Jeffrey Beall / Wikimedia Commons

If you were the mayor of a tiny suburb, how far would you go to prevent drivers from using your local roads as a detour around busier thoroughfares? The leaders of a town bordering Denver, Colorado, unanimously decided this week to construct a controlled-access gate at one of the town's main entrances along a public road. Officials aim to install the gate by Thanksgiving and plan to add another gate, blocking two of the town's three main entrances to non-residents.

Bow Mar officials claim this measure is a last resort against dangerous driving through their community. The town of roughly 950 people is wedged between Denver to the north and Littleton to the southeast. Bow Mar has tried road narrowing, speed bumps, roundabouts and a 20-mile-per-hour speed limit in its unsuccessful efforts to reduce through traffic and curb the apparent chaos on its main roads. According to KCNC, the most recent incident last week saw an SUV end up in the town's private lake. Other incidents have involved drivers, drunk and sober, crashing at the town's entrance roundabouts. Thankfully, no one's been harmed so far, and the only damage has been to property.

Don't drive through my backyard

Xnatedawgx / Wikimedia Commons

While Bow Mar is quick to talk about pedestrian safety for children and seniors, a heavy streak of NIMBY-ishness runs through the wealthy town's efforts to gate itself off from a growing metropolis. Bow Mar's population has essentially remained stagnant for 50 years while the Denver metropolitan area's population has nearly tripled over the same timespan. Bow Mar also has a yacht club in a landlocked state and an average home value of $2.3 million, according to Zillow.

Denver and Littleton both opposed Bow Mar's planned controlled-access gate. Kevin Flynn, a Denver City Councilman, made his opinion on the matter clear to KCNC:

"You know what they haven't tried? They haven't tried cooperating with Denver and Littleton. How many of those crashes are Bow Mar residents? How do we know the guy who crashed into the lake isn't a Bow Mar resident?"

Flynn is right. The best way to reduce cut-through traffic in Bow-Mar is to collaborate with neighboring localities to build road improvements elsewhere, making detours through the town less appealing. However, town officials just want to put up a gate and call it a day. I doubt this will end the crashes. If someone can jump a roundabout or drive into a lake, they can certainly ram a gate arm. Flynn proposed a radical response, Denver putting up a controlled-access gate of its own with Bow Mar.