By Rex Madden

Boulder County just received what county staff describe as the largest survey response the county has ever collected on any topic. More than 7,500 residents weighed in on the proposed alternating trail use pilot, which would bar mountain bikes from popular trails at Heil Valley Ranch, Hall Ranch, Walker Ranch and Betasso Preserve on designated days. About 70% opposed it.

The county asked. The public answered. And the commissioner who created the pilot has already told us the answer does not count.

In an interview with Denver7 last week, Commissioner Claire Levy, who acknowledges she spearheaded the program, dismissed the results: “This is not a scientific survey. It is not representative in any way of actual broad public sentiment. The hikers generally aren’t organized the way the bikers are.”

Consider what that asks us to believe. More than 4,500 respondents said they rarely or never have a negative interaction with a cyclist. Many of those respondents are the hikers this pilot claims to protect. Commissioner Levy’s position is that those hikers do not speak for hikers. The county’s own survey produced the wrong answer, so the answer must be discarded.

We have a name for politicians who commission a vote, lose it and then declare the result illegitimate. Boulder County residents did not expect to find that playbook running in their own open space department.

The justification has also quietly changed. For months, the public was told this was about conflict and safety. Now the commissioner herself has stepped away from that framing. “Conflict isn’t the right word, because there may be no conflict at all,” she told Denver7. “It’s the incompatibility. It’s the feeling that you know you’re going to be overtaken, you’re going to be surprised.”

So the pilot no longer rests on conflict, by the commissioner’s own words. It no longer rests on public sentiment, because a record survey response has been declared unrepresentative. What remains is a feeling, held by one commissioner, that some trail users are incompatible with others. No data can confirm it, and, conveniently, no data can refute it.

Readers in Lyons should pay particular attention. Hall Ranch is woven into the town’s economy, and Lyons business owners have already warned commissioners that the pilot threatens it. Commissioner Levy has conceded enough ground that the county says it will not restrict Hall and Heil at the same time. Think about what that admission means: The county is seemingly acknowledging that the pilot causes economic harm, and proposes to manage that harm by scheduling it.

The frustrating part is that the problem Commissioner Levy describes is real, and it is solvable. The feeling of being overtaken on a blind corner is a trail design problem, and neighboring counties have solved it. Jefferson County, which Boulder County points to as a model for alternating use, did not simply close trails to bikes. At Apex Park, it paired scheduling with directional travel and designated-use trails, engineering away the head-on surprise encounters that make people uncomfortable. These solutions reduce friction for everyone without taking access from anyone. Boulder County has built essentially none of this, and the pilot proposes none of it.

Only bikes are removed under this pilot. Hikers and equestrians keep full access every day of the week. Residents reading county descriptions of “alternating use for all user groups” could be forgiven for not realizing that.

On June 30, the commissioners and Parks and Open Space staff will hold a work session to review the feedback and decide next steps. Commissioners Ashley Stolzmann and Marta Loachamin face a clear question: treat the record response as evidence, or ratify the view that constituents’ answers only matter when they agree with a predetermined conclusion.

There is a better path. Shelve the pilot. Invest that energy in what peer agencies already do: directional trails, user-specific design and real stakeholder partnership. Solve the problem instead of rationing it. The 7,522 people who answered the county’s call deserve at least that much.

Rex Madden is a Boulder resident.

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