DENVER (KDVR) — If you live east of Speer Boulevard, you might consider bringing your bike inside for the night.
The Denver Police Department has received more reports of stolen bicycles in 2020 than last year. Only in two months, January and August, did the monthly 2019 stolen bike count exceed 2020.
Broken down by month, each of the months in 2020 where bicycle thefts exceed those of 2019 did so by an average 21%.
But these thefts don’t affect the folks in Cherry Creek the same way they affect the city core neighborhoods.
DPD compiles data by the location of every reported crime. The heat map below shows the neighborhoods with the greatest volume of reported bike thefts so far in 2020.
Invariably, city center neighborhoods experience more of this kind of crime.
September’s bike thefts make for a good demonstration. Breaking down the bike thefts by location, they follow a main thoroughfare.
The city’s heaviest concentrations of reported bike thefts start in the Highland neighborhood and work their way south along Speer Blvd. Neighborhoods just east of the Speer Blvd. corridor have the next most bike thefts.
When analyzed along these lines, 2020’s bike theft numbers make perfect sense.
Throughout the city’s neighborhoods, the ten city center neighborhoods east of Speer Blvd. account for just over half of the city’s bike theft – 53%. Five Points claims the most with 10% of the city’s overall share.