The Cherry Creek Trail earns its reputation everywhere except one mile. For forty-six of its forty-seven miles, the concrete path that connects downtown Denver to Chatfield State Park and the foothills beyond gives cyclists and walkers room to breathe, a buffer from traffic, the kind of urban infrastructure other cities point to with envy. Then it hits First Avenue between Downing Street and University Boulevard, the stretch that forms Country Club's entire southern boundary, and the path narrows to something closer to a sidewalk squeezed between the shrub-covered fence of the Denver Country Club on one side and the fast-moving traffic of First Avenue on the other.
Anyone who walks a dog along that stretch or bikes it to work already knows the feeling. One cyclist put it plainly to a Denverite reporter covering a Bike to Work Day stop on the trail last year: the segment is "the least safe feeling portion of an otherwise very beautiful and safe and nice path." He'd also noticed something else riders and walkers here tend to mention: debris from crashes tends to linger on the path longer than it should.
The Numbers Behind the Feeling
This isn't a matter of a few residents being extra cautious. In its own study of this First Avenue corridor, Denver's Department of Transportation and Infrastructure counted 31 crashes causing fatal or severe injuries between 2017 and 2021, on a stretch that carries more than 600,000 users a year. That's a lot of volume funneled through eight feet of width, with a live traffic lane on one side and a private club fence on the other, and almost nowhere to give if two cyclists need to pass each other at the same moment a jogger steps out.
The city's own data made the case for a fix. DOTI's plan, part of the broader Denver Moves: Cherry Creek effort, called for widening the trail from eight feet to twelve, the standard Denver Parks and Recreation sets for a regional trail this heavily used, and adding a tree lawn buffer on the south side of First Avenue to keep people from spilling onto the roadway.
The Vote Most Residents Never Saw Coming
Here's where the story stops being a simple infrastructure upgrade. This spring, the Denver City Council voted down the widening proposal, and the reasons say as much about the neighborhood's geography as they do about politics. To get from eight feet to twelve, the design needed to take space from somewhere, and every option the city considered ran into the same wall.
- Removing an eastbound traffic lane. Rejected as too disruptive to First Avenue's function as a main corridor, especially with future bus rapid transit service still under study for the route.
- Shifting the curb north by roughly 1.5 feet. Rejected as cost prohibitive for how little width it would actually gain.
- Relocating the trail to the north side of First Avenue. Considered and set aside.
- Center-running bike lanes. Also considered and dropped.
- Expanding into the adjacent Denver Country Club property. Dismissed outright because acquiring land from the club would be too expensive.
That last option is the one worth sitting with. The single stretch of trail everyone agrees is the most dangerous on the whole 47-mile route is boxed in specifically because widening it toward the club side costs more than the city is willing to spend, and widening it toward the road side threatens a transit corridor the city doesn't want to give up either. The fix wasn't blocked by neighborhood objection or design disagreement. It was priced out.
What Stays the Same This Fall and Winter
DOTI hasn't walked away from the project. The department has secured funding to complete 30 percent of the design phase and says it will keep refining the plan based on public feedback, with the corridor still under study for the eventual bus rapid transit service that continues to shape every version of the redesign. But there's no finalized schematic and no construction start date on the books.
Practically, that means the mile stays exactly as it is for the foreseeable future. As daylight shortens through September and October and evening commutes on the trail shift into dimmer hours, the calculus for anyone riding or walking that stretch doesn't change: assume the shoulder is narrower than it feels, assume a passing cyclist has less room to give than they would anywhere else on the trail, and treat the segment between Downing and University as its own category of caution rather than an extension of the wider, more forgiving trail on either side of it.
The Other Side of the Same Boundary
It's worth remembering that First Avenue is also the literal edge of the neighborhood. Country Club Historic Neighborhood's own boundaries run along Downing Street, University Boulevard, and First Avenue, which puts every resident living along that southern flank on a first-name basis with the trail's rough patch whether they asked for it or not. The Denver Country Club itself sits just across that line, the same club the neighborhood was built around when it was platted in the early 1900s.
That proximity cuts both ways. It's also why the neighborhood's own community calendar tends to lean into its history rather than away from it. Two weeks ago, the Country Club Historic Neighborhood association wrapped up summer with a History Walk led by local historian Phil Goodstein, tracing the streetscapes and architecture that earned the district its 1990 Landmark designation. The neighborhood association, which has drawn roughly 300 of its 375 eligible households into voluntary membership since forming in 1973, keeps that kind of programming going through the fall. Its 4th Annual BBQ lands on Sunday, September 13, a reminder that the same close-knit structure that makes Country Club feel distinct from a typical grid neighborhood also keeps its residents connected to each other regardless of what's happening on the trail out front.
Living With the Edge as It Is
None of this changes what makes the neighborhood work. Country Club's wide lots, its early 20th century architecture from firms like Fisher and Fisher and Biscoe and Gove and Walsh, and its unusually generous street layout are untouched by a stalled trail redesign along its own fence line. What does change is the expectation a longtime resident should carry into this fall: the trail's roughest mile isn't a temporary construction inconvenience waiting on a start date. It's the current, semi-permanent shape of the neighborhood's southern edge, held in place by a cost equation the city already ran and couldn't solve on either side.
For residents who use that stretch daily, the practical move is simple. Treat the Downing-to-University mile as a walking pace zone rather than a commuting shortcut when traffic is heavy, and keep an eye on DOTI's public feedback process if the eventual redesign matters to you. The department has said it's still gathering input even without a locked design, which means the next version of this story hasn't been written yet.
If you're weighing what a home along this stretch of Country Club is actually worth, given everything from its architecture to its edges, My Denver Team can walk you through it with the kind of detail this neighborhood deserves. Contact Us.
