Vail backpedals on enforcement of village dismount zone

For several years, the town of Vail has been ratcheting up its enforcement of bicyclists in Vail Village. However, with little measured success in addressing the problem at hand, it may be looking to take a step back this summer.

“The effectiveness is a little bit in question,” said Greg Barrie, Vail’s senior landscape architect, at the Tuesday, May 21, Town Council meeting.

Barrie began his presentation Tuesday with a history of the current Vail Village dismount zone, starting in 2020 when the town first began attempts to reduce bicycle-pedestrian conflict in the village.

“We were having some conflicts between pedestrians and bikers. It was an effort to slow folks down,” Barrie said.

At that time, the town attempted to make Vail Village a “slow zone,” installing “slow turtle signs,” an effort that “didn’t necessarily work,” Barrie said.

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Then, in the fall of 2021, the Vail Town Council codified Vail Village as a designated bicycle dismount zone. 

“We started off with some nice green signage, asking people to walk their wheels. We had about 13 signposts in Vail Village. It worked OK but not great,” Barrie said.

So, last summer, the town ramped up its efforts — increasing the number of signs and the aggressiveness of its message, making the signs red and noting directly the $50 fine for violators.

In June 2023, Vail Police Chief Ryan Kenney told the Vail Daily that the goal of the increased signage was not only to allow Vail Police to “take enforcement action when appropriate,” but predominantly for education purposes.

“Vail has many visitors. Each day we have new people come to Vail and some are unfamiliar with the rules. The idea behind additional signage was making it easier for our guests to recognize when they are entering and exiting a dismount zone,” Kenney said at the time.

In addition to the signage changes, the town has also launched several educational efforts around the dismount zone over the past four years. This has included connecting with local bike shops and creating a bike safety and etiquette video as well as a poster, which was posted in local shops and at 38 locations on the Gore Valley Trail last summer.

But despite its increased efforts in 2023, bike riders continued to pedal through Vail Village. According to Kenney at Tuesday’s meeting, officers issued 620 verbal warnings in the dismount zone, none of which were repeat offenders.

“What we’re finding out in the field is most people have no problem getting off their bike. We think we’ve reached the locals, the locals just go around the dismount zones,” Kenney said. “We had very few interactions with locals, I’d say 99% of our interactions are guests.”

Kenney added that for the visitors it was not done with bad intent, but rather that, “they’re on vacation, they’re not looking for signs … it’s not even on their mind to look for it.”

Kenney added that it is difficult to find the staffing resources to keep up the enforcement, especially when there is little behavior change.

“It’s going to take a lot more time in order for us to get this message out, just because every day or every few days we’re dealing with a different group of people,” Kenney said.

‘We’re not going to change this behavior’

Kenney suggested that keeping the status quo would likely not result in a noticeable change for three to four summers — if ever.  

Vail Mayor Travis Coggin — who questioned the sheer volume of signage last summer — described the situation as one where the town is trying to push water with a rake.

“We’re never going to change this behavior. I think the best thing we can do is have the slow signs, a little something to raise awareness. And we don’t need a thousand of them, we just need a couple. I just don’t think this is achieving the goals that we set from the outset,” Coggin said. “We’ve run the course of changing behavior through levers that we have.”

Coggin added that having the dismount signs created “citizen law enforcement officers” and “negativity, literally at every opportunity,” calling into question its impact on the guest experience.

Most council members agreed with this assessment and were open to doing things differently this summer.

While Council member Dave Chapin agreed that the current system isn’t working, he said he would “hate to see us eliminate the dismount zone because I’ve just seen too many close calls.”

“We at least need to have the signs up,” Chapin added.

The second option Kenney presented was to focus enforcement on the “most egregious of offenders.”

“What we see in the village — what officers see, what you guys see — is that most people riding their bikes through the village are very respectful, they’re slow, they’re not an issue,” Kenney said. “And then we do have people who tear through the village, they ride irresponsibly, and they do create a hazardous situation.’

Under this option, the town still would place signage at the entrance points of the village, but maybe tone down the number throughout. The enforcement strategy, Kenney added, would be to “target people who are riding irresponsibly” and prioritize resources in those situations.  

While there was some discussion of eliminating the dismount zone, Kenney said that having it in place creates “a line in the sand that my officers can enforce.”

“A slow zone subject to interpretation and there really isn’t a corresponding ordinance that we could issue a citation on,” he said.

Town Council members agreed that this second approach made the most sense for this summer.

At the same time as it discussed taking a step back in Vail Village, some council members questioned whether more could be done in Lionshead. Currently, Lionshead is a “slow zone” rather than a dismount zone. Council member Pete Seibert commented that the slow signs there have no impact.

“If there’s going to be an incident, that’s probably where it’s going to happen,” he said.

While Seibert said he wasn’t convinced a dismount zone would be the answer, he did request that the town look to “try to do something to prevent that situation.”

While no decisions were made on Lionshead on Tuesday, the town staff said it would come back with more information and potential options at a future date.