Clear Creek flows through downtown and through the hearts and minds of all Golden residents.
Your Golden City Council and Staff are committed to preserving and enhancing the Creek through a model for community collaboration and have made strides in improving our beautiful Clear Creek corridor for the benefit of residents and guests.
To be clear: there remains work to be done. This is why the City has embarked on a comprehensive multi-year plan that addresses improvements to communication, more stringent enforcement, a focus on safety, new environmental initiatives, comprehensive data collection, and careful financial budgeting.
Key Achievements:
• Enhanced communication reached 90% more people this year with new Creek Ambassadors and via social media to share rules and safety information for visitors with bilingual handouts
• Increased parking enforcement citations 87%, opened new parking lot access and spruced up parking garages, required tubing outfitters to offer shuttle services and added the free Ore Cart shuttle (saving over 25,000 trips on the trail), and limited neighborhood parking access for visitors
• Added new data collection RFID sticker program to monitor and eventually create new programs for safety and crowd management
• Developed environmental water quality monitoring, prohibited single-use plastics along the Creek, added more trash/recycling bins, and organized 165 volunteers this summer to help keep our creek cleaner
• Focused on safety through the Clear Creek Safety Flag system (red/yellow/green), improved signage and wayfinding, striping the trails, creating a Creek safety video in collaboration with JeffCo Open Space (viewed over 1200 times), and added flaggers along Ford street to manage tuber/pedestrian crossing
• Clear Creek is not a lazy river, and thankfully we had no deaths this season.
For 2024, there’s more in store:
• Further expand Creek Ambassador and Code Enforcement staffing
• Enhance environmental studies and water quality programs, limit environmentally sensitive creek access points
• Widen additional trail segments at key congestion areas
• Extend the free Ore Cart Shuttle program in collaboration with the School of Mines
• Increase parking enforcement and fines
• Engage local residents so the Creek remains an amenity for those of us who live here
There is more to do, and we are committed to building a strong foundation to ensure Clear Creek remains accessible and enjoyed by Golden residents.
To learn about our progress, keep up to date and give your ideas, visit GuidingGolden.com/clear-creek-management-strategies
Bill Fisher & Casey Brown
Golden City Council Clear Creek Subcommittee
(Ward 4 / District 2 Councilors)
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