Chip Mower and his family stopped biking on certain streets in Bow Mar years ago. They stopped walking the dog on those same blocks too, after watching cars clip the stone wall near the Belleview Avenue entrance so many times that Mower says he's counted at least seven crashes there, one of which ended up in his neighbor's front yard. That's the kind of story that's been circulating in and around this small town wedged between Denver and Littleton long before it became a metro-wide news item.
Given how loud the coverage has been since June, you'd be forgiven for assuming there's a gate on Sheridan Boulevard by now. There isn't. As of the town's own board meeting on August 17, no construction had started, and trustees gave no update on when it might.
The Timeline Residents Actually Need
The gate fight didn't start this summer. It's the product of a slow buildup that's easy to lose track of if you've only caught headlines.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Sept. 9 – Oct. 9, 2025 | Bow Mar's Flock cameras log traffic at town entrances; the town finds more than half of trips aren't tied to residents |
| Feb. 9, 2026 | Trustees adopt a resolution approving a gate concept plus a permanent closure of Tufts Avenue at Sheridan |
| June 1, 2026 | Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter send a joint letter demanding the town pause the project |
| June 15, 2026 | Trustees vote, in a packed meeting at Columbine Valley Town Hall, to award a $206,665.92 hardware contract to Wizard Works Security Systems, plus a $42,941.30 concrete subcontract |
| Mid-July 2026 | Schlachter says Bow Mar told him it was weighing a scaled-back version, a gate closed only during rush hour, with construction to start within two to four weeks |
| Aug. 17, 2026 | Trustees vote to retain PR firm Greenlight Strategies at $300 an hour and attorney Alan Sweetbaum at $560 an hour; the rush-hour construction window has already passed with nothing built |
That gap between "contract awarded" and "gate installed" is the part getting lost in the noise, and it's the part that actually matters if you drive through Bow Mar on your way to Quincy Avenue or 285.
What's Supposed to Go Where
The plan on the table calls for two controlled entrances, not a full seal-off. One gate would sit at the Sheridan Boulevard and Sunset Drive roundabout, just south of Quincy Avenue. A second would go at the Prospect Street and Belleview Avenue roundabout. Tufts Avenue, a smaller connector some Fort Logan residents use to reach Sheridan, would close outright.
The hardware itself is fairly standard for this kind of project: RFID tags for residents, keypad codes for guests and delivery drivers, a phone app for remote operation, and license plate recognition cameras at both entrances. A strobe sensor is supposed to let emergency vehicles trigger the gate automatically, with a manual key switch as backup. The equipment, once ordered, takes four to eight weeks to arrive. That's a real constraint, but it doesn't explain a summer of missed windows on its own, since the four-to-eight-week clock started back in June.
The Overhead Nobody Priced Into the Original Plan
Here's the detail that changes how you should read this story. The June contract was a hardware and construction line item: gates, cameras, concrete. Straightforward. By August, the town's newest spending decisions weren't about concrete at all. They were about people whose job is managing the fight itself, a $300-an-hour communications firm and a $560-an-hour attorney, both retained specifically because of how contentious the project became.
That's not a criticism of the town's process. It's a signal about where the project actually stands. When a public works contract needs a crisis communications firm and outside legal counsel before a single post gets set in the ground, the story has stopped being about traffic calming and started being about whether the plan survives contact with two other city governments and, potentially, a courtroom.
Why Denver and Littleton Keep Threatening Gates of Their Own
The reason this hasn't been a quiet neighborhood decision is geography. Sheridan Boulevard is shared pavement. Fort Logan residents on the Denver side use that stretch to reach the signalized intersection at Quincy Avenue, which lets them make a protected left turn. If Bow Mar closes Tufts Avenue as planned, Denver officials argue those drivers lose a safe way to reach that same signal, pushed instead toward an unsignaled alternative.
Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn, who represents the area next to Bow Mar, has said the plan creates a real safety problem for his constituents. Denver Mayor Johnston's office has said Bow Mar residents use Denver's streets every day without paying into that city's tax base, and has floated putting up its own barriers on the Denver side if Bow Mar proceeds, a move that would block Bow Mar residents from easily reaching Sheridan at all. Littleton has raised a similar option along Belleview Avenue.
Neither city has installed anything yet. But the threat itself tells you something about how far apart the two sides remain, six months after the February resolution.
The Legal Question Sitting Underneath the Standoff
There's also an open legal issue that hasn't been resolved. Colorado law gives towns roughly three dozen distinct powers over traffic control, but a 9News legal analysis pointed out that none of those powers clearly authorizes closing a public road entirely except to residents and their invited guests. Bow Mar's roads, including the stretch of Sheridan in question, remain classified as public right-of-way, which is part of why Denver and Littleton have pushed back so hard rather than simply objecting to the inconvenience.
For comparison, the nearby town of Foxfield, near Arapahoe Road and Parker Road, already operates two entrance gates and has reported major drops in non-resident traffic. Bow Mar's Mayor Bryan Sperry has pointed to a similar existing gate in the Bow Mar South subdivision as proof the concept works. Neither example resolves the specific legal question about a statutory town restricting access to a road it shares with two larger neighboring cities, which is likely why outside counsel got hired in the first place.
What Changes for You This Fall
If you live in Bow Mar, Bow Mar Heights, Pinehurst South, or drive through on a regular commute, the practical picture right now looks the same as it did in June. Sheridan Boulevard, Prospect Street, and Tufts Avenue remain open to everyone. The rush-hour-only compromise floated in July hasn't materialized either, so there's no partial restriction currently in effect.
What's worth watching is whether the town's legal and PR spending signals a settlement with Denver and Littleton, a scaled-back version of the plan, or a drawn-out dispute that ends up in front of a judge. South Metro Fire Rescue paramedic Julie Nelson, who lives in Bow Mar Heights, has already raised the emergency-access question publicly, noting that gated communities can complicate response times in ways residents don't think about until there's an actual fire. That concern hasn't gone away just because construction has stalled.
Bow Mar's traffic fight is a reminder that even a small, quiet town can end up at the center of a genuinely complicated public-access question, one that touches commute routes, emergency response, and the legal limits of what a town can do with its own roads. Whatever gets built here, or doesn't, is worth watching if this stretch of Sheridan is part of your daily routine.
Sherry Beindorff and The Beindorff Collection follow local developments like this one closely across South Denver, because the texture of a neighborhood, not just its median price, is what actually shapes daily life here. If you're curious how a story like this connects to what's happening with homes nearby, Work With Us and let's talk through it.
