Littleton’s traffic playground helps budding cyclists pedal city streets
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LITTLETON, Colo. — Sawyer Harter was eager to ditch his training wheels for a two-wheel standard bike, but a fear of falling in the street held him back.
But just a few weeks before his sixth birthday, Harter pedaled a two-wheeled bike through a new course designed to mimic real streets in his hometown of Littleton.
“It was really awesome,” Sawyer said, grinning as he stepped off the bike.
“Taking the training wheels off is a big deal and I think it’s been really good for him to see that he’s not going to fall and he can do real streets that look like this,” said Laura Harter, Sawyer’s mom.
Sawyer was among the 15 children, all under 10 years old, to break in the Safer Streets Practice Park at the East Community Center in Littleton. City planners began planning the park in the beginning of the year and painted it in September.
The park sprawls across the asphalt beside the community center playground. Its painted streets, roundabouts and bike lanes recreate the feel of riding through streets of Littleton. With protected and unprotected bike lanes, yield and stop signs and stretches without designated lanes, the layout lets cyclists experience real-road conditions, but without the cars.
Cities such as Portland, Oregon, Newport, Rhode Island and Vancouver, Washington, created similar bike gardens designed to mimic real city streets. In Europe, cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Vienna have taken the concept further, building expansive cycling courses that span miles and closely mirror existing urban layouts.
The creation of Littleton’s realistic bike park took on new urgency after a driver hit and killed 13-year-old Liam Stewart, who was biking to school, in 2023. Stewart’s death kicked the city into high gear and inspired the bike park and other safety measures like protected bike lanes, said Emily Kleinfelter, transportation planner for the city of Littleton.
“We want to encourage people to change the way they think about safety on the roads and how they share the roads with other users,” Kleinfelter said.
Benedict Wright, the education manager at Bicycle Colorado, taught the first of many bicycle safety classes at the park October 3. He said the classes teach riders how to properly stop, yield and navigate traffic on their bikes.
Classes are free to Littleton residents. Friday’s class was only for kids only, but Wright plans to open the park to adult riders who are either new to cycling or want to build confidence before hitting the road.
Sawyer's suburban neighborhood doesn't get a lot of traffic, so the class gave him a chance to learn how to navigate more urban environments, Harter said.
“He also tends to be pretty hard-headed with mom and dad but he takes direction really well from other adults,” Harter said at the class.
Wright teaches students the basics of riding a bike, starting with how to step on and off, how hard to push the pedals and how to resist the urge to drag their feet on the pavement.
City planners painted the park all in one day in September. October 3 marked the ribbon cutting and first Bicycle Colorado class. The nonprofit is offering two free classes in October, one for kids under 15 and one for people 15 and older.
Type of story: News
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.