Separated bike lanes coming to Lakewood

Thank you for asking this important question! While 17th Ave to 20th Ave in particular poses a challenge since most of that area (including the north half of 17th Ave) is owned by Edgewater, we recognize that coordination between agencies is important in creating a connected bike network and are working to improve our process. Denver unfortunately does not typically include us in their bicycle planning process, but we will be referencing their proposed network and those of other neighboring municipalities as we update our citywide Bicycle Plan over the next year or so. Throughout that process we also have a goal of establishing and maintaining better two-way communication to ensure city boundaries don't results in so many dead ends and uncomfortable gaps in the future. If you haven't already, I would encourage you to check out our Bicycle Plan update page at LakewoodTogether.org/BikePlanUpdate and use our online mapping tool to alert us of any missing regional connections like this! 

- Jenny

That’s a great question. I personally ride on 1st Avenue often as part of my work commute and agree that a separated bike lane would be a significant improvement.

Lakewood transportation staff currently has a working list of possible corridors suitable for separated bike lanes—prioritized by many different factors, as you may have read on the project page—and 1st Avenue is on that list since it is an important connection between Lakewood and Denver and is currently not very welcoming to cyclists of all ages and abilities in its current design. However, there are a few challenges on 1st Avenue related to the lack of sidewalk along much of the corridor, the on-street parking east of Harlan St, and the general width of the road that could greatly increase the cost and complicate the design of separated lanes. Because of these complications and the associated cost it is not a corridor we are expecting to upgrade soon, but our prioritization process will be updated and hopefully solidified during the next Bicycle Master Plan update beginning this year, so that could change.

For more information about the upcoming bike plan update and ways to get involved, please keep an eye out for the project to be announced in late spring/early summer in the City’s Friday Report, social media sites, Lakewood Together, and the Bicycling page on Lakewood.org. One of the primary goals of the update is to integrate separated bike lanes into our proposed bicycle network citywide, and we would love to hear any additional insight you have during that process.

Thank you for your question and your interest in safe bicycling in Lakewood!

– Jenny

Thank you for your support. I’m glad to hear you appreciate the many benefits of bicycling as transportation! 

You are asking this question at a key time, because Lakewood is beginning an update of the Bicycle System Master Plan in 2024 and that update will involve several opportunities for public input on where future bike facilities—including separated bike lanes—should be built. We do not have an exact date for the update yet, but please keep an eye out for information and announcements on the City’s Friday Report, social media sites, Lakewood Together, and the Bicycling page on Lakewood.org. The process will likely begin in the spring, with public engagement throughout the summer and into 2025. 

In the meantime, you are always welcome to submit any suggestions, questions, or concerns about bicycling through Request Lakewood, our online customer service hub. I recommend using the topic area “Transportation: Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety,” but the system is very good at ensuring that all requests are routed to the appropriate division, which in this case is Transportation Engineering. 

We appreciate your interest and look forward to receiving your input on the future of bicycling in Lakewood.

– Jenny

Thank you for your support of the new parking-protected bike lane on South Garrison, we’re so glad to hear you feel safer with the new design. Submitting positive feedback as you have already done on this site or Request Lakewood is a great way to show your support. Possibly the best way to support any new or improved bike facility is just to ride your bike there as much as you can; since our primary goal in installing separated bike lanes is to encourage more residents to cycle, the greatest sign of success to fuel future similar projects is seeing that the facility is being well utilized—and you might even inspire more people to ride! 

We appreciate you using your bike to get around Lakewood, be safe out there and enjoy the ride.

– Jenny

Thank you for noticing this issue and bringing it to our attention. Lakewood transportation staff plans to distribute printed flyers to all residents along South Garrison between Jewell and Mississippi avenues before vertical barriers are installed to complete the facility, alerting them of the change and letting them know where garbage bins should be placed. We are also in the process of reaching out to garbage collection companies that serve the project corridor with the same information, to educate them and ensure that garbage trucks do not try to drive in the bike lane to pick up bins. Once the separated lane is completed we will do our best to monitor any issues and determine whether further education is necessary for either party as they get used to the change. 

— Jenny 

Thank you for your question. Funding for this project is coming primarily from a newly proposed line item in the City’s Annual Budget, expected to be approved in October, that is dedicated solely to the installation of separated bike lanes. Any bike lane striping during annual repaving (such as the striping that took place on South Garrison Street in July) is funded by the City’s general traffic safety budget.

Lakewood transportation staff may pursue additional funding from grants and other programs in the future, but there are not currently any non-governmental organizations partnering with the City on this project.

— Jenny

We appreciate your interest in the completion of the separated lanes on Garrison Street. The installation of vertical barriers is currently pending official budget approval by City Council, which will take place this October. Once the budget is approved—which we are assuming it will be—transportation staff will begin working with a contractor to install the vertical separation as soon as the procurement of materials and labor allows. We agree that these barriers will likely provide extra guidance on where to park, drive, and ride, and are looking forward to their installation. 

— Jenny

Thank you for your insightful comment on the design of our Garrison Street separated bike lanes. Your concerns about visibility and the likelihood of a right-hook type of collision in a parking-protected lane make sense, and we have taken precautions to prevent this type of crash at intersections with cross-streets by installing a right-turn pocket with extra sight distance for motorists to carefully cross over the bike lane before making their turn. Because pulling into a residential driveway is generally a much slower movement than turning onto a street, we proceeded with the parking-protected design as a trade-off for minimizing two other risks: cyclists being “doored” by parked cars, and cyclists being hit by motorists backing out of their driveways—both of which were higher risks in the previous configuration with the bike lane adjacent to the travel lane. We are hopeful that the generally low utilization of on-street parking on South Garrison Street (usually less than half of spaces are occupied) and the height of a person riding a bicycle relative to that of a car will also help prevent these crashes. We are looking further into best practices and crash history in other cities with parking-protected bike lanes, and will continue to monitor the separated lane on Garrison for any safety concerns going forward. 

– Jenny

Thanks, Gavin, for your interest in this project. As you might know, the majority of funding for cities such as Lakewood and for improvement projects – some 40 percent or more – comes from sales tax paid on items shoppers purchase, and all residents pay this. Bicyclists, like motorists or pedestrians using the city’s transportation system, purchase goods, which provides the funding for road improvements. A much smaller part of Lakewood’s budget comes from property tax and motor vehicle use tax (less than 6 percent). Residents who ride bicycles also pay property tax and most own cars like other residents. All of these funds are used to create a transportation system that benefits all users whether they are motorists, pedestrians, transit riders or cyclists. That means that no specific group of Lakewood residents pays for specific kinds of road improvements because all residents pay for all the improvements.

Lakewood City Council has directed the city to install separated bike lanes as a means of increasing the safety of Lakewood’s transportation system for all users. Lakewood City Council would also have to decide to institute licensing of bicycles, and a majority of council has not currently been interested in adopting bicycle licensing. While licensing could provide some funding for improvements, the main benefit would be to address bicycle theft by helping police track and return stolen bicycles.

Regarding snowplowing, the city equipment used for clearing shared-used paths can be used to plow separated bikes lanes, and new equipment or contractors can be added when necessary. The city also works with transportation and cycling organizations to provide education that covers the rules for both motorists and cyclists on how to share the road.

— Project Team

We’re glad to hear you are looking forward to using these upgraded facilities! We do not currently have plans to install a permanent counter, but our transportation staff will be conducting bike counts once or twice a year on the separated bike lanes that we will compare to counts taken before the separation was installed. 

— Jenny