Making Cherryvale Road a Safer Place

This view looking north on Cherryvale Bridge shows how tight a stretch it is for cars and especially bicycles.

When we need to get out of the house or clear our heads, we like to drive off South Boulder Road to Cherryvale Road and then left onto Marshall Road and up the valley into Louisville. It’s an area without much development, with a striking view of the Flatirons and links to our history and culture.

It is a favorite local biking road winding out to the vast and linked Marshall Mesa open space trails.

Anyone who drive or bikes the route knows about the one bad, even scary spot. It’s the bridge on Cherryvale over U.S. 36 just south of Boulder. One of the most dangerous places in the county to ride a bicycle, it’s an area that even as a motorist I approach it with trepidation, since there seems to be just enough road for two cars and no more.

The Colorado Department of Transportation is beginning a project to replace the bridge with  a structure that will take the fear out of crossing the bridge. U.S. 36 will be closed Feb. 16-18 during the nighttime hours, which will impact your drive home from Denver on those nights. Cherryvale will be closed completely for a few months, which means we’ll all have to find another route, most likely South Boulder Road to McCaslin or Broadway south to Marshall Road, for our Costco runs. It’ll be worth the trouble come May.