Route profile: 16th Street/Avenue

16th Street Mall and 16th Avenue are collectively known as the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.



One of Denver's stranger bike routes, notable for running along the spine of the city, but at the same time not really taking you anywhere.

Access to the mall is limited to one day out of the week; and 16th Avenue has a bike lane but is not part of the Grid, and eventually comes to an abrupt stop after a couple blocks.

The route starts at one end of the city at the northwest end of the 16th Street Mall, either at Union Station or at National Velvet.



Now, unless it's Sunday, you cannot ride on the 16th Street Mall. This is one of bikedenver.org's Big Four rules, right up there with No Riding On The Sidewalk. Bike here 85.7% of the time, and you'll get a ticket.

On Sunday though, you can cruise right down the middle of the road. It's an interesting 1.5 mile ride that's not without its own unique joys and frustrations.

At the southeast end of the mall, your route crosses Broadway and becomes E 16th Avenue.

16th Avenue is not listed on the City of Denver bike map as a "grid" route, or even as a local bike route, but simply as a "road with a bike lane."

So even the city recognizes that it's kind of special.

Personally, I have a tendency to forget about 16th Ave until I cross it coming from the north or the south, and I see a bike lane, and I think to myself, "Oh! An E/W bike lane! I need to go east … might as well use this convenient bit of infrastructure!"

So I turn onto 16th and cruise along, slowly progressing through the the stop signs that litter the route, until suddenly it dead ends at East High School.



Near the school, there is suddenly eleven or eight fleets worth of cars parked on the street, and there are always—regardless of the time day, morning or afternoon—handfuls of kids milling about outside.

Enough to make you want to point out to them that there's no such thing as education by proxy. Being at the school doesn't count. You gotta, you know, go inside and learn stuff.

Anyway, so suddenly you dead-end at the high school. You options for continuing are, to the south, Colfax Ave; and to the north, 17th Ave.

Neither of these streets are safe to bike on.

That leaves you the option of, to the north, continuing past 17th into and through City Park or, to the south, riding on the sidewalk on Colfax for one block before cutting back up to a safe side street.

Of these options, one is illegal (sidewalk-ridin') and one is inconvenient (the winding route through City Park takes you out of your way.)

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So this route is interesting. It takes you from East High School to the far end of 16th Street Mall, and not really anywhere else.

But in doing so, you get really close to the real heart of the city.

Just off this route is City Park, Civic Center Park, the Central Library. Cheeseman Park is a short ride to the south. It runs parallel to all the wondrous crap on Colfax and it runs right through all the wondrous crap on the 16th Street Mall, including Skyline park. At the northwest end, you can get on the S. Platte River trail just north of the confluence with the Cherry Creek trail.

So from a wider perspective, I suppose it's quite a well connected hub.

But since all it literally does is connect a high school to a strip mall, I shall henceforth call this the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.

Biking the 16th Street Mall: access to usually restricted areas

Today is Sunday.

In many ways, Sunday is kind of a tough day. Certain shops are closed, like Chick-Fil-A and 20th Street Cafe. Also, I live next to a huge Baptist church, and so there's no parking available next to my house on Sundays.

In fact on Sunday, you're kind of restricted in terms of stuff you can do. Wherein lies the appeal of doing something that can only be done on Sundays.

Such as taking advantage of "Big Four" Rule #4.

Six times out of seven, if you ride your bike on the 16th Street Mall, you'll get a citation. But on Sundays, it's fair game.

And that's really the only appeal: getting to do something you don't usually get to do.

Because it's not a terribly pleasant ride. Almost every intersection is a traffic light, and during my ride this afternoon—during which I rode from one end to the other and back again—I got stopped at nearly every light.

And it sucks to get stuck behind one of the buses.

And you must contend with the mental kung-fu that makes it such a great pedestrian mall: there's so much continuity between the sidewalk, the road, and the crosswalks, that it's possible to almost sail straight through an intersection without realizing it!

Other than that, though, it's neat scenery that you otherwise don't get to enjoy from atop a bicycle. Lots of public artwork to enjoy, people playing chess at the games tables in the median, shops that I always forget about between trips to the mall. You can detour down Skyline Park in the middle, or through Commons Park at the north end. On the other side of the north end is swanky Lower Highlands, where you can make a hard to beat one-two stop at Salvagetti and My Brothers Bar.

So I guess upon reflection that it's not that unpleasant a ride, as long as you know what you're getting into.

Yup!

16th Street Mall, I'll be seeing you again next Sunday!

Worst bike route in Denver

This is the worst stretch of bike path in Denver.

It's Route D9, along 38th Street, between Lafayette Street and Arkins Court. There are posted signs here indicating that D9 continues on the sidewalk.

There are three problems right away with this.

1. It is otherwise illegal to ride on the sidewalk! This is another case, along with prejudiced traffic lights, where the city is not consistent in its message or in its standards when it comes to cyclists.


2. Riding on the sidewalk generally agreed upon to be a very dangerous thing to do. Pedestrians aren't expecting to see you, and motorists pulling out of driveways, alleys, and parking lots can't see you.



3. Lastly, this particular stretch of sidewalk is particularly nasty. It's always covered in debris and broken glass, and at one point it goes under an overpass where it's dark and spooky. You're guaranteed at that point to encounter broken glass, chances are very good you'll have to ride around some cardboard boxes somebody was sleeping on earlier, and I've more than once had to stop and get off and walk around somebody either walking on that very narrow bit of sidewalk or actually still sleeping on the cardboard.

Last week, I was riding along on this sidewalk after a long ride on the river trails when what is happening in the above illustration happened to me. This old purple Buick in a driveway inched toward the sidewalk ahead and to my left, and then stopped. The windows were tinted and the sun was glaring, so I couldn't see the driver very clearly, but the car had stopped and I was close and in plain sight so I assumed they saw me.

Apparently they didn't, for when I was almost at the car, it lurched forward to turn across me and enter traffic. I could see that its Trajectory Of Lurch intersected my own forward trajectory just a couple feet ahead of the two of us, so I pulled hard on my brakes and yelled, "STOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

The car did stop, and I bumped gently into it with my front tire, which wedged neatly between the back of the front right tire and the front of the front right wheel well. The driver had her hood sticking out slightly into traffic, and so put the car in gear and starting backing up. I hollered again, "Wait, wait, wait!" as I kind of hop-scooted along with her to prevent my front tire from binding up in the wheel well and getting all kinds of messed up.

She stopped and I extracted myself, backed up, swung around and continued across the front of the car to the other side -- the driver's side -- where I stopped. The lady jumped out and apologized effusively, saying she hadn't seen me because she was looking the other way at the oncoming traffic.

We both assured each other and ourselves that we and our prospective vehicles were okay, and that there were no hard feelings anywhere, and then we continued on our own separate ways.

That, folks, is why riding on the sidewalk is bad!

Don't do it. It's against the law.

I resolved at that moment not to do it even when the posted signage indicates that I should.

I will from now on be observing a self-imposed Mandatory Detour around that stretch of D9. Because it's dangerous and shouldn't be ridden on.

the Big Four

Here is the text from the back of the Bikedenver.org "Ride Safe" spoke cards, or what I now think of as the Big Four.

If you bike in Denver:
Drive your bike like you drive your car!

• Obey stop signs, traffic signs & stop lights
  Set an example for everyone and wait in line for a green light! Bikes and cars -- same rights, same laws.



• Take your place in traffic
  Ride your bike on the street; sidewalks are reserved for pedestrians



• Always ride with traffic
  When you're on a bicycle, you ARE traffic. Ride on the right; it's predictable and safer for everyone.



• Bicycle riding is prohibited on the 16th Street Mall
  Except on Sundays, when RTD lanes are open to bicyclists.

The first three are pretty universal. The fourth is obviously a concern only very locally. Not even everybody in Denver will ever try to ride on the Mall.

Judging from this list, one has to assume that riding on the 16th Street Mall is the fourth most often ticketed bike traffic infraction. Otherwise why include it on this list?