Liberals have been working overtime to reduce car lanes by turning them into bike lanes across Colorado. This would make a lot of sense in San Diego, but Colorado gets dumped on by snow four months out of the year. But why let common sense interfere with rad bike lanes? It makes us as awesome as California, right? Well, the traffic jams resulting from fewer car lanes is not awesome.
Fortunately, one neighborhood group in Colorado Springs is fighting back. SpringsTaxpayers.com is supporting a lawsuit filed on behalf of Old North End Property Owners for the Enforcement of the Master Plan (ONEMP) that would stop the narrowing of neighborhood streets to make way for useless bike lanes.
According to the suit, the Colorado Springs Planning Commission never approved the plan to reduce lanes along North Cascade Avenue to one lane in each direction, but work on the lanes began last week. The President of ONEMP also sent a letter to the Colorado Springs Mayor and City Council to keep them abreast of the situation and asking them to prevent Kathleen Krager, senior traffic engineer for Colorado Springs, from moving forward with the construction. Here’s what the letter said:
“We ask that you, as the Mayor, and City Council save the taxpayers’ money by directing Ms. Krager to stop the unapproved process until the court has had a chance to review whether Ms. Krager has the unilateral power to install this new road alignment without the promised review by Planning Commission and Council.”
Laura Carno, founder of SpringsTaxpayers.com weighed in, saying:
“Trying to implement these lane reductions against the wishes of area residents and without the approval of the Planning Commission is not acceptable. When lane changes were implemented on Research Parkway in 2016 against the wishes of the area residents, the removal cost the City over $10,000 of taxpayer money.”
Sure, these bike lanes are expensive to taxpayers, but what’s worse is that they can’t be used by families, by anyone who has to run an errand after work (where will you put your dry cleaning?), anyone who has a client facing role at work (do you have a shower at work?), but they increase traffic. Colorado families deserve better.