June Churchill, Denver's new "Bike Mayor," first became interested in bike advocacy in 2017 when she became independent from her parents.
"I was still using a car that they owned the title to, so I figured I didn't want them to have that over me so I gave the car back, and then all of a sudden, I didn't have a car," she said. "I was a poor college student, I did not have the funds to buy a car."
A student at University of Denver, she rode her longboard around campus. But after graduating, she realized riding a longboard for things like groceries and commuting was harder in the city at large than on a college campus. She got an e-bike rebate, bought an e-bike and rode it everywhere.
"That was fantastic. I could get around the city, I could visit my friends, I managed to land a job because I had the mobility of an e-bike," she said. "That kind of catapulted me out of poverty for a bit."
Churchill biked casually growing up in Colorado Springs, but this was the first time she relied on a bike as her main form of transportation. Eventually she switched to a Brompton, a regular bike that folds up which she can carry everywhere, out of fears of bike theft. By then she had gotten involved with the Denver Bicycle Lobby, advocating for transportation safety and bike infrastructure across the city.
"In my area of the city, in South Denver, [there are] no bike lanes, I had to cross some really dangerous roads to get to work," she said. "I saw the way our city was shaped and I want to change it."
This past fall, Churchill was involved in local advocacy that secured $1 million dollars in the city budget amendments for transportation safety efforts. It's that work that earned her the honorary title of "Bike Mayor" from the Bicycle Lobby.
Churchill suggested we meet at the corner of Broadway and 7th Avenue, a spot she said shows "the good, the bad and the ugly" of Denver infrastructure.
In front of us is a completed portion of the new Broadway bike lane, a project eight years in the making that will provide a lacking north-south bike connection in the city. Alongside it are four fast-moving lanes of car traffic along Broadway, coupled with another four fast-moving lanes along Speer Boulevard in the distance. Seventh Avenue is similarly busy with cars, but also boasts a new (and controversial) bikeway.
Below us is the Cherry Creek trail. As we talked, Churchill and I watched dozens of people, even on a cold day, bike, scooter and run along the path.
"A lot of the crossings along Speer are very dangerous, but also running right next to it is the Cherry Creek Trail," she said. "I use it all the time to get around. It's fantastic. It's a great piece of infrastructure. But this is the only one like it in the city."
The intersection doesn't just show the variety of problems and solutions when it comes to transportation safety in Denver. It also encompasses the number of controversies over potential solutions.
Bike advocates are split over a project like the Broadway bike lane -- some are grateful for a protected lane on a major road, while others think the city should focus on cheaper lanes on quieter streets. At 7th Avenue, bike advocates, neighbors and the fire department have squabbled over bollards and traffic circles. And at the Cherry Creek trail, the introduction of electric scooters has raised safety concerns.
But at 7th and Broadway, Churchill wanted to talk about a piece of transportation infrastructure invisible to the naked eye: the Speer tunnel.
Running underneath our feet, the Speer tunnel caters only to cars. But it's what secured Churchill's title as Bike Mayor.
That story goes back to when the state told the city it needs to improve the fire suppression system in the Speer tunnel. In Denver's original 2024 budget, some money for that project was supposed to come from a special fund meant for bike, pedestrian and other transportation safety infrastructure, even though the tunnel only accommodates cars.
Churchill led the charge along with other city advocates to reallocate $1 million of that money toward transportation safety programs. Of that money, $550,000 will go toward the city's Vision Zero fund, which works to decrease traffic deaths. The other $450,000 will go toward Denver's Safe Routes to School program. Councilmembers Flor Alvidrez, Chris Hinds, Shontel Lewis, Sarah Parady and Darrell Watson were behind the two amendments which passed unanimously, while city staff said they would find capital funds elsewhere in the budget to fund the tunnel maintenance.
"All these key programs had their budgets cut in the mayor's budget," Churchill said. "We didn't find that to be acceptable. Our councilmembers didn't find that to be acceptable. So we worked with them, identified where those deficiencies were, identified sources where the money could come from to fill those gaps."
With the budget officially passed, Churchill is looking to find even more money for transportation safety in Denver.
"The victories we got were great and are going to make a real impact. But we also know that they're not enough, and we need new funding sources to get to where we need to be," she said.
Another agenda item on Churchill's list includes making sure that Denver's sidewalk improvements happen. Denver voters approved legislation in 2022 that levies a fee on property owners to fund sidewalk repairs. It was supposed to go into effect in January of 2024, but was pushed to July of 2024 to give the city more time to figure out how to accommodate homeowners with outlier fees reaching into the hundreds and even thousands.
"Our next big fight from what I can tell is making sure that that funding amount stays very high because that's what voters approved," she said. "We can fix some of the edge cases with corner lots, where people were paying a disproportionate amount that was not within the sort of intent of the ordinance. But we absolutely need that. Our sidewalks are horrible."
To Churchill, her advocacy work shows the power of organizing on the local level.
Churchill is transgender, and is occasionally involved in LGBTQ advocacy along with bike organizing. To her, that work overlaps.
"If you've ever been on a group ride in Denver or if you've ever seen the bike community in Denver, you know the bike community is very, very queer," she said. "Financial insecurity is very common in the trans community, so a lot of trans people can't get a car, and so a lot of us bike, which naturally leads into bike lanes and bike advocacy."
All this advocacy work comes on the side; her paid job is as a legislative aide at the Colorado State House. But as Bike Mayor, Churchill said she can clearly see the effect of local advocacy. She said the work is often less public, but can have a bigger effect on everyday lives.
"Quite frankly, it's a lot easier to go talk to your local politicians than it is to talk to your national ones, and I think it's much easier for a single person to get something done in the law at the local level," she said. "Local government is what most affects every person's daily life. So if you can make a positive change in your local community, it's going to affect a bunch of people directly."
