That is a lot of dinero falling into local coffers.

But I would question the basis of the earlier blog post that said part of the criteria for success was simply “a growing network of city bike lanes”. As I have pointed out here and to Durango advocates, some of those bikelanes are deeply flawed, i.e., when you paint a flagrantly door zone bike lane on 3rd Avenue (which is a very important exit to Florida Ave and to the country roads to the north), this is wrong. 3rd Ave has two lanes in each direction, so by putting cyclists in the door zone of parking, Durango is telling cyclists that their safety is less important than motorist convenience.

If Durango simply erased the DZBL stripes (which it had not as of the end of March, when we last visited) and continued its otherwise fine works–which are obvious in the community, Gold would be untarnished, as gold should be.

Did the lousy bike lanes come up in the application review? Are they still in place on roads such as Third Avenue? We will see soon enough, as a tandem based vacation in Durango is beckoning again…but I’ll be damned if I’ll put my wife or our Co-Motion in the path of an opened car door.

Sorry to be the grouch in the balcony again, but the standards for Gold should be higher.