without regard to water, soil, wildlife, or aesthetics. People may feel that they are minimizing their impact by following an unmarked social trail. However, repeated passes on these trails can lead to serious and permanent damage to the land. The Arapaho-Roosevelt has hundreds of miles of authorized recreation trails and roads. Please practice “Tread Lightly!” principles by traveling on designated trails and avoiding streamside areas.

Rule #2: Motor vehicles must stay on numbered forest roads or designated travel routes. Maps that show designated motorized use can be picked up at the Boulder Ranger Station—2140 Yarmouth Ave—or downloaded online [PDF].

For more information on the 2010 Student Wildlife Art Contest, contact Deanna Williams at 303-541-2541, deannawilliams@fs.fed.us or Angela Mundt at 303-541-2545, angelamundt@fs.fed.us.

Deanna Williams’ lifelong commitment to conserving wildlife and their habitats, has taken her from researching small mammals in Alaska, to tracking songbirds in Costa Rica and many places in-between. In the best of both worlds, her 10 years of working for the U.S. Forest Service as a wildlife biologist has enabled her to combine her love of ecology with a passion to share her belief that we protect what we love, love what we know, and know what we are taught.

Angela Mundt is a lifelong advocate of wildlife conservation through education. Beginning in 1996, her work with wildlife took her around the country, from deserts to grasslands to the Front Range. As a middle school science teacher, she brought that experience to the classroom for 5 years. Now, as a U.S. Forest Service wildlife technician and environmental educator, Angela can pursue both of her professional loves–monitoring wildlife in the field and looking for new ways to connect kids to nature.

Biking around Denver is about to get cooler and easier. This Earth Day, April 22, Denver will be the launching point for B-cycle‘s bike sharing program. From 8 a.m.-9 a.m. you can join Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Jonny5 of Denver musicians Flobots at the Civic Center Park for Denver B-cycle’s Earth Day Launch Event.

According to Denver B-cycle:

Denver B-cycle is the first large-scale municipal bike sharing system in the United States. We are placing dozens of special bike stations (B-stations) in downtown Denver as well as the Cherry Creek and Denver University neighborhoods. Denver B-cycle members will be able to pick up one of the red bikes at any B-station and drop it off at any B-station

…

It’s an affordable, clean and fun way to get around town that’s good for your health, your pocket, and your environment.

With B-cycle, you don’t need to worry about finding a parking space or having to lock up your bike wherever you go. Pick it up when you need it and drop it off when you don’t. Plus, the Fenders, skirt guards and chain guards keep your clothes clean and there’s a basket to safely hold your belongings. Even after paying a membership fee, B-cycle is cheaper, easier, and better for the environment than driving.

Click here to find out more about Denver B-Cycle or register here. Or check out Earth Day events in Boulder.

And here’s a little bike love in music video form: Flobots – “Handlebars”

Click here to view the embedded video.

–Lindsay Gulisano

This bike is still going!

It was six decades ago that Owen Hook fell in love with the shining bicycle in his local department store window.

But today, the Raleigh push bike is still going strong.

Mr Hook, 72, who paid for the top-of-the-range, three-speed Raleigh bike in 36 monthly installments of just ten shillings (50p) 57 years ago, said yesterday that it showcased British craftsmanship at its best.

Pretty impressive, but surely it didn’t come without a little work. I’ve been tempted to take a class with Community Cycles for just that reason. The next six-week bike mechanics course starts March 3.

We’re thinking about bikes this week because it’s sunny again, so here are some quick and sometimes slightly inflammatory* thoughts on bike stereotypes from Bicycle Film Fest organizer Jen Nordhem (cool trailer, Jen!):

Stereotype: Critical Mass is for anarchists

JN: Critical Mass has anarchist roots, as far as it being a take-back-the-streets kind of mentality, but I don’t think it’s necessarily just for anarchists. Politically, I think it’s a great idea, as long as people don’t take it too far and it stays as like, “We’re here. We ride the same streets as you. We are traffic as well.” But it doesn’t go into like, “Now I’m going to U-lock your window.” That’s a bit extreme. I remember when I lived in Chicago, one of my friends told me this story about this father with a little tagalong bike with his daughter on it who rode [Critical Mass] every month, and that was his way of introducing bicycles to his daughter. It’s really just a celebration of bicycles.

via Stereotyping cyclists: A Bicycle Film Fest organizer responds | Features | | A.V. Denver/Boulder.

*Bikes blowing through stop signs is quite inflammatory, and it’s mentioned elsewhere in the A.V. Club post. If you don’t believe me, check out comments on the Camera!

An occasional HOV lane in Denver | Flickr user Richard Masoner

Federal transportation law allowed for the hybrid-in-HOV option, but that law expired on September 30. After Congress passed a one-month extension of the law, CDOT notified hybrid owners that permission to use HOV lanes as solo drivers had been extended through the end of this month.

To allow hybrid drivers similar access to HOV lanes after this month, “Congress will need to act again on another extension or new bill,” CDOT said in a recent email to hybrid permit owners.

Of course, if you’re carpooling in a hybrid, you’re definitely fine.

And if you carpool on a bike, you’re awesome. Tandems for everybody!

No, I loaded my stuff into somebody else’s 53-foot truck (along with the belongings of many other people — I don’t have that much stuff), and it was driven here to Boulder. Then I got on a plane and flew here.

That’s why, on this fine #ecomonday, I feel like a green wuss; I didn’t move by bike. Dan at Community Cycles wants it to catch on in Boulder, and the lead story on the Camera’s local page features this big photo of some Boulderites lugging an apartment’s worth of stuff from Boulder to Gunbarrel (seven miles):

Jon Abbott leads the procession during Sunday's seven-mile move from his old apartment to a new one using only bicycles. Photo by Jonathan Castner.

That’s right: they moved by bike. That’s a pretty awesome degree of self-sufficiency. More details and tips on doing it yourself after the jump.

The point made is that in places like Boulder, where people rent smallish apartments and semi-frequently move short distances to other apartments (lookin’ at you, New York, Portland, Austin and other compact renting cities), if you get enough folks together, you can skip the truck. And we all hate renting moving trucks. Especially in New York.

Here’s some footage of some Portland green badassery:

MORE MOVE-BY-BIKE CRAZIES

Here are photos from another move-by-bike that looks like a ton of fun. And video from a move-by-bike in Ames, Iowa. (Both of those sound a little flatter than Boulder, right?) And a move-by-bike on TreeHugger!

HOW TO MOVE BY BIKE

Move by bike -- in cold weather! Flickr user dontbecreepy

How the heck do you move by bike?

There are some great tips over at shift2bikes, including:

1. Tell EVERYBODY you’re going to do it. Not just your friends. Get the local bike freaks involved.
2. Be so prepared that if somebody shows up with a bike and a trailer, you can get them loaded up and on their way in a matter of minutes.
3. Provide food at the beginning and end.
4. Plan out your route meticulously to avoid nasty traffic and unnecessary slopes.
5. Be prepared with tarps and things in case of rain or snow!
6. Have a backup plan in case it doesn’t work at all — maybe you can finish the job with one trip in a car with a big trunk.
7. Tell EVERYBODY that you did it! Post photos, videos, etc. — inspire somebody!

Read more at shift2bikes — and get jealous of the level of organization already in place in Portland.

Rebecca Maret and her son Soren ride over the bridge south of Pearl Street intersection on 30th Street. Photo: Joe Rogers For the Camera

The proposed 30th Street bike path that has been causing a bit of a stir in Boulder — some folks are upset that it would require taking down a few trees — has hit a new controversial milestone. The city, unable to buy land for the proposal from a business there, has filed an eminent domain petition.

The Camera has the full story on the bike path eminent domain development, and here’s the quick-hit update:

Last we knew: The city of Boulder wanted to build a pedestrian and bicycle underpass at 30th Street as part of a plan to connect a bike path to the planned Transit Village. City officials reached a compromise with residents who wanted to save trees in that area.

Latest: The city filed an eminent domain petition this week to acquire land it needs for the underpass.

Next: A judge could rule on the matter within 30 to 60 days, deciding whether to provide easements to the city.

A quick explanation of the proposed project:

More biking at BigGreenBoulder:

Walking, busing and biking Boulder — maps and tips