As I reacclimate to being in a city where I regularly walk, bus and bike as forms of transportation, I feel somewhat optimistic for the future. One of my biggest sources for this is the Broadway Bike Lane. A project nearly a decade in the making when the city built a pilot bike lane in 2015, seeing shovels in the ground feels surreal after delays that have made it a borderline meme akin to the RTD train to Boulder.
The lane has the potential to be a gamechanger. If someone wanted to take a bike from the north prior to the buildout of the lane, they had two options when it came to having bike infrastructure around them. The first of these was from the Cherry Creek Trail, getting off at Downing and using the Bayaud Bikeway, which only had traffic calming features, using the paltry 2015 lane to navigate Broadway. The second was using the Bannock Bike Lane, which slowly devolves into sharrows closer to Broadway, and requires crossing Broadway to get to the Bike Lane.
No longer. If someone is coming from the north on the Cherry Creek Trail, they can get off on Broadway at 7th Avenue and take advantage of a protected lane, going to the various shops, restaurants, and venues along the corridor.
That being said, more needs to be done to make the Broadway Bike Lane effective on the corridor. Here are some suggestions that I have as someone that has frequented South Broadway over the years.
Increase Bike Parking on All of Broadway
As I walked from my apartment near 11th and Broadway, I counted roughly 15-20 ish bike racks that were either right off Broadway or on the street itself on the bike lane side. If Broadway is to become a destination for people riding bikes, it will need to be supplemented by bike parking on the left side of the street. Without this, Broadway will be seen as a pass through by people on bikes, with businesses not benefitting as much as a result of its construction. In a similar fashion, the next suggestion addresses the other side of the business equation.
Get Post Construction buy-in from Businesses and Events
Right now, I am planning a post-construction Broadway bike crawl that will incorporate a decent amount of the history. To make this ride successful, I am trying to get a certain amount of buy in, convincing businesses that may be skeptical that we will be a force for good on the street. Buy in doesn’t necessarily just stop at businesses, however. If a second year of Viva Streets manifests, I want to make sure that the lane is something that is incorporated into the event. The other festival that would be great to get buy in is Underground Music Showcase, or UMS. Keeping the bike lane open, in tandem with possibly making the street car free, would be a boon both to the festival and to the use of the lane.
Enforcement and bike lane features are needed to Deter cars from parking in the lane
Its going to take people who drive a minute to get used to the lane, some to the point that they will possibly break the law as a ploy to park a little closer to their destination. This is where the Department of Transportation of Infrastructure, or DOTI, will come in. The Broadway bike lane will need to have someone from Right of Way Enforcement (ROWE) to be involved with keeping the lane car free, having people park in the spaces that will be adjacent to the lane. I will admit that work is being done on this: people that I know that work for ROWE have started enforcing and ticketing cars that park in the finished parts. This being said, enforcement needs to be done early on so people who drive get used to this new feature in the road.
Another element that will keep the lane free of cars is having bollards at entry points. This physical barrier will keep people in cars from using the lane as a “shortcut” on the street, keeping people on bikes trustworthy of the lane and overall safe.
Conclusion
The Broadway Bike Lane, much like the 14th and 15th bike lanes downtown, could be a gamechanger for people on bikes. That being said, much like the shortcomings of those two bike lanes, there are negative features that can be avoided, including being careless about bike parking and lack of enforcement when it comes to cars parked in the lane. That being said, I am optimistic that this lane will be a part of the fabric of biking in Denver for many years to come.
Featured image is a section of the Broadway Bike Lane that has been completed.
Colorado Car Free 