[BikeLongmont] St. Vrain Master Plan

[Richard Masoner]

Boulder County Parks & Open Space is accepting public comment about the 
St. Vrain Corridor Master plan until September 3. The purpose of this 
plan is to provide direction for continued development of natural, 
cultural, agricultural, and recreational resources along the St. Vrain 
Creek and to enhance the existing 1700 acres owned by BCPOS along this 
corridor.

More information about the Master Plan can be found on the Boulder 
County website:

  
http://www.co.boulder.co.us/openspace/management_plans/stvrain_corridor.htm

The full master plan document is a 5.5 MB PDF file. A good starting 
place is reading the 1.5 MB executive summary document  at:

 http://www.co.boulder.co.us/openspace/management_plans/st_vrain_pdfs/exe_summary_svtmp.pdf

The PDF map files are monstrously huge. I've generated a smaller 100,000 
byte GIF image of the "Trails" map which you can access here:

  http://www.masoner.net/images/stvrainplan.gif

Relevant information for cyclists:

* The trails outside of urban areas will be crusher fines. They will be 
for pedestrian and equestrian use as well as for cyclists.  The fast 
roadies amongst us will always prefer the roads to any paths, so that's 
okay. Crusher fines is perfectly navigable for any bike; you just have 
to watch out in sharp turns so you don't spill.

* Bollards to inhibit motor vehicle access are not mentioned, but some 
of the bollards on existing Boulder County trails are tricky to get 
through.  Bollard placement that doesn't inhibit bike trailers would be 
good.

* I would recommend some sort of connection to Lohr Farm or to the 
Longmont McIntosh Lake trail.

RFM