What the F#@K is wrong with this picture?!?

Why would you build beautiful bike trails and not provide ways to access them?
When my husband and I were waiting to settle on our new house I was THRILLED to discover that the neighborhood was right next to the Cottonwood Creek bike trail and I could essentially ride my bike to work every day. I looked at the Google Earth maps and noticed a dirt trail that lead from my neighborhood and onto the trail.

I couldn’t wait to get moved in to get on my bike and start riding to and from work and start getting riding around the city more often.
Fast forward to today. My first chance walk around the neighborhood to get a look at that dirt trail leading to the bike trail, and what did I discover? A steep hill with gullies of water torn dirt that is, at best, a cut through. So I walked around the neighborhood a bit more looking for a more hospitable entrance to the trail, and found what, I thought, was looking like a better access road, but I still ran into the same steep hill with gullies.
What I know now, is that if I want to ride my bike to and from work I will have to carry my bike down and up these bramble filled hills to get to and from the trails.
This left me irate. How is it that a city can spend millions of dollars building bike trails that are paved and maintain them and offer ZERO access from the neighborhoods that surround them? Who’s brilliant idea was that? Why would any neighborhood NOT want to allow a simple sidewalk wide access route to get to these trails.
Wednesday evening I attended #PlanCOS and one of the people asked how many people biked to the meeting and about 12 hands went up. And then he followed up with “how many biked her this evening because it was easy?” Only two hands remained up.
Colorado Springs has many Bike trails, but, what I discovered is that many don’t connect and today I found that it appears that most don’t offer access to them from the communities through which they pass.
If we want people to get out of their cars and onto these trails we have to do better. I am shocked that I cannot get from my house to the bike trail with out risking life and limb down a steep and bramble filled hill. Pikes Peak Trails and Open Space should have done a better job thinking this through. Shame on you all!
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