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Denver has built hundreds of miles of new bike lanes over the last decade or so, mostly on side streets.
But that strategy could soon change.
City planners are floating a draft update to their long-term bike infrastructure plan that calls for more than 230 miles of new bike lanes — many on car-dominated major arterial roads like Speer, Leetsdale, Broadway, Colorado Boulevard and others across the city.
They have published a new map showing exactly where and what kind of bike lane the city is proposing over the next two decades. Plans will almost certainly change as individual projects are designed, funded and go through a public feedback process, said Taylor Phillips, a senior city planner at the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.
But before that happens, Phillips is hoping to get buy-in now for the overarching plan from the public and political leaders.
“This is exciting,” Phillips said, “… to be able to kind of think about what will Denver look like in 20 years and how can we really push the envelope and push the vision to be a city that people want to live in, that people want to visit and find it easy and comfortable and safe to get around — no matter how you choose to get around.”
If it were to be fully built out, the new lanes would require the removal of long stretches of vehicle lane miles and parking spots. Phillips couldn’t provide an estimate of how many. But given the controversies that often come with street changes, transformations at this scale would surely draw opposition from some of Denver’s many motorists.
But city officials say the new lanes would go a long way toward helping Denver various city goals, including those on climate, traffic safety and transportation generally. The plans around those goals all envision a different kind of Denver: one where residents drive much less than they do today.
The new plan would help get cyclists closer to their destinations.
Some of the city’s current bike lanes and low-traffic “neighborhood bikeways” abruptly end. Or, as with the 16th Avenue bike lane in the Uptown neighborhood, they run a block or two parallel to busy commercial corridors full of shops, restaurants and other destinations.
That can leave cyclists like Anthony White with a last-block problem. They can walk to their destination, slowly roll down the sidewalk, or take their chances in mixed traffic on high-speed, highly trafficked roads.
“One-ways — they’re fun to smash down,” said White, who delivers DoorDash orders and Jimmy John’s sandwiches on his bicycle and says he’s been hit by a driver before.
“But,” he added, standing next to the three-lane East 17th Avenue one-way thoroughfare in Uptown, “it would be safer if there was a bike lane.”
Seventeenth, and many other busy streets like it across the city, may one day have just that.
Denver’s new plan calls for new protected bike lanes on highly trafficked roads including 17th and 18th avenues, 13th and 14th avenues, Speer Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive, York and Josephine streets near Congress Park, Park Avenue, West Evans Avenue, Monaco Street, Quebec Street, and Colorado Boulevard.
It also calls for an extension of the Broadway bike lane, Denver’s preeminent example of a protected bike lane on a busy street.
Such changes would likely cost vehicle travel lanes or parking spaces, and could mean slower travel times for drivers. At least one told Denverite that the trade-off would be worth it.
“I would hate to lose the three lanes for the mobility of driving cars,” said Scott Ruggiero, an Uptown resident who was gassing up his SUV at a neighborhood Conoco. “But I would say the safety of the bikes and people would be nice to have as well.”
The plan also calls for upgrades to existing bike lanes, like converting the painted bike lane on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to a protected lane.
Some of the new bike lanes would be part of a new “core network” that would help cyclists travel more directly over longer distances. They would use high-quality, permanent materials like concrete and would accommodate a high volume of cyclists, planners say.
Given how dangerous many of Denver’s arterial streets are, advocates say any new bike lanes on them will need “extra measures” like that to keep cyclists safe.
Denver will have to work with the state to make some of these changes.
The plan calls for a protected bike lane on some state highways, including Leetsdale Drive and the entire length of Colorado Boulevard in Denver city limits. That often-congested thoroughfare is 11 lanes across at its widest and carries some 68,000 cars a day at its busiest point.
As a state highway, any changes to it must be approved by the Colorado Department of Transportation. And CDOT is ready to make significant changes to the road, said executive director Shoshana Lew.
“We all share the vision that Colorado does not function as a city street the way it needs to right now,” she said in an interview.
CDOT is planning a bus rapid transit line on the boulevard, which may include converting some car lanes to bus-only lanes. Lew said improving the shoddy, narrow sidewalks along some stretches of Colorado is also a top priority.
CDOT wants to improve bike crossings across the boulevard as well, she said.
But she was skeptical that Colorado would be the best choice for an on-street protected bike lane.
“It may be that the best option for that area is to do the dedicated bike lane on a somewhat quieter street,” she said.
Phillips acknowledged that a bikeway along the entire length of the corridor may not be feasible, but they might be possible along “critical lengths” where there aren’t good alternatives nearby.
“Just drawing that line and making sure that that intent is set now really helps us kind of fight for that in the future,” she said.
One controversial connection didn’t make the cut.
In 2020, the city backed off a plan for protected bike lanes on Washington and Clarkson streets after residents complained about the loss of hundreds of on-street parking spaces.
Advocates have pushed for it as a north-south route through Capitol Hill. And as recently as 2023, city officials said the Washington-Clarkson project wasn’t dead.
It’s now been abandoned, Phillips said.
“The trade-offs on Washington and Clarkson were high,” she said. “The parking removal would’ve been very difficult for some of the folks that live and own businesses along the corridor.”
The city is now planning for neighborhood bikeways on Emerson and Pearl streets, where bikes will share space with cars on those lower-trafficked streets. Phillips said those bikeways will be high-quality and rival, “if not exceed what we could build on Washington and Clarkson.”
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected. Denver law prohibits riding a bicycle on a sidewalk under most circumstances, but it makes an exception for cyclists reaching their final destination. The law also says cyclists on sidewalks must ride no faster than 6 mph and must yield to pedestrians.
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