Work has begun on the installation of protected bike lanes on both Arapahoe and Lawrence Streets in Downtown Denver! This represents significant progress in providing dedicated, safe, and legible infrastructure for a sustainable and popular mode of transportation in our urban core. These are big projects, stretching from the edge of the Auraria Campus at Speer Boulevard to 24th Street in Curtis Park. That’s a little more than a mile for each street.
For information about these projects, check out these links:
Denver Public Works: http://goo.gl/FYoMJM
BikeDenver Blog: http://goo.gl/Q8bxpw
David at Streetsblog Denver covered this project extensively back in August: http://goo.gl/va5HQE
For those of you who enjoy reading civil engineering drawings (I know you’re out there!) and want to see some of the nitty gritty of what these lanes will look like, here are links to download PDFs for the Signing and Striping Plans (90%) for Arapahoe and Lawrence. Disclaimer: I got these from Denvergov.org and they are the 90% design, which is not 100%, so there will be some minor differences between these drawings and what gets built. But 90% is close enough to give you a good idea of what these lanes’ designs will look like.
These will also be the first protected bike lanes in Downtown that use, for some of the blocks, on-street parking as the buffer between the vehicle travel lanes and the bike lane plus a 4-foot extra buffer with the little vertical bollards. Here’s a diagram from the BikeDenver blog:
Finally, I will leave you with some nice photos of the beginning of the restriping work, thanks to DenverUrbanism reader Mike H. Thanks, Mike!
Beginning installation of protected bike lane on Arapahoe Street. Photo courtesy of Mike H.
Beginning installation of protected bike lane on Arapahoe Street. Photo courtesy of Mike H.
Beginning installation of protected bike lane on Arapahoe Street. Photo courtesy of Mike H.
This is exciting to see, and many similar projects will hopefully follow in the near future!
This is great progress to see!
Really, my only concern is with the intersection of Speer & Arapahoe. The pictures I’ve seen show no accommodations for cyclists heading northeast on Arapahoe. If you’re coming off the bike path through Auraria, and hit that intersection, you’re left with no guidance. One could ride on the sidewalk on the Auraria campus side up to Lawrence, but that adds another block when I normally just ride on Arapahoe to 14th.
Otherwise, I really like this plan, and can’t wait to see it in action.
That does look good and is a big improvement. With the wider separation in there, it gives more room for the delivery trucks and Denver Police to park in the bike lanes 😉
Thankfully, unlike 15th, there will be a lot of on street parking blocking the bike lane and therefore other vehicles from parking on it. Personally, I don’t feel nearly as safe as I think I should on 15th and I think it’s due to not having parking separate the bike lane from the travel lanes. I would love to see the city add parking along 15th, it would better protect bikers, the use of the bike lane, and give the city more revenue.