Once a narrow path, now a highway.

Posting this message online is a sad and difficult experience for us.  Over the years we have welcomed walkers, runners, cyclists and horseback riders on the path crossing our meadow and the yard alongside our garden.   We’ve always enjoyed meeting people from nearby neighborhoods who were friendly, considerate and interesting to chat with.  We’ve also enjoyed contributing to the special nature of our community here in northwest Fort Collins, where paths like ours provide a peaceful setting for a little exercise.

But the traffic on our path has recently become overbearing.   In addition to local neighbors out for a run or walk, our path has become a popular shortcut for mountain bikers heading to the new bike trail that starts on the west side of Overland Trail.  All of this increasing traffic has caused many problems -- as you will see when you read further -- which require us to close our property permanently to all public access.

You may have noticed that during just the last couple of years, the heavy traffic has doubled – and in many places, quadrupled – the width of the path.  In some places there are now actually two parallel paths.  Especially on the southeast corner of our property, the resulting erosion is severe.

Click any of these images to see them larger.

More traffic, more problems.

As you think back to your own walks along our path, you may remember taking care to stick to the path, control your dog, and say “Hello” as you passed by.  Like so many others, you may also have made a point of saying “Thanks!” for providing this path – something we always appreciated. 

But sadly, others have not been as thoughtful and respectful as you’ve been.  While this has been a small irritation in the past, today it’s much worse.   As the traffic has increased, we and other neighbors who live alongside the path have seen a steady increase in unpleasant incidents like these…

• Unleashed dogs running into our house -- Dogs have been allowed to run loose on our property – running through our gardens and even into our house!  Two years ago, a dog raced into our house and cornered our elderly cat in our living room.  Terrorized and frantic to escape, she tore up the upholstery on our couch.  

• Unleashed dogs in our neighbor's house, too -- During just the last few months, our neighbors to the north have had similar experiences.  Their house is quite close to the path – which at that point follows the private road outside their front door.  A dog off leash ran across their yard and into their house.  On another occasion, a dog ran across their garden and jumped into the small pond out front – apparently chasing the koi swimming in the water.

• Cutting new paths, walking through our yard -- People periodically wander off the path, cutting across the meadow from our driveway toward the garden -- creating another path.

• Picking our vegetables -- We have periodically run into people picking our asparagus in the spring. 

• Dog poop -- Dog-walkers often leave dog poop on the path or our driveway.  Sometimes we find it in a plastic bag – left for someone else to pick up. 

• Cars in our backyard -- Summer before last, a woman DROVE HER SUBARU OUTBACK on the path along the east side of our meadow!  Apparently she was hoping to find a shortcut from Vine Drive to Wakonda.

• Motorcycles in our backyard -- We’ve often had many episodes of kids riding dirt bikes (motorcycles) down our path.  Our experience has been that stopping this requires at least three or four interceptions on the path – and often putting up with a lot of rudeness.

• Waking us and all the neighbors up at night -- During the warm months, people sometimes walk down the path late at night – at 11:00 pm, midnight or later – and make a lot of noise.  Last summer, a group of people having a good time woke the families in every house along the path from Vine Drive to Wakonda.  Sure, this is just a nuisance, but it adds to the overall hassle of allowing public access to our backyard.

More traffic, more worry.

As traffic increases, the risk of an accident increases, too.  For example, it’s easy to imagine an encounter between a child riding a bike and someone riding a horse or walking a dog off leash.  A sudden, unexpected movement can spook a horse.  A dog running loose can spook a child on a bike and cause a crash.   Just that easily, someone can get hurt. 

The prospect of someone being injured is bad enough.  But unfortunately, because we live in a litigious society this also causes worries about liability since this is privately owned property, not public land.  We have been content to live with this risk for years -- which has included paying for extra liability insurance.  The steady increase in traffic, along with the inevitability of a lot more traffic to come, make it a greater risk today than we’re willing to accept.

Development is coming.  We must close the path to protect our privacy and restore our backyard meadow.

No one knows how soon development will come to the fields in our neighborhood.  We all dread it, but it’s inevitable.  A new subdivision will make these problems much worse for us and all the other families who live along this path.

So, with deep regret, we have decided that the time has come for us to close our property to public traffic.  We will soon close the path with fences, after which we’ll plant new meadow grass and trees, and restore the meadow.

As we close the path, we ask for your understanding.

Some people say “Good fences make good neighbors.”  We have always felt the opposite is true.  That’s why we’ve welcomed neighbors to cross our yard all these years.  Yet here we are, about to spend a lot of money to build fences on our property!  This is very uncomfortable for us.

Elise and I hope you will recognize the predicament we are in and consider this an unfortunate consequence of growth in northern Fort Collins – not simply a selfish or un-neighborly gesture on our part.   We continue to wish all of our neighbors well as we act to preserve our privacy and peace of mind.

Questions or comments?

If you would like to share your questions or comments, please email us at PreservingOurBackyard@gmail.com. 

Thanks. 

Don and Elise