If you know an urban utopianist, you’ve probably heard about the 15-minute city – the idea that important destinations like grocery stores, schools and doctor’s offices should be reachable by a 15-minute walk.
There are not many areas of Denver, aside from its oldest neighborhood, that meet the standard.
But noted Denver bike guy Avi Stopper says that changes when you add a bicycle to the mix. His company, Bike Streets, is out with a new, interactive map that shows riders exactly how far they can go in 15 minutes using low-stress routes.
While Stopper supports the city’s relatively slow buildout of high-comfort bike infrastructure, he says there are still lots of problematic gaps that his new product aims to fill.
“The Bike Streets map makes it possible for people all over the city, today, to use a bike to basically take care of their day-to-day needs,” he said.
For years, Stopper has promoted “low-stress” routes that sometimes differ from the city’s own established bike lanes. Rather than sending cyclists down the painted bike lanes on a pair of fast one-way streets just west of Washington Park, for example, Bike Streets instead recommends a quiet two-way street.
The new map uses that technique when drawing routes, and pairs them with overlaid polygons that quickly show what’s reachable in 15 minutes. He hopes Bike Streets demonstrates to any would-be riders, regardless of their skill level, that they can get most anywhere they want in the city safely and comfortably outside of a car.
“The idea ultimately is really about empowerment,” he said.
Since June, when Bike Streets launched a paid smartphone app, Stopper says it has recorded about 4,000 trips judged to be car replacement trips and 15,000 miles traveled.
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